Martial Peak
chapter-5089

“Since you’re a newcomer, you can get used to the environment first. Look for me tomorrow,” Wu Xing He said, then turned around to leave.

Yang Kai then watched him leave.

After the older man was gone, he shuffled towards the three houses on the left. Wu Xing He said that these three houses were vacant, so Yang Kai could choose one of them at random. He didn’t have any specific demands, so he just chose the one furthest away from him. Upon pushing the door open, he realised that the facilities were quite simple. There was only a table, chair, and bed.

There was also a token on the table. After picking it up, he realised that this was the token that could control the restriction around this house.

He spent some time refining the token, then activated the barrier. This restriction couldn’t be considered powerful as it could only prevent others from eavesdropping or disturbing the one getting some rest in the house. It should be the same for the other houses. Nonetheless, this was enough for the Artifact Refiners here.

Just like Wu Xing He had said, it required a lot of energy to refine artifacts. When they were exhausted, they needed such a place to restore their energy with peace of mind.

After Yang Kai was done with all that, he took a stroll around the mountain valley; then, he found the hall where he could get some resources and entered.

The Black Ink Clansman responsible for managing the resources was a Feudal Lord. Faced with Yang Kai’s request, he didn’t even question him. He directly fished out a set of Seventh-Order materials and passed them to him.

This made Yang Kai feel rueful. It had to be noted that in the Great Passes, it was rare for anyone to refine Seventh-Order materials to cultivate, for there was an acute shortage of resources on the Black Ink Battlefield. Most of the time, even the Eighth-Order Division Commanders couldn’t refine Seventh-Order materials to cultivate.

Of course, the shortage had been alleviated since the introduction of the Void Yin-Yang Mirrors.

Yang Kai had no idea about the circumstances in other Great Passes, but in Blue Sky Pass at least, the Human cultivators could use the best possible resources to cultivate now, provided that they had enough Military Merits.

The structures around the mountain valley were so simple that one could see everything clearly at a glance. Apart from the Warship in the middle of the mountain valley, Yang Kai didn’t find anything that was worth his attention.

After getting what he requested, he returned to his house and cultivated in silence.

He didn’t forget to keep track of the time of course, and the next day, he headed to the Warship following Wu Xing He’s order.

From afar, he could see many people working on the Warship. Fluctuations of energy were seen coming from every corner.

At least 100 people were trying to build this Warship, all of them Artifact Refiners.

Yang Kai had seen Artifact Refiners repairing Warships in Blue Sky Pass, and it was equally bustling at those times; therefore, he wasn’t surprised one bit.

However, that was in the Inner Sanctum, after all. It must have been difficult for the Black Ink Clan to have found so many Artifact Refiners.

Furthermore, there must be more Artifact Refiners who were currently not working on the Warship and were resting.

Upon Yang Kai’s arrival, some Artifact Refiners shot him curious glances, but they soon stopped paying attention to him. He soon found Wu Xing He, who was busy working on the Warship somewhere.

Wu Xing He was apparently refining an offensive artifact with full attention. A flame was seen flickering from his hands. The flame was scorching hot, and Yang Kai couldn’t immediately identify was it was.

All the artifacts on the Warship had to be custom-made and were quite different from the artifacts used by cultivators; after all, the Warship was huge, so the artifacts that had to be installed on the vessel wouldn’t be small. That way, when the artifact, as an Array Node of an offensive array, was activated, it would be powerful and lethal to the enemies on the battlefield.

Yang Kai appeared beside Wu Xing He and greeted him.

Wu Xing He was swamped with work as his forehead was beaded with sweat, so he just nodded and glanced to the side, “You came at the right time. Help me refine these materials. If there’s anything you don’t understand, you can ask Junior Brother Sun Jiu over there.”

Yang Kai turned his head and saw a lot of materials that had been piled up beside Wu Xing He. All of them were precious as they were the materials needed for refining the artifact.

It wasn’t difficult for Yang Kai to refine these materials; therefore, he could be considered Wu Xing He’s assistant now.

He knew that he still wasn’t skilful enough to be directly involved in developing the Warship despite being a Great Master, so it was appropriate that he became Wu Xing He’s assistant. This kind of task was not simple, but it wasn’t critical either. It suited his current rank in the Dao of Artifact Refining.

In fact, he wasn’t the only assistant of Wu Xing He. Before his arrival, there was already a young man who was doing this task. He should be the person named Sun Jiu that Wu Xing He had mentioned. Certainly, Yang Kai already noticed him.

The fluctuations of energy coming from Sun Jiu suggested that he was in the Sixth-Order Open Heaven Realm. It wasn’t certain which Cave Heaven or Paradise he was from.

Yang Kai cupped his fist at him, “Junior Brother Sun.”

Sun Jiu flashed a smile at him, “You must be Senior Brother Yang.” Apparently, he had heard about Yang Kai from Wu Xing He.

Yang Kai nodded.

While Sun Jiu never stopped working, he asked, “Have you ever taken part in developing a Warship before?”

Yang Kai shook his head, “No. In fact, Artifact Refining was just a hobby of mine and I rarely made any artifacts when I was on the Humans’ side.”

