translator: ahad
Proofreading: shaheer
Humanity’s Great Sage – Chapter 1033: The Master Refiner
Lu Ye wandered about on the Holy Mountain. In truth, there wasn’t much to wander around—all told, there were only a few great halls and several side rooms here, everything clear at a single glance.
But having just arrived, it wouldn’t do for him to wander off randomly, so he could only pass the time this way.
Passing by a great hall, Lu Ye casually glanced inside. His steps suddenly halted, and then he strode straight into the great hall.
The hall was empty, save for a single pillar-like object standing at its center.
Lu Ye’s expression was one of nostalgia and excitement as he approached this pillar. How long had it been since he had last laid eyes on this thing?
The object before him—perhaps the living beings of the Blood Refining World would not recognize it, but among cultivators from the Nine Provinces, who didn’t know it, who hadn’t heard of it?
This was unmistakably a Heavenly Secrets Pillar!
In truth, ever since arriving in the Blood Refining World, while pondering the purpose of the Nine Provinces’ Heavenly Secrets in sending him here, Lu Ye had also been considering how he might return to the Nine Provinces.
He couldn’t possibly stay here his entire life. Since the Heavenly Secrets could send him here, it surely had a way to bring him back.
But this situation was ultimately different from the last time he had entered the Peerless Continent. Back then, he had carried four Heavenly Secrets Pillars with him and could use them to establish contact with the Nine Provinces. This time, he had none.
He had never imagined that there would be one right here on the Holy Mountain. With a Heavenly Secrets Pillar, what need was there to worry about how to return? He could complete the transmission using the pillar.
Perfect—he could buy some cultivation supplies from the Heavenly Secrets Treasury. Recently, what he lacked most were cultivation resources, which was the fundamental reason his cultivation had progressed so slowly.
He raised a hand and pressed it against the Heavenly Secrets Pillar, his mind surging as he tried to connect to the Heavenly Secrets.
Lu Ye frowned. No response!
He tried to connect again—still no response.
This was the first time he had ever encountered such a thing. Connecting to the Heavenly Secrets through a Heavenly Secrets Pillar was an ability every Nine Provinces cultivator possessed, a right bestowed upon them by the Nine Provinces’ Heavenly Secrets. It made no sense for there to be no response.
Yet after several attempts, it was still useless.
“Junior Brother.” Feng Wujiang’s voice sounded from behind him.
Lu Ye turned his head and asked, puzzled, “Eldest Senior Brother, why can’t this Heavenly Secrets Pillar be used?”
Feng Wujiang explained, “Junior Brother may not know this, but this place is not like the Nine Provinces. The Heavenly Secrets Pillar here can only be activated once every five years, lasting for about the time it takes to burn a stick of incense. During that time, a large amount of supplies is transmitted over from the Nine Provinces. Afterward, it remains in a dormant state.”
Lu Ye couldn’t help but be stunned. He hadn’t expected this. He had previously wondered how human cultivators in this Blood Refining World could cultivate without supplies suitable for human cultivators—things like spirit stones. They couldn’t rely solely on absorbing world spiritual energy, could they?
So the Nine Provinces actually transmitted supplies here.
“There’s still about a year until the next activation of the Heavenly Secrets Pillar, so naturally you can’t use it now.”
“Why is it like this?” Lu Ye asked, puzzled.
“I don’t know the exact reason either, but I suspect it’s related to this world’s will. When the Nine Provinces’ Heavenly Secrets sent us here, it employed some means of concealment to prevent this world’s will from detecting our invasion. The dormancy of the Heavenly Secrets Pillar is likely the same. If it remained open year-round, this world’s will would inevitably be able to trace back and discover the existence of the Nine Provinces. That’s why it’s only activated once every five years, and each activation is kept brief.”
Lu Ye was lost in thought.
“Did Junior Brother come here wanting to buy something?” Feng Wujiang asked.
“My cultivation resources are running short. I was hoping to exchange for some.”
Feng Wujiang smiled. “In that case, I’ll have someone deliver some to you later. There’s still some surplus from the last shipment of supplies.”
“Alright.” Lu Ye nodded, then asked again, “By the way, Senior Brother, does the Holy Land have any Blood Crystals?”
“We do. Junior Brother wants those?”
Over the past few decades, the Blood Race armies had laid siege to the Holy Land no small number of times. Each time, many Blood Race died. True, the majority perished in the Divine Watch Sea, their bones and bodies lost, but a portion of the Blood Race also died on the outer archipelago.
The Blood Crystals of these Blood Race had all been extracted and collected by human cultivators.
Originally, the Holy Land had wanted to research using the energy of Blood Crystals to set up arrays, but the energy within Blood Crystals was also somewhat corrosive, making them unsuitable for array formations. So they had been kept in storage.
After every great battle, the Holy Land would collect a large amount of Blood Crystals. With no use for them, the stockpile had simply grown and grown.
Now, the Holy Land had a dedicated storehouse for holding Blood Crystals. Inside, Blood Crystals of all sizes and varying quality were piled up like a mountain.
For others, Blood Crystals were something to be wary of, but to him, they were excellent medicine. With enough Blood Crystals, he could break through to the ninth order of the Real Lake Realm and charge toward the Divine Ocean Realm.
“I’ll have someone deliver them to you as well later,” Feng Wujiang said as he gestured. “Come with me. There’s someone who wants to meet you.”
Lu Ye followed behind Feng Wujiang.
A short while later, in the artifact refining workshop, Lu Ye met Ouyang Zi.
Feng Wujiang introduced the two to each other. Learning that Ouyang Zi had actually been the chief artifact refiner of the Divine Trade Association several hundred years ago, Lu Ye was filled with deep respect.
