City God Temple.
The Civil Judge's Hall.
"Your disciple pays his respects, honored master..."
Sun Zimu bowed respectfully toward the seat of honor.
A flash of light appeared above the shrine, and a middle-aged man materialized out of thin air. He wore a civil official's robes, had three long wisps of beard, and looked every inch the refined scholar. He towered over Sun Zimu, who was no taller than a thumb, though he himself was only the size of an ordinary child. Smiling, he said, "You rarely come to see your master. Is something important? Usually, you can send a message with a nether soldier. Otherwise, be careful the Day Wandering God doesn't catch you and mark you down for abandoning your post without leave..."
Sun Zimu jolted. The charge seemed no small matter, but he soon recovered his composure. "Your disciple has brought someone to meet you. This is... this is..." He looked at Fang Qing, his face full of confusion.
What was this man's name again?
"Haha... We're both travelers at the ends of the earth. Meeting here must be fate."
Fang Qing laughed. "Fellow Daoist, do you have any Incense Money on you? And a method for refining artifacts as a deity? Hand them all over."
The Civil Judge immediately broke into a broad smile and pulled a string of coins from his sleeve, each round on the outside and square in the center. "These are the wages this official has saved over the years. As for the artifact-refining method, it is a direct transmission of the Divine Path... It is called the 'Divine Radiance Mystical Artifact Rite.' It is quite wondrous. All things have spirits, and artifact patterns arise within them on their own. We need only put in Incense Money and let the artifact refine