Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex looked at the woman for a brief few seconds while remaining silent. He took some time to go through the information he had, which wasn’t a whole lot.

”It’s a technique, I believe,” Alex said. ”A technique to... weaken the material we are working with so it can be used more easily?”

He sounded quite doubtful of his own words, which was understandable since he hadn’t really given much thought to the inheritance until now. He had checked it out and understood a bit through the memories, but never really delved deep into it to truly understand how it worked.

”That’s... the basics of it,” she said. ”But it doesn’t sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

”I will be honest, Senior. I really don’t,” Alex answered.

”Well...” the Artifact God let out a sigh. ”You will need to first understand artifact making to the best of your ability, and only then will you understand this.”

Alex nodded. He was ready to learn.

The Artifact God looked around at the workshop, deciding on something. She looked back toward Alex.

”Give me the scale.”

Alex paused for barely a second before immediately bringing out the Flood Dragon’s crystalline blue scale that was nearly large enough to touch the roof of the workshop.

The Artifact God grabbed it and moved it over to the corner. Once she placed it there, she turned back toward Alex.

”You mentioned that you’ve had some experience before, right?” she asked.

”Yes,” Alex said. ”I’ve made a lot of different things, though they were mostly various weapons and shields. Never truly what I would call an artifact.”

”That’s fine anyway,” the Artifact God said and brought something out from her Soul Space. It was a lump of metal. No, it was actually a lump of metal ore when Alex looked in closer. It hadn’t been smelted yet, so it had a lot of impurities.

She tossed it over to Alex, who grabbed it and looked into it. It didn’t take him long to figure out the type of metal it was since it was one of the most common metals used by the Immortals. Back when Alex trained in the workshop in the Medicine World, he had come across this type of metal quite a bit.

”Turn that into a sword,” the Artifact God said.

Alex blinked for a moment, surprised at the test he had been given. He looked back at the lump of metal ore, which he would first need to extract the actual metal from before turning it into a sword. He had a memory of how he needed to do that, so he accepted.

”Do you need my help in learning how to do that?” she asked.

”I don’t believe so,” Alex said.

The Artifact God seemed amused. ”You don’t need anything? Not even the materials you would need to extract metal from that ore?”

”I have the required items,” Alex said. He had been gathering various materials throughout the years ever since he decided he would be training with the Artifact God, so there were plenty of materials he could use without having to ask the woman.

The Artifact God smiled a little.

”Alright then. Go ahead and make the best sword that you can. I will be here, learning about the dragon scale.”

Alex nodded and started working. He brought out the ingredients he needed one after another and began the process.

First, he needed to pulverize the ore, which wasn’t that difficult to do at all. He crushed it between his palms into lumps and then squeezed them further until nothing but powder remained. Using one of the various machines inside of the workshop for that particular purpose might have been faster, but Alex found this to be easier.

The Artifact God had barely started looking at the scale when she saw what Alex did and couldn’t help but be taken aback. She had never really seen someone pulverize the metal that way.

The next task Alex needed to do was separate the metal from everything that was not the metal. There were various processes he could use to do this, but the easiest one was to use his Dao of Magnetism to extract just the part that was the metal.

It wouldn’t be entirely pure, but anything such as rock or dust or even non-magnetic metals would be easily cleared from the powder, which eased his life.

Alex then placed the powder into a large crucible and lit the fire underneath it. The powder would now melt, at which point Alex would have to pour in the various materials that would interact with everything but the metal he wanted and separate themselves into various lumps while only the metal remained.

Alex waited for the powder to melt, but he found it taking a lot longer than it needed to. He sighed.

Without missing a beat, he brought out Memory, took everything out of the crucible, and poured it all into the cauldron.

Memory was made with the exact type of alloy that worked best as a furnace, so it could even be said that her job as a furnace was almost as big as her job as a cauldron.

Instead of the regular fire the crucible was under, Alex used his Sun Fire. He wasn’t sure what would happen to the crucible if he did that, which was why he had to transfer it over.

The moment Memory heated with Sun Fire, the metal powder melted immediately, turning into glowing sludge that he could work with.

Alex did the rest with ease, separating every impurity from the mixture. Once done, he brought it all out and let it cool.

When it did, he found layers forming in what came out of Memory. And one of those layers, perhaps the largest portion, was exactly the metal he needed.

Alex tore the pieces apart layer by layer, keeping just the metal. Then, it was finally time to make the sword.