The grains and dust generated from carving the Peak grade Immortal Stone cuboid could be easily used to make peak grade immortal talisman ink.
Lin Mu certainly didn't wish to waste any part of such high quality ingredients thus made sure to use another formation to prevent any dust or granules from being blown away. At the same time, he used a secondary gust array that would suck away the dust and granules into a preserving pouch.
This would ensure that the Peak Grade Immortal stone dust would not lose its immortal Qi and would stay in the best condition.
Even a handful of dust could be sold for several high grade immortal stones after all!
After an hour of careful carving, Lin Mu had hollowed out both the cuboid sections of the Peak Grade Immortal Stone chunk.
~Phew~
"That's the second step done…" Lin Mu wiped away his sweat.
The hollowed out part in the two sections was just enough to hold the sword as well as the other materials that he would be adding to it.
Lin Mu put the two chunks on the side for now, while he checked up on the Bleak Frost crystals. They had been heating for over an hour now, and looked a little misshapen now. Their original pentagonal form had softened and the pointed 'tips' were now blunter.
Extending his hand into the fire, Lin Mu gently touched the crystals. The heat of the forge was nothing to him and allowed him to freely touch the crystal.
"Hmm… need them to be a bit softer." Lin Mu noted.
While the Bleak Frost Crystal had gotten softer, they weren't fully soft. It was only the outer edges that had softened mostly, and the central part was still hard. Lin Mu watched the crystals for some more time before they finally reached the right condition.
"Here we go." Finding them to be perfect, Lin Mu pulled the Bleak Frost Crystals out and laid them on a flat table.
He then put the two sections of the cuboid Peak Grade Immortal Stone chunks on the table while making a few runes. The runes were directly being made onto the immortal stones, so they were instantly imprinted.
There was a reason why immortal stones were considered one of the best materials to make tools and weapons from after all. They would readily take runes and entire formations within them.
The runes that Lin Mu was making were relatively simple, so he didn't take that long. In just five minutes, the runes were ready, and Lin Mu completed the formation.
This was an Intercalating Linking Formation and was specially used in Immortal tools. It had no other used outside of the creation of tools and was thus one of the essential formations that a Weapon forger or Tool refiner needed to master.
The Intercalating Linking Formation helped two different materials fit properly as well as link up on a deeper level.
"Now to add the Bleak Frost Crystals." Lin Mu picked up the softened crystals and placed them within the two halves of the cuboid.
He then pressed onto them with his fingers, molding them according to the shape of the cavity. They were like soft dough in his hand, easily taking the intended shape. It barely took Lin Mu a minute to finish this part and he quickly moved onto making more runes.
These runes were made on top of the layer of Bleak Frost Crystals and were intended to finish the linking.
Lin Mu needed to make this formation before the crystals cooled completely, otherwise the linking would not be done properly. His immortal sense turned into fine threads, allowing him to make fine adjustments while making the runes.
It took him ten minutes before all the runes were completed and the formation was created.
~SHUA~
As soon as that was done, the two materials joined up perfectly, releasing an energy fluctuation.
"That seems right." Lin Mu nodded his head.
With this, the third step of the entire process was done.
"Now to make the casing for it all." Lin Mu took out two ingots of Fine Tempered Immortal Brass.
The yellow golden ingots looked clean and were about the size of a palm.
"Time for good old hammering!" Lin Mu took the first ingot and started to hammer it with his bare fists!
~CLANG~
~CLANG~
~CLANG~
~CLANG~
The sonorous sound of brass being hammered could be heard in the pavilion. The casing needed to be hammered while the metal was cold, thus Lin Mu had used Fine Tempered Immortal Brass.
It would mold perfectly, even when cold and didn't need to be heated.
He needed to avoid heating it since when he coated it on top of the inner part of the box, it would cause the heat to leech into the immortal stones. That was not good for the Bleak frost crystal inside and would damage its integrity.
It didn't take long for Lin Mu to hammer both ingots into a wide and flat sheet.
~DENG~DENG~
Once the sheet was ready, Lin Mu placed one half of the cuboid in each sheet.
~WENG~
Then, with the fine strength of his fingers, he carefully bent the sheet around the two sections. The sound of metal warping could be heard as the metal yielded to Lin Mu's raw strength.
Now it looked like there were two cuboid indents in the brass sheets, in which the two sections of the box were kept. There were still excess parts of the sheet that were jutting out from the center.
Lin Mu didn't cut these away though.
Instead, he started to carve runes into them straight away, letting them extend into the excess parts of the brass sheets. Once the runes were carved, Lin Mu pinched once side of the sheets together and folded them over, while rolling the other side.
~CREAK~CREAK~
The brass creaked loudly, trying to resist the force, but could not do so.
A few folds were all it took Lin Mu to reduce the size of the protruding sheet. At the same time, Lin Mu had also turned it into a hinge!
