MARTIAL ADVERSITY, VOLUME 8 - Season 12 Episode 17

Yang Yan added, “Finding mineral lodes is just one of the Stone Puppet’s abilities, there is another one, which all Artifact Refiners can only dream of. It is able to purify and refine mineral essences. As long an Artifact Refiner has its assistance, they no longer need to expend any effort smelting and removing impurities from ore, Stone Puppets can easily and far more effectively accomplish that task.”

Alchemists were required to condense medicinal liquids while Artifact Refiners needed to quench ores, both these processes were for the purpose of removing impurities from raw materials and were absolutely essential to both professions.

The more impurities were removed, the better the refined pill or artefact would be. In many cases, the true calibre of an Alchemist or Artifact Refiner could be judged by how well they could purify their materials.

In this regard, Yang Kai and Yang Yan were leaders in their respective fields.

However, the Stone Puppet was born with the ability to remove impurities and quench ore, and its quenching was far more effective than any Artifact Refiner could hope to be, which was why Yang Yan was so interested in this little fellow.

What Yang Kai didn’t know was that Stone Puppets had another title they were known by, the strongest assistants of Artifact Refiners!

Whether it was their ability to find mineral lodes or their ability to quench ores, both were essential to Artifact Refiners.

Yang Kai, who was not an Artifact Refiner, actually owned a Stone Puppet, causing Yang Yan’s eyes to turn red with envy. This was no different from casting pearls before swine, a complete waste of Heaven’s precious gifts. If this Stone Puppet was hers, how wonderful would that have been?

“Keep going, what else is there,” Yang Kai smiled, the more he looked at this little guy, the more pleasing to the eye he became. Never had Yang Kai expected that the two pitch-black round stones he had brought with him from Tong Xuan Realm would actually contain such Heaven defying existences.

“Since it is a kind of puppet, it can naturally be used for fighting!” Yang Yan sighed, “You know that Artifact Refiners are the same as Alchemists, their combat ability not being very strong. Stone Puppets can make up for this, they perfectly suited for Artifact Refiners.”

Yang Yan wasn’t too interested in fighting, so she didn’t elaborate much on this point.

Yang Kai frowned and looked at the little fellow, wondering how it could possibly be used to fight. This tiny puppet couldn’t even withstand a simple slap, so even if it possessed some combat effectiveness, wouldn’t it be quite limited? Could it be that it fought by digging? Its burrowing skills were actually quite good.

“Big Brother Yang Kai…” Yang Yan blushed and called out in a coaxing voice.

Yang Kai, who was lost in thought, shivered when he heard this voice and shot a cold glare towards here, “Speak properly!”

Yang Yan was not the kind of woman who could act coquettish at all and trying to do so only destroyed her natural charms.

“Your Stone Puppet …”

“No!” Without waiting for her to finish. Yang Kai cut her off.

Yang Yan immediately became distressed, “I haven’t finished talking yet.”

“I know what you want to say. You want it, don’t you?” Yang Kai grinned meaningfully, “Impossible, I’ve already formed a bond with it. Even if I gave it to you, it would still only obey my orders.”

“You actually subdued it already?” Yang Yan’s eyes widened, somewhat unable to believe it, “How did you subdue it? Stone Puppets are extremely difficult to subdue, unless… unless before it was fully grown, you were the one who raised it.”

“The young lady is both smart and beautiful!” Yang Kai grinned, he had cultivated this little fellow for many years and just before it hatched he had even given it a drop of his Golden Blood, establishing a firm connection between the Stone Puppet and himself.

“Ahhh! This is so unfair!” Yang Yan stomped her foot fiercely. Obviously, she had some ideas about this Stone Puppet, but if Yang Kai had already subdued it, those thoughts were completely useless.

Because Stone Puppets don’t have very high wisdom, once it identifies someone as its master, it cannot be snatched by others, only destroyed.

Seeing Yang Yan’s disappointed expression, Yang Kai lightly coughed before commenting, “But although it only listens to my orders, if you want to use it for Artifact Refining, I can lend it to you. I can’t perform Artifact Refining in any case.”

“Really?” Yang Yan immediately let out a laugh and patted Yang Kai’s shoulder, “Great, with it, I can now temper your shield to raise it to the Original Grade Mid-Rank! The artefacts I refine next will also have even better quality. Big Brother Yang Kai, you’re so kind, being able to follow you makes me really happy!”

It was as if she would die of contentment.

“Yes yes, let me see how it quenches ore,” Yang Kai brushed off her praise and asked, he was curious about this point Yang Yan had just made and naturally wanted to verify it with his own eyes.

“That’s simple, here, watch,” Yang Yan took a piece of raw light blue Origin Grade ore the size of a melon from her Space Ring. It was one of the ores Yang Kai had bought back in Heavenly Fate City last time and was meant to be used to refine an Origin Grade artefact.

“Little guy, come here, Elder Sister has some delicious food for you,” Yang Yan held up the blue stone to the Stone Puppet.

The Stone Puppet immediately jumped out of Yang Kai’s hands and rushed over to the blue stone.

Yang Kai only heard a crunching sound and within a few breaths, the stone the size of a melon had been eaten clean by the Stone Puppet; however, its belly didn’t swell at all, it looked exactly the same as before.

