First Artifact

Lei Mingxing slowly opened her eyes.

Her entire body was dripping with sweat, mostly because of exhaustion after depleting her inner Qi until the very last drop, but there was also a part that should be more accuratedly described as cold sweat.

During the refinement process, right when she was about to finish imbedding the Spirit Core and her tightly strung nerves started to relax slightly, Lei Mingxing felt a piece of energy shake off the control of her inner Qi.

She desperatedly tried to get ahold of it again, but that Qi slipped through her grasp time and time again, until Lei Mingxing anxiously realized that a lot of her Qi had been drained away and she didn't have any inner Qi left to chase it as well as keep up the imbedding process.

So, Lei Mingxing had no choice but to watch in despair as the energy disappear without a trace.

At that moment, she knew that she had failed.

She was just about to start withdrawing her Qi in disappointment, when the energy unexpectedly returned.

Not only that, it was incredibly obedient, or rather, it looked like something was forcing it to stay in place.

But Lei Mingxing couldn't feel anything strange or off, there was only a sudden burst of energy that rushed through her body.

This burst of energy grew more and more intense, accelerating the imbedding process to a speed that was almost too fast for Lei Mingxing to handle, before the push of energy inside Lei Mingxing erupted and disappeared as if it had never existed.

Leaving Lei Mingxing completely emptied out.

But that didn't matter, because at the exact same time as of the eruption, the cauldron was completed.

She wordlessly looked at the rather small metal cauldron still pinched between her tongs, too overwhelmed to say anything. After a short moment, she remembered that she had to cool it down and quickly stuck the cauldron in the water bucket.

A loud 'shhh' cut through the stunned silence in the forge, waking both people inside from their daze.

"You did it!", Jing Jiang exclaimed with an excited expression on his face and began laughing in relief.

Lei Mingxing felt the same.

"I did it!"

Although Lei Mingxing was overcome with relief as well and wanted to celibrate her success in some way, she didn't dare move around too much as she was still holding onto the cauldron.

And she didn't want to drop and damage it after all those troubles.

Carefully, Lei Mingxing lifted the cauldron out of the waterbucket, her tired arms trembling under the weight of the now waterfilled cauldron, but she was able to set it on the workbench without any problems.

Putting the tongs aside and looking at the cauldron again, an uncontrollable smile spread on Lei Mingxing face.

She shook her strained arms for a bit before grabbing the cauldron and quickly pouring out the water inside.

Then she turned to Jing Jiang with expectant eyes.

"Can you channel some Qi into the Spirit Core?"

Immediately, Jing Jiang realized that she wanted to test out the special effect of the artifact.

He was very curious as well, so he simply stretched out his arm and lightly touched the smooth surface of the amber Spirit Core, letting some of his Qi flow inside.

In accordance to the Qi, the very top of the cauldron began to shine, and the light gradually moved down until the entire cauldron was shining. At that point, it began to change shape, shrinking, its handles stretching thin around Lei Mingxing's wrist until finally the light disappeared and the cauldron's new form was revealed.

An elegant brass bracelet with a softly gleaming amber gem in its center.

Once again, Jing Jiang was speechless.

A shrinking artifact? And it wasn't even imbedded with a rare spatial Spirit Core!

This was absolutely groundbreaking!

Lei Mingxing was very satisfied with her invention as well, happily fiddling with it to test how well it fit around her wrist.

It was a snug fit, but not uncomfortable at all, just perfect, so that it wouldn't slip off or annoy the wearer by moving around.

She also used her spiritual sense to examine the inside of the artifact.

Just as she had hoped, inside the Spirit Core swirled Jing Jiang's inner Qi, maintaining the bracelet's shape until the Qi ran out or Jing Jiang withdrew it.

And although she still had to test how long a full Spirit Core would last, she was very enthusiastic about it, because even after watching for an entire minute, the Qi inside hadn't depleted in the slightest.

This wonderous ability was only possible because of the special metal used to create the entire cauldron.

Lilac Brass, a metal belonging to the brass category that is the most common for smaller cauldrons. Although rarely anyone used this specific one.

And the reason was simple, Lilac Brass was siphoning the Qi around it at all times. So, if it was used in an artifact that relied on body contact to show its ability, Lilac Brass would also continuously suck away the Qi of the wearer.

There were a few times when this could be useful, if you wanted to continously fuel a Spirit Core with Qi to keep up its effect or if you wanted to suck away your opponent's Qi in a fight, but in the end it was more trouble than what it's worth and Lilac Brass was mostly reserved for protection or gathering arrays if anything.

So, why would she choose this metal for a bracelet of all things?

It was pretty easy actually.

Something she and Chang Liuyun did at all times without being aware of it, was gathering Qi around them. They were like a living, breathing minature gathering arrays in that regard.

In this way, the only thing Lei Mingxing had to do was use a metal Spirit Core to direct the siphoning effects of the brass more towards the steady stream of Qi around them rather than letting it just indiscriminately suck in Qi.

And since the Qi that the brass collected had to go somewhere, it went into the Spirit Core, fueling it in the process.

In this way, it would be more acurate to say that the Lilac Brass kept up the shrinking effect of the artifact rather than Jing Jiang's Qi.

Even the shrinking effect only worked because it was used on metal permanently saturated with Qi.

A really clever process, almost foolproof.

The only requisite for it to work smoothly?

A Chaos Physique.

But this requirement alone, made recreating the same effect for regular cultivators nigh impossible and the cauldron as it was now practically worthless.

Fortunately, Lei Mingxing had never intended to sell this design anyway.

Spreading it might just make people suspicion when they saw how unbothered Lei Mingxing and Chang Liuyun were by its Qi intensive effects.

And for them, it was a nice little extra protection to hide their secret behind, since it negated their passive Qi gathering ability with its Qi siphoning to some degree.

Lei Mingxing stopped fiddling with the bracelet and stretched it towards Jing Jiang.

"You can also take a look."

Jing Jiang had been staring at the bracelet the entire time Lei Mingxing examined it, with an overwhelmingly curious expression in his eyes.

So, Lei Mingxing let him sate his curiosity.

Despite knowing that he might start to wonder how she could bear the effects of the bracelet.

But even if he did put two and two together, Lei Mingxing didn't think that he would do anything with that knowledge or even harm her.

These were her sincere feelings after spending this past month together.