No Money to Cultivate Immortality?

By obtaining the military license through the exam, this was obviously the most conventional and common route for the vast majority of majors at Wanfa University.

But within the Artifact Refinement Department — the flagship major — the number of military licenses issued and the channels for obtaining them were clearly more plentiful than in the Civil Engineering Department.

True Lord Ci Ji was right now explaining the ins and outs to Zhang Yu.

“The military artifact engineering certificate is divided into Class A and Class B,” he said.

“Class A covers all kinds of artifacts, law husks, armors, flying swords, puppets, and other refined products.”

“In addition to passing the exam, Class A military certificates can also be obtained through other channels. For example, if you produce a prototype of a military-grade refined product yourself, then pass artifact skill tests and evaluations, you can be granted the military certificate early.”

“Class B, on the other hand, focuses mainly on refinement techniques.”

“To obtain a Class B military artifact engineering certificate, besides passing the relevant exams, there are also early-grant options every year — like the artifact design competitions, law-husk design contests, flying-sword design contests…”

“These design competitions emphasize creativity and design ability, not concrete refining skill.”

“Take your senior, Ye Xingli, for example — she placed in the top five among a hundred schools in the Law Husk Design Competition. Her entry got patented and she was directly awarded a Class B military certificate, and began cultivating the Void Artifact Codex.”“She later completed a prototype of the Vacuum Cataclysm Diagram on her own, passed the artifact skill tests and evaluations, obtained the Class A military certificate, and has now finished the Vacuum Cataclysm Diagram.”

True Lord Ci Ji smiled faintly, flicked his finger, and images flashed into being — a dense timeline listing Ye Xingli’s achievements.

It was all Ye Xingli’s competition rankings, her law-husk designs, her grades and cumulative scores by academic year… Zhang Yu read until his eyes ached.

“You’ll be able to take this route once you join the Artifact Refinement Department,” True Lord Ci Ji said. “Get both types of military certificates as early as possible. Whether it’s techniques or law husks, the earlier you can use military-grade stuff, the earlier you can start accumulating the cultivation capital you’ll need in the future.”

“Right now, at the undergraduate level, Foundation Establishment is already the peak. To get a Gold Core qualification you basically need to pursue graduate study.”

“But that doesn’t mean undergrad is idle. Breaking through to Gold Core is simple; the difference between Gold Cores is where the heavens and earth separate. Many top students, even if they’ve completed credits, don’t rush to graduate early — they’re busy preparing for future Gold Core breakthroughs.”

“In past eras, Gold Cores were divided into nine grades. A third-grade Gold Core was already an extraordinary genius; a first-grade Gold Core could go straight into a sect.”

Zhang Yu asked, concerned, “What about nowadays?”

“Dividing Gold Cores into nine grades is considered too crude now,” True Lord Ci Ji replied. “After linking to the Spiritual Realm the scoring runs straight through. A Gold Core scoring 10,000 is barely passable; 100,000 is excellent; 300,000 marks the school elites; over 500,000 — that’s a Gold Core among Gold Cores.”

Zhang Yu quickly asked again, “What kind of Gold Core gets a high score?”

“It’s two steps: preparation before the Gold Core and then the methods after forming it,” True Lord Ci Ji said.

“How to raise score after forming the Gold Core is still far from you; I won’t go into that today.”

“Let’s talk about pre-Gold-Core preparation.”

“To forge a high-quality Gold Core, first you must purchase an inner core — the higher the inner core quality, the more expensive it is. You can’t escape spending money if you want to break through to Gold Core.”

“Secondly, during the smelting process, the practitioner’s own spirit roots, techniques, and law-husk quality all significantly affect the Gold Core’s score. The higher those qualities, the higher the resulting Gold Core’s score.”

“If you have other high-quality artifacts, pills, or array diagrams assisting you, even better.”

“In short, mastering more and stronger military-grade techniques, military-grade law husks, and military-grade artifacts will let you forge Gold Cores with higher scores.”

“So during university, you must hurry to accumulate immortal-path resources, master more military-grade power, and only then will you be able to forge Gold Cores faster and better in the future.”

Zhang Yu nodded; that didn’t conflict with his plan to accumulate strength and win the Ten-League Grand Slam.

But he felt uneasy about the route True Lord Ci Ji proposed.

He asked, “Teacher, you said you can get a Class B military certificate through the design competitions. That sounds difficult — isn’t it?”

“Design competitions rely heavily on inspiration and talent; they’re the least dependent on wealth or background,” True Lord Ci Ji said.

“Take that path, get the Class B first, practice military-grade artifact techniques, and your refining level will rise day by day. Then making a prototype of a military-grade refined product to obtain Class A becomes easy.”

Hearing this, Zhang Yu felt worse.

It wasn’t that he lacked inspiration or talent for refining — it was that Feathered Tome had him constrained right now.

