Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
One thing worth noting was that mid-tier artifacts were rare in Lingtai Town.
One might have the money to buy one but it was rather difficult to find a buyer. It was only a rank higher than low-tier artifacts but among all the Foundation Building cultivators in Lingtai Sect, only a handful of them owned a mid-tier artifact, hence the rarity.
Why were mid-tier artifacts considered scarce?
It was said that when forging a mid-tier artifact, there was a high chance of failure. Even under the hands of a renowned forging master, it was not 100%.
As for refinement skill, many forging masters mastered it but the best they could do was increase 30% of the artifact’s power.
If the description from the system was true, Zhang Zhi’s refinement skill could increase the rank of the artifact!
Meaning, a low-tier flying sword could become a mid-tier flying sword with a few hammers from him, hence the path to fortune!
“Ding Dong! Experience acquired! Host’s forging skills reached Level 2. Stats are as follows.
Name: Zhang Zhi
Cultivation: Intermediate Qi Refining
Forging Level: 2
Forging Skill: Flying Sword Restoration (Low-tier Artifact), Flying Sword Refinement (Low-tier Artifact)
Experience: 0/500”
Zhang Zhi clearly remembered that restoring one flying sword provided him with 10 points of experience. Now after restoring a total of 10 flying swords, he leveled up and the experience needed to the next level changed from 100 to 500.
It seemed like the higher the level, the more experience it needed.
“Ding Dong. Received mission equivalent to your current level. Host must elevate the blacksmith’s reputation to 1,000 in 10 days, which means you need 1,000 people to acknowledge your blacksmith. Mission progress: 12 / 1,000.”
“Mission reward: forging skill, Flying Sword Forging (Random Rank).”
There were already 12 points in the mission progress. He knew it must be the reputation he gained from restoring the flying swords. However, he had a question about the reward. “System, what does Random Rank mean?”
“My host, when you complete the mission, you will gain the skill to forge a flying sword of random rank. Meaning you might be able to forge a low-tier flying sword or an epic flying sword.”
Zhang Zhi’s heart skipped a beat when he heard the answer. One thing worth noting was that all artifacts and the higher grade spirit artifacts were categorized into three tiers: low, mid, and high.
However, legend had it that there was another category above high: epic.
It represented the epitome of that particular state.
An epic artifact might be able to surpass a low-tier spirit artifact but even until now, the spirit realm had not welcomed its first epic tier artifact, no one has ever seen it before.
Now, Zhang Zhi might be able to forge one with his forging skill, he was over the moon!
To quickly complete the mission, after a quick thought, Zhang Zhi decided to start his refinement business. He ignored the group who were still astonished by his forging skills and went to the signage at the entrance.
With a few quick brushes, he added a new line.
“Flying sword refinement, low-tier artifact…” It was then Zhang Zhi stopped writing.
He was thinking about the pricing and then the voice in his head told him, “Flying sword refinement, 10 mid-tier spirit stones. You can only take one request per day.”
Zhang Zhi’s hand started to shake. He originally wanted to leave the price at 500 low-tier spirit stones, yet the system was much more greedy than he.
10 mid-tier spirit stones, if the exchange ratio was 1:100, it would equal to 1,000 low-tier spirit stones! Since mid-tier spirit stones were much rarer, their value was far higher than 1,000 low-tier spirit stones!
“System! You are demanding too much! But I like it!” Zhang Zhi grumbled for a moment before he happily wrote down the price.
As for the limit of taking only one job per day, Zhang Zhi understood why. Rare is precious after all.
After settling the signage, Mr. Mole, together with his outer disciple gang, came over in an intimidating manner. “Hey you, it’s been three days, pay your rent now!”
Zhang Zhi tapped his forehead as he completely forgot about the rent. Even though the system took a 90% commission, he still had the money to pay rent. He took his pouch out and paid 30 low-tier spirit stones as rent plus 10 more low-tier spirit stones as the promised benefit.
Mr. Mole accepted the spirit stones in a surprised manner. He did not expect a mortal, or rather a cultivator of Intermediate Qi Refining stage could come up with the rent and the extra payment in three days.
He did not take the Intermediate Qi Refining stage seriously, instead, he was shocked by how quickly Zhang Zhi was able to earn the money.
His eyes glistened and looked at Zhang Zhi’s bulging pouch. He said, “I’ll accept my ‘interest’. Now, pay me the rent!”
“Rent plus interest, a total of 40 low-tier spirit stones and I just gave them to you,” Zhang Zhi said with a rather curious look.
“What do you mean?” Mr. Mole put his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Three days ago, you said you will give me 40 low-tier spirit stones as interest. Now you are trying to trick me?”
Mr. Mole’s men also looked tense as if a fight was about to break out.
Zhang Zhi quickly understood the situation: Mr. Mole was trying to take advantage of him being a newbie in town and earn a buck from him.
Even though Zhang Zhi got 100 low-tier spirit stones in his pouch, which was more than enough to send Mr. Mole and his man away, he did not want to compromise. He got angry at the man’s greediness.
Zhang Zhi wanted to vent his anger at them but he remembered he was no match even for an outer disciple. A moment later, he asked, “Which means if I don’t handover 30 more low-tier spirit stones, you guys are shutting my business?”
“Yes, I’ll shut your business!” The outer disciples were loud and intimidating, they even threatened Zhang Zhi with a warrant.
Zhang Zhi shrugged, “Fine, just shut it down, seal it away, but there are still a few customers inside.”
Mr. Mole thought Zhang Zhi was trying to act tough, he waved at his men and bellowed, “Go in and drag those customers out!”
