When Lex got to work, when he focused on one specific task and there was no huge threat hanging over him to distract him, time lost all meaning.

The auction concluded as a huge success. Many of the bidders returned immediately for they needed to travel to the Origin realm before traveling back to their original realms. It was a bit of a journey. Many others stayed back.

They stayed to enjoy the pleasant environment at the Inn, and interact with mortals who either had no knowledge of, or no fear of Immortals. It was quite a novel experience, and could only be had at the Inn.

Others stayed behind to chat with the Devils. The Midnight Inn was quickly becoming their unofficial business hub. While devils would directly travel to many realms, if their clients weren’t comfortable summoning a devil right to their doorstep, the Inn served as a decent alternative.

Lex paid attention to none of that. He used the minimum amount of attention required to oversee the Inn and ensure there were no problems, and spent the rest on his project. Although Lex had learned a lot, and was very skilled and perceptive due to his cultivation technique, setting up a time dilation formation was not something he could just do .

Anything to do with time required the utmost attention and care, so Lex made countless smaller, weaker, less sophisticated formations barely touching upon the subject.

One by one, he went from the simplest to more and more complicated, all the way until he set the formation around the volcano. Funnily enough, this formation wasn’t even required for most of the forging process. It was only at the end, once the forging was done, that this formation would come into play.

Instead, it was the second formation he made that would help in the actual forging. The Fortune Funnel was the name of a formation that affected some very esoteric laws such as karma, destiny, fate and others. This formation would help in the creation of the bead that could amplify Lex’s use of Karma.

Over the past many months, Lex hadn’t stopped his study of Karma at all. Although he was far from an expert, he was no longer as uninformed and ignorant as when he started out.

He had worked hard to prepare himself for this moment, and it was finally here.

"You ready?" Orin asked, his own nerves a little taut as they looked down at the lava filled volcano from the tip.

"Yes," said Lex, successfully resisting the urge to say ’I was born ready’.

"Try not to die," said Orin as he summoned his Veevatil hammer. "But just know that if you do die during the forging, I’ll be adding your body as a material to the forge. Can’t help it, your bones make good ingredients."

"Gee, thanks," Lex said, unsure how to take that compliment. Then he jumped down into the volcano, alongside Orin.

Treasure manufacturing took many forms, but the method used by Orin, the Deity of Hammers, was about as similar to oldschool forging as one could imagine in a cultivation world.

In simple terms, he smashed things with a hammer, shaping and designing them along the way. In a slightly more detailed way, Orin used his hammer as a conduit of his will and of the laws at his disposal to shape the object he was crafting, shaping the rules of its operations and setting the ways in which the treasure would affect laws.

This time, the volcano was serving as a forge, and the thick ocean of lava it contained was one of the main ingredients of the forging melted over the firesource. They would forge the item from within the forge, because the madman Orin was going to use the reaction and leftover materials to create a foundation for a much stronger forge.

In comparison to him, Lex’s goal was much more tame. He was simply assisting Orin, while simultaneously forging his own body as well. He wanted to punch a Celestial in the face using nothing but his bare body - was that too much to ask?

"To start with, I’m using a speck of Veevatil," said Orin through his spirit sense. "Not much, because the bead does not require it. But I’m using it to build the foundation because it’s the material I’m most familiar with, and it’ll help me throughout the process."

Since even Naraka was made from Veevatil, Lex wasn’t about to complain about using the ore. After all, it was a nonrenewable resource, and the metal could allow for laws to be conducted through it, so it was extremely valuable.

The reason he was telling Lex was... because Lex would be Orin’s anvil! He placed a small bead made of Veevatil on Lex’s chest, and then hammered.

All the way at the base of the volcano, under the weight of all that lava, Lex’s chest was pounded by the hammer Deity, and the process was just beginning.

The lava began to bubble as wild energy traveled through it, escaping from the hammer and the ingredients that Lex summoned one by one. The process was bound to be a long one.

Due to the immense heat, the Veevatil bead turned red hot quickly, and then that is when Orin began to add the other materials to it.

The first phase was also the shortest, and it involved creating the physical template of the final bead. Although the Veevatil was in the right shape, it wasn’t nearly sufficient for their purposes, so it was strengthened, reinforced, and then altered until it was.

This process lasted 36 hours.

Up until now, despite the difficulty of the situation, Lex endured no harm, and Orin was still in top condition. The real difficulty would be... when the Amber Chaos Resin was added. That was next.

"Add the Resin to the bead," Orin whispered, creating a vacuum around Lex temporarily. The Amber Chaos Resin, being such an easily absorbable material, could become contaminated if it touched anything else as it could begin fusing with them.

Fortunately, they had prepared for that.

Lex sealed off all of Orin’s senses so that he would not be affected by the Resin, and then summoned it.

The aura of a Dao level ingredient... truly it was not something just anybody could tolerate. Even Lex, who had previously absorbed the resin before, felt his body’s longing for it. Yet as he had previously absorbed it before, as well as made Jack absorb some, he had enough experience to keep his sanity intact.

He added the resin to the Veevatil, and watched as it quickly fused with the bead, changing its color to amber.

Now, the real forging would begin.

BANG!

The Hammer Deity used his divine powers, and the force behind his hammer multiplied.