Mo Bai is a 13th-level outer disciple of the Taiyu Sect, responsible for guarding the Refining Room with another junior brother at the 12th level and handling registration and payment matters for those renting the Refining Room.

  It turns out that this errand is not only extremely easy and risk-free, but he often takes advantage of his position to secretly embezzle a batch of spirit stones from the rent of the refining room, so his monthly income is far higher than that of other outer sect disciples.

  This fat official, originally obtained this position by deliberately using fifty pieces of low-grade spirit stone to bribe the horse manager of our sect. Now he has been in this position for less than two years and has already recovered these spirit stones with interest.

  Every time he calculates this account, Mo Bai is proud of his cleverness at the beginning.

  That day, the junior brother from the twelfth floor said he had obtained a Marrow Washing Pill and would return to his quiet room to meditate and cultivate for some time. Only Mo Bai was left standing alone at the entrance of the Refining Room.

  Mo Bai was delighted. One person guarded the refining room, if he could get more spiritual stones from it, he could have them all to himself and didn't need to share with his junior brother again, so he agreed without hesitation and even hoped that the other party would meditate for a few more days.

  Just as he was thinking about how to use the spiritual stone in his hand to gain greater benefits, the transmission array's spiritual light began to fluctuate, obviously, someone had come out of the alchemy room.

  Mo Bai was overjoyed. Since someone had come out, it meant that the rent needed to be settled. This way, he would have the opportunity to make a few more spirit stones.

  After the white light flashed, a gray-robed monk appeared in the transmission array. With the ability of a cultivator to remember at a glance, Mo Bai recognized the other party at a glance and immediately spoke up:

  "Zhao Shidi, you've been in seclusion for so long, your gains shouldn't be small... Ah, you, you're already a Foundation Establishment cultivator! Disciple Mo pays his respects to Master Zhao! Earlier, disciple's words were improper, please forgive me, Master!" Just as Mo Bai was speaking, he suddenly noticed the other person's profound spiritual energy fluctuations - if it wasn't that of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, what else could it be?!

  "Hmm, no need to be polite, senior brother. I've just barely managed to lay my foundation too." Zhao Di was in a great mood because he had recently successfully refined several precious items, so naturally he wouldn't mind these things.

  "Congratulations, Master Shu, on successfully building the foundation! As for this title of 'Master', please don't use it again. From now on, just call me Mo Shizun!" Mo Bai was both shocked and jealous in his heart - how could someone who had only been a 12th-level cultivator for over a year become a senior of the Foundation Establishment stage?!

  "Alright, Master Mo, this is the law disk of the 9th Refining Room. I won't be using it anymore." Zhao Di took out a blue circular jade disk and handed it over to him. In the Cultivation World, seniority was determined by one's cultivation level, so it was only natural that he addressed Master Mo as "Master Nephew".

  "Yes, this is the spirit stone to return to Master Shu, please accept it." Mo Bai didn't dare to take more of this "senior's" spirit stones at this time. He had already found sixty pieces of low-grade spirit stones, and those plans that were previously made were all rendered useless in the face of the other party's higher cultivation level.

  Zhao didn't even bother to count the number of spirit stones, and directly stored them in his storage bag. Then he strode away from this place, walking towards the path leading to Zhao Yin Peak.

  Thinking of the difference between now and a year and a half ago, Zhao felt like he had undergone a transformation. Not only did he change from an outer sect disciple in the high-grade Qi Refining stage to a Foundation Establishment cultivator who could receive stipends without any official position, but also in the last year, he had consecutively refined several precious treasures, making his current strength completely incomparable to before his seclusion.

  Before refining the treasure, Zhao Di was torn between the top-grade artifact and the medium-grade spiritual tool for quite some time.

  After reading "Bai Qiao Pu" and several other classics, including the jade slips given by Jin Ye Xian Zi, he had a deeper understanding of the distinction between Fa Qi and Ling Ju.

  Generally speaking, the law enforcement equipment is more complex but flexible and varied, with endless clever uses. After mastering it, one can control it at will and use it freely.

  Relatively speaking, spirit tools are much simpler, usually just pursuing the maximum amount and fastest spiritual power output, with good attack and defense capabilities, but in terms of adaptability and flexibility, they are far inferior to magic artifacts.

  Each has its own merits. Although the Spirit has a huge drawback of consuming a large amount of spirit stones, this is not within Zhao Di's consideration.

  After careful consideration, Zhao Di finally decided to categorize the hard-won materials such as Frost Wyrm's body and mid-grade Flame Crystals according to their most suitable uses, dividing them into attack/defense categories and auxiliary categories.

  Defensive materials are used to make some strong medium-grade spiritual instruments, while auxiliary materials are used to refine some extremely useful high-grade magical instruments.

  In this way, the advantages of spiritual tools and Dharma instruments can be brought out as much as possible.

