Eyes still twinkling at what he saw, Bai Yunfei leveled a gaze back to elder Qi. “Elder Qi, this junior has an unusual favor to ask of you. May I keep this pearl?”
“It’s but an unusually rare poison pearl. Take it if you’d like.” The elder replied monotonously.
“Thank you very much, elder Qi.” Bai Yunfei smiled in appreciation. “Has your esteemed school readied the materials for the soul armament yet?”
“All preparations have been taken care of already.” The elder spoke with gleaming eyes. “Are you perhaps…”
Bai Yunfei nodded. “I will begin right away, may I take a look at the materials?”
“Of course! I will send a person to bring them over. Where do you wish to start crafting? I’ll have our students prepare at once.”
“I’ll be at the cave where I was in meditation in. Please have your students send the materials that way, elder Qi. I’ll be taking my leave first then.”
……
With there being nothing else to say, Bai Yunfei gave a few words of conversation to the other students before following several of the Underworld School’s students to the small mountain cave he had been in before.
Though he didn’t really grow any more powerful due to Realm Accretion, the latent power being stored away in his body was still there. His entire body felt powerful as if filled with strength. He didn’t even feel tired from training for fifteen days straight—in fact, he never felt better before and very much ready to start crafting.
The only one left in the cave was Bai Yunfei yet again. Even Xiao Qi and Long Lan weren’t there with him. He sat on top of a small straw mat laid across the ground so as to collect his thoughts and prepare himself.
Several rows of items were laid on the ground in front of him, making it seem as though he was a vendor peddling a few wares. But the items there were shining with a light most extraordinary, and by extension meant they were no ordinary items to be peddled. They were all precious materials like ores and metals.
“Pure ebon…so the Underworld School had something as rare as this. I guess that’s to be expected, though…” Bai Yunfei muttered to himself as he held a jet-black ore the size of a small wok in his hand.
This was the prized item of this round. It wasn’t a metal as precious as the boltgrass he just received from the Core World, but it was a rare find nonetheless as a mid-heaven tier material. To use pure ebon as material for a low-heaven tier soul armament was a bit of an overkill, but it was a material most suited for elemental darkness, the element most useful to those of the Underworld School.
The school wanted Bai Yunfei to craft a sword-type soul armament this time, one of the most commonly used soul armaments in the world. Right now, Bai Yunfei was in the middle of looking over the materials to see what would be best suited for the soul armament he needed to craft.
After an hour, Bai Yunfei let out a sigh of relief and waved his hand to take out the Lightning-fire Cauldron.
“Bang!”
The cauldron dropped to the ground with a muffled thud and flooded the cave with a wave of light as red as fire. As if responding to its presence, the temperature in the cave rose by several degrees.
“Eh? A cauldron? Are you going to be crafting a soul armament?”
A sudden voice spoke out from the previously silent room, spooking Bai Yunfei by the suddenness of it.
Then the image of a small stone appeared near him. It was Xiao Fang.
“Correct, I’m planning to craft a low-heaven tier soul armament.”
“A low-heaven tier?!” Came Xiao Fang’s surprised voice, “Are you joking? Can you even craft one of those? I thought only Soul Kings were capable of that, don’t tell me you’re planning to undo your seal already?!”
“No way,” Bai Yunfei laughed, “It’s just a test. With how my training method allows me two fireseeds, I’ve an advantage when it comes to crafting. My chances of success are a lot higher than most people. I’ve already succeeded in crafting one before, but that was under special circumstances. This time, I’m prepared to see if I can craft a heaven-tier soul armament under my own strength.”
He glanced over to Xiao Fang, suddenly curious about something. “Hey, Xiao Fang, are you perhaps familiar about the art of crafting?”
As a two millennia old spirit of the armament, Xiao Fang must’ve traveled with a great number of people. What were the chances that he heard of the art of crafting before?
But Xiao Fang’s answer shut him down.
“I’m not, I’ve never even seen a person craft a soul armament before. Insights into the art of crafting were limited to crafters like you. None of my previous masters were from the Crafting School. Even Tianhun himself didn’t know the art. He had a very strong expert help him create the Core Stone even.”
