Li Younan’s gaze shifted to the steel materials in the corner and he asked, "Sir, I would like to borrow your blacksmith shop for half a day to forge a hunting knife for myself."
The older man jumped up immediately, his tone slightly annoyed, "Young man, do you know what a blacksmith shop means to a swordsmith? It’s like a kitchen to a chef, like a boat to a fisherman, like..."
Li Younan listened with some impatience. The older man, who didn’t seem highly educated, was rattling off parallelisms as if preparing for a comedy skit.
He directly pulled out 200 US Dollars from his pocket.
The older man’s words came to an abrupt halt, and he coughed, "Half a day? Half a day it is..."
No time to waste.
The sword forging was about to begin.
Li Younan set up the camera in position.
This was a good content point, and naturally, Li Younan wanted to record the whole process and make it into a video, which would gain high traction on international platforms when posted.
For him, this was considered the first formal forging. Although he had tried once back on Highway 318, that occasion was clearly not a formal sword forging.
After acquiring sword forging skills, he never had any real opportunities to experiment.
The older man stood aside, watching Li Younan with an expression of amusement. Although he had agreed to rent the blacksmith shop to Li Younan for half a day, he wanted to ensure Li Younan used the equipment correctly without damaging it. Additionally, he was curious to see if this young man would make a fool of himself.
This older man, like many middle-aged rural folks in the country, wasn’t very interested in gaining attention online, so even though Li Younan was somewhat known in the United States, the older man didn’t recognize him.
Of course, even knowing wouldn’t affect his skepticism about Li Younan’s sword-forging skills.
Since the older man frequently forged swords, he had a variety of steel types in his material library.
Whether it was the swordsmith’s most common 1095 high carbon steel, 5160 spring steel, or various models of stainless steel, he had them all.
First was selecting the steel, and Li Younan’s gaze swept over these steel materials.
To forge an outdoor knife, the best choice was 1095 high carbon steel.
Because this type of steel is easy to work with, highly tolerant, and, most importantly, possesses excellent toughness.
It’s extremely cost-effective.
Originally, Li Younan planned to choose the 1095 high carbon steel, but his gaze suddenly halted on a square block of steel, hesitated, and then picked it up.
The older man noticed this scene and quickly shook his head, "Hey, that piece of steel won’t do!"
Li Younan replied, "It’s okay, I can pay for it."
"It’s not about the money. Do you know what kind of steel you’re holding?"
Li Younan looked puzzled, "Isn’t it just a piece of M4 powdered steel?"
When Li Younan accurately named the steel, a hint of surprise flashed in the older man’s eyes, for it was indeed M4 powdered steel.
But he then frowned and said, "You know it’s M4 powdered steel, but do you know how difficult it is to process?"
In fact, Bill had never attempted to process this powdered steel after obtaining it.
Because the processing difficulty of powdered steel far exceeds that of traditional cast steel materials.
This type of steel was also the material for the two professional hunting knives Li Younan had during the 318 experience.
This steel has excellent properties, with a uniformly dense microstructure and ultra-high hardness due to its high alloy content. From forging to the finished product, each step presents extreme challenges to equipment, craftsmanship, and experience, even earning the title of the ultimate challenge in steel processing among swordsmiths.
The first hurdle was the forging temperature window, which was only a 50-degree range, far below the 500-degree range of ordinary steel.
Being slightly above or below the temperature could lead to a high risk of cracking during forging, turning the effort into a complete waste with any slight mistake.
Moreover, it has a very high resistance to deformation, requiring advanced hammering techniques and high-quality equipment, making the defect rate of forging this type of steel nearly ten times higher than ordinary steel. Even experienced swordsmiths rarely attempt this steel.
Seeing the older man about to start a tirade again, Li Younan pulled out another hundred US Dollars, leaving the older man completely silent with a look of "fine, just show me what you’ve got."
The world finally quieted down.
Li Younan picked up the piece of powdered steel, weighed it in his hand, then started the formal forging process.
In front of the camera, Li Younan introduced, "Next, I’m going to participate in a real hunting competition. Before that, we need an efficient hunting knife, and I plan to forge it myself."
"This is a piece of M4 powdered steel, which is quite suitable as a material for outdoor knives, though it’s relatively troublesome to forge."
Relatively troublesome?
Hearing Li Younan’s understatement of the difficulty in forging this kind of steel, Bill’s lips twitched slightly.
Bill snorted, folded his arms, and sat down, curious to see how this guy would botch this piece of steel.
Li Younan took a deep breath to adjust his state of mind, knowing that compared to other knives, forging this M4 powdered steel required maintaining a high level of focus—no room for error.
Contrary to expectations, Younan’s first step wasn’t to heat the steel; he did something that left Bill stupefied—he placed the steel billet directly onto the cutting machine.

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