Yang Kai was dumbfounded and exclaimed, “So fast?”

Yang Yan was also very excited. Although she knew about the abilities of Stone Puppets, this was still the first time she had seen a living one. After the Stone Puppet finished eating the blue ore, she set it down on the ground.

“Now what?” Yang Kai asked.

“Just wait a moment.”

The two of them both observed the Stone Puppet closely.

Soon, Yang Kai discovered that the lustre on the surface of the Stone Puppet became dim and it seemed like something was leaking from its body, covering its originally smooth surface.

After a while, the Stone Puppet’s body became dull and grey.

It shuddered lightly and the grey stone covering the surface of its body immediately fell to the ground in countless pieces.

Yang Yan explained, “These are the impurity contained in that blue ore, all the essence has been extracted out of it.”

Afterwards, she turned to the Stone Puppet and said with a cheerful smile, “Spit it out.”

This time the Stone Puppet just stood stupidly though.

Yang Yan knew that it wouldn’t obey her words so she could only turn to Yang Kai.

Yang Kai understood and immediately gave Stone Puppet an order.

The next moment, the Stone Puppet opened its mouth far wider than should be possible and spat out a fist-sized, impurity-free ore. Yang Kai’s eyes lit up and Yang Yan reached out her hand to pick it up.

But before she could, the Stone Puppet spat out another piece of ore, and then another, and another, soon spilling out dozens of pieces at a time, all of the clinking together as they rolled out onto the floor of the cave.

Yang Kai gawked while Yang Yan also froze up.

The scene in front of them was far different from what they had imagined would happen.

After ten breaths, a huge pile of ore appeared before them. The pieces of ore were translucent, like fine crystal, and exuded a halo of light. Only one of them had a different, cyan, colour.

The Stone Puppet staggered, as if it was quite tired, and soon fell onto its butt.

However, Yang Kai and Yang Yan were no longer paying any attention to it and instead were completely focused on the great pile of ore.

“Yang Yan, can a Stone Puppet swallow a single piece of ore then produce many others from nothing?” Yang Kai asked dumbly, thinking his question was quite absurd the moment it left his lips.

“Impossible,” Yang Yan didn’t know how to explain it. She stretched out her hand and picked up the only blue piece of ore, feeling it carefully before stating, “This is the purified essence of the ore I just fed it. There’s now no trace of impurities at all.”

Yang Kai also hurriedly picked up a different piece and observed it silently, a moment later a look of shock filling his face as he exclaimed, “This isn’t that blue ore, it’s Space Spirit Crystal!”

“Space Spirit Crystal?” Yang Yan beautiful face filled paled as she too quickly picked up a piece, trembling as she too called out, “It really is Space Spirit Crystal!”

With the stunning performance of the Stone Puppet just now, she had not gone to inspect what kind of ore it had spat out and was only now able to confirm it.

The pair stared at each other silently while a great storm brewed inside their hearts.

No one could give an answer as to what ore was the most precious in this world, but Space Spirit Crystals were undoubtedly one of them!

The collection of Space Spirit Crystal was very difficult because it did not generally collect in large scale mineral lodes like other ores. Usually, it could only be found as a secondary material in Dark Space Stone mines. The value of Dark Space Stone wasn’t very high. Although it was sometimes used in Artifact Refining, overall it wasn’t a high-grade ore. But the accompanying Space Spirit Crystals were different, their value was extremely high. Space Spirit Crystals were essential in the manufacturing of Space Rings worn by cultivators as well as Space Arrays used for instantaneous travel.

Often, if an entire Dark Space Stone mineral lode could produce a washbasin sized amount of Space Spirit Crystal, it would be considered high density. The most likely outcome was that no appreciable amount of Space Spirit Crystal would exist at all. To find Space Spirit Crystal, one needed luck, sometimes one would obtain some, but often they would not.

Because the demand was immense, and the supply was small, Space Spirit Crystal was always increasing in price.

But at this moment, a great pile of Space Spirit Crystal sat in front of Yang Kai and Yang Yan, each crystal about the size of a fist, with at least three or four hundred pieces in total.

Forget about Yang Yan, such an astonishing amount of wealth was enough to move even Yang Kai. This fist-sized chunk of Space Spirit Crystals could be exchanged for at least fifty thousand High-Rank Saint Crystals, the value of an Origin Grade artefact.

It doesn’t make sense that the Stone Puppet had magically acquired these Space Spirit Crystals after eating just a single piece of blue Origin Grade ore, so the only explanation was that it had been storing them in its stomach before.

“Yang Kai…” Yang Yan spoke with a trembling voice, “What mineral lode did this little fellow visit before?”

Yang Kai shook his head, “It was only born a few days ago, before then it was just a pitch-black round stone; however, over the past few days it kept burrowing into the ground nearby!”

Yang Yan couldn’t help gulping as she hesitantly asked, “You mean…”

Yang Kai took a deep breath and answered her with a solemn nod.

Yang Yan covered her mouth, afraid she might accidentally scream. These hundreds of pieces of fist-sized Space Spirit Crystal were enough to thoroughly astound her, but now she was hearing something far more incredible.

Suddenly, tears began dripping from her eyes as she stared at Yang Kai, “Yang Kai, you’re won’t try to silence the witness to the crime, right?”