Alex returned an hour or two later, not before getting a few materials for an artifact, and found Liang Shufen keeping watch of the artifact as the old Yao Ning used the Mountain Crushing artifact.
"What did you guys use?" Alex asked her.
"We decided to go with normal rocks, like we did with Whisker," Liang Shufen said. "We do not yet know just how strong our bodies are, so we found it better to go with the safe choice."
"Good idea," Alex said. "You guys continue this. I will do something in my own room."
"What are you doing?" Liang Shufen asked.
"Making a simple artifact that I should have made a long time ago," Alex said, leaving the elder behind.
Alex brought out the materials he had bought, which consisted of some leather, some metals, and various other little things.
He started working on it immediately, while Pearl and Whisker were outside with him, looking at his work curiously.
"What are you making?" Pearl couldn't help but ask, seeing him work on the stuff.
"I don't want to tell you right now," Alex said, cutting the leader into thin strips with a sharp blade. "You'll find out if it works in the end."
Pearl shrugged and went to the side to sit and watch.
Whisker sat near Pearl too without asking anything as he watched what Alex was making too. They were both very curious as to what exactly he was doing, but none of it really made sense to them.
To be fair, even Alex didn't find it very easy to understand what he was doing too. He had never made an artifact of this type before, so all he was doing was hoping that he wasn't doing anything wrong.
He had a vision in mind, and he hoped that it was what he was making.
The leather was there just for the sake of holding the actual artifact in place while being a part of it, so Alex put in some Qi lines to make it durable.
Then, he went on to work on the metal.
The metal was going to be more formation than anything, so he brought out his Frostfire Inkbrush. This was the first time he was going to be using it, so he was a little excited.
With a bit of Qi, the bristles on the brush pulled back into the shaft, leaving behind a pen-like nib that was there for him to carve onto a metal. It was a formation carving pen after all.
Alex placed the tip on the metal and drew a circle on it. The smoothness with which the pen moved along the metal surprised him. It was as if he was carving on butter with a hot knife.
He didn't let the surprise throw him off and focused on what he was carving. Once he finished making the circle, he took a break to think of exactly what nodes he was going to draw.
After making sure he knew everything, he continued. 5 minutes later, he had a nearly perfect formation ready for him to use. Alex was satisfied with the formation plate and moved on to the rest of the artifact.
A place to store the spirit stones, a latch at the end of the leather straps, combine it all together with the formation plate… and he was done.
It took him until evening time to finish this, but he did. And he was happy with the result. "Let's test it," Alex said and wore the artifact.
The artifact looked like an octopus with a metal head where the formation plate remained and 8 leather arms that came out of it. Alex put the main body in front of him and latched on the 8 arms of the artifact behind him so that the metal plate remained tightly on his chest.
He checked any looseness on the straps, and after seeing that everything was alright, he was ready to begin.
"Come, let's test it," Alex said.
"Test what?" Pearl asked. "What is that?"
"It's an artifact to test the strength of your attacks," Alex said. "I didn't have any, so I made it."
"You made a formation plate, didn't you?" Whisker asked. "Why make an entire artifact out of it? Why not just use the formation plate?"
"Well… because it's not that easy to use when it's just a formation," Alex said. "That's why this formation is put on walls or wooden posts or puppets."
Alex just had to activate the formation once and the Qi lines would continuously keep it active, but at a very low rate of energy consumption until someone used it again.
"Whisker, are you healed?" Alex asked.
Whisker nodded. "All healed," he said. "Do you need me to test?"
"Yes," Alex said. "I need to tune this thing, and unfortunately, neither Pearl nor I have a normal cultivation base and instead need your help."
"Ah, okay," Whisker said and got down from where he was. "So… what do I do?"
"Just attack me," Alex said. "Your Saint Condensation 2nd realm should be enough."
Whisker nodded and did as told. He used a technique to send out a fiery attack that slammed into Alex.
Alex used moderate strength to balance himself so that he wasn't completely protecting the artifact. The formation took the hit while in calibration mode and Alex quickly put in what strength the current attack was.
After a few more tries, Alex was able to calibrate the whole thing. "Finally, it's done," he said. "Pearl, can you hit me? Just with your physical strength."
Pearl nodded and jammed his paw onto Alex. Alex was pushed back a little, but he managed to stop himself after just that. The formation on his chest lit up and showed a few words.
Saint Foundation 3rd Realm
"Haha, it works," Alex said. "Now attack me with all your strength."
Pearl blitzed the moment he heard that. His entire body glowed golden as he slammed his entire body onto Alex.
Alex barely managed to put up a defense at the last moment when he realized that without his defense up, he might actually be thrown off.
When Pearl slammed into him, Alex found that defending had been the right choice after all. While he wouldn't have been hurt from the attack, he would've still caused damage to the room.
Alex held off Pearl's attack and saw the glowing name written in front of the artifact.
Saint Core 1st realm
"Ooh, not bad," Alex said excitedly. "You're not exactly crossing the entire realm, but you're nearly there. I wonder if you have to train more or if this is it."
"This might be it," Pearl said. "I don't think I can go any stronger than this."
"7 realms… compared to my 9," Alex thought for a bit. "Honestly, that's still quite strong. Even Ronron can only do 4, although I hear she has yet to make full use of her body constitution."
Pearl nodded. "Anyway, is that how you are going to use that?" he asked, gesturing to the artifact on Alex's chest. "How are you going to test yourself."
"Using this guy," Alex said and brought out something. "I can test it by putting the thing on him."
Pearl and Whisker realized what he had planned from the start.
"I see," Pearl said. "No wonder you made those straps."
Next to Alex was his Immortal puppet.