“Oh…” Bai Yunfei looked dejected at that. “Then you can take a look from the side. I’ll have a soul armament made in a moment, but please don’t disturb me as I do.”
A little curious, Xiao Fang responded, “You’re going to craft one here? Why not in the Core World? From what I know, the crafting of a soul armament could be influenced by the surrounding elemental energy, can’t it?”
“What?” Bai Yunfei snapped his eyes back at Xiao Fang. His eyes widened by a fraction at the realization, “That’s right! Why didn’t I think of that!? If we can freely control the energy in the Core World, it’ll definitely help me craft a soul armament!!”
The flames that powered the crafting cauldron was a manifestation of the elemental fire in the area. This flame was a separate entity than the elements that’d go into the soul armament, so that meant the crafter had to focus on a second source of elemental energy as they crafted. It was normally a very crucial moment for crafters, but this would be nearly a trivial matter if he were to control the elements from the Core World! In that case, his previously small chances of success would increase by a significant amount!
Bai Yunfei was excited beyond belief by this realization. Without even a second to think twice about it, Bai Yunfei gathered up the materials and then disappeared from sight…
……
One entire day and night went by without incident. On the second day, the residents of the Underworld School were all suddenly met with a morning like none other they saw or even heard of before.
On that morning, everyone was woken by a crack of ear-deafening thunder.
Thunder?
Something was happening within the dark clouds of Black Cloud Valley that normally shouldn’t have been happening.
The crack of thunder had been especially startling to those standing outside at the time, as they were treated to not only the sound of it but the sight.
A bolt of violet lightning enormously large in size had fallen from the skies to drop down on a small mountain behind the Underworld School’s main mountain, obliterating more than half of the mountain peak!
And if that wasn’t enough, the part of the clouds where the lightning bolt dropped from had turned into a fierce maelstrom of whirling clouds!
Wisps of dark light were forming at the center of the clouds, gathering there like flies to a light to float around the mountain peak. In a few moments, the broken mountain peak was surrounded by a mist of black light.
“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh…”
Several figures zoomed through the skies from the Underworld School. In a matter of seconds, the area near where the lightning struck had a dozen or so figures standing there. Behind them, several students from the Underworld School were a little behind in their approach, but everyone was in shock and were discussing with one another on what had just happened.
“Damn! When Yunfei does something, he goes all in, doesn’t he?!” Zheng Kai exclaimed in disbelief at the sight.
“Yunfei…has…did he really succeed?! This is a Worldly Phantasm, he’s really crafted a heaven-tier soul armament?!” Li Tiechui couldn’t even believe his wide-open eyes at what he was seeing.
Song Lin was in shock as well. “And…it only took him a single day. One day to craft a heaven-tier soul armament….that’s just…”
“Did he really succeed? If everyone’s acting like this, does that really mean brother Bai managed to craft a heaven-tier soul armament?!” Somewhat confused by everything that was going on, Xu Ran’s eyes were snapping back and forth from the sight in front of him and the faces of everyone there.
From the skies above the main halls of the Underworld School, there stood the figures of several people. They hadn’t rushed towards the source of the commotion at first, choosing to stay behind to ascertain what was going on from their position instead.
“Haha, it seems nephew Bai has managed to craft us a heaven-tier soul armament. How remarkable. How remarkable indeed…” Mo Yanbai stroked his beard in praise at both Bai Yunfei and in amazement at the Worldly Phantasm in front of them.
Standing next to him was Xiao Binzi. A myriad of emotions was currently running through his face as he took in the sight. Shock, praise, confusion, and satisfaction. He was feeling all sorts of emotions. Even as a Late-stage Soul King, he was all sorts of overwhelmed. No one knew better than him what this meant if Bai Yunfei was capable of crafting a heaven-tier soul armament.
“So he managed to do it…and in a single day! The Worldly Phantasm is showing signs of a soul armament that definitely isn’t a low-heaven tier. These are signs of a mid-heaven tier…he was able to craft a soul armament that strong?!”
