CHAPTER 884: CHAPTER 871: THE DIVINE SACRIFICE BEGINS

The grade of Divine Soul Power!

Ye Zhen felt that his progress in artifact crafting was so rapid, and it should be related to his high-grade four-colored Innate Soul Light!

Normally, according to the records of the Earth Core Fire Commander, for Ye Zhen, a novice artifact refiner, to skillfully craft artifacts and increase the success rate to over seventy percent, it would take at least a year!

The Mystic Sky Refining Technique contains a large number of Earth Core Fire Commander’s forging notes, providing Ye Zhen with valuable experience from predecessors, which can greatly accelerate Ye Zhen’s crafting progress, but even so, it would still take half a year.

After all, in the matter of artifact crafting, even the experience of predecessors still requires personal engagement to truly be realized.

Additionally, Ye Zhen’s flame is of Heavenly Level Flame; however, this does not greatly affect Ye Zhen’s crafting progress, as the Heavenly Level Flame mainly influences the quality of materials and the speed of crafting.

For crafting artifacts, the Earth Rank flame is already sufficient. Not to mention Heavenly Level Flame, even if Ye Zhen possessed Spirit Tier Flame or flames of higher quality, it wouldn’t improve the crafting success rate in the slightest!

On the contrary, Divine Soul Power, Ye Zhen believes, is the key!

The Earth Core Fire Commander’s forging notes contained the difficult points of the inscribed formation, which, to Ye Zhen, were as simple as eating and drinking.

For instance, the Swift Wind Formation, which enhances artifact speed, requires simultaneously inscribing three formation pathways without any error in balance or thickness to succeed.

Normally, just this Swift Wind Formation would take half a month to practice; like the Earth Core Fire Commander, who practiced thousands of times to successfully inscribe it.

However, in Ye Zhen’s case, he succeeded on the second try and effortlessly!

According to the Earth Core Fire Commander, this Swift Wind Formation most tests a martial artist’s artifact refining talent. If inscribed successfully within half a month, it indicates that this martial artist has considerable talent in the path of artifact refining!

If after practicing tens of thousands of times within a month still cannot skillfully inscribe this Swift Wind Formation, then the martial artist can abandon artifact refining because his talent is truly too poor.

But even for the most top-tier artifact refining prodigy, to skillfully inscribe this Swift Wind Formation requires spending four to five days practicing thousands of times to possibly succeed.

Ye Zhen had previously come into contact with formations, but the formation inscribed during artifact refining was utterly different from the formation deployed in array formation.

Yet, Ye Zhen only failed once, thereafter succeeding effortlessly every time!

Moreover, this singular failure is his only failure in half a month of artifact crafting!

Such a success rate, even in ancient times, is considered a miracle for a novice!

Upon deep contemplation, the true difference between Ye Zhen and the Earth Core Fire Commander lies only in the four-colored Innate Soul Light.

Furthermore, regardless of the strength of the Earth Core Fire Commander’s Divine Soul Power or the proficiency of his Divine Soul Technique, he couldn’t possess four-colored Innate Soul Light because four-colored Innate Soul Light is simply not something human martial artists can have.

Ye Zhen could only condense the four-colored Innate Soul Light through the accompaniment of the Mirage Dragon Pearl and by chance.

This was Ye Zhen’s judgment!

Unfortunately, whether in Ye Zhen or the Earth Core Fire Commander’s martial arts inheritance, records on the four-colored Innate Soul Light are too scarce. Its specific wonders can only be explored by Ye Zhen himself.

On the fourteenth day of his retreat, Ye Zhen began to craft High Grade Treasure!

And this time, the success rate of crafting High Grade Treasures continued the miracle!

Ye Zhen crafted a total of one hundred High Grade Treasures, with a success rate of one hundred percent.

Not only was the success rate one hundred percent, but among the one hundred High Grade Treasures, eleven Supreme Treasure Armors emerged.

Due to necessity, among the one hundred High Grade Treasures crafted by Ye Zhen, eighty were all High Grade Treasure Armors.

Defensive treasure armors are always the most scarce.

Even among the Soul Sea Realm martial artists group in the Red Fire Subdivision, High Grade Treasure Armors are extremely scarce. As for Supreme Treasure Armor, it would make Vein Forging Realm martial artists scramble for it!

The materials needed for Ye Zhen’s artifact crafting these days were all provided from the Red Fire Subdivision’s warehouse, and the materials for crafting Low Grade Treasures were quite ordinary.

However, the materials for crafting High Grade Treasures were somewhat precious, such as the main material for the Purple Gold Treasure Armor Ye Zhen was currently crafting—Purple Copper Essence Gold—sold by pound.

A pound of Purple Copper Essence Gold is priced at around five thousand Mid-grade Spirit Crystals, and crafting one Purple Gold Treasure Armor consumes at least two pounds of Purple Copper Essence Gold.

Ye Zhen withdrew nearly a thousand pounds of Purple Copper Essence Gold from the warehouse at once, which made Deputy Altar Master Hong Jiyin a bit worried. He had discreetly advised that every artifact refiner is supported by a variety of materials, making it the most expensive and energy-consuming endeavor in the world.

Most grandmaster artifact refiners become grandmasters only with the backing of powerful sects or forces.

Before becoming grandmaster artifact refiners, it’s generally all about making losses.

The gist was to remind Ye Zhen to cautiously enter the field of artifact refining.

Ye Zhen didn’t mind, some things must be done to find out.

After crafting one hundred High Grade Treasures with a success rate of one hundred percent, Ye Zhen began experimenting with refining Spiritual Artifacts.

The refining of a Spiritual Artifact is much more complex than that of an Artifact.

