Swallowing the Stars: 100x Return for Teaching Apprentices

Chapter 176, "Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship" and the Inheritance of the God of Craftsmen
"Practice on your own first. If you have any questions, you can ask me during the next lesson."

Qi Yuan quickly gave a brief instruction to Flordis, the Golden Hammer Dwarf disciple, before his figure vanished and disappeared from the virtual universe.

In the Mansion of Strange Fate.

Qi Yuan's Taiqing clone quickly checked the system notification that had just arrived—

[Successfully gifting my disciple a copy of the secret techniques of the "Eagle Wing Weapon Manual"!]

[Base return rate 54x, return begins.]

[The gifted item has brought great joy to the disciple, triggering a 100x critical hit reward, with a final return multiplier of 5400x!]

[Return Reward: One copy of the "Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship" secret technique. This return triggers a perfect critical hit, granting a special reward: One copy of "Ché Hou-Yuan's Craftsman God Inheritance".]

The reward has been stored in the system space and can be claimed at any time.

"The Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship, and the 'Craftsman God Inheritance of Che Houyuan'! Is this the one I know?"

Qi Yuan's face showed utter surprise.

However, such an accident was only fleeting.

After all, the system can even create the "One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones" technique, so it's not hard to accept the appearance of other "familiar" things.

Qi Yuan probed his consciousness into the system space and began to examine the rewards he had just received in detail.

As he examined the area, his smile grew wider and wider.

The "Eagle Wing Codex" that he gifted to his disciple 'Flodis' was the highest level of blacksmithing heritage he could find in the treasure trove of the Virtual Universe Company.

If one were to master this ultimate secret manual of the blacksmithing lineage, one could at most possess the ability to forge 'ordinary treasures'!

And to give this set of secret manuals as a gift, returning the two rewards, "Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship" and "Chéhóu Yān's Craftsman God Inheritance", would be even more extraordinary!
Among them, "Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship" is also a powerful legacy for blacksmiths.

This set of inheritances covers everything from the basics to the most detailed, from the selection of raw materials and their properties to the fusion and combination of materials, refining techniques, and the imprinting of secret patterns. It has almost everything!

The research ceiling for this set of secret manuals is similar to that of the "Eagle Wing Artifact Manual." If you study it to the extreme, you can reach the level of forging "ordinary treasures."

However, in terms of content and the completeness and sophistication of the crafting techniques, the "Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship" is far, far superior to the "Eagle Wing Artifact Codex" that he had exchanged for!

It can be said that with such a complete and systematic secret manual in hand, Qi Yuan is fully capable of creating a brand new tradition of weapon crafting among the human race!

"There are only a handful of blacksmiths in the entire human race who can forge supreme treasures. If one can personally train such a master craftsman, it would be quite an accomplishment."

Qi Yuan nodded secretly, but then checked another reward.

"'The Craftsmanship Legacy of Che Houyuan'...that feels a bit out of place."

His consciousness shifted, and he quickly descended upon the thousands of golden scrolls within the system space.

[The Legacy of Che Houyuan, the God of Craftsmanship: The life's work of a 'God of Craftsmanship' from another world, containing the endless mysteries of the art of weapon crafting.]

"It really is this! The art of weapon crafting is full of endless mysteries?"

Qi Yuan continued to receive the system's information about the reward, and soon his face showed an expression of great surprise.

"The Dao of Formations, nine hundred volumes, a method for superimposing and combining formations? A method for fusing multi-attribute formations? Isn't this a super-advanced version of the Eight Formations? Amazing, amazing!"

"There's also a wealth of knowledge about herbs, metals, ores, casting, carving, forging, and other techniques. Wow, thanks to system optimization, all the materials involved in the content are from this world? The system is really thoughtful!"

Qi Yuan continued to sense it, and the look of surprise on his face grew stronger and stronger.

"Starting with crafting powerful artifacts? In other words, only those who possess the ability to craft powerful artifacts can even begin to understand the artisan's legacy?"

"This, this subsequent content, this should all exceed the so-called strongest level limit of the universe in this world, right? How come it is not restricted by the operating rules? Is it, is it the power of the system?"

"What a tremendous opportunity! This is truly a tremendous opportunity!"

Qi Yuan remained immersed in that incredibly shocking and surprised emotion for a long time before finally slowly coming back to his senses.

"The Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship covers everything from the basics of forging to refining ordinary treasures."

“‘The Craftsmanship Legacy of Che Houyuan’ requires at least the skill to forge powerful artifacts, and the value of the subsequent content is unimaginable!”

"The combination of the two forms an incomparably complete and powerful 'Treasure Refining Stream' inheritance!"

Qi Yuan was slightly excited.

Different schools of cultivation may differ in their fighting styles, but the essence of cultivation is the same: they all lead to the same goal.

In the primordial universe, although there were different cultivation schools such as mentalists, martial artists, puppeteers, and illusionists, the foundation of each school's power, despite their different fighting styles, was still the understanding and cultivation of the fundamental laws.

Similarly, the "Treasure Refining School" is not simply about knowing how to refine treasures.

