Chapter 392: Lowering Refining Costs

Zhang Yu gazed at the Azure Sand Level 1 (0/10) on his Feather Book, and couldn't help sighing at the long road ahead in artifact refining.

But the next moment, a chill from the ritual power surged in his heart, reminding him to keep striving, and cutting off his sigh.

Zhang Yu immediately suppressed his stray thoughts and began the second refinement of Azure Sand.

"Buying the rights, renting the lab and equipment—that cost me nearly one Spirit Coin. How could refining it just once be enough?"

Zhang Yu checked the time; the first batch of Azure Sand had taken about twenty minutes to refine, and he had rented the lab and equipment for six hours total.

"Keep refining!"

Zhang Yu immediately raised his Qi energy, sweeping it toward the materials beside him.

This time Zhang Yu's moves were much more practiced; streams of Qi energy rolled out as he operated the materials and tools simultaneously.

Zhang Yu felt that the process of refining Azure Sand was quite similar to his usual practice of cultivation techniques.

It was just that he treated the raw materials as his own physical body, using various immortal arts techniques to transform them, finally obtaining the desired immortal effects.

And the process of improvement was like how the more skilled you were with a technique, the stronger the effect. The higher your Azure Sand refinement level, the better the finished product.

Beside him, Ye Xingli watched Zhang Yu start his second round of Azure Sand refining. At first she didn't pay it much mind, but then she frowned slightly. "Isn't the amount of ore a bit too little?"

Zhang Yu explained with a smile, "I wanted to save on material costs, so I can practice more times."

Ye Xingli advised, "If the ore amount changes, then the subsequent steps—including Qi energy and magical power output, and the heat of the Li Fire Furnace—will all be different."

"Beginners should stick to the standard amounts. After your skill improves, you can consider adjusting the amounts yourself."

Zhang Yu naturally did not accept Ye Xingli's suggestion.

Ye Xingli looked at Zhang Yu, who refused to listen, and shook her head, not offering further advice. But she thought to herself, "This kid... his artifact refining talent is so-so, but he's pretty stubborn."

Still, Ye Xingli wasn't surprised; beginners were often like this.

Especially beginners who had already accomplished impressive things in other fields; they were always full of confidence and usually had to stumble a few times in artifact refining before they learned to be grounded.

Ye Xingli watched Zhang Yu continue refining this smaller batch of Azure Sand. In the end, only about half the material was successfully refined; the other half was wasted.

Ye Xingli shook her head vigorously, thinking Zhang Yu should understand now.

But Zhang Yu was looking at the Azure Sand Level 1 (1/10) on his Feather Book, nodding to himself. "So even after changing the amount, it still counts as one."

Zhang Yu decided to keep reducing the amount in the next round, to see the minimum amount of material that would still make the Feather Book record it.

"This way, I can further reduce the cost of my artifact refining training."

Thinking this, Zhang Yu turned to Ye Xingli and asked, "Senior, since I'm only refining Azure Sand, I don't really need most of the other stuff in the lab. Do you need to use it?"

Ye Xingli was tempted by the idea.

It wasn't that she wanted to save money—renting a lab was nothing to her in terms of Spirit Coins.

Rather, standing around watching Zhang Yu was idle time; she might as well make use of it and do her own work.

A few Spirit Coins didn't matter to her, but a few extra hours for study and cultivation were very important.

Ye Xingli nodded. "I've been adjusting the magical bones on my body recently, so I could indeed use the equipment here."

"I won't freeload on the lab rental; we'll split it evenly."

"If you have any questions about artifact refining, feel free to ask me anytime."

Zhang Yu watched as Ye Xingli removed her right arm, manipulated the arm's magical bones with Qi energy, then placed it on a nearby instrument, observing data while injecting streams of special magical power.

Zhang Yu thought to himself, "The things I'm refining now are too simple. Using the lab alone is really wasteful."

"If I can rent the lab with someone else from now on and split the cost, I can save another pile of Spirit Coins."

Ever since he successfully completed his first Azure Sand refinement, Zhang Yu had been thinking about how to spend fewer Spirit Coins to advance his path in artifact refining.

"If I could also sell the Azure Sand, maybe I could even make a profit?"

But soon Zhang Yu dismissed the idea. "No, I probably can't make money. At best, I can just recover some costs."

Zhang Yu knew that Azure Sand, being the most basic material, was already mass-produced on assembly lines by many companies and factories.

Not only was their cost lower than his, but their average quality was also higher than his.

If he wanted to sell the Azure Sand, he would probably have to sell it at a loss just to recoup some of his costs.

"And if I want to mass-produce it, given my current conditions, it's simply impossible."

Zhang Yu knew that whether it was artifacts or Dharma Bones, when it came to producing this sort of thing, personally crafting each piece one by one was completely different from batch production on an assembly line.

"To set up a mass-production line, I either have to buy one or build one myself."

"The first requires a large amount of capital, while the second requires far less money but a very high level of artifact-forging skill."

Obviously, Zhang Yu did not meet either condition at the moment.

"For now, I should just solidify my foundation and focus on improving my forging technique."