A colossal entity like the Divine Trade Association was brimming with talent. For Ouyang Zi to become the chief artifact refiner, his refining skill was naturally of the highest order—not something a half-baked amateur like him could compare to.
In the end, he had only studied the Way of Artifact Refining under Kong Kong for two months in the Sword Artifact Sect’s hidden realm. Even if he had some talent in this path, artifact refining was not something one could achieve high mastery in without years and years of dedicated immersion.
Ouyang Zi, on the other hand, was even more astonished—mainly because Lu Ye was far too young.
Yesterday, when Feng Wujiang had said the Same Breath, Linked Branches array disc was refined by his junior brother, Ouyang Zi had thought that since he was Feng Wujiang’s junior brother, he must be at least in his fifties.
Yet the young man before him clearly looked to be just over twenty!
“You refined this item?” Ouyang Zi held the array disc in his hand, his eyes still somewhat red, looking as though he hadn’t rested well the day before.
“Yes, this junior refined it,” Lu Ye nodded.
“Refine another one for me to see.” Ouyang Zi looked as though he didn’t quite believe it—mainly because he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. At Lu Ye’s age, even if he had started learning the Way of Artifact Refining from his mother’s womb, there was no reason he should be able to completely brand such a complex Spirit Pattern into an array disc.
Lu Ye turned his head to look at Feng Wujiang. Eldest Senior Brother nodded. “Junior Brother, go ahead and refine one.”
Since Eldest Senior Brother had spoken, Lu Ye naturally didn’t refuse. He took out some materials from his storage space, channeled his spiritual power into scorching flames, wrapped the materials, and began incinerating and tempering them.
At his current cultivation of the Real Lake Realm eighth order, he could already refine simple items out of thin air. The array discs he had made before had all been produced this way.
Under his manipulation, impurities were continuously separated, and the prototype of an array disc slowly took shape.
A short while later, Lu Ye withdrew his spiritual power. A brand-new Same Breath, Linked Branches array disc was freshly completed. He handed it to Ouyang Zi.
Ouyang Zi took it, channeled his spiritual power and divine sense to probe the interior of the array disc, his face full of disbelief. “This defies all reason.”
He had observed Lu Ye’s refining technique with his own eyes. It was indeed immature. The array disc in his hand, purely in terms of quality, just barely passed muster. With such refining skill, how could he possibly brand such a complex Spirit Pattern completely into the disc?
Such an array disc truly gave off the sense of “rotten wood on the outside, gold and jade within.” From the outside, nothing special could be seen, but the real value was all inside.
Lu Ye knew what he was marveling at and explained, “Senior, I am a Spirit Pattern Master. Constructing Spirit Patterns is not particularly difficult for me.”
Even with this explanation, Ouyang Zi still wore an expression of amazement. “The technique is truly divine, beyond mere skill.”
He had seen Spirit Pattern Masters before, but none of the ones he had met possessed such extraordinary ability.
“Little friend, would you be willing to teach this old man the construction of this Spirit Pattern?” Ouyang Zi’s attitude was noticeably more courteous. Although he could perceive the complete structure of the Same Breath, Linked Branches Spirit Pattern through his divine sense and spiritual power, constructing the same Spirit Pattern using different methods varied in difficulty. He wanted to know how Lu Ye constructed this Spirit Pattern, to draw lessons from it. Perhaps he could gain something.
He had spent all of yesterday studying the array disc and naturally knew its wondrous applications. One could say this item was a lethal weapon in large-scale warfare, playing an irreplaceable role in the Holy Land’s upcoming defense against the Blood Race army’s assault.
Naturally, he wanted to begin refining this item so that the Holy Land’s human cultivators could be equipped with it.
“Of course, no problem,” Lu Ye agreed at once.
And so, the old man and the young man put their heads together, muttering and murmuring. From time to time, Lu Ye would demonstrate the construction of the Spirit Pattern for Ouyang Zi.
Feng Wujiang stood to the side, silently waiting.
Also standing nearby, like a wooden post, was Dao Thirteen.
Several hours later, Feng Wujiang led Lu Ye out of the artifact refining workshop, leaving behind Ouyang Zi, who wore an expression of deep bitterness and resentment.
For he had discovered that while Lu Ye constructed that Spirit Pattern with effortless ease—as simple as eating or drinking water—when it was his turn, he failed again and again, often stopping when ninety percent of the way was complete.
Such was the nature of Spirit Pattern construction. To successfully construct a Spirit Pattern, not the slightest error could occur throughout the entire process. Even a single missed Yin-Yang element would cause the whole thing to collapse.
This was also why the number of true Spirit Pattern Masters in the Nine Provinces was so scarce.
It was common for array masters, artifact refiners, and even alchemists to learn the construction of some Spirit Patterns to facilitate their own array formations, artifact refining, or alchemy. But the Spirit Patterns they mastered were all in very specific, specialized fields, and they only constructed the few Spirit Patterns they used most frequently.
Unlike true Spirit Pattern Masters, who could construct any type of Spirit Pattern with ease, as if plucking it from thin air.
“Senior Ouyang probably won’t be of much help,” Feng Wujiang also saw the situation clearly. In the Way of Artifact Refining, Ouyang Zi was second to none. Even in the current Nine Provinces, there were few whose refining skill could match his. But expertise lay in different fields. The incomparably complex Same Breath, Linked Branches Spirit Pattern was, for Ouyang Zi, an insurmountable hurdle.
Perhaps in the future, he could slowly practice to improve his success rate in constructing this Spirit Pattern and apply it to artifact refining. But what the Holy Land lacked most right now was time.
Within two months, the Blood Race army would inevitably invade. Counting on Ouyang Zi was useless.
(End of Chapter)