by <unknown>
His skin was either blue or purple, and there was absolutely no place that was the normal color. His many body parts were bleeding, as if he had been beaten up by dozens of muscular men for three days and three nights.
Like a dying old man, he held the wall and shivered for two minutes before he staggered forward, crippled and hunched, while hugging his chest with his arms.
Yi Feilan was dazed for a long time.
In the cold moonlight, there were tears on the engorged face.
"Well, I'm sorry, dear audience. Our sources might have made a mistake. The young genius Wu Mayan is not in the No.77 training room. We'll look around in the few training rooms nearby…"
The deformed young man did not notice the journalist who left in disappointment. He simply wobbled forward at speed lower than that of a grandma. While moving, he gnashed his teeth and grumbled, "That's too outrageous. Just one hand, and I was—"
Suddenly, a tiny shadow jumped out from a corner.
The young man was caught off guard and dodged on instinct. However, the wounds all over his body were ripped open, and he felt that he had jumped into a tank of boiling oil!
The young man had an urge to roar and cry.
"Senior Brother Wu!"
With a sunny face, Xie Anan suddenly saw Wu Mayan's murderous eyes with the help of the moonlight. Her smile was immediately frozen as she asked, "Senior Brother, why are you crying?"
Chapter 672: The Spirits of Ancient Refiners |
"You've got the wrong guy!" exclaimed Wu Mayan through lips that were as thick as sausages right now.
Xie Anan laughed. "Are you kidding me? I'm a refiner, and I observe people's hands first when I see them. Although your face has been utterly reshaped by Master Sand, the distribution of joints on your hands suggest that you are exactly Senior Brother Wu."
Dumbfounded, Wu Mayan blurted, "Who says that I was beaten by master? I ran into a wall by accident! Also, who is your senior brother? Don't try to pull strings with me!"
He did not realize that he had acknowledged his identity.
Xie Anan chuckled. "It's not a shameful thing that one is taught a lesson by their master. What's there to be ashamed of? You are an interesting kid."
Wu Mayan burst into fury and was about to jump up when his wounds were torn open again. He grunted in pain. "Xie—Xie Anan, don't be outrageous. Who—who's a kid?"
Xie Anan rubbed her hands and came close while smiling. "Come here. Let me help you. I guarantee that your swelling will be gone in ten minutes."
Wu Mayan did not buy it at all. His big face twisted again as he raised his eyebrow and shouted, "Don't come close. What are you doing? I warn you, Xie Anan—"
Wu Mayan was about to weep. Ten Xie Anans would be no match for him on a different occasion. But he had just been taught a hard lesson by Li Yao, and even his stomach was cramping because of it. There was no way that he could summon his strength at all.
Although Xie Anan was not a battle-type Cultivator, her strength was hundreds of times higher than before after practicing the Art of the Swallowing Whale and the Chaos Gale Hammer Technique under Li Yao's guidance. Her hands were faster than ever, too.
As a result, she snatched Wu Mayan's shoulders in the blink of an eye.
"Hiss—"
Wu Mayan was about to scream, but the excruciating pain that he expected did not come. Instead, he felt that his shoulders were itching.
Wherever Xie Anan's hands reached, the agony all turned into warmth, like the bitter tea that was dissolving in the mouth and left aroma. He could not have felt more comfortable.
"Well—"
Wu Mayan widened his eyes. He did not anticipate that the silly woman would have such skills.
"How about it? Do you feel better?"
Xie Anan was trying to bond with her future Senior Brother, or rather, her 'little' brother. She did her best to patch him up while she said with a smile, "This is a secret art that Master Sand taught me. He said that it was excavated from a jade chip from the ancient Cultivation world forty thousand years ago and has amazing effects for quick recovery after training.
"Over the past half year, I've often been as miserable-looking as you. Therefore, Master Sand taught me the secret art so that I can be recovered faster and deal with the next day's training."
Wu Mayan was dazed. "You've often been tortured by master, too? How could he bear to do that? Besides, aren't you a refiner?"