At the very least, to become a qualified "treasure-refining" cultivator, one's understanding of the laws cannot be low. For example, if one wants to refine a supreme treasure suitable for a universe lord, the "solidified runes" imprinted on the treasure must at least reach the power level of a universe lord!

If a user cannot unleash their full potential, what is the point of creating this equipment?
This is why truly top-tier weapon refiners were so rare in the primordial universe.

In the entire primordial universe, besides the incredibly mysterious Mountain-Sitting Guest, there are only three others capable of crafting top-tier treasures, including the 'Master of Craftsmen'.

Logically speaking, among the billions of races in the universe, there are countless individuals with outstanding talents. Why are there only three who can refine top-tier treasures?
The difficulty lies in the level of understanding the laws and secret techniques, which stumps the vast majority of aspiring cultivators.

Moreover, this is only one aspect.

A truly qualified cultivator of the "Treasure Refining Style" must not only have a good understanding of the laws, but also be proficient in the combination and application of secret runes, the creation of secret techniques of different styles, and so on.

Other essential skills include material identification, property matching and integration, carving, and casting.

For Qi Yuan, this 'Treasure Refining Stream' is also a very good supplementary cultivation method.

His current main focus is on the "Eight Formations" and the secret formation method "Time and Space".

However, after he fully comprehended "Time and Space" and broke through to the level of the Lord of the Universe, he lacked a lineage to continue learning from.

After all, in the original work, before the emergence of the 'Broken East River Inheritance', there didn't seem to be any secret methods in the entire primordial universe that could reliably guide cultivators to break through to become the strongest in the universe.

As for the fusion and control of the 'Chaos Law' mentioned in the original work, as well as the breakthrough of the perfect gene limit with divine power, this can only be said to have provided him with a direction to move forward.

However, without specific inherited content as a reference, it is almost wishful thinking to expect to achieve something in these two paths based solely on one's own imagination.

Therefore, using the method of refining treasures as a transition before obtaining a stronger inheritance is a good choice.

The newly acquired 'Craftsmanship Inheritance of Che Houyuan' is profound and comprehensive, providing ample foundation for further advancement.

Moreover, he had been studying the "Eight Formations" and the secret method of formations, "Time and Space," and formations were somewhat complementary to the "Treasure Refining Stream."

As your understanding of formations improves, you can place more powerful solidified runes on the treasures you craft.

The process of 'refining treasures' can also test the effectiveness of one's understanding of various formations, allowing for a more intuitive way to identify one's shortcomings and seek ways to improve them.

With this mutual promotion, it should produce very good results.

Moreover, even if he obtains a more powerful cultivation inheritance in the future, he can still use the Treasure Refining Technique as a very important auxiliary cultivation method.

After all, an excellent treasure-refining master would be a highly sought-after status even if they came to the Origin Continent in the future.

"Yuqing and Shangqing's clones are focused on comprehending the laws of time and space, while Taiqing's clone and main body can spare some energy to try it out in this area while teaching their disciples."

……

In the days that followed, Qi Yuan quickly began to carry out his plan.

Yuqing and Shangqing's clones remained in the strangest place at the deepest part of that Time Prison, continuing their assault on mastering the complete laws of time and space by sensing the pulse of the mysterious 'singularity' and observing the sensations brought by the strange network structure.

In addition to teaching his disciples, Taiqing's clone in Chaos City and his main body, who was living in seclusion on Red Leaf Star, began to seriously study the newly acquired "Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship".

He was a complete novice in the art of weapon crafting, and to get started, he naturally had to begin with the basics.

The "Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship" is, as its name suggests, divided into twenty-three chapters.

The book alone contains ten chapters explaining how to identify material properties, the compatibility and repulsion between materials with different properties, and the methods of smelting and forging.

Following that is a chapter explaining the crafting of ordinary Force and Psychic weapons and armor, a chapter explaining the crafting of Immortal-grade weapons and armor, three chapters explaining the crafting of 'Great Treasures', and eight chapters explaining the crafting of 'Ordinary Supreme Treasures'.

Each chapter, though called a chapter, contains an extremely vast amount of content, in no way inferior to some extremely complex and enormous secret techniques.

After all, the universe contains an incredible variety of metals, ores, rocks, and special materials.

The sheer volume of material information required to explain the properties of these different materials and the interactions between them would be enormous.

As for the 'solidified patterns' designed to suit the style of weapons by combining the knowledge of the laws, based on the characteristics of the materials and the different needs of the users, this part is even more extensive.

Looking at the "Eight Formations" manual in Qi Yuan's hand, the total number of "Thunder Manuals" alone exceeds one hundred million, recording 101616480 of the most basic combinations of thunder-attribute formations.

Expanding upon these hundreds of millions of basic combinations, and even incorporating elements of the laws of time, creates a complete 'secret pattern' with certain characteristics. The methods of its transformation and combination are naturally endless.

However, Qi Yuan has now broken through to immortality and has a near-eternal lifespan, so there's nothing to worry about.

While cultivating and improving his skills, he also taught his disciples and studied the "Twenty-Three Chapters of Heavenly Craftsmanship," making his days incredibly fulfilling.

In this fulfilling state, time slowly passed.

But on this very day, an unexpected turn of events temporarily jolted Qi Yuan awake from his reverie...

(End of this chapter)