Cultivation: I can solidify equipment attributes

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With no significant progress in the nourishment of the jade bead in the short term, and the situation at the branch hall reaching a stalemate due to the theft, Li Yuan had a rare period of respite.

Just then, the second-tier crafting materials in the market were running out, and new blueprints were needed to replenish the crafting materials.

Although it's cheaper to buy from our own market, we try to avoid using our own channels if possible.

So Li Yuan set off for Baijingfang City.

After flying at full speed for a day, Li Yuan slowly descended at the city gate, his aura suppressed to the late Foundation Establishment stage.

He had two purposes for coming. His reserves of second-tier talisman-making materials were almost depleted, and the method for making spirit-detecting talismans had always been on his purchasing list. In addition, he had already accumulated experience in forging the Golden Body Armor and wanted to further advance in the art of weapon crafting, so he needed higher-tier forging blueprints.

The crowd at the city gate was slightly thinner than the last time he came. Li Yuan mingled among a group of independent cultivators, passed through the checkpoint, and walked eastward along the main street.

Under a tea stall ahead, three monks were sitting on a bench chatting loudly.

"Have you heard? Something big has happened in Wulin Market in Liangzhou. People from Tianyue Sect lost something in one of their branch halls, causing a huge uproar in the city. They even dragged people from Yuanyang Sect into the investigation."

"What's missing?"

"I don't know. But something that can make a late-stage Golden Core cultivator from the Tianyue Sect personally get angry can't be ordinary, can it?"

The third monk lowered his voice, speaking in a mysterious tone.

"I heard from a news vendor in Baijing East Market that what was lost seems to be a treasure related to the Xuanyou Sect. Nobody knows exactly what it is, but the Tianyue Sect has sealed off the area around its branch hall so tightly that not even a fly can get in."

"Liangzhou is in complete chaos right now."

Li Yuan walked past the tea stall without stopping.

Jingzhou is generally peaceful, with the three major sects keeping things under control. Most cultivators rarely fight and simply earn spirit stones normally.

Unlike Liangzhou, where tensions were high every day, the cultivators were much less wary. It was common for them to chat about news from various places over tea and meals. Of course, truly valuable core intelligence wouldn't emerge in such settings, but the degree to which various messages were distorted after passing through several hands was itself a form of information.

News of the stolen jade beads has spread to Jingzhou, but the details are vague, and no one knows who took them or how.

Li Yuan moved to the talisman trading area.

The talisman section of Baijing Market is significantly larger than that of Yunyang Market. Dozens of shops line the street, offering everything from beginner-level talismans to high-quality second-level talismans. Some shops also provide talisman-making guidance and talisman paper consignment services.

He walked into a medium-sized shop with a signboard featuring cloud patterns.

The shopkeeper was an elderly cultivator with gray hair, in the late stage of Foundation Establishment. He was behind the counter, calibrating the spiritual energy channel of the pen tip with a talisman pen. When he saw Li Yuan enter, he looked up and glanced at him.

"Buy a talisman or sell a talisman?"

Li Yuan stopped in front of the counter and looked at the jade slip behind him. In addition to the one he knew how to make, there was also a method for making a spirit detection talisman.

"How to make a Spirit Detective Talisman".

The shopkeeper put down the talisman brush and took a jade slip from the wooden shelf behind him.

"The complete method for making a Spirit Detection Talisman, a second-tier detection talisman. After being affixed to the target area, it can passively collect spiritual energy fluctuations and store them within the talisman. It can be retrieved and read later. The effective range is approximately thirty feet, and the duration depends on the amount of spiritual energy infused by the talisman maker."

"How many?"

"Sixty mid-grade spirit stones."

The price is reasonable. The crafting threshold for spirit detection talismans is not high, but the demand for detection talismans in White Mirror Market has remained stable, and the price has not been driven down too much.

Li Yuan paid with spirit stones and carefully put away the jade slip.

After leaving the talisman area, turn north along the main street into the weapon refining area.

There are fewer shops in the weapon crafting area than in the talisman area, but each shop has a larger and more impressive storefront. The trading threshold for second-tier weapon crafting materials and magic weapon blueprints is high, and the customer base is mainly cultivators above the late Foundation Establishment stage and a small number of family weapon crafters, dealing in large-scale transactions.

