The girl before him knew the properties of spiritual materials inside out, and she rattled off which items to pair together for better refining results without even pausing to think.
Furthermore, as Liang Guan pondered Shi Yu's words and deduced the process in his mind, he realized that Heavenly Cold Flowers and Soul-Deviance Vines were indeed exceptionally suitable. If one wanted to refine a restraint-type artifact using low-tier spiritual materials, there truly were no better choices than those two.
Seeing Liang Guan's strange expression, President Song dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “What's all the fuss about? We don't exclusively use spiritual plants when concocting pills; we occasionally need materials like these too, so naturally, we must understand their properties.”
Not wanting to complicate matters, Shi Yu followed President Song's lead and said, “This junior lacks talent, so I simply focus most of my attention on studying spiritual plants and materials.”
Master Ji stood to the side with a proud look. “Indeed. Girl Yu is an outstanding talent among her peers, so it's hardly surprising.”
“Hardly surprising?” Liang Guan rolled his eyes and grunted loudly. “Then how come I've never heard either of you speak up when I was refining artifacts in the past?”
“Uh...” President Song and Master Ji exchanged glances.
They truly had no way to offer advice on pairing materials for artifact refining. Different trades were like different worlds, and theory was vastly different from practice. If forced to speak, they could only guess at a few general points, and whether those guesses were accurate would be another story entirely.
However, looking at Liang Guan's expression, could it be that everything Shi Yu said just now was actually spot on?
Liang Guan had indeed taken a slight blow to his pride.
While he could accept the explanation President Song and Master Ji gave, it felt a bit uncomfortable that this “outsider's” suggestion was actually better than what he had initially envisioned.
When he first received the Lincang Jade and discussed a restraint-type artifact, the supplementary materials he immediately envisioned were Heavenly Star Stones, Yellow Nettle Wood, and the like. They all possessed restraint capabilities and were quite valuable themselves, ensuring they would not diminish the worth of the Lincang Jade.
He had never considered the combination of Heavenly Cold Flowers and Soul-Deviance Vines that Shi Yu mentioned. These two were lower in grade compared to Heavenly Star Stones and Yellow Nettle Wood, being merely ordinary spiritual plants.
When refining an artifact for the Alchemist Association's precious treasure, he had naturally overlooked such ordinary items from the start.
Yet reflecting on it now filled him with astonishment. Although those two spiritual materials seemed ordinary, putting them together with Lincang Jade created a perfect attribute synergy. The Heavenly Cold Flowers would act as a catalyst, while the Soul-Deviance Vines would stabilize the structure—fusing all three could yield surprisingly remarkable results!
Liang Guan said no more. After giving Shi Yu another long look, he said, “Follow me. I happen to have some free time today.”
With that, he turned and headed toward the refining room.
President Song looked at him in surprise. “How come you're letting us watch today?”
Usually, this fat fellow allowed no one to disturb him when he refined artifacts.
“Stop talking nonsense,” Liang Guan waved his hand. “Just follow along.”
The group entered the refining room together. Liang Guan retrieved the spiritual materials, then cast a plume of fire to begin melting them down.
He possessed a cultivation base at the Foundation Establishment Realm Great Perfection, giving him a grand and forceful aura. Although this fire was merely cast through a fire-controlling spell powered by spiritual energy—far inferior to a Heavenly Fire in power—it was still strikingly formidable and fierce.
Under the roasting flame, impurities within the Lincang Jade slowly separated out, causing the overall piece to shrink by a ring, while its pale white glow grew increasingly brilliant.
Time ticked away as the massive hourglass used for timekeeping in the refining room flipped several times. Watching for a while, President Song and Master Ji found it dull, so they simply sat cross-legged off to the side to cultivate while waiting. Shi Yu, on the other hand, kept watching intently, not finding the lengthy refining process boring at all.
At this point, he was merely processing the spiritual materials. President Liang maneuvered them through the flame with ease, even finding spare attention to chat casually with Shi Yu.
He only asked mundane questions: how old she was, whether she was adjusting well to life in the main city, and so on.
Shi Yu answered politely across the board, her demeanor displaying the respectful deference expected of a junior, completely faultless.
However, as they chatted, Shi Yu noticed that—whether President Liang was distracted or otherwise—the flame roasting the Lincang Jade was growing increasingly fierce, subtly pushing past the material's threshold.
