Divine Transcendence

Yuan Ming nodded to himself as he read, gaining a deeper understanding of top-grade magical artifacts. After composing himself, he continued reading.

The book also mentioned two methods for forcibly upgrading ordinary magical artifacts to top-grade status.

One method was re-refining, which involved adding top-tier spiritual materials to an already crafted artifact, allowing it to withstand the infusion of a fourth rune.

The other method was forceful infusion, which simply meant choosing the fourth rune as a derivative of an existing rune on the artifact. For example, if the artifact had a "Frost" rune, the fourth rune could be its derivative "White Frost" rune, or a lesser "Cold" rune.

The advantage of this approach was that it circumvented the limitation that ordinary spiritual materials could only be inscribed with three runes, allowing any artifact to be upgraded to top-grade. However, the success rate of this technique was extremely low; it was considered lucky to succeed on the first attempt.

Moreover, if the forceful infusion failed, it could destroy the artifact, rendering it unusable.

Even if successful, a top-grade artifact created through forceful infusion would not qualify to become a treasure and would be less powerful than one crafted through normal means, though still far superior to a high-grade artifact.

Yuan Ming carefully finished reading the content and noted down the methods for crafting top-grade artifacts.

Naturally, there were more than these two methods for upgrading artifacts, but the ones with higher success rates were closely guarded secrets of artifact refiners and not available on the open market.

To find Sha Hao's whereabouts, Yuan Ming now had to use his possession ability on this man every seven days, leaving no time to seek out and covertly learn from artifact refiners.

Thus, he could only try the two methods recorded in the book for now. If they proved unsuccessful, he would have to think of other solutions.

However, lacking any top-grade spiritual materials, re-refining was not an option, so he could only try his luck with forceful infusion.

Of course, with such a low success rate, he dared not experiment directly on his Black Needle, his only high-grade artifact that he was accustomed to using. A mistake could lead to regrettable tears.

Yuan Ming thought for a moment, then took out a yellow short halberd and a blue feather fan from his Storage Bag.

These two artifacts, once belonging to Gu Qiulong, were inconvenient for him to use publicly. Now, they were perfect for practice.

He first examined the yellow short halberd, identifying the three inscribed runes as "Earth Movement," "Hardness," and "Sharpness." However, when it came to the blue feather fan's runes, he encountered difficulty.

Most of the runes he knew came from Master Heimu's notes, and the artifact refining books he bought later only covered basic runes.

Of the three runes on the blue feather fan, he could only recognize "Wind Blade." The other two were unfamiliar to him.

But for practice purposes, one was enough.

After pondering for a moment, he decided on "Heaviness" as the fourth rune for the yellow short halberd and "Wind Swirl" for the feather fan.

Both were derivatives of the "Hardness" rune and the "Wind Blade" rune, respectively, and had significant relevance.

Yuan Ming's residence lacked equipment for artifact refining, but fortunately, there were shops in Xiaohu City that rented out refining rooms. He briefly recalled their locations, quickly packed his things, and left his residence.

A month and a half later, inside a refining room, steam billowed.

In the large forging furnace, a red spiritual mist tightly enveloped the short halberd as spiritual power continuously flowed into the fourth rune on the handle, slowly filling the lines.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the fourth rune lit up halfway, and the short halberd suddenly trembled. The previous three runes also lit up, emitting an extremely dazzling light.

With a muffled "boom," the spiritual mist in the furnace expanded instantly and then rapidly dissipated. Soon, the furnace was devoid of any light.

Yuan Ming, with a darkened expression, opened the seal and retrieved the fragments of the yellow short halberd.

He sighed deeply as he watched a high-grade artifact reduced to nothing, feeling an immense sense of loss.

Since leaving the Southern Border, Yuan Ming had not been in touch with artifact refining. Although he remembered many of the basics, his skills had become quite rusty.

Therefore, after renting the refining room, he did not immediately use the forceful infusion method, as it was still part of artifact refining.

He spent a month practicing forging, wasting countless spiritual materials before he managed to clumsily craft his first medium-grade artifact.

Although the quality of the artifact he crafted was not great, it greatly boosted his morale. After several attempts and being confident that he had mastered the technique for medium-grade artifacts, he began trying to craft high-grade ones.

However, the difficulty of crafting high-grade artifacts was several times greater than medium-grade ones, due to just one additional rune. Yuan Ming chose simpler runes with fewer strokes for the infusion to make the process easier, but each attempt ended in failure halfway through. After half a month, not a single artifact was successfully infused.

If he couldn't craft a high-grade artifact, a top-grade one was out of the question.

