Eternal Cultivation Of Alchemy

Alex waited until the Artifact God was done forming the shape of the artifact and then placing the Qi lines through it. That was perhaps the most difficult thing out of everything she had done today and needed utmost precision so as not to make a single deviation, as any change in it could easily ruin the entire artifact, forcing her to remake it all over again.

She took many deliberate minutes, forming the Qi lines slowly throughout the artifact before finally stopping when she was done. The artifact made a slight buzz and settled once it was done forming.

”It’s done?” Alex asked.

”All done. Now we make sure it actually works,” the Artifact God said, bringing out a large piece of silvery crystal. She handed it over to Alex, asking him to try and reshape it.

Alex looked at the crystal. He hadn’t ever worked on a crystal where he was forced to reshape it. For a moment, he wondered if it was even supposed to be possible before nodding slowly and working on it.

As he began striking the crystal, he immediately understood just how impossible a task this was. The crystal was so tough that despite his Divine Creation realm body cultivation, he was barely making any dent in it.

”That’s enough,” the Artifact God said. ”It’s clear you can’t do it normally. But what about after we use this new artifact?”

She moved before the crystal and lifted her hand toward it. On her hand, the new bracer lay. It was of a dull bronze color, covering from the wrist all the way to the elbow, with a pointed tip that extended up to the tricep.

Twin lines of red and blue spiraled around the artifact, covering it entirely. When the Artifact God poured her Qi into it, the blue and red sections glowed brightly before a wave of aura emanated from it, falling down onto the crystal before Alex.

Alex felt the aura that came from the bracer, and even without testing anything, he could already tell that something right had happened. The entire thing was made exactly as it was supposed to, as the aura coming off of it was exactly the same as the one that the Artifact God had ended up using a few weeks prior.

He still waited silently for the Artifact God to be done with it. After she was done, she put her hand down.

”Now try again,” she said.

Alex did as asked. He began hammering the crystal once again, and even with the very first strike, the crystal sagged, deforming instantly. Alex stopped out of pure surprise. He had expected something to happen, but it was not this. He didn’t think the crystal would suddenly feel like slightly more rigid clay under his strike.

He looked up at her with wide eyes.

”It’s working,” he said.

The Artifact God’s eyes brimmed with excitement at the sight as well. ”Yes, it is. Continue. Try and see how long it can be that way.”

Alex nodded and began hammering again. What used to be the bright sound of a hammer striking a hard crystal was now a duller thud. The crystal slowly reformed under Alex’s hammer, taking several different shapes before he stopped.

”I think it’s done,” he said.

”I think so too,” the Artifact God said, her eyes mulling over something he couldn’t read.

”So, can we start now?” Alex asked.

”Start?” She looked up at him.

”With the scale?” Alex asked.

”Oh, no. Not yet,” she said. ”Firstly, we don’t know if it works or not. And secondly, we still need to make the other artifact and make sure that works too.”

”The other—oh, right.” Alex had nearly forgotten about the second half of all of this, which was to remove the aura that was placed into these materials. They would need to make another artifact for that.

He looked up with a worried expression. ”Does this mean you’ll have to spend many more years thinking about that artifact too?”

The Artifact God looked offended at that question. ”Do you think I lack the forethought to not have considered such a thing before deciding that I was done?” she asked. ”I already have the artifact thought out. I just need to make it.”

”Oh, that can be done quickly then,” Alex said.

”Yes, but the bigger issue is that we need to figure out if this thing actually works on the Primordial materials or not. I don’t want to jump into the scale right away, but I don’t know what I must do instead.”

”Hmm, I can help with that,” Alex said. He closed his eyes before the Artifact God could say anything. She watched him for several seconds before he opened his eyes again.

He placed his empty palm forward, and suddenly, upon it appeared a single massive yellow item.

A feather.

The Artifact God looked closer at the feather, her mind already telling her what it was. Still, she wanted to hear it from him.

”Is this...”

”This is a feather of the Three-Legged Crow. Or the Sun Crow, if that is how you know it,” he said.

”Incredible,” she said, taking the feather from his palm. It was quite a large feather, nearly a meter long and more than a handspan wide. She turned it around in her palm a few times before looking back at Alex.

”This will do. I will test using this. I will also make the next artifact and see if that works or not,” she said. ”In the meantime, you should leave. This will take some time, and it sounds like that is something you don’t have.”

Alex considered her words for some time. Even if this took a week to do, that was 4 months he could be cultivating using the formation plate. There was no time to be wasted.

”I will do just that then, senior,” Alex said and bowed toward her. ”Please let me know the moment you are ready to proceed with the shield. I shall return right away.”