Lincang Jade was inherently ice-attributed, requiring meticulous heat control. If the intensity fluctuated improperly, the spiritual Qi within could easily dissipate, causing the final artifact's quality to plummet, or even causing the material to shatter from within and crumble into dust.
Frowning as she watched the fire Liang Guan was controlling, she noticed he seemed entirely unaware. He kept the heat steady, standing there with his belly jutting out as he casually commanded the flame with ease.
“President Liang...” After a long while, seeing that he had not changed his approach, Shi Yu finally could not help but speak up hesitantly.
“What is it?” Liang Guan acted completely oblivious, continuing to roast the Lincang Jade over the intense flame.
Shi Yu's brow twitched. She felt a sudden pang of distress over the rare material—Lincang Jade was precious, and if it got ruined during refining...
Not wanting to be overly direct and sound offensive, she could only say, “It's nothing.”
Yet as time went on, Liang Guan maintained the exact same intensity without the slightest adjustment. Shi Yu frowned deeply, unable to refrain from doubting the capability of this Tier-4 weapon refiner.
Even if he hadn't noticed the heat issue at first, quite a while had passed—he should have realized it by now, right?
After all, this artifact was being crafted for her, and it was a Tier-3 artifact that she herself could not refine yet. Shi Yu naturally did not want to see it destroyed like this. Closing her eyes briefly, she cast aside concerns about offense and spoke up to remind him: “Is the heat... perhaps a bit too high...?”
The moment her words left her mouth, President Liang chuckled cheerfully and promptly dialed back the flame. “It is a bit high.”
The fluid smoothness of his action made it look almost as if he had been waiting for her to say that exact phrase.
Shi Yu: “...”
Little girl, still a bit green.
Liang Guan gave Shi Yu a meaningful glance. He had been testing her on purpose just now. At worst, he would only ruin a piece of Lincang Jade, and it wasn't as if his Refinement Association couldn't afford to replace it.
Fortunately, his test had yielded results.
This girl truly cared about the material and couldn't help speaking up.
Her deep familiarity with the properties and pairings of spiritual plants and materials could barely be explained away by her status as an alchemist.
However, the Dao of Fire Control in artifact refining was completely different from that in alchemy. Even ordinary weapon refiners from his association might not necessarily spot an issue with the heat control, yet she could tell something was off at a single glance—Liang Guan had certainly not missed the hesitant, conflicted look that had been on her face for quite a while.
Now, that was certainly something worth investigating.
Shi Yu felt goosebumps under his intense stare and silently stepped off to the side.
After several more hours passed, President Liang finally finished refining the Lincang Jade. Instead of rushing to refine the other materials, he looked at Shi Yu with a beaming smile and said, “Well? Speak up.”
Off to the side, President Song and Master Ji ended their meditation and were taken aback upon hearing this. “What's going on?”
Seeing Shi Yu remain silent, President Liang hummed softly. “This precious treasure of your Alchemist Association really hides her light under a bushel.”
Master Ji raised an eyebrow and asked, “Why do you say that?”
Shi Yu pressed a hand to her forehead with a wry smile. “President Liang... please stop teasing this junior.”
Knowing how much she valued and cared for this remarkably valuable Lincang Jade, he had intentionally risked ruining the material just to test her—that was really going too far!
Liang Guan stepped up to Shi Yu, pacing back and forth around her. A moment later, he blurted out a sentence that set off alarm bells for both President Song and Master Ji: “Are you interested in joining our Refinement Association?”
“Hey, Old Liang, what kind of talk is that!” President Song pulled Shi Yu behind him and stared at Liang Guan guardedly. “Don't go cracking reckless jokes.”
Ignoring him, Liang Guan addressed Shi Yu with an agreeable, pleasant expression: “It's just a worthless piece of Lincang Jade anyway. It's not as if my Refinement Association doesn't have more.”
Saying so, he pulled two pieces out of his storage ring and forced them into Shi Yu's hands. “Not just Lincang Jade, but all kinds of rare heavenly materials and earthly treasures—our Refinement Association has them in abundance!”
Unable to figure out what was wrong with the man, President Song felt that Liang Guan's smiling, chubby face looked particularly creepy. Pulling Shi Yu back several steps, he scolded, “You old geezer, don't go scaring our Girl Yu!”
Only then did President Liang stop in his tracks. Patting his protruding belly, his sharp gaze locked onto Shi Yu. “Little girl, I'll ask you just one question: what tier of weapon refiner are you currently?”
President Song and Master Ji stood frozen on the spot, staring at Liang Guan in dumbfounded shock.
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