Cultivation is just so scientific!

Chapter 445: Chapter 269: Onlooker

Since Li Shiming had received the artifact refining inheritance from Elder Zhang, Elder Zhang had been coming over at a set time each day to guide him.

His skills in artifact refining had improved rapidly; within just a few days, he had already started to refine Spiritual Artifacts.

What pleased Elder Zhang the most was the speed at which Li Shiming learned the techniques for applying runes.

These runes are a method of embedding spells in rune form onto a Magic Artifact, thereby achieving the corresponding special effects.

For instance, the basic runes that Li Shiming had learned a while ago included the Storage Spirit Rune, Acceleration Rune, Stability Rune, Delay Rune, Flame Rune, Frost Rune, Sharpness Rune, and so on.

The Zhang family’s refining inheritance had also added a lot of Foundation Establishment runes, and over countless years, cultivators had summarized the runes best suited for use on Spiritual Artifacts.

Because of the materials used in their creation, it was possible to add Array Diagrams to the bodies of Spiritual Artifacts, making them stronger.

In front of Elder Zhang, Li Shiming was always diligently learning to refine artifacts without showing any peculiar talents.

He didn’t want to show excessive talent in artifact refining, at best just a strong learning ability.

He had never planned to refine for others; alchemy was already taking up several two-hour stretches of his day, reducing his cultivation time.

With resources not being an issue, he saw no need to display his talents in artifact refining.

Even so, Elder Zhang was still amazed by his abilities in artifact refining.

In the realm of alchemy, Elder Ma had somehow managed it so that the cultivators seeking pills from the sect had been deferred. Recently, Li Shiming had been refining Vessel Protecting Pills, Soul Stabilizing Pills, Resurrection Pills, and Mountain-breaking Pills each day.

Moreover, with each batch of alchemy, along with one-third of the Spirit Pills, he would receive additional compensation, usually consisting of a portion of Third Grade Spirit Fruit or Spiritual Tea.

Only after handling it himself did he realize that it wasn’t that the alchemy resources were scarce, but that the Beishu Continent was simply too vast. The limited amount of alchemy resources available across all the cultivators on the continent made them seem extremely rare.

The three great sects of the Righteous Path, along with the other major forces within its realm, controlled these alchemy resources.

Because of Li Shiming’s reputation, any cultivator who had alchemy resources wanted to do whatever it took to find him and have him help refine Vessel Protecting Pills, Soul Stabilizing Pills, Resurrection Pills, and Mountain-breaking Pills.

After all, among the alchemy masters currently willing to openly refine, only Li Shiming could guarantee the production of high-quality, full-yield batches of the four advanced Third-grade Spirit Pills.

The high-level Spirit Pills offered a much greater enhancement for breaking through to the Golden Core stage than mid- and low-level Spirit Pills. To increase the probability of success in achieving a Golden Core, cultivators were willing to pay any price.

Li Shiming believed that in a little while, he would be able to refine a top-tier set of Vessel Protecting Pills, Soul Stabilizing Pills, Resurrection Pills, and Mountain-breaking Pills for himself.

In his machine room space, the essence of medicine from each type of Spirit Pill was accumulating rapidly, soon to be enough for the creation of top-tier Spirit Pills.

Li Shiming also understood why Elder Ma had said that as an alchemy master, he needn’t worry about any resources.

Now, he could freely enjoy Third Grade Spirit Fruits and Third Grade Spiritual Tea; having a cup of Third Grade Spiritual Tea every day was no issue, and occasionally he could enjoy a Third Grade Spirit Fruit as a treat.

Additionally, in recent days, he had still made time to refine several batches of Second-grade Spirit Pills for the Beishu Trading Company, owing them a significant favor that needed to be repaid. As for the Third-grade Spirit Pills, they required too much mental effort and had to be placed behind the sect’s alchemy tasks.

“Shiming, come here!” One day, while Li Shiming was refining a Spiritual Artifact, he received a message from his mentor, Elder Su.

Fortunately, the refinement was being done in the machine room space, so he was able to continue the task by splitting part of his spirit into the space.

He himself soared into the air, heading towards Heavenly Eye Peak.

Just before reaching Heavenly Eye Peak, he saw that Elder Su and his second senior brother, Wan Zheng, were already waiting for him outside the peak.

“Master, second senior brother, sorry I’m late!” Li Shiming hurried forward and greeted them.

“Not late, we knew you were busy, so we only called you after everything was prepared here. Let’s go watch Jingxian make her pills!” Elder Su said with a smile as he helped Li Shiming up.

Li Shiming noticed that only his second senior brother was present; his third senior brother, Lu Shi, and fourth senior brother, Xu Chuan, were not there.

Assuming they had already gone ahead, he didn’t mind, and followed Elder Su towards the mountain peak where his eldest senior sister’s cave dwelling was located.

The Mountain Protection Array around the mountain was already activated, just waiting for them to enter.

At the top of the mountain, a Formation had been set up; Ye Jingxian was sitting within it, resting with her eyes closed, seemingly unaware of their arrival.

Elder Su, along with Li Shiming and Wan Zheng, sat down cross-legged about thirty meters from the Formation.

Li Shiming could see a look of concern in Elder Su’s eyes.

He then glanced at the Array under Ye Jingxian, which was a grand Array gathering Spiritual Energy. It cooperated with the mountain’s Mountain Protection Array Formation, channeling all the Spiritual Energy generated by the mountain’s spirit veins into the Array.

At that moment, the Array had not been activated. Once it was, the Spiritual Energy in other parts of the mountain would be drained, which could affect the growth of the spirit fields over time.

However, at this moment, compared to Ye Jingxian’s alchemy, the spirit fields seemed trivial; if necessary, even if the spirit fields were destroyed, they would ensure she had the Spiritual Energy she needed.