Chapter 3293 — Finally Success!

"Of course you can," Jiao Yazi said, and this time he did not hedge; he answered with flat certainty. "Judging by the refining method, it simply carves out a small additional space in the jade pendant to store five spirit-beast essence pellets. So it will do your jade pendant no harm at all. You can refine with confidence—if it fails, the pendant will not be ruined; at worst, your essence pellets will be wasted."

"Having the essence pellets wasted is painful enough!" Wei Zhao said with a bitter smile. Those five spirit-beast essence pellets had cost him enormous effort to collect, and to see them thrown away just like that would grieve him deeply.

"Isn't that better than the jade pendant being ruined?" Elder Jiao shot back with a chuckle.

"That much is true," Wei Zhao nodded.

Once the five spirit-beast essence pellets, the pure yellow jade, the blue crystal, and the colored steel—all the materials—were laid out ready, Wei Zhao drew a deep breath and formally began preparing to refine the Essence Condensation Necklace.

The jade pendant could not be ruined by the refinement, but if the refinement failed, all those materials would be wasted!

He had gathered every one of these materials through a thousand hardships; for the blue crystal alone he had nearly lost his life. So there was no question of his failing to be careful.

After reading the refining instructions for the Essence Condensation Necklace several times over, Wei Zhao cautiously placed measured proportions of colored steel, pure yellow jade, and blue crystal on the ground, and only then took the jade pendant from around his neck.

Before refining, Wei Zhao read the instructions once more, several times through. The instructions were, of course, fairly simple—not so very different from the method for refining the jade pendant's space—but they added a few more steps.

Fortunately, Wei Zhao had the experience of succeeding at refining the jade pendant's space on his very first attempt, so this time he could begin smoothly.

The opening steps were in fact identical to the method for refining the jade pendant's space; naturally, Wei Zhao also used the mental cultivation formula for refining the pendant's space, not the formula for refining the Essence Condensation Necklace.

That formula was simply too complicated—Wei Zhao had no confidence at all in learning it, nor any wish to try.

Fortunately, the initial refinement went very smoothly, and the sensation was the same as when he had first refined the jade pendant's space.

Wei Zhao's hands worked ceaselessly at the forging fire, and from time to time he had to reshape and reform the auxiliary materials by hand, merging them into the jade pendant.

After repeating this many times over many hours, he finally reached the crucial next step—the step wholly unlike refining the jade pendant's space. Because the five essence pellets required very little space, the time and materials spent were not great; previously, refining the pendant's space at home had taken three days, yet now less than a single day had passed and he was already at the second step!

Even so, the essence pellet the ghost thing had given him was plainly very different from the others, and that ghost thing would not let him use it, so Wei Zhao could hardly dispose of it as he pleased. That left six pellets that could be used to refine the Essence Condensation Necklace.

But Wei Zhao had prepared only five; the extra one he put away for now. He feared that if this refinement failed, wasting six essence pellets at once would be a bitter blow, so he kept one in reserve. If it succeeded, there would be time enough to refine again later.

This step was in truth the hardest of all, because it was not merely a matter of placing the five spirit-beast essence pellets into the pendant's space and being done with it. Each had to be fixed at a certain point within that space, so that the five pellets formed a cycle of the Five Elements, each anchored at its own spatial support point without the slightest deviation!

Yet in truth, Wei Zhao enjoyed a considerable advantage here. Other artifact refiners had no such connection with a jade pendant as Wei Zhao did; that is, when a refiner implanted essence pellets into a pendant's space, he relied entirely on feeling and experience—whether a pellet could be smoothly fixed at a support point was purely a matter of luck. If he failed, an essence pellet was wasted; a pellet that could not be fixed at a support point, once merged into the pendant's space, could not be taken out again and could only be discarded.

Wei Zhao was different. To his delight, he could not only "see" the scene within the pendant's space, but when an essence pellet failed to fix at a support point and fell away that first time, he could actually retrieve it from the pendant's space!

This too was because the earlier method of refining the small space had been exactly the same as refining the pendant's space—and Wei Zhao could of course use his consciousness to control the pendant's space!

This made his work much easier: if a pellet was badly placed, he simply placed it again. Though slower, every single one succeeded. Wei Zhao went ahead and set the sixth remaining essence pellet on the fire-element support point as well!

Each additional spirit-beast essence pellet increased the odds of defense and attack by another degree. By placing one on the fire attribute, Wei Zhao ensured that when he unleashed fire-element martial techniques, the chance of his moves being strengthened was somewhat greater, and his odds of defending against fire-element attacks rose accordingly.

Once the Five Elements support points were fixed, adding an essence pellet at any given support point would enhance the corresponding attribute's power. This thrilled Wei Zhao—all six essence pellets had fused successfully!

The five days passed in tense refinement. Wei Zhao's heart was full of unease as he followed the instructions step by step, advancing with steady, solid care.

But heaven rewards the diligent: at last, on the evening of the fifth day, Wei Zhao completed every step of the refinement.

Watching the jade pendant before him return to its former appearance, Wei Zhao slowly withdrew the forging fire. The Essence Condensation Necklace had finally been successfully refined!

Though the pendant in his hand looked no different from before—indeed, outwardly it was identical—Wei Zhao, having been through this once already, knew that this was simply how the pendant looked after a successful refinement. (To be continued.)

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