Yuan Ming did not hurry back to Biluo Cave overnight, first because traveling at night was unsafe and second because he did not know his current location and whether there could be any dangers around him. He decided to wait until daylight to proceed.

He set up a simple grass hut by the lake within a grove of trees and sat down cross-legged, reflecting on the day's encounters.

Yuan Ming had a very good habit of carefully reflecting on major events after they occurred, identifying his own shortcomings.

The reason he faced danger repeatedly today was due to his lack of thoughtfulness and inadequate preparation. Knowing well that Qianlu Lake was vast, he had not considered the possibility of getting lost. Although items like compasses existed within Biluo Cave, if he had prepared one in advance, he would not have encountered the subsequent troubles.

Yuan Ming exhaled softly, secretly committing this lesson to memory.

Although he faced dangers today, the gains were tremendous as well: a set of "Record of Strange Stones" classics, four pieces of Fire Jade Marrow, a dark red hammer, a storage bag with a large space, and the Black Wood Handbook—each an invaluable treasure.

"That's right, I almost forgot about this." Yuan Ming flipped his hand and took out an item, the red peach he had picked.

The peach emitted bursts of fragrance that refreshed the heart and mind, and he could feel the dense spiritual power contained within it, definitely a rare spirit fruit that could greatly assist his cultivation.

However, he did not know the origin of the fruit or its effects, so eating it rashly seemed unwise.

"Better to wait until I return to the Sect and figure it out," Yuan Ming swallowed and then put the Immortal Peach away again.

He took out the Black Wood Handbook and began to read it carefully.

The beginning of the handbook contained Master Hei Mu's autobiography, detailing his life. He was born in a small tribe in the Southern Border that made a living by Forging Iron, and had a great interest in Artifact Refining since childhood. Sadly, due to his innate deficiencies, he was unable to learn the refining techniques of his tribe.

Later, by a stroke of luck, Hei Mu was discovered to possess a Spirit Root, specifically a Dual Spirit Root of Fire and Wood, and was thus sent to Biluo Cave for cultivation.

Hei Mu wasn't particularly interested in cultivation itself; his heart remained set on Artifact Refining. However, the Artifact Refining Technique of Biluo Cave also demanded significant physical strength, and with his innate shortcomings, he was still unable to learn and could only work on tasks like sifting materials and those that required minimal hammer swinging at the Fire Workshop.

Hei Mu didn't give up, diligently taking care of his duties while searching for a solution to his lack of strength.

He firmly believed that he was born to be an Artifact Refiner.

During this time, Master Hei Mu came into contact with the Exorcism Technique and was immediately inspired.

With his intelligence and ingenuity, Master Hei Mu forcibly combined the Exorcism Technique with Artifact Refining hammer forging, perfectly solving the issue of lacking physical strength, and set forth on the path of Artifact Refining, never looking back.

Just as Master Hei Mu firmly believed, he truly was a born Artifact Refiner, mastering all the refining techniques of Biluo Cave within ten years. He integrated them with each other, creating his unique style of Artifact Refining, the Black Wood School.

According to the autobiography, the rest of the handbook contained all of Master Hei Mu's insights into Artifact Refining and his various concepts—the culmination of his life's pursuits and efforts.

Upon reading this, Yuan Ming's expression became serious.

Chen Wan had mentioned that although Master Hei Mu was known as the foremost Artifact Refining genius of Biluo Cave in a century, for some reason, his techniques seemed not to have been passed down within Biluo Cave, and if others in the Sect knew that the Black Wood Handbook was in his possession, it could provoke a significant uproar.

"I must not let anyone know about Mist Island, and that black storage bag needs to be hidden away!" Yuan Ming secretly resolved, then continued to read.

The handwriting in the subsequent sections of the autobiography began to grow sloppy, mostly consisting of puzzles that Master Hei Mu encountered in Artifact Refining or complaints scrawled in poor moods—disjointed and incoherent.

Yuan Ming did not slacken in his reading, scrutinizing every word, not overlooking any detail.

As Chen Wan said, Master Hei Mu's sudden disappearance had caused quite a stir within the Sect, and perhaps some clues could be found in this handbook.

The scattered words of Master Hei Mu revealed quite a lot of information; as his Artifact Refining techniques became more sophisticated, he seemed to have been restricted by Biluo Cave Sect, then stumbled upon refining a particular secret treasure, and finally decided resolutely to leave Biluo Cave.

"If it goes on like this, everyone will die!"

This was the last sentence Master Hei Mu wrote in the handbook.

"Everyone will die? What does that mean?" Yuan Ming muttered to himself, unable to guess the meaning behind Master Hei Mu's words.

Since he could not figure it out, he did not waste his energy pondering futilely and turned to the Black Wood Refining Technique described afterwards.

The handwriting here was very neat, as if Master Hei Mu had treated the writing of each word with great earnestness.

The Black Wood Refining Technique was divided into four steps: the first step was smelting the ores, followed by forging the embryo.

Yuan Ming was no stranger to these two steps.

According to Master Hei Mu, smelting and forging embryos seemed simple but were essential to forging an artifact, with many crucial aspects to consider. The combination of ores, control of the flames, strength of the hammer strikes, and so on—any slight issue could affect the subsequent Artifact Refining process.

