“Woof…” Big Yellow’s eyes lit up as soon as the young fellow stood up, and it shouted, “Lil’ Ming, someone came to send you a bunch of furs and feathers. What do you need them for?”
Ou Yangming was slightly stunned. “How fast.”
He neither cultivated in isolation nor meditated this time; he was studying and exploring ways to use runes. Therefore, he was aware of how much time had passed.
‘It has only been 2 hours. Has Tian Yinghao finished what I asked him to do?’
When Ou Yangming entered the drawing room, sure enough, Tian Yinghao had been waiting for a long time. Once the man handed him the collected furs and feathers for him to inspect them, he looked at the man in admiration.
The young fellow found the right person indeed as Tian Yinghao performed much better than he had imagined.
Tian Yinghao sighed a breath of relief after he saw how pleased Ou Yangming was. He later asked, “Brother Ou, the Lottery Meet will start in 5 days. Other than interspatial bags, many great items will also be sold and auctioned. Are you interested in joining the meet?”
Ou Yangming was moved. He answered with a smile, “Okay. Since there’s such a grand event, I ought to go and take a look.”
He could not finish refining a flying carpet in a day or two, so it would be a good choice to relax occasionally.
Besides, he wanted to take the opportunity to meet Yuqi the Venerable One as he wondered why his partners from Mount Wuzhi were still nowhere to be seen.
Tian Yinghao was elated, and he raised another question, “Brother Ou, I’ll come and get you after 5 days, then we’ll head there together. What do you think?”
“I couldn’t have asked for more.” Ou Yangming nodded.
Tian Yinghao was overjoyed. He began to converse with the young fellow but this time, they talked about the various problems in smithing art.
Ou Yangming listened quietly and gave his opinion from time to time.
He read many books in the library but theories were theories, after all. Even when he combined them with his practical experiences from before, he could not master them in just a few days. While Tian Yinghao’s level of attainment in smithing art was lower, he received professional training and had extensive experience in theories. As such, he also knew some common smithing problems very well.
By listening to Tian Yinghao, Ou Yangming felt like he benefited a lot too.
He had encountered many similar issues before this, but he relied on his Military Fire’s unique power and solved them unreasonably.
This was similar to when he used the Wutong Tree as a raw material while other people used normal materials.
He could smith fine pieces of equipment not because he had broad and solid knowledge, but because he possessed something special.
Throughout Ou Yangming’s discussion with Tian Yinghao, he gained a deeper understanding of various smithing techniques, as well as many methods to solve problems. In particular, some distinctive tricks made him feel enlightened.
Just as they became immersed in their conversation, Ou Yangming poured out 2 ores from his interspatial bag.
Tian Yinghao looked strangely at him. He had just obtained an interspatial bag, but it did not have a large space, so he must meticulously plan how he should utilize it. He could only envy when he saw how Ou Yangming casually storing a bunch of ores in his interspatial bag like a rich man.
Under Ou Yangming’s invitation, Tian Yinghao performed the smithing technique that he was adept in.
Tian Yinghao picked a few of the specially-selected ores, then he slowly burned them with his spiritual fire, causing them to melt bit by bit. He described the arrangement and burning order in detail, and it was worth noting that they involved great knowledge. If one of the steps was wrong, the ores that were burned would not perfectly merge into one, and it would affect the outcome to a certain extent.
He did not stint on teaching Ou Yangming what he knew. Throughout the process, he also especially noted some parts where defects could be caused.
At last, he added sincerely, “Brother Ou, this is my greatest gain from learning smithing art for 2 decades, and I taught you everything I know, so how much you’ll be able to learn will be up to your luck.”
Ou Yangming grinned and said, “Okay, let me try.”
He picked those ores according to the sequence as well, then he pondered for a brief moment before he released his scorching Military Fire.
However, without using his fire’s unique burning ability this time, he adopted Tian Yinghao’s method and slowly practiced from the lowest level of smithing art.
Chapter 685 - A Flying Carpet Comes To Light
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
5 days passed in the blink of an eye.
Throughout those days, Ou Yangming was surprised to find that he gained much more than every other time he learned hard in the past.
In actuality, Tian Yinghao’s smithing standard was mediocre. Not to mention the blacksmiths from the Beast King Sect that had become Spiritualists, even among blacksmiths in Extreme Grade, he was not considered outstanding.
Nonetheless, his average talent was the exact reason he invested all of his energies and worked hard to build a solid foundation when he learned smithing art.
On the contrary, Ou Yangming had been advancing by leaps and bounds ever since he came into contact with smithing art; his Military Fire allowed him to easily conquer peaks one after another. In terms of achievements in smithing art only, even the best blacksmith from the Beast King Sect might not be able to defeat him.
Having said that, everything had its pros and cons. Ou Yangming could achieve his target in the shortest time possible by improving through continuous breakthroughs, but he did not have much time to enjoy the scenery along the way.
In other words, he did not have a solid foundation.
At the current stage or within a fixed period, Ou Yangming would not need to consider this problem if he continued to rely on his Military Fire’s special properties. However, the young fellow would one day arrive at a bottleneck as he continued to advance. By then, it would be impossible for him to turn back to fix his foundation.
