Chapter 328: Genuine Counterfeit Skill!
Translator: Subudai11 Editor: Chrissy
"I think you’re just… indulging in fantasy!"
After leaving the prop shop, Aya was still in shock.
"How could this approach work? You’re blatantly trying to fake that thing! It will be recognized at a glance!"
"Recognized at a glance?" While holding the pile of materials, Wang Lu looked back at Aya and disdainfully said, "If this is in the past, it might be. But now it has already been a very long time that I’m afraid even if his mother came back to life, he might not recognize her. So how could he possibly recognize the genuine from the fake wine cup?"
"But..."
"But do you have a better idea? Don’t forget we’re not in the King’s Treasure House, so Holy Light Religion people are very likely to know our whereabouts… Fortunately, this is located on the edge of the continent, and the Holy Light Religion doesn’t have much power here. Otherwise, we would’ve been surrounded, rounded up, and raped by a large number of high order professions."
"Yes, we’re basically an open target right now…" Aya muttered to herself.
"Don’t even think about it." In a glance, Wang Lu has seen through Aya’s idea. "So what if you’re in someplace? This is not Dragon City, so lay off your Knight King identity for a second. Your countrymen are not as vulnerable as you think."
While talking, the group came to a luxurious inn in the city. Aya then went to the counter and booked a room. When they came to the room, they closed the door, but along the way, they received all kinds of stares from the other patrons.
"Why do I feel the eyes of the people outside are strange?" Liu Li somewhat puzzledly asked, "What have we done wrong?"
While putting down the box, Wang Lu said, "A man led a bunch of women into a room, what do you think people would think about us? But, now it’s not the time to think about it. Liu Li, Little Bai, Aya, I need your help later. This wine cup, no matter what, was personally built by that time’s jewelry master, so the quality is absolutely superior. Therefore, if I fake it, perhaps the thousands of years of historical vicissitudes couldn’t be reproduced, but in terms of quality, the difference should not be too obvious."
Aya somewhat hesitated. "Have you really studied how to copy things?"
"Do you think the reputation of the Spirit Sword best student is as unworthy as your Misty Peak cafeteria chef title?"
"I…"
"Tool refining is an important part of the path of immortal cultivation, and in accordance with my study plan, once I reached Jindan Stage, I have to fully start my journey on tool refining. And before that, I naturally have to do enough preparation. Copying things is exactly the necessary preparation for that tool refining. Later in the future, when I start the tool refining, I must start with copying things first."
While speaking, Wang Lu sorted and prepared the materials, then he took out a wisp of floating white flame from the mustard seed bag.
"Mm, after all, this wine cup is a product of an ordinary person, so its biggest bright spot is its modeling creativity, and not on any special effect. Therefore, using the low-grade spirit fire, mysterious yin fire, should be more than enough."
Then, Wang Lu fixed the flame in mid-air and burned the gold ingot on that fire. When that highest quality blessed gold ingot came into contact with that flame, it quickly melted. Wang Lu, using his invisible magical power, kept it airborne, which caused it to quickly melt into a ball of golden liquid metal. Driven by force, it rapidly rotated.
After that, using a little bit of magical power, Wang Lu began to work on this ball of golden liquid metal. Aya, Liu Li, and Bai Shixuan attentively looked from the side. They saw as if Wang Lu was plucking a cocoon, peeling off a trace of gold thread from that golden sphere. Then the peeling became faster. Along with the golden sphere rotation, the part that was peeled off became more and more, while the other part gradually took form the shape of a wine cup...
Aya felt it was incredulous. "You’re basically just doing pottery!"
Wang Lu said, "It doesn’t matter, the principle is the same."
"It’s totally different! A normal wine cup is forged!"
"It doesn’t matter. In any case, as long as the quality of the finished product is the same."
"How could it be the same?"
"Damn it, what’s the difference? Don’t tell me when you give birth to a baby, a different position will result in a different quality of the baby?"
"You’re just using sophistry!"
However, regardless of whether it was his sophistry or eloquence, Wang Lu was really serious in his own way of making the wine cup. During this period, Liu Li, Bai Shixuan, and even Aya also gave their contribution in decorating the wine cup. More than ten thousand years ago, the technique of that jewelry master of the golden kingdom was indeed amazing. Purely on the professional skill alone, the amateur Wang Lu was naturally far less than him. However, he made up the difference using his cultivator skill, creating a fake that resembled the model.
