Chapter 0583: Junior Apprentice Sister Yan’s Secre
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Ning Cheng felt delighted with Zhongli Baichi’s Artefact-crafting room. Not only was it rich in starry skies’ Essence Qi, but it also contained many shielding restrictions that covered the entirety of the room. Although Ning Cheng could not find any Monitoring Array Formations, he knew that Zhongli Baichi possessed much higher cultivation compared to him. As such, even if he could not find any Monitoring Array Formations inside, he would not bring out the Mysterious Yellow Bead in this place, this was not his place anyway.
To enter the Immortal Jade Star, that Xiao Yu had even erased his own cultivation; as such, he certainly did not want to rush to the Celestial Bridge Realm for now. Besides, Ning Cheng also could not refine the Harmonising Celestial Pill right now; not to mention that the Harmonising Celestial Pill was a Grade 4 Celestial Pill, Ning Cheng could not even refine Grade 1 Celestial Pills. As such, it would prove very difficult for him to advance to the Celestial Bridge Realm without the support of Harmonising Celestial Pills.
Since he was now at Baichi’s Artefact-crafting Store, he could continue refining Dao Artefacts. But where should he obtain the raw materials? Thinking of this Ning Cheng immediately called out, “Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, bring in all the artefact-crafting raw materials we have. I am going to prepare for crafting artefacts. I think master should have already explained it to you before leaving.”
On hearing Ning Cheng’s voice, Junior Apprentice Sister Yan quickly came up. She did not question about the validity of the statement and instead, showed a smile before taking out a storage ring, and a jade strip, “Senior Apprentice Brother Ning, this storage ring contains the raw materials that customers brought for their artefacts, and the jade strip contains the specific requests from the customers. I will be downstairs till you call. Senior Apprentice Brother Ning, please do call on me at any time.”
Ning Cheng took the storage ring and the jade strip before waving away Junior Apprentice Sister Yan with the words, “You can go down. If anyone comes to place an order for crafting artefacts, please collect the raw materials and pass them on to me after some time.”
“Okay. Senior Apprentice Brother Ning.” Junior Apprentice Sister Yan then bowed out from the room, which made Ning Cheng feel slightly happy in this heart. Although that cheap Master Baichi had left, looks like he did make some decent arrangements for him, even letting him enjoy the same treatment as the lord of Baichi’s Artefact-crafting Store.
The moment that Junior Apprentice Sister Yan went down, Ning Cheng’s Spiritual Consciousness immediately swept into the storage ring. When he saw the mountains of raw materials inside the storage ring, he suddenly felt shocked. This storage ring contained tens of thousands of raw materials suitable for crafting middle-grade Dao Artefacts. Even if Ning Cheng had access to god-like speed in crafting artefacts, how long would it take to refine them all?
Hearing Ning Cheng’s audible gasp from upstairs, Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, who had just arrived at the reception desk, showed a faint smile.
Ning Cheng looked at the long list of Dao Artefacts on the jade strips that he needed to craft and immediately decided on practising refining them. With the raw materials in the storage ring, he could theoretically craft double the amount of the Dao Artefacts requested on the jade strip. With so many free raw materials at hand for practising, one could definitely make a windfall.
Although these raw materials could produce middle-grade Dao Artefacts, in Ning Cheng’s perspective, these raw materials were not truly precious. Most of them were Grade 4 starry sky raw materials, while only a few were Grade 5 starry sky raw materials. Just Ning Cheng’s storage ring along contained many raw materials even more precious compared to these raw materials.
Ning Cheng immediately brought out his Celestial River Flame; now that he decided to start the artefact-crafting process, he focused his entire mind on it. Although Zhongli Baichi had inspired his Artefact-crafting Process, all of his artefact-crafting skills and methods were something that he had learned by himself. Ning Cheng had no teacher to receive guidance.
Since he had already crafted a middle-grade Dao Artefact previously, Ning Cheng did not fail even once. As Ning Cheng crafted one middle-grade Dao Artefact after another, he immediately put them aside, and soon the middle-grade Dao Artefacts around Ning Cheng started to pile up into a small hill.
