"Enough chit chat, now let me show you how to refine a real Treasure Artifact," Zakiya said as she stood and walked a few steps to open ground.
She then waved her hand and a big refiner appeared out of nowhere.
Unlike Rex's Four Gargoyles Refiner who looked very similar to a cauldron, her refiner was like a big vase which was only a little shorter than an adult man.
The refiner didn't have any legs, it was pitch red, a long black snake was carved out on its surface, the snake was wrapped around the vase starting from it's bottom to top where its head was facing Zakiya.
The Qi in the surrounding became restless, the second the refiner appeared. One could easily see the fluctuating void around it to guess its value.
"This is my… Black Snake Refiner," Zakiya said with a prideful smile.
'And I through my naming sense was the worst. Well, teacher is teacher after all,' Rex thought.
Zakiya then took a deep breath, her expression turned serious. She raised her hand and tapped the refiner, the refiner trembled for a second before the rune-like pattern shined all over its surface and the spiritual Qi in the surrounding got madly sucked by it.
"Rex, you know what is the thing that makes Treasure Artifact so special?" Zakiya said.
"A successfully refined Treasure Artifact has 60% around chance have an ability, 30% chance to have two ability and less than 15% to have more, the chances vary depending on the artifact refiner's skills. The ability of the artifacts can grow with them, meaning that a Treasure Artifact can give extra abilities to their user and considerably increase their battle power, but the number and rank of Treasure Artifact one could control also depends on their capability," Rex said.
"Correct now do you know how refiner can manage the ability the Treasure Artifact is going to have?" She said.
Rex shook his head.
"Of course you don't because it's not possible but an artifact refiner can limit the possibilities from which it will gain the ability, just like how Alchemists have fixed recipe for every particular pill, Artifact Refiner's to have their certain recipe to make artifacts but the same recipe can give different results depending on the few ingredients that are different for every artifact refiner.
If there is not a single change in the recipe then the product you will get will be the same but most the of times it's not possible to have the same steps as artifact refiners with special bloodline sometimes use their blood to limit the ability the artifact is going to get, in a situation like that if someone else follows the recipe then they have to use their blood and it will affect the result," Zakiya said as she then took out black coal-like stones and threw it in the vase, followed by a blue filament, a frozen black lotus, and several other ingredients.
'Is she making a hot pot? What about the recipe? It's like a chef was talking about a 5 Star dish for hours then he shows how to make instant noddles,' Rex thought.
In the end, Zakiya threw a lot of Shadow Elemental spirit stones into the po- refiner.
"Er… Teacher, what about the recipe you were talking about?" Rex finally wasn't able to hold back and asked.
"Brat, this is the recipe, it's one of the recipes I made myself," Zakiya snorted. She released her Qi in the next moment and started controlling the refiner.
"Refining is done by using spirit stones as a catalyst and spiritual energy between heaven and earth. It takes time to complete refining just based on these but there is a way to speed up the refining," Zakiya snapped her fingers and the blood-red flame appeared above her hand, she then waved her hand and the blood-red flame engulfed the Refiner.
"Wouldn't the attribute of flame affect the refining?" Rex asked.
"Indeed it will, that is if the flame made direct contact with refining but I am only using the flame on the refiner, it can absorb the power of the flame and use it speed up the refining, this is the reason I refined this flame in the first place," Zakiya said.
She then turned to the refiner and increased the intensity of the flames by several folds. After around one hour she retracted her flames, she then flickered her finger and a tiny black cylindrical crystal came out of the refiner and floated above it.
Rex observed the finger-size black crystal, just when he was thinking that refining was over Zakiys clasped her hand folded them in different patterns.
Three black arrays containing the power of law appeared around the black crystal, they struck the crystal and disappeared in it as soon as they appeared.
The crystal then flew away and floated in front of Rex.
Rex took the crystal and looked at the crystal, the slightly transparent crystal now had an almost unnoticeable black like pattern all over it, it also had a small hole at its one of its end. The crystal didn't have any Qi fluctuation or around it, overall it looked like a pendant one could buy on a roadside stall.
"It's a 3 Star Treasure Artifact, It's name is Black Pendant," Zakiya said with a smile.
"Teacher, I seriously believe that you need to improve your naming sense," Rex said with a straight face.
…Boom…
[ -111 HP]
'Honesty doesn't have any value these days,' Rex thought while rubbing his head.
"So I was saying, it's Black Pendant. It has a passive ability that can prevent others from probing the insides of your body, your body has changes that are better to not be known by other people, for example, that Yin and Yang Qi. It only needs to absorb your Yin attribute Qi once in a while as its food. It can also hide your aura until you reveal it yourself," Zakiya said.
Rex nodded, now he understood why she gave it to him, at present he doesn't have any big force protecting him so if his abilities are revealed then he will be like an ownerless treasure for many people.
"By the way, the recipe I used was crude but effective, it's a special one if you slightly change its ingredients then you might get some unexpected result, I have prepared some for you to practice," Zakiya said then took out a storage ring and threw it at him.
Rex took the ring then after asking some doubts he came back to the castle.
Inside the spirit tower…
Rex was pressing down a bluebird under his hands.
"Don't struggle dumb bird, I'm not eating you or anything," Rex said to the struggling bird.
Little blue turned her head and gave an 'I believe you my foot,' look to Rex.