After a day and a night, when together, Bai Shixuan and Liu Li put the last piece of multicolored stone on the exterior of the wine cup. The whole cup was filled with stunning colors, and a blessing of the light fell from the sky and into the wine cup.
At this moment, even Aya was shocked. "Unbelievable… you actually did it!"
In terms of counterfeiting the wine cup, the biggest technical difficulty was, in fact, not in the making of the wine cup itself, but the attachment of the blessed aura.This imitation was quite a surprise to Aya, because it didn’t seem that any magic or trick was used in attaching the blessed aura, and the combination between the blessed aura and the wine cup itself was very natural!
Now, it seemed like the blessed aura didn’t come from external force, but naturally generated through the wine cup’s unique structure. And the reason why the Golden King took a liking to that wine cup was probably that of this inherent nature. Unexpectedly, Wang Lu was able to recreate this effect!
"The creativity belongs to other people, and I’m just doing the work of an artisan. And this is only possible through the means of a cultivator; becoming a cultivator is truly not in vain… Let’s see if this can get us through the pass."
Wang Lu said and, as he held the wine cup appreciatively in his hand, he used his other hand to directly crush the stone crystal, which activated the transmission spell.
Aya said in surprised, "Wait a minute, this is too hasty!"
However, the next moment, the several of them have already appeared on that floating island, in front of that thick stone gate.
Wang Lu directly put the wine cup in front of that stone gate. "We’ve found it. You can check it now."
There was only silence.
After a long time, that stone gate rippled with water-like waves, which gradually turned into a face.
"You’re… back?" The voice of the stone gate was somewhat vague and astonishing. "How could it be so quick?"
Then, when the attention of the stone gate fell on the wine cup on the ground, the entire floating island suddenly trembled.
"T-This is it!" The stone gate rumbled. Countless of gravels fell from each crevice, and two streams of gravel fell from the face-shaped water-like surface of the stone gate. "I-I finally see it! The king’s goblet, this is the king’s…"
The voice from the stone gate suddenly stopped, and the island tremor came to an abrupt halt. A moment later, a more intense tremble burst out. The face of the stone gate twisted as it emitted an angry roar. "You’re playing with me!"
That valiant clamor assaulted their senses like it was an essence. Wang Lu thus propped up his Non-Phase Sword defense and isolated it outside. However, directly impacted by that noise, several miles radius gap immediately appeared on the boundless clouds behind them.
"If you have something to say, just say it, what are you shouting at?"
The stone gate held up the wine cup with an invisible force and then spoke one word at a time, "Is this what you called finding it? How dare you try to cheat me with a fake, do you think I’m an idiot?"
Behind Wang Lu, Aya also opened up the primordial spirit transmission to talk to him, "Wang Lu, I told you this is too hasty. Even if this is indistinguishable from the genuine, but… the real wine cup has experienced more than ten thousand years of history, so how could you give him a brand new thing?"
Keeping his gaze straight at the stone door, Wang Lu ignored Aya’s complain and said, "This is the real thing. I did not fake it."
The stone gate angrily said, "This wine cup has been lost in the world of mortals for more than ten thousand years, experiencing countless history, so how could it be possibly new as ever?"
Wang Lu rhetorically lightly asked, "How could it not be as new as ever? Do you know everything that it has gone through all these years?"
The stone gate was immediately silent. He has been guarding here for more than ten thousand years as a punishment from the Golden King, how could he possibly know what happened in the world of mortals?
However, it would be a wishful thinking if the other side wanted to get away with just that!
"Do you think I can be easily fooled? The last person who came to the trial has given a quite reliable evidence. He sent out hundreds of millions of people to gather clues and proved that the King’s Wine Cup has been passed through hundreds of people’s hands and experienced several major wars. There is a serious damage to the wine cup. At least, there should have been a deep crack between the red and gold precious stones. It can’t be as flawless as this one!"
Wang Lu let out an ‘oh’ sound but thought otherwise. "And then?"
The stone gate angrily said, "You want to say that person’s evidence is false, that he lied to me, right? Unfortunately, you got the wrong idea. He said that each trail has plenty of historical proof, unlike you who only has empty words, without any proof at all!"
