——Half an hour later——
Yan Luoluo finally finished sorting all the orders, her hands heavy with a thick stack of jade slips. The custom-designed pieces alone were already booked a year in advance. She rubbed her sore wrist, feeling a mix of excitement and anxiety—with this many orders, she would be refining until the Year of the Monkey!
Fortunately, she had prepared well in advance.
To ensure quality, she had explicitly emphasized to every cultivator:
1. A deposit of one hundred high-grade Spiritual Stones, strictly non-refundable (though orders could be transferred).
2. The remaining balance was to be paid upon inspection and satisfaction at delivery (honest dealings with young and old alike).
3. Complimentary after-sales repair service included (applies only to non-artificial damage).
These terms made the cultivators even more confident in placing their orders, especially since they had the Immortal Venerable’s jade tablet as a guarantee, so quality was undoubtedly assured. What was more...
A sharp-eyed cultivator suddenly pointed at the high platform: "Look everyone! The ring the Immortal Venerable is wearing looks just like the style this girl is selling!"
Everyone raised their heads in unison and indeed saw the understated yet brilliantly glowing ring on Ye Wuchen's finger. Instantly, the crowd erupted—
"The Immortal Venerable's matching style?! We totally have to buy it then!"
"No wonder the Immortal Venerable personally handed out the merchant token; it turns out this is his own enterprise!"
"Quick, quick, quick, order one for me too!"
Yan Luoluo: "..." (Master, I'm afraid I can't afford your endorsement fee!)
After collecting the final deposit, Yan Luoluo rushed without stopping toward the judges' seating area, hurried over to Ye Wuchen's side with a bright, eager look, and blinked her eyes:
"Master~ Are you free right now?"
Ye Wuchen calmly and leisurely put down his teacup: "What is it?"
"It's just..." She took out that stack of jade slips and gave them a pitiful little shake, "There are too many orders, and I can't finish refining them all by myself. Can you help me out?"
Ye Wuchen raised an eyebrow: "If I help you, what's in it for me?"
Yan Luoluo wracked her brains: "Umm... I promise you three requests! As long as it's within my capacity, I will never go back on my word!"
Ye Wuchen (with a meaningful look): "Are you sure?"
Yan Luoluo (patting her chest): "Of course! If I go back on my word, may I stay single for the rest of my life!"
Ye Wuchen (with a darkened face): "-_-|| If you stay single for the rest of my life—wait, wouldn't the unlucky one be me? Shut up!"
Yan Luoluo (bewildered): "⊙▽⊙ Huh? What does me being single have to do with you?"
Ye Wuchen (in a cold voice): "Mention being single again, and the deal is off."
Yan Luoluo (instantly caving): "Fine, fine, fine! Then... can we start after I finish the Tai Chi match?"
Ye Wuchen: "Why?"
Yan Luoluo (scratching her head): "Well, I need to fix the room that was blasted into smithereens by the heavenly lightning first..."
Ye Wuchen stood up directly, flicking his sleeve: "No need to fix it. Stay at my place."
Yan Luoluo: "Huh? But you..."
Ye Wuchen (interrupting): "No refusal allowed, and no asking for reasons."
With that, he grabbed Yan Luoluo by the back of her collar, lifting her like a little kitten, and walked toward his own Cave Abode, leaving behind a crowd of dumbfounded onlookers.
Ye Wuchen's room was even more luxurious than Yan Luoluo had imagined—
- The spiritual spring pool was wreathed in mist, its bottom paved entirely with cold jade capable of stabilizing Spiritual Power;
- The shelves in the alchemy room held hundreds of jade boxes, and casually opening any one of them would reveal a millennium-old spiritual herb;
- The desk in the study had formation classics unrolled upon it, alongside rough drafts of talisman diagrams casually sketched by Ye Wuchen.
Yan Luoluo (swallowing hard): "Master, do you... happen to need a handyman here?"
Ignoring her banter, Ye Wuchen walked straight up to an unoccupied artifact-refining room and pushed open the door: "From now on, this is your workshop."
Yan Luoluo’s eyes widened—the room was displayed with the top-tier artifact-refining tools in the cultivation world:
1. Nine-Nether Underworld Fire Cauldron (capable of automatically adjusting temperature)
2. Heavenly Star Forging Platform (can channel the power of the stars during forging)
3. A whole wall of rare materials (some of which even she couldn't name)
Yan Luoluo (trembling): "Master, are these... really for me to use?"
Ye Wuchen (indifferently): "Mhm. Break them and you pay for them."
Yan Luoluo (face instantly falling): "..."
Just as Yan Luoluo was rolling up her sleeves and getting ready to start work, Ye Wuchen suddenly spoke: "First request—"
He pointed at the ring on his own finger: "Remove the concealment Formation."
Yan Luoluo (stiffening): "B-But..."
