The current state of blacksmiths today is akin to exploited workers.
Except for blacksmiths within special sects like Haotian Sect, the life for other blacksmiths is not good.
Although some Grandmaster Level blacksmiths have earned a bit of respect due to their ability to forge ordinary metals into rare metals, it's not much.
After all, the rare metals they forge can only be used before Level 4 Soul Guides.
Apart from Divine Artisans, the respect they receive is not excessive.
Ultimately, they are still workers.
As for why Divine Artisans are respected, it cannot be separated from their power.
Throughout history, over ninety percent of those who become Divine Artisans have been powerful Soul Masters.
Even in blacksmithing, one needs to be strong themselves.
Even for Grandmaster Level blacksmiths, the respect they receive can be seen as deserved for their own power, rather than from their blacksmith identity.
This illustrates the status of the blacksmith profession today.
The root of such status lies in the threshold of the blacksmith profession.
A low threshold makes it less esteemed.
Scarcity enhances value.
Among blacksmiths, basic, intermediate, and even advanced blacksmiths are merely skilled levels, and as long as they can wield a hammer, any ordinary person with enough strength may hope to achieve it.
Strictly speaking, blacksmiths within these three levels haven't touched any extraordinary factors.
Thus, the status of blacksmiths appears to be so lowly.
"Rather than saying revitalizing the blacksmith industry, it's more accurate to say elevating the profession," Su Yu explained in detail, "Blacksmithing is merely ordinary forging skill, the real core is the forge technique above Grandmaster Level, which can entirely redefine the class divisions of blacksmithing, deeming those below Grandmaster Level as subpar, and achieve Grandmaster Level is to be a true blacksmith, or you could say it's a forge master."
"Forge master?" Kuang Tie listened to this novel name, inexplicably without repulsion.
The literal meaning clearly suggests that this forge master is a profession stemming from blacksmiths, and it sounds much better than blacksmith.
"Redefining the levels..."
If Su Yu were to directly invalidate basic, intermediate, and advanced blacksmith levels, Kuang Tie would likely find it hard to accept, since the initial purpose of the Blacksmith Association was to gather all unacknowledged blacksmiths under heaven, exchange forging skills, and promote the blacksmith profession.
Completely invalidating parts of blacksmithing is conceptually difficult for Kuang Tie to accept.
However, putting it another way, categorizing those parts into the subpar level, it felt much more acceptable.
The only unsettling thing is that the underlying purpose is obvious at a glance.
"I have also learned about the original Grandmaster Level blacksmiths and Divine Artisans, they fall quite short as well, the profession of blacksmith is indeed developed skewed in my opinion. The foundation of Douluo Continent is Soul Masters, if forging technology wants to develop, it must inevitably move closer to Soul Masters."
Even a Divine Artisan, no matter how high the quality of metal they forge, has not reached the point of suitability for Soul Masters.
No matter how smooth the armor and even weapons are for Soul Masters, the compatibility with Soul Masters falls far short.
During Soul Master cultivation, rarely is there talk of any Divine Weapons, no Soul Master would specifically seek these to arm themselves. Except for by chance, there's hope to obtain some protective armor, to get weapons forged by Divine Artisans, which Soul Master would think in this direction?
This is the mistake in the development of blacksmiths.
Like how the original forging master direction developed, fitting the needs of Soul Masters, also it's the foundation of the Armor System, thus attaining a very high status.
But the current blacksmith-developed forging technology, it's undeniably still wrong.
Although due to the emergence of Soul-guiding Devices, owing to the scarcity of rare metals in Douluo Three Kingdoms, reverse elimination has formed in blacksmith forging technology, making forging technique start to seek new paths, evidently no groundbreaking transformation has yet appeared.
Su Yu merely informed Kuang Tie of the possible forge master path, leveraging Kuang Tie to develop the forge master profession.
The production of battle armor still had some fundamental constraints.
Advanced battle armor requires spiritual metals, even super battle armor places too high a demand on spiritual quality.
Even spiritual metals, through the Spirit Summoning Array to induce spirituality, their innate spiritual strength is insufficient for direct use in making advanced battle armor, instead requiring a considerable period of nurturing.
Moreover, when crafting battle armor using spirituality to delineate, any errors may cause a devastating injury to nurtured spirituality.
If already blood-bound with a Soul Master, it could even backfire on the Soul Master.
In summary, there are still quite a few drawbacks.
Therefore, there is still a necessity to develop the forge master industry, just not by wholly copying the original path.
...
Su Yu produced a piece of rare metal.
"What is this?"
Kuang Tie's eyelids twitched, as a Grandmaster Level blacksmith about to break through to Divine Artisan, he immediately sensed the difference of this piece of rare metal.
"This is spiritual metal, awakened from the internal spiritual strength of rare metals through a specific Spirit Summoning Array."
"Spiritual strength..." In Kuang Tie's mind, massive inspiration sparked.
Awakening the spiritual strength of metal!
Actually, the breakthrough in forging technology is close at hand, with Su Yu face-to-face explaining the production principle of spiritual metal, Kuang Tie, a Grandmaster Level blacksmith, immediately had the feeling.
Perhaps, the breakthrough in forging technology lies in the spiritual!
Forging metals, forging the spiritual strength of metals, and even further shaping the spirituality of metals, and actually granting them life!