But before giving up completely, Yuan Ming still harbored a glimmer of hope and decided to try the forceful infusion method one last time, thinking it might be simpler than starting from scratch.

The result before him now dashed his hopes. He tidied up briefly and left the rented refining room.

Two hours later.

Yuan Ming returned to the secret chamber of residence number 86, placing the books he had bought on the way on the table. There were two particularly challenging aspects of Sha Hao: one was the top-grade magical artifact, a silver sphere, in his possession, and the other was his soul cultivation illusion techniques.

With the path of crafting top-grade artifacts closed, Yuan Ming had no better way to counter the silver sphere and could only consider how to deal with Sha Hao's illusions.

As a disciple of Xi Cangqiong, Sha Hao's proficiency in soul cultivation illusions had received the true teachings of the Great Elder and even showed signs of surpassing his master.

On the other hand, Yuan Ming had to grope his way through, figuring out the use of illusions on his own.

Therefore, he specifically purchased some books from shops in the city that sold various texts.

These books contained basic knowledge of illusions and some related combat techniques. Yuan Ming chose to learn from these fragments out of necessity. After all, Xiying, who could be considered his soul cultivation master, was now in the Southern Border, far beyond ten thousand miles from Xiaohu City, and even using her communication talisman, he couldn't reach her.

During his previous encounter with Sha Hao, due to the urgency of the situation, his emotions erupted, and he had forgotten this, using one of the talismans.

The books he bought were quite superficial, with the authors' analyses of illusions not being profound and even biased. However, for an ordinary cultivator to understand illusions and fill in basic knowledge, they were barely passable.

One book mentioned that the essence of illusions was to use one's spiritual consciousness to influence the opponent's perception.

Whether through techniques or runes, the illusions cast would inevitably consume the cultivator's spiritual consciousness.

Therefore, the stronger the spiritual consciousness, the more realistic the illusion and the harder it is to break.

Similarly, to counter illusions, one either needs to possess spiritual consciousness far exceeding that of the caster or use rare talismans or magical artifacts to break them.

After reading this, Yuan Ming thought about the range his illusions could cover, which corresponded to the reach of his spiritual consciousness, and nodded in agreement with the book's content.

However, he then remembered something else.

After all, illusions were just a technique that every soul cultivator could master. The unique abilities that came with the transformation of the soul were a soul cultivator's true trump card.

Yuan Ming's transformed soul crow had abilities like long-distance travel, which were more supportive in nature. So, what abilities did Sha Hao's blood bat possess?

Yuan Ming carefully recalled the details of his fight with Sha Hao, especially how Sha Hao always managed to find him no matter where he fled.

However, he felt that this ability was more likely related to some secret technique or magical artifact that Sha Hao possessed, rather than his blood bat's transformation.

After pondering without success, Yuan Ming changed his approach and began to consider what he had that could counteract the use of spiritual consciousness.

Soon, he thought of the Mist Fragrance.

The mist created by the Mist Fragrance was so dense that even the Great Elder could not see through it, and it would certainly have a restraining effect on Sha Hao.

After thinking for a moment, Yuan Ming left his residence, exited Xiaohu City, and rode his magical artifact to the Ruins Marsh. He found a secluded spot, landed, took out the Stealing Heaven Cauldron, inserted a stick of Mist Fragrance, lit it, and also released the Vajra.

Before long, the thick white mist engulfed Yuan Ming and the Vajra's figures, covering the entire area.

"I want to test whether the Mist Fragrance can counter illusions. No matter what you see later, just stand still and don't move," Yuan Ming instructed, then walked five steps away from the Vajra.

Seeing the Vajra nod in readiness, Yuan Ming concentrated his spirit to cast an illusion.

However, under the cover of the white mist, his spiritual consciousness could hardly leave his body, unable to reach the Vajra, let alone plunge it into an illusion.

Yuan Ming tried several times, each time moving closer to the Vajra, but even when he stood in front of the Vajra and pressed his hand on its shoulder, he could not successfully cast an illusion.

Seeing this, Yuan Ming felt a surge of excitement.

The Mist Fragrance indeed had a restraining effect on illusions. With this ace up his sleeve, dealing with Sha Hao in the future would likely be much simpler.

With the experiment yielding results, Yuan Ming didn't linger. He extinguished the Mist Fragrance, collected the Vajra and the Stealing Heaven Cauldron, and then rode the jade shuttle, preparing to return to Xiaohu City.

Suddenly, his expression changed, and he halted.

"What's going on?"

Just then, he had received a message from Huazhi through their spiritual beast connection.

Without a second thought, Yuan Ming quickly changed direction and flew towards Huazhi's location.

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