One month later, on a night inside the desolate mountain cave, Lin Yun looked disheveled as he sat cross-legged on a stone platform. He frowned slightly at the gold ingot, about the size of an infant's fist and faintly radiating golden spiritual light, in the palm of his hand, seeming in rather poor spirits.
He only now realized that his method for extracting the Five Metals Essence seemed somewhat foolish.
Lin Yun's method for extracting the Five Metals Essence was cut from the same cloth as his previous method for repairing the Cloudmist Illusion Array flags. He used Qi-Refining Techniques to extract the five metals' quintessential auras from the raw materials, refining them into the Five Metals Essence.
Although this was countless times faster than other Core Formation cultivators who spent over a decade to extract a single piece of Gold Essence, it consumed immense mental energy and exhausted his Dharmic power to the extreme.
Over the past month, Lin Yun had grown haggard and exhausted his Dharmic power several times just to painstakingly extract this single piece of Gold Essence.
I really have to hand it to myself. To extract the Five Metals Essence, it doesn't strictly require using Qi-Refining Techniques to draw out the five metals' quintessential auras! Refining it with true fire would be even more convenient and swift! How did I fall into such a mental blind spot? I was just fixated on the speed of mortal worlds using pellet-fire to extract the Five Metals Essence! Lin Yun suddenly irritatedly tugged at his hair and slapped his forehead as he spoke.
Even while troubled by having fallen into a mental blind spot, Lin Yun's movements were not slow at all.
After pondering for a moment, a mass of scorching flames suddenly rose in the palm holding the Gold Essence, slowly beginning to refine the metal in his palm into a pool of golden liquid.
Normally, the flames of a Fire-Control Technique could not melt Gold Essence into liquid, but since Lin Yun could extract Gold Essence using Qi-Refining Techniques, he could naturally combine Qi-Refining Techniques with the Fire-Control Technique to liquefy the Gold Essence.
Gradually, under Lin Yun's control and refinement, the Gold Essence completely melted into a pool of liquid. Guided by his manipulation, it slowly changed shape, gradually transforming into the form of a brightly glowing golden oil lamp. However, due to limited materials, this lamp was only half the size of a normal oil lamp, looking very miniature.
When the oil lamp had completely formed, Lin Yun dismissed the flame in his palm, letting the oil lamp float before him. He then rapidly formed various seal scripts with his hands across his chest, producing various colorful restrictions that he then struck into the oil lamp one by one. Multicolored lights flashed rapidly across the glittering golden miniature oil lamp before it fell silent once more.
Until Lin Yun struck in the final restriction, pure light burst forth from the golden oil lamp, only to quickly fade away. After the pure light vanished, the originally glittering golden oil lamp turned into an antique-looking bronze-colored lamp, which slowly descended before Lin Yun.
Without even glancing at the bronze lamp, Lin Yun retrieved two spiritual stones to hold in his hands, closing his eyes to restore his Dharmic power on his own.
It was not until close to noon the next day that Lin Yun opened his eyes, grabbed the lamp before him, and quickly flew out of the cave. He summoned his Leaf-Shaped Dharma Artifact and shot straight up into the sky, stopping only when he reached the maximum altitude the artifact could attain.
Having stopped, Lin Yun cast out the lamp to suspend it before him, then raised his hands high toward the sky and formed a profound seal script resembling a golden crow facing the sun.
As the seal script took form, the Great Sun's light above Lin Yun's head actually began to condense, finally coalescing into a beam of dazzling golden-red light.
Lin Yun immediately used the seal script to guide the light, gathering it onto the lamp before him.
By the hour of wu (11 AM to 1 PM), specifically three quarters past noon, Lin Yun was covered in sweat and looked somewhat disheveled as he dismissed the seal script on his hands. Only after the Great Sun Divine Light completely dissipated did he retrieve the lamp from above his head to hold it in his hand.
Looking at the rice-grain-sized golden flame at the center of the lamp, Lin Yun ignored his own disheveled appearance and burst out laughing, "A wisp of Solar True Fire! Hahaha! Now I have the true fire needed to refine the Five Metals Essence! My previous efforts weren't in vain after all!"
