Immortal Refiner

Leaving Lingnong Jinchuan’s courtyard, Li Qing was immensely satisfied after gathering a wealth of information.

However, he didn’t rush to find the elderly miner right away. Instead, he returned to his small courtyard.

By now, Fan Tong had eaten its fill and was lying down contentedly, enjoying a nap.

”Demon beasts usually have long lifespans, but this brute’s bloodline is truly lacking,” Li Qing sighed, gazing at the sleeping Fan Tong. He realized that if nothing changed, Fan Tong’s time by his side would likely be less than a century.

Yet Li Qing still had 179 years of lifespan remaining, and that would only increase as he began refining Magic Artifacts.

”Sigh, it seems I’ll have to buy some Beast Taming Pills to feed it.”

Having just entered the cultivation world, Li Qing found himself facing expenses everywhere. He, who hadn’t worried about money in a long time, finally understood what it meant to be poor.

A sudden urgency to earn spirit stones washed over him.

”Now that I’ve received the Artifact Refinement inheritance, I can try refining some Magic Artifacts to sell.”

However, Li Qing was currently struggling due to a lack of spiritual materials. He could only repeatedly refine ordinary iron through a thousand hammer strikes before forging it into pseudo-magical artifacts.

Even if he managed to craft such a Magic Artifact, it would at best be a Low-Grade Magic Tool, not even qualifying as a Low-Grade Magic Artifact.

”That’ll be perfect. I can use ordinary iron to practice my skills, testing out the quenching and inscription techniques. Even if it’s a Low-Grade Magic Tool, I should still be able to sell it for a few dozen spirit stones, right?”

Li Qing pondered for a moment, concluding that this idea was sound.

He knew that getting rich by working for others was impossible.

Ultimately, he remained with the Liu Clan solely to enjoy the area’s abundant spiritual energy and to interact with other cultivators.

Driven by an urgent desire to earn spirit stones, Li Qing spent his first night in his small courtyard in blissful comfort.

The next morning, a clear, melodious spirit bird’s call echoed through the air.

Li Qing awoke from a sweet slumber, feeling refreshed and invigorated.

He set up a pot and retrieved the small bowl of spirit rice Jin Chuan had given him the previous day, placing it in the pot to cook.

Spiritual objects like this require no elaborate cooking process. Simply boiling them is enough to create a rare and delicious dish.

Li Qing was frugal, pouring only half the Spirit Rice into the pot to make himself a sweet and fragrant Spirit Rice Porridge.

The crystal-clear grains of Spirit Rice remained distinct in the pot, their abundant spiritual energy unreleased by the boiling process.

After a long while, a delicate fragrance wafted from the pot. Just a whiff of it made Li Qing’s mouth water.

Ignoring the scalding heat, Li Qing eagerly took a spoonful.

His first taste of Spirit Rice Porridge filled his mouth with a rich, refreshing sweetness that lingered on his tongue and teeth.

Soon, wisps of spiritual energy seeped into his body, leaving him feeling refreshed and invigorated.

Eating this kind of Spirit Rice was more than just a culinary delight; it also brought him a deep sense of mental satisfaction and comfort.

”No wonder so many people choose to become spiritual farmers, and the Liu Clan welcomes them all,” Li Qing mused.

”This Spirit Rice is truly remarkable. If only I could eat this every day! A bowl a day would save me a lot of time I spend meditating and cultivating!”

Li Qing sighed, then quickly devoured the small bowl of Spirit Rice Porridge, even licking the bowl clean to ensure not a single grain was wasted.

After finishing the porridge, he didn’t waste time. He immediately sat cross-legged and immersed himself in cultivation.

As the sun climbed higher, nearing midday, Li Qing opened his eyes, ending his brief cultivation session.

He cautiously scanned his surroundings, confirming the courtyard’s protective barrier was intact. Then, he instructed Fan Tong to guard the house while he returned alone to the small courtyard.

After waiting a moment, Li Qing slipped into a hidden room and traveled back to the World of Eternal Night.

He had stored his blacksmithing tools there, including the Peerless Hammer and Wandering Dragon Dagger, rather than carrying them with him.

He feared revealing his secret and attracting unwanted attention.

The Wandering Dragon Dagger, a pseudo-magical artifact forged from two spirit materials, was particularly vulnerable to being coveted.

Li Qing moved the entire set of blacksmithing tools back to his courtyard and prepared to fire up the forge for artifact refinement.

”I’m already at the second layer of the Qi Refining Realm. I should be able to attempt refining a Low-Grade Magic Tool without any problems.”

”However, it’s not wise to reveal my artifact refinement heritage. In the cultivation world, such skills are far more precious than I had initially imagined.”

Li Qing was self-aware. With his current strength, he wouldn’t be able to protect such a heritage.

Furthermore, the heritage contained an Artifact Refinement Diagram for the Water Entangling Net. If it were exposed, even the Liu Clan might target him.

Cultivation techniques, especially the four core arts of alchemy, artifact refinement, array formation, and talisman creation, were each more valuable than the last.

”Let’s start with something simple,” Li Qing exhaled softly, then ignited the forge. He was about to embark on his first attempt at refining a Magic Artifact.

Li Qing snapped his fingers, and a fireball materialized out of thin air.

