"Wh-what is that?" Lin Mu muttered in amazement.
The entire process that had happened in front of him was nothing short of world changing to him. This was the first time he was witnessing another aspect of cultivators which was the refinement of materials. The process was obviously very complex, and Lin Mu could not even begin to imagine how much effort it would take to learn it all.
It was obvious that the experience the Old man had was nothing short of world shaking. If Lin Mu knew that what he was witnessing was desired by countless other cultivators, he would be astounded. There would be tens of thousands of cultivators who would start a war just to have the chance of witnessing this and learning from this.
Old man Jing Wei had comprehended a refinement technique that had never existed in this world ever before. If the knowledge of this ever went out, the sects and the empire would pay no small price to acquire it. But to Lin Mu, it was his first experience and thus could not grasp the true value of it.
"That Lin Mu, is a man who is perhaps one of the smartest refiners in this world. What he just accomplished would take even immortal tool refiners decades to learn. Not only that, but he did it without any guidance by simply observing a broken spatial storage ring." Xukong answered.
Lin Mu was amazed at senior Xukong’s words and knew how much it meant if the praise was coming from Senior Xukong’s mouth. He did not simply praise others that easily as he deemed them to be lower than him. Senior Xukong had seen countless things in his life, and Lin Mu could not even imagine how old he was.
Lin Mu had once asked Xukong that very question, but the answer that he received was rather disappointing. Xukong himself did not know how old he truly was. All he knew that a time arrived when he gained self-awareness and understood who he was. Before that, he was more of a mindless beast who simply lived to fulfill its instincts.
Lin Mu continued looking at the gold ball, which now had a green light bursting from it.
"REFINE!" Jing Wei shouted, with his entire body covered in sweat.
By now Lin Mu could see the exhaustion on Jing Wei’s face. It was evident that he had exerted a lot in order to complete the refining process, and even now he was not stopping. Even Duan Ke who was merely restricting the forge was sweating profusely.
In this all, perhaps Lin Mu was the only one who was comfortable watching the entire thing and was the least affected.
Jing Wei let out another shout and started pressing down on the gold ball, making it shrink even more. The more it shrunk, the brighter the green light was getting. The stream of fire that was floating around the room also circled around Jing Wei, extending multiple small tendrils that touched the gold ball from the top and bottom while avoiding the old man’s hands.
The gold ball kept on shrinking and Jing Wei pressed his hands together and eventually, his two palms met.
Blinding green light was leaking from the gaps between his fingers and palms while the gold ball had shrunk to become the size of a small marble.
Jing Wei let out a breath of relief as he saw that this task had succeeded. He looked at Duan Ke without moving his hands and spoke.
"Return the control to me and activate the barrier, do it at the right moment or you know what will happen..." Jing Wei said before turning his focus back to the tiny gold ball in his hand.
He slowly opened his hands and the gold ball was revealed, except it was not golden anymore, instead it had turned a pale green in color that had tinges of yellow in it. The green light had also stopped emanating from the marble and was now contained within it.
But when the marble was fully revealed it saturated to shake, and it looked like it was getting unstable.
"NOW!" Jing Wei shouted.
Duan Ke passed her control of the forge to Jing Wei and erected a multi-layered barrier. There were about ten layers to it, with each subsequent one thicker than the first. Jing Wei freed one of his hands and extended it towards the forge, taking back control over it while with his other empty hand he held onto the green marble.
He gestured with his hand and brought forth flames that transformed into strings and floated around the marble. He let go of the marble and freed that hand, but before the marble could fall it was held onto by the strings of fire.
Jing Wei gave Duan Ke and Lin Mu a look before taking a deep breath.
He waved his empty hand and an object came flying out of the forge. The item was lit and flames were blazing off its surface. Looking at it closely, one could tell that it was a small anvil that was about the size of a palm.
"Oh? He actually found some impure Void star metal?" Xukong suddenly spoke upon seeing the small flaming anvil.
"You know what that is, senior?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Yes, indeed. That is one of the materials that contain spatial elemental qi and can be used to make spatial storage tools. Though Void star metal is definitely an uncommon material. They can be found in the void surrounding the worlds and occasionally crash into the worlds along with meteorites." Xukong answered.
Lin Mu memorized the information in his mind as he kept on watching Jing Wei. The old man floated the small flaming anvil in front of him and then flipped his hand, making the broken spatial storage ring appear in his palm.
The spatial storage ring physically looked the same as before when Lin Mu had last seen it, but the fluctuations coming off it told him that something was different about it now.