The familiar examination room, two examiners, a desk, a cauldron, and three Magic Treasures.
Sitting down steadily, Qian Duoduo opened the Magic Treasure in the middle—the artisan artifact Spring Breeze Yin-Yang Scissors.
The Spring Breeze Yin-Yang Scissors is a disposable assassination Magic Treasure that emphasizes shaping according to the environment and automatic activation. This Magic Treasure can be a blade of grass, a section of dead branch, or a stone. Refining it into shape is not the most difficult part; the most difficult part is integrating it with the object it attaches to and launching it at the most unexpected moment.
What Qian Duoduo was going to refine this time was a section of the Spring Breeze Yin-Yang Scissors transformed into a tree branch.
Refining, reduce, embedding… A Magic Treasure about a foot long, as thick as a chopstick, with a hollowed-out center at the front concealing a sharp barb, slowly took shape. A compressed ball of Spiritual Qi blocked the mechanism opening, keeping the Spiritual Qi-filled barb in a ready-to-fire state. This barb was the stinger from a Spiritual Bee’s tail.
Next was the concealment stage. The examiner brought in a Spiritual Locust tree about ten feet tall. The Spiritual Locust tree is a common Spiritual Tree. If the Spring Breeze Yin-Yang Scissors were hidden within it, it would not attract any attention.
Qian Duoduo used Spiritual Qi to wrap a living branch, quickly split it open, removed the tree heart of the same size as the Magic Treasure, and then buried the Magic Treasure inside the branch. He activated Spiritual Qi to help the branch regain vitality, especially to prevent the leaves from drying out. He also couldn't add too much Spiritual Qi, otherwise, if this section of the branch grew too strong, it would also arouse suspicion and expose the Magic Treasure inside.
As early as before he cut the branch, he had communicated with the Spiritual Locust tree, removing its resistance to the implanted Magic Treasure.
After burying the Spring Breeze Yin-Yang Scissors, there was no Spiritual Qi fluctuation from the Spiritual Locust tree.
Then came the final firing stage. This would determine the success or failure of the refining and the grade of the artifact.
Opening the window of the examination room, a gust of wind blew in. The Spiritual Locust tree swayed with the wind, but the implanted Spring Breeze Yin-Yang Scissors remained still.
“Fire,” an examiner commanded.
Qian Duoduo flicked his finger, and a stream of Spiritual Qi shot into the branch.
A grey light suddenly swept out from the Spiritual Locust tree, shooting a small, deep hole into the examination room’s floor.
The two examiners exchanged a glance, nodded, and said, “Second Grade passed.”
One of them measured the hole, “Three inches, Senior Grade.”
Another leap in rank made Wang Shuhuo stare at Qian Duoduo’s panel for a long time. Leaping a rank when testing for a First Grade Artifact Refiner was not too difficult. But leaping two small ranks when testing for Second Grade was very difficult. What he couldn't understand was, how good was the talent of this small Refining Spirit Sect’s town master?
Refining artisan artifacts not only required the Artifact Refiner’s talent and skill but also corresponding cultivation. Generally speaking, a Second Grade Artifact Refiner’s cultivation needed to be at Condensing Qi Stage Level Seven or above. Qian Duoduo easily achieved this, which indicated that his cultivation was much more profound than others at the same level.
Stabilizing his surprised emotions, he explained to Qian Duoduo, “A depth of three inches means you can penetrate the defense of a Ninth Level of Qi Condensation Cultivator. When your cultivation advances to Foundation Establishment, the power of the Spring Breeze Yin-Yang Scissors can also increase accordingly. Do you want to try for Third Grade next?”
Qian Duoduo knew he had been watching from the side, but he couldn't see anything. These days, although he hadn’t stopped Artifact Refining, he no longer imitated any of Liu Boli’s movements; instead, he incorporated many of his own methods. He didn't think about professionalism; as long as it was refined and produced a good grade, that was enough.
“The Second Grade reward—” Qian Duoduo spread his hands. As the town master of the sect's store, he must always remember the merchant’s duty.
A merchant's duty is to speak with a three-point profit and never return empty-handed.
Taking the Storage Pouch handed over by the examiner, Qian Duoduo swept his Spiritual Awareness over it, and his heart was filled with joy. It contained a token recording Second Grade Artifact Refiner membership, a robe embroidered with two flames, and a book titled “Hundred Item Recipes.”
This book alone, which records one hundred artisan artifacts, is worth tens of millions of gold coins.
“Third Grade exam.” Qian Duoduo took a deep breath and sat down again. The Black Velvet Soft Purple Artemisia was his goal for this examination; he had to pass Third Grade.
Opening the Magic Treasure, this time it was for refining the Dan artifact Cold Flame Pure Snow Spear.
The Cold Flame Pure Snow Spear is an offensive weapon with purification capabilities, beloved by spear Cultivators. The spear body itself is unique, made from the entire spine of a Cold Flame Snake. The Cold Flame Snake is a Senior Grade battle beast; ten Golden Tigers couldn't defeat it.
