Miraculous Forger from the Collapse

"Ah, it was only a projection? I thought you'd rather come to another world in person, Elysia." Chen Li greeted the Elysia before him.

"I was taking a bath," Elysia said with slight resentment.

"Uh..."

"Just kidding. I was actually still on my way back to Moth Chasing Flame just now. After all, not much time has passed since you left." A mischievous smile appeared on Elysia's face as she skipped over to Chen Li and studied his embarrassed expression.

So Elysia had not been in a position to answer the summoning in person.

"..."

"Embarrassed? All right, all right, let's not talk about that. Is this your Main World? It looks so... um, well landscaped." Elysia looked at the scenery around them, hesitated, and finally squeezed out that description.

According to Kikyo, the place where she had summoned Chen Li was a forest not too far from the village.

Yet all Elysia saw was an expanse of lush green, without the slightest trace of modern civilization.

Elysia had assumed that Chen Li's world was a modern society with a level of civilization equal to her own.

"It isn't. This is another world. I'd only been home for a short while when I received another commission, so I came to help. This is a world where yokai and humans coexist, and its civilization is currently at an ancient stage," Chen Li explained.

"Mm, it sounds like... the humans here have a hard life," Elysia said, sharply picking up on that from Chen Li's introduction.

"If this era continues forward, it will still eventually reach modern society. The demons and monsters will retreat, and humanity will take center stage. But at this point in time, life really isn't easy for them. But I'm here now." Chen Li put his hands on his hips.

"Oh? What are you going to do? Is there anything I can help with?" Elysia's eyes lit up.

Elysia had always been very interested in the goal of helping humanity.

"Based on my conversation with the client, I'm going to forge the peerless treasure in this world—supposedly capable of granting wishes, and the reason yokai keep fighting over it—into a divine bow that can slay demons and banish evil."

"That sounds impressive, but it doesn't seem like it can solve the root problem."

"You don't understand artifacts," Chen Li said.

"Then I'll look forward to the finished product. So why did you call me here?" Elysia asked.

"To protect me, of course, Ms. Elysia!"

"Artifacts are all well and good, but don't neglect your own training." Chen Li's answer was so straightforward that Elysia could not help laughing. She then reached out and vigorously ruffled his hair.

"I know. I already have two Knight's Trainings. Once I finish forging this artifact, I'll go train. For close combat, Jingliu and Argenti are both skilled at it, and the Knight's Gift on his side might drop something good. As for ranged combat... I've already discussed it with the client. After forging the artifact, she'll lend it to me for a while first. And for archery instruction, I'll be relying on you, Teacher Elysia."

"Being a teacher?" Elysia was instantly intrigued.

"Yeah. I should be back at Moth Chasing Flame by the day after tomorrow at the latest," Chen Li said.

The advantage of Knight's Training was that time flowed vastly differently in the training space and the real world.

So one day should be enough to complete two trainings.

"I understand. Once we return to Moth Chasing Flame, I'll prepare training materials. But before that... is that a yokai?" Elysia curiously looked into the distance.

"!!!" Chen Li's eyes widened when he saw the several-meter-tall Minotaur beside them.

"..." To be honest, Chen Li felt rather uncomfortable looking at the densely packed yokai surrounding him.

Chen Li had not expected that simply having Kikyo release the news that the Shard of the Four Souls was about to be destroyed would gather more than a hundred yokai in half a day in this era of poor communication, solely through word of mouth among yokai.

What was more, some of those yokai were composed of entire groups.

His trypophobia was acting up.

At this moment, Chen Li had already summoned the Miracle Barrier, and the Forging Table before him was ready to be lit.

In Chen Li's hand, the Shard of the Four Souls gave off a brilliant radiance.

The Shard of the Four Souls actually had two forms. In the hands of a pure and kind person, it became the purifying Naobi. If it fell into the hands of an evil person with an impure heart, it would be corrupted; that form was known as Magatsuhi.

Only after seeing that the Shard of the Four Souls had not turned into Magatsuhi in Chen Li's hand did Kikyo finally set her mind at ease and entrust it to him.

"Hey, kid, hurry up and throw out the Shard of the Four Souls, and we might spare your life," a Minotaur shouted at Chen Li.

