Turning Waste into Treasure, Forging Artifacts Like Drinking Water

Shen Yue's sixth-level Qi-refining mana surged within his body, enveloping the Green Fire Cauldron and the Fire Pattern Cauldron.

"The way of the cauldron lies in the ability to merge all things. With the Green Fire as the foundation and ten thousand cauldrons as fuel, refining fire with fire and merging cauldron with cauldron—only then can one attain the potential of a Heavenly Cauldron..."

Recalling the records in the manual, Shen Yue could not help but marvel.

The ancestors of the Chehou Family of Ancient Wei were truly brilliant; not only did they create the method for refining the Green Fire Cauldron from scrap, but they also optimized it generation after generation, leaving behind the technique of "Cauldron Fusion and Grade Advancement."

Following this method, by using the Green Fire Cauldron as a base and merging it with other cauldrons, one could continuously upgrade the vessel.

This was how the Chehou Family's ancestral treasure, the Heavenly Fire Cauldron, had come to be.

Under the shroud of his mana, the Green Fire and Fire Pattern cauldrons slowly drew together.

At first, there was resistance; the bodies of the cauldrons trembled and hummed incessantly.

The fire patterns on the surface of the Fire Pattern Cauldron writhed like living creatures, while the Green Fire Cauldron's entire body erupted with a surge of cyan light, its mouth spewing scorching flames.

Shen Yue formed seals with both hands, his mana transforming into thousands of threads that wrapped around the two cauldrons layer by layer, immediately dampening the resistance by more than half.

The Green Fire Cauldron opened its mouth first, and a suction force erupted.

The patterns on the Fire Pattern Cauldron began to peel away, pulled out by force like fiery snakes, flowing along the mana threads into the Green Fire Cauldron...

Three days later.

When the last trace of the fire patterns merged into the Green Fire, the fusion of the two cauldrons was complete.

The new cauldron retained the silhouette of the Green Fire Cauldron, but its color had shifted from a cyan-gray to a deep, profound cyan-black, and its surface was covered in the distinct flame patterns of the Fire Pattern Cauldron, with firelight faintly flowing between the lines.

"This cauldron has actually reached the mid-grade first-tier level!"

Shen Yue reached out and summoned two pieces of material he had previously purified from the scrap.

One shimmered with a cold metallic luster and was extremely hard, while the other had a fine texture and superior toughness.

However, since they were refined from scrap, Shen Yue estimated that using these two materials to forge a weapon would be considered a success if he could even produce a pseudo-spirit artifact.

He did possess a few decent forging materials, such as the Five-Colored Shell Pearl he had collected at the outer lake, but for his first attempt at forging, it was better to play it safe.

The two materials were tossed into the furnace.

The Xin-Si Fire Seed flew to the bottom of the cauldron, and the temperature inside began to climb.

Smelting... purification... shaping... quenching... tempering...

Shen Yue had performed these steps hundreds of times; naturally, there were no issues.

But the final step, inscribing the array, was different. He specifically adjusted his breathing to reach his peak state before beginning to refine the structure bit by bit according to the modified "Yin-Yang Prisoner Killing Array."

Inscribing an array required balancing the formation with the materials; the slightest deviation could lead to failure.

Time ticked away.

When the final link of the killing array closed, the complex array pattern system within the embryonic weapon was finally complete, and spiritual energy began to circulate within it.

"It's done."

Shen Yue stared at the short blade inside the cauldron.

The blade was silver-white, with cold light faintly flowing along the edge, while the black patterns of the Yin-Yang Prisoner Killing Array emerged along the spine.

"A graded spirit artifact?"

Shen Yue's expression shifted in shock.

The scrap metal in his hands was now radiating the power of a low-grade first-tier spirit artifact, rather than the pseudo-spirit artifact level he had estimated.

While a pseudo-spirit artifact and a low-grade spirit artifact seemed only a hair's breadth apart, they were actually worlds apart; the former still belonged to the category of common iron.

"If scrap can be forged into a graded spirit artifact, what if I used materials that are already graded, like the Five-Colored Shell Pearl?"

Shen Yue's eyes burned with intensity.

Mid-grade?

Or perhaps high-grade?

The sky above Clear-Turbid Island was shrouded in waste-Qi, blocking out most of the sunlight.

As the war between the Sword Sect and the Nether Sect reached a fever pitch, both sides fought incessantly on the front lines, and the demand for forging in the rear grew with each passing day.