Fortunately, the sun was one of the primordial sources of heaven and earth, radiating Great Sun extreme-yang Primordial Qi at all times. Therefore, Lin Yun had been able to so easily extract it into Solar True Fire using Qi-Refining Techniques.
With this, Lin Yun no longer fretted over why he had used such a clumsy method to extract Gold Essence. Without the Gold Essence he had painstakingly refined earlier, he could never have crafted this Golden Lamp magic treasure capable of bearing the Solar True Fire!
Picking up the golden lamp and mounting the Leaf-Shaped Dharma Artifact, Lin Yun quickly returned to the desolate mountain cave and immediately set about extracting the Five Metals Essence.
With the aid of the Solar True Fire, Lin Yun's speed in extracting the Five Metals Essence indeed became much faster.
Over the following month, Lin Yun would ascend to high altitudes close to noon every day to replenish the Solar True Fire, spending all other times extracting the Five Metals Essence.
In a mere month, he had completely extracted all the raw five metals materials on hand into the Five Metals Essence.
Having gathered enough Five Metals Essence, Lin Yun immediately began refining the Dew-Catching Plate.
Furthermore, with the aid of the Solar True Fire, Lin Yun's speed in refining the Dew-Catching Plate was also much faster. In a mere three days, he refined the Dew-Catching Plate dharma artifact, and even used the remaining scraps to forge a flying sword sword-embryo.
Although this speed was much slower than spending merely a single night to forge the Golden Lamp magic treasure, who could blame it? Not only did the Dew-Catching Plate consume more materials, but its restrictions were also far more complex and intricate than those of the golden lamp. Moreover, Lin Yun had even forged a sword-embryo besides.
Flipping the three-inch-long sword-embryo in his hand and toying with it for a bit, Lin Yun pondered slightly on what kind of flying sword he needed to forge.
There was an immense variety of flying swords in the Zu Mountain world. Aside from normal swords, there were heterogeneous flying swords such as hooks, forks, and flying needles.
Hooks and forks, being flying sword types that mostly served as cannon fodder weapons, were not among Lin Yun's considerations.
Among the orthodox flying swords of the Zu Mountain world, immortal swords such as the Purple Ying, Azure Cord, and Southern Bright Lihuo Fire Sword were undoubtedly the most famous. Lin Yun also possessed the crafting methods for these three immortal swords, but the materials used for them-such as the Western Great White Essence, Western True Gold, and Southern Bright Lihuo Fire-were rare materials that Lin Yun's Five Metals Essence sword-embryo clearly lacked the grade for.
Beyond that, flying swords like the Mandarin Duck Thunderclap Swords, Seven Cultivation Swords, Heavenly Dragon Demon-Subduing Sword, and Three Suns One Qi Sword were all sets of flying swords. Although they could also be crafted using the Five Metals Essence, complete sets of flying swords consumed too many resources and were temporarily not within Lin Yun's consideration.
Aside from orthodox flying swords, there were also a few immensely famous and terrifyingly powerful flying swords among the heterodox sects, such as the Wutai School's Hundred-Spirit Immortal-Slaying Sword, Heavenly Demon Immortal-Execution Sword, and Nine Sons Mother Yin-Soul Sword. Although the raw materials for their sword-embryos were simple and the Five Metals Essence was completely sufficient, their sword-forging methods grew more unorthodox and perverse by the day, making them equally unworthy of his consideration.
The remaining heterodox sword-forging methods were even further from Lin Yun's consideration. While these heterodox methods used simple materials and were extremely easy to forge, they lacked any real power, suffered from fatal flaws, and were easily countered by others. Aside from wasting materials, they were utterly worthless.
After pondering for a long time, Lin Yun still could not decide what kind of flying sword he wanted to forge, so he simply set the matter aside for the moment. In any case, he had not yet reached Foundation Establishment, so he could consider it later. His top priority right now was still to first
cultivate the White Yang Diagram.
Thinking of this, Lin Yun put away the sword-embryo and picked up the Dew-Catching Plate. At this moment, it was already just past midnight, precisely the time to collect the Yin-Yang Dew.
Placing this brass-colored Dew-Catching Plate-which measured exactly nine inches across and exactly nine sub-inches in depth-at the summit of the desolate mountain, Lin Yun sat down to the side and waited quietly.
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