Li Yuan entered the most impressive shop. Inside, more than a dozen finished second-tier magical artifacts were displayed, with defensive, offensive, and support types each occupying a corner. On the wall behind the counter hung several rubbings of magical artifact blueprints, labeled with the name and price.

His gaze fell on a drawing on the right wall.

Frost Armor. A mid-grade, second-tier defensive magic weapon, water attribute. The blueprints depict the overall structure and spirit rune distribution of the armor, with dense annotations next to it detailing the forging steps and material proportions.

Second-tier, mid-grade. A whole level higher than the Golden Body Armor.

The complexity of the spirit runes can be intuitively felt from the blueprints. The Golden Body Armor has more than three hundred spirit rune lines and about fifty nodes. The Frost Armor has nearly double the number of spirit rune lines and nearly ninety nodes, and it also has a new water attribute spirit energy circulation loop, which requires the perfect fusion of cold water spirit energy with the base material during the forging process.

Priced at one hundred mid-grade spirit stones.

Li Yuan called over a waiter, paid, and took the drawing.

"A fragment of an ancestral blueprint, a third-tier forging method! Experts, come and take a look! Those who know their stuff, come and get it!"

The stall was extremely simple, with a tattered cloth spread on the ground and a yellowed animal skin on it.

The stall owner was a tall, thin cultivator, in the early stages of Foundation Establishment. His complexion was sallow, his hands were rough, and his fingernails were embedded with rust that couldn't be washed off. He looked like a low-level weapon refiner who had been doing manual labor for many years.

Li Yuan squatted down and picked up the animal hide.

On the animal hide, a partial diagram of a forging array pattern was drawn with extremely fine spiritual ink. The precision of the array pattern far exceeded the second-order category, with intricate and rigorous lines, and the connection method between the nodes had similarities to some structures he had seen in the third-order monitoring array of the Tianyue Sect.

It is indeed a fragment of the third-order forging method. However, it is only a partial fragment, covering about 30% of the complete forging method.

"Where did it come from?"

The tall, thin man rubbed his hands together.

"It was passed down from my ancestors, really. My grandfather's generation could still understand some of it, but by my generation, we couldn't understand it at all."

When I was in Yunzhou, I wanted to find someone to do the appraisal, but everyone fled when the war broke out, and I couldn't find anyone to do it.

"From Yunzhou?"

"Yes," the tall, thin man sighed. "We can't stay in Yunzhou anymore. The entire market area in our region has been disrupted by the Demonic Sect, and most of the rogue cultivators have fled. Some went to Liangzhou, and some came to Jingzhou. But there are few people coming to Jingzhou."

He glanced around at the bustling street scene and gave a wry smile.

"Jingzhou is great in every way, except there's no place for us. The three major sects and the Mingyuan Chamber of Commerce have taken over all the ways to earn spirit stones. You can't survive without a solid skill. At least I can make a few rough items, while those rogue cultivators who only know how to farm and gather herbs can't even afford to eat."

Li Yuan flipped through the incomplete map.

"How many?"

The tall, thin man hesitated for a moment.

"Would twenty mid-grade spirit stones work? I know the map is incomplete, but it's definitely a third-tier item. If I could find the rest..."

"fifteen."

"become."

The spirit stones were exchanged. The tall, thin man counted the spirit stones and carefully put them into the cloth bag he kept close to his body.

Li Yuan carefully put away the remaining map, then got up and left the East Market.

The fragments of the third-tier forging method won't be useful in the short term, but they can serve as reference material for improving his weapon-forging skills in the future. Even if he can't collect the complete version, the partial array pattern structure can still provide him with design ideas for third-tier weapon forging.

The procurement is complete.

Li Yuan went straight to the Cloud Furnace Workshop deep in the weapon-refining area and rented a second-tier weapon-refining room for five days.

After closing the stone door, he first placed the iron plate for making the golden armor on the workbench.

I succeeded in forging one piece of golden armor last time, but the process was not smooth. It took four failures to succeed once. The successful one was mainly due to my Golden Core cultivation and array foundation, and the feel of it was still noticeably unstable.

To break through to the second-tier entry level, one must ensure that the forging of the Golden Body Armor is stable and repeatable.

The furnace is ignited.