Wang Lu sneered. "Empty words? Ridiculous. No matter how many historical materials were provided by that person as clues, they’re all just circumstantial evidence, but what I have is the most genuine and most favorable evidence! Even if you think with your knee, you know who is weightier in terms of proof between me and that person!"
The stone gate was not good at debating, so after his argument was perfectly countered by Wang Lu, he angrily said, "Then how would you explain the crack thing?"
"The crack thing happened at least thousands of years ago right?" Wang Lu said, "According to you, that person’s clue is not complete, no one knows the final whereabouts of this wine cup."
"Yes. But the clues that he provided covered the whole eight thousand years of history. Only the last two thousand years that were blank, so it’s value is really high…"
Wang Lu interrupted, "In other words, no one knows what happened to the wine cup in the last two thousand years. Two thousand years is not short enough for countless of dynasties to rise and fall. During which, any change is possible, so how can you conclude that the crack on this cup will remain forever and cannot be repaired ever?"
The stone gate gawked. "This…"
"In fact, don’t you wonder how we found the wine cup so soon? Let me tell you, we found this wine cup on the highland of thorny ice."
"Highland of thorny ice?" The stone gate said in surprise, "That’s impossible. The wine cup has been taken away from the highland of thorny ice as early as ten thousand years ago!"
"Yes, but it eventually came back again. Guess who did it?"
"... Who?"
"The cup itself." Wang Lu pointed at the wine cup. "It was a thousand years ago, due to chance coincidence, it condensed out a spirit, and thus promoted to a spiritual treasure."
"Spiritual… treasure?" The stone gate was shocked and softly whispered. Although there were many differences between Western Continent and Nine Regions, there were also many similarities. Magical treasure with spirit was not uncommon in Western Continent.
"That’s right. Although it’s only a wine cup, it was created by a master and obtained the providence of Golden King, so it’s not that unusual that after thousands of years of suffering, it finally condensed out a spirit. If you look carefully, you should be able to find the spirit afterglow on that wine cup."
The stone gate hurriedly observed the wine cup carefully. A moment later, he slowly said, "Indeed, there really is the spirit afterglow."
At this time, behind Wang Lu, Aya, who has been listening to his conversation all these time, said, "Will this work? That so-called spirit afterglow is clearly the remnant of mysterious yin fire!"
Seeing that the stone gate has fallen into his ruse, Wang Lu inwardly laughed. However, his face turned even more serious.
"The key to the promotion of magical treasure is the equivalent of human practice of casting his mortal body in immortal cultivation. Its previous thousands of years of vicissitudes have been wiped out, becoming as new as ever. The reason why this wine cup is so eye-catching is that it has the coming back from the dead experience."
The stone gate was silent for a long time and then asked, "Well, where is the spirit now?"
Wang Lu coldly said, "What do you think? Since it only has its afterglow, then the spirit has certainly died! The spirit of the wine cup was born a thousand years ago. In order to be able to return to its master’s side, it even disregarded its own existence and journeyed back to the highland of thorny ice, on the spot where you lost it. It endured wind and snow in that cursed plateau, silently waiting for you to send people to bring it back, because it thought that if it went back to its original spot, you will be more likely to find it! Unfortunately, the previous fool did not want to search on the plateau seriously. As soon as he heard that it was taken away from the plateau, he rushed away from that dead land, and then ran to other parts of the continent to trace its history! But he never thought about the suffering endured by the wine cup!"
"T-This…"
"We were lucky that we didn’t go far on the plateau to see it. In fact, it should be said that it actively found us. At that time, its life was almost depleted, but it felt that someone had moved from the floating island to the plateau, so it gathered its strength to move in front of me. When I picked it up, it was almost too late to say a few words before it completely died!"
"…"
Wang Lu’s cold voice was like thunder and lightning that bombarded the thinking of the stone gate.
"The funny thing is, in its last words, it didn’t talk about the pain and suffering during its long wait. Instead, it used all its remaining strength to explain its unusual form, that by lucky coincidence, its spirit was born and its body restored to its original condition. It was because it feared that people would suspect its authenticity! Now, if you have the ability, tell me again if this wine cup is a fake, a worthless counterfeit junk!"
Facing the quick words and stern countenance of Wang Lu, the stone gate could no longer hold on. Tears of gravel began to roll down.
"I, I am really stupid."
While crying, the stone gate slowly opened itself, revealing the ladder leading to the next pass.