Early that morning.
The front doors of the Sword Pavilion were still tightly shut.
At that moment, Qin Sang was in the cave dwelling in the backyard. With the defensive ward active, he focused without distraction, gazing intently at a spirit formation before him.
This spirit formation was an ancestral formation passed down in Shopkeeper Wu's family, specifically designed for crafting magic tools.
It could condense spiritual energy into fire, and setting it up was not particularly complicated. Of all the materials required, the most valuable was a curious spiritual ingredient known as flame-heart stone.
Using the flame-heart stone as a catalyst to give birth to a spiritual fire, Shopkeeper Wu called this flame "stone-core fire."
This stone-core fire had not the slightest connection to the legendary divine fire, the True Samadhi Fire—they were completely unrelated, and their power was worlds apart.
Yet the stone-core fire bred from this spirit formation possessed an advantage: it was exceptionally gentle and easy to control, making it ideal for a beginner.
Beyond that, it had other merits: its strength depended on the quantity of flame-heart stones used. If enough were provided, it could even barely suffice to craft high-grade magic tools.
With this spirit formation, Qin Sang had no need for now to rent an earth-fire chamber for artifact crafting, saving a considerable amount of money.
Even so, flame-heart stones were not cheap. It was foreseeable that for a long time to come, Qin Sang would be operating at a loss.
With the spirit formation laid out, Qin Sang sat cross-legged at its center. Before him, a pale flame the size of a thumb hovered in midair. The flame was extraordinarily still, showing no flicker of motion, so much so that at a casual glance it might have seemed like an inanimate object.
Yet its temperature was searing, sending wave after wave of heat washing over him.
Even the air warped around it.
Qin Sang wrapped his spiritual sense around the flame. Just as Shopkeeper Wu had said, the fire possessed a mild nature. Once familiar with it, one could control it with ease, freeing a crafter from worrying that poor fire manipulation might ruin an entire endeavor at the final step.
Such a tiny flame was obviously insufficient to support artifact crafting.
Flipping his hand over, Qin Sang retrieved several white flame-heart stones and flicked his fingers, sending them flying to various points across the spirit formation. The flame instantly swelled, ballooning several times larger.
The temperature within the cave dwelling spiked sharply.
Qin Sang nodded in satisfaction. Bringing the enlarged flame under his control, he brushed his mustard seed bag, and several items flew out to float beside him.
Among them were several strands of white spider silk, as well as a few emerald-green jade stones that shone more brilliantly than the most precious gemstones in the mortal world.
Silk spun by the monster beast cold spider and Qinglan stones—both were common spiritual materials in the cultivation world. Their spiritual nature was impure and chaotic, making them suitable at best for crafting crude, low-grade magic tools.
Qin Sang intended to start with low-grade magic tools, building a solid foundation before advancing step by step.
He chose these two materials because he wanted to forge a spirit sword imbued with water elemental power, which would serve as a fine weapon for low-ranking cultivators.
Every step had been planned in advance, including the specific magic tools to be crafted, meticulously devised through an all-night discussion between Qin Sang and Shopkeeper Wu.
It was thanks to Shopkeeper Wu imparting everything he knew that Qin Sang had the confidence to undertake this.
Qin Sang picked up a palm-sized Qinglan stone and applied a slight amount of force with his fingertips. With a crisp snap, the Qinglan stone shattered. Qin Sang exercised deft control, culling the most adulterated portions of the stone—not a shred too much, nor a shred too little.
Afterward, he raised his hand and tossed the Qinglan stone fragments into the stone-core fire.
The flames flickered as the impurities in the Qinglan stone were incinerated bit by bit, leaving behind only its purest essence, rich with abundant water elemental power.
However, this water elemental power was exceedingly violent and turbulent, making it difficult to knead together and condense into the shape of a sword.
Qin Sang immediately pinched a strand of spider silk and cast it into the fire. The silk melted like frigid marrow, becoming thick and viscous; as it dripped onto the Qinglan stone, the violent turbulence was gradually smoothed away.
