First Time Crafting Artifacts

Ever since he saw the Shangyang Sect's spirit ship in Cuifeng Town last time, which, although not very fast, was extremely flashy, he had been coveting it for a long time!

However, considering that he had never forged an artifact before and was still a novice, he didn't try to forge a spirit ship right off the bat. He settled for the next best thing and planned to forge a spirit boat.

He took out ten catties of mystic iron, which was a previous quest reward, from his private storehouse. He walked over to the purple gold cauldron right in the middle of the Artifact Forging Hall, placed all the mystic iron inside, added five spirit stones, and then injected his spiritual energy to ignite the fire source beneath the cauldron and begin refining.

About fifteen minutes later, the mystic iron was refined into a glowing red liquid mass.

Lin Xiao then wrapped this liquid mass in his spiritual energy and transferred it to the nearby forging anvil.

Looking at the puddle of mystic iron solution on the anvil, Lin Xiao rolled up his sleeves, picked up the Star Moon Hammer next to him, and began to hammer the solution over and over again in various ways.

After a good while, the solution gradually solidified, and Lin Xiao began to shape it using his spiritual energy while continuing to hammer.

Finally, after four hours of hard work, he obtained a rather ugly looking spirit boat.

To say it was ugly was because this spirit boat was essentially just a layer of sheet iron.

But there was nothing he could do about it; after all, mystic iron was the only forging material Lin Xiao had on hand.

Anyway, appearance didn't matter; practicality was the most important thing.

After shaping it, he began to carve spirit patterns onto it.

These spirit patterns were a crucial step. Without them, the spirit boat could still be used, but it would lose many of its effects.

What he was carving right now was the most basic expansion and contraction spirit pattern.

Only after carving this spirit pattern could this mystic iron spirit boat freely expand and shrink in size. Otherwise, given the current size of the spirit boat Lin Xiao had made, barely half a meter long and fifteen centimeters wide, it wouldn't even be able to fit a single person.

Spirit patterns were extremely important in artifact forging. Without them, the forged magical artifact would lack many functional effects.

When forging a magical artifact, the number of spirit patterns you carve dictates how many functions it can have, though this also depends on the specific conditions of different artifacts.

Some people wanted to pursue the absolute extreme of a single function, so when forging, they wouldn't consider anything else and would single mindedly craft exactly what they wanted.

But this was generally something only master artifact refiners would do.

For novice artifact refiners, adding spirit patterns to a magical artifact was absolutely necessary; otherwise, the artifact they obtained would lack many functions they needed.

Moreover, spirit patterns could be combined with one another to achieve many unexpected effects.

However, it wasn't a case of the more types of spirit patterns on a magical artifact, the better. Sometimes, if there were too many spirit patterns but the materials used for forging were inadequate, or the resulting form was flawed, the artifact wouldn't be able to withstand the pressure brought by multiple spirit patterns and would directly collapse.

Therefore, for an artifact refiner, selecting spirit patterns was also a matter that required a great deal of study and accumulated experience.

Lin Xiao discovered that carving spirit patterns was somewhat similar to inscribing formations. Since his control over spiritual energy had improved while learning to inscribe formations previously, he was much more proficient when it came to carving spirit patterns.

From this, it could be seen that these crafts were more or less interconnected.

Perhaps in the future, he would also discover that alchemy required hammering, and talismans required refining...

This further strengthened Lin Xiao's resolve to learn these four crafts.

It was nearing noon. Lin Xiao, having just finished carving the spirit patterns, had not even had the chance to admire the first spirit boat he had ever made with his own hands before he saw Mo Yuanjiao poking his head around the door, gazing at him eagerly.

Lin Xiao: ...

Before Lin Xiao could even ask, Mo Yuanjiao, seeing that he had finally been noticed, said to him excitedly:

"Sect Master Senior Brother! Can I come in?"

Lin Xiao nodded and said:

"Do you need something?"

Mo Yuanjiao hurriedly ran in, looking at him with bright, shining eyes, and said:

"Sect Master Senior Brother, I originally wanted to come find you to continue practicing inscribing formations, but just now I saw you making this," he pointed to the spirit boat Lin Xiao had left on the anvil, "I really want to learn too! Can I learn this, Sect Master Senior Brother?"

Having such a studious disciple made Lin Xiao feel deeply gratified.

He immediately nodded in agreement:

"Of course you can. In the future, just tell me whatever you want to learn!" Saying that, he looked behind Mo Yuanjiao and asked:

"Where is your guard, Mo Que?"

"Oh, Old Que went to cut horse grass. The horse feed we brought is almost used up, so he said he would go cut some grass and dry it to feed the horses."

Lin Xiao nodded in understanding, and then, following his usual routine, he handed him the Comprehensive Guide to Basic Artifact Forging Techniques to read.

With the book in hand, Mo Yuanjiao's enthusiasm for learning soared. He immediately found a cushion to sit on and began reading through it earnestly.

Lin Xiao, meanwhile, walked out of the Artifact Forging Hall and went to the empty clearing outside to try using this spirit boat he had made for the first time.

At this moment, because the spirit patterns had already been carved, the spirit boat took on a palm sized form and was being held in Lin Xiao's hand.

He first branded his spiritual sense mark onto the spirit boat, then began to pour spiritual energy into it.

After pouring in nearly one fifth of the spiritual energy in his body, he tossed the spirit boat onto the ground.

He watched as the originally palm sized spirit boat instantly expanded in size the moment it hit the ground.

It didn't stop until it turned into a spirit boat that was five meters long and two and a half meters wide.

Lin Xiao inspected it. If this spirit boat were fully occupied, it could seat about a dozen people.

Not bad at all.

He was very satisfied with this size.

After all, the initial materials were only ten catties of mystic iron and five spirit stones.

To think that after his hammering and carving, it would become this large.

Next, it was time to test its flight function.

With a light leap, Lin Xiao jumped onto the spirit boat.

By connecting his spiritual sense to the spirit boat's control patterns, he was able to easily manipulate the vessel.

It seemed that, for now, he was the only one in the entire sect who could use this spirit boat, because using a spirit boat required control via spiritual sense.

Those in the Qi Condensation realm couldn't project their spiritual sense outward, so naturally, they couldn't use spiritual sense to control this spirit boat.

Full of anticipation, he used his spiritual sense to control the spirit boat and began to take off.

The spirit boat, which had originally been resting quietly on the ground, suddenly hovered into the air without any warning. At first, Lin Xiao was inexperienced, and the spirit boat wobbled a couple of times. Once he figured out how it worked, he immediately controlled the spirit boat to cruise around the vicinity at a steady speed and with the stability of a veteran driver.

He had to admit that although he possessed the Cloud Soaring Art, up until now he could only use the Air Treading Art. And the feeling the Air Treading Art gave him was completely different from this spirit boat that could float and fly through the air.