The cauldron in front of Qian Duoduo had been replaced with a new one. Although its size was still about a foot wide, its interior had spatial capabilities. The Cold Flame Snake bone, over ten feet long, was placed inside and shrunk to less than a foot.
Lighting the furnace fire, Qian Duoduo recalled the description of the Cold Flame Snake in the Spiritual Beast Scroll: Born in the extreme southern land of ice and snow, it can breathe fire yet freeze ice. Its bones have one hundred and eight sections, extremely tough. Its skin is thick and tough, shedding once every three years.
The outside of the Cold Flame Pure Snow Spear's shaft is refined from an entire snakeskin. Between the snake bone and the snakeskin, there are vine threads made from thousand-year-old colorful vines. All three must be fused with Tung King oil paste.
The process is not only cumbersome, but its difficulty far exceeds that of Mortal Weapon and artisan artifact.
The spine, which varies in thickness, must be refined into a spear shaft about ten feet long and uniform in thickness.
For the hard bone sections, fierce fire must be used. If not fierce, it cannot be reduced from large to small. For the joints, gentle fire must be used. Gentle fire can maintain the toughness of the tendons. The most difficult part, of course, is refining the snake head into a spearhead.
Just the process of refining the spine alone can eliminate most of the examinees.
Although Qian Duoduo’s cultivation was only Qi Condensation Level Five, this did not stump him. After his Spiritual Vein turned plum green, his compressed Spiritual Qi was no worse than that of a Condensing Qi Stage Level Eight. The flames in the cauldron were precisely divided by him into dozens of sections, either high-temperature blue flames or low-temperature pink flames. The Cold Flame Snake bone slowly deformed under the scorching of the furnace fire, and a silver spear gradually took shape.
The spearhead was sharp, the spear body smooth, and the spear tail powerful, all meeting the Magic Treasure’s requirements.
Separating a wisp of Spiritual Qi to nourish the silver spear, Qian Duoduo began to refine the thousand-year-old colorful vine, turning it into hundreds of feet of vine threads as fine as hair.
He purified the Tung King tree's oil paste three times. The oil paste was already as thick as Spiritual Honey, containing not a single speck of dust.
Layer by layer, the vine threads wrapped around the spear body. After each layer was wrapped, Qian Duoduo brushed on a layer of oil paste. The oil paste slowly permeated the vine threads, continuously strengthening the spear body while making it more resilient.
After wrapping five layers of vine threads, he let out a long breath.
The Cold Flame Pure Snow Spear was mostly complete, with only the final process remaining: tanning the Cold Flame Snake’s snakeskin.
After first baking out most of the oil from the snakeskin, Qian Duoduo began to tan the snakeskin. This required the leaves of the Tung King tree. Only after tanning, when the snakeskin would not become brittle when wet, soft when heated, rotten when damp, or hard when cold, would it be the perfect outer casing for the Cold Flame Pure Snow Spear’s shaft.
Tanning the rock-hard Cold Flame Snake skin into silk-like finished leather tested both patience and Spiritual Power.
As the snakeskin transformed into finished leather, cut into finger-thick strips and wrapped around the spear body, the Cold Flame Pure Snow Spear seemed to come alive, trembling slightly as if endowed with life.
This was perhaps the resonance between the same spine and the same snakeskin. And the vine threads were the flesh, the Tung King oil paste the blood.
Qian Duoduo nurtured the Cold Flame Pure Snow Spear in the cauldron for an hour, allowing the spear's bone, flesh, and blood to fuse better.
When the spear was plunged into the ice water outside the cauldron, the Cold Flame Pure Snow Spear slowly tightened, and the snakeskin became even harder than before.
A wave of Spiritual Qi pulsed from the spear tip to the spear tail, like a straight needle-like line. The spear was complete!
One examiner took out a protective shield and said to Qian Duoduo, “This is a low-grade Dan artifact. Please test the spear.”
Raising the spear, Qian Duoduo poured Spiritual Qi into it. The spear was like a bottomless black hole, taking a long time to fill. Dan artifacts are usually the Magical Artifacts of Golden Core cultivators, indeed not something a Qi Condensation Cultivator like him could use.
Qian Duoduo's current Spiritual Qi could at most allow him to thrust the spear once. In a real fight, no one would give you time to pour Spiritual Qi. If he hadn't cultivated the Ever-Rich and Noble Art, his Spiritual Qi wouldn't even be enough for one thrust.
“Pfft!” The spear struck, and the shield shattered. Qian Duoduo’s Spiritual Qi was mostly depleted, and he was so exhausted that he dropped the spear to the ground.
“Senior Dan Artifact!” Wang Shuhuo’s eyes lit up. “Are you interested in testing for Fourth Grade?” The two examiners in the examination room looked at Qian Duoduo as if he were a monster.
To leap two small ranks even when testing for Third Grade, was he even human?