Chapter 157: The Vital Component
“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the next lot that many have been anticipating. A set of peak Mortal-grade beast cores! Unlike the ones you can rarely even buy just one from your organization, we’ve gathered an entire set of ten beast cores from the same species of Qi beasts! That means you can attempt to craft a treasured artifact ten times, increasing your familiarity with every try to maximize your chances!” The auctioneer, Xiao Gao Mei, cheerfully announced.
A plate holding ten murky translucent cores was neatly stacked on the pedestal. They were oval with slight bumps across their surface, but for those experienced artificers in the audience, they were unmistakable beast cores.
The size of the core varied from the species it was from. In this case, each core was the size of a grapefruit.
“These cores were taken from Long Neck Turtles, and are relatively neutral in element. It’s perfect to create an adaptive type of artifact, capable of invoking any element,” the auctioneer continued. “The starting price is one thousand Qi stones!”
Many of the younger people in the crowd were instantly excited. They had little experience handling beast cores, and they offered them an invaluable opportunity. However, the elders beside them quickly reined them in.
“Be patient. This is likely not the last lot of beast cores. Also, they are neutral in elements, which makes them unsuitable if you plan to make weapons. I thought you wanted your first successful artifact to be a treasured blade instead of armor, right?”
Even Li Lang had learned enough from his artificer mentor, Tie Qian, to know the advantages and disadvantages of neutral element materials. They were adaptable, but that meant they were jack of all trades and masters of none.
Against a sword artifact with the fire affinity under the same conditions, it would likely lose even if it invoked an opposing element, such as water, because the effect produced was weaker. These neutral element materials were often reserved for defensive artifacts or other types of utility artifacts.
The young were often hot-headed, so it was understandable novice artificers often focused on weapon artifacts first. For the more experienced bunch, they wouldn’t be handling Mortal-grade cores which were known to be defective cores. It was beneath them, which led to the scarce supply of Mortal-grade artifacts.
“Three thousand Qi stones!”
“Three thousand five hundred!”
“Ten thousand!” a voice shouted, silencing the venue.