The Foundry District was a sensory assault. The air, thick with coal smoke and the stench of cheap metal, was a physical weight that clung to the lungs. All around him, the faces of other gods were etched with a grim weariness he found... familiar. A bitter echo of his past life. He kept his own divine presence pulled in tight, just another shadow in a city full of them, his gaze sweeping over the desperate gods haggling over scraps of iron ore.
He followed the coordinates down a dark, narrow alley, the deafening, joyless clang of a thousand distant hammers echoing off the grimy walls. He finally found it. A workshop that looked like it would collapse if he sneezed too hard, its wooden sign so caked in soot that the name was lost to time. But beneath the grime and the smell of desperation, he felt it. A flicker of divine energy, so pure and refined it felt utterly out of place, like a lone star in a polluted sky. The energy of a true master, choked by frustration. There you are, Su Cheng thought. A flawless diamond in a mountain of coal dust.
He pushed open the creaking, unlatched door and stepped inside. The wave of heat that hit him was intense, but what struck Su Cheng more was the feeling of the place. It was small and cramped, a single room that served as both a forge and living quarters. A simple cot, its blanket thin and worn, was pushed against one wall. A layer of fine, black soot coated everything. In the corner, a pile of failed projects—bent swords with flawed edges, breastplates with hairline cracks invisible to a lesser eye—lay like a metallic graveyard of broken dreams. Su Cheng could almost feel the waves of frustration that had created them.
And yet, there was an undeniable sense of order in the chaos. The tools, though simple and well-worn, were impeccably maintained, arranged with a meticulous care that bordered on reverence. The anvil, though ancient, had a perfectly smooth surface. This was not the workshop of a failed craftsman; it was the cage of a genius.
At the center of the room, a figure stood with his back to the door, his attention focused on the forge's dying embers. He didn't turn around, his shoulders slumped with a weariness that went far beyond physical exhaustion.
"If you're from the Iron Dominion, you can turn around and leave," the man's voice was rough, laced with a bitter exhaustion that grated on the ears. "I've already told your lackeys I'm not interested in forging your mass-produced garbage. Tell Titus he can find another slave."
"I am not from the Iron Dominion," Su Cheng said calmly.
The craftsman finally turned, and Su Cheng saw the soul of the workshop reflected in his eyes. They were wary and hostile, burning with a defiant, frustrated fire that refused to be extinguished. He held a heavy smithing hammer in his hand, not as a tool, but as a weapon, a last bastion of his defiance. This was Daedalus.
"Then who?" Daedalus demanded, his knuckles white around the hammer's handle. "Another guild scout? Here to offer me a pittance to become a cog in your war machine? To waste my time forging a thousand identical bronze swords for believers who will just be used as cannon fodder?"
He let out a short, bitter laugh, a sound devoid of any humor. "I know how this works. You see a craftsman with a bit of skill, and you think you can own him. You don't care about the art. You don't care about creating something perfect. You only care about quantity." He gestured around the dilapidated workshop, his arm sweeping across the evidence of his failure. "You see this? This is the reward for caring about quality in this city. A pile of dust."
Su Cheng just stood there, letting the words wash over him. The heat from the forge, the smell of failure, the raw despair in this man's voice... it was a familiar song. A bitter echo of his own past life. The frustration. The helplessness of being a month behind, of knowing you're better but being shackled by fate. He saw it all in this craftsman's burning, hopeless eyes.
This wasn't just a potential asset. This was a kindred spirit.
"You're right." The words left Su Cheng's mouth before he'd fully formed them, quiet but sharp.
Daedalus stopped, caught off guard by the simple agreement. He had expected a rebuttal, a negotiation. Not this.
"You're right," Su Cheng said again, the words harder this time, colder, laced with the memory of his own past. "They're not just short-sighted. They're parasites. They see a masterpiece and only think of how to melt it down for parts."
Daedalus was stunned into silence. This stranger, this unknown demigod, understood. He spoke the language of his very soul. The hostility in his eyes wavered, replaced by a deep, wary curiosity. The hammer in his hand lowered slightly, its weight suddenly feeling less like a weapon and more like a burden.
"Who... Who are you?" he asked again, his voice softer this time.
"My name is Christon Al," Su Cheng said. "And I am not here to hire you to forge a thousand bronze swords."
He raised his hand, and a piece of metal materialized, clattering onto the anvil. It was a chunk of simple, low-grade iron ore, the kind that littered the floors of every workshop in this district. It was the symbol of Daedalus's current, frustrating reality.
"Evolve," Su Cheng commanded under his breath.
A brilliant, divine light enveloped the ore for a fraction of a second, a light so pure and potent that Daedalus had to shield his eyes. When it faded, the lump of dull, grey iron was gone. In its place was a fist-sized ingot of what looked like a solidified star, a metal that radiated an immense, pure power and seemed to hum with a celestial song. It was a Legendary-rank material, Starmetal.
Daedalus stared at the ingot, his jaw slack and his eyes wide with a craftsman's unadulterated awe and desire. He dropped his hammer, the clang echoing through the silent workshop. He reached out a trembling hand, not daring to touch the impossible material that now sat upon his humble anvil. His mind, which had been clouded with despair, was now reeling with a possibility he had never dared to imagine.
"I am here," Su Cheng continued, his voice calm and steady amidst Daedalus's shock, "to offer you a partnership. I will provide you with an unlimited supply of materials of this quality, and even higher. I will give you the resources to forge the masterpieces you have only dreamed of."
He paused, letting the weight of his offer sink in.
"In return, you will forge for me and my believers exclusively. And I will provide you with something else the guilds never could: absolute protection. Anyone who dares to threaten you or your craft will be erased from existence."
Su Cheng looked at the stunned, disbelieving artificer. "That is my offer, Daedalus. The chance to change your destiny. What is your answer?"