“Aye!” His men barged into the blacksmith like hyenas and wanted to drag the customers out, but when they stepped into the blacksmith, they were petrified on the spot.
“You bunch of f*cktards, why are you standing there?” Mr. Mole got angrier, he swaggered into the blacksmith while shouting, “Listen up you people inside, get the f*ck…”
Before he could say the word ‘out’, Mr. Mole was forced to swallow the word back into his stomach.
He and his outer disciple men were petrified at the entrance and they were sweating nervously.
Mr. Mole believed he had never done something this bold before in his life, shouting vulgarly at a room full of inner disciples of the same sects, telling his seniors to f*ck off, maybe it would become something that people would remember for generations to come.
The inner disciples inside the blacksmith were admiring their swords before they were shouted at by an outer disciple with a big mole on his face.
One of the inner disciples shouted back loudly, “How dare you!”
Mr. Mole’s legs turned into jelly and fell on his knees. He started to apologize repeatedly and kowtowed like he was trying to smash his head. Outer disciple scolding inner disciple was considered a death penalty in the sect.
Mr. Mole got so anxious that his stomach started to hurt. If he knew the inner disciple seniors were in the blacksmith, he would not be that loud.
“Hey, aren’t you trying to shut my business? What’s wrong?” Zhang Zhi came in nonchalantly after he successfully tricked Mr. Mole, he looked at the man with a soft but evil grin.
Mr. Mole looked at Zhang Zhi in fear. “You b*stard, why didn’t you tell me you knew this many inner disciples?!”
The inner disciples heard Zhang Zhi’s words and their grudge at Mr. Mole grew deeper. One of them bellowed, “You, why are you trying to shut down Owner Zhang’s blacksmith?”
After all, the blacksmith restored their swords and boosted their strength to a certain extent. As a token of gratitude, they ought to help Zhang Zhi to keep his business.
“Senior brothers and sisters, it’s nothing serious actually. This blacksmith is three months behind on rent, so…” Mr. Mole was sweating like a fountain, he avoided the important details and tried to brush his seniors off.
“Hey, I don’t think you are telling the truth. I just gave you three months of rent and I even gave you an extra 10 spirit stones for your trouble.” Zhang Zhi was not afraid to make things even more complicated.
Mr. Mole looked as pale as paper. He took a bribe and got caught by the inner disciples, even if he could escape death, his future would be ruined. He looked around nervously and an idea popped up in his mind: he decided to turn the situation to his advantage.
“Nonsense, you didn’t give me the rent, let alone the tip or interest, or whatever you want to call it! This is slander!”
The other outer disciples knew their lives were hanging on a thread, so they nodded in agreement, “Yeah, we didn’t receive any rent, the blacksmith is accusing us! Please, seniors, please do us justice!”
Zhang Zhi did not argue or defend himself, he looked at Mr. Mole with a ridiculing gaze. “Tsk tsk, a disciple of Lingtai Sect is really good at deforming the fact. I’ve seen it myself today.”
“Hmph! Blacksmith, how dare you slander me! You’re already dead!” Mr. Mole had a feeling that he might be able to turn things around, so he quickly scolded Zhang Zhi.
Zhang Zhi sighed and shook his head. “Slander? If I remember correctly, the rent that I gave you earlier is the money I received from the inner disciples.”
Mr. Mole’s fierce eyes turned cold again and before he could react, one of the inner disciples took the pouch from him.
A cultivator had superb sensory abilities, one would be able to sense their own presence on the things they once held before within a stipulated time. The 40 spirit stones were indeed the payment they gave Zhang Zhi earlier.
As for why the spirit stones were in Mr. Mole’s possession, it was self-explanatory, the truth was out.
Mr. Mole and his gang were shaking nervously. They scolded their seniors and took a bribe, no amount of excuse would be able to save them now. They kowtowed ceaselessly and begged to be spared, even Zhang Zhi started to feel sorry for them, or rather the tiles in his blacksmith.
“Shameful garbage!” One of the inner disciples bellowed and wanted to kill all of them for shaming the sect’s name but the others stopped him.
“There are laws and rules within the sect that we must follow, let’s just hand him over to the Execution Hall!”
The group of inner disciples then seized the outer disciples out of the blacksmith. Zhang Zhi followed them out and wanted to see them off.
“Owner Zhang, this will be enough.” The inner disciples bowed respectfully. Experts in the cultivation world should always be respected.
“Well then, this is as far as I can send you then… Oh my, will you look at the dirt on my signage!” Zhang Zhi feigned surprise and wiped his already shining signage with his sleeve.
The inner disciples were confused by his action until they noticed the extra line on the signage.
“Flying sword refinement, 10 mid-tier spirit stones.”
“What the f*ck?” Every one of them cursed out of surprise.
Zhang Zhi was actually finding the new white mice to test his refinement skills and since the system forbade him to rope in customers, he had to go the unusual way by sending them off and purposely wipe the signage in front of them.
“Owner Zhang, your writing is quite nice…” The group of inner disciples knew Zhang Zhi’s intention, so they chuckled embarrassedly and fled the scene.
Even though everyone witnessed Zhang Zhi’s outstanding forging skills, it gave them the urge to test his refinement, the price was ridiculous. 10 mid-tier spirit stones were much more expensive than what an inner disciple could afford.
Zhang Zhi sighed helplessly as he watched the cultivators leave. He wanted to start his refinement business immediately because only then could he create a topic and boost his reputation further.
Unfortunately, the ridiculous price was deterring.
Where should he find his first customer?
Some thoughts later, Zhang Zhi tapped his head in realization and took out a piece of jade slip to crush it.