After returning to the Liu Family's territory, Li Qing's time was completely occupied by two matters.
The first was cultivation. Without pills, he could only rely on cultivation to forcibly grind away at the bottleneck before him.
In truth, the bottleneck for breaking through to Early Qi Refining was not particularly difficult. It was a realm that could be worn through with enough time.
Even with the poorest aptitude, given enough time, one could naturally achieve a breakthrough.
Fortunately, Li Qing did not lack time. His remaining lifespan had now increased to one hundred and ninety years. Those long years gave him an abundance of time to slowly polish away this realm's bottleneck.
The second thing was artifact refinement.
Li Qing forged a large number of Inferior Magical Artifact prototypes for himself, all made from ordinary iron.
Hammer blow after hammer blow, Prototype Magical Artifacts of every shape and style emerged beneath his hands.
"The market demand for Inferior Magical Artifacts is too small. Even Rogue Cultivators at Early Qi Refining might not think much of them. They can only be used for practice."
"Once I become proficient in inscribing patterns, I'll begin refining the Peerless Hammer into a magical artifact as well."
Li Qing looked at the dazzling array of weapons scattered across the ground. Any one of them, if brought into the martial world of mortals, would be a peerless divine weapon capable of making a name for itself.
And so, Li Qing immersed all his attention in the two steps of spirit tempering and pattern inscription.
This process was destined to be long and tedious. Repeatedly tempering spirits and inscribing patterns required immense patience and perseverance.
Yet amid this unrelenting persistence, Li Qing's artifact-refining techniques grew increasingly skillful.
As time gradually passed, when the fifth Inferior Magical