Tian Yuan War Chronicles: The Path of Artifacts to Ascension – Chapter 21

Ch 21: Returning to the Sect

When three giant flying boats landed in the Tian Yuan Sect, the people in the sect had already learned about what happened in the trial grounds this year.

Li Mei and Lin Lan’s names had already spread throughout the ears of the Tian Yuan Sect cultivators, of course, they publicly clarified that—the rumors were untrue.

But people don’t care whether the rumors are true or not, everyone only cares about the result—the loss of Qi Refining cultivators participating in the trial this year was more than 10% less than usual.

For a time, Elder Lin Lian, who was originally only somewhat well-known among the Foundation Establishment Elders in the sect, suddenly became very popular. Even the Nascent Soul Elders in the sect took the time to meet this junior and her two disciples.

Given that many disciples reacted together and indeed received help from two inner sect female disciples driving the flying boat, the Sect Leader even bestowed rewards.

Not only was Elder Lin Lian given a Heaven Mending Pill to improve Elder Lin Lian’s Spiritual Root, but also a Heavenly Spirit Fruit to increase the chance of Core Formation. With the Blue Spirit Flower brought back by Li Mei and Lin Lan, Old Ancestor Lin Lian’s chance of Core Formation greatly increased.

Furthermore, Li Mei, Lin Lan, and Yang Yuzhuo were rewarded with two Foundation Establishment Pill quotas, five Mid-Grade Spirit Stones each, and a Magical Artifact.

This result was unexpected by Old Ancestor Lin Lian. Her selfish operation yielded this result, and it was not in vain that she spent those Spirit Stones and cast aside favors. She even made a big profit.

Old Ancestor Lin Lian was of course happy and met with Lin Yu and Hua Kong that night.

“Xiao Mei, Xiao Lan, and Yang boy told me about your performance this time. You did a really good job!

I have rewarded them all. What do you two want? Cultivation Method? Magical Artifact? Spirit Stones? Just say it!”, Old Ancestor Lin Lian said with a smile on her face, feeling refreshed by the happy event.

“Old Ancestor, I want some Spirit Stones, Elixir, and Cultivation Methods, so that I can improve my realm as soon as possible! To give Da Mei greater help!”, Lin Yu took the lead and said.

“Old Ancestor! I also want some Spirit Stones, Elixir, and Cultivation Methods, so that I can improve my realm as soon as possible! To give Princess Lin Lan greater help!”, Hearing Lin Yu’s words, Hua Kong knew that this was the only correct answer.

“Good! Good! Good!”, Old Ancestor Lin Lian was very satisfied and immediately gave each of them a Storage Bracelet, five Mid-Grade Spirit Stones, some more powerful Gold Element Cultivation Methods, common Qi Refining Elixir, and even a better Flying Sword for each of them.

Even the enthusiasm of intense fire cooking oil has a day to dissipate. After returning to the sect for a period of time, life returned to its usual calm.

Now Lin Lan is already in the Mid-Cultivation realm, very close to Foundation Establishment. Elder Lin Lian arranged for Lin Lan to break through to the Twelfth Level of Qi Refining, but this time it is not as urgent as last time. It can be a little slower, so as not to be too hasty.

Lin Lan then took some time to practice the Sword Flight Cultivation Method. She had been relying on the Flying Boat before, and she still couldn’t Sword Flight even though she was in the Mid-Cultivation realm.

This is of course a long process, so she tied a large net to a tree in the Inner Courtyard for practice. Since then, her screams have often been heard in the Inner Courtyard.

Since getting some Spirit Stones, Hua Kong bought some tools for making Ironware from Senior Brother Xing.

This experience let him know that there is no distinction between high and low in the world’s artifacts, it just depends on whether the occasion of use is right or not. Since he is interested in Mundane Artifacts, it is okay to make some.

Lin Yu no longer stopped him from making the artifacts on the 《Mundane Artifact Compendium》, but just told him not to delay his cultivation. Hua Kong naturally agreed.

Hua Kong spent nearly a year of free time making the powerful Crossbow Bow that could shoot far, and also made ten Bolts.

After trying it, it was indeed quite powerful. Although it was difficult to cause harm to cultivators, it could also bring some harm to cultivators by chance, just like the Small Crossbow last time.

But Hua Kong is not a delusional person and would not think that this kind of Mundane Artifact can threaten cultivators. He still focuses on cultivation.