Upon hearing that, Sun Jiu nodded, “I see. Why don’t you refine this Seventh-Order Metal Element material first? This task is suitable for you given your cultivation. We’ll need it at a later time.”

Certainly, Yang Kai wouldn’t disagree. He then sat down with his legs crossed and picked up the Seventh-Order Metal Element material. Following that, he fished out his hammer and circulated his power before striking the material with his own technique.

Sun Jiu arched his brow with surprise, “Thousand Tempering Art! Are you from Divine Cauldron Cave Heaven?”

Yang Kai shook his head, “I’m from Yin-Yang Cave Heaven. I learned this Artifact Refining technique from a Senior Brother from Divine Cauldron Cave Heaven.”

Sun Jiu commented, “You’ve fully mastered this technique. That’s why I thought that you’re from Divine Cauldron Cave Heaven.”

“Many thanks for your compliment, but compared to you, I’m still not skilful enough,” Yang Kai replied humbly.

Sun Jiu shook his head with a smile, “I have simply practised a lot. I started focusing on refining artifacts since I came to the Black Ink Clan. It’s been several hundred years since then.”

Yang Kai was surprised. Sun Jiu’s words suggested that he started focusing on refining artifacts after he became a Black Ink Disciple, probably on the Black Ink Clan’s orders.

Therefore, it seemed that the Black Ink Clan had already started preparing to build a Warship several hundred years ago, or perhaps even longer. Otherwise, these Black Ink Disciples couldn’t have achieved so much.

Although Sun Jiu was one Order below Yang Kai, he was also a Great Master Artifact Refiner; furthermore, he was more skilful than him when it came to his mastery of Artifact Refining. This was proven from his way of refining these materials.

According to Yang Kai’s observation, Wu Xing He, who was focused on refining the offensive artifact now, was a Grandmaster Artifact Refiner.

An Artifact Refiner like Wu Xing He was already able to refine High-Rank artifacts. In fact, the one he was crafting was a kind of High-Rank artifact, though it wasn’t certain if he could successfully complete it; after all, it was more difficult to refine an artifact specifically for a Warship than an average High-Rank artifact. It took a talented and experienced Artifact Refiner to achieve this.

Therefore, even a Grandmaster Artifact Refiner might fail in his attempt to craft such an artifact.

Over the following days, Yang Kai continued to assist Wu Xing He, and nothing major happened. Sun Jiu, who worked with him, was a talkative person, so Yang Kai managed to gather a lot of useful information through his conversations with him.

According to Sun Jiu, there were about 300 Artifact Refiners that had gathered together in this mountain valley, with the three of them being Grandmasters.

There were two more Grandmasters apart from Wu Xing He, Wang Si Bo and Guan Ning. Below them, there were 30 Great Master Artifact Refiners. Although the rest of the Artifact Refiners were not talented in Artifact Refining, they were good enough to handle some miscellaneous tasks.

It was this large team that was building a Warship for the Black Ink Clan.

Just like Wu Xing He, Wang Si Bo and Guan Ning were on the list which was given to Yang Kai by Tang Qiu. They were the targets he had to investigate.

During this period of time, Yang Kai came to know more about the capabilities of this Warship.

Compared to the one he saw in Blue Sky Pass, the one before his eyes was indeed a significantly better version. It seemed that the Artifact Refiners here were working hard to improve their skills.

This was terrible news for the Humans.

Fortunately, even though the capabilities of this Warship had been enhanced, it still couldn’t meet the Black Ink Clan’s needs on the battlefield. In other words, this Warship was not good enough, and certainly not comparable to the Warships used by the Humans. Even if it was deployed on the battlefield, its usefulness would be quite limited.

The Warship had been greatly improved in just 20 years though, so if their progress went unhindered, a lot of Warships owned by the Black Ink Clan would appear on the battlefield in the near future. By then, the Humans would be doomed.

Now, Yang Kai had successfully snuck into this place, so he had to come up with a solution to settle the issue here.

In fact, it wasn’t hard to deal with this issue. He could simply kill all three Grandmaster Artifact Refiners like Wu Xing He.

Without these Grandmasters, the development of the Warship would come to a halt. Although the other Artifact Refiners still had room for growth, they couldn’t possibly become Grandmasters. Over the years, the Black Ink Clan had filtered a lot of Black Ink Disciples and only found 300 Artifact Refiners. Most of the Artifact Refiners were not gifted in this Dao, so even if they were allowed to grow, they wouldn’t become Grandmasters.

Killing Wu Xing He and the others could be said to be the simplest way to destroy their plan once and for all. By then, no one could be in charge of developing the Warship, and the threat facing the Humans would be resolved.

However, if Yang Kai did so, his identity would instantly be exposed. There were also two Territory Lords who were monitoring this place, so once he was exposed, he didn’t have the confidence to escape.

Furthermore, Grandmaster Artifact Refiners like Wu Xing He were extremely valuable assets to the Humans too. They only worked for the Black Ink Clan because they had been corrupted by Black Ink Strength. It would be much better to purify them and bring them back rather than kill them.

For the time being, Yang Kai couldn’t think of a perfect solution, nor did he have any idea how he could flee from this place once his identity was exposed; therefore, he could only wait patiently and play it by ear.

Fortunately, the Warship in this place was still not usable, so he had time to come up with a plan.