Master of Kaidan
Chapter 112: Copying and Refining

Chapter 112: Chapter 112: Copying and Refining

(Title Error, it should be "recasting," my head started to hurt, I’m a bit groggy)

Watching Huo Mu leave, Feng Xue finally sighed in relief, then began systematically organizing the room.

It’s not that he had any kind of obsession with cleanliness, but since the house was after all decorated by someone else and the price was so cheap, he inevitably felt somewhat uneasy.

Fortunately, his Golden Finger proved extremely useful in Infinite City for reconnaissance, whether searching for negative omens in the wilderness through mosaic or looking for eavesdropping devices in the room by using elements.

However, it turned out he might have been overthinking it, the cheap house price was really just because homes in Infinite City were not that valuable.

Of course, there could be another reason—

Cost-effectiveness. After all, using Phantom Objects for eavesdropping would definitely not be cheap, and placing them directly in the house only to be found and taken would be somewhat of a loss, while using Pseudo Artifacts would consume a large amount of "Identity," making them generally not cost-effective.

Squeezing a Feminization Filter into his storage bag, Feng Xue threw himself onto the couch, enjoying the softness that allowed his body to slightly sink in, almost immediately feeling sleepy.

However, he didn’t plan to immediately fall asleep but adjusted his posture slightly and pulled out a scroll of Supreme Martial Arts from his storage bag to continue studying.

Although the skill he got this time, the "One Yang Finger," was not something Feng Xue liked much, he considered that in the future he might need to sell Secret Manuals on the streets, so he reluctantly copied it down. In fact, if the book didn’t contain all Supreme Martial Arts, he would have preferred to copy some poorer ones because using martial arts as a means to commit crimes could lead to proliferation of Supreme Martial Arts everywhere, and the authorities could get irritable.

While Feng Xue had copied down several Secret Manuals, the ones he actually practiced were only the Sunflower Acupoint Hand and the Walking Heaven Melody. Some of the manuals he just couldn’t understand needing to supplement them with relevant knowledge, and a larger part was due to a lack of materials.

Martial arts were not like what many novels suggest, simply requiring a manual to practice. Even for the Iron Sand Palm, medications were needed during practice; medicines that could enhance qi and blood sensitivity and assist in qi circulation like Fuling Pills and Qi Flowing Powder were common.

But in Infinite City, these medicines were exceedingly rare, and even if available, Feng Xue’s current financial capability probably wouldn’t suffice to obtain them.

His thoughts raced, but his hands didn’t slow down. Even though the medium he was copying on was a sample fabric he obtained today from the Arachne Organization, the Phantom Object pen did not face any writing impediments due to the fabric’s texture, but flowed so smoothly that Feng Xue loved it.

With the efficiency boost brought by the Phantom Object and the inherent enhancement of the "Money Printer" tag, Feng Xue finished copying a book of over three thousand characters of One Yang Finger in just ten minutes. Although the handwriting was somewhat sloppy, it was completely understandable with the help of the Translator Tarroot.

With this standard, after copying a few more Secret Manuals, Feng Xue suddenly stopped. Not because he ran out of sample materials picked during today’s shopping, but because he planned on experimenting with these Secret Manuals.

The plain paper he brought back from the Real World was a True Object, a precious item that could be taken to the real world without any consumption. Using it to experiment on refining effects would inevitably be a bit wasteful, whereas these fabrics were different; inherently being Pseudo Artifacts, they required significant "Identity" consumption to maintain when brought to reality, serving merely as a record function. Even if the recasting failed, it would just be wasting about ten minutes of labor; but as long as he could produce a Secret Manual, let alone one in a hundred, even one in a thousand would absolutely be worth it.

Holding this thought, Feng Xue copied a duplicate of each secret manual and then laid out the four cultivation techniques "One Yang Finger," "Life-taking Thirteen Swords," "Heavenly Snake Bone Swapping Technique," and "Nine Death Undying Body" in front of him in a row.

Today, his luck wasn’t good. Out of the four cultivation techniques, there were three that Feng Xue either could not or did not want to practice. The Nine Death Undying Body required one to nearly die nine times through suffocation, blood loss, shock, dehydration, poisoning, etc., to master it. The Heavenly Snake Bone Swapping Technique required a fatal poison to seep into the bones, turning one neither into a ghost nor a human. As for One Yang Finger, it was simply out of his likings. However, the Life-taking Thirteen Swords did meet his personal aesthetic, but the dangerous fifteenth sword in the original was somewhat elusive to him.

Nevertheless, no worries, just refining after all—dropping in a Ma Dongmei and refining out a Sun Honglei is common practice, and it wasn’t necessary to fret too much over the type of cultivation technique.

In Feng Xue’s element inventory, there weren’t particularly suitable elements for refining secret manuals. After some thought, he chose several elements such as [assassin], [hidden], [assassination], [weapon], and proceeded with a nearly blind single投 refining.

The books bound by cotton cloth twisted one by one in front of Feng Xue, and soon, the first round of refining resulted in complete annihilation.

Then again, that might not be entirely true, for besides three black balls, Feng Xue produced one phantom object—

Name: Phantom Object·Electric Door

Elements: [death], [electric], [tool]

Description: An electric switch lacking any electricity cut-off protection; touching the exposed metallic part will result in immediate electrocution.

Note: You could find someone like Qin Shi Huang to touch it.

...

Looking at the phantom object that had transformed from the Nine Death Undying Body manual, Feng Xue didn’t know what expression to show at the moment. First of all, this object implied that as long as he had sufficient electrical engineering knowledge, it was an infinite power supply portable power station; however, the problem was, he was feeling a bit hesitant even to pick it up.

Feng Xue wandered around the house and eventually found two ceramic disks in the kitchen, managing to pull this thing to one side. He then erected a very conspicuous sign around it to remind himself not to forget about it.

"Anyway, it could be considered a good item. Next time I have an opportunity to visit the real world, I should try to bring back some electrical wires, yes, and some electrical knowledge and relevant tools..." Feng Xue took out his notebook, recorded his thoughts, and then started the cycle of copying and refining again. However, even when the delivery guy brought several boxes of freshly cut white cloth, he had only managed to produce two comedic items.

During this process, Feng Xue discovered an interesting phenomenon—that each time these books were refined, no matter how little [identity] was put in, they always underwent corresponding transformations, turning into either black balls or phantom objects, unlike many previous phantom objects that remained pseudo artifacts despite input.

"Is it because the books themselves contain enough [identity]? Or perhaps, is it because the books inherently have some special rule I’m unaware of, related to the ’pseudo books’ Huo Mu mentioned?"

Feng Xue was always concerned about each "exception" of his Golden Finger, as these unique phenomena might hold the key to specific aspects of this world.

However, soon he stopped brooding over issues on which he couldn’t derive answers in such a short time because finally, after six hours of copying, during Feng Xue’s thirtieth refining, as the Life-taking Thirteen Swords manual twisted and disappeared, a new book appeared in front of Feng Xue.