Since practicing the Heart-Clearing Mantra, Hua Kong’s cultivation speed has been faster. Moreover, he focuses on practicing Gold Element Cultivation Methods, and his perception and absorption of Gold Element Spiritual Energy is more sensitive.

After a year of hard cultivation, his Gold Element Spiritual Root has now entered the early stage of the Seventh Level of Qi Refining.

Of course, Lin Yu’s cultivation speed is still faster. Now Lin Yu’s Gold Element Spiritual Root has entered the mid-stage of the Eighth Level of Qi Refining.

And their Master, Princess Lin Lan, because she deliberately slowed down her cultivation speed, only entered the early stage of the Twelfth Level of Qi Refining.

In order to lay a solid foundation, Old Ancestor Lin Lian even asked Lin Lan to spend an hour a day practicing some Cultivation Methods for poisons, Illusion Technique, Elixir, and Magical Artifact making to expand the boundaries of cultivation.

But after this year of deliberate relaxation, Lin Lan still entered the late stage of the Twelfth Level of Qi Refining at the end of the year and had to start preparing for Foundation Establishment. Old Ancestor Lin Lian personally went to the sect’s Pill Hall to receive a Foundation Establishment Pill.

In order to ensure the safety of Lin Lan’s Foundation Establishment process, she was taken to the Meditation Room protected by a Formation in the White Lotus Residence. After Old Ancestor Lin Lian’s month of careful explanation and teaching, Lin Lan began to retreat and establish her foundation.

Lin Yu and Hua Kong could naturally only stay in the Small Courtyard to cultivate and live.

During the better part of the year that Lin Lan advanced to the Great Perfection of the Twelfth Level of Qi Refining, Lin Yu had been cultivating diligently. At the end of the year, he indeed went to the next level, and his realm came to the early stage of the Ninth Level of Qi Refining.

Hua Kong has been insisting on practicing the Heart-Clearing Mantra, his state of mind has been greatly improved, his cultivation speed has also been faster, and his realm has also been improved to the early stage of the Eighth Level of Qi Refining.

During this better part of the year, when he was tired of cultivation, Hua Kong would still make some artifacts from the Mundane Artifact Compendium in addition to cleaning the Small Courtyard.

For example, he configured the rather dangerous Bird-Shooting Powder. To his surprise, this thing was quite powerful. Hua Kong judged that if it was a surprise attack, a Qi Refining cultivator who was not well prepared would definitely be injured!

It’s just that this thing is too cumbersome to launch and requires an open flame. The sound is too loud and will expose his figure with one strike, but Hua Kong still thinks this thing is very valuable and takes it out from time to time to play with and study it.

Although Hua Kong knows that he has a Fire Spiritual Root and can unleash fierce fire with his bare hands, what if his Spiritual Power is exhausted like last time?

Hua Kong bought some Cultivation Methods for making Fire Element artifacts to study and found that there is a commonly used ignition powder in the Artifact Refining Hall that is very flammable—Mortal Fire Crystal Powder.

As long as it is slammed on, it will explode and ignite the flammable material, and then use the flammable material to ignite the Spirit Material that will produce a special Spiritual Power flame.

This method of producing Spirit Fire is very popular in small sects without Earth Fire Veins and is quite expensive.

But it is not popular in the Tian Yuan Sect. The Tian Yuan Sect’s Artifact Refining Hall and Pill Hall have their own Earth Fire Veins. Only some Pill Masters and Artifact Refiners use this method when making some private items or Mundane Artifacts.

Hua Kong bought some to study and found that it could easily ignite the Bird-Shooting Powder, but Hua Kong couldn’t use a hammer to ignite the fire, that would be too stupid.

As a Blacksmith who often makes Bolts, he still knows some small mechanisms, so he found a small mechanism from the 《Mundane Artifact Compendium》 and modified it slightly, and made a small hammer that uses a reed to store power and a crossbow trigger to release it.

He put this small hammer in a piece of wood, only exposing the small hammer crossbow trigger for cocking and releasing.

Fix the Steel Pipe on the wood, and press in Mortal Fire Crystal Powder, Bird-Shooting Powder, and Iron Sand in sequence. As long as the small hammer hits the small hole behind the Steel Pipe, it will detonate the Bird-Shooting Powder and shoot the Iron Sand out.