Master Hei Mu had devoted a great deal of effort to smelting and forging embryos, with each step being much more complex than those in the Fire Workshop of Biluo Cave. Take forging embryos, for example, where the Fire Workshop practiced at most a thousand forging, but Master Hei Mu demanded reaching ten thousand forging, and each strike had high detailed requirements.

Having skimmed through it, Yuan Ming found many parts difficult to understand, yet occasionally experienced moments of sudden clarity as if awakening from a dream.

However, he did not delve into this area and continued to leaf through the rest.

Due to his insufficient strength, he had only touched upon the first two steps in the Fire Workshop of Biluo Cave, and was unclear about the subsequent artifact refining processes. He had been curious about them for some time, and now he finally had the chance to gain a more comprehensive understanding.

Yuan Ming quickly flipped through the pages, scanning ten lines at a time, and soon clarified all the steps of artifact refining through his own speculation and understanding.

Following smelting and forging embryos, the next two steps in artifact refining were engraving runes and enriching.

Merely performing smelting and forging embryos would result in a mundane weapon. Even if such a weapon were well-crafted, it would at best be sturdier and sharper than ordinary weapons, such as the Green Fish Sword.

To create a magic artifact with special abilities, one needed to engrave runes and perform enriching.

Engraving essentially involved inscribing symbols with magical powers onto the weapon, endowing the weapon with special effects; some would make it sharper, others would make it exceptionally hard, and some could even enable the weapon to unleash powers like flames or thunder.

"The patterns engraved on the Gravel Hammer in the Fire Workshop must be runes, no wonder it could easily smash hard ores," recalled Yuan Ming, thinking back to his first time sifting materials.

Runes were priceless, and every Artifact Refiner would devote their lifetime to collecting as many new runes as possible. With each new rune mastered, they could refine a new magic artifact.

Master Hei Mu was no different; his Artifact Refining Manual recorded forty-five kinds of runes, including "Sharp Rune", "Armor Breaking Rune", "Gale Rune", and so on.

At the end of the pages about drawing runes, there was something even more complicated—it seemed to be many runes connected together. With his current knowledge, he simply could not understand it.

Engraving was not easy. Hei Mu believed that each rune represented a rule of the operation of the spiritual power of heaven and earth. During inscription, not a single error could be tolerated; otherwise, the whole rune would be useless. To proficiently engrave runes, one needed years of practice.

Many Artifact Refiners, despite a lifetime of work, could only master a limited number of runes. Master Hei Mu's reputable status was largely due to his profound accomplishments in runes; he had mastered all forty-five runes recorded in this manual.

Refining a magical artifact was not just about inscribing runes. Once the runes were etched, they did not immediately possess power—they needed to be enriched.

Enriching, simply put, was to infuse mana into the inscribed runes to activate their power.

This step sounded simple but was not easy to accomplish. Enriching demanded high precision in mana manipulation. These newly etched runes on the magic artifact were actually very fragile, and any excessive impact could cause the runes to collapse.

Additionally, enriching had another purpose: to integrate the runes thoroughly with the magic artifact.

Only after the newly etched runes and the magic artifact fully merged could they be truly stable and withstand the fierce clashes of future battles. Achieving this not only required adept mana control but also an innate sensitivity, or what might be called talent.

Among the several steps in artifact refining, enriching had the highest failure rate. Even for experienced Artifact Refiners, the success rate was only around twenty to thirty percent. According to the manual, even for Master Hei Mu, his success rate in enriching was less than half.

Yuan Ming couldn't help but feel the difficulty of refining artifacts as he read this.

He continued to read further until he had finished the entire manual, then looked off into the distance.

Yuan Ming had little interest in the path of artifact refining. His persistence in learning forging at the Fire Workshop these past days was mainly to establish a secure footing in Biluo Cave. Now, with this Black Wood Handbook, he had a shortcut in the field of artifact refining and perhaps could try to walk this path.

He did not aspire to reach the heights of Master Hei Mu; it would be enough for him to refine the most ordinary magic artifact.

During his time at the Sect, Yuan Ming had become increasingly aware of the power and importance of magic artifacts.

Magic artifacts were categorized into low grade, mid grade, high grade, and top grade. Most of the artifacts in the hands of Biluo Cave disciples were low grade, the least, yet not everyone had one. Mid-grade magical artifacts were even rarer, owned only by a few Inner Sect Disciples.

Yuan Ming, lost in thought, pictured Chen Wan in his mind. Chen Wan possessed the Black Flag known as the Yin Ghost Flag, a mid-grade magical artifact renowned within Biluo Cave.

He had personally experienced the power of the Yin Ghost Flag; if he hadn't fled quickly, he would have died under it long ago.

As for top-grade magical tools and top-grade magical artifacts, Yuan Ming had never heard of anyone possessing them. There were rumors that only those at the Foundation Establishment Stage had such treasures.

He took out his Green Fish Sword. Recently, in battle, its utility had diminished greatly. If he could upgrade it to a magic artifact, even if it were a low-grade artifact, his strength would immediately increase substantially.

Yuan Ming contemplated silently for a moment, then opened the Black Wood Handbook once more and began to read carefully from the beginning.

The night passed quickly.

Yuan Ming left the grass hut and, after determining his location, headed straight for the gate of the Biluo Cave Sect.

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