“Judging by its appearance, this object is likely left behind by some sort of spider or silkworm-like beast. I should have someone take a look at it when I get the chance,” Yuan Ming muttered to himself. He didn’t pay it much mind and after setting down the grey silk ball, he took out the black token.
One side of the token was engraved with a coiled dragon pattern and the word “Elder” written below it. On the other side was a name: Li Sha.
Just as Yuan Ming was about to toss the black token aside, he suddenly stopped and channeled his magic into it.
A rich black light emerged from the token, revealing a small knife-shaped black rune at its center.
“Why would a mere identification token be refined into a magical tool? Could it be that this token has other uses besides identifying one’s identity?” Yuan Ming speculated.
He knew nothing about White Dragon Island, so he couldn’t guess its purpose. He didn’t think much of it and put the black token aside, then took out a small blue flag to examine.
The flag was embroidered with a cloud pattern. Even without being activated, faint blue light seeped out from it. The humidity in the room quickly increased, and droplets of water appeared on the table, windowsill, and other places. At the bottom of the flag, three tiny characters were embroidered: Water Cloud Flag.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Yuan Ming channeled his magic into it. The Water Cloud Flag floated up from his hand, emitting a bright blue light. The humidity in the room visibly thickened, and wisps of mist appeared in the air, creating a somewhat dreamy atmosphere.
He didn’t stop there, but increased the magic input. The light on the Water Cloud Flag grew brighter, and two blue rune shadows flashed across the flag, arranged in a trident shape.
“Two runes, a mid-grade magical tool!” Yuan Ming couldn’t help but feel elated.
The materials and runes are the foundation of a magical tool, both are indispensable.
A low-grade magical tool can only be engraved with one rune, a mid-grade with two, and a high-grade with three.
This Water Cloud Flag contained two runes, undoubtedly making it a mid-grade magical tool. It was a significant gain from his trip to Black Rock City!
Considering that the black-robed elder was a Foundation Establishment cultivator and an elder of White Dragon Island, it was normal for him to have a mid-grade magical tool as his trump card. Unfortunately, his painstakingly refined treasure was not used before he was killed on the spot, which ended up benefiting Yuan Ming instead.
Yuan Ming didn’t continue to activate it, but carefully put away the Water Cloud Flag.
After all, this was an inn with many people around. It was not suitable to refine magical tools and test their true power here.
However, even without checking now, the Water Cloud Flag being a mid-grade magical tool, its power would certainly not disappoint him.
Yuan Ming calmed his excited emotions, put away the small flag and other items, and took out the jade box and medicine bottle.
He opened the jade box first, his expression froze.
Inside the jade box were some jade plates and small flags, all engraved with many patterns. There were about twenty or thirty of them, filling the box to the brim.
“What are these?” Yuan Ming picked up a small flag. The patterns on it somewhat resembled the array patterns he had seen before.
But array patterns were usually engraved on immovable places like the ground to set up arrays. What was the use of engraving them on this small flag?
“A Foundation Establishment cultivator wouldn’t carry useless items. I’ll ask someone about it when I return to the sect,” Yuan Ming put the small flag back and picked up two medicine bottles.
He first opened the larger one, which was filled with green pills. There were about a hundred of them, each emitting a faint wave of spiritual power.
“Foundation Establishment Pills!” Yuan Ming had just bought five bottles of Foundation Establishment Pills at Changxian Tower, so he recognized these green pills at a glance.
The Foundation Establishment Pills sold at Changxian Tower had ten pills per bottle and cost fifteen spirit stones. He actually wanted to buy more, but his funds were limited. Now that he had obtained so many, it was a great harvest, enough for his Qi Refining stage.
“These basic Foundation Establishment Pills are definitely not useful to the elder. Perhaps he bought them for his disciples or nephews to use. It’s perfect for me, letting me experience the joy of being stuffed with medicine by elders!” He speculated secretly.
His Nine Elements Formula was already extremely fast to cultivate. Compared with the disciples in the Bi Luo Cave who had the resources of sect elixirs, he was not inferior. However, due to his previous financial constraints, he had never considered using elixirs to assist in cultivation.
Upon thinking of this, Yuan Ming couldn’t help but want to give it a try. He sat cross-legged, took out a green pill, and swallowed it.
The green pill melted as soon as it entered his stomach, turning into a stream of energy that slowly infused into his body. It circulated slowly through the meridians of his limbs and gradually gathered in his dantian.
He closed his eyes and operated the Nine Elements Formula. It took him a full hour to absorb this energy. Although the increase in his magic power was not significant, it was still faster than simply cultivating the Nine Elements Formula.
“The steward at Changxian Tower said it could double the cultivation speed. If his words are true, it should be referring to the cultivation of ordinary techniques,” he said with a smile at the corner of his mouth. Then he put away the large jade bottle and picked up the smaller one.
A small jade bottle was suspended in mid-air, attached to a white talisman. An invisible force enveloped the entire bottle.
A glimmer of anticipation flashed in Yuan Ming’s eyes. The jade bottle was stored so solemnly, it must contain something extraordinary.
He channeled his magic power, removed the white talisman, and opened the bottle cap.
Three bright yellow pills lay quietly inside, crystal clear as jade, emitting a yellow halo.
Yuan Ming poured out one, took a light sniff, but surprisingly, he didn’t smell any medicinal fragrance, and he couldn’t determine its composition from its appearance either.
He used his divine sense to probe the interior of the pill, but also found nothing.