But Hua Kong felt that this was too slow and not valuable. Hua Kong suddenly thought of the Flying Boat driven by Spirit Stones. As long as the Spirit Stones are put in, it can operate. When the Spirit Stones are used up, take out the used Spirit Stones and replace them with new ones.

Hua Kong was thinking about whether he could press the medicine into the Steel Pipe first, and just take it out and replace the Steel Pipe when he needed it.

But Hua Kong tried it and it was not feasible. It was too troublesome to fix the Steel Pipe and replace the old one with a new one. At this point, Hua Kong was stuck and temporarily did not figure out how to improve the launch efficiency.

After a period of suspension, Hua Kong thought again that he could use a mechanism to make the fixing and disassembly of the Steel Pipe faster.

The little expert in blacksmithing went online. After referring to the devices in the 《Mundane Artifact Compendium》, Hua Kong was indeed able to quickly replace the Steel Pipe.

As long as he prepares the Steel Pipe in advance, the launch speed will be greatly improved. He then went to the forest to shoot birds and had a great time, so that the birds in the forest ran away as soon as they saw him coming.

It’s just that extreme joy begets sorrow. He played too much, and one Steel Pipe was blown into two sections, and he was almost injured.

Looking at the Steel Pipe that was blown to pieces and only half of it was left, he thought that he could continue to use it after sawing off the blown part at the back. He suddenly thought that the Steel Pipe didn’t seem to need to be that long.

He sawed the Steel Pipe into small sections, pressed on the Bird-Shooting Powder, and then he found that it was faster to replace the Steel Pipe this way.

While playing, Hua Kong found that the shortened Steel Pipe Iron Sand did not shoot far and could not shoot birds that were far away.

The Steel Pipe that shoots far is longer, and the Steel Pipe that changes quickly is shorter. How can we combine the advantages of both?

At this point, Hua Kong was stuck again, but he was not entangled, after all, cultivation is the main business, and making these things is just for fun.

He took advantage of cleaning the Small Courtyard once and threw this question to Lin Yu. Lin Yu joked that he liked a short girl and a tall girl. Wouldn’t it be over if you married them all back?

Hearing this, Hua Kong was stunned. Marry them all back? Is it possible? Yes, it is!

Hua Kong quickly tried to combine the short Steel Pipe and the long Steel Pipe together, and finally found that as long as the short Steel Pipe was made a little thinner than the long Steel Pipe, it could be stuffed into the long Steel Pipe.

That’s great. Now, as long as you replace the used short barrel each time, you can launch quickly and shoot birds that are relatively far away. Hua Kong was excited about this for several days.

For this reason, Lin Yu ate the most birds in his life. Some of them still had Iron Sand that had not been cleaned up. In the end, he protested and refused to make the birds hunted by Hua Kong again.

After being stubborn for a while, Hua Kong gave up. What he made was really not very good. He was still more interested in making equipment.

He also tried to use his Bird Shooting Tube to hunt some wild animals like rabbits and deer, but found it was useless. These guys are much smarter than the feathered animals in the trees.

Sometimes when he got close, the Bird Shooting Tube shot out a piece of Iron Sand, which had already beaten the thing all over with blood, but the thing still screamed and ran away.

In the end, he still used the Steel Crossbow learned from the Mundane Artifact Compendium to hunt those beasts, but Hua Kong felt that it was not as tasty to eat as the ones hunted with the Bird Shooting Tube.

Hua Kong tried to modify the short barrel again, thinking about making the Iron Sand bigger. Sure enough, after changing to new Iron Sand, he could hunt those beasts, and Hua Kong was overjoyed.

He also thought, what would happen if the Iron Sand became very big?

He began to ponder this matter again and began to make different Iron Sand. In the end, he replaced the Iron Sand with small Iron balls, which were more powerful, and he could also hunt beasts as big as deer.

At this point, the birds and beasts in the back of the Small Courtyard were slaughtered by Hua Kong. Gradually, it was difficult for him to catch prey, and even his mood was a little low.

In order not to affect his cultivation, Hua Kong decided to treat this matter as a big or small matter to solve, and would spend a little time every day.

But Hua Kong has slowly realized that making the small ball bigger will make the range farther. He wondered if a Steel Pipe only contained small balls, would it be very far?

He modified the small Steel Pipe to only hold one ball. The range was indeed far, but he used his Divine Sense to scan the small ball shot out and found that it was almost inaccurate.

