CHAPTER 883: CHAPTER 870: LIGHTNING SPEED

"A weapon for defeating the strong with the weak, a tool for challenging levels — it’s simply wonderful!"

It was precisely this statement from the Earth Core Fire Commander that made Ye Zhen decide to comprehend the Mystic Sky Refining Technique and embark on the path of artifact refining.

Moreover, according to the Earth Core Fire Commander’s words, this subtle control affects not only spiritual power and flames but also the Divine Soul!

Only with this extremely subtle control can one cultivate some extremely cunning and vicious techniques and secret techniques!

Of course, in martial artists’ battles, there is only victory and defeat, life and death, not cunning and viciousness.

Apart from these two points, artifact refining has many other benefits.

Once you achieve something in the path of artifact refining, your status among the community of martial artists will become extraordinary, and tasks that were previously unachievable will be just a matter of saying a word.

Moreover, it can be used to acquire a large amount of extremely precious cultivation resources!

The higher your cultivation, the more resources you consume. No matter how many cultivation resources you possess, there will come a day when they are exhausted, but skills like artifact refining or alchemy can continuously provide you with a sea of cultivation resources.

For example, with one session of artifact refining, the Earth Core Fire Commander can acquire all the cultivation resources needed for nearly thirty years.

In the Late Stage, the Earth Core Fire Commander claimed to only refine artifacts once every ten years, and he put this opportunity to refine artifacts up for auction, fetching astronomical prices each time!

The resources he needed for cultivation, excluding the output of his territory, were fully covered just by the artifact refining alone!

Moreover, with many treasures he created, he was able to trade them for many extremely valuable Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, or even pills!

For cultivation at the level of the Earth Core Fire Commander, many extremely rare treasures can no longer be bought with currency; more often, the transactions are bartered!

Two-tenths of the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures left by the Earth Core Fire Commander in the Red Moon Soul Ring were bartered with treasures he refined himself!

In addition, the most appealing point for Ye Zhen is the modification of spiritual artifacts!

Currently, for most martial artists, spiritual artifacts are incredibly precious; to be fortunate enough to obtain one or two spiritual artifacts is already considered great luck for a martial artist.

As for the capabilities of spiritual artifacts, and whether they are compatible with you, those are not even considered!

Just having a spiritual artifact is good enough, let alone consider those aspects?

In such circumstances, martial artists often obtain powerful spiritual artifacts but cannot unleash their full power. Alternatively, they can bring out the full power, but the artifact’s power is inadequate, failing to meet expectations.

These issues manifest not just on others, but also on Ye Zhen himself!

Take the Low Grade Spirit Artifact Thousand Vine, for example; Ye Zhen can currently unleash less than eighty percent of its power.

To unleash Thousand Vine’s full power, it needs to be driven by Green Wood Spiritual Power, but unfortunately, the spiritual power in Ye Zhen’s body is mainly Purple Jade Spirit Power, which cannot fully unleash its power.

However, the Mystic Sky Refining Technique can change this situation. By refining Thousand Vine again and adding a Five Elements Spiritual Power Conversion Formation, the issue can be perfectly resolved, allowing Ye Zhen to unleash Thousand Vine’s full power.

Among the few spiritual artifacts Ye Zhen currently possesses, the Low Grade Spirit Artifact Divine Great Momentum Hammer is extremely handy due to Ye Zhen’s ability to control Earth Spiritual Power.

But the problem is that the attack style of the Divine Great Momentum Hammer is single and its power is too weak.

As a result, Ye Zhen does not often use it, which Ye Zhen finds quite regrettable!

Under normal circumstances, as Ye Zhen’s cultivation continues to improve, he would have to choose to either abandon or sell the Divine Great Momentum Hammer. As for having some grandmaster artifact refiners modify and refine it, the cost would be higher than buying a new spiritual artifact.

But if Ye Zhen cultivates the Mystic Sky Refining Technique himself, it would be a different story. He could personally refine the Divine Great Momentum Hammer again, and Ye Zhen estimates that with just a few formations and materials, he could upgrade the Divine Great Momentum Hammer to a Mid-grade Spirit Artifact!

After all, the Mystic Sky Refining Technique passed down by the Earth Core Fire Commander is one of the most exquisite artifact refining techniques from Ancient Times.

According to the Earth Core Fire Commander, his achievements and status in artifact refining, to some extent, surpassed those in Martial Arts.

However, the benefits of the Mystic Sky Refining Technique mentioned above are not something one can obtain just by comprehending and cultivating the technique.

Ye Zhen needs to continuously engage in artifact refining, gradually accumulating over time, to reap these astonishing benefits!

Nevertheless, according to the records of the Mystic Sky Refining Technique, Ye Zhen might not take too long to begin modifying and refining his own spiritual artifacts.

Because, in the Mystic Sky Refining Technique, spiritual artifacts aren’t considered very high-grade items!

According to the Mystic Sky Refining Technique, a martial artist’s artifact refining ability is related to three important factors besides experience!

The three key factors are the Artifact Refining Technique, Fire, and Divine Soul Power!

The importance of the Artifact Refining Technique is self-evident. The Mystic Sky Refining Technique, even in Ancient Times, was one of the top Artifact Refining Techniques, extremely precious, let alone now.

