Cultivation Begins From The Desert-Chapter 67: Creating Your Own Magical Artifact

Chapter 67: Chapter 67: Creating Your Own Magical Artifact

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Discovering the unhatched eggs of the "Flame-devouring Spider," this can truly be described as a major find.

The adult "Flame-devouring Spiders" that have tasted human flesh are wild and difficult to tame. Eventually, when they grow old and weak or cannot endure captivity and choose to die, their fate is to be killed for their silk, which is then refined into magical artifacts—a one-time deal.

However, if they can be tamed from a young age, there is a high possibility of domestication into family-owned spirit beasts. This way, the Zhou Family would gain a stable source of income from selling spider silk, further enhancing the clan’s foundation.

Moreover, the "Flame-devouring Spider" doesn’t just spit silk for money. Its combat capability is rather strong, and it can serve as a backup force for the family in critical moments.

Don’t be misled by how easily Zhouyang handled those eight "Flame-devouring Spiders" into thinking these creatures are weak fighters. In reality, it was his cultivation level and magical artifacts that overwhelmed them.

If even a Ninth-Layer Qi Cultivation Stage cultivator faces such eight Tier Two High-Grade Demon Beasts, just escaping with their life would already be a blessing.

As Tier Two High-Grade Demon Beasts, the "Flame-devouring Spiders" are not limited to spitting silk. Their venomous fangs contain a terrifying fiery poison, which can quickly dehydrate and kill living organisms if injected. Their eight legs, each four to five feet long, can be used as short spears, rivaling the power of Tier Two High-Grade Flying Swords.

A Qi Cultivation Stage cultivator encountering a "Flame-devouring Spider" in the confined space of an underground cave would already consider it quite fortunate to hold their ground one-on-one. Against eight "Flame-devouring Spiders," even a five-member standard adventure team would only be able to run for their lives.

Beast taming should be left to the professionals. After Elder Zhou Quan passed away, the Zhou Family no longer had a Tier Two Beast Tamer, only Zhou Xuanzhao, who is a Tier One Top Grade Beast Tamer.

Zhouyang carefully wrapped a dozen spider eggs with spider silk, hanging them from his waist, ready to hand them over to Seventeenth Uncle Zhou Xuanzhao for handling upon returning. Perhaps the opportunity for this Seventeenth Uncle to advance to Tier Two Beast Tamer lies with these "Flame-devouring Spiders."

After securing the spider eggs, Zhouyang returned to the mine shafts and violently knocked out all the adult "Flame-devouring Spiders" whose legs he had severed. He then used their own silk to tie all eight into a string and dragged them out of the mine.

Exiting the mine, Zhouyang briefly explained the situation to Thirteenth Aunt Zhou Xuanying and asked her to organize the miners to clean up the corpses of those killed by the "Flame-devouring Spiders." Meanwhile, he gathered dozens of camels, attached sand sleds, and used them to tow the eight "Flame-devouring Spiders" back to Haoyang Cave.

Back at Haoyang Cave, Zhouyang threw the eight "Flame-devouring Spiders" into the remaining two Spirit Beast Chambers in two batches, tossed a few dozen "Essence Pills" refined from demon beast blood and flesh essence onto the ground, then sealed the iron doors of the chambers, leaving these beasts unattended.

Though he’s not skilled in beast taming, he knows that trying to communicate with freshly captured demon beasts is futile. Only after confining them for a year or so to grind down their ferocity could the subsequent silk extraction be considered.

Until then, to prevent these beasts from harming others, he must personally handle their feeding.

Next, he flew on his sword back to the Yuquan Lake Oasis, handed the spider eggs to Seventeenth Uncle Zhou Xuanzhao, and consulted the old clan leader Zhou Minghan about some issues he encountered in artifact refining.

Breaking through from a Tier Two High-grade Refiner to a Tier Three Refiner is no easy feat. Zhouyang’s success rate in refining Tier Two High-Grade Spiritual Artifacts has surpassed fifty percent, but he still lacks confidence in refining Tier Three Spiritual Artifacts.

The spiritual objects for refining Tier Three Artifacts are costly, each worth at least as much as a Tier Two High-Grade Spiritual Artifact. Without a substantial degree of confidence, he doesn’t dare to recklessly attempt refining Tier Three Artifacts.

In the Hundred Skills of Cultivation, at the entry-level of Tier One and Tier Two, materials can be used to cultivate skills. But at the Tier Three and Four stages, even major sects with Golden Core Stage ancestors, like the Yellow Sand Sect, dare not waste resources to forcibly nurture skills.

Thus, the further one progresses, the more these skills depend on talent. Those lacking talent cannot achieve significant accomplishments in this field.

"Don’t be anxious. With your age, becoming a Tier Three Refiner is just a matter of time. From my experience, you might try creating your own magical artifacts more often. If you can create a method for refining even a Tier One Spiritual Artifact, it will greatly aid your breakthrough to a Tier Three Refiner."

At the top of Jade Spring Peak, under the "Dragon Scale Tree," Zhouyang and Zhou Minghan, the grandfather and grandson, sat under the tree, brewing tea and discussing the Dao, sharing and exchanging their respective insights on artifact refining.

