Zhao Di carefully picked up a piece of refined copper scrap that he had ruined, put it into the small cauldron, covered it with the lid, and quietly waited for a miracle to happen.

  Based on his previous research on the Xīao Dǐngs reversal of heavens effect, any spiritual object that inherently contains spiritual energy but is not in its most full state can potentially upgrade its spiritual energy to its peak within the Xīao Dǐng, i.e., the maximum spiritual energy determined by the material properties of the spiritual object itself. The more spiritual energy increased, the longer the time spent.

  For example, secondary dan and low-grade spiritual stones can be upgraded to ordinary dan medicine and high-grade spiritual stones through small cauldrons. Dan sand can also become more spiritually abundant. So, refining the bad fine copper is like secondary dan, its possible for small cauldrons to upgrade it to ordinary fine copper.

  An hour later, Zhao Di opened the lid of the cauldron with great anticipation.

  Indeed, the refined copper in the cauldron had a greatly increased spiritual energy, and its color was even more radiant and bright. Compared to his carefully purified pieces of refined copper, this piece in the cauldron seemed to be slightly superior.

  Although he didnt know if the small tripod could further enhance the refined copper, Zhao Di dared not continue experimenting anymore. What if he accidentally cultivated refined copper with astonishing spiritual power and aroused the suspicion of Kuang Shi Shu? He would lose everything for a small gain.

  He took this piece of fine copper out of a small tripod and put it into another piece of fine copper that had been tempered badly.

  More than half a time later, he took out the fine copper from the tripod.

  Zhao Di, who had overused his divine consciousness and was suffering from a headache and dizziness, finally put down his guard and fell into a deep sleep.

  This sleep lasted for two days and two nights! Zhao Di, who had a good sleep, regained his senses. At this time, although there were only seven or eight days left until the deadline of one month, he still had half of the ore that hadnt been refined.

  But Zhao Di, who had a small tripod in his hand, was not panicked at all.

  He simply threw all the remaining ore in front of him at once, and then a "Floating Technique" spell was cast, causing these ores to float in the center of the stone house about ten feet high. Then he injected a stream of spiritual power into the dragon head stone statues on both sides of the stone house with his hands, and a flame pillar as thick as an arm spewed out from the open mouth of the statue, directly burning onto the ore. After a moment, it turned into tiny droplets, still floating in mid-air.

  Zhao Di didnt care whether the fine copper in the ore had been smelted by the earth fire for too long, and simply used his divine sense to control the fine copper liquid to gather into five or six small clusters.

  After much effort, all the refined copper liquid finally gathered together, Zhao Di withdrew the spiritual power controlling the earth fire, and the dragon heads on both sides of the stone house suddenly stopped spouting fire pillars.

  At the same time, a stream of spiritual energy was sent into the dragons head at the west end of the stone house, and the dragons head flowed out with streams of spring water, quickly filling up the pool below, after which no more spring water flowed out.

  Zhao Di manipulated the floating copper liquid, quickly flying into the pool, and after a "zila" sound and a burst of white smoke, several pieces of pure copper material appeared in the pool.

  The whole process took Zhao Di about seven or eight hours, and he was already exhausted and sweating profusely.

  Fortunately, the loss of spiritual energy was not too severe, and he had been holding a high-grade spirit stone in his hand all along, which could be used to replenish it at any time. As for the consumption of divine consciousness, it seemed that it could only be slowly recovered through rest.

  But the result was five or six pieces of spiritual energy that were obviously insufficient, with dull colors. One of them was even dark brown, with very little spiritual energy, and far from the golden color that refined copper should have had.

  This is the result of purifying too many minerals at once, while the divine sense is not fine enough for operation.

  But Zhao Di didnt care; after all, he had the small Ding. He used a few pieces of fine copper scrap in the small Ding to cultivate for about half an hour, then continued to sit and rest.

  The deadline of one month was approaching soon, Zhao Di confidently carried more than ten pieces of fine copper material and left the refining room.

  Lu Shixiong had been waiting in the stone corridor outside the refining room, and after Zhao Di and the other two came out of their respective refining rooms, the four of them left the stone corridor through the transmission array and continued along the stone staircase they had walked before, heading towards Bai Cui Hall.

  Along the way, several people were silent. Zhao Di secretly glanced at Fang Fu and Ma Gao a few times, finding that they all showed anxious expressions. Apparently, their refining results were not ideal either.

