Leaving the Star Shattering Sect only a few days after he had returned to the sect, Xuan Hao decided to first stop by Yi Min before he made his way towards the location of Pei Yang's Grandmaster Blacksmith friend. The reason for this was that he wanted to see if he could get any help from her and at least improve his blacksmithing realm beyond the Expert Realm before meeting the Grandmaster Blacksmith.
After all, even if Yi Min wasn't anywhere near the Grandmaster Realm, she had still reached the Master Realm and would be able to provide him with some help when it came to reaching the Artisan and Master Realm.
Other than that, he also had to thank her for ensuring that none of the chaos from the war between the forces of the Sky Empire and invading empires ended up affecting the Star Shattering Sect over the past two years.