Repeating the process, the two spiritual materials blended into one another, eventually fusing completely and beginning to take the shape of a sword.
Finally, Qin Sang reached into the flames and drew out a three-foot green blade.
The sword's body was slender and emerald-green throughout, with an eye-catching white stripe running down the center.
His very first attempt at artifact crafting had succeeded, though that was only natural. With his cultivation at the middle Foundation Establishment stage, his mastery over spiritual sense and spiritual power far surpassed Shopkeeper Wu's; failing to craft a low-grade magic tool would have been the true oddity.
Holding the spirit sword, he examined it for a moment, savoring the steps of the process he had just completed. Then, casually tossing the sword aside, he continued crafting.
As low-grade spirit swords emerged from the flame one after another, Qin Sang grew increasingly adept. Splitting his attention to recall the contents of the jade slip, he felt his comprehension deepening beyond what he had understood before.
Along the way, wanting to try new things, he suffered a few unexpected failures, but they were of no consequence.
A month later, Qin Sang finally emerged from his cave dwelling. Entering the shop, he looked left and right, then pointed a finger, conjuring a display shelf in an empty space, stocked with spirit swords.
There were not only low-grade spirit swords, but also several medium-grade spirit swords.
The little shop finally had a touch of the charm befitting the name "Sword Pavilion."
This was the fruit of Qin Sang's month of hard work. He had practiced relentlessly for a month, testing every idea and beginning to try crafting medium-grade magic tools, all to thoroughly assimilate this portion of the jade slip's teachings.
His gains were substantial, though certain aspects still required time to comprehend. Even so, there was no need to sit idly in his cave dwelling indefinitely; he could easily spend this time going to Wuya Valley.
He could temper himself while reflecting on his insights, and also gather the spiritual materials needed for artifact crafting in Wuya Valley.
Upon returning from his excursions, he would study artifact crafting and cultivate.
In the years to come, he would live the life of an ascetic monk, not wasting a single minute or second. The driving force behind it all was the rich return he could foresee in the future!
He pushed open the front doors.
The midday sun shone in, bathing him in gentle warmth.
Hearing the sound, pedestrians on the street looked over in surprise, wondering what sort of shopkeeper was so lazy as to only open for business at this hour.
"It's time to hire a shop hand,"
Qin Sang thought to himself.
That very day, Qin Sang went to the mortal broker house, and after looking around, brought back two people.
One was a youth, lean and tall like a dried hemp stalk, named Ning Youwei. He was a cultivator, though his cultivation had only reached the second layer of the Qi Refinement stage.
The other was Ning Youwei's mother, who had just recovered from a severe illness and was equally frail.
Ning Youwei and his mother were lifelong natives of Qingyang Market. In her youth, Ning Youwei's mother had married a cultivator—Ning Youwei's father.
His father had poor talent and an unimpressive cultivation, but having the status of an Immortal Master along with ancestral blessings, he owned a cave dwelling in the market, allowing the family to live in relative comfort.
Unforeseen disasters struck, however. On one occasion when Ning Youwei's father ventured out of the market to temper himself, he met with an accident and vanished without a trace. Mother and son were left to depend on each other, only for Ning Youwei's mother to be stricken with a grave illness.
The boy was devoted and filial, selling off all of his father's belongings and ultimately selling the cave dwelling to another cultivator, finally obtaining the spirit medicine needed to cure his mother.
Yet because of this, they were stripped down to bare walls, without even a place to stay.
Ning Youwei's talent was even worse than his father's, and his cultivation was barely stronger than a mortal's. Turning his fortunes around was all but impossible; to make a living, he had resorted to competing with mortals for menial work.
After verifying that Ning Youwei's story was true, Qin Sang brought them back to the shop.
Hiring anyone was much the same, and someone like this gave him peace of mind.
After all, he did not care whether business was booming; he only needed someone to watch the shop.
Chapter 412