Black King wasted no time and immediately started to spout words of flattery. "Congratulations, Master! Congratulations!"

However, all he got in response was, "Shut up! I'm thinking."

Black King flicked his tongue, looking dejected as he retreated to the side. From time to time, his vertical pupils glanced at Luo Chen, whose brows were tightly knitted. His project had clearly succeeded. So why wasn't he happy?

"This should not be happening..."

Luo Chen stared at the armor plate in his hand with uncertainty and shifted his mana to activate it. In an instant, the blue plate transformed into a stream of light that enveloped his entire body, forming ancient-looking patterns that flowed like rivers. A protective coating formed from head to toe, covering his limbs, torso, and even his eyes.

He summoned the Flowing Fire Hammer and brought it down on himself.

BOOOMM!!

A dull sound rang out, yet Luo Chen did not move at all. The shock force rippled through his internal organs, but his powerful physique rendered it nearly ineffective. His gaze fell on Black King. "Shoot a water arrow at me."

Black King hesitated. "Master... that doesn't seem right. How could I dare strike at you? That would be disrespectful..."

"Alright, cut the nonsense. Make sure the power is around the early stage of the third tier."

As Luo Chen's tone grew firmer, Black King did not dare delay. He immediately gathered demonic power and spat out a black water arrow. The arrow shot forward with fierce force, its aura cold and biting. An Initiate would instantly die upon contact, and even an early-stage Adept would need to defend properly. Yet as the arrow shot toward him, Luo Chen neither dodged nor moved to block. He simply infused more mana into the Dark Blue Profound Armor.

Pssssss!

A soft sound followed. The blue light trembled for a moment, then quickly settled back into stillness.

"It really does carry the properties of that defensive enchanted treasure. It's not just the physical piece of armor; it actually forms a qi armor. It can block physical strikes from enchanted treasures, and it can withstand energy attacks from both cultivators and demonic beasts. So... I actually succeeded in one go. But that shouldn't be possible..."

With both tests successful, the shock in Luo Chen's heart only grew stronger. He had always been used to failure. Any success he achieved usually came after repeated practice. But this time, it had been far too easy. He understood his own artifact creation skill clearly; even without hearing Devil's Cloud's evaluation, he would have arrived at the exact same conclusion. At present, his craftsmanship was still only at the level of crafting enchanted artifacts. His success rate was highest with low- and mid-grade artifacts, and he would produce top-grade ones only occasionally, after multiple failures. As for enchanted treasures, he had never succeeded once. It was because of those failed attempts that he obtained a few supreme-grade artifacts, and it was only because the materials were so exceptional that they retained part of their original power.

Because of this, he had lost a lot of spirit stones and had been forced to risk offending local artisans of the Society by selling enchanted artifacts to recoup his losses. This led him to realize that achieving success in artifact creation would take a long and difficult road. He was also well aware of the reasons. First, he had not spent enough time immersed in the craft. Second, he lacked guidance from a true master. Although Duan Feng had laid some foundation for him early on, the man himself had not reached a high level.

In addition, his own style of artifact creation was rather... non-standard. Other artisans relied on earth fire, furnaces, and cauldrons, with formation masters and fire handlers working tirelessly to assist them. They also used various secret techniques and materials to adjust the crafting process. As for him, his method was simple: He relied solely on the Primordial Unity Cauldron. For the fire, he merely used his own mana to power the Withering-Flourishing True Fire for convenience.

The more he understood himself, the lower his expectations became for utilizing the Demon Emperor's remains. He could not afford to wait until he reached the optimal level. Instead, he planned to begin once he was able to craft the six basic sets of armor as supreme-grade enchanted artifacts.

But now, something unexpected had happened. On his very first attempt at one of the six sets, he had succeeded! 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Could I really be some genius at artifact creation? No, that'd be ridiculous.

Had he truly been a genius, his earlier attempts at crafting low-grade offensive enchanted treasures would not have failed. He glanced at the system panel: Second-Tier Artisan

Sure enough, his mastery still remained at the second tier. It was nowhere near the level required to craft low-grade enchanted treasures, and even the system judged it that way. And yet, he had clearly succeeded this time. Not only had he refined a low-grade enchanted treasure, but it was also a defensive one, something extremely rare and valuable. At the same time, the fact that this success hadn't caused his rank to go up in the system panel could only mean that his skill was simply far too lacking.

"Why is this happening?"

Luo Chen fell into deep thought. The cave residence sank into an indescribable silence. Even the usually restless Black King did not dare breathe loudly, afraid of disturbing him.

After a while, Luo Chen slowly raised his head and looked at the great cauldron in the middle.

"Could it be this..."

After thinking it through, the only variable seemed to be the Primordial Unity Cauldron. He remembered clearly that his previous attempts at crafting low-grade enchanted treasures had followed standard procedure: processing materials, refining them, fusing them, forging them with mana or casting them into molds, and finally inscribing formations. Most failures occurred during the fusion and inscription stages.

But this time, the process had been different. Because of Huangfu Song's break-in, he had been forced to halt the crafting midway and left the materials inside the cauldron. The later fusion, refinement, and even the adaptation stage after inscription had all taken place within it. Especially during the past half year on Winding Island, he had been immense in practicing Dragon-Slaying Art with soul essence. Without realizing it, he had allowed the armor's embryonic form to be nurtured inside the cauldron for half a year.

Still uncertain, he rose into the air. Under Black King's stare, he flew straight into the cauldron, even while the flames beneath it were still burning.

"Is Master going to stew himself in the cauldron?"

Inside the cauldron, Luo Chen reached out and touched its wall, despite the scorching heat it radiated. It did not feel like metal, nor like stone or wood, and it carried a gentle warmth. Within it, faint forces of wind and lightning stirred endlessly. All this time, he had nurtured this life-bound enchanted treasure within his sea of qi, observing it only through divine consciousness. This time, he chose to sense it from the inside, directly with his physical body. The moment he touched it, a sense of connection rose within him—as if his blood was calling out to the cauldron. This was one of the well-known marks of a life-bound treasure.

As he continued to observe it, he gradually gained some insight. He had nurtured this cauldron for nearly thirty years now. At first, its power had been unremarkable and it had been difficult to control due to the impurities left behind in the refinement process. As it was continuously nurtured by Luo Chen's mana and refined in fire, the impurities within it had diminished, and its wonderful features had gradually revealed themselves. For instance, the nine crimson chains that appeared around him were one manifestation of its power. Those chains possessed formidable restraining force, and they even had the ability to detect and track down targets on their own, although that ability still had room for improvement. This was one of the reasons he had been able to detect Yan Zhixian's sneak attack during the demon hunter assessment. Beyond that, the cauldron's restraining ability had also begun to shine. It forced down Qian Ting and even restrained a late-stage Ghost King.

But this was not the limit of its power. After all, it inherently possessed five primary functions: restraining, confinement, binding, nurturing, and refinement. The restraining and binding functions had been used to great effect in the past years, and Black King's residence within the cauldron was an example of confining a living being in its internal space. But this was one of the three great cauldrons of Green Pill Valley, and it was obvious to Luo Chen that its most important functions were in fact nurturing and refinement.

In this case, "refinement" referred to the process of creating items or pills. Naturally, Luo Chen had used it extensively for the latter purpose, and the cauldron had delivered excellent results, often surpassing the expected grade of the pills. However, he had never truly explored its nurturing function. If there was a reason this first attempt had succeeded, the reason had to be this very function.