"Idiot. Come and get it if you've got the guts." Chen Li raised his middle finger at him.

"..."

Chen Li was extremely arrogant, yet there was nothing they could do about it.

It was not as if no one had tried attacking the barrier surrounding Chen Li, but even when they joined forces, they could not achieve anything.

Moreover, the leader who had attacked first was already dead beneath the arrows of Kikyo and that pink-haired girl.

"If you don't dare come over, then shut up and watch how I destroy the Shard of the Four Souls." Under the longing and furious gazes of countless yokai, Chen Li tossed the Shard of the Four Souls in his hand into the Forging Table.

Pale blue flames burned quietly. Before everyone's eyes, the Shard of the Four Souls gradually decayed until Chen Li reached into the fire with his bare hand, took it out, and crushed it in one squeeze.

The moment Kikyo, standing on high ground, saw the shell of the Shard of the Four Souls crushed, she finally relaxed.

Even if the artifact forging failed from here on, Kikyo would have nothing to complain about.

Chen Li took out a massive ejector seat. The instant it touched the Miracle Fire, it shrank at once.

As the Magic Tracking Compass was added, more affixes appeared one after another...

Soul, soul extraction, purification, demon exorcism, merit, fusion, faith, idealism, demons, shrine maiden, karma, beguilement, purity, resurrection, dragon, ghost, immortality, fate, omnipotence, Spirit Energy, reincarnation, ejection, bloodiness, slaughter, sin, survival, tracking, magic...

The moment he had obtained it, the attributes on the Shard of the Four Souls had opened Chen Li's eyes.

As expected of a treasure that bore the fate of an entire world—even an attribute like omnipotence was present.

However, the attributes' brightness was not particularly high.

With great care, Chen Li extracted the shrine maiden attribute from the flames and cast it beyond the Miracle Barrier, letting it disperse between heaven and earth.

This attribute represented the shrine maiden named Midori.

In a world where reincarnation was no illusion, although the shrine maiden attribute was indeed useful, Chen Li still chose to return it to the cycle of reincarnation.

The demon attribute, however, was not so fortunate.

If it proved useless in this forging session, what awaited it would be the recycling bin of the Forging Table, a place filled with chaos and disorder.

When the demons outside the Miracle Barrier saw that the Shard of the Four Souls had truly been completely dismantled, they were devastated. Yet none of them left.

First, they hated the person who had destroyed the Shard of the Four Souls. Second, they were curious about what Chen Li had made from it.

Perhaps they might be able to pick up some scraps.

Kikyo, standing high above, sensed something and looked up into the sky. She saw a shrine maiden with dignified features and a gentle smile fading away between heaven and earth.

"What a lovely girl. She looked like a gentle person too."

Kikyo looked in surprise at the girl beside her who had spoken.

"What is it?" Elysia withdrew her gaze from the sky and tilted her head.

"No, it's nothing."

Ignoring the Miracle Card that had popped up the instant the Shard of the Four Souls was destroyed, Chen Li entered forging mode.

The hammering continued for a long time within the mountain forest, while more and more demons gathered around this desolate land. Left with no choice, Elysia and Kikyo also entered the Miracle Barrier.

The hammer strikes gradually slowed until several minutes passed without another blow falling.

At that point, the demons knew that Chen Li's forging had ended.

A longbow, pure white from end to end and engraved with fine golden patterns, lay before Chen Li.

This was one of the Miraculous Item prototypes Chen Li had forged back when he was with Moth Chasing Flame. At last, it had found its use.

Chen Li examined the effects of this Miraculous Item.

The Price of Peace: How can peace be achieved? Only by repaying blood with blood, tooth with tooth, and ending killing with killing!

Effect: Only those of pure heart may use this bow. While holding this longbow, the sins of all people will be plain to see.

① Demon-Slaying: When attacking an enemy with this weapon, the more sins the enemy bears, the greater the damage inflicted by the arrows. The arrows can also automatically track their target and will not rest until death. When facing demons, ghouls, goblins, or monsters, their lethality is further increased, and the target is inflicted with Vulnerability and Weakness.