Ye Wuchen (narrowing his eyes): "Going back on your word?"
Yan Luoluo (with a crying face): "...I'll remove it."
The corners of Ye Wuchen's mouth curved upward as the concealment Formations on both of their rings simultaneously vanished.
In an instant—
- The red and blue spiritual light swirling inside the rings flowed like a river of stars;
- The phantom of twin lotus flowers flickered in and out of view on the surface of the rings;
- Most fatally of all, that Heavenly Dao red thread flashed into existence, gleaming brightly in the sunlight!
Yan Luoluo (covering her face in despair): "It's over, the entire cultivation world is going to know..."
Ye Wuchen (nodding with satisfaction): "Good. Second request—"
Yan Luoluo (screaming): "Wait! Didn't we agree to refine artifacts first?!"
Seeing Yan Luoluo's nervous expression, Ye Wuchen gave a soft laugh and reached out to gently stroke her cheek: "Relax, your Master is here."
His fingertips carried a warm, soothing Spiritual Power as they brushed lightly across her temples, and Yan Luoluo instantly felt her tense nerves relax considerably.
"Begin." Ye Wuchen withdrew his hand, and with a flick of his sleeve, the Nine-Nether Underworld Fire Cauldron inside the artifact-refining room "boomed" to life with a deep blue flame. "Start by making some simple practice pieces, and by the way, I'll teach you how to carve multiple Formations simultaneously."
Yan Luoluo's eyes widened: "Carve simultaneously? Won't that cause a deviation in cultivation?"
Ye Wuchen calmly tossed a piece of cold iron into the cauldron: "With your Master here, the worst that will happen is a few days of mental exhaustion."
Yan Luoluo: "..." (Is that supposed to be comforting?!)
Yan Luoluo decided to start by making the "automatic sorting ring" customized for alchemists. She took a deep breath and began preparing the materials methodically:
1. Void-Dark Stone (to serve as the foundation for the storage space)
2. Spiritual-Rhino Wood (possessing the property of identifying medicinal herbs)
3. Star-Patterned Steel (to enhance Formation conductivity)
"Master, I'll leave the temperature control to you!" She tossed the materials into the cauldron one by one. With a light tap of Ye Wuchen's fingertip, the cauldron fire immediately split into three layers, smelting the materials at different temperatures respectively.
Now came the crucial step of carving the Formation!
Yan Luoluo gathered her focus and cleared her mind, condensing Spiritual Power at her fingertips, and began to carve onto the surface of the formed ring:
Identification Formation: used to distinguish the properties of medicinal herbs.
Sorting Formation: automatically returns medicinal herbs to their proper categories.
Carving either Formation individually wasn't difficult, but fusing them together required an extremely high level of precision. Tiny beads of sweat gradually oozed from Yan Luoluo's forehead, and her fingers trembled slightly.
"Focus." Ye Wuchen's voice sounded right beside her, while a wave of warm, rich Spiritual Power was simultaneously injected into her meridians. "Imagine the Formation as flowing water, not rigid lines."
Yan Luoluo closed her eyes and adjusted her Spiritual Power according to her Master's guidance—
Something magical happened!
The originally stiff Formation lines suddenly became pliable, and the two Formations naturally merged together like intertwined ribbons. A flash of emerald-green light swept across the ring's surface before it fell quiet once more.
"D-Did I succeed?" Yan Luoluo opened her eyes in disbelief.
Ye Wuchen picked up the ring to inspect it: "The identification Formation is off by 0.3 parts, but for an alchemist, it's good enough." He raised an eyebrow, looking at his disciple. "Do you want to challenge fusing three Formations?"
Yan Luoluo (shaking her head frantically): "No, no, no! Let's mass-produce this batch first!"
Under Ye Wuchen's guidance, Yan Luoluo quickly found the tricks to efficient refining:
1. Material pre-treatment: Ye Wuchen used Mahayana stage Spiritual Power to purify all raw materials at once.
2. Mold casting: Standard ring bases were produced, requiring only minor adjustments later on.
3. Formation rubbing: The Formation lines of successful examples were duplicated onto jade slips and imprinted directly.
Efficiency was directly multiplied tenfold!
Orders that would have originally taken three days to complete could now be finished in half a day. Looking at the neatly arranged rings on the finished product shelf, Yan Luoluo's eyes shone brightly: "Master! We're rich!"
Ye Wuchen picked up a ring to casually toy with it: "Mhm. Remember to give seven tenths of it to your Master."
Yan Luoluo: "???" (A black-hearted capitalist!)
Clutching the newly refined alchemist ring, Yan Luoluo eagerly began to test it out. She casually grabbed a handful of herbs—ginseng, ganoderma, cinnabar, and cold-marrow grass—and tossed them all messily into the ring.
"Hum!"
