Ascension materials:

Stats:

Refinements:

Ascensions:

Asc.	Mora	Items
A6	45000	4× Chunk of Aerosiderite	18× Still-Smoldering Hilt	12× Lieutenant's Insignia
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Lore:

The ancients say that the mountains of Mt. Tianheng are filled with gems, and the depths of The Chasm are rich with jade. The nation of a thousand hills has long been known for its abundance,

And its most critical mining and smelting facilities are located in Blackcliff Forge, carved into Mt. Tianheng itself.

The Forge was constructed by excavating the mountains, with countless workshops, furnaces, and connecting tunnels blasted black by dust.

In the tumultuous years when the fires of war dyed the land red, this place was also where the ancestors of the mountain tribes sought shelter.

It is even said that long-forgotten passages are within, tunnels to an ancient underground realm that lies in the deep places beneath the earth...

According to the Stone Tablet Compilations, the first to carve the darkened paths through the mountains was the founder of the famous Yun family of Liyue.

From that time hence, their clan, a house of smiths, has taken its place on the stage of history, regarded as honored progenitors by countless generations of artisans thereafter.

As for the stories of that person, the annals of history leave but a scant few lines—

"Such was Yun's ingenious craft that wood and bamboo might be carved into birds who would fly for three days without landing. Such were the works considered the apex of artisanry."

The study of mechanisms and the art of forging were all initially inextricably intertwined with the adepti.

As such, the founder was oft regarded as an apprentice of the adepti, and the techniques employed by said founder considered adepti teachings.

The tale most widely known today is that this personage once fought alongside Rex Lapis on campaign,

And having accomplished much, was acknowledged by three adepti, one after the other, and was granted instruction in secret mechanical arts.

Legend has it that these divine techniques were such that even clouds could be plucked from the skies with which manses might be molded,

And even the rotting, wasting wood could be fashioned into moving birds and beasts, so alike to life as to confound the observing eye.

As such, the phrase "The Blackcliff, forged from clouds" has long been widely known in Liyue,

And poets and storytellers have long delighted in the contrast between the two images.

Though the legend of "cloud-forging" is a fanciful latter-day play on the family name "Yun" meaning "cloud,"

None dispute that the rest of the founder's life was dedicated to the Blackcliff Forge and the teaching of craftsmanship.

At life and legend's end, the founder ascended in heavenly light, becoming the guardian star of artisanry.

Still, legends are naught but legends. It was no adeptal art that built the Forge, nor was it woven of whisps of wind and cloud.

Instead, it was chiseled out one flake and one hammerstroke at a time, by the pouring sweat of countless ordinary artisans' brows over long centuries.

Deus Auri's contract never stipulated that mortal resolve could never surpass adeptal miracles, after all.

"Such was Yun's ingenious craft that wood and bamboo might be carved into birds who would fly for three days without landing. Such were the works considered the apex of artisanry."

"Yet Yun's life and career were spent working rock into workshops, and molding clouds into manses. Thus was the Blackcliff forged in Tianheng, that the well-being of all the people might be served."

"For thus Yun said: What is clever? And what is clumsy? That which benefits the people is clever, and that which does otherwise is clumsy."