Scrap piled up like mountains, and waste-Qi permeated the air like fog.

Changqin Wuming had to spend the better part of every day recovering waste-Qi.

The work was dull and tedious, but the benefits were significant; he could earn five or six spirit stones every month, sometimes even seven or eight.

For a guardian of the island at Refining Lake, this was already a very generous income.

But Changqin Wuxuan, a blacksmith, looked down on such trifles.

She stood in the courtyard, her white robes like snow, a cyan spirit sword hanging at her waist.

"Once I return from the Sword Sect, Imperial Brother, you shall follow me and learn to forge."

Changqin Wuming furrowed his brows: "I am an Emperor; how could I ever bow beneath another?"

"Chen Yunxi failed her Foundation Establishment, claiming it was due to a dissatisfied state of mind," Changqin Wuxuan said coldly.

Changqin Wuming's expression shifted.

What was the meaning of this?

Could it be that back in the mortal kingdom, forcing Chen Yunxi to wash Shen Yue's feet had caused this dissatisfaction?

Would this woman kill them just to achieve a perfect state of mind?

Why else would his imperial sister suddenly bring this up?

Preposterous!

"Imperial sister is a true phoenix of this world; being able to share your burdens is this elder brother's honor."

"Mm." Changqin Wuxuan nodded indifferently; this was her imperial brother, after all.

"Then, Minister Shen..." Changqin Wuming did not forget Shen Yue.

Changqin Wuxuan gave a cold smile: "Can General Shen not refine artifacts on his own?"

"But you and Minister Shen have a marriage contract, imperial sister, can you bear to watch..."

Before Changqin Wuming could finish, he saw Changqin Wuxuan's willow brows arch, and a sharp, fierce Sword Qi erupted from her body.

She summoned her spirit sword, stepped onto the sword light, and tossed a final sentence over her shoulder before leaving:

"Chen Tong is Chen Yunxi's cousin from the same lineage; you had best look after yourselves!"

The sword light tore through the gray sky and vanished in an instant.

Changqin Wuming stood in the courtyard, gazing in the direction his imperial sister had departed, his face full of misery.

"Alas, Minister Shen, you have brought me such suffering..."

Half a month later.

In the steward's courtyard of Refining Lake, white jade paved the ground, and spirit springs bubbled softly.

Chen Yunxi wore a white dress, her aura icy cold.

Having failed her Foundation Establishment not long ago, the spiritual energy within her was still somewhat chaotic, yet her eyes were sharper and colder than before.

"I hope you can help me, cousin. I only want these two people, and I will surely reward you handsomely."

She handed over a jade slip containing the aura and appearance of two individuals.

Chen Tong swept his divine sense over it, the corners of his mouth curling into a gentle, mocking smile: "Rest assured, cousin, leave this matter to me."

Chen Yunxi nodded slightly and turned to leave, her white skirt fluttering in the wind, her silhouette cold and aloof.

Once her figure vanished, the smile on Chen Tong's face turned into a sneer.

"So what if you went to the Jade Void Sword Sect? Carrying the title of a prodigy, didn't you still fail your Foundation Establishment?"

"If those resources had been given to me—no, even half of them—I, Chen Tong, would have definitely reached Foundation Establishment!"

"Still, those two from the mortal kingdom... did Chen Yunxi really wash their feet?"

Chen Tong stepped onto his spirit sword, his figure rising from the ground, skimming over the blue waves of Refining Lake as he flew toward the residential area by the shore.

By the banks of Refining Lake, in a quiet room of a small courtyard.

As the Xin-Si Fire Seed retracted into his dantian, a pair of silver-white rings flew out from the Green Pattern Cauldron, their surfaces shimmering with flowing spiritual light like spilled mercury.

"The seventeenth piece... let's call them the Mystic Light Heaven-Deriving Rings."

Shen Yue lifted the rings, examined them for a moment, and after confirming their quality, casually tucked them into his storage bag.

These past few days, he had been immersed in artifact refining, working day and night without pause. From initially needing the better part of a day to refine a low-grade spirit artifact, he could now complete one in half that time.

His mastery of the Green Pattern Cauldron had grown increasingly proficient, and the Xin-Si Fire Seed had also seen significant growth; he was now adept at crafting low-grade spirit artifacts.

"It is about time to attempt refining the Five-Colored Shell Pearl."

Shen Yue flipped his palm, taking out the shell pearl and several other materials.

"Shen Yue, come out!" A cold shout suddenly rang out from outside the courtyard.