He thought of his Small Crossbow. The arrowhead of the Small Crossbow is not round. He adjusted the shape of the small ball with reference to the shape of the arrowhead and found that it had some effect but not much. It would still fly randomly when shot out.

Now he was at a loss and couldn’t think of how to control the direction of the arrowhead. Add tail feathers?

Hua Kong tried it, but the tail feathers would be burned off, so he turned the tail feathers into steel. When shot out of the Steel Pipe, the tail feathers would pop out a little under the action of the reed.

Sure enough, it was accurate and could shoot super long-range targets. Hua Kong was ecstatic! It’s just that the arrowhead has become complicated and it is more troublesome to make, but this is not difficult for Hua Kong.

But Hua Kong suddenly wanted to test whether this weapon was harmful to cultivators, so he asked Lin Yu to shoot at his direction once and found that it was difficult to resist with his cultivation at the Great Perfection of the Seventh Level of Qi Refining!

Ordinary protection spells are also useless and you must use protection Treasure Armor to defend.

This result shocked Lin Yu. He also tried it and found that although he could barely defend, he needed to be fully prepared.

This result left Lin Yu dumbfounded. He didn’t expect that Hua Kong had modified something that was originally just for shooting birds to be able to hunt low-level cultivators.

Lin Yu’s eyes suddenly looked at Hua Kong differently, making Hua Kong feel hairy.

“This thing can still be improved,” Lin Yu said, looking at the rather rough Bird Shooting Tube.

“Yes! Yes!”, Hua Kong didn’t really take this thing seriously at first. Now that this thing has such power, then it must be modified well. Maybe it can save his life like the Small Crossbow in the future.

One day, Hua Kong was hunting in the forest with his Bird Shooting Tube when he suddenly saw a Hunting Falcon in the distance chasing a very fast flying bird.

Every time the Hunting Falcon approached the small bird, it would quickly rotate its body, which made Hua Kong very confused and did not understand why the Hunting Falcon did this.

Hua Kong couldn’t figure it out but didn’t dwell on it. He just shook his head and went to chase other prey.

This day, after fighting with Lin Yu, he rested, drank water, and ate some dry food in the Small Courtyard. Suddenly, he found a leaf falling.

He then used his Divine Sense to control the leaf to rotate out of boredom. He suddenly felt that the trajectory of the leaf had changed slightly.

After that, he repeatedly used his Flying Sword to chop down the leaves and compared the trajectories of the rotating and non-rotating leaves, and the trajectories of the fast and slow rotating leaves.

When the leaves on the tree were cut off by him, those rotating leaves only fell within a small range, while other leaves fell everywhere.

He suddenly understood why the Hunting Falcon was rotating, it was to make itself faster and more accurate!

Faster! More accurate! It was as if lightning flashed through Hua Kong’s mind.

Will the arrowhead be faster and more accurate when it rotates?

Hua Kong was not sure, so he first tested it with the Flying Sword. When he was controlling the Flying Sword, he slightly rotated it, although it was a little difficult.

But after he gave up control of the Flying Sword, the Flying Sword could indeed fly out very far and hit the wall with a bang.

“I know!”, Hua Kong shouted and ran to his small workshop behind the courtyard.

He slightly adjusted the direction of the steel tail feathers of the arrowhead, then loaded it into the small Steel Pipe, and pulled the crossbow trigger to fire.

Scanning with his Divine Sense, the arrowhead did rotate, and the range and accuracy of the arrowhead were greatly increased.

A few days later, Hua Kong made a new batch of rotating arrowheads and asked Lin Yu to pull the crossbow trigger at him.

Only then did he realize that with his current cultivation at the Great Perfection of the Seventh Level of Qi Refining, there was no way to fight against this arrowhead.

Lin Yu’s cultivation at the Eighth Level of Qi Refining also felt that he could not resist. His Divine Sense could no longer capture the arrowhead, but could only capture its trajectory. If someone used this to attack him, he could only run away.

“I wonder if Da Mei can resist?”, Lin Yu said.

“Princess Lin Lan should be able to resist!”, Hua Kong said. But Lin Lan had been taken away for retreat a few days ago and could not be verified.

“We have to wait until she comes out of seclusion to know,” Lin Yu replied.

The successful creation of this killing weapon made both of them feel great, and they broke through in one go. Lin Yu entered the Ninth Level of Qi Refining, and Hua Kong entered the Eighth Level of Qi Refining.