"Hmm..."
Su Min narrowed her eyes at the pile of materials spread out before her, silently calculating their worth and potential.
"Still not enough," she murmured to herself. "Not enough to refine my weapon to the next tier." A sigh, barely audible, escaped her lips. "A high grade Yellow tier Life bound Spirit Treasure would still be a significant boost, though."
Two or three days had passed since the war council. The tension in the estate was palpable; everyone knew the grassland army was marching south. But mobilizing hundreds of thousands of troops was not something that happened overnight. It would take time for the storm to arrive. For now, at least, the battle was not imminent.
Still, Su Min was preparing. In a fight against two opponents as formidable as the Flame and Earth Elders, the more trump cards she had, the better. She had turned her attention to refining her Life bound Spirit Treasure, the staff she carried. Unfortunately, the Glazed Ice Azure Armor she had forged earlier had consumed a staggering amount of resources, nearly exhausting her entire personal supply. The materials she used to craft weapons for the three youngsters had all been provided by Prince Yong.
She knew the young prince had even led a hunting party to slay a Qi Refining stage demon beast just to gather more materials for her. Yet despite all that effort, she still did not have enough to advance her own weapon. Her Life bound Spirit Treasure possessed a unique and demanding trait: it could continuously evolve in grade.
That came with both good and bad news.
The good news was that it was not picky. It would accept almost any spiritual metal or ore.
The bad news was that the quantity it demanded was utterly absurd.
"Should I go out and search for more materials myself?" she wondered, staring at the incomplete pile in her hand. The armor had definitely been worth the cost, but the gnawing feeling of needing just a little more was persistent. "If I can refine my weapon to the level I need, my chances of victory will be much higher."
Knock, knock, knock—
A sudden, sharp rapping at the door interrupted her thoughts.
"Come in."
She casually waved her hand, storing the materials away into her spatial ring before speaking. The door opened, revealing Sect Leader Mo standing somewhat awkwardly in the doorway. He hesitated for a moment, as stepping into a young woman's private quarters felt inappropriate, but when he finally entered, he froze.
Su Min's room was startlingly bare and utilitarian. There were no decorations, no personal ornaments, and no comforts that suggested a woman lived there. It was a space for work and cultivation, nothing more.
In truth, this was not unusual for her. Considering the caves, stilt houses, and deserts she had lived in before, Su Min had long since stopped caring about superficial comfort. When she saw him enter, she politely poured a cup of tea from a simple pot and gestured for him to sit.
"Danxianzi," he began, getting straight to the point. "I would like to request a weapon, one suited to my hand."
Sect Leader Mo did not waste words. Over the past few days, he had sparred with the three youngsters. Under equal conditions, his decades of combat experience allowed him to overpower any one of them. But the moment they wielded their spiritual weapons, the dynamic shifted completely. He had been forced to retreat; there was simply no contest. Now that he had reached the Qi Refining stage, every ordinary sword he owned shattered the moment he channeled spiritual energy into it. His entire swordsmanship was rendered useless. So he had gone to Prince Yong, hoping to commission a weapon from the only person who could make one.
Unfortunately, Prince Yong could not help him this time. He made it clear that Su Min's services were expensive, and the three weapons she had forged earlier had already drained a significant portion of his material reserves. Besides, this was Sect Leader Mo's personal matter. Prince Yong was not going to pay for it. He had already given the man a priceless pill, and anything more would be excessive. Still, since he needed Sect Leader Mo's loyalty for the war, he had offered a simple piece of advice: "Do not waste time with negotiations. Just present her with the materials."
"Did Prince Yong not explain my terms?" Su Min asked, her tone neutral. "Also, I do not have materials on hand right now."
She was not refusing outright, nor was she lying. Her remaining stockpile was a jumble of random parts that could not form a complete weapon. What she could make for him depended entirely on what he could provide.
"Of course, I understand," Sect Leader Mo said quickly. "Over the years, our humble sect has managed to accumulate some reserves. Please, take a look, Danxianzi."
With that, he carefully removed a simple, metallic ring from his finger and placed it on the table before her.
"Oh?"
Su Min's lips curled into a slight, knowing smile at the sight.
A spatial ring.
Unlike complex artifacts, these storage items were not particularly difficult to forge, and she had made quite a few herself. Still, it was mildly surprising to see one in the possession of a Jianghu sect leader.
"Tsk. Prince Yong must have treated you well," she remarked, picking up the ring to examine it. "This is one of my two meter cube models, crafted in the past few months." She sent a wisp of spiritual sense inside to inventory the contents before continuing, "Now, let us see what you have brought. First, tell me your elemental affinity and preferred weapon type. I need to know if anything is missing."
"Sword," he answered immediately. "Lightning attribute."
"Mn. Alright." After a brief mental calculation, matching the materials she had seen to his request, she nodded. "Come back in three days."
"Thank you, my lady!"
Sect Leader Mo's face lit up with pure, unadulterated excitement. He bowed deeply, his relief evident, before hastily taking his leave, though not without a slight, painful twitch in his cheek. "That was our sect's entire savings over the past few years!" he thought with a wince.
Unlike Prince Yong, who controlled vast merchant networks and territories, his sect's resources were limited. But he consoled himself with a simple truth: materials were just materials. Without a skilled craftsman, they were useless rocks and metal.
"Now I have got enough."
Once he was gone, a satisfied smirk spread across Su Min's face.
"I will forge his weapon first. The rest of the materials will go toward refining my own." She laid out her plan. "A high grade Yellow tier should last me until the Golden Core stage. Earth tier weapons require far rarer ores and much greater quantities of them. Even with my Nanming Lihuo, my current cultivation would not be enough to smelt those."
This was the core difference between alchemy and artifact forging. Alchemy was about precision, control, and complex spiritual formulas. Artifact forging demanded raw, sustained power. Without sufficiently potent flames, a blacksmith had to rely on brute cultivation strength. A Golden Core cultivator could forge a Yellow tier artifact, but by the time they reached that level, such a weapon would be nearly useless to them.
Fortunately, forging was not as meticulous as alchemy. Any fire aligned cultivator with decent control could manage it.
"Time to get to work." She closed her eyes, centering herself. "For his weapon, I will only need about thirty percent of these. The rest are mine."
She summoned her Nanming Lihuo. The temperature in the room rose sharply, the air wavering with heat. She began tossing ores into the conjured flames. Common spirit iron melted first, followed by the rarer, crystalline thunderclap ore. She guided the process with her spiritual will, molding the molten mixture together, shaping it into the form of a straight sword. It was a simple, almost crude design, but it would be brutally effective.
As for its special effect? It would be pure, unadulterated elemental enhancement.
Soon, the process was complete. A new sword lay before her, its blade humming with a faint, electric energy.
[Thunderbrand Sword (Mid Yellow-tier)]
Enhances lightning-based techniques.
"Reaching the late Qi Refining stage really speeds things up," she noted with no small amount of pride. "Well, I have still got two days left. I might as well refine my own weapon now."
Su Min smirked again. The path of cultivation was an expensive one. Her current equipment had already drained the resources of both a prince and a major Jianghu sect. Not that she would ever tell them the whole truth, that for every weapon she forged for others, she kept a solid seventy percent of the materials for herself. They probably suspected she took more than was strictly necessary.
But how much more? That, they would never know.
And the excess? Well. Consider it her fee.