If the Feathered Tome didn’t grant him extra creative insight and design bonuses, how could his natural talent show?

He intuited: being limited by the Feathered Tome, he was probably not suited for the design-competition route.

So he asked, “What about going straight to make a prototype of a military-grade refined product and getting the Class A military certificate first?”

True Lord Ci Ji smiled and said, “Let’s use the Tianri Huangshen as an example.”

As he spoke, True Lord Ci Ji flicked his finger and a dense skill tree appeared — like countless roots winding and interlocking, each linked tightly.

At the same time he said, “To craft the Tianri Huangshen you need at least advanced thermal spiritual-energy technology, and to master advanced thermal spiritual-energy you must master the following seven basic technologies, and to master those seven basics you must master their basics…”

Zhang Yu listened a while and felt his head spinning. He thought: to master one technique you need to master its base; to master that base you need its base’s base, and so on.

Looking at the dense skill tree, Zhang Yu thought, “How long will this ever end?”

Seeing Zhang Yu dazed, True Lord Ci Ji asked, “Do you understand now?”

“Learning a military-grade artifact technique early — especially our department’s military technique, the Void Artifact Codex — lets you advance faster on the refinement path. It lets you skip many technical steps in material preparation, artifact shaping, and mana transmission; with that technique alone you can do things others can’t, saving a lot of time.”

Zhang Yu nodded slightly and thought: it’s roughly like learning true-fire processing techniques while also cultivating the Fire-Taming True Qi and commanding true fire.

But remembering the refining memories in his head, another idea rose up and he asked abruptly, “Teacher, if I refine the artifact that embodies that advanced thermal spiritual-energy technology, doesn’t that mean I’ve directly mastered the technique?”

True Lord Ci Ji chuckled. “How can you refine an artifact without mastering the relevant technology?”

Zhang Yu’s mind replied: that isn’t necessarily true.

He recalled every time he practiced refining blueprints, learning various artifact-manufacturing skills.

Especially whenever the Feathered Tome leveled up, a flood of refining experience and knowledge rose up in his mind.

That made Zhang Yu think: the twentyfold acceleration of the Taiqing Realm already makes my learning extremely fast.

And the simulated reality lab lets me conduct refining experiments repeatedly.

Plus the Feathered Tome counts only practice次数, not quality.

If I fully exploit the Feathered Tome’s power, and through repeated accelerated practice master the manufacture of various artifacts, I can reverse-engineer and deeply grasp the related technologies quickly.

If so, it might not take very long to meet the prototype requirements for military-grade refined products.

Isn’t that more reliable than entering design competitions?

Thinking that, Zhang Yu’s mind leapt; he already had a plan.

To him, each technology needed to make the military-grade artifacts in the display no longer looked like abstract tech but a series of artifact blueprints.

Master those blueprints and he’d have the manufacturing techniques.

True Lord Ci Ji’s eyes moved as he watched Zhang Yu and said, “Hmm? Looks like you’ve made a decision.”

Zhang Yu replied, “Teacher, I want to try refining a prototype of a military-grade product first — see if I can get the Class A military certificate.”

“Oh?” True Lord Ci Ji’s expression brightened and he thought silently: this path is much harder, takes longer, but you learn more and build a solid foundation — it’s the sort of slow accumulation that yields explosive growth later.

“I didn’t expect that after seeing how difficult it is you’d still choose it,” he said. “You’re willing to take a stab at it — fine. The next design competition is still a few months away. Use these months to learn as much as you can; if you find you really can’t manage, you can still switch tracks.”

Hearing True Lord Ci Ji’s support, Zhang Yu relaxed. He then asked, “Teacher, which military-grade product should I target?”

“Refining artifacts is easier than law husks, and among artifacts the Taihao Holy Law Sword Array both involves flying swords and sword arrays — you’d have too many gaps to fill.”

“The Vacuum Cataclysm Diagram involves several deep Dao arts; you’d have to take many courses and spend a fortune in cultivation.”

“The Biyue Goldcrystal Armor hasn’t even been fully solved yet — that’s too early for you.”

“After considering everything, the Tianri Huangshen is the most suitable for you.”

“Besides, the Tianri Huangshen is a puppet. If you refine it successfully it can assist your work and experiments, and the knowledge and skills involved will help you later when you refine law husks.”

With that, True Lord Ci Ji sent the schematic for the Tianri Huangshen prototype to Zhang Yu.

The Tianri Huangshen prototype wasn’t yet military-grade — at best it was enterprise-grade artifact — but if one could successfully refine it, that would indicate the refiner had the capability to make the complete Tianri Huangshen.

Zhang Yu opened the design blueprint and saw that every component listed in detail the courses, knowledge, and techniques required. Everything was laid out clearly, saving the student the aimless wandering of asking everyone for help.

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