Chapter 527: Soaring to the Heavens

Bai Hongtu laughed uproariously, so he got beaten up pretty badly.

Ji Zhi was pulling them apart on the side while advising: “You should hit him lighter. Even if Bai Hongtu wrote one version of ‘The Biography of Human Sovereign Jiang,’ you don’t need to be this angry.”

Jiang Li froze, then looked at Bai Hongtu with an unfriendly expression.

“You bastard! How dare you reveal that!” Bai Hongtu roared in fury.

The three of them quietly scuffled below the stage while above them, Yu Yin spoke with an icy demeanor, welcoming all participating cultivators to the Tianyuan Dynasty.

“Since the Luban Sect Master is participating in the competition, to avoid conflict of interest, the Luban Sect cannot provide judges. For this reason, the Luban Sect Master has invited me to serve as judge for this competition.” Though her tone showed no emotion, even being cold, Yu Yin actually placed great importance on this competition.

Her cold tone was simply due to her personality.

The crowd cheered from below the stage. Having Empress Yu Yin as judge meant they might have the chance to exchange a few words with this top-tier powerful figure.

They felt that speaking a few sentences in front of Yu Yin and leaving a good impression could bring them endless benefits.

“This competition uses an elimination system with three rounds. We will now begin the first round.”

“Artifact refining is a craft with a long history, with the Dao Ancestor representing its peak. However, in recent years, the artifact refining techniques of the Nine Provinces have stagnated without innovation.”

“For artifact refining to develop long-term, it needs new vitality injected into it. This requires refiners to break out of old thinking patterns and use creative ideas to expand new paths for artifact refining.” The Luban Sect representative introduced the competition theme.

“Legend says that before the path of cultivation was fully established, people looked up at the sky and believed that flying through the skies and moving through earth was what immortals did.”

“As the path of immortality opened, flying became something easily achievable through cultivation, riding flying boats… all can achieve flight.”

“But none of these can be separated from spiritual energy.”

“Previously we didn’t think there was anything wrong with using spiritual energy, but in the Mingzhong World, we witnessed completely different approaches from cultivation. They utilize various natural laws to construct incredible machines that enable flight. If not for the Mingzhong World’s abnormal gravity, they would have already been traveling through space long ago.”

“Therefore, the first round’s challenge is ‘Flight’ – using artifact refining techniques to create machines that can make people fly without using spiritual energy as power. The puppets will ride these machines to fly.”

The Luban Sect representative pointed at a puppet and said: “Please note, this is a humanoid puppet without spiritual intelligence, no different from ordinary humans. The puppet must fly without sustaining any damage.”

“Competition time is two hours. Begin now.”

After the rules were announced, many refiners wore bitter expressions. They had studied artifact refining their entire lives, and all the spiritual treasures they created used spiritual energy as power. Now being forbidden from using spiritual energy – how were they supposed to proceed?

But more refiners looked excited. After the Nine Provinces made contact with the Mingzhong World, they had become particularly interested in Mingzhong World’s technology. It was like opening another door for artifact refining techniques.

They had studied various technological theories for a long time, and now was the time to put them into practice.

“Flight without spiritual energy?” The Luban Sect Master pondered. This was a challenge set by Yu Yin, and he had no preparation beforehand.

“I saw a machine called a helicopter in the Mingzhong World that uses nuclear energy as power source. I could try that.”

The Luban Sect Master had scanned a helicopter with his spiritual sense, and the principles involved made him marvel in admiration.

Building a helicopter wasn’t difficult for him.

Flying high and safely – there was no better choice than an aircraft.

“The higher the flight, the higher the ranking? Then definitely must go to space.” Artifact Refining Peak Master Tang Ben contemplated. “The Zombie World has something called a spaceship that can fly to space.”

Building a spaceship wasn’t difficult for Tang Ben.

“This round doesn’t require too much refining skill.” Jiang Li thought for a moment and found this challenge not difficult.

Yu indifferently watched the busy refiners below the stage without speaking.

…

Two hours passed quickly. The competition venue looked completely different from the beginning, now displaying various creatively imagined flying vehicles.

Yu Yin stood up and descended from the stage to inspect the refining results, the Wishful Gourd swaying at her waist, making its presence known.

“What is this object?” Yu Yin saw something that looked like a spatula for making pancake wraps, with horizontal and vertical parts.

“Reporting to Your Majesty, this is called a bamboo-copter. I created this flying product by combining Mingzhong World’s technology. The only current problem is its expensive production cost.”

“Put this on the puppet’s head and let me see the results.”

As the refiner placed the bamboo-copter on the puppet’s head, he explained: “Just press this button lightly, the propeller will spin, and it can make the puppet fly up to the sky.”

Saying this, the refiner pressed the button. The propeller spun rapidly, making the puppet spin at high speed along with it.

Then the bamboo-copter flew up to the sky with the puppet’s head still attached.

“…Your bamboo-copter is quite lethal to people,” the Wishful Gourd commented.

“Those who’ve used it don’t leave bad reviews, right?”

“I’ll improve it, definitely improve it next time,” the refiner quickly said.

Needless to ask, this refiner was eliminated.

“What is this object?” Yu Yin saw a pile of armor fragments placed beside a puppet.

“This is called flying armor.” The participant was a Luban Sect elder.

The Luban Sect elder clapped his hands, and the armor fragments seemed to come to life, attaching to the puppet. In the blink of an eye, the puppet was fully armed without any exposed areas.

The armored puppet flew a circle in the air and landed safely.

Yu Yin nodded and softly uttered two words: “Not bad.”

“This flying armor has expensive production costs and cannot be mass-produced.”

“The flying armor was made for my wife, but I’ve been stuck on one problem that prevented completion.” The Luban Sect elder’s wife was a puppet that had developed spiritual intelligence.

“What problem?” the Wishful Gourd asked curiously.

“When the armor covers the head, it easily pulls her hair.”

“…That really is a big problem.”

Next, Yu Yin saw the helicopter refined by the Luban Sect Master, powered by nuclear energy.

“I’m still in the exploratory phase with things like nuclear fusion and fission, so I just went to the sun and extracted part of its solar energy. After refining it, it became stable energy to maintain the helicopter’s flight.”

The helicopter carried the puppet up to the sky.

The helicopter’s production cost was much cheaper than the flying armor.

Then Artifact Refining Peak Master Tang Ben displayed his results – a spaceship that carried the puppet into space.

So far, Tang Ben’s flying device had reached the highest altitude.

As for the cheapest production cost, that belonged to a refiner who tied the puppet to a kite.

Yu Yin turned her gaze toward Ji Zhi’s area.

Ji Zhi slowly took out a communication talisman.

“Hello, Flying Cloud Trading Company? Please send a flying demon beast for me, the cheapest one. Spirit stones payment upon delivery.”