Daily life of a cultivation judge

"I told you his grade as a blacksmith in the spirit of transparency and also for your sakes so you will not doubt what he says next. And if doubt still exists after you hear his report, I am willing to write you an introductory note to some of the independent blacksmith shops we sometimes deal with.

With my referral, the consultation fee will most likely be waived or it will be given at a discounted rate. The shops have skilled craftsmen with most being at the blue grade so they too would be able to tell the issue with the saber in case you want a second opinion after this.

It's all up to you cultivator Wen Yingjie," said Yang Qing as he gently smiled.

"It's okay judge Yang Qing me coming here means I trust in the Order's judgment though I wouldn't mind the contacts of the blacksmith shops. Having the contacts of a few shops that the Order deems trustworthy wouldn't be a bad thing to have especially in my line where every bit of information matters," Wen Yingjie said as he awkwardly smiled. He had decided to thicken his face and ask for that letter. He knew for those shops to catch the eye of the Order they had to be at the top of their game and it would take someone like him an astronomical amount of luck and power just to get through the door. Yang Qing's letter would be some sort of cheat for him which he would gladly thicken his face to get.

"Hahahaha sure that can work too," Yang Qing said in amusement.

"Yi Jie if you would please," Yang Qing said disrupting Yi Jie in his more than 'normal' examination of the saber.

It took a minute before Yi Jie pulled himself back to reality and start sharing his insights.

"From the craftsmanship, I can tell the blacksmith did a great job to achieve a material balance. Every material used in making this saber was meshed together seamlessly to achieve a subtle balance to ensure their individual characteristics improve each other instead of one or two outshining and drowning the others.

One of the primary goals of a great craftsman is to bring the best out of all the ingredients used in making an artifact despite how insignificant the ingredient is to the whole artifact. A well-made artifact is when all the ingredient attributes are well represented and melding together and not overshadowing or restraining each other.

From the craftsmanship quality of this saber, I can tell the blacksmith managed to achieve it even if only barely. But achieving just this means he has taken a step towards a path that millions of craftsmen may never get the chance to tread on their whole lives.

Truly a piece of beauty. I remember when I made my first step on this journey how the world seemed to change…."

"Ahem, Yi Jie we are not here to hear you regal us on your journey as a blacksmith. Focus on the matter at hand. Tsk what a slimy hypocrite. Whenever I want to talk about my heroic tales he is the first one to interrupt me, and here he is trying to do the same thing. How thick must one's face be to do something like that after endlessly mocking someone for doing the exact same thing? Some people.." Yang Qing said derisively as he threw a mocking look at Yi Jie which left him embarrassed and gritting his teeth as he threw a vengeful look toward Yang Qing.

"Fine," He muttered forcefully under his breath.

"Umm cultivator Wen Yingjie I don't know how to say this but the judgement of your situation depends on how one looks at it. From my end, I take it as a positive but to others, you either have the worst luck or the best luck out there," Yi Jie said as he eyed Wen Yingjie as an intriguing specimen.

"Huh, what?" Wen Yingjie said as he couldn't quite follow Yi Jie's words.

"How do I explain this?....as you know to be a blue-grade craftsman one has to be capable of making a monarch-rank artifact the other way which actually relates to your saber is to make an artifact with the potential to be a monarch-rank artifact.

When refining an artifact despite using subpar materials, a craftsman can be so gifted in his/her field that they are able to elevate the potential of that artifact based on their pure skill alone. Such an artifact usually needs just a single high-grade material to elevate that artifact to realize its potential. The craftsman will have already crafted the artifact with this idea in place. The artifact in simpler terms is usually an unfinished product with designs and accommodations already in place to elevate its rank. All that is missing is the high-grade material to make it complete.

Then there is another special kind of artifact potential which is the one your saber currently falls under. It doesn't need a higher-grade material to elevate it.

Your saber is at the absolute peak of high-grade sky rank weapons. However, it is different from other sky-rank weapons and that difference is what gave it a monarch rank potential. Your saber has birthed a pseudo sentience. It's trying to break its cocoon as a still weapon and birth a natal spirit.

The reason I said you either had the worst luck or the best luck is for some weird work of fate you kept moving to areas where people were about to undergo their tribulations.

Every artifact that bears sentience undergoes a lightning tribulation however your saber is in a special state where it is existent and isn't. It's in some sort of limbo not sure how to move forward. Normally an artifact can birth a spirit right off the bat the moment it's completed but this usually only happens when the artifacts are made by gold-grade and purple-grade craftsmen. Then there are those artifacts that have the potential of awakening but it requires time and it's a long and arduous journey at that. Most artifacts end up awakening their sentience this way. However, you moving around places with tribulation may have 'woken' your weapon from slumber before it understood what is happening. Those tribulations were like loud rumblings to it that breached the door that should have taken years to just nudge.

However, the spirit was not completely awake or even a complete spirit. It is why the tribulations were not that powerful in the beginning because it's in a pseudo spirit state. If you moved in areas with no one undergoing their tribulation it would have gone to sleep but in every single place you passed through there seemed to be someone passing through their tribulation which kept triggering the pseudo spirit more and more till it mushroomed to the situation you experienced last where it forcefully anchored itself to the ground.

Wen Yingjie you must have crazy luck," Yi Jie said as he chuckled before continuing on.

"Through the strikes, it intuitively realized the lightning is making it stronger which is why it forcefully anchored itself before. It doesn't know any better and is doing things in pure intuition like a baby crawling. However, those were not its true tribulation trial and it was just leeching off others so its lethality wasn't that high, and the benefits that come along with a true tribulation. Even though there was a gradual change it still hasn't awoken completely yet which is a real danger. It was your luck that you managed to awaken a part of its sentience prematurely but it's also your misfortune because when it attracts another tribulation from someone else it will trigger its real tribulation because of the excitable state it is in currently.

The real strike in its current state will obliterate it completely before it has a chance to grow. It's not strong enough to withstand a real tribulation trial, not as a pseudo spirit with less than a year since its creation," Yi Jie said as he sighed towards the end.

Wen Yingjie had his eyes wide open as he couldn't believe what he just heard. He never expected all the things he had been experiencing was the awakening of his weapon. He thought it was one of the ingredients used in the weapon that was a natural lightning attractor. He was elated when he heard Yi Jie mention it was awakening but then he was plunged into the pits of despair from learning of its impending doom.

"So dad was able to…" tears were building up in Tan Delun's eyes as he repeated what he had heard over and over. It has been the lifelong ambition of the Tan generational masters to one day create a weapon that birthed a spirit. In over 10,000 years there wasn't a single success. But today…

In his excitement, he had even blanked out everything else Yi Jie said after mentioning the weapon his father had crafted awakening its spirit which was a blessing in disguise. He couldn't help but feel the 15 generational masters laughing in celebration as they patted his dad's back. This has been one of the lifelong dreams that he and his dad shared and every other falling meteor shop head before that. His dad was so consumed by it that he never had a family and only came to have Tan Delun when he was a core formation expert and over 1,000 years old.

He ran a risk of not having a descendant since the further along your cultivation you are the harder it is to conceive. It's the only reason all this time Tan Delun was the only child. Tan Ping wasn't able to have another kid.

"Is there anything we can do to save it?" Wen Yingjie at the side asked pleadingly as he kept his last embers of hope in the Order for having a solution.