Immortal Path to Heaven

Chapter 557: Expansion-And-Contraction Limit

The big lazy turtle looked dumbfoundedly at Ou Yangming. An extremely absurd and strange thought crossed its mind.

‘This fella isn’t an imposter, is he?

‘Mm, without Multi-armed King King, the goshawk, and the human Spiritualist that exchanged blows with me several times in the lower realm… Perhaps he’s fake?’

After sensing the faintly discernible forceful aura released by Ou Yangming, this was the lazy turtle’s greatest doubt.

How could a fellow that never used—no, never heard of the Wish-fulfilling Clay use it so normally? His performance really exceeded the big lazy turtle’s expectations.

A powerhouse that was unaware of Ou Yangming’s origin would not have felt this way, but the big lazy turtle knew the young fellow—a cultivator that entered the Spiritual Realm from the lower realm. Given his identity, how could he have done this?

Nonetheless, Big Yellow, which followed Ou Yangming to the Spiritual Realm, turned a blind eye to this because it had witnessed too many miracles from him.

What was the big deal about fiddling with the Wish-fulfilling Clay?

Ou Yangming broke through the world’s barrier in the lower realm and smithed magic tools. In comparison, what was so surprising about him adding an unseen mineral into his smithing system?

The times the lazy turtle and the big yellow dog had spent with Ou Yangming were different, which was why their attitudes toward this matter were dissimilar too.

Nevertheless, the antelope—the real concerned party—had sparkling eyes and was full of hope at the moment. It knew nothing about Ou Yangming’s past, hence it merely regarded him as a potent human blacksmith. When it sensed how confident the young fellow became, it was more relieved.

If it was aware of Ou Yangming’s background and knew it was his first time using the Wish-fulfilling Clay, it might not be in such a good mood.

Ou Yangming exhaled deeply and retrieved another ore. The Military Fire kept flickering in his hand, and he glanced at the antelope from time to time.

The antelope thought that Ou Yangming was really customizing pieces of equipment for it, but it did not know that they were his natural reactions when he explored and verified those unique ores’ attributes, as well as when he refined them.

After all, Ou Yangming did not know anything about most of the ores. Although his Military Fire could look into their attributes, it would be difficult for it to fully bring their specialties into place. Therefore, the young fellow felt about the ores one by one. If the ores were somewhat lucky, they could still be smithed into other types of equipment in the future; if they had terrible luck and were simply put together by him into unknown scrap metal, even God would not be able to do anything to them.

Ou Yangming finished checking up the ores after 2 hours.

Even though he only checked them once, he gained a finer understanding of them with his Military Fire’s help.

He dared not say that he had thorough grasps of the ores, but it would not be an issue for him to smith pieces of equipment for the antelope.

“Come over here,” Ou Yangming uttered after some thought.

The antelope was stunned and hesitant at first because it was rather wary against Ou Yangming. Despite that, it could not resist the temptation of the equipment set, thus it ran toward the young fellow eagerly and asked with a flattering smile, “Human master, what do you need me to do?”

“I’m going to start smithing officially now, so I need to know how big of a physique change you need,” Ou Yangming answered seriously and added after a pause, “The Wish-fulfilling Clay will be incorporated into the pieces of equipment, but they can’t be changed infinitely; there must be a limit to it, do you understand?”

“Yes! Yes!” The antelope nodded without any delay.

The Wish-fulfilling Clay was indeed a good item that allowed one to resize one’s pieces of equipment as one wish, but there was a limit to it. If Multi-armed King Kong were to use the equipment set smithed for the antelope, the pieces of equipment would only end up being torn into ordinary metals.

This was because the antelope and the king kong’s builds were too different, so much so that it exceeded the Wish-fulfilling Clay’s change limit.

The antelope tilted its head and pondered seriously before it asked, “Human master, may I be so bold as to ask—what’s the highest change limit of the pieces of equipment that are smithed by you?”

Ou Yangming thought for a brief moment before he answered according to what he comprehended through his Military Fire, “That depends on the materials used, but I suggest that the highest change limit shouldn’t be more than thrice of their original sizes.”

“Thrice?” The antelope suddenly widened its eyes. The look on its face was indescribably strange.

The young fellow was slightly startled. He flushed and explained, “They can actually be expanded to 5 times of their original sizes, but that’ll affect their qualities, so I propose the highest limit to be not more than 3 times.”

