The former was the second step of the Seven-Step Dao Artifact Method, lying between "Material Selection" and "Embryo Fusion."
Its core principle was this: once the Ancient Meteorite Fragment had been chosen as the core embryo, several top-grade Emperor Materials with complementary attributes, capable of offsetting the singularity of the Starfall Origin, would be selected. After being refined, they would be fused into the embryo. Then, using the Innate Restriction created by Lin Yi as the framework, these different Emperor Materials would be firmly bound to the meteorite fragment. Through the repeated circulation and tempering of the restrictions, the Dao Artifact embryo's carrying limit and compatibility would continually be raised.
This method was exquisitely ingenious. It could preserve the meteorite fragment's core advantages of indestructibility and abundant origin while perfectly compensating for the limitations of a single material. It completely resolved the hidden danger Lin Yi had previously worried about—the embryo repelling Dao Rhyme—making the later stage of "Dao Rhyme Embryo Fusion" far more efficient.
As for the latter, "Extreme Dao Quenching," it was the crowning touch of the Seven-Step Dao Artifact Method. It was the fourth step, created specifically to test the compatibility between the Dao Artifact and the Flame Emperor.
The core of this method was to introduce all one hundred thousand clusters of Emperor Fire origin, which the Flame Emperor had gathered from dangerous lands throughout the Source Realm over hundreds of thousands of years, into the Artifact Casting Furnace after the Dao Artifact embryo had fused with the different Emperor Materials and begun to take shape. The Dao Artifact would then undergo a second refining.
This was not a simple baptism of high temperatures. Rather, the one hundred thousand clusters of Emperor Fire origin had to flow into every part of the Dao Artifact embryo like