Next is Fire. The grade of fire is very important. Different grades of fire have varying speeds in handling Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and differing capabilities in purifying the impurities within.

In Ancient Times, an Artifact Refiner possessing only Heavenly Level Flames was quite ordinary. However, for a beginner, this starting point was already high enough.

Take Heart Fire Commander, for instance. When he first started learning Artifact Refining, he only had Earth Level Flame!

Finally, there’s Divine Soul Power. Divine Soul Power determines a Martial Artist’s control when inscribing Stacked Formations.

The stronger the Divine Soul Power, the more precise and numerous the inscribed formations, and Divine Soul Power has a comprehensive impact on Artifact Refining. It is involved in every step of Artifact Refining, including controlling the fire.

Thus, Artifact Refining greatly affects Divine Soul Power!

The Mystic Sky Refining Technique records that beginners can attempt to refine Artifacts: Low Grade Treasure, Mid-grade Treasure, High Grade Treasure. Once capable of casually refining High Grade Treasure, one can attempt refining Spiritual Artifacts.

If one can proficiently refine Low Grade Spirit Artifact and Mid-grade Spirit Artifact, they can then try to modify and repair some Spiritual Artifacts.

With the proficiency of the Mystic Sky Refining Technique, having at least an Earth Level Flame for refining, substantial Divine Soul Power, and abundant Artifact Refining Materials, you can basically refine High Grade Treasure at will within a year.

However, the occurrence of extremely rare Supreme Treasure Artifact is beyond human control, mostly reliant on luck or even the quality of the refining materials.

If the Artifact Refiner has good perception, spending three to five years can allow them to casually refine ordinary Spiritual Artifacts. Once able to freely refine Spiritual Artifacts, it indicates that the Martial Artist has fully mastered the basics.

The remaining path of Artifact Refining involves gaining experience, using various Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures to increase success rate and quality.

Moreover, the quality of Fire and the strength of Divine Soul Power significantly impact the success rate and quality of treasure refining!

Compared to the current situation where an Artifact Refining Grandmaster might spend tens of years cultivating and consume massive refining materials, the time consumption recorded in the Mystic Sky Refining Technique is exceedingly low.

Yet, even so, Ye Zhen’s progress on the path of Artifact Refining surpasses the records in the Mystic Sky Refining Technique!

According to the experience left by Heart Fire Commander, if you are successful in six or seven out of ten attempts to refine Low Grade Treasure, you can try refining Mid-grade Treasure.

Under normal circumstances, as long as the Martial Artist’s talent in Artifact Refining isn’t too poor, spending about a month should enable them to refine Mid-grade Treasure!

But Ye Zhen achieved this using only ten days!

Moreover, during these ten days, Ye Zhen spent eight days diligently studying the various refining techniques recorded in the Mystic Sky Refining Technique, the formations that need to be inscribed while refining, and the characteristics of various Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. The actual time spent on Artifact Refining was only two days!

On the ninth day, when Ye Zhen first attempted Artifact Refining, he successfully created a Low Grade Treasure Sword on the first try! The second attempt at crafting a Low Grade Treasure Armor resulted in one failure!

After careful reflection, on the third attempt, Ye Zhen successfully crafted a Low Grade Treasure Armor. In the subsequent two-day refining period, Ye Zhen encountered no failures in creating Low Grade Treasure!

Within those two days, Ye Zhen crafted six Low Grade Treasure and nine Low Grade Treasure Armors in one go, failing only once; the rest were all successes.

Moreover, the quality kept improving. When refining the last Low Grade Treasure Armor, its quality had already infinitely approached Mid-grade Treasure Armor.

If slightly better materials were used, it would definitely have been possible to refine a Mid-grade Treasure Armor.

On the eleventh day of seclusion again, Ye Zhen began to try refining Mid-grade Treasure!

This time, it felt even easier than crafting Low Grade Treasure, mainly because Ye Zhen had already mastered the basics. Within four days, he refined twenty Mid-grade Treasure Armors—half weapons and half armor—without a single failure, all were successful!

His speed was six or seven times faster than what Heart Fire Commander had described!

Ye Zhen carefully considered the reasons and realized it wasn’t because he had strong talent for Artifact Refining, but because his starting point in refining was exceptionally high, extremely high!

Artifact Refining Techniques of profound mastery from Ancient Times, Heavenly Level Refining Fire!

Ye Zhen could confidently assert that the flames used by all Artifact Refining Masters within the True Spirit Domain were not of Heavenly Level quality, mostly Earth Level Flames, with a minority using Human Level Flame!

Besides these, it related to the immense refining experience inherited from Heart Fire Commander!

The Mystic Sky Refining Technique records not only the technique itself, but also the lifetime’s worth of refining experience and various tips from Heart Fire Commander.

Ye Zhen believes the refining experience of Heart Fire Commander’s lifetime is even more valuable compared to the Mystic Sky Refining Technique!

Apart from all this, Ye Zhen also vaguely harbors a conjecture that his rapid progress in refining is linked to another extremely important factor! (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, feel free to go to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast recommendation votes, monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com for reading.)