A faint glow flashed across the ring's surface, and the medicinal herbs inside were instantly sorted into their respective categories, even having their impurities automatically filtered out.
"Not bad!" With a single thought of "Foundation Establishment Pill materials," the required spiritual herbs floated neatly right before her eyes.
She nodded in satisfaction, but then immediately pouted: "Still not convenient enough... If only there were an **all-around spatial ring**!" She muttered, resting her chin in her hand, "Integrating all functions together, plus adding the resonance feature of a couple's matching rings... Tsk tsk, now that would be perfection!"
She sighed and shook her head: "Too bad, a ring like that is simply impossible to achieve; just the materials alone would—"
Before she could finish her sentence, she suddenly felt a chill down her spine and whipped around, only to find Ye Wuchen calmly drinking his tea as if he hadn't heard a thing.
Yan Luoluo (suspiciously): "Master, were you muttering something just now?"
Ye Wuchen (raising his eyes): "Hm? What did you say?"
Yan Luoluo (scratching her head): "...Never mind, it was probably just my imagination."
She stretched lazily and put away the rings: "I'm exhausted, I'm going to soak in a hot spring to relax!"
Without lifting his head, Ye Wuchen let out an "Mhm." As soon as she walked away, the corners of his lips curved upward, and with a flick of his sleeve—
"Bang!"
The door of the artifact-refining room slammed shut, and a barrier instantly enveloped the entire room.
Shedding his usual calm demeanor, Ye Wuchen swiftly retrieved several top-tier materials from the deepest recesses of his storage space—materials that even Yan Luoluo had never seen before:
1. Yin-Yang Hùndùn Crystal (a supreme treasure born at the dawn of heaven and earth, containing Hùndùn Law within)
2. Nine-Heavens Profound Crystal Core (the scrap pieces Yan Luoluo used earlier were nothing; this was the true essence)
3. Twin-Lotus of One Heart (a spiritual plant that blooms once every ten,000 years, rumored to allow wearers to share thoughts and hearts)
4. ...And a drop of his own essential blood.
"Since she wants it, I'll make the best one." Ye Wuchen muttered to himself softly, a wisp of his natal true flame igniting at his fingertips as he began to refine.
The artifact-refining process was nothing short of heaven-shaking and earth-shattering—
- The Hùndùn crystal transformed in the flames into two streams of light, one black and one white, intertwining into a Tai Chi pattern;
- The Nine-Heavens Profound Crystal Core was forcefully forged into the main body of the ring, with starlight patterns emerging on its surface;
- The twin lotus flowers melted into the ring base, blooming with brilliant radiance;
- Finally, that drop of essential blood fell into the heart of the ring, and the entire ring instantly took on a faint golden-red hue.
An hour later, a pair of heaven-defying rings was born!
- Function 1: Infinite storage space (comes with built-in time stasis; spiritual herbs never spoil)
- Function 2: Fully automatic categorization and retrieval (with a single thought, everything returns to its place)
- Function 3: Danger early-warning (if either party is in danger, the other's ring will directly tear through space to teleport)
- ...Most absurd of all: The ring harbored a miniature Blessed Land inside, allowing one to enter and cultivate at any time!
Ye Wuchen admiringly examined the finished product and was just about to go find Yan Luoluo when his brow suddenly furrowed—
"Why hasn't this girl come back yet?"
In an instant, Ye Wuchen flashed over to the spiritual spring, only to find—
Not a soul in sight.
His Divine Sense immediately swept across the entire Cave Abode, finally discovering Yan Luoluo on his own bed.
There she was, sprawled out on his bed, sleeping with absolute serenity, hugging a soft pillow she had somehow swiped from goodness-knows-where, a suspicious trail of crystal saliva even hanging from the corner of her mouth.
Ye Wuchen: "..."
He drew closer, leaning over to test her breath—
Good thing, she was still breathing.
(For a split second just then, he almost thought she had soaked in the hot spring until her soul scattered.)
Yan Luoluo's dream:
- She dreamed she had become the richest person in the cultivation world, sitting atop countless mountains of Spiritual Stones, when Ye Wuchen suddenly appeared: "Spiritual Stones confiscated, to pay off debts."
- Her in reality: "Wuwu... Black-hearted Master..." (rolling over)
- His Immortal Venerable lordship attempted to slip the ring onto her finger, only to get kicked away by her kick: "Don't touch my Spiritual Stones..."
- Ye Wuchen (with a darkened face): "The ungrateful little thing."
Heavenly Dao's mischief:
- Taking advantage of the two of them falling asleep, Heavenly Dao sneakily tied the red thread into a bow and nodded in satisfaction: "Much more secure this way~"
——
Yan Luoluo: Zzz... I'm rich...
Ye Wuchen: The ring refined by yours truly actually loses to Spiritual Stones in a dream?
Heavenly Dao: Dao companion relationship nurturing in progress, 99% complete...