The combination of the Blazing Sunwood and Crow was, in Qi Ping’s view, the fastest way to ensure he had combat power at the perfect Foundation Establishment stage.
You see, after Crow awakened the Great Sun Body, its ability to absorb and refine the power of the great sun increased significantly. It has now been tempered to a relatively extreme limit. As long as resources keep up, its strength will enter a period of rapid growth!
And when it comes to choosing resources, is there anything more suitable for Crow than the solar essence produced by the third-tier Blazing Sunwood?
This is even more suitable than third-tier spiritual medicines!
Plus, Qi Ping felt that using the solar essence from the third-tier Blazing Sunwood made it very likely that Crow’s bloodline could evolve again!
As for what kind of spell should be engraved on the Shadow Ironwood, Qi Ping thought about it for a long time.
The Shadow Ironwood could be engraved with a spell to refine high-quality ores. This could be used to produce the resources needed for the Stone Essence’s growth, as well as produce high-quality spiritual iron to sell.
But no matter how much he thought about it, Qi Ping wasn’t really satisfied.
After pondering for a long while, Qi Ping suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
“Could I engrave a forging and tempering technique into the Shadow Ironwood, one that allows it to temper itself in the process?”
“This way, it can constantly temper its own trunk, increasing its chances of breaking through bloodline rank limitations and reaching the fourth tier or even higher. I could also set up part of the spell to continuously temper my spiritual armor for me.”
Qi Ping had considered this possibility many times. After researching many spells and asking Meng Yan for a lot of advice on forging techniques, Qi Ping finally made a decision:
He would use the Shadow Ironwood to forge spiritual armor!
This forging technique didn’t need to be too complicated. Qi Ping would just need to forge the basic shape of the armor first, then the Shadow Ironwood would continuously temper and nurture it.
The Shadow Ironwood itself could produce a special, high-quality spiritual iron called Shadow Iron. Once it also absorbed the Goblin’s associated ores, and after years and years of forging and nurturing, it would surely elevate the quality of the spiritual armor to an extremely powerful level.
As for Qi Ping’s requirements for the armor itself, they weren’t too high. It just needed to be strong enough and have high enough spirituality!
High strength is to improve defense! That was Qi Ping’s top priority.
With the Shadow Ironwood paired with the Stone Essence’s associated ores, plus day-after-day of tempering, Qi Ping was confident that the material strength of the armor itself could surpass most weapons of the same tier.
High spirituality was for engraving a powerful killing formation and a defensive array onto the scales!
For this armor’s design, Qi Ping envisioned it like a dragon’s scale armor. By using the [Metal-Stone Body]’s ability to manipulate metal, it could be assembled as armor for defense, or it could be broken apart and arranged into the defensive array that forms the strongest killing formation!
Once he had confirmed his idea, Qi Ping immediately got to work.
However, Qi Ping wasn’t just daydreaming this time. The methods for forging and nurturing spiritual tools are far more difficult than techniques like the Stellar Refining Method. Qi Ping had never experimented with this before. Without having personally experienced it, he couldn’t guarantee he could create the most suitable forging technique for the Shadow Ironwood.
So, after gaining a sufficient understanding of forging techniques and consulting Meng Yan about relevant experiences, Qi Ping directly took out some ordinary ore and started forging.
“Alright, let’s start with the Eighteen Spiritual Fire Tempers!”
The Eighteen Spiritual Fire Tempers is a type of spiritual forging method. Its aim is to use spiritual power and spiritual fire to slowly temper and nurture the spiritual iron itself.
The advantages of this forging method are a high success rate and high quality of the finished product. The disadvantage is that it is extremely time-consuming. Generally, only a cultivator’s lifebound spiritual tool would be made using this method.
Spiritual forging methods are essentially about using spiritual power alone for tempering. They are further divided into fire forging, water forging, lightning forging… and even attribute-less spiritual power forging methods.
“This Eighteen Spiritual Fire Tempers is actually quite simple!” Qi Ping looked at a cold, gleaming scale in his hand, similar to a snake scale, and a smile appeared on his face.
In just three days, he had used the Eighteen Spiritual Fire Tempers to forge a scale about the size of a fingernail.
If Meng Yan knew how Qi Ping felt right now, he’d probably want to hit him. Because even with Meng Yan’s high talent in artifact forging, it had taken him over a month to forge his first successful product using this method. And Qi Ping had done it in only three days!
But this is also because their starting points are different. Given Qi Ping’s current talent in soul and enlightenment, and his control over spiritual power and the Beast King’s Flame, it naturally wasn’t too difficult for him to perform these most basic tempering and nurturing methods.
After this first success, Qi Ping quickly produced a third, a fourth, and more finished pieces.
After confirming that his understanding of the Eighteen Spiritual Fire Tempers was correct, Qi Ping soon moved on to practicing the second spiritual forging method.
After about half a month, Qi Ping had finally become completely familiar with the five spiritual forging methods he had learned.
“These spiritual forging methods are actually quite simple. They seem to have many categories, but they’re essentially just using different forces to temper and nurture the spiritual iron itself. As Brother Meng said, this step isn’t too difficult. With enough practice, you can always grasp it!”
“But from the looks of it now, the power used by the Shadow Ironwood isn’t any of these five spiritual forging methods. So, I primarily need to use attribute-less spiritual power to create a spiritual forging method that’s closest to the essence. Then, I’ll just leave the rest to the Shadow Ironwood.”
Next, Qi Ping spent about a week completely perfecting a spiritual forging method that was relatively close to that essence.
The overall effect was somewhat unremarkable, but it could be applied to most types of forces, bringing out special effects.
This kind of effect was perfect for engraving into the Shadow Ironwood!
“I’ll call it the Shadowstone Forging Technique!”
Then, Qi Ping spent another half month using this Shadowstone Forging Technique and the Shadow Iron produced by the Shadow Ironwood Spell to forge a complete set of spiritual armor perfectly suited for himself.
With a mere thought from Qi Ping, under the manipulation of his [Metal-Stone Body], the pitch-black scales on the ground instantly wrapped tightly around him, transforming into a set of spiritual armor with a powerful visual impact!
“This armor looks kind of badass!”
“It’s a bit like the scales of the Chaotic Sea Black Jiao. Pretty cool!”
After observing his appearance with his spiritual sense, Qi Ping was quite satisfied.
Then, with another thought, the armor began to change, forming layers upon layers of scale shields to protect his vital parts.
Then, it split into countless scales scattering throughout the entire space.
At this point, all Qi Ping needed to do was engrave the formation patterns, and he could immediately activate the formation to seal the entire space!
“Nice!”
“I’ll call this armor the Shadowstone Scale Armor!”
After these initial tests, Qi Ping was very satisfied with this Shadowstone Scale Armor.
Once it was finished, he brought the armor to a large tree that looked and felt like black, metallic iron.
When Qi Ping controlled the Shadowstone Scale Armor to cover the Shadow Ironwood, the entire set of armor slowly merged into the tree!
I think there might be a problem with this chapter
There is part of another story in it
the chapter has been revised, thanks for the info