Re-forging the Sinister Artifact

Eventually, Emily cried herself to sleep so Shui gently carried her to his bed. He wanted to stay by her side during this time, but since she was asleep he chose to get some work done.

'I'll seek advice from Maha tomorrow, but it's best that I set aside a way to earn money quickly.'

Of the money-making means that Shui had, he chose to make use of the one that he was most familiar with, forging. However, he wasn't sure about starting to auction the resonance series yet, and he had already brought a close to the harmony series, so instead of forging a new artifact, he decided to refine one of the sinister artifacts he stole from the dark auction. It would be risky, but as long as it didn't end up in the hands of a qualified forge master who had contact with the original sinister artifact, Shui was confident that he wouldn't get caught. And luckily a forge master that met those requirements was either dead or hidden since sinister artifact were generally associated with taboo forging methods.

He went into the forging room and looked through the sinister artifacts before selecting a silver pike of tesora-rank. Its innate insights had been absorbed so Shui didn't have a problem with selling it, but this pike seemed to have been used to carry out cruel torture, so it was stained with the stench of blood and misery despite looking clean. Like most sinister artifacts, this stench would seep into the mind and slowly drive the wielder insane with bloodthirst, but Shui's soul was strong enough to handle it. However, like anyone else, he would also have to face its mental corruption if he tried to use it frequently.

Now, in order to refine a sinister artifact and change it into a normal artifact, one would usually transfer its corrupt nature to another object or pair it with a purifying item, but this method would decrease the quality of the artifact. Furthermore, just because the artifact looked ominous, didn't mean its effects weren't useful.

In the case of this pike, it had the simple yet vicious ability of applying pain amplification, healing disruption, corrosion and poison through wounds caused by it, but if he simply removed the evil nature of the weapon, this ability would be lost or severely weakened. Therefore, Shui wanted to refine the weapon with a custom method. He wanted to clear its bloody air while allowing it to retain its true nature so he had to understand the artifact first.

'The innate insights are gone, but that doesn't erase its history.'

Rather than his spiritual sense, Shui used his martial intent to investigate the pike. As martial intent was the manifestation of the path of martial arts, it could be used to explore both armed and unarmed combat tactics. With the pike wrapped in his martial intent, Shui got a sense of how the pike had been used since its creation, which allowed him to quickly increase his familiarity with it. Shui believed that he would one day be able to use this ability to absorb the techniques of anyone who ever used a weapon that he possessed, including the divine relic, but his comprehension of martial intent wasn't at such a level yet.

Once Shui got good understanding of the pike, he quickly figured out a way to curb its ominous aura.

"Need any help?" Alia asked as she looked down on the weapon while on his shoulder.

"No, I think I can handle this one."

Although Alia's help would be very much appreciated, Shui didn't want to become too reliant on it. As he would be refining the weapon instead of forging a new one, there were less steps involved but he had no intention of ending up with a mediocre product. In this particular case, there were only two steps to be completed, but he planned on executing these steps to the best of his ability.

For the refinement, only one other material was needed besides the artifact itself, a crimson beartrap, also known as the battlefield flower. Beartraps were considered the mutated flora version of flytraps, and they were superior not only in size, but also ferocity. A beartrap would hide among ordinary trees and live by subsisting off of nature just like any other plant, but the moment a body of flesh entered its range, it would capture them with its vines and drag them to its mouth. However, that wasn't what made it feared as one of the top five most deadly flowers.

After the beartrap had its first taste of blood, it would release a special pheromone that attracted all flesh creatures and made them attack any other flesh creature in the vicinity. Then, when only the weakened 'victors' remained, it would swoop in to take everything for itself. Fortunately, this mutated flora could only grow in specific unknown conditions, so it was rare to encounter them.

Shui's inventory was rarely lacking in materials, but this flower was so rare that he only had two more, which were both from the dark auction goods. Even so, opportunities for him to use them were rare so he didn't feel it would be a loss. The dead flower was the size of an adult human, but that was because it shrunk after withering, otherwise it would have been taller than the room.

The refining method Shui chose was very simple, in exchange for being very difficult to put into practice. Due to the nature of the crimson beartrap, it had a strong affinity for killing aura which made it very compatible with the pike. The first of two steps was to create a connection so that the ominous aura of the sinister artifact could be absorbed by the flower.

The connection had to be made while they were in their original states, so Shui summoned his heart flame, which was still evolving, and removed all destructive intent from it so that it could return to its actual purpose of being a catalyst in the refinement process. The purple flame engulfed the pike, but not even heat could be felt from this terrifying flame. Then, he gently placed the flower inside the flame, next to the pike, and started the process.

He wasn't extracting essence from the flower; it was the other way around. Shui closed his eyes and used the Perception Chapter and spiritual sense to get a clear image of the eerie air around the pike. You couldn't actually see it, but like a dense fog, ominous aura covered the pike. Normally, it would be extremely difficult to directly manipulate an object's aura, but heart flames solved this problem. Within the refinement of a heart flame, every aspect of an artifact was as tangible as the artifact itself. Thanks to his heart flame, Shui could drag the ominous aura off of the pike with his mental control, and feed it to the crimson beartrap's roots.

As more of the ominous aura was fed to the plant, it grew larger and more animated as if it was reviving. It remained withered, but its appearance would be a nightmare for the faint of heart. When all of the ominous aura was gone, leaving the pike with a dull grey shade, the first step of the process was complete. However, the second and final step was where the real difficulty lie.