Destiny in Cinders

Once An Jing had all the information he needed, he returned to Riverside for preparation. The Grandvoid Pathway was still cooling down, so he focused on learning artifact refinement to craft the dragonhoard bottle. After entering the workshop that Bai Qinghan had prepared for him, complete with spirit-fire starters and a full set of smithing tools, he was told a shocking truth by Yvelbane: He already knew how to refine artifacts.

”What do you mean?” An Jing asked, puzzled.

Yvelbane’s explanation was straightforward. ”Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal refines the body as if it’s an artifact. What do you think that means?”

His understanding clicked into place. In other words. Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal was essentially an artifact refinement technique. He had already been refining his body like it was an artifact to begin with, so it would be second nature to refine normal arcane artifacts. Naturally, there were subtle differences between body and artifact refinement.

”Heaven and earth blessed the world with countless varieties of spirit materials. The core essence of the path of artifact refinement is that of reshaping those spirit materials to fit our needs. The forge fire is the heart of the artifact. The heart is associated with the aspect of fire, blazing upward and providing the innate spark for the artifact’s soul. Spirit fire is necessary for refining artifacts. The better the spirit fire, the more powerful energies that an arcane artifact can provide.

”The bellow is the lungs of an artifact. The lungs are associated with the aspect of metal, yielding to hammering. Without the airflow provided by the bellow, the forge fire won’t be able to burn bright, resulting in a subpar soul and the inability to melt the materials to reform them into other shapes. Special spirit metals need special kinds of airflow to burn properly, the specifics of which are often kept secret by many sects.

”The quenching agent is the kidney of an artifact, aligned with the aspect of water, flowing downward. Without a suitable form of water, metal can’t quench and fire can’t be put out. And even the wood aspect of an artifact needs water to stimulate its innate vitality for new sprouts and growth. Water also seeps into everything and envelops the entire mass of the artifact, which is represented as the earth aspect of an artifact.”

Yvelbane explained the essence of artifact refinement to An Jing using the simplest five-phase analogy. ”The human body contains aspects of the five phases too. While Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal holds the metal aspect supreme, it is not the only aspect contained within. Think carefully about how you cultivate using it. Then, contemplate the artifact you wish to forge as if you’re trying to nurture it as your own embryo, gradually shaping it and imbuing it with your seal script—Wait, you already got it?!”

An Jing started moving before Yvelbane even finished. He lit the spirit fire and took out some minerals. The spirit fire was called stonemarrow fire. Its tinder was extracted from the magma depths of the earth’s crust. The minerals included pristine black iron and some mountain bronze. Both of them were found in the warehouses left behind by the Bejeweled Traders Guild.

He raised his hand and circulated Minor Yang Sword Art and shifted it to Ocular Blaze to light the forge fire using the stonemarrow fire’s tinder. Then, he grabbed a handful of ore with his bare hands and put it into the forge. Once he felt with his own body that the heat was sufficient, he pulled his hand out and placed the half-melted metal mixture in the crucible that burned atop the forge fire for continuous refinement.

An Jing didn’t need complicated tools like human smiths. His manipulation and control over metal was more than enough. With a single raise of his hand, he was able to purge the impurities in the ore to refine it properly. Then, he willed the molten metal to fly out from the crucible into the mold where it took shape. Normal smiths would have to hammer the material gradually as it cooled to further refine impurities away and blend the materials well into a proper alloy, but artifact refiners didn’t need to do that and instead used their own spirit energy to imbue seal script into the material.

The process was a familiar one to An Jing just like when he imbued Evenstar seal script into his entire body. He focused and projected spirit energy into the artifact embryo, inscribing seals for the desired effect. In almost an instant, he had infused around 108 streams of Evenstar lethal qi into it, the maximum capacity that the black-iron-bronze alloy could hold.

The lethal qi then turned into seals at a speed that stunned Yvelbane. There was only a limited window in which seals could be imbued in the artifact embryo. The process of cooling down was akin to an embryo growing into an infant and eventually fully maturing into an adult. If the seals hadn’t been imbued properly by then, the artifact would fail to meet the refiner’s standards even though it had properly matured. As such, one had to use the short window of time to imbue all the desired seals in one go, which was why most artifact refiners were rather accomplished in soul cultivation that granted them rapid and fine control of spirit energies.

An Jing, however, had Temporal Grasp. The tiny window of time for most artifact refiners could be extended massively from his point of view of accelerated thought. In that state, he was able to imbue all the required seals in a leisurely manner.

The troubles that layfolk smiths faced during forging weren’t problems for artifact refiners. They were only limited by their cultivation level and how well they could manipulate energy. Yet, those limits didn’t apply to An Jing either. Temporal Grasp once more showed how useful it was. It could be applied to artifact refinement, formation deployment and talisman sketching just as well as combat, truly a multipurpose wonder. Anything that required extra care and thought could be solved with Temporal Grasp.

”Finished.” An Jing grabbed the red-hot blade-shaped artifact embryo with his bare hands and put it into the quenching pool. White steam erupted from it, containing traces of invisible killing intent. Then, he pulled out the finished pitch-black blade of metal. While the edge had yet to be sharpened, it pulsed with lethal qi. Traces of white metal qi trailed off its sides like wispy clouds, incredibly sharp.

”Qiblade and Firmness.” An Jing looked at his handiwork with satisfaction. ”These two seals are practical indeed. I didn’t think I’d be able to refine a dual-seal arcane artifact on my first try. Seems like I’m quite talented at artifact refinement.”

Quite talented? Try monstrous. If Yvelbane had an actual body, it would be pale with shock. It hadn’t even taught An Jing artifact refinement in any real capacity, having only explained the basic framework. Yet, he simply followed that to make a proper arcane artifact just like that! It was akin to someone being able to summarize an entire book just by reading the table of contents and even explain the true essence of the text!

”Yvelbane! Yvelbane!” he called out to the stunned sword soul curiously, sensing that the mood was off. ”How did I do? Good or bad?”

After some silent contemplation, the sword soul said, ”I wanted to call it a decent effort. Call it a white lie to encourage you to work harder. But when I thought about it, I remember promising to make you into a super talented monster back then. I didn’t expect that my instinct would be to pull you down a peg after you actually became a monstrous talent, so I’ll be honest. An Jing, it’s like you were born to refine artifacts. I’ve never heard of anyone who could immediately forge an arcane artifact right after learning the basic framework. Seven Ruins Tribulation doesn’t enhance your artifact refinement talent, does it? You weren’t a smith in your past life either, right?”

”Nope, I wasn’t.” An Jing smiled. All he knew was that he was a soldier king of the battlefield who practiced the martial way. He was incredibly familiar with many kinds of weapons and could take guns apart with his eyes closed. Yet, that should have nothing to do with actually forging the parts for a whole gun. ”Glad I didn’t disappoint.”

”Disappoint? I’m overjoyed. With your talent, you’d probably be done with the dragonhoard bottle by afternoon tomorrow.” Yvelbane spoke too soon, for An Jing only needed until noon to finish the dragonhoard bottle.