Chapter 147 — Unorthodox Fire
The Astral Forge Sect believed that fire was king.
Titan fire.
Starfire.
Heaven-smelt flame.
Those were the orthodox pillars of forging in this higher realm.
But Lin no longer believed fire alone was enough.
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Rowan's Pressure
Rowan did not ease up after Lin's return from the Abyss.
If anything, his training intensified.
Lin was no longer shaping simple billets.
He forged rotational cores, pressure-layered alloy bones, resonance-balanced hammer spines that would shatter lesser forges just by existing.
Rowan no longer corrected Lin's posture every step.
Now, he corrected mistakes in law flow.
Too much Metal Dao caused brittleness.
Too much Earth created excessive inertia.
Wind resonance too sharp caused internal tearing.
Each strike had to harmonize five forces simultaneously, or the entire piece became wasted scrap.
"Again," Rowan said flatly after a hammer head cracked with a sound like thunder.
The shattered alloy fell apart into molten fragments.
Lin did not complain.
He bowed.
And began again.
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The Inner World Forge
That night, Lin returned to his inner world — not to rest, but to forge.
The Celestial Forge unfolded in its true sovereign form.
Not a cauldron.
Not a kiln.
But a living stellar furnace that floated above his evolving inner Earth.
He did not summon Titan fire.
He did not summon Starfire.
He summoned Jupiter's storms.
Red-tinted wind vortexes wrapped around the abyssal ore as it floated in midair.
Instead of melting it violently—
He eroded it layer by layer.
Shockwaves compressed the core.
Wind stripped impurities at a molecular law level.
Fire followed afterward — not as destruction, but as imprint.
Saint Shengyuan watched silently for a long time.
"This is not forging," the Saint finally said.
Lin smiled faintly.
"No… it's planetary shaping."
Aurora pulsed in approval.
Lin began experimenting.
He rotated gravity instead of applying it downward
He compressed mass before heating instead of after
He used layered thunder vibration instead of brute melting
The alloy did not crack.
It adapted.
A thin hammer core took shape — smoother, denser, far heavier than Titan orthodoxy permitted at its size.
Lin felt something inside him click into place.
This was his path.
Not Titan forging.
Not Celestial forging.
World forging.
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The First Disturbance
As the hammer core stabilized, Lin suddenly paused.
His inner world trembled faintly.
Aurora stiffened.
Saint Shengyuan turned his gaze upward.
Far beyond his solar system.
Far beyond Titan laws.
Something cold brushed against the edge of Lin's perception.
Not sight.
Not sound.
Pattern recognition.
The Abyssal Ancestor was still searching.
Not blindly anymore.
It had begun to follow consequent void distortions — the traces left behind when abyssal matter vanished instead of decayed.
Lin clenched his jaw.
"So it's getting closer."
Saint Shengyuan nodded grimly.
"It cannot see you yet. But it is learning the rhythm of your consumption."
Aurora pulsed darker.
> "Every time you refine abyssal matter… it grows more certain you exist."
Lin did not stop forging.
He increased the storm intensity.
"Then I just need to outpace its certainty."
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Rowan Notices the Change
Three days later, Rowan examined Lin's newest forging attempt.
He did not touch it at first.
He circled it slowly.
The hammer core floated in midair, suspended by captive rotational force alone.
No visible script.
No visible runes.
No orthodox forging pattern.
Yet the moment Rowan stepped within three meters, his beard and sleeves rippled violently, pulled by miniature gravity tides.
"This is not sect technique," Rowan said quietly.
Lin met his gaze evenly.
"It still obeys material law."
Rowan stared for a long time.
Then slowly…
He smiled.
A real one.
"You are no longer copying civilization," Rowan said. "You are challenging it."
That night, Rowan added three manuals to Lin's training access.
None of them were forging manuals.
They were ancient Titan battlefield treatises.
"If you insist on shaping worlds," Rowan said, "then learn how worlds are broken."
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The Tracker Tightens
Deep within the Abyss.
Beyond the layered battlefields.
Beyond the hunting realms.
A vast consciousness opened one eye.
Not in rage.
Not in hunger.
In recognition.
The Abyssal Ancestor finally confirmed what it had suspected.
> "The thief survives."
The void rippled.
Countless abyssal scouts shifted course—subtly, invisibly.
The Titan Realm remained far beyond its reach.
For now.
But the direction was no longer unknown.
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Closing
Lin continued forging.
Continued compressing.
Continued shaping storms into weapons.
Continued feeding his inner world.
Rowan pushed him harder.
Tian trained elsewhere.
The Saint watched time accelerate within Lin's growing solar laws.
And far beyond both realms—
The Abyss learned how to listen.
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