When refining an Artifact, only a few formations are inscribed, such as the Firm Armor Array, Swift Wind Formation, Resilience Formation, and Shielding Formation, and this kind of refining involves the simplest arrangement of formations.

It’s different with Spiritual Artifacts, which can have more formations inscribed, and the interior is like a precise machine where each formation is interconnected, like a chain reaction.

Because of this, the power of Spiritual Artifacts is incredibly strong, but at the same time, the difficulty of refining them has increased more than tenfold!

Previously, Heart Fire Commander mentioned it takes at least a year of practice to become proficient at refining Artifacts, but Ye Zhen only took twenty-nine days, with a success rate of one hundred percent.

However, when Ye Zhen began to comprehend the method of refining Spiritual Artifacts, it took him a full thirty days just to comprehend it.

After painstakingly comprehending for forty days, Ye Zhen finally had the confidence to try refining a Spiritual Artifact.

Compared to refining an Artifact, the materials for refining Spiritual Artifacts are very rare. Ye Zhen personally searched through the warehouse of the Red Fire Subdivision and the spoils from before, only then gathering enough materials for more than ten sets to refine Low Grade Spiritual Artifacts.

The first one, the second one, exploded and was scrapped directly!

The third Spiritual Artifact did take shape, but it wasn’t a Spiritual Artifact at all; it was just a dead object. Never mind controlling and refining it with Divine Sense, you couldn’t even input Spiritual Power into it!

After days of bitter research, Ye Zhen began refining once more, and the fourth Spiritual Artifact took shape again. It could be controlled by Divine Sense but couldn’t amplify Spiritual Power.

From the fourth to the eighth Spiritual Artifact, each one took shape, but each was a failure, with this or that problem. A breakthrough occurred with the ninth one. The ninth Spiritual Artifact swept away all previous issues and was successfully refined.

Ye Zhen personally tested each capability, finding them all functional. Under the propulsion of Spiritual Power, it could be large or small, with astounding power.

But Ye Zhen didn’t remain happy for long. After the testing, he discovered an extremely awkward problem.

After merely trying to activate this ninth Spiritual Artifact a few times, half of his Divine Soul Power was consumed, with each activation consuming more than ten percent.

Everyone knows how powerful Ye Zhen’s Divine Soul Power is, further enhanced by his Four-colored Innate Soul Light.

If even Ye Zhen’s Divine Soul Power consumption was so terrifying, other martial artists would probably be unable to activate it, and activating it once might deplete their Divine Soul Power completely.

Still a failure!

Ye Zhen began searching for the cause again, quickly finding the reason for this problem from the notes left in the Mystic Sky Refining Technique by the Heart Fire Commander. The position of the inscribed Divine Communication Formation was incorrect.

After solving this problem, Ye Zhen began the tenth attempt at artifact refining!

On the seventy-eighth day of seclusion, within the silent chamber where Ye Zhen was secluded, a majestic fluctuation of power arose, and a pitch-black Sword Light flashed by, splitting the Sword Testing Stone in the corner of the chamber in two!

This Sword Testing Stone is also a product of artifact refining, filled with numerous Defensive Arrays, plus its own hardness and massive size, it can easily withstand the full strength attack of a First Stage of the Vein Forging Realm martial artist!

Yet just now, Ye Zhen’s attack level was equivalent only to that of a Fifth Stage Soul Sea Realm martial artist, relying entirely on the power of this Spirit Sword in his palm to break the stone with one blow!

Refining Spiritual Artifact—success!

Having successfully refined the first Spiritual Artifact, Ye Zhen advanced on the path of refining Spiritual Artifacts nearly at lightning speed. In the coming seven days, Ye Zhen refined seven Spiritual Artifacts, with five successes and two failures!

A success rate of over seventy percent!

Moreover, Ye Zhen estimated that as he refines more Spiritual Artifacts in the future, the success rate would only keep rising.

As far as Ye Zhen knows, many Grandmaster Artifact Refiners have a success rate of less than fifty percent in refining Spiritual Artifacts!

For instance, Qingyun Castle in the Qinglan Martial City, a refining family with hundreds of years of inheritance, produces only about ten Spiritual Artifacts a year, most of which must be sold to recoup costs.

After all, the materials for refining Spiritual Artifacts are too precious!

However, here with Ye Zhen, his production over these two months is almost equal to Qingyun Castle’s annual yield!

But Ye Zhen wasn’t surprised at all by this, as the superior technique of the Mystic Sky Refining Technique was not something Qingyun Castle could compare to.

The only thing beyond words is Ye Zhen’s progress on the path of artifact refining.

Ye Zhen originally planned to practice a few more times before attempting to refine Mid-grade Spiritual Artifacts, but Deputy Altar Master Hong Jiyin’s knocking interrupted this round of Ye Zhen’s seclusion in refining.

"City Lord, Talisman Communication from the Divine Sect states that the triennial Divine Sacrifice will commence in half a month. The Divine Sect has ordered all Branch Altar Masters to arrange defenses before returning to the Divine Sect to prepare for the triennial Divine Sacrifice!"

"The triennial Divine Sacrifice....."

Hearing this, Ye Zhen slowly set down the materials that had already been mostly refined in his hand.

This triennial Divine Sacrifice is actually the big Hexacentennial Festival of the Sun and Moon Divine Sect that occurs every sixty years. He must not miss such a good event.

However, Ye Zhen was a bit puzzled about why he hadn’t received the Talisman Communication.

Almost the moment this thought crossed Ye Zhen’s mind, a Talisman Light descended directly! (To be continued. If you like this work, please visit Qidian.com to vote for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users please read on m.qidian.com.)