Spirit Silver Ore Input. Cold Iron Essence. Stardust Sand.

The first piece of golden armor. The offset of the spirit pattern grooves is controlled within 20% of the allowable range, an improvement over the previous 30%. The direction of the spirit power infusion is more stable, and the activation sequence of the twelve defensive arrays shows no delay.

Finished product. Tier 2, lower grade. Slightly higher quality than the previous item.

It didn't stop. The second item.

Li Yuan deliberately sped up the forging process to test whether the same precision could be maintained at a higher speed. As a result, the spirit pattern grooves shifted in the seventh array position, reducing the finished product's defensive effectiveness by about 10%.

It works, but it's not perfect.

The third item, the fourth item, the fifth item, and the sixth item.

Each piece undergoes fine-tuning of its parameters. The forging force, the rhythm of spiritual energy infusion, the angle of the spiritual runes, and the timing of applying the setting liquid—all variables are brought closer to their optimal values ​​through repeated practice.

When the seventh piece of golden armor was completed, a prompt appeared on the panel.

[Crafting Skill: First Tier Perfection → Second Tier Beginner]

Second-level introduction.

The leap from the first-tier perfection to the second-tier entry level signifies that his forging of second-tier magical artifacts has moved from a forced advancement to a stable and repeatable stage. Material selection, smelting, forging, spirit pattern engraving, spirit power infusion, shaping—every step of the entire crafting chain has established clear standards and reliable feel.

Forging second-tier low-grade magical artifacts no longer carries technical risks.

Li Yuan carefully collected all the finished and defective products on the workbench. Of the seven golden armors, five were of acceptable quality and two were defective. The acceptable quality armors would be kept for future sale or as consumable equipment.

He took out the forging blueprints for the Frost Armor from his storage bag and spread them out on the workbench.

Second-tier, mid-grade.

It's a whole grade higher than a second-tier low-grade golden armor. It has nearly six hundred spirit runes, ninety nodes, and an additional complete water-attribute spirit energy circulation loop.

In terms of materials, the Frost Armor requires the addition of Frost Iron and Ice Soul Stone Powder to the base of Spirit Silver Ore. Frost Iron provides the water attribute base, while Ice Soul Stone Powder is used for the Frost Water circulation loop in the spirit runes, ensuring that the armor can continuously release cold energy to protect the body after activation.

He bought these two materials along with other materials when he was purchasing second-tier weapon-refining materials.

The furnace was reignited.

The melting point of Cold Water Refined Iron is nearly 20% higher than that of Spirit Silver Ore, requiring stronger firepower and a longer smelting time. Li Yuan used the Flame Fiend Flame to assist the furnace fire, stabilizing the temperature within the optimal smelting range for Cold Water Refined Iron.

The three materials slowly fused together at high temperatures. A natural clash occurred between the water-attribute Cold Water Refined Iron and the fire-attribute Blazing Flame, with fine bubbles constantly rising from the surface of the liquid metal. Li Yuan precisely controlled the fire output with his divine sense, suppressing the clash effect within a controllable range, allowing the energies of the two attributes to reach a dynamic balance during the fusion process.

Forged and shaped, spirit patterns were engraved. The frost armor was then formed through infusion.

Through a series of steps, the Frost Armor is finally formed.

The armor had a deep blue metallic sheen, and the spiritual patterns on its surface were as intricately distributed as cracks in a glacier. The armor felt cold to the touch, but the coldness was accompanied by a resilient spiritual energy vibration, making it extremely defensive.

Second-tier, mid-grade defensive magic weapon. Quality acceptable.

Fingers touch the nail.

A panel pops up.

[Equipable item detected: Frost Armor (Complete)]

[Equipment Attribute Preview: Frost Armor Protection (Green)]

[Effect: Automatically releases a chilling aura upon being hit, slowing the enemy's attack speed by 10%; increases the strength of water-based spiritual energy protection by 20%]

[Preview of Permanentization Requirements: Master a second-tier water-based spell to perfection]

Green entries.

Both effects are defensive. The passive counter-shock and deceleration, combined with the increased strength of the water-based protective shield, will greatly enhance survivability in close combat.

Li Yuan put the Frost Armor into his storage bag.

There are still two days left on the lease for the weapon-refining room, but everything that needed to be done has already been done.