Chapter 29

The so-called Tier 1 and Tier 2 Runic Equipments were classified based on the number of runes engraved on them. However, due to the different proficiencies of Tool Refiners, it was very likely that people would say things such as Tier 1 Runic Equipment with powers comparable to a Tier 2 Runic Equipment.

However, this situation only happened in relatively rare circumstances.

After all, optimizing the arrangement of runes and even forming new Runic Arrays were far beyond the ability of ordinary Tool Refiners. Some Tool Refiners could spend their entire lives without being able to optimize even a single Runic Equipment or Magical Artifact.

With the assistance of the Ability Upgrade property of the Yellow Court Classic, Lu Qingfeng had been able to perform optimization on every Runic Equipment and Magical Artifact.

Of course, that depended on whether he had enough experience points.

Lu Qingfeng felt very happy on the inside.

If he could refine the Crimson Furnace in the game, it would imply that he could do so as well in reality. In this way, he could finally escape the predicament of having to refine pills in a pot and greatly improve his efficiency in Pill Refining.

“Tool Refining…”

Lu Qingfeng kept his emotions to himself and couldn’t help but shake his head as he recalled his journey in Tool Refining over the past few years.

Pill Refining was difficult.

It was difficult because one had to control the various properties of the medicinal herbs, such as herb ratios, flame intensity, and so on.

Rune Crafting was difficult.

Its difficulty lay in the drawing of the runes, the precision of the brushstrokes, the mastery over corrosion characters, the many aspects of the coordination of one’s inner Chi with the Cinnabarite, Runic Brush, and Runic Paper, controlling the amount of Spirit Energy, and so on.

The difficulty of Tool Refining, on the other hand, far outweighed both.

Before one could refine tools, various ores and metals had to be handled. The procedure might seem similar to the handling of the various medicinal herbs, but it’s much harder. After handling the ores and metals, they had to be measured in varying proportions and forged at the right heat.

In this aspect, in addition to heat regulation, one also had to control the amount of force exerted.

For instance, when Lu Qingfeng was refining the Crimson Furnace, he was constantly issuing instructions to his nine disciples about how to control the intensity of the fire and the air. At the same time, he was regulating the chaotic and disorderly air blowing within the furnace and condensing it into gusts of potent force to forge the metals within the furnace.

Zhang Zong’s Cyclone Hammering Technique ran on the exact same principles.

It might seem similar to Pill Refining, but they were, in fact, very different.

Besides, Lu Qingfeng also had to control his inner Chi very carefully in order to drive the metals within the furnace into forming the extremely complex corrosion characters and combine them into a series of runes. Then, he would have to arrange and combine the runes into Runic Arrays.

This was delicate work. The process of forming and arranging the characters was extremely exhausting.

This was also the hardest thing about Tool Refining.

There were thousands of corrosion characters. Every corrosion character was a manifestation of the Grand Boulevard, which could only be understood but not conveyed. It was complex and versatile like a drawing of heaven, earth, mountains, and rivers. Forming them was already a difficult task. Combining them and stacking them up in layers was even more difficult.

In Runic Crafting, the hand had to control the brush.

However, in Tool Refining, one’s inner Chi was used to form the characters. This required one to train one’s inner Chi until it could be driven like an arm. What’s more, one would also have to be extremely familiar with the various metals’ properties, reject conditions, and so on.

This placed Tool Refining in the highest position among the three professions in terms of difficulty.

The reason it took Lu Qingfeng almost eight years to forge the Crimson Furnace was because he was overcoming these difficulties one after another. The most important ones among them were the cognition of corrosion characters and the control of inner Chi.

Through countless hours of practice, at present, Lu Qingfeng could already drive his inner Chi in the most subtle ways to proficiently form the corrosion characters.

Although it took him quite some time, when he would have to refine other Runic Equipment in the future, he wouldn’t have to waste time on training his Chi Control again.

“The Crimson Furnace is just a first test. Next, I shall delve into the Art of Mechanisms and then master Puppet Crafting!” Lu Qingfeng’s eyes flickered with ambition.