Xie Anan raised her eyebrow and replied casually, "In the past half year, you spent most of your time in the Battlesuit Department. It was me who was around Master Sand all the time. Your appearance today is nothing unusual for me.
"It's true that I'm a refiner, but Master Sand said that the foundation of refining is a healthy body.
"Master Sand also said that my talents are not enough for me to become an 'intelligent' refiner, but I could try to be a 'physical' refiner and focus my attention on forging.
"He hesitated about the training in the beginning, too. But I asked him to increase the amount of training. I knew that I was not smart enough, and I am far from being an unparalleled genius like Senior Brother Wu. If I did not work harder, I would really stand no chance at all."
Wu Mayan was silent.
The suffering of the tutorial battle half an hour ago was still scary for him right now when he thought of it. He was of a mind to run away immediately so that he would be saved from the torment tomorrow night.
He looked at Xie Anan carefully and found it hard to believe that such a girl who still had baby fat and looked like a doll could withstand his master's brutal training methods.
"Why did you come here?"
Wu Mayan's tone softened.
Xie Anan's movement stopped briefly. She bit her lips and said, "I'm here for Master Sand. Just now, I had a big fight with my family…"
Wu Mayan listened to the whole story, but he was a young man of fourteen after all, and he did not how to handle such matters.
"Is Master Sand inside?" Xie Anan looked at Wu Mayan in expectation with her watery eyes wide open.
Wu Mayan had never been stared at by a girl at such a short distance.
His face, which was no longer swollen, suddenly turned red again.
"Alright. Alright. A gentleman does not argue with a woman. I'm going to let you go this time." Wu Mayan waved his hands in annoyance. "Master is still training in the room. I'll bring you in and say a few nice words for you later!"
"Really? Thank you, little Senior Brother!"
In ecstasy, Xie Anan's hands pressed hard.
"Hiss—"
Two hot tears suddenly flowed out of Wu Mayan's eyes, as he screamed desperately, "Xie Anan! Were you my mortal enemy in my previous life?"
…
The following morning, before dawn, the artificial sky was still dark.
The area where the Edge Sharpeners' Meeting was held, on the other hand, was illuminated by countless lights.
The forum for refiners that was held once every five years was too good an opportunity to miss. Many refiners gathered and talked with each other all night long without sleeping at all.
In his decades of life as a refiner, Xie Qianhe had bartered with countless people. But it had been a long time since he was so nervous before the exchange. He paced back and forth anxiously in front of the door of the refining workshop.
That day, seven refiners would be exchanging techniques with Sand Scorpion. Naturally, they could not go inside the room together and had to communicate with Sand Scorpion privately in a fully-enclosed environment one by one.
According to the rules, integrity was of paramount importance in the competition between refiners. Before the exchange of techniques, both parties would swear a Blood Oath and sign a contract stating that they would not inform the process and the result of the barter to any third party, and that the techniques they saw would be kept to themselves if grasped and could not be taught to anybody else.
Master Xue Yuanxin, as a renowned expert,
was invited as the Observer of today's barter.
Therefore, the few refiners ahead of Xie Qianhe all remained absolutely silent after they went out. They kept their mouths shut and stood still with a mysterious face.
Xie Qianhe felt like a cat was scratching his heart. He was going to ask, but he found it hard to open his mouth.
However, from the shock and bewilderment that occasionally leaked out of their eyes, he had vaguely sensed that Sand Scorpion's skills were beyond their expectations.
A while later, the airtight door of the refining workshop was opened. A cluster of high-pressure gas immediately spurted out from inside.
"Here comes Fellow Cultivator Yin!"
Yin Yuanhua, who had just bartered with Sand Scorpion in the room, was also a specialist from the Silver Heart School. He was Xie Qianhe's colleague and they were quite close.
Xie Qianhe hurried to go forward and ask, "Old Yin—"
Master Xue Yuanxin, who was standing to the side, coughed slightly.