  With the help of a large number of high-grade spirit stones, Zhao Di refined several fine pieces in one breath.

  One is a mid-grade spiritual tool that requires the inlay of two mid-grade spirit stones with fire and ice attributes to exert its full effect - Frostfire Shield.

  When refining the spiritual tool, Zhao Di finally understood why all these spiritual tools had to be destroyed!

  In the process of refining the spiritual tool, it is necessary to continuously add spiritual stones to supply spiritual power. Once the spiritual power supply is insufficient, the refinement will fail. In order to refine this ice and fire shield, Zhao Difei used as many as twenty or thirty middle-grade fire spirit stones, which were still not enough. Later, he simply threw in a high-grade fire spirit stone and a high-grade ice spirit stone, and finally refined it out.

  It seems that the cost of refining spiritual equipment is still far higher than that of top-grade artifacts! Moreover, when using it, one also needs to constantly consume spirit stones, which is really a waste! I suppose except for some large sect families, perhaps they will prepare a piece of spiritual equipment for defense for a very small number of core disciples, otherwise, this spiritual equipment has no other use.

  That Qi-refining stage disciple on Gul Ridge Street who priced the mid-grade spiritual artifact, Frost Shield, at 800 spirit stones is really cheap! It's likely that this person doesn't understand the true value of this artifact and unknowingly obtained it from somewhere.

  This ice and fire shield was forged by Zhao Di using the shell of a rotating turtle and the emerald scales of an ice python. The shield is about six feet long and four feet wide, in a peach heart shape; the base of the shield is red, but it is covered with a layer of crystal clear emerald green scales. On either side of the shield are two holes, each set with a mid-grade fire spirit stone and a mid-grade ice spirit stone. Some complex but regular patterns of veins extend from these two spirit stones to the entire shield.

  According to Zhao Di's estimation, after this shield is activated, its defensive power is roughly equivalent to that of a mid-term Foundation Establishment cultivator. If he were to encounter another second-level Frost Ice Python at this time, relying solely on this shield, he could safely resist the monster's attack.

  There is also a mid-grade spiritual artifact with attacking properties, which Zhao Da named Frost Python Bow.

  This is a bow made from the vertebrae of the Frost Serpent, with its spiritual tendons refined into bowstrings. The entire bow has a pale, translucent bone-white color and is about three feet long, with a hole in the middle of the bow's frame where the Middle-grade Ice Spirit Stone is inlaid.

  Apart from this, Zhao Di also refined a few exquisite magical instruments.

  A pair of silver-white short swords, named Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, were forged from the blood of a dragon and the claws of a basilisk. This pair of male and female swords are both top-grade artifacts, and when used together, they have various wonderful uses. Zhao Di had originally planned to forge several sets of attack artifacts, which would give him an advantage in battle. Unfortunately, the probability of failure in forging a set of artifacts was too high, and he wasted a lot of materials before finally succeeding in forging this pair of male and female swords.

  There is another ritual instrument, which uses the middle-grade Fa crystal stone and the Jiaolong's eyeball as the main material, adding some auxiliary materials such as blood-silver, and referring to the purple copper mirror obtained from Bai Chulei, it was refined into a smooth and bright silver mirror that shone with a faint green light, which was called "Condensed Spirit Mirror" by Zhao Di. This Condensed Spirit Mirror's effect, after being tested by Zhao Di, was even more powerful than expected, and when used suddenly in an encounter with the enemy, it would certainly give the opponent a "surprise".

  The dragon's dorsal fin, tail fin, and anal fin were all used by Zhao to refine the flight artifact. That flying artifact was indeed the most difficult type of artifact to refine, although he had first practiced with some slightly inferior materials a dozen or so times, but when formally refining it, he still failed several times in a row before finally succeeding in refining the remaining dragon's dorsal fin into a specialized flight artifact with the help of a high-grade wind-attribute spirit stone. Although it was impossible to test the flying speed inside the refining room, judging from the refinement of all the spirit stones and materials, it should be much better than any item in his storage bag.

  As for the other materials such as Jiaolong's horn, they were all wasted due to the failure of refining.

  But overall, Zhao Di's success rate in refining equipment has already been extremely high. Even if a master refiner who has spent decades honing their skills were to attempt it, they could only reach a similar level. The main reason for this is that Zhao Di does not hesitate to use large quantities of high-grade spirit stones to aid in his refinement, and he also possesses the Qian Kun Treasure Cauldron, which can enhance the spiritual energy contained within the materials used for refinement.

  With these magical instruments and spiritual tools in hand, Zhao Di is now quite confident in his own strength. He feels that even if he were to face a cultivator who has been building their foundation for many years, he should not be at a disadvantage.

  But he didn't expect that soon he would really have to fight a duel to the death with such a foundation period cultivator!