Before long, Yu Ping brought back two large bowls.
Li Qingxian completely untied his bundle, and pieces of fragmented gold spilled out, their brilliant shine dazzling the eye.
Yu Ping stared hard for a few moments before reluctantly walking over to stand guard at the door.
Li Qingxian mentally recited the refining process for the Destiny Fishing Rod, then wrote it down on paper, carefully pondering every step.
Once he had thoroughly thought it through, he began the first step: melting the gold.
He filled his right hand with Magical Power and wiped it over the two large porcelain bowls. The Magical Power flowed through them, cleansing them of impurities and reinforcing their structure.
Then, he placed the gold fragments into the two porcelain bowls.
He took out the Spirit Awakening Talismans he had refined earlier, holding two between his fingers. Chanting the Gold Melting Technique, he flicked his right wrist, and the talismans transformed into two balls of fire, which fell into the bowls.
The red flames flowed over the gold, enveloping the pieces and slowly melting them.
In no time, they became two bowls of shimmering, bright yellow liquid gold.
Li Qingxian took out more Spirit Awakening Talismans and used a Technique to purify and temper the gold in sequence, finally combining it all into a single bowl of liquid gold.
Ripples continuously spread across the surface of the golden liquid, agitated by Magical Power, preventing it from solidifying.
Li Qingxian waited quietly.
Not long after sunset, Han Anbo returned with a bamboo basket on his back.
"I’ve got everything. A few items were hard to find, so I had some brothers split up to buy them. Take a look."
Li Qingxian opened the basket and inspected each item, finally nodding. "Next, I’m going to officially refine the Life Artifact. There might be some commotion, so you two help guard the doors and windows. Don’t let anyone in."
Li Qingxian used his Magical Power to temper each of the Life Materials. Afterward, he added them to the bowl of molten gold, piece by piece. He put an entire basket’s worth in, yet the molten gold, like a bottomless pit, showed no change.
Finally, he carefully opened a small vial and poured out ten pellets of Spirit Gold.
Magical Power flowed through his palm as he chanted the Gold Melting Technique.
The ten tiny pellets of Spirit Gold rolled together, merging into a single liquid Black Gold Ball.
With a flip of his palm, the Spirit Gold dropped into the bowl of molten gold.
BUBBLE BUBBLE...
The bright yellow molten gold surged and bubbled as rainbow-colored rays of light shot toward the ceiling, filling the room with a brilliant radiance.
The entire Street Patrol Room was alerted. Even people from other courtyards came to see what the commotion was about.
Han Anbo painstakingly explained that someone was refining a Life Artifact, while Yu Ping blocked the doorway with outstretched arms, occasionally glancing back with eyes full of curiosity.
Instructor Dong Ying stepped forward to help Han Anbo hold back the others.
The people outside discussed in low voices. Even the Entering Grade masters among them wore expressions of envy.
With the Life Materials fused, Li Qingxian took a deep breath. He first recited the Mouth Purification Curse and the Body Purification Curse, then chanted the Life-Hunting Curse and slowly plunged both hands into the molten gold.
Faint white smoke rose with a soft SIZZLE.
Li Qingxian felt as though his hands were in boiling water, both painful and itchy.
The molten gold bored into his fingers, flowing slowly upward along the inner walls of his blood vessels. His skin reddened wherever it passed, emitting a faint white steam.
Through his skin, two thin, snake-like golden threads could be faintly seen flowing slowly up his arms.
The golden threads snaked up his arms to his shoulders. They flooded into his neck, climbed along his cheeks, and wrapped around the corners of his eyes. Finally, they crawled onto his forehead, converging between his brows to become one.
His body gradually lost all sensation as he slowly began Mind Guarding Spirit Platform.
Within his Spirit Platform, the dragon head of the Thunder Dragon Fire Seal opened its mouth and spat out a Thunder Ball. The golden thread entered the Thunder Ball and, tempered by it, became even finer.
Within the new molten gold, blue-white lightning now flickered.
A blue vortex appeared above the Thunder Dragon Fire Seal, and the molten gold rushed into it.
Inside Li Qingxian’s Life Mansion, the molten gold descended from the heavens and landed in his Life Pool with a HISS, sending plumes of white smoke into the air.
