It's Really Quite Average

The Holy City of the Feather Spirit Clan.

In the middle of a vast, snow-white plaza.

Elder Lan Qin of the Feather Spirit Clan was forging an Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasure on the spot, with two other Proof-of-Path Realm experts assisting her by handling minor tasks.

"Elder Lan Qin, are you confident in this?"

Lin Ruo, the chief of the Feather Spirit Clan and Liya's mother, asked Lan Qin.

Lan Qin shook her head gently. "If this were just an ordinary Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasure, there would be no problem at all. But what we are forging this time is a high-grade Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasure. I have never successfully refined one before."

Even among Venerable-rank Artifact Refiners, there are clear distinctions. For example, a refiner who can only craft ordinary Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasures is known to connoisseurs as a low-grade Venerable-rank Artifact Refiner, while one capable of forging high-grade Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasures is classified as a mid-grade Venerable-rank Artifact Refiner.

As for refiners who can produce top-grade Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasures, they are ranked as high-grade Venerable-rank Artifact Refiners.

However, although Lan Qin is a Venerable-rank Artifact Refiner, she is only a low-grade one. Even after years of steady cultivation in this realm, she has never been able to take the final step to break through to the mid-grade tier.

"Don't put too much pressure on yourself. We have three attempts. Even if all of them fail, it's no big deal—just think of it as accumulating more experience," Lin Ruo consoled her.

As the only Venerable-rank Artifact Refiner in the entire Feather Spirit Clan, she fully understood the immense pressure Lan Qin was bearing.

Gathering the materials required to craft three high-grade Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasures had consumed a tremendous amount of the Feather Spirit Clan's time and resources. If the forging attempts failed, all the effort they had put in up to that point would be completely wasted.

"Rest assured, I will do my absolute best."

Lan Qin nodded her head solemnly.

The forging process began. Lan Qin held her breath, her focus unbroken as she floated into the air. She wreathed the materials in the power of the Fire Law, searing them until they glowed bright red, then pulled out a Supreme Treasure-grade hammer and started striking the materials to pound out their impurities.

The residual power stirred by her fierce, heavy strikes made the very space around them tremble, the might of each blow terrifyingly overwhelming.

There were only a handful of Feather Spirit Clan elders in the entire plaza, along with Mo Tianxiao and the others.

"Brother Mo, Bingji, Elder Lan Qin is the only Venerable-rank Artifact Refiner in our clan. I heard that her artifact refining skills were even learned in the human world."

Liya spoke with obvious excitement, "Brother Mo, you have to watch very carefully. Artifact refining is incredibly difficult. I got curious once and followed Elder Lan Qin to learn for a while, but up to now, I still can't successfully refine even a regular Supreme Treasure. But I've noticed you have a calm, steady temperament. Your talent for artifact refining must be far better than mine. If you put your mind to it, I'm certain you'll become an outstanding artifact refiner in the future."

"Hmph, an outstanding artifact refiner? Just him?"

Mo Xingtian, who had been lingering in the Feather Spirit Clan like a stubborn patch of gum, had also come to watch Elder Lan Qin's artifact forging demonstration.

Mo Xingtian glanced at Mo Tianxiao with undisguised disdain in his eyes, and said in a flat tone,

"I admit that the human race's artifact refining standards are higher than ours, but not every human has the talent for it. This guy is only at the early stage of the Path Master Realm, a useless nobody. He's probably so busy just trying to keep up with his own cultivation that he wouldn't have any spare time to learn artifact refining at all."

"Kid, artifact refining isn't as simple as you might think."

Mo Xingtian's tone was as if he was a seasoned expert, seemingly offering well-meaning advice to Mo Tianxiao.

Mo Tianxiao grew amused. "Oh? Does that mean Eldest Young Master Mo knows how to refine artifacts himself?"

Mo Xingtian's expression turned proud, and he lifted his chin slightly. "I wouldn't say I'm a master. I did spend some time learning it once, but my talent is only so-so. I can barely manage to refine regular Supreme Treasures."

In Mo Xingtian's view, being able to refine regular Supreme Treasures already put him ahead of the vast majority of artifact refiners. After all, in the star region they lived in, highly skilled artifact refiners were extremely rare.