Now, not only had Ou Yangming learned smithing art systematically from the top to the bottom in the library, but he had also converted those basics for his use through his conversation with Tian Yinghao.
It had only been a few days, hence Ou Yangming had not completely reinforced his foundation. Even so, through practice, he understood his flaws and would focus more on them in the future. The young fellow would succeed if he persevered and worked hard, and it was simpler for him because he only needed to make up for his shortcoming in terms of his foundation.
Needless to say, Ou Yangming’s biggest gain throughout these few days was not realizing his foundation’s problem, but having attained a more solid knowledge after making up for his foundation systematically. By drawing an analogy, he also had a breakthrough in his research on flying carpets.
At this moment, Ou Yangming released his spiritual world in his room and fully immersed his mental conception inside.
A sheet of fur turned intensely inside the spiritual world as rune paths with exquisite yet wonderful powers slowly surfaced on it. The patterns looked rather similar to the rune paths on Yuqi the Venerable One’s flying carpet, but they were merely similar. Ou Yangming had attempted over 100 times to disintegrate them into a rune’s basic form as much as possible.
This was because the most basic rune form was the only thing that could let a Flight Rune be carved on a low-rank spirit beast’s fur.
A low-rank spirit beast’s fur was considered extraordinary to normal people. Nevertheless, a Flight Rune contained enormous energies as it was a rune that involved power theorem. If it was slightly more mysterious and complicated, it could not be withstood by a low-rank spirit beast’s fur.
“Pow…”
Inside Ou Yangming’s spiritual world, the low
-rank spirit beast’s fur suddenly straightened as though countless pairs of hands stretched it to its limit from different angles.
Despite that, when the last bit of the rune paths were carved, the fur was still well and did not break.
Ou Yangming was elated. Under the control of his conception, the vultures’ feathers were attached to the bottom of the fur and around it one after another. Apart from the sitting spot in the middle, the other parts were attached with the vultures’ bright feathers.
Following that, the fur slowly rose into the sky. With help from Ou Yangming’s mental power, it carried him high into the sky.
Ou Yangming exhaled deeply and left his spiritual world, then he opened his eyes.
He was exhausted from carrying out a spiritual experiment for a long time, but he was extremely thrilled.
‘I did it!’
Ou Yangming successfully refined a flying carpet in his spiritual world.
Of course, he had only succeeded in his spiritual world. If he wanted to replicate the process in the real world, he would have to work harder.
The young fellow’s mental state was not the best at this time, but he did not want to wait any longer.
Ou Yangming retrieved a low-rank spirit beast’s fur from the side. He focused and enveloped the material with his Military Fire, then he began to burn it.
Due to his experience in the spiritual world, he managed to get started without feeling strange. The fur swayed slightly in his Military Fire, then mysterious rune paths quickly appeared on it.
Without walking through the process in his spiritual world, he would have needed to waste plenty of furs to succeed.
Moreover, while the furs were either obtained from low-rank spirit beasts or middle-rank spirit beasts and were almost perfectly preserved, there were still dissimilarities between them. As such, there would be more than 1 thing to pay attention to during the refinement processes.
In a way, the carving technique might be able to apply to a certain sheet of fur, but minor adjustments would be required for another fur.
After all, the furs of low-rank spirit beasts have limited tolerance, and they could not be compared with Yuqi the Venerable One’s flying carpet.
As Ou Yangming possessed a spiritual world, he had an unbelievable advantage in this aspect. The spirit beast’s fur kept turning in his hands at the moment while he concentrated his mental conception to an extremity. Consequently, the rune paths surfaced on the fur according to his expectations.
Inside his spiritual world, Ou Yangming had measured the fur’s withstandable limit for a rune power, which was why he was confident about succeeding.
That said, not even the slightest mistake was allowed if he carried out the refinement process in the real world, or his efforts would be in vain, and the fur would end up tearing.
Fortunately, Ou Yangming had numerous smithing experiences, and he became more stable after his recent fundamental learnings. After half an hour, the rune paths were finally carved on the spirit beast’s fur without any mistakes, which was the same as when the young fellow practiced in this spiritual world.
After making a final check with his consciousness, he suddenly relaxed.
The rune paths on the fur glowed at once, and abundant spiritual power from the universe flowed into it due to the rune.
As a result, the spirit beast’s fur was straightened. Although this happened in Ou Yangming’s spiritual world too, he was still nervous at this instant.
Luckily, the worst-case scenario did not happen. A brief moment after the spirit beast’s fur was stretched, it loosened little but little and finally became soft again.
Ou Yangming curbed his Military Fire and touched the fur gently. There was not too much of a change on the surface, but it was filled with forceful spiritual power from the universe. In a way, it was no longer a normal spirit beast’s fur, but a powerful piece of equipment.
The refinement of the fur was one of the most important parts. Next, Ou Yangming would have to attach feathers to it.
In actuality, the hair on Yuqi the Venerable One’s flying carpet was not an external part; it came with the carpet’s fur.
