Night time...
Rex was sitting cross-legged on the back of Kenery, he slowly opened his eyes and turned to Jiang Qing who looked extremely bored.
He smirked then looked at the old men trio who was staring daggers at him the whole time.
"Are you that excited to see how your new home looks like?" Rex said with a face that was desperately asking for a beating.
Excited your sister!
The old trio wanted to beat the shit out of Rex but couldn't do it because of the strength difference and the Absolute Slave Seal.
"Master Ye, the chess tournament should have already started today, and tomorrow will be the semifinals, who do you think will win?" Jiang Qing asked out of nowhere.
"Hmm... It's hard to say who will win but I can guess the name of two people who will likely enter the top three. One should be the sect master of Cold Heaven Sect and the other is Ria," Rex said.
Jiang Qing slowly nodded.
'I have witnessed Ria's skills in chess that's why I know that she is not easy to defeat but it's hard to compare her with others as I never played chess with someone else here and I cannot take myself as a reference, as for that Ji Biyu she is quite sharp when it comes to scheming, from the data of her played games I never saw her losing to her opponents.
If I am right, the main game would be between the two of them. Ria, I don't know how deep her history is but the girl isn't simple, she looks highly educated with her way of talking and strategies, she is a quick-witted and quick decision making person but when she is in front of others she acts like an extremely shy and innocent type. If it was not for me carrying about her privacy... Well, I shouldn't depend too much on Appraisal either, Zakiya was able to sense when I used Appraisal on her for the first time, it can also happen with others,' Rex thought.
"How long it will take for us to reach the city?" Rex asked.
"Not much, with our current speed it would take just about an hour," Jiang Qing said after checking the map and stars in the sky.
'I wanna go back and quickly refine a few artifacts,' Rex thought.
Rex was a little excited when he heard it because during the time they traveled back from Alchemist City he had tried refining the artifact the same way as Zakiya in the virtual world.
At first, it seemed easy, but after trying to refine in person he failed more than 10 times continuously before refining a 1 Star grade treasure artifact which greatly surprised him. Although the process of refining an artifact in the higher realm was different from the middle realm but he didn't expect it to be that hard even with a refiner. Fortunately, after he refined a 1 Star grade treasure artifact he was a little satisfied but was also disappointed because even when using the same recipe, unlike Zakiya's 3 Star grade treasure artifact he barely refined a 1 Star grade treasure artifact.
But after gaining some proficiency in refining a 1 Star grade treasure artifact, Rex started to do experiments like refining an artifact using his own blood and with Elixir Of Life, but the thing was when he did that and succeed, the virtual world let him know that the artifact would gain the ability but didn't show him what ability would it gain.
According to Rose's estimation, the current virtual world was not strong enough to predict things at such level and accuracy yet.
Rex then thought of something and turned to the old men trio.
"I heard you killed someone from your organization to snatch an heirloom, where is it?" Rex asked.
Old One was reluctant to answer but under the threat of the soul seal, he had no choice but to obediently reply.
"It was Rising Dragon Spear, we had already made a deal before obtaining it so we sold it just after getting it. We never practiced how to wield a spear and the organization would act crueler and more persistent against us if we used that so we traded it with the smugglers," Old One said.
Rex nodded. He didn't doubt his words because if he had lied then he would be dead by now.
Rex didn't talk with them anymore and entered the virtual world to practice the meditation technique.
After about an hour, they finally arrived in the city. Rex saw Jiang Shuang standing in the garden, he seemed to be waiting for them.
"Brother Ye how were the negotiations?" Jiang Shuang asked the second Kenery landed on the ground.
"Negotiations? Yeah, negotiations went well, they apologized and gave us quite a bit of compensation, you can talk with Little Jiang for further details," Rex nonchalantly said and jumped down from Kenery's back.
Jiang Qing was embarrassed. When Jiang Shuang looked at her, she averted her gaze.
Jiang Shuang shook his head, that reaction spoke more than words, he then noticed the three old men standing behind Rex with dark expressions.
"These..." (Jiang Shuang)
"Oh, them? They are no-salary-workers that want to contribute to our organization with their life on the line. Give them some work you have if not, let them clean the streets or act as watchmen in Corentis," Rex said casually.
The three old men gritted their teeth in anger but didn't say a word. For them, life was obviously more precious than pride.
Jiang Shuang nodded.
Rex didn't talk more and left, he first went to the workshop to take out some equipment then he left the city when it was still night and came to an open ground in the jungle.
He first took out six pillars, and connected them using an array in a hexagonal formation.
Rex took a deep breath, then took out The Four Gargoyles Refiner. He intended to refine a treasure artifact but just like when he refined Elixir Of Life for the first time, he would have to pass a heavenly trial after refining a treasure artifact for the first time.
After revising the process one more time, he threw all the ingredients in the refiner, some of them were changed for example there were no dark elemental spirit stones included in the recipe this time instead he added 1/3 of one bottle of Elixir Of Life and few drops of his blood in it. Furthermore, Rex used the Scarlet Heavenly Flame to speed up the refining.
The process was smooth, all the ingredients melted and fused under Rex's control, the most important thing when refining was one's mental strength and Rex never lacked in this aspect. The secondary was soul strength, as a soul cultivator he never needed to worry about this either, and finally, it was practice and this loophole was filled up with the help of the virtual world.
After a few hours, Rex wiped the sweat on his forehead and retracted his flame, he flicked his finger and a transparent glass-like twin edged diamond crystal hovered above the refiner.
The crystal look like two lower half of diamonds were attached to each other to have two pointed sides, it was long but thinner, its middle part was slightly thicker than it only got thinner on both upper and lower side until the pointed ends.
