"How did Hundred Refinements of the Divine Mechanism make artifact crafting so fast in the original story?"
Zhuge Qing murmured to himself, his fingers unconsciously tapping against his knee.
Based on the artifact-crafting theories he had encountered so far, there were only two ways to speed up the process.
First, simplify the complexity of the "circuits" inside the magical artifact.
Second, increase the speed at which those "circuits" were drawn.
The former involved the artifact's design philosophy and the choices made about its functions.
If an artifact was designed with extreme simplicity in mind, it would naturally be quick to craft.
But that clearly wasn't the path a level of the Eight Extraordinary Skills like Hundred Refinements of the Divine Mechanism would take.
That left only the latter option—increasing the speed at which the circuits were drawn.
But improving that was no easy task.
Primordial Qi was an unfathomable thing. As far as anyone knew, it could only be influenced and sensed by the consciousness of intelligent beings, and controlled by the thoughts of the living.
The more focused your consciousness was, the more finely you could manipulate Qi, and the more smoothly and steadily Primordial Qi would flow.
That was why cultivators like them meditated every day, pursuing that single word: stillness.
Only with a mind as calm as still water could you better "operate" this stuff.
But the problem was, no matter how focused you were, the enormous workload involved in artifact crafting was still right there in front of you.
Every energy node you traced and every Qi pathway you opened up took a toll on your concentration.
To complete such an immense amount of work in a short time, you would need an incomprehensible degree of control over Primordial Qi—so precise it would move like an