Crafting artefacts was a job that consumed a significant amount of Celestial Essence, and only in this Artefact-crafting Room did Ning Cheng truly realise its benefits. Zhongli Baichi’s Artefact-crafting Store had an ample supply of Celestial Essence, which immediately offset the consumption due to the Artefact-crafting Process.
Middle-grade Dao Artefacts also had a grading system, and the difference between a good-quality middle-grade Dao Artefact and a poor-quality middle-grade Dao Artefact was huge. Ning Cheng’s Mysterious Yellow Formless Cultivation Method was inherently suitable for corrections and finding a better way to do things. As such, the more middle-grade Dao Artefacts he refined, the better his Artefact-crafting Process got, and the more perfect his Artefact-crafting Technique grew.
When Ning Cheng refined hundreds of middle-grade Dao Artefacts, he finally stopped crafting more artefacts. He had come here to learn the art of crafting artefacts, not to take over the work of that cheap master. At this moment, he could easily craft middle-grade Dao Artefacts; including melting the raw materials and fusing them together at the same time. In addition to the slight concentration and hard work involved, Ning Cheng had absolutely no doubts regarding his mastery over the technique.
Ning Cheng put away the extra raw materials into his storage ring, put the hundreds of finished Dao Artefacts into another storage ring, and went downstairs.
“Senior Apprentice Brother Ning…..” Seeing Ning Cheng coming down, Junior Apprentice Sister showed a dazzling smile.
Ning Cheng handed the storage ring in his hand to Junior Apprentice Sister Yan and spoke, “Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, I’ve finished with the list of Dao Artefacts you gave me. But I ended wasting a lot of the raw materials.”
Junior Apprentice Sister Yan grabbed the storage ring, swept her Spiritual Consciousness inside, and found hundreds of middle-grade Dao Artefacts. Seeing all that, she could not help but send a disbelieving look at Ning Cheng, “Senior Apprentice Brother Ning, this…. This….. Did you craft all these?”
“Naturally. Who else but I could craft all those artefacts up there?” Ning Cheng replied with a laugh. “Now you can hand over the materials for the high-grade Dao Artefacts. I want to continue craft artefacts. I came here to help master, not to play around, you know.”
“Yes, yes, please wait…..” Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, with excitement in her eyes, brought out another storage ring.
Ning Cheng’s Spiritual Consciousness swept inside and immediately felt slightly disappointed. Although the raw materials in this storage ring were of a higher grade than the previous storage ring, even the best out of them were only a few Grade 6 starry sky raw materials; moreover, they were rare to the point of being scarce.
“Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, are there no Grade 7, Grade 8 or Grade 9 raw materials in here?” Ning Cheng asked with some doubts. The better the raw materials, the simpler would it prove to craft high-grade Dao Artefacts.
Junior Apprentice Sister Yan showed a rare blush and spoke, “No, the only master has all the higher grade raw materials. These are the best raw materials that I have.”
Something’s wrong, Ning Cheng thought as he looked at this Junior Apprentice Sister Yan in doubt. This Junior Apprentice Sister Yan usually had a professional-looking smile plastered over her face. Even if she did not have better materials, she would not show such a blush. After all, these materials did not belong to her.
“Senior Apprentice Brother Ning, do you have a Nirvana Flame?” Junior Apprentice Sister Yan seemed to have realised that she had gone out of character for a moment and quickly asked a question.
“Nirvana Flame? No.” Ning Cheng shook his head, “How could I have a Nirvana Flame?”
This Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, on hearing that, looked at Ning Cheng in shock. Only after a good long while did she understand that Ning Cheng himself did not know about this piece of fact. She then explained, “When a flame evolves to a purple colour, it would then devour top-ranked fire-attributed starry sky raw materials to evolve into a starry sky flame, also called as Nirvana Flame. Otherwise, there is no way it could melt top-ranked starry sky raw materials. Senior Apprentice Brother, if you didn’t have Nirvana Flames, how did you craft those middle-grade Dao Artefacts?”
