Rising to Fame

Lingxi Peak, Gu Fan's Courtyard.

"Junior Brother Gu, your skills are truly superb!"

Song Chibo's face was full of surprise, his eyes shining brightly. He reached out and touched a long whip-like magical artifact, feeling the six restrictions within it, his tone full of admiration.

The first customer of the weapon-refining business was Song Chibo, whom he had met once on Lanyun Peak.

The snake demon that Meng Wei hunted was already at the peak of the first tier, and was about to evolve to the second tier thanks to the bloodline of the dragon. It took several people working together to kill it safely, including Song Chibo.

For disciples of Lingxi Peak who come from humble backgrounds, even those in the late Qi Refining stage do not all possess a mid-grade magic weapon.

After all, due to the limitations of spiritual root aptitude, most of the profits are used to buy breakthrough pills, and the magic weapons for self-defense are rather meager. Not to mention that they may be damaged during the process of hunting demons, making a good magic weapon even more precious.

During this demon hunt, Song Chibo obtained a snake demon's tendon.

He had intended to sell it in the market and use the spirit stones he had accumulated to buy a suitable mid-grade magic weapon, but then he heard Meng Wei say that the silver shield that he envied so much was made by Gu Fan!

Although the price is a bit higher than in the market, the advantage is that it can be customized, making it more convenient to use.

Furthermore, since the snake demon's tendons are excellent materials for crafting weapons, Song Chibo came to discuss with Gu Fan, entrusting him to use the snake demon's tendons as raw materials to forge a mid-grade magic weapon, which is the long whip in Song Chibo's hand.

Gu Fan paid special attention to his first customer, spending two days crafting the Water Light Whip.

After being infused with magical power, it can not only stretch and contract freely, but also split stones with its superimposed force. Moreover, as a water-based spiritual material, it can also draw upon the surrounding water sources to form several water whips, increasing its power several times over!

Most of the Lingxiao Sect disciples hunt demons in the Cloud Mist Sea. Song Chibo also cultivates water-based techniques, so using the Water Light Whip is like adding wings to a tiger, making it the perfect fit.

After a brief demonstration, Song Chibo was overjoyed and readily paid the remaining balance of spirit stones before leaving happily.

Since Song Chibo brought the raw materials himself, Gu Fan only earned 500 spirit stones for the refining fee.

This is the benefit of mastering cultivation techniques; the profit from a mid-grade magic weapon is enough to make a Qi Refining Level 1 disciple blacksmith for half a year.

Of course, since Gu Fan focuses on the high-end market of customized products, orders are still not many, and he only opens for business once a month.

Gu Fan was quite satisfied with this frequency.

After all, earning spirit stones is just a process; cultivation is his goal. Not to mention that in addition to daily cultivation, he also needs to study the Dao of Talismans and the Dao of Arrays.

After his cultivation level reached the fourth level of Qi Refining, Gu Fan was able to attempt to draw a first-grade high-quality spirit talisman.

With the help of the All-Seeing Eye and the new talisman brush being quite useful, he successfully drew a high-grade talisman after only a few practice sessions.

Therefore, Gu Fan accumulated spirit stones by drawing talismans and refining weapons, while placing his hopes of earning merit on repairing the damaged array diagram.

Gu Fan had carefully examined the incomplete diagram of the Golden Lock Array. Under the Myriad Manifestations Eye, the five intact array pattern hubs corresponded to the eight trigrams, and each hub had several array patterns connected to it, which gave him quite a headache.

Therefore, Gu Fan went to Chenxing Pavilion again and exchanged several array manuals, including "Three Talents Array Principles", "Four Symbols Spirit Manual", "Six Lines Array Explanation", and "Eight Trigrams True Meaning".

These manuals are neither spells nor techniques; they are merely detailed explanations of the principles of formations. They can be seen as a supplement to "An Introduction to Formation Techniques," and therefore are not expensive.

Zhou Furui was startled when he saw Gu Fan appear.

Even the most gifted person shouldn't have been able to repair the Golden Lock Formation in just two months.

