A World Worth Protecting

Armament Soldiers.
Meanwhile, they would also require examinees to answer various questions on the refinement of Numinous Treasures.

Of course, they would sometimes ask an examinee to refine another piece of the same Numinous Treasure in front of them.
There were even times when a Deputy Pavilion Head asked an examinee to refine a different Numinous Treasure on the spot!

Once there was a mistake in the process, they would fail to become an Armament Soldier.
If they were caught cheating, the consequences were pretty serious.
It was enough to get one expelled from Upper Academy Island, and Upper Academy Island would take back everything that they had learned.
As a result, there were still people who dared cheat in the Armament Soldier test, but those cases were extremely rare, and they faced extremely severe consequences.

Realizing this, Wang Baole understood deeply that his current standard was still not enough.
Meanwhile, he also had not prepared the Numinous Treasure required for the test.

Besides, my target is to get to a level where I could refine perfect third-grade Numinous Treasures like how I refined second-grade Dharmic Artifacts without much effort.
That way, even if someone makes things difficult for me, no one will be able to stop me from becoming an Armament Soldier!

This was the requirement that Wang Baole had set for himself.
He had a decisive look in his eyes and went into seclusion again, refining third-grade Numinous Treasures with greater intensity.

As time passed and Wang Baole refined his seventh Numinous Treasure, he could feel that his proficiency level in refining Numinous Treasures increased as the days went by.
It was at this time that he finished refining his ten thousand pieces of Armament Sand.

Looking at the Armament Sand and feeling the scabbard within him, Wang Baole pondered.
He was at a loss as to whether he should stick to his plan and continue familiarizing himself with third-grade Numinous Treasures or refine his scabbard first.

The former took a long time, and Wang Baole felt that he had to keep experimenting.
Although he was not very confident about the latter, he had already gathered the key ingredients, and he could get the remaining ingredients on Upper Academy Island.

Moments later, Wang Baole made his decision.
The Armament Sand and scabbard were too precious, and Wang Baole did not have enough confidence to try refining them.
Hence, he continued immersing himself in refining third-grade Numinous Treasures.

Time trickled by.
When he went into seclusion this time, Wang Baole steeled his heart and even ate fewer snacks.
He lost some weight and seemed a lot more handsome.

Finally, after three months with the support of enough Spirit Stones, Wang Baole became more proficient in the refinement of third-grade Numinous Treasures through countless failures.
He could finally refine perfect third-grade Numinous Treasures.
Although they were of the type that were easy to refine, Wang Baole was already very motivated.

At the same time, he also upgraded all of his perfect second-grade Dharmic Artifacts.
He even upgraded some of his Crossed Dharmic Artifacts.
With his tremendous wealth, they all became third-grade.

Under the brave experimentation of Wang Baole and supported by his skill and a little bit of luck, Wang Baole succeeded in one try.
Although not perfect, the scabbard also became a third-grade Numinous Treasure.

However, as the extremely excited Wang Baole waved the scabbard around excitedly and expected sword aura needles to appear within it, something happened to make his jaw drop.

Buzzing sounds spread from within the scabbard.
Wang Baole was shocked.
He stared while in a daze as nine mosquitoes flew out from the scabbard.
His gaze momentarily lost its focus, and his head buzzed.

“What the heck?”

Wang Baole rubbed his eyes in disbelief and felt that what had just happened was too unbelievable.
After coming to his senses moments later, he became anxious and immediately checked the inscriptions on the scabbard.

Upon closer inspection, he finally found the reason.
Because there were problems with his technique, an accident happened when upgrading the scabbard to the third grade.
While the Armament Sand was being infused into the scabbard, it had caused the inscriptions to change and caused an unusual transformation that Wang Baole could not understand at that moment.
Hence, this unknown effect appeared.

To a certain degree, this scabbard… was both a success and a failure!

But it was different from a typical Crossed Dharmic Artifact.
The transformations for those Crossed Dharmic Artifacts were caused by a grain of Armament Sand.
However, the scabbard… had ten thousand grains of Armament Sand infused into it!

“No way…” Wang Baole felt like crying, but no tears appeared.
He regretted having itchy hands and refining the scabbard so early.
As though someone had thrown cold water on him, Wang Baole’s expectations and excitement disappeared completely.
That was especially so when he saw the nine mosquitoes flying in front of him.
He almost raised his hand to kill one of them, but when he thought of how he had spent ten thousand grains of Armament Sand and countless ingredients to refine this Dharmic Artifact, he could not bear to do so.

“Mosquitoes… can also be very powerful!” Wang Baole cried and comforted himself.
He thought of the horrifying giant mosquito that he had encountered in the Pond Cloud Rainforest.

Thus, he gathered his courage with a grimace and walked out of his cave abode.
He decided to test just how strong these mosquitoes were…

“Fatso Forefathers and the grandfathers in the high officials’ autobiographies, please bless me.
These mosquitoes must have some uses; they must at least be worth my Armament Sand.
After all… I spent ten thousand grains of Armament Sand!”