Even though the Feather Spirit Clan had one Venerable-rank Artifact Refiner, the total number of Venerable-rank Artifact Refiners in the entire Feather Spirit Star Region did not exceed five, and the skills of the other refiners were likely even worse than Lan Qin's.

There was a simple reason for this: apart from the human race, none of the other races attached any importance to secondary professions. If they wanted something, they would just take it by force. Why would they bother making it themselves? That went completely against their nature.

Hearing Mo Xingtian's words, Mo Tianxiao's eyes took on a strange glint. "That really is quite mediocre. It seems Eldest Young Master Mo doesn't have any real talent for artifact refining either."

Mo Xingtian was already at the mid-stage of the Proof-of-Path Realm. Even if he was a favored child of destiny with exceptional natural gifts, he must have spent thousands, if not tens of thousands of years cultivating. After such a long stretch of time, he was still only a low-grade Emperor-rank Artifact Refiner.

"You! Hmph."

Mo Xingtian was furious at Mo Tianxiao's dismissive attitude, but after thinking it over, he decided not to bother arguing with this narrow-minded human. Once this kid actually tried his hand at artifact refining, he would realize just how impressive Mo Xingtian's own talent really was.

"You know how to refine artifacts too?"

Xuan Bingji stepped closer to Mo Tianxiao and whispered to him privately, her eyes full of curiosity.

"Remember that flying sword I used to save you last time? I forged it myself."

Mo Tianxiao made no attempt to hide the truth from Xuan Bingji.

Xuan Bingji's mouth fell slightly open in surprise. A hint of endearing, dazed look crossed her normally cold, haughty face. "How many more secrets do you have that I don't know about?"

This human man was so full of mysteries. Even though his cultivation level was relatively low, he had endless unexpected tricks up his sleeve. Now he was telling her he could even do the rare, specialized work of artifact refining, and his skill level was clearly not low.

Xuan Bingji had the distinct feeling that apart from his physical body, she barely understood anything about this human at all.

Mo Tianxiao glanced at Xuan Bingji. "If you want to know more of my secrets, you'll have to trade yourself for them."

"Ugh, you awful scoundrel! I'd never give myself to you."

Xuan Bingji's face flushed bright red, and she turned her head away, refusing to look at him anymore.

"What are the two of you doing? Pay attention to Elder Lan Qin's artifact forging and learn something, stop getting distracted."

Liya, who had noticed Mo Tianxiao and Xuan Bingji exchanging glances, frowned in confusion. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was something odd going on between the two of them.

"Right, let's focus on learning properly, Miss Xuan, no more zoning out," Mo Tianxiao said, putting on a perfectly serious expression.

"Learn... positions?"

Xuan Bingji froze for a second before she caught the double meaning of his words, and she shot him a sharp, annoyed glare that left Mo Tianxiao completely confused about what he'd said wrong.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Just then, Elder Lan Qin's material refinement process reached its critical stage. The original unknown material, which had been as big as a small hill, had been stripped of all its impurities and reduced to the size of a water vat, glowing crystal clear with a fiery crimson light.

After finishing processing one piece of material, Lan Qin continued to work on all the other components one by one. The Magic Yuan Star Ore was only one of the many ingredients used, after all—since the treasure they were forging was a high-grade Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasure, even the Magic Yuan Star Ore could only serve as an auxiliary material.

Mo Tianxiao watched Lan Qin's refinement techniques closely, and frowned slightly, muttering under his breath, "That technique is pretty rough."

Lan Qin's theoretical knowledge and practical experience in artifact refining might have reached the Venerable rank, but the tiny details and the way she handled the materials seemed extremely crude to Mo Tianxiao, almost like she was striking the materials haphazardly.

While he himself was not yet a Venerable-rank Artifact Refiner and could not forge an Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasure, he was fully confident that his skills at processing and preparing materials were far superior to this Venerable-rank Artifact Refiner's.

"Brother Mo, is there something wrong with what she's doing?"

Liya, who was standing close enough to hear his quiet mumble, asked curiously.

Mo Tianxiao shook his head. "With this level of technique, forging an ordinary Earth-tier Dharma Supreme Treasure should be just manageable. But if you want to craft a far more powerful treasure, if you don't get rid of every last trace of impurity in the materials and achieve 100% purification, there will definitely be problems once you reach the stage where you have to fuse all the components together."