Rex's lips twitched.
After he arrived at the castle, he searched for her, caught her, and brought her back to the castle in hurry.
The bluebird was scared silly she still remembered the crazed looks she saw in his eyes when he caught her, how would she know that he was just excited as now he could start practicing his artifacts crafting skills. She had gone through all the effort to build a hidden nest in one corner of Frozen Flame but he easily found her like he already knew where will she be which made her more depressed.
"Relax or I will close you in a soundproof room with Little Aru so he can take some singing lessons from you," Rex said with a sneer.
The bluebird shuddered on his words then immediately ceased all her struggle.
"Good, now don't resist and absorb it," Rex said as he stared at the Exp transfer.
Little Blue's eyes suddenly got wide in shock. She sensed unfamiliar yet very pure energy entering her body, as someone who ate precious herbs as food and had eaten other's monster core she knew how valuable it was to have such energy entering her body, she quickly guided it to her core and absorbed it.
'This silly bird has no guard at all,' Rex thought.
"Don't be greedy and tell me when you are at your limit or I won't be able to save you from the dire consequences," Rex said.
[Level Up]
The bird was already at Monster Emperor's early stage, after the first levels up she reached Monster Emperor middle stage. Rex knew she won't be satisfied by just one or level up, monster race is blessed with stronger physiques than other races so she could take in more than others.
[Level Up]
He decided to increase her strength because it will increase her flying speed by several times and he would spend less time when traveling as a result, he was planning to visit Alchemist Association tomorrow so he helped her to breakthrough today.
[Level Up]
Rex focused on the transferring right amount of Exp while also observing the current condition of Little Blue, she was already at Monster Emperor peak stage and faint smoke was oozing out of her body.
{Don't try to chew more than you can eat, tell me if you can't take it more,} Rex reminded.
The bird peeked at Rex from the corner of her eyes, seemly having no intention of giving up. For her it was a heaven send opportunity that might not come again so how can she give up?
[Level Up]
The bird gave out a low scream after the last level up, Rex quickly cut off the connection and retreated.
Her aura had reached that of Monster Venerable early stage but her body didn't, she was advancing right now.
...Screeaachhhh.....
The bluebird got on her feet, flapped her wings and floated a little above the ground as she screeched towards the ceiling. A blue light covered her whole body.
Under the cover of the blue light her, body size increased by about 20% of her original size, Rex couldn't see all the changes on her body because of the blue light so he waited for her to finish.
After a few minutes, the light diapered and Rex was able to see her.
Her appearance didn't have much of a change, the three long ribbons like feather tail behind her increased in length, some new blue feature was sticking on her head like she was wearing a crown of feathers.
The bird then turned her head and looked at Rex with a smug face, thinking that her cultivation base was now above him and only that Calamity Lord woman was above her.
Rex could guess what she was thinking so he slightly released his aura of Core Breaking 4th stage expert that was enough to make a normal Core Breaking stage peak expert took several steps back.
The bird's face instantly turned dark.
"Silly Blue, if I can make you stronger than I'm obliviously stronger than you, understand?" Rex said with a grin.
He knew the Little Blue had less knowledge about the world than Lerna, and can't even speak like a human much less exposing his secrets if a time really comes where she becomes capable of such a thing then he could just put a contract on her.
"Rest here and stabilize your cultivation base, we will head outside for work tomorrow," Rex said then left.
The bird didn't retort, she didn't know what method he used but he increased her strength so helping him a little was not a problem, she still didn't like being forced to work though after all she was a Monster Emperor and now is Monster Venerable after all.
Before leaving, Rex had checked her race and it was still Thunder Eagle so he believed that it was the adult or full-fledged form of a Thunder Eagle.
Next Morning.....
In the castle garden...
Rex was standing beside the bluebird.
Jiang Shuang and Jiang Qing were standing in front of him.
"You sure? You want to go," Rex looked at Jiang Qing...
"Father is busy with work, and we don't have a guide at the moment so only I can accompany you," Jiang Qing said while peeking at the dazzling bluebird from the corner of her eyes.
Rex's lips arched into a curve, he wasn't blind enough not to see how much she wanted to ride that bird.
He had already signed the fake contract with her before so she knew about his identity Jiang Qing didn't overreact when he revealed his identity she was just surprised to know that he could do so many things alone and after Rex recited his Story v2.0, she finally understood how he was so talented.
"Brother Rex, If you can then please try to solve the problem with words instead of fists, the headquarters of Alchemist Association may not like their branch here but attacking an Alchemist in it is still a slap on their faces," Jiang Shuang worriedly advised.
"Of course I will, rest assured I will try to solve the problem with words and won't resort to violence if possible. I am a peace-loving man after all," Rex said in an honest tone.
Jiang Shuang gave a hollow laugh. He could guess what was going to happen next but can't do anything about it.
"Little Qing, get on fast we don't have time to waste," Rex said.
Jiang Qing nodded and skillfully climbed on the back of the bird.
The bird was dissatisfied when she saw such a weak person sitting on her back but she couldn't do anything when Rex was standing beside her.
Rex also climbed on her back and sat behind Jiang Qing.
"Go Little Blue," Rex patted her back.
The bird flapped her wings and flew into the sky with a swoosh.
Jiang Shuang sighed, he hoped that Rex won't do something too high profile.