Cultivation is just so scientific! Chapter 1537 - 815: Discovery

As Grandmaster Hu departed, a look beyond words crossed his face. The Ten Thousand Beast Sect now owned five late-stage Golden Corpses, whose might outstripped that of regular Great Cultivators—a development worth rejoicing over.

Yet, his mightiest Spiritual Pet, the Red Gold Phoenix, had suffered a swift defeat, stirring no delight in his heart at all.

Li Shiming struggled to grasp the tangled emotions swirling in his master, Grandmaster Hu. Once Grandmaster Hu had gone, Li Shiming turned his thoughts to the tasks of Artifact Refining.

He intended to draw on the high-quality fourth-grade materials gathered earlier by himself and his avatar Li Yuanba. Truth be told, boosting the five late-stage Golden Corpses would also bolster his personal fighting strength.

The initial magic treasures he forged consisted of five in the shape of hammers. These amounted to nothing more than the prior high-quality fourth-grade mountain peak treasures fitted with hammer handles. The sole new features involved three billion 'power runes,' three billion 'gravity runes,' and three billion 'fortification runes' etched onto the hammer magic treasures.

Choosing exactly three billion runes served to rein in the hammer magic treasures, preventing them from advancing to Spirit Treasure status once they faced the Artifact Tribulation.

This approach likely stood as the oddest way to limit magic treasure quality across the entire Cultivation World, since fellow cultivators always sought to elevate their magic treasures' caliber to the utmost.

Should Li Shiming possess Mahayana Realm strength, he could effortlessly craft Spirit Treasures without a second thought.

However, stuck at the Great Cultivator Realm for now, he managed to challenge superpowers and cut down several Great Cultivators. Still, exposing his skill in turning high-quality fourth-grade materials into Spirit Treasures would almost certainly draw a top-tier powerhouse to confront him directly.

To those mighty figures, a Great Cultivator's demise formed just another cycle of existence. Having witnessed countless births and deaths, they stayed hands-off unless a sect's very existence hung in the balance.

Only a handful of issues would spur a mighty figure into motion; beyond sect-internal disputes, these touched on their personal stakes or the fate of their own sect.

Spirit Treasures tied straight into the gains of these mighty figures; for even them, producing a Spirit Treasure proved far from simple.

Most fifth-grade materials sprang from Grotto Heavens, and a single mighty figure's Grotto Heaven yielded merely a scant supply of such materials—barely sufficient for crafting one Spirit Treasure.

Spirit Treasures allowed mighty beings to unleash their full battle potential, and gaining an extra one meant a real boost in fighting ability for the majority of them.

Moreover, an additional Spirit Treasure hastened one's cultivation progress, a factor just as crucial for these mighty entities.

Earlier, when Li Yuanba unveiled the Spirit Treasure Xingyi Sword, fortune smiled on him by crossing paths with Sword Elder—one of the few mighty beings indifferent to acquiring a spare Spirit Treasure.

Sword Elder, as a dedicated Sword Cultivator, poured his efforts into raising his Lifebound Flying Sword, upholding the principle of "one sword breaking all laws," and thus required no other Spirit Treasures.

As a result, Li Yuanba retained the Spirit Treasure Xingyi Sword. That said, he still refrained from revealing the 'Ten Thousand Sword Peak' upgrade to a Spirit Treasure before Sword Elder.

The Great Cultivator Realm offered the perk of much quicker refining times; altering the five hammer-shaped magic treasures required roughly thirty days and happened all at once.

Drawing on the bulk of his mental capacity, with precision down to 0.05 nanometers, he carved runes within the refinement room's space, enabling this swift pace in refining.

Passing the Artifact Tribulation for the five hammer-shaped magic treasures proved remarkably straightforward, as the five late-stage Golden Corpses gripped them firmly. Li Shiming had fortified the five late-stage Golden Corpses using the Spirit Treasure 'Heavenly Strike Thunder Hammer' alongside the 'Shenxiao Thunder Pearl' to grant double protection against thunder.

The three bolts of Heavenly Thunder got completely repelled by the five hammer-shaped magic treasures, never even nearing the late-stage Golden Corpses.

In the end, this yielded five fourth-grade magic treasures that had endured the Artifact Tribulation. At its core, this forging marked merely the initial and most basic phase in ramping up the battle strength of the five late-stage Golden Corpses.

That changed when word arrived from Master Liu Ziyun: the White Emperor Sect's Peak Great Cultivator Yan Gao could well have reached the Dongqi Continent by now.

This intel carried some doubt since Yan Gao kept his travels secret from everyone, including insiders at the White Emperor Sect who concealed the details.

Not until the Central State Commerce's spy network noted Yan Gao's absence from the West Yan Continent for around a month did any clues surface.

With this situation unfolding, Li Shiming found it impossible to press on with refining enhancements for the five late-stage Golden Corpses.

Yan Gao wielded terrifying combat strength. The real danger lay in how, unlike the earlier Peak Great Cultivator Ren Mu of the Central State Commerce, Li Shiming shared a deep-seated grudge with the White Emperor Sect that no peace could mend.

It might have started over treasures, yet after the White Emperor Sect endured heavy blows—including the loss of three Great Cultivators and close to a hundred Nascent Soul Middle Stage Cultivators—the hatred had grown beyond repair.

Yan Gao's journey to the Dongqi Continent surely aimed to end Li Shiming's life.

These days, the Central State Commerce had widely circulated Li Shiming's fame. For instance, while his avatar Li Yuanba secluded himself for cultivation on the Central State Continent, he now and then spotted reports in the regular intel updates from the Sword Intent Chongxiao Pavilion’s Identity Jade Disc about Li Shizhen overcoming Master Ren Mu.

In the past, superpowers referred to Li Shizhen as Master Li, signaling his role as an Alchemy Master.

Today, though, superpowers simply used Li Shizhen's name alone. Far from a sign of disrespect, this shift placed Li Shiming's warrior abilities ahead of his Alchemy Master status, hailing him for his prowess in battle.