Yin Yuanhua was wearing a complicated countenance with both amazement and confusion. He said, "Old Xie, it's your turn to appreciate Fellow Cultivator Sand's methods now."
Xie Qianhe was refreshed. He took a long breath and strode into the refining workshop.
The airtight door was closed behind him. The gears on the two sides of the door slowly pumped away the air in the room and blocked the workshop from the outside world. The entire space was filled with steady, unreactive gas.
In the middle of the workshop was a ball-shaped floating furnace. Hundreds of shining materials were placed in the open warehouses on the two sides.
Sand Scorpion was sitting right behind the furnace.
The heat emitted from the furnace twisted the rays of light and made his body look somewhat unpredictable.
Xie Qianhe observed the best warrior of the six tribes of Iron Plateau carefully and realized that he was much younger than he had imagined. Besides, he did not have the calm and casual demeanor on Master Huangpu.
On the contrary, his hair was messy, and his eyes were red and hollowed. His lips were cracked, suggesting that he hadn't drunk anything for a long time.
There was nothing but emptiness in Sand Scorpion's eyes, which seemed to have pierced into the thick wall of the furnace and extended into the bouncing flames. He was mumbling to himself and calculating something wholeheartedly.
It was only when Xie Qianhe coughed that Sand Scorpion raised his head and glanced at him.
Xie Qianhe shuddered and felt that his eyes were cold and crazy.
Although it was merely a competition between refiners, he felt that he was faced with a hungry, ferocious beast, and that one of them would have to die.
An absurd idea suddenly popped up in Xie Qianhe's mind.
He had heard tales where the ancient refiners would spend ten years day and night in forging an unparalleled sword. They would jump into the furnace and offer themselves as sacrifices so that the sharpest blades in the world could be born!
He had found it hard to imagine what kind of insane refiners would do such things.
But at that moment, he suddenly felt that if there were such refiners, their appearance and spirits would be exactly the same as Sand Scorpion!
Xie Qianhe felt that his lips were dry. He said, somewhat in embarrassment, "Fellow Cultivator Sand, thank you for saving my daughter. My daughter also told me that you went through a lot of trouble giving her enlightenments recently…"
"Fellow Cultivator Xie."
Li Yao was still dwelling in the soul-stirring competition of refining skills a moment ago.
The few refiners who had gone in moments earlier were all experts among experts. The marvelous skills that they demonstrated had given him great satisfaction, as if he had enjoyed a delicious meal.
His computational ability had soared to the maximum, making his head look like a rapidly-functioning, burning mainframe crystal processor, while he analyzed the techniques he had just seen crazily.
He was still hungry at this moment, and there was no time for small talk at all.
Crazy brilliance suddenly beamed out of Li Yao's deep eyes, as he yelled, "Let's talk about the irrelevant stuff outside. Refining is the only theme in this place!"
Chapter 673: Dividing Gold Splitting Jade, Nine Dragons On Body! |
Li Yao's words were like a bucket of icy water that was poured over Xie Qianhe's head. He shuddered hard and suddenly came back to himself.
Troubled by too many trifles, he had not been himself in the past two days.
Li Yao was right. They were both refiners, and refining was their everything. Then, let the arts of refining solve all the problems!
In a moment, Xie Qianhe exuded the intimidating aura of a top refiner once more. Confidence flowed out of his body as he nodded. "Alright. Fellow Cultivator Sand, let's begin!"
He retrieved dozens of materials from his Cosmos Ring and placed them in front of Li Yao.
"Removing the impurities in the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures to get the purest ingredients possible has always been a prerequisite for refining!
"Materials that have impurities will either yield unqualified magical equipment with unexpected consequences or even cause various dangers during the refining process!"
Li Yao nodded. The explosion that took place when he met Master Xue Yuanxin for the first time was because the impurities of one of the ingredients had not been completely cleaned!
Xie Qianhe said confidently, "Every refiner has their own approach to remove impurities and cleanse materials. But the 'Dividing Gold Splitting Jade Art' that I'm going to show today is the ultimate skill in this aspect.