Nonetheless, even Ou Yangming could not tell the equivalent rank of the fur that was used to refine the flying carpet.
In any case, even if that kind of fur was not attached with feathers, it could become one of the mightiest pieces of flight equipment. On the other hand, the lowest-ranked flying carpet that was being refined by Ou Yangming could not yield the same result. Without having sufficient feathers, he was not confident about making it fly.
Subsequently, the vultures’ feathers floated one after another. Instead of using them right away, Ou Yangming released his Military Fire again to carve a rune on each of them.
Of course, these runes were much simpler than the one on the spirit beast’s fur; the difficulty levels were Heaven and Earth apart. The only thing was that Ou Yangming needed more feathers—108 of them.
All of the feathers were successfully refined by the blazing Military Fire. Afterward, Ou Yangming retrieved the spirit beast’s fur. The refined feathers then drifted toward the fur and stuck close to it through the Military Fire’s effect.
It was a much longer process than when Ou Yangming refined the spirit beast’s fur, but the difficulty level was entirely different.
The refinement of feathers and the process of sticking them to the fur were repetitive tasks. Other than the fact that more time was needed for Ou Yangming to pinpoint the spots for the feathers to be stuck on, it was not an energy-consuming step at all.
In comparison, his consumption was much higher when he refined the spirit beast’s fur.
At last, after working tirelessly for half a day, a brand new flying carpet appeared in front of Ou Yangming.
Nevertheless, he smiled bitterly when he looked at it.
At a first glance, the carpet looked nondescript. The fact that a bunch of vultures’ feathers were stuck to a spirit beast’s fur seemed somewhat inappropriate.
Even so, it was because Ou Yangming had no other options. He had to first solve the problem of making a flying carpet rise into the sky and fly before he could consider changes to its outer appearance. However, he could not help but sigh when he recalled Yuqi the Venerable One’s gorgeous flying carpet.
As compared to that, the flying carpet that Ou Yangming refined was too crude, and the difference between them could be described as that between a beautiful swan and an ugly duckling.
Ou Yangming shook his head and stopped overthinking.
‘No matter what, I was the one that refined this, so it’s considered my child. Regardless of what other people say, my child’s always the best.’
The young fellow then flashed and sat at the middle of the flying carpet. With a flash of thought, he channeled his spiritual power into the carpet.
Next, the flying carpet slowly moved and overcame the obstructive power in the air to rise upward.
“Woof…”
Outside the door, Big Yellow could sense something different in the aura inside the room. It ran inside and happened to see Ou Yangming rising into the air on a flying carpet, so it barked.
Ou Yangming could not help but burst out laughing when he saw how surprised Big Yellow was.
In actual fact, he was confident about being able to figure out the way to refine pieces of flight equipment, but he did not expect to overcome the difficulties and refine one so quickly.
Chapter 686 - Lottery
“Woof!”
Big Yellow barked again, then it arched its body and jumped up to the flying carpet.
It would not have had the guts to do so if the flight equipment belonged to someone else. Since Ou Yangming was the one that refined the carpet, the big yellow dog regarded it as its own.
This was Big Yellow’s logical thinking—anything good that belonged to Ou Yangming belonged to it too.
The flying carpet lowered a little, but it quickly went back to its normal state
and rose higher. Nonetheless, Ou Yangming helplessly made it stop when they were close to the roof.
He was certain that the flying carpet could fly inside this room, but he could not measure how high it could fly, as well as its speed.
Just as he was going to control the flying carpet to fly out of the building, Tian Yinghao’s voice could be heard outside the courtyard.
“Brother Ou, the Lottery Meet is starting soon, so let’s go now!”
Ou Yangming gently tapped Big Yellow’s head. It was displeased.
“What’s there to see at the Lottery Meet? Isn’t there just going to be some interspatial bags? Let’s go out to play instead!” It stuck out its tongue and looked eagerly at Ou Yangming.
“There’s nothing much to see at the Lottery Meet, but some good items will be sold after that, so it won’t hurt if we go to take a look.” Ou Yangming chuckled and looked at Big Yellow. “Don’t worry, since I managed to figure out how to smith this, you’ll be getting one too.”
Big Yellow opened its mouth and smiled proudly.
Following that, Ou Yangming jumped off the flying carpet with Big Yellow, then he waved his hand to put the treasure away.
In terms of material value only, a flying carpet might not be more valuable than an interspatial bag. Even so, the young fellow and the big yellow dog knew that the former was much rarer than the latter.
When Ou Yangming opened the door, Tian Yinghao asked with a smile, “Brother Ou, are you still smithing pieces of basic equipment? Heh, judging from your abilities, you’re considered potent already.”
Throughout the interaction between them that lasted a few days, Tian Yinghao experienced how capable and potential Ou Yangming was. He admired the young fellow for his natural gift in smithing art.
Ou Yangming shook his head and answered, “I was fiddling with something new.”
“Oh, given that you’re spending time on researching it, it must be something great.” Tian Yinghao’s eyes lit up.
“It’s a great item indeed, but I haven’t tested it yet, so I can’t conclude if I succeeded or not.” Ou Yangming chuckled.
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