When Zhou Furui saw Gu Fan leave with a pile of array jade slips, he shook his head and chuckled to himself: I knew it. No matter how talented you are, how easy is it to comprehend the Dao of Arrays?

Although the Myriad Manifestations Eye can verify whether the array patterns he inscribed are correct, there is only one correct array pattern, but there can be countless incorrect array patterns. Without the support of array knowledge, he would naturally be like looking for a needle in a haystack and would not be able to speed up the process.

After exchanging for the array manual, Gu Fan studied it for two more months, which greatly accelerated his speed in repairing array diagrams.

Four more months passed, and eight months after Gu Fan received the Golden Lock Array Jade Slip, the incomplete array diagram was finally completed.

In the past few months, Gu Fan's name has spread to a small circle within the outer sect.

Whether it was drawing talismans or refining weapons, Gu Fan's business initially operated within his circle of acquaintances.

But when these customers acquire new magical artifacts or when their talismans prove powerful during demon hunting, it naturally becomes a topic of conversation.

More importantly, Gu Fan is proficient in both drawing talismans and refining weapons, which is extremely rare in the Lingxiao Sect.

Ordinary disciples, besides comprehending cultivation techniques, at most study the way of talismans.

As for weapon crafting, since it is even more difficult than the art of talisman crafting, only a few people are truly skilled at it.

There are dozens of disciples listening to the teachings on Shenji Peak, but many of them are not even proficient in fire control.

Those who are able to master the art of weapon crafting are mainly disciples from aristocratic families, because they are supported by their families and have enough spiritual materials to practice with. Secondly, there are the disciples of Shenxiu Peak, who have outstanding spiritual roots and can have more time to study weapon crafting.

As for the disciples of Lingxi Peak, very few of them delve into the art of weapon crafting.

Not to mention that the magical artifacts produced by Gu Fan are all excellent mid-grade magical artifacts, which is the root of his fame.

Within eight months, news of a disciple at Lingxi Peak who was proficient in both talismans and artifacts had already spread like wildfire.

Gu Fan paid no attention to the voices from the outside world.

After completing the diagram of the Golden Lock Formation, he did not immediately go to the Star Pavilion to collect his merits.

Because he already sensed that the threshold of the fifth level of Qi Refining was right in front of him.

......

Since his channels for earning spirit stones became stable, Gu Fan no longer had any reservations about using the Small Spirit Gathering Array.

He exchanged the excess spirit stones for Qi Gathering Pills. Although the prices in the market were much higher than in the sect, he could afford the premium given how fast he earned spirit stones.

As the morning sun shone into the courtyard, casting a golden glow on his crimson robes, Gu Fan finally broke through to the fifth level of Qi Refining.

After his cultivation breakthrough, his magical power and divine sense both increased, and he became more adept at controlling fire.

Although he still couldn't quite grasp the "forgetting" technique taught by Li Kunyuan, his progress in the Flame Spirit Technique had improved significantly compared to when he first started learning weapon crafting.

Now, when Gu Fan uses the Flame Spirit Technique, he can control eight hundred flames.

This means he can refine spiritual materials more easily, and with the support of abundant magical power, he no longer needs to rely on Qi-replenishing pills to restore his magical power when refining weapons.

Gu Fan had a premonition that once he mastered the Flame Spirit Technique and broke through to the late stage of Qi Refining, he would definitely be able to refine a high-grade magic weapon!

After circulating his magical power for several cycles, Gu Fan finally stopped his cultivation for the day.

The diagram of the Golden Lock Formation has been completed, and today he is ready to test its effectiveness.

Given the rank of the Golden Lock Array, if he had array flags, Gu Fan could complete the array setup without inscribing array patterns. However, he did not have array flags at the moment, so he had to inscribe array patterns meticulously.

Without hesitation, Gu Fan stored many stone slabs in the courtyard after comprehending the Dao of Arrays. He piled them up in a corner, and with a wave of his hand, a stone slab would fly over and hover in front of him.

A flying sword emerged from the sleeve, its strokes echoing across the stone slab, leaving behind array patterns.