"Please take a look, Fellow Cultivator Sand.
"This is a Colored Star Stone of extremely low quality. Such materials tend to attract the microconstituents in the mother mode, which will decorate the stone with various colors.
"Although it looks beautiful, there are too many impurities in them.
"By my estimation, 77% of the Colored Star Stone is contaminated by impurities. It is barely usable for any purpose!
"It is quite tricky to remove the impurities inside the Colored Star Stone in a normal way.
"But the Dividing Gold Splitting Jade Art adopts a smart approach. By refining the Colored Star Stone with metal and jade, all the impurities inside the stone will meld together, before they are eliminated as a whole!"
Li Yao's eyes suddenly shone with interest. "The 'gold' and 'jade' in the Dividing Gold Splitting Jade Art are mere catalysts?"
"Exactly." Xie Qianhe nodded in approval. "Different materials require different metals and jades as catalysts. There are endless permutations and combinations. I have not explored all of them even though I've studied for ten years.
"Fellow Cultivator Sand, since we are exchanging techniques, I'm not going to keep anything to myself. The information stored in this jade chip is the correlation between materials and their best catalysts that I have tested over the past ten years. Take a look!"
Xie Qianhe took out a translucent jade chip from his pocket, touched it, and tossed it into the air.
The jade chip boasted auto-play technology. It floated in midair and radiated. Octagonally blinking runes fell down like a waterfall and illuminated the entire refining workshop.
Li Yao's eyes were glittering like two crystal cameras with the highest resolution as he tried to capture every piece of information before him.
Xie Qianhe smiled casually. It was impossible that somebody else could learn his ten years of hard work in only several minutes.
Xie Qianhe said, "Fellow Cultivator Sand, allow me to show you the usage of the Dividing Gold Splitting Jade Art in person."
He activated the furnace and set the temperature on the operation menu, ready for the real refining work.
Xie Qianhe tossed the Colored Star Stone as well as the Night Flowing Gold and the Black Green Jade, which served as catalysts, into the furnace. Setting the procedures on the furnace, h
e closed his eyes and waved his fingers crazily. Mumbling spells to himself, he put his fingers in hundreds of different postures within an instant.
Inside the furnace, the fire was burning hot. The Colored Star Stone, the Night Flowing Gold, and the Black Green Jade were all slightly melted. Under the strike of spiritual energy, they were gradually combined and turned into a cluster of colorful liquid metal.
Xie Qianhe's hands were in a quite weird posture. His palms were far away from each other, but the ten fingers were tangled together.
Suddenly, his palms crashed against each other hard. The hundreds of runes floating in midair all flooded into the furnace and reached the materials that were about to be melted!
BOOM!
Earthshaking noises were echoing inside the small furnace, as if a treasure was about to find its way out of the soil!
As the runes merged in the furnace, sounds of wind and thunder resonated within. Small pearls were pushed out of the giant cluster of liquid metal and rolled along the wall of the furnace before they were blown away by the rune array of the wind class to the waste pipe nearby and extracted out of the furnace.
The multicolored pearls seemed to be made of thousands of paints. They were still squeaking, suggesting that they were in an unstable state.
The impurities stored inside the Colored Star Stones had been absorbed by the Night Flowing Gold and the Black Green Jade like a sponge absorbing water.
Three minutes later, Xie Qianhe stopped the technique.
His uniform was soaked in sweat, and his face was red. But he was in quite high spirits while he looked at the waste pipe in satisfaction. He smiled at Li Yao. "Fellow Cultivator Sand, this is how the Dividing Gold Splitting Jade Art works. After preliminary processing, 80% of the impurifies inside the Colored Star Stone have been removed. It should be able to meet the need of simple projects now.
"If the demand on the purity of the material is higher, then the material must be cleansed time and time again until it is usable."
Li Yao bowed and spared no words in his compliment. "The Dividing Gold Splitting Jade Art is indeed marvelous. Thank you for your demonstration, Fellow Cultivator Xie!"