Ever since he’d seen the power of puppets for the first time eight years ago, Lu Qingfeng had been fascinated by it.

In the past few years, the more he understood about puppets, the more intrigued he grew. This different type of Magical Artifact was similar to the battle robots that had existed in his past life. This was in line with Lu Qingfeng’s combat philosophy.

Instead of competing in the flesh, it should be carried out with Magical Artifacts.

During a battle, with thousands of puppets swarming ahead, no matter how high above one someone was in cultivation, they would be buried underneath this Sea of Puppets tactic.

It was just that for Puppet Crafting, after one learned the basics of Tool Refining and Runic Crafting, the Art of Mechanisms was something else that had to be mastered. The Art of Mechanisms included human mechanics, physics, mechanical structure, etc., which one could consider as all-encompassing.

Even in the 100 Art Sect, which was famous for their puppet crafting, there were not many Tool Refiners who could refine puppets.

Zhang Zong had studied this technique for more than 20 years, and currently he could only refine auxiliary puppets of very little value. He had given up a long time ago trying to craft puppets, and now he specialized in the refinement of Runic Equipment and Magical Artifacts.

“Zhang Zong already is a top-level Tool Refining Apprentice. With just one more step, he would be able to refine Tier 1 Magical Artifacts and become a Tool Refining Master. He doesn’t have enough time to squander. But since I have the 100-fold time difference, I absolutely have the time and energy to dive into it.”

Lu Qingfeng made up his mind that in this life, apart from cultivating and refining pills, his main focus would be on refining puppets.

For him, as long as he mastered the art of offense, defense, escape, and the crafting of Runic Equipment, it would be sufficient. After all, it was difficult to find materials of excellent quality to refine Runic Equipment in Miaoyin City. Instead of spending energy in the game on refining various Runic Equipments and Magical Artifacts, he would be better off learning to refine puppets.

“Even if the materials used to refine puppets are more on the ordinary side, they could still be used as fodder. Victory can be secured with numbers.”

But if he concentrated on Runic Equipment, the strategy would be unfeasible.

The amount of Runic Equipment Lu Qingfeng could use by himself was limited.

With all these thoughts in his mind, puppets had naturally become his preferred choice.

After his time in Pill Refining, Lu Qingfeng had obtained a book about the Art of Mechanisms from the guild, and he began studying it.

The Art of Mechanisms in “Primitive” contained all the fundamentals of refining a puppet.

The wooden ox, kite, armillary spheres, seismographs, and so on were examples of mechanisms. These were the more basic ones.

The more advanced ones were the mechanical humanoids, mechanical beasts, and similar things that could move flexibly and were competent for various tasks.

This was already somewhat similar to robots in the 21st century.

They could be referred as puppets.

Puppets use the skeletons of various monsters, beasts, or special metals as a frame, which was then connected with animal tendons or some other method, thus giving it its extremely high defensive prowess and the ability to move freely.

They were either an imitation of the human body or the animal body.

On this basis, by engraving plentiful Runic Arrays via the methods of Tool Refining, it could provide puppets with all kinds of incredible abilities, perhaps an impenetrable defense, robust strength that would allow it to fight monsters at close quarters, or the ability to cast spells that would make them excel in performing long-range attacks.

In short, all of a puppet’s power lay in the Runic Arrays that the refiner had engraved on them.

Take, for instance, Singularity’s humanoid puppets.

The giant puppet controlled by Mu Yuanyi had powerful defenses and strength. The serrated sword held in its arm was comparable to Tier 2 Magical Artifacts. On its legs and arms, there were hidden mechanisms that could shoot out Bone Killing Arrows, which were very hard to guard against. On its left hand was a shield made of a rare Magical Artifact that could ward off all attacks.

Mu Yuanyi would hide in the massive puppet and control its combat via the control hub, which could improve his own combat power dozens of times. With enough dedication, whatever combat capability a puppet could achieve in theory, it could unleash in actual practice.

It was somewhat similar to the interstellar age, in which humans would enter space and control puppets to fight.

Naturally, this was not the type of puppet Lu Qingfeng wanted.