“I’m ashamed that I can’t even recognize what I’ve obtained. I need to travel more and broaden my horizons in the future.” Yuan Ming chuckled bitterly. After sorting and storing everything, he took out the spirit pine he had bought earlier, as well as the yellow spirit wood from the old man.
After thinking for a while, he cut off a small part of both pieces of spirit wood, ground them into powder, then took out the tools and materials for making incense, as well as the most important incense ash, and started making incense. Before long, he had made three incense sticks.
Due to the incense ash, the three incense sticks did not emit any spiritual power fluctuations.
Next, he didn’t summon the incense burner to light the incense. It had been about six days since he last used the incense burner, and it had not yet recovered.
After storing the three incense sticks and the spirit pine, Yuan Ming changed into another set of clothes, put on a bamboo hat, and went out to the street again. After a while, he arrived at the magic tool shop that bought runes.
Before entering the shop, he used a lower-grade talisman that could hide his aura and prevent his appearance from being probed by divine sense for a short time.
Although he had a chance to refine a magic tool for free, he didn’t want to use it right now. Instead, he wanted to see if he could persuade the other party to teach him some refining techniques in the future, which would be better than anything else.
At this moment, there was a customer in the shop. The bald man was enthusiastically boasting about a black knife magic tool that looked quite good.
The customer was persuaded and finally gritted his teeth, took out a spirit stone, and bought the knife.
After the bald man sent the customer away, he saw Yuan Ming standing next to the counter and greeted him warmly, “Sir, are you also here to buy magic tools? Although all the magic tools in our shop are of lower grade, their quality is excellent, and the prices are absolutely fair.”
“I heard that you can customize magic tools here?” Yuan Ming changed his voice with magic power and asked.
“Are you a regular customer of our shop? Not many people know that our shop can customize magic tools.” The bald man let out a light ‘eh’, looked Yuan Ming up and down, and asked somewhat uncertainly.
Yuan Ming gave a dry laugh, nodded slightly without confirming or denying, and did not answer the bald man’s question.
“Our shop indeed accepts orders for custom-made magic tools, but I must declare in advance that the materials need to be provided by yourself, and if the refining fails, our shop will not be responsible.” The bald man didn’t ask further and said seriously.
“That’s fine.” Yuan Ming had already learned about the refining rules of this shop from Gu Yue, so naturally, he had no objections.
“Then please wait a moment, sir. I’ll go and invite Master Huolian… Since you are a regular customer, you should know that our shop only refines lower-grade magic tools and does not do business above the middle grade.” The bald man turned to walk towards the inside of the shop, then suddenly stopped and turned back to confirm.
“I know that. I’m looking for Master Huolian to refine a lower-grade magic tool.” Yuan Ming said.
The bald man finally felt relieved and turned to enter the inner room.
Yuan Ming folded his arms, his fingertips lightly tapping on his arm.
The magic tool he wanted Master Huolian to refine was the Thousand Mechanism Mask.
He had originally planned to ask the Third Cave Master to do it, and the reward had been prepared.
Xiying had told him that the difficulty in refining the Thousand Mechanism Mask lay in the inscription of the runes. Master Huolian was particularly good at inscribing runes, so it seemed more appropriate to let him refine it.
Master Huolian soon came out from the inner room, looked Yuan Ming up and down, and asked, “Are you the one who wants to order a magic tool?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of Master Huolian’s exquisite refining techniques, so I came to visit.” Yuan Ming said respectfully, keeping a low profile.
“Save the pleasantries, just tell me what magic tool you want to refine.” Master Huolian waved his hand and said, completely ignoring Yuan Ming’s respectful attitude.
“The Thousand Mechanism Mask.” Yuan Ming said straightforwardly without beating around the bush.
As he spoke, he took out the face skin of the human-faced spider, the white jade grease, and other materials.
“The Thousand Mechanism Mask is indeed effective, but the materials are hard to find. Not many people want to refine it. Especially the face skin of the human-faced spider and the white jade grease are often priceless. I didn’t expect you to gather them all.” Master Huolian picked up the two materials and looked at them for a few moments. His previous indifference changed, and a few traces of eagerness appeared in his eyes.
“Master Huolian, how confident are you in refining it?” Yuan Ming asked directly.
“You’re in luck. The difficulty in refining the Thousand Mechanism Mask lies in the inscription of the runes. The rune required for the Thousand Mechanism Mask is the Thousand Illusion. I’ve refined several illusion-type magic tools and am very familiar with this rune. I can’t guarantee a hundred percent success, but I have seventy to eighty percent confidence.” Master Huolian said proudly.
“Then I’ll have to trouble Master. How much do you charge for refining a magic tool?” Yuan Ming asked with a bow, feeling relieved.
Master Huolian didn’t speak, and the bald man beside him stepped forward with a smile.Yuan Ming and the bald man had a lengthy discussion, finally settling on a price of twenty spirit stones, to be delivered in two days.
Yuan Ming paid a deposit of ten spirit stones and was about to take his leave when he suddenly remembered something. He said, “Master Huolian is skilled in refining, and must surely have a deep understanding of various spirit materials. I have an item here, and I hope you can identify it.”
“Bring it over and let me take a look,” Huolian said directly upon hearing this.
Yuan Ming took out the fiery red horn and handed it over.
Huolian carefully examined it for a long time before slowly putting it down, his gaze somewhat complex.
“Master, what do you think?” Yuan Ming asked.
Huolian didn’t speak, his gaze flickering uncertainly, as if he was hesitant.
(End of Chapter)