At the end of the day, Ou Yangming’s understanding of the Wish-fulfilling Clay was too little. He could learn more about it if he continued to explore, but nobody knew if there was a unique method in this world that could make the clay play a more important role.

“5 times…” The antelope mumbled then shouted, “Master! You’re truly a master!”

“What?” Ou Yangming was bewildered. When he looked at the antelope’s expression, he somewhat felt like he made a mistake.

“Ah…” Unlike its normal behavior, the big lazy turtle explained, “Master Ou, even if normal human blacksmiths are given enough Wish-fulfilling Clay, they can only achieve a limit of roughly 2 times for whatever is smithed. Besides, once a piece of equipment exceeds the normality by one and a half times, its attributes will decline whether it shrinks or expands.” It looked at the young fellow with respect as it continued, “Given that you’re able to expand pieces of equipment to 5 times—no, 3 times of their normalities, even if their qualities are slightly poorer, they’re rare fine items for us!”

Though the lazy turtle had been staying inside Ou Yangming’s Long Feather Band for a long time, judging from its nature, it had not completely accepted the young fellow.

If it was not because it feared Multi-armed King Kong and the goshawk, it would not have bothered about a tiny human Spiritualist.

Having said that, after witnessing Ou Yangming’s level of attainment and performance in smithing art, the big lazy turtle’s attitude changed drastically. In fact, it even addressed the young fellow as Master Ou.

The fact that a powerhouse from the Turtles addressed Ou Yangming as a master proved that he had gained its approval.

Ou Yangming twitched his mouth and was rather regretful. ‘It turns out that I didn’t say too little, but too much.’

He cleared his throat and said, “Of course, I’m aware of that. That said, for the sake of my reputation, I’ll never smith pieces of equipment that can expand by 5 times if I’m not confident.” He later turned to ask the antelope, “I can only guarantee a triple expansion-and-contraction extent. Can you accept that?”

“Master, why can’t you give me more?” The antelope stared eagerly at him and asked.

Ou Yangming responded coldly, “The materials that you prepared can only allow me to smith an equipment set of such level unless you provide more and better materials. The bigger the expansion-and-contraction extent, the more effort I need to put in, and the higher the failure rate. Are you sure you can take the failure rate?”

It was a groundless statement, but the antelope and the lazy turtle strongly agreed with him.

A triple expansion-and-contraction margin was considered amazing to them. As for 5 times… Perhaps the pieces of equipment of some powerhouses from the Demons in this world could achieve that, but they certainly required rare and precious materials, which were unimaginable, let alone obtainable.

The antelope nodded and replied to Ou Yangming, “Master, please use my current build as the prototype.”

After sensing that Ou Yangming was slightly displeased, it dared not wish for a 5-times margin.

In actuality, if Ou Yangming had not given the antelope too much hope, not to mention a triple expansion-and-contraction extent, even if it was only a double margin, it would have been overjoyed.

Ou Yangming nodded and scanned the antelope carefully before he started to smith.

The pieces of equipment meant for the Walking Beasts were different from those made for the Humans. Many problems would arise if one was inexperienced, but Ou Yangming had smithed pieces of equipment for Big Yellow more than once, thus he was absolutely confident about the things that he needed to take note of.

A greave was smithed after a brief moment, but Ou Yangming simply made it an ordinary magic tool as he did not attach any Skill Attribute to it.

Even so, the antelope was satisfied with the ordinary magic tool.

Being the Beasts’ hard-pressed mountain kings, it was incredibly difficult for them to acquire suitable magic tools, by which it was far beyond ordinary people’s imaginations.

The Beasts mainly trained their physical powers, where they could train their bodies to be as tough as steel.

However, if they could gain greater defensive and offensive abilities through a layer of equipment, their combat powers would surely improve significantly. This was a known fact to every race.

The Beasts were never willing to fight against their enemies’ pieces of equipment with their bodies; it was merely a helpless choice. After all, who would not want to kill their opponents with pieces of powerful equipment if they could?

By going against fully-armored enemies with only their physical powers… They were simply asking to be tortured!

There were probably very few creatures that would make the unconventional choice. At the very least, the antelope was not one of them.

When the antelope put on the greave, its body suddenly shivered as its foreleg bulged. The expansion margin was not big—only 50%—but the visual effect was quite notable.

Afterward, when its body was fully expanded, the greave grew as well and was very fitting; it did not constrain it at all.

Following that, the antelope ran around for some time. It was delighted the moment it stopped.

“Thank you… Master!”