The molten gold quickly took shape.
After about a quarter of an hour, all the molten gold had entered the Life Pool and formed a pure gold fishing rod. Thunderbolt served as its line, and its hook was a dark gold.
The Destiny Fishing Rod slowly rose and came to rest atop the miniature mountain at the center of the Life Pool.
A gentle breeze echoed through the Life Mansion.
Li Qingxian opened his eyes. He looked down to see the porcelain bowl was completely empty, and his skin had returned to normal. The pain from before felt like an illusion.
With this Life Artifact, he could use an ordinary Destiny Star as bait to fish for life.
Next, he needed to buy a life.
’Buy a life...’
Li Qingxian sat at the table, thinking.
The process of buying a life was simple: the seller agrees, a guarantor is found, a Life Contract is signed, and the Fate Master can then take the life.
But in practice, it was extremely complicated.
Buying a life had another major drawback.
It was called "buying," but it was actually "borrowing." If the original owner of the life died, their Destiny Star would perish.
Li Qingxian reached up and touched the scar on his chin, suddenly realizing that the biggest drawback of buying a life had little to do with him.
’I’ll buy someone’s old life, then fish for a new one. I’ll be using the new life, so if the original owner dies, what does that have to do with my new life?’
Hearing the commotion outside, Li Qingxian pushed the door open and stepped out.
Outside, a dense crowd of over a hundred Night Guards had gathered, including many in the brocade robes of the Tenth and Ninth Grades.
The clamor instantly ceased. The crowd’s gazes fell upon Li Qingxian—some were happy, some envious, some awestruck.
Without exception, their faces were all glowing.
"Captain Li, did you really refine a Life Artifact?" a Night Guard who had spoken with Li Qingxian before shouted loudly.
Li Qingxian smiled slightly. "Yes. From this day forward, I am a true Fate Master."
"Congratulations, congratulations!" the Night Guards chimed in one after another.
"Our Street Patrol Room has finally produced a capable person!"
"This is a real Fate Master! It seems like all the other Fate Masters in the Night Guard were recruited from outside, right?"
"Yeah, Li Qingxian is the first Fate Master to come from our own ranks in the Night Guard."
Dong Ying said, beaming with joy, "See, wasn’t I right? If Li Qingxian could save my old mother, he was bound to become a Fate Master! I bet it won’t be long before he becomes a Great Fate Master, commanding the Celestial Secret."
The Night Guards of the Street Patrol Room were all flushed with excitement. Their fervor even surpassed that of fighting over rabbit bones in the middle of the night.
Li Qingxian clasped his fists toward the crowd and smiled. "Thank you, my fellow colleagues. I am a Night Guard first, and a Fate Master second."
"Well said! He hasn’t forgotten his roots!" the crowd praised.
After a while, the crowd finally dispersed. A few still wanted to come inside and chat, but they only left after Han Anbo made the excuse that Li Qingxian needed to focus on his Cultivation.
Back inside with the door closed, Han Anbo said, "Do you think their reaction was a bit over the top? As jumpy and easily startled as Yu Ping?"
"A little," Li Qingxian admitted.
"That’s because you’re still young. You don’t understand the difference between a Jianghu fraud and a true Fate Master. You’ll get it when you’re older. For the past two years, the focus has been on the war against the Demon Race, so even when Great Fate Masters acted, it was far away at the Great River. But back when the All Kings vied for the current emperor’s throne... now *that* was a spectacular display of dueling Great Fate Masters. You might have heard stories or read about it in books, but we saw it with our own eyes. That’s why you can’t possibly understand how they feel, discovering a Fate Master has appeared right beside them."
Li Qingxian asked, "A thousand peaks hanging in the sky, a hundred rivers filling the firmament... you really saw that?"
"I saw it with my own eyes, right above the Capital City." Han Anbo pointed to the sky, filled with emotion.
"What a pity. I’ve never seen it," Li Qingxian said.
Han Anbo added, "There’s another reason we’re so happy. When you encounter one of those demonic things, having a Fate Master with you greatly increases your chances of escape. When I fell for a Deceit back in the day, it was a Fate Master who resolved most of it."