"Creating my own magical artifacts? Isn’t it said that one only starts learning to create their own magical artifacts when breaking through from a Tier Four Refiner to a Tier Five Refiner? Can I really create my own artifacts now?"

Zhouyang’s expression shifted, looking somewhat uncertain at the old clan leader, muttering to himself, his face full of doubt.

While creating one’s own magical artifacts sounds simple, in actual practice, it is exceedingly difficult. Artifact refining is not like mundane blacksmithing, where forging a strangely shaped weapon can be claimed as inventing a new weapon.

For an artifact refiner, the shape of the artifact doesn’t matter; what’s important are the magic bans within the artifact. Only when a magic ban successfully embeds within an artifact and takes shape does the artifact qualify as a magical artifact.

For example, when Zhouyang refines a Tier One Spiritual Artifact like the "Cyan Blade," he can only embed the "Sharpness" magic ban in it. If he were to embed the "Fiery Flame" magic ban directly, there’s a ten out of ten chance the sword embryo would explode on the spot.

However, if he can successfully embed the "Fiery Flame" magic ban into the sword embryo, forming a sword that emits flame attacks—creating a "Flame Sword"—it would mean the creation of a new magical artifact is a success.

However, to achieve this step, how easy is it to talk about!

The "Cyan Blade"’s sword embryo was originally the shape most suitable for arranging the "Sharpness" magic ban, as concluded by the predecessors after countless experiments. If it were a millimeter shorter or wider, it could lead to failure in arranging the magic ban, let alone trying to arrange the "Fiery Flame" magic ban, which has nothing to do with "Sharpness".

Therefore, for any artifact refiner who wants to create a spiritual artifact on their own, there is only one path to take: burning money! Constantly burning money!

Only through repeated failures and modifications can the "Fiery Flame" magic ban be successfully imbued into the sword embryo of the "Cyan Blade", thus refining a "Flame Sword".

But do you think that means the creation of the spiritual artifact was successful?

No!

This is only the beginning!

A single success does not mean success, it could also just be luck.

Only repeated success can be considered true success.

Therefore, after Zhouyang successfully refined a "Flame Sword", there are two major steps he needs to take. The first major step is to increase his success rate in refining the "Flame Sword" to ten out of ten.

The second major step is to record the method of refining the "Flame Sword" and teach it to other artifact refiners. Only when other artifact refiners can successfully refine the "Flame Sword" using his method can it be considered a true success.

If he can achieve these, then it can be considered a true creation of a spiritual artifact.

If he can truly succeed in creating a spiritual artifact, he can receive the legendary "Celestial Favor" and enter a state of enlightenment in the unseen world.

It should be noted that the creation of spiritual artifacts by artifact refiners does not need to be unique.

Take Zhouyang as an example. As long as he has not learned the method of refining the "Flame Sword" from predecessors and has not encountered any related materials, if he explores and creates the "Flame Sword" on his own and summarizes the method, he can also enter the state of enlightenment.

Once entering the state of enlightenment, his understanding and recognition of artifact refining skills will greatly improve. At that time, breaking through to a Tier Three Refiner will be practically certain.

However, the Heavenly Dao is fair. An artifact refiner can only receive "Celestial Favor" and enter the state of enlightenment for the first time by creating a Tier One spiritual artifact. To receive "Celestial Favor" again and enter the state of enlightenment through creating a spiritual artifact, one needs to create a Tier Two spiritual artifact.

Those Tier Four Refiners attempting to breakthrough to Tier Five Refiners generally need to create a Tier Two spiritual artifact and experience enlightenment twice to ensure success.

It is precisely because creating a spiritual artifact is so difficult that Zhouyang, deeply aware of its difficulty, lacks confidence at this moment.

Facing Zhouyang’s uncertain doubt, Zhou Minghan smiled slightly and said: "A Tier Four Refiner needs to create a spiritual artifact to break through to a Tier Five Refiner because the structure of Tier Five spiritual artifacts is complex, involving the secret of transforming spiritual flesh. Unless they are a supremely gifted refiner, it is hard to comprehend, so they must rely on Celestial Favor to help themselves understand."

"Now whether you succeed or fail in creating a spiritual artifact, you can accumulate experience. Perhaps by drawing analogies, you may breakthrough the current bottleneck in your artifact refining skills."

"I remember when I broke through to a Tier Three Refiner, I succeeded by a sudden enlightenment when studying to repair a spiritual artifact made by another refiner."

"I see, Grandson understands what to do now." Zhouyang nodded suddenly, a gleam of light flickering in his eyes.

The old Clan Leader Zhou Minghan has already pointed out the path. Whether Zhouyang can walk it through depends on his own comprehension ability.

As the saying goes: "Master leads you to the door, cultivation depends on the individual."

Having a good master can definitely help the disciple avoid many detours, but whether they reach the end, and how far they can go, ultimately depends on the disciple’s own comprehension and talent.

Upon finding his direction, Zhouyang immediately bid farewell to the old Clan Leader and returned directly to Haoyang Cave to start his sequestered attempts.