Forging
A second path to a better weapon, standing beside Weapon Refinement rather than replacing it. Refinement improves a treasure you have already bonded to; Forging builds — and rebuilds — gear from raw materials, at a bench and then at a ritual of its own.
Tier 1: the bench
Two recipes get you started at a vanilla crafting bench: a Spirit-Forged Blade (Weapon Bench, iron bars, Spirit Stones, and Common forging material) and a Spirit-Woven Robe (Armor Bench, cotton bolts, Spirit Stones, and the same material). Both are Rare quality, ready to carry into the ritual below the moment they are made.
Tier 2 and up: the Forge Anchor
Place a Forge Flag to plant your own Forge Anchor — placing a second one simply moves the first, so you only ever have one. Stand within 4 blocks of it, hold a forgeable item, and run /cultivation forge combine (or smith) to attempt the next tier up, capped at Tier 5.
Each tier costs a growing stack of forging material, drawn from a three-rung ladder — Common at Tier 2, Refined from Tier 3–4, and Pristine at Tier 5 — in growing quantities as you climb (2 at Tier 2, up to 5 at Tier 5). Materials are spent the moment the ritual begins, win or lose.
The ritual runs 45 seconds, draining 2 Qi every second (90 Qi if it runs the full length), and needs at least 20 Qi banked to start. Wander more than 4 blocks from your anchor or run out of Qi mid-ritual and it fails exactly as if the roll itself had gone against you — never worse. /cultivation forge cancel stops it cleanly at any time; spent materials are gone, but your item comes back completely unchanged.
A failed attempt at Tier 2 or higher demotes the item one tier — it is never destroyed outright. Below Tier 2, a failure does nothing to the item at all. A quarter of every failure botches outright: a burst of non-lethal explosion damage, 10% of your max health by default.
Failure chance starts at 30% for Tier 2 and climbs 5% per tier above that.
Grade: Low, Mid, High, Perfect
A successful forge lands on one of four grades, rolled from the quality of material you used — Pristine skews the roll toward Perfect, Common skews it toward Low, with some randomness on top either way. Right now the grade is shown on the item's own tooltip and nothing more; it carries no combat bonus yet, and exists as the hook a future release can hang a real stat on.
Where the materials come from
Common material drops from winning a duel against a Wandering Rival Cultivator (35% chance) or claiming a Buried Cache (50% chance). Refined material comes all but guaranteed from a cleared Ruin Vault. Both sites are found through Spirit Sense at its highest stage.