  Two people couldnt see any expression on Zhao Dis face, no sadness or joy, and they were even more anxious in their hearts. Ma Gao felt that this mountain road to the refining room was too far and too long when he went there before, but now he wished that this road would never reach its end.

  Unfortunately, under his nervous mood, it seemed like only a short period of time had passed when the group arrived at Bai Zhen Tang.

  In Baizheng Hall, that slightly chubby Master Kuang was still sitting in the armchair, eyes closed and meditating.

  But this time was different, as soon as Zhao Di and several others stepped into the palace gate, he opened his eyes.

  "How much pure copper has been extracted? Pour it out and take a look." Master Kuang completely ignored Zhao Dis and the other three peoples comprehension of the situation, and instead went straight to the topic of checking the results of the extraction. After all, theoretical discussions and actual operation results are obviously more direct and important than the former.

  The three of them took out the storage bag that was originally filled with copper ore, poured its contents in front of them, and then looked at the copper material in front of the other two without saying a word.

  Zhao Di also quickly glanced over and found that both of them had only refined eight or nine pieces of pure copper material, and more than half of it was waste material that had been poorly refined.

  But in front of Zhao Dis body were eleven pieces of fine copper material, only three of which were scrap metal, and the difference was clear at a glance.

  Including Zhao Di, the three of them all felt a pang in their hearts. The difference was that while Zhao Di only felt a slight sinking feeling, his face didnt show any changes. What he was worried about was that he had performed too exceptionally well and feared arousing the suspicions of this Master Kuang.

  With Zhao Dis original intention, he was supposed to be at a level similar to the other two people, without standing out too much. However, underestimating others based on himself, he still misjudged the results of the other two peoples distillation. He didnt expect that the distillation techniques of these two people were far worse than what he had imagined.

  Ma Gao and Fang Fu were much simpler, their own results, whether in quality or quantity, fell behind Zhao Di, with a look of shame and tension on their faces.

  Lu Shixiong and Kuang Shishu on the side were slightly surprised, apparently Zhao Dis results exceeded their expectations.

  "Wow! This piece of refined copper is not bad, very good!" He picked up a glittering piece of refined copper in front of Zhao Di and examined it carefully, his face beaming with joy. "Looks like you have a natural talent for refining equipment, whats your name?"

  "Master Zhao Di, thank you for the praise, this is all due to Master Shus careful teaching." Zhao Di hastily added a flattering remark that even he himself found embarrassing.

  "Hmm, Zhao Shidi, tell me, when you were refining this piece of fine copper and the others, what was different about the process?" asked Kuang Shi Shu with a nod and a smile.

  "Back to Master Kuang, after entering the refining room, I first spent three days carefully studying the Refining Jade Classics you taught me. After comprehending and understanding it, I began to refine and purify the pure copper ore. However, due to my poor control over the Earth Lung Fire, the first two attempts failed to produce high-quality refined copper material. After resting for a day, I continued refining, and this time, for some reason, the Earth Lung Fire was extremely stable, making it easier to manipulate. I refined with ease, and thus produced this piece of refined copper material. However, afterwards, no matter how hard I tried, I couldnt produce another identical piece of refined copper material. It always seemed slightly inferior. On one occasion, due to excessive mental exhaustion, I failed to grasp the fire timing accurately and ended up with a piece of scrap refined copper."

  "Are you assigning them a low-grade refining room?" Master Kuang heard Zhao Dis words and didnt respond, instead turning his head to ask Lu Wen.

  Lu Wen nodded and replied: "Yes, Master Kuang."

  "Hmm, it seems that you indeed have a talent for refining equipment." Kuang Pao Tzu said to Zhao Di again, "The earth fire in the low-grade refining room is indeed unstable. You were able to refine such a high-quality copper material, which is already very difficult to achieve. Even if I personally refined it, I may not be able to produce something like this."

  This is what Kuang Pao Tzu said with a sincere heart. Indeed, with his current level of attainment in refining equipment, even if it were the most basic raw material purification technique, he wouldnt dare guarantee that one out of three attempts would yield such a fine product, let alone in an inferior refining room where the fire power is occasionally unstable.

  "Zhao Shidi, youve done a great job! I, your master, am fair and just in rewarding and punishing. I must reward you handsomely!" Kuang Baozi said with a smile as he casually put the fine copper material into his pocket.

  (Fourth update. Please support my new book!)