Chapter 1750: Unable to Refine

In his cultivation room, Li Yan examined the jade slips and manuals once more. To his disappointment, he still found no useful information.

‘It seems that was a major secret of his, and he didn’t want to carry a recording of it,’ Li Yan thought with frustration. He then examined the rest of the leader’s belongings, excluding the array. After nearly an hour of searching, his efforts yielded no reward. He sighed and put the items away.

He then shot a thread of Divine Sense at the Crimson-Shadow Blade. The moment they touched, the blade tried to fly away again. But under Li Yan’s control, where could it go?

“No matter who you are! To dare touch my things…” A cold, indifferent voice suddenly rang out in Li Yan’s mind. But before the voice could finish, Li Yan’s expressionless Divine Sense transformed into a brutal force, smashing into the residual mental seal.

Bang!

The blade vibrated violently and erupted with red light. The unfinished voice was cut off instantly. It was merely a masterless mental remnant; Li Yan had no intention of being polite. There was no soul for a Soul Search, so he simply destroyed it.

With the seal gone, he didn’t hesitate to begin refining the artifact. He bit the tip of his tongue and spat a drop of blood onto it. He performed hand seals, and runes carrying his mental imprint fell onto the blade. Next, he used his Nascent Fire to begin the process…

An hour later, a look of shock appeared on Li Yan’s face. Refining an artifact could take a few breaths or several years, but usually, once he started, he would either finish quickly or settle into a long-term process. Regardless, he would usually feel the artifact begin to form a connection with his mind, a connection that grew stronger over time.

The Crimson-Shadow Blade was now masterless, yet after an hour of refining, he hadn’t formed a single shred of connection with it.

‘My refining method doesn’t work on this?’ He thought. He beckoned the blade into his hand and turned it over, examining it meticulously. After a while, he tried again, using a different refining method…

Four days later, Li Yan had the blade hovering before his forehead as he examined it once more. He had done this dozens of times, expanding and shrinking the blade and viewing it in different ways, but found nothing. He had tried dozens of refining methods, none of which worked. Instead of frustration, he became even more serious. This suggested the artifact held a significant secret.

He had sensed the leader’s mental strength and judged it to be similar to his own. If that man could refine it, why couldn’t he? Li Yan’s Divine Sense entered the blade again, searching every inch. He had done this every time over the past few days. This time, he was even more meticulous, using magical power to stimulate the blade to see how spiritual energy flowed within.

After another hour and a half—the longest he had spent—he had only finished searching one side. The blade was small, and Li Yan had memorized every pattern on it. But this time, he used various methods to test every suspicious line, light spot, and tiny rise…

The blade showed no abnormality, other than being able to be basic-controlled by magical power and Divine Sense. He could force it to carry him through the air, but he couldn’t use it as naturally as his own limbs, nor could he achieve its true speed. He remembered its incredible concealment at high speeds, which had amazed him. But now, the moment he activated it, the blade hummed loudly. Forget concealment; any Nascent Soul cultivator with enough speed could track it.

As he was about to flip the blade to search the other side, he paused. His gaze had landed on the blade’s edge—now a thin line. The blade was only two inches long, and the edge was as thin as a strand of hair. Previously, he had naturally focused on the body of the blade and ignored the nearly invisible “edge”!

Coldly, Li Yan sent his Divine Sense toward the sharp edge. His expression didn’t show any impatience from his previous failures. Because the edge was so thin, it appeared translucent, like a faint jade-white ring wrapping around the blade. As his sense swept over it, he felt only a biting chill; no other abnormality appeared.

He soon finished observing both sides of the edge. Under his control, the blade rotated again. A narrow side came before his eyes. This small section, besides the tip, had three smooth and sharp surfaces—two long and one short—like the tip of a blade that had been snapped off. But even the “snapped” end was smooth and sharp, no different from the other two edges.

Li Yan watched the final edge, his Divine Sense sweeping slowly across it. He could see everything; there wasn’t even a single pattern. Its cleanliness made it feel even sharper, as if it could cut through anything. He frowned; he had thought the edge might reveal something, but everything was normal.

‘Perhaps this blade requires a unique control method that the man didn’t record. If that’s the case, its power is greatly reduced…’ He thought.

He was about to flip the blade over when he suddenly stopped. He had found a faint white spot at the junction of two edges. Because the edge was so thin, the pale white spot was almost indistinguishable from the translucency of the edge itself. If he hadn’t been so meticulous, he wouldn’t have noticed. He quickly rotated the blade, keeping his sense locked on it.

After a full rotation, he found that of all the corners where the edges met, only one had this pale white spot. He didn’t inspect it immediately, but performed a hand seal on the blade. He used the Treasure-Communing Art, which worked on most artifacts. The blade suddenly expanded.

In a breath, it was over ten feet long—a giant dark-red blade. Li Yan stopped the technique. He rotated the giant blade and found the edges were now much thicker. He checked every corner, and his eyes flickered. He did this because, if he remembered correctly, he hadn’t seen the white spot when the blade was enlarged earlier.

This meant the white spot wasn’t a flaw from the forging process, but a specialized feature that only appeared at its original size. He shrunk the blade back to an inch, and once again, he couldn’t find the spot. When the blade returned to its normal size, the pale white spot reappeared at the junction!

Li Yan was certain. He suspected the spot was a hidden restriction planted by the smith. Of course, he still couldn’t rule out the need for a specific technique, but breaking another’s artifact always required repeated attempts. Without the technique, he had to consider other possibilities. If all else failed, he would just wait for another chance.

His Divine Sense focused on the white spot, which expanded infinitely in his mind. It looked like a white bubble covered in patterns. From one angle, they looked like horizontal spirals winding from the top toward the center. Then, they narrowed toward the other end.

With his own experience in smithing, Li Yan felt this was a specific pattern caused by the material or the recording of an array. It was like the hidden grain on a blade caused by the forging of the material, not something placed there intentionally. Li Yan tried to touch the spirals with his sense in different ways, but there was no response. Instead, staring at them for too long made him feel dizzy.

‘Hmm?’ These patterns gave him a sense of deja vu. He suddenly thought of some silk threads… Every time he looked at them for too long, he felt this way.

‘This… this is an array restriction!’ He had an epiphany. He was familiar with this dizziness; he had felt it when looking at the silk threads inside the Sky-Stealing Scarf. He had tried to observe or break the Scarf using his Divine Sense and other methods, but had always failed…

The Sky-Stealing Scarf was an unknown artifact that could break array restrictions. It likely contained a law of the world or some combination of arrays that gave it that effect. Now, Li Yan stopped trying to attack the white spot with his sense or his own array knowledge. With a thought, a silken scarf appeared before him.

This was his strongest tool for breaking arrays. If this didn’t work, he believed he wouldn’t be able to break this restriction with his current skills. The Sky-Stealing Scarf shrank rapidly until it was invisible to the naked eye, appearing as a tiny dot in his Divine Sense. Under his control, it flew toward the corner of the blade.

In his Divine Sense, the Scarf was its normal size as it flew toward the large white light and covered it. The moment it touched, the Crimson-Shadow Blade vibrated gently. Li Yan’s spirit was lifted. He knew the array on the blade had reacted to the threat. Unlike his previous attempts, this one had actually engaged the restriction.

Several seconds passed. the blade continued to vibrate gently, but nothing else happened. Li Yan’s Divine Sense remained locked on the spot, waiting to see if the Scarf would succeed.