Chapter 315: Crafting the Formation Flag

intending to retrieve his defensive spirit artifact. With a defensive spirit artifact in hand, he could stand invincible. However, the moment his hand plunged into the storage bag, his face turned pal...Lu Ye would naturally not activate the talent tree here to draw upon the power of Earth Fire. It would be too rude if he did so after being brought here out of kindness to create an array flag.

That's digging into someone else's wall.

The furnace soon glowed red. Lao Bai raised his hand and threw a piece of metal into the furnace, and casually asked Lu Ye: "How do you usually choose materials for making talismans and bases"

"Usually, one should choose a light yet sturdy metal with extremely strong mana conductivity. Honeycomb steel and black iron are the most common materials used. Additionally, if there is a need, flags can also be crafted using some beast hides…"

Lu Ye recalled Bai Qian's teachings before her departure and spoke eloquently.

Bai Qian nodded in satisfaction and then asked a few more questions. Lu Ye answered them promptly.

"Theory is ultimately just theory. Mastering these theories while also having the ability to implement them is crucial, otherwise it remains merely armchair theorizing."

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The metal ingots, abandoned by Bai Qian and thrown into the furnace, quickly turned into molten liquid. He mobilized his spiritual energy, raised his hand and grasped it. The crimson-hot, scalding liquid was immediately caught by him. Under his control of spiritual energy, the mass of liquid instantly transformed into the shape of a battle flag.

"When you have enough control over your own spiritual energy, you can forge the battle flag without relying on external forces. If you cannot, you can use a mold." He said this as he placed the boiling liquid into a mold cavity on the blacksmithing platform, which was precisely the mold for the battle flag.

After it cooled slightly, Bai Qian took out the rough draft of the battle flag and grabbed the hammer and smashed it down.

With a single blow, Lu Ye seemed to hear a series of hammer strikes, but so many impacts rang together that it was difficult for him to distinguish between reality and illusion.

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Whether it's refining a battle flag or a spirit weapon, one needs to have extremely strong control over their own power. The reason why battle flags and spirit weapons work is mainly because of the restrictions imprinted within them. Without restrictions, even if the materials are precious, they are just an empty shell. Outstanding artifact refiners can change the internal structure of the spirit weapon during the process of forging it, thus forming those restrictions. In fact, some artifact refiners can forge a weapon blank with one material and then create restrictions with another, combining them into one. This can increase the power of the spirit weapon, but it requires extremely high skill. The old man has no talent in this area and cannot do such things.

As Bai Qian's words echoed, so did the sound of hammering. Lu Ye observed carefully and discovered that every time he struck, the hammer would violently vibrate, forming the dense symphony of percussion sounds. With his Spirit Mark-enhanced eyes, Lu Ye saw more clearly; as Bai Qian had said, with each strike, the internal structure of the weapon embryo was undergoing subtle changes, forming intricate restrictions.

“That’s why I said, since you have a dominant fire element, practicing fire-based techniques gives you a unique advantage in forging and refining weapons. When your skills become profound, you won't even need external tools to forge whatever you desire mid-air. Many techniques can be used at will. However, your current cultivation level is still low, so don't dwell on these things. Laying a solid foundation is the most crucial.”

"Yes."

The sound of "ding ding dong dong" kept ringing, and within the time of a stick of incense, a small flag only the size of a palm was forged.

The flags themselves are merely carriers, the restrictions within the flag are the key. Depending on the restrictions, the flags can exert different effects. However, a single flag is useless on its own. Only when different flags are combined and connected can formations be set up and broken.

After reviewing the entire process, Lu Ye discovered that forging the array flag itself was not difficult. In fact, as long as there was a mold, anyone could easily create a rough draft of the array flag, even if it looked ugly. The difficulty lay in crafting the restrictions within the array flag.

This is different from him using his own spiritual power to build spirit patterns. He has high control over his own spiritual power, and even constructing those spirit patterns he learned from books isn't difficult.

"Try it!" Bai Qian commanded.

Lu Ye nodded. Seeing it ten times wasn't as good as doing it himself once. Bai Qian had already demonstrated how to make a battle flag, although he didn't quite understand Bai Qian's crafting methods. Still, he needed to practice it himself to truly grasp it.

Lu Ye received a piece of metal from Bai Qian, threw it into the furnace, waited for it to melt, activated his spiritual energy to wrap it, took it out, placed it in a mold, and after slightly cooling, Lu Ye grabbed a hammer from the side, remembering Bai Qian's method, and hammered it down.

A crisp, rhythmic clang resonated with each strike of Lu Ye's hammer, and spiritual energy began to surge.

Yes.

Ting ting tong...

Lü Ye was sweating profusely, while Bai Qian frequently offered advice. Every piece of advice hit the nail on the head, allowing Lü Ye to clearly see his own shortcomings.

Failure after failure, repetition after repetition.

At least this way, practicing won't waste materials. If you break something, just throw it into the furnace and reforge it. Then you can continue forging.

The soul-washing water that Bai Qian had previously given to Li Ye must have worked, otherwise, how could Bai Qian, as a powerful being, personally and patiently teach an outsider like Li Ye.

It wasn't until a day later that a rather rough flagpole emerged.

Bai Qian glanced over the work with a slight frown, then nodded slightly. "Not bad," she said, "but there's still room for improvement. Keep going."

Having tasted success for the first time, creating other flags became much easier.

As time passed, one by one battle flags were created.

According to Bai Qian's teachings, the most basic formation flags number thirty-six. With Lu Ye's current cultivation level, as long as he creates these thirty-six flags, it would be sufficient.

It's best to hold off on crafting more advanced battle flags for now. We can focus on that once his cultivation level and understanding of formations improve in the future.

In the beginning, Lu Ye could only forge one battle flag per day. The main reason was that the process was too difficult. A single hammer blow would change the internal structure of the flag easily, but changing that structure into the unique patterns of a spiritual rune was incredibly challenging. Once a mistake occurred, it meant having to melt it down and start over.

According to Bai Qian, a true master of artifact refinement can directly hammer out a spirit pattern with a single strike. This greatly improves both the efficiency and error tolerance of artifact refining.characters that are not standard English. It's possible there was a misunderstanding or encoding issue. If you can provide more context or clarify the characters, I may be able to give you a more accu...