Ning Cheng suddenly realised something; when he focussed on crafting those middle-grade Dao Artefacts, he had targeted most of his energy on melting the raw materials instead of concentrating on fusing the raw materials. If he had done it the other way round, his speed of crafting artefacts would have improved a lot faster; at the same time, the quality of the Dao Artefacts would also grow to another level. He had initially thought that it was the result of his low cultivation, but now it seems that his flame’s quality was the main culprit.
Fortunately, he possessed a formidable starry sky Sea of Consciousness; otherwise, he could not necessarily have managed to craft middle-grade Dao Artefacts.
Although Ning Cheng did not understand much about the Nirvana Flames from Junior Apprentice Sister Yan’s words, he realised that Junior Apprentice Sister Yan had opened this topic to distract Ning Cheng from his previous question. Just when he was about to receive the storage ring filled with artefact-crafting raw materials from Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, he suddenly spoke, “Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, what happened to your hand? Show me.”
Junior Apprentice Sister Yan did not react; rather, she subconsciously extended her hand towards Ning Cheng. Ning Cheng grabbed Junior Apprentice Sister Yan’s hand and looked at it till Junior Apprentice Sister Yan’s face turned red. Only then did he let go of her hand and spoke, “Looks like I looked too deep into it. Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, I’m going up to continue crafting artefacts.”
“Senior Apprentice Brother Ning, please. If there is something here, I’ll take care of it.” The blush that crept over Junior Apprentice Sister Yan’s face quickly disappeared and her professional-looking smile once again returned.
Ning Cheng nodded and returned to the room upstairs. Sure enough, it was just as he had guessed it. Ning Cheng only had to stay inside for a short while before he felt Junior Apprentice Sister Yan leaving the shop in a hurry, while also activating the restrictions of the Artefact-crafting Store on her way out.
Ning Cheng showed a faint smile and immediately followed her out. He believed that this Junior Apprentice Sister Yan could not sense his Spiritual Consciousness mark. This Junior Apprentice Sister Yan had not given him a single high-grade raw material for crafting artefacts, only low-grade artefact-crafting raw materials. There definitely was a problem with her.
This Junior Apprentice Sister Yan did not know that Ning Cheng had decided to follow her; therefore, after she left Baichi’s Artefact-crafting Store in a hurry, she took a few turns along the way before reaching a place Ning Cheng had visited before, the Transcending Dao Artefacts Store.
The reason why Ning Cheng had decided to pursue crafting artefacts, and the reason he got to know about that cheap master Zhongli Baichi, was all due to what he had learned from the Transcending Dao Artefact Merchant House. In addition to acquiring all kinds of materials and weapons, this place also sold all sorts of artefacts. Since Junior Apprentice Sister Yan came to this place, it definitely was not to purchase weapons; instead, the only plausible purpose for her to come here was to dispose of the Dao Artefacts in her hand.
At this moment, Ning Cheng still could not understand Junior Apprentice Sister Yan’s intent. However, he realised that the materials that she had given him previously were most likely something that came from her private collection. Perhaps, they might even be the junk materials from Zhongli Baichi’s Artefact-crafting Store. Maybe she had collected these materials to work on by herself in the future. However, she actually brought those Dao Artefacts that he crafted to sell them for money in this place. This woman really knew how to run things.
Just as Ning Cheng thought about whether to follow her inside to expose Junior Apprentice Sister Yan, a message from Ziche Jun suddenly interrupted his thought process. His communications pearl clearly showed that the female cultivator called Qionghua and her Senior Apprentice Sister had just left Eternal Heaven Starry Sky City alone. However, because of some matters, Ziche Jun could not continue following them.
Ning Cheng immediately sent Ziche Jun a simple message ‘ok’, and no longer felt interested in confronting Junior Apprentice Sister Yan. He quickly turned around and hurried out of the city.