By the time Ning Zhen turned three, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan's inner courtyard had become more of a training ground than a playpen. Where most children were learning to hold chopsticks, Zhen was memorizing ore compositions and mimicking hammer movements.
It began innocently.
Lady Yanxi, thinking it was good for her son to be near her, allowed Zhen to sit quietly in a corner of her personal forge as she worked. The smell of heated iron, the hiss of quenching steam, the rhythm of her hammer — they soothed him.
He would sit, wide-eyed, observing her every movement.
At first, he clapped. Then, he tapped his feet in rhythm. Then, one day, she turned around to find her son holding a tiny forge hammer, the gift he insisted for his last birthday mimicking her signature Fire Dragon Hammer Technique with a frightening degree of accuracy.
The toddler's hammer was made of copper, barely heavy enough to bruise a grape — but he was practicing with all the earnestness of a Spirit Douluo.
"Zhen-er!" Yanxi gasped. "That's dangerous!"
Zhen froze, looking up at her with wide, guilty eyes.
"Sorry…" he mumbled. "I just… the hammer was singing…"
She blinked. "Singing?"
He walked to the ingot on her workbench and pointed to its surface.
"When the metal's sick, it hums in a crooked way. If I hit it here—"
Clang!
The sound rang clear. She stared.
"Now it's healthy again."
Lady Yanxi stared at the ingot, inspecting its density with the eyes of a master. Her eyes widened.
"...You just purified it more. In one strike."
Normally, even master smiths required three blows to remove the amount of impurities in spirit-grade metals that Zhen has done in with one. He didn't know how — he felt it.
After that, she stopped trying to keep him from the forge.
---
From that day, Zhen's studies expanded. Ning Fengzhi had his best artisans and scholars compile an archive of every known forging metal in the Douluo Continent and procured them. Traders from the Star Luo Empire to Heaven Dou sent samples.
By age four, Zhen could identify metals by touch, smell, and even the way they sang when tapped.
One day, while arranging samples, he muttered: "No… not enough resonance. Darth Stone cancels too much vibration. It needs something elastic but tempered... maybe Thundermelt Iron?"
His father, walking by, froze. "What are you working on, Zhen?"
Zhen looked up innocently. "Trying to make Heavenforge Metal. But I'm not strong enough to fold the layers yet. I don't want to break the HFC Seed."
Fengzhi felt a chill. "He's four…"
---
One afternoon, Sword Douluo found Zhen trying to smash a stubborn metal sample into shape.
"You're wasting energy," he said, stepping forward. "Power isn't about repeation. It's about flow."
He took a stance, lifted a training blade, and said:
> "The heart inside your chest beats rapidly. Power originates from the calves. Force travels up—thigh, waist, back, shoulder, arm—then releases. The heart gives force; the waist is the axis."
Shiiing! He struck once. The training pole snapped.
Zhen blinked. "That looked cool."
Chen Xin smirked. "You'll get there. Hammer or sword, strength follows structure."
---
Days flowed
One evening, Ning Fengzhi, Sword Douluo, and Bone Douluo gathered in the study.
"Spirit Hall's interference is intensifying," Chen Xin said. "They've secured the Fiery Lotus Grove in the southern Flamecloud Basin. Without those herbs, our replenishment pills will run out in half a season."
Gu Rong grunted. "We can't muscle in. The terrain favors them. And buying from merchants will only raise prices."
Fengzhi frowned. "We need a third route… a new herb field, maybe. But where?"
Just then, a voice piped up from the doorway.
"You could use the Mistflower Ridge," Zhen said cheerfully, holding a wooden horse.
All three turned.
Zhen continued, "The temperature's high but stable. Underground spirit veins connect to Flamecloud Basin. My herb teacher said Mistflowers grow well when transplanted near dragonstone soil. It's quiet there. Spirit Hall doesn't control that side of the region."
Silence.
Fengzhi slowly turned to his advisors. "That… might actually work."
"Did we just get outmaneuvered by a toddler?" Bone Douluo muttered.
Zhen smiled, bowed, and waddled away, humming.
---
And so, by the end of his fourth year, Ning Zhen had become many things:
A metal savant.
A forge-room rascal.
A miniature logistics strategist.
And a child whose thoughts hummed with metal, fire, and possibility.
He had not yet awakened his martial spirit.
But the world around him was already shifting.
Because sometimes, the hammer strikes long before the forge is lit.