He then made some hand patterns and a mini array appeared above the artifact, the array then got sucked into it, and soon after a small transparent Frozen Flame symbol appeared above it, the enigma flickered for a second before it disappeared.
It was the Artifact Signature Technique Zakiya taught him, Artifact Refiner leaves their enigma on their work to let others know who made them. The enigma can only be planted when the artifact is just made and has yet to get a user. The tattoo Rex got on his arm after refining Black Pendant was also related to Zakiya's enigma in a way.
The enigma process was a necessity, if the Artifact Refiner don't use this technique, the treasure artifact would develop its own enigma when being refined by a person.
...Crackle...Crackle...
When Rex was still observing the artifact, black clouds appeared above him and covered the night sky.
Rex didn't pay it any heed, he just snapped his fingers, and the towers around his shined forming an array, soon a semi-transparent black shield appeared out of nowhere and covered him. It was an upgraded version of the main shield that protects the whole Frozen Flame City. Rex had used the knowledge he obtained from Zakiya on arrays to modify it so he was pretty confident in its defense. After he activated the array, he again focused on his newly obtained treasure artifact.
'Appraisal'
[Treasure Artifact:-
Type: Auxiliary Tool
Grade: 1 Star
Description: An artifact that boosts the Qi absorption & Qi refining rate of the host and improves the host's cultivation speed by a big margin as a result.
Growth Requirement: 1st-grade spirit herbal powder
Ability 1 (Passive): + 50% increase cultivation rate
Ability 2 (Passive): + 7% Qi regeneration rate
Ability 3 (Passive): + 10% Qi refining rate]
'Not bad, I guess,' Rex thought.
...Crackle...
Three thunder strikes landed on the shield but failed to case the slightest ripple on it.
Rex then summoned Zakiya's Black Pendant and appraised it too for comparison.
[Treasure Artifact:-
Type: Auxiliary Tool
Grade: 3 Star
Description: An artifact that lets its host conceal their presence to a certain extent and prevents others from probing their secrets.
Growth Requirement: Dark elemental Qi
Ability 1 (Passive): Breath concealment
Ability 2 (Passive): Spiritual-Sense concealment
Ability 3 (Passive): Soul concealment
Ability 4 (Passive): Lesser-Presence
Ability 5 (Passive): Anti-Detection mental membrane]
'Damn, I'm still two ability short and her artifact only needs the dark attribute in my Yin Qi to grow but mine needs spirit herbal powder especially when mine's grade is lower than hers... seriously?' Rex thought.
1st-grade spirit herb powder can be prepared by drying and crushing any random 1st-grade spirit herd that has good vitality into powdered form. Feeding a spirit rank powder to a weapon is not something a normal person could do, it's like burning money for them.
...Crackle...Crackle.... x 3
While Rex observed the two artifacts, thunder strikes kept falling on the barrier in turns but no one managed to penetrate it, even the strongest strike only managed to make some ripples on the barrier. In fact, if Rex's cultivation base was high like the Artifact Refiners of the higher realm than he won't face such weak thunder tribulation, at the moment he was like a teenager facing an adult but... with a gun in his hand, he can easily win the battle as long as he knows how to use it even if his combat ability was not high enough.
'Although, this artifact doesn't look that useful to me but it can be very beneficial to people around me, let's refine a few more like this and see if I can make a difference in the abilities it got,' Rex thought.
The thunder tribulation was already over but Rex didn't bait an eye to it.
He then refined two more artifacts like that and finished one bottle of Elixir Of Life, Rex didn't refine the artifact further because he only had a small amount of Elixir Of Life left by now and his vast mental energy was also significantly depleted.
'I will refine Elixir Of Life again, later on, Project Life had used a lot of it and there is still no result but I cannot give up, if I succeed then the benefits will outdo the losses,' He thought. Rex could use the virtual world for non-living things but Project Life also uses many kinds of parasitic plants, bacteria... etc which cannot let it provide accurate results with its current capability.
Rex was just thinking of heading back when his smart band rang.
[Incoming call from Zakiya: The Evil Woman....]
[Pick up the call: Yes/No]
Rex raised his eyebrow, he had given the latest model of Smart Band to Zakiya because she was pretty interested in this technology, he was curious as to why she called him in the middle of the night, after thinking for a second he picked up the call.
((What took you so long?)) (Zakiya)
((I was just refining an artifact so my smart band was on silent mode,)) (Rex)
((Oh, so how many times did you fai- succeed? I guess someone as 'talented' as my disciple should have at least refined one descent artifact,)) (Zakiya)
((Not many, I only tried refining three times after tempering with the recipe a little, so I was only able to refine three artifacts but they all are just 1 Star grade treasure artifacts,)) Rex said in a depressed tone.
There was a long silence on the other side....
..Boom...
Rex suddenly heard the sound of something breaking from the other side.
((Huh? Teacher, are you all right? Did something happen?)) Rex asked in a 'worrisome' tone.
((No it was nothing, my hand slipped a little and the table broke. That aside, although it's good that you were able to refine three artifacts but you shouldn't get overconfident, they may be 1 Star grade auxiliary type artifacts but without an ability what does an auxiliary type artifact matter? The user would need to feed it in hope of it gaining ability in the long run and...)) (Zakiya)
((Er... wait teacher, they do got abilities, they got three abilities each but the depressing part is all of them had the same three abilities without any change. I guess I need to make some changes in the refining process or the recipe itself to get different results,)) Rex said.
...Boom..Crack....
[Signal lost]
[The call got disconnected]
'Huh? Do we have also signal problems?' Rex wondered.