Next, Zhang Yu continued adjusting the material proportions over and over, constantly trying to forge Azure Sand. He eventually discovered that as long as he used at least one-tenth of the standard material amount, each completed forging session would increase the Feather Book's completion count by one.

He thought happily, "Great. This way, I can cut the practice material cost down to one-tenth."

After trying out the adjustments to the proportions, Zhang Yu also decided to tweak the motions, timing, and other factors to see if he could shorten the time spent on each batch of Azure Sand forging.

After all, Zhang Yu understood that using the Feather Book's specialization ability to train was logically different from other daily training.

It was just like his previous practice techniques—each time he completed a full cycle, the count would increase by one, gradually raising the technique's level.

As for the process of performing the technique, the movements and quality could have some variation and degradation, as long as they stayed within a certain range.

Zhang Yu had been using this method all along to speed up his technique training.

Of course, this kind of function in the Feather Book was not without flaws.

For example, any technique switched to the Feather Book's specialization had to start from level 1, gradually improving by accumulating practice counts.

Thus… even though Zhang Yu had already practiced a large number of similar techniques—like various body-forging methods and protective arts—when he went to cultivate another similar technique, it would not provide any cross-field mastery effect; he still had to start from level 0 and stack up counts one after another to level up.

To him, his current artifact-forging skill was exactly the same.

"It also requires repeated practice counts to push up the level."

"But both the quality and the time during practice should be compressible."

"My logic of cultivation is completely different from ordinary people cultivating techniques or practicing artifact forging."

As Zhang Yu repeatedly adjusted the process of forging Azure Sand, Night Star Li beside him would occasionally observe, and the more she watched, the more speechless she became.

"What is Zhang Yu doing, making such a mess?"

"Not only is he skimping on materials, but he's also randomly messing with the motions and timing?"

Night Star Li knew that ever since the Ten Great Sects had standardized and codified immortal cultivation, everything had been pushed toward standardization and digitization, and every aspect of immortal cultivation technology now had a systematic design.

Artifact forging was naturally no exception.

Unlike in the past, when each school and sect felt like a manual workshop and even the artifacts produced only had rough realm classifications without detailed grade distinctions.

Nowadays, the artifact evaluation system and the forging process were already extremely refined.

If a cultivator wanted to improve their forging skill and produce higher-grade artifacts, they had to keep learning and then engage in high-quality practice.

"Zhang Yu, you can't just train so haphazardly."

Night Star Li couldn't help but remind him, "If you want to save on practice costs, there are more standard, tried-and-true methods. You don't have to do it like this."

"For instance, you can sell the Azure Sand you forge to recoup some costs."

"After all, Azure Sand is a basic material needed in many artifact forging processes, and many teachers and students in the Artifact Forging Department will buy it."

"You could also use the simulation lab in the Spirit World for practice—the cost is much lower than training with real materials."

Of course, Zhang Yu knew about these cost-saving methods that Night Star Li mentioned.

But from his current effect of compressing costs, he felt he could push the cost even lower than the simulation lab and still get a batch of finished Azure Sand.

Night Star Li naturally had no idea what was going on in Zhang Yu's mind, so she simply went on to introduce other ways to reduce costs.

"It's not just relatively simple products like Azure Sand that can have their costs lowered for practice."

"The same goes for higher-grade artifacts. Besides the simulation lab, you can also substitute cheaper materials and practice by producing inferior versions."

"For even higher-end artifacts, after completing the first forging, you can also raise your forging skill level through repeated maintenance, adjustments, and enhancements. That way, the cost is much lower, too."

"For example, my master's Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Pagoda was refined, repaired, and strengthened again and again, with its artifact level going from level 31 all the way to level 40."

"During this process, my master's artifact-refining skills also improved greatly, and the manufacturing technique for the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Pagoda reached level 40."

Zhang Yu understood that the so-called 'manufacturing technique for the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Pagoda reaching level 40' meant that, given sufficient materials and production conditions, the Magnetic Pole True Lord could directly produce a Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Pagoda with an artifact level of 40.

"But just from the name, this thing sounds expensive and certainly requires a lot of effort," Zhang Yu thought. "Unless someone pays a high price, I'm afraid the Magnetic Pole True Lord won't easily produce a second one."

Ye Xingli actually had another important way to save money that she didn't mention: participating in the school's artifact-refining projects, using the project funds to purchase materials, rent venues, buy equipment, and advance her own artifact-refining cultivation.

After all, the artifact-refining industry is incredibly expensive to burn through money; even though Ye Xingli was already very wealthy, she always felt that she never had enough money to spend, and her artifact-refining budget was always overrun.

So, top students in the artifact-refining department like her basically all participated in various different artifact-refining projects.

In her view, requesting funding was even more of a necessary skill for becoming a strong artifact refiner, one that must be learned.

However, as a civil engineering student who was still at an entry-level, Zhang Yu was still far from all of this, so she simply didn't mention it.

And just as Ye Xingli was admonishing Zhang Yu, Zhang Yu finally completed another round of refining Azure Sand.

Azure Sand Level 2 (0/20)