BOOM!

Flames roared within the forge, rapidly raising the temperature. The crimson glow of the fire painted Li Qing’s face a fiery red.

He tossed an iron ingot into the furnace. After it had been heated for a while, he retrieved his hammer early and began forging.

For his first attempt at forging, Li Qing didn’t plan to create any offensive Magic Artifacts. Instead, he decided to start with something simple to warm up and familiarize himself with the process.

Soon, the red-hot iron ingot was hammered into a circular iron plate.

After repeating this process, Li Qing had refined three iron plates. He then stacked them together and continued hammering.

His goal was to forge the three plates into a single, thicker piece of ordinary iron.

With each swing of the hammer, sparks flew, and under the force of the Peerless Hammer and Li Qing’s immense strength, a circular iron plate gradually took shape. It was slightly thicker in the middle and thinner around the edges, with a slight inward curve.

”I’ll call this the Heartguard Plate,” Li Qing murmured.

As the Heartguard Plate cooled, his expression turned serious, his eyes radiating an unprecedented level of focus.

The forging was complete. Now came the second step: Spirit Tempering!

This was an essential step before engraving spirit patterns. To successfully imprint spirit patterns onto ordinary iron, one had to temper it with their own spiritual energy, imbuing it with spiritual properties.

Li Qing took a deep breath and pressed one hand against the iron plate. He closed his eyes and patiently channeled his spiritual energy.

He focused his mind to perceive the plate’s structure. The iron plate, forged by his own hands, revealed its internal composition clearly in his mind.

In the next moment, pure spiritual energy from within Li Qing began to seep into the iron plate.

He meticulously followed the requirements, refining it with extreme care.

Before long, Li Qing’s hand trembled, and he stopped channeling mana.

”Phew! The mana’s penetration abruptly stalled at the point where the three iron plates had been fused together.”

His first attempt at spiritual refinement had failed!

Fortunately, Li Qing’s forging skills were already at their peak. The failure didn’t cause the form to collapse. The Low-Grade Magic Tool, the prototype of a chest plate, remained intact.

Li Qing repeated the previous steps, continuing to refine the iron plate with spiritual energy without feeling the slightest boredom.

After all, it was ordinary iron, not natural spiritual materials. The difficulty of spiritual refinement was naturally considerable.

In truth, most artifact refinement masters, like Li Qing, practice quenching with ordinary iron.

If one can successfully quench ordinary iron, imbuing it with spiritual essence, the difficulty of quenching other spiritual materials in the future will be significantly reduced.

Over the next period, Li Qing failed many more times, for various reasons.

Sometimes his mana input was interrupted, sometimes he couldn’t control the mana’s intensity, sometimes he was too hasty, sometimes too slow.

In short, the difficulty of quenching was far greater than he had imagined.

Finally, as the meager spiritual energy within Li Qing’s body neared exhaustion, he managed to complete the quenching of the palm-sized iron plate.

”Ha! Finally done!”

Li Qing wiped the sweat from his brow. This was far more exhausting than forging the shape—a soul-crushing fatigue!

”It took all my spiritual energy just to quench a palm-sized iron plate. That’s ridiculous.”

”If I try to refine larger Magic Artifacts in the future, my Qi Refining Realm cultivation might not be enough!”

While grumbling, Li Qing gazed at the half-finished Magic Artifact in his hand with a satisfied and smug expression.

The tempering had been successful. This heart plate, forged from ordinary iron, now possessed spiritual essence. Next, he could engrave spirit patterns onto it.

Even as a half-finished Magic Artifact, it already offered some defense, capable of slightly deflecting weak mana attacks.

However, Li Qing’s smugness didn’t last long. His confidence was completely shattered by the next step: engraving the spirit patterns.

Spirit patterns engraved on Magic Artifacts came in many varieties. Although he had studied them all in the artifact refinement inheritance, when it came time to actually apply them, his mind went blank.

”Hmm, let’s start with the most basic Five Elements spirit patterns,” Li Qing muttered to himself, choosing earth and metal patterns, both types designed to enhance defense.

After briefly recalling the descriptions of the spirit patterns from the inheritance, Li Qing opened his eyes and tapped his finger onto the heart plate.

In truth, the process of artifact refinement resembles drawing talismans, but unlike talismans, spirit patterns used in artifact refinement have no fixed patterns. The final form of a Magic Artifact depends entirely on the artifact refiner’s creativity.

Unless an Artifact Refinement Diagram—similar to a pill formula—is available, refining a Magic Artifact relies entirely on the refiner’s skill.

A profound and seasoned artifact refiner must not only be able to identify various spiritual materials and understand their properties but also be familiar with numerous types of spirit patterns.

By combining the properties of the spiritual materials with different spirit patterns, they can fully unleash the materials’ inherent potential.

Moreover, the refiner must consider the principles of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements, including their mutual generation and destruction.

This is why in the cultivation world, it’s often said that Pill Refiners and Talisman Masters can simply rely on resources to improve their skills, while Formation Masters and artifact refiners require innate talent.

The former, through repeated practice and strict adherence to pill formulas, can always achieve mastery through repetition.

The latter, however, require a spark of enlightenment from the depths of the unknown.

(End of the Chapter)

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