② Soul-Slaughter: The arrows gain the effect of striking directly at the soul. After wounding a soul, they will devour it, storing that portion within the longbow. Pain and despair will serve as energy to power the weapon. If a complete soul is obtained by successfully killing an enemy, it may be released when necessary to control that enemy against others.

③ Cut the Weeds and Eliminate the Roots: Those wounded by an arrow will be marked in karma, permanently revealing their real-time location. Arrows fired at them will inherit the trait of automatic tracking and never ceasing until death. By tracing cause and effect, all living beings connected to them can also be marked one by one.

④ Ultimate Art · Cleansing Moment: Instantly burns all sinful souls stored within the longbow, cleansing all sins in the surrounding area with indiscriminate attacks. Once more than half the Wicked Souls have burned away, Cleansing Moment's coverage will gradually shrink over time. However, killing enemies can increase Cleansing Moment's duration, range, and arrow power.

⑤ Passive Effect—Killing Life: Every sinful living being killed permanently reduces Cleansing Moment's cost and increases Cleansing Moment's upper limit. Calculated after Cleansing Moment ends.

⑥ Passive Effect—Sever Karma: Those killed by the bow's arrows will have their karmic consequences dispersed. All lingering hatred will be burned away, and they shall never enter reincarnation again.

PS: Killing Life is for protecting life; Sever Karma does not mean severing people! Kill! Kill them all! Wipe out your nine generations? No! Wipe out ten generations! Come, count your sins one by one!

(Miracle: Master, to be fair, even as your darkened consciousness, I think this thing is far too extreme.)

This was an extreme Miraculous Item that had maxed out the Demon-Slaying trait.

The Miracle Fire alone had cost as much as 15 crystals to forge such a great weapon, with a large number of attributes fused into it.

Of course, the high Miracle Fire cost was also because Chen Li had deliberately raised the brightness of certain attributes to enhance their effects, while some attributes had weak rule-based properties and were costly to modify.

To accommodate so many attributes, Chen Li spent another 20 crystals to increase the Miraculous Item's initial capacity.

He also spent another 6 crystals to store six attributes: merit, resurrection, dragon, omnipotence, reincarnation, idealism...

These attributes were all relatively dim. To use them, he would still need to spend crystals to increase their brightness.

Excluding the cost of storing attributes, this Miraculous Item had cost 35 crystals to forge, even more than Pale Justice.

Profession Experience +35

Miraculous Forger: Lv1 (71/100)

The Shard of the Four Souls was no lower in grade than a relic, but the ejector seat and compass had dragged it down.

Tracking, in particular, was an important attribute. Chen Li had spent quite a bit of Miracle Fire to raise its brightness.

You might not kill many monsters, but you could not fail to kill them.

There was also the ejector seat's sin attribute.

Not accidentally killing good people was important too.

After thinking it over, Chen Li decided not to add the ejector seat's ejection function after all.

Turning the longbow over in his hands, Chen Li stood within the Miracle Barrier and surveyed the demons encircling him outside.

"You still haven't left?"

"We..."

"Forget it. Don't want to leave? Then none of you are leaving."

"What are you trying to do?"

"Too lazy to explain it to you. You're not worthy of hearing it!" Holding the longbow in his left hand, Chen Li thrust his right hand directly into the Miracle Fire and seized the Source Text for "demon," which had yet to be refined by Miracle Power.

Since Shrine Maiden represented Midori, then "demon" naturally represented the souls formed from countless demons fused together, their souls extracted by Midori and sealed within the Shard of the Four Souls.

Chen Li slapped those two words directly onto the Peaceful Longbow.

Countless demon souls, their essence nearly drained dry, were stored within the Peaceful Longbow.

Chen Li had not refined the word "demon," but most of the Peaceful Longbow's traits had also come from the Shard of the Four Souls, so the condition of these remaining demon souls was exceptionally poor.

But what did that matter?

As long as they could be used to activate Cleansing Moment, that was enough.

"Cleansing Moment! Activate!"

Black flames instantly ignited across the white longbow, and its originally golden markings turned blackish red in an instant.

There was no need to draw the bow or nock an arrow. Chen Li merely placed his hand on the bowstring formed from white light and gently pulled it back. An arrow formed from black-red flames appeared.