Translated by XephiZ

Edited by Aelryinth

Sigh, his cultivation had not improved at all for half a year. It was not a good thing for him.

The competition in the main campus was more intense than what he had imagined, and the distribution of the resources was fairly straightforward.

In order to level up his Lightning Nebula to the third tier, he had to cultivate in the Three Step Tower.

The cultivation speed granted by the Little Loach Pendant was enough for Mo Fan to pass the accumulation period fairly quickly, but to have a breakthrough in his cultivation, he had to rely on external assistance from unique places like the Three Step Tower, which contained a high concentration of the Elemental Energy.

Only those ranked in the top fifty were allowed to cultivate in the Three Step Tower. He was currently ranked one hundredth, still a distance away from reaching his goal.

He also needed a week for his body to recover. Although he had cleared the challenges, there was no way he could challenge someone for the rest of the week...

"I should try and secure a higher rank in the second challenge week!" Mo Fan grabbed the can and emptied the cool cider into his throat after roughly setting his direction in mind.

The lingering effect from the burn was rather annoying. He kept feeling that something was burning in his body, giving him a dull pain. Drinking something icy did not necessarily make any difference, but it just felt so good!

------

The fourth week every month was the second challenge week.

In the first challenge week, Mo Fan was forced to take on consecutive challenges, but half a month later, it was his time to climb the ranking.

The resources given by the school were quite generous. If he could not secure the highest possible rank, his cultivation would fall behind fairly quickly.

After feeling that he had fully recovered after a week's rest at home, Mo Fan recalled what Old Bao had mentioned and went to the Dongfang Oriental Tower with his beloved snake scales.

With the introductory letter in hand, Mo Fan went to the main hall of the Magic Association, and quickly located the armor forgemaster, Huo Tuo, who was rather famous inside the tower.

Huo Tuo was highly respected. He even had his own luxurious guest room in the Magic Association. Due to the height of the Magic Association's location in the Oriental Pearl Tower, one could easily capture the most beautiful moment of the Huangpu River through the French windows...

The two most authoritative Magic Associations in the country were the Magic Palace in the capital, Beijing, and the Dongfang Pearl Magicians. Therefore, someone with a guest room like this was definitely no ordinary person. It seemed like this Old Bao was indeed a reclusive expert!

"Hi, I'm Mr. Huo's disciple, Li Junnan," said a young man in a neat attire politely.

"Oh, hello, I'm here for Mr. Huo. Is he in?" said Mo Fan as he glanced at the man with the shameless name.

{TL Note: Junnan means 'handsome man' in Chinese.}

"He is in, it's just that his temper isn't very good..." said Li Junnan softly.

"I understand, but Old Bao has told me that only Mr. Huo Tuo can handle the material I have, so I do hope you can tell him that," Mo Fan said sternly and sincerely.

A constructor was usually an Earth Magician, while most of the forgemasters were Lightning and Fire Magicians. The rare bones, scales, and skin from demon beasts had a unique composition, which was impossible to break down with ordinary machinery. They had to rely on the forgemasters' special Fires to smelt them, or Lightning to conduct electrolysis...

The process was similar to gold smelting. In order to turn gold into jewelry, they first smelted the gold, then used magical equipment to cool the gold down and solidify, forming the shape they needed.

Similarly, the material used to craft equipment had to be smelted first. Otherwise, how could the material they obtained from the demon beasts possibly be in usable shapes like boots, armor, bracelets, pendants, rings, and so on?

Besides, since the equipment was bound to the user's soul, they needed to be activated prior to using them.

In this world, only the rare skin, bones, claws, scales, feathers and such of monstrous beasts contained the energy required to bind them to human souls, hence why many hunters were collecting them by hunting demon beasts in the wild. They were only interested in acquiring materials that could be bound to human souls for crafting equipment.

The scales Mo Fan was holding onto were rare scales of the snake species, but what exactly was the Black Totem Snake's rank… A boss among bosses, a war machine among Ruler-level creatures! His rare scales was clearly too complicated to be worked by ordinary forgemasters, Old Bao had made that extremely clear to Mo Fan.

This Li Junnan was obviously sent by Huo Tuo to chase him away. Mo Fan went straight to the point instead of beating about the bush.

Li Junnan was not too happy when he heard Mo Fan's words. He was a disciple taught by Huo Tuo himself, thus he could basically handle everything that his teacher was capable of. Besides, what could a twenty-year-old Magician possibly have, that he could not handle?

"Can you show me your rare scales?" Li Junnan still had enough manners to not fall out immediately. That being said, he was not someone with a great temper, either!

If the guy's material was deemed worthless by his discerning eye, he would tell him to leave the tower, take the second line of the subway to East Nanjing station, then take the tenth line there to Tiantong Road Station. He would find lots of forgemasters at the stalls on Qipu Road.

{TL Note: Qipu Road is famous for having a clothing wholesale market.}

"Sure thing," Mo Fan opened his bag and took out the blue-black snake scales.

The truth was, he only had two pieces of the snake scales, but due to the Black Totem Snake's enormous size, the scales were basically as huge as a piece of garment.

The blue-black scales were placed on the table. They somehow resembled a piece of old leather that was just taken out from the furnace, instead of something glistening like a priceless treasure piece...

Why did it look so horrible? Mo Fan had no clue, since he had received it from Tangyue.

On second thought, if the scales were glistening, why would the Black Totem Snake take them off?

"What the heck is this black piece of shit, can you please..." Li Junnan coldly harrumphed. He was just about to teach Mo Fan how to take the subway, when he suddenly discovered something strange about the scales. They did not even have any snake marks. He should at least let the idiot know, "Have you heard of snake marks?"

"Yeah," said Mo Fan.

"Your material is garbage."

"Why is that?" Mo Fan raised his brows.

"The rarer the snake, the finer the snake marks. Your scales don't even have any snake marks on them. It's totally black. Did you pull it from a Servant-class creature?" asked Li Junnan haughtily.

Mo Fan took a closer look. His material was indeed solid black, without any trace of a snake mark...

However… these were two pieces of the Black Totem Snake's scales!

The snake marks were usually visible when looking at the whole snake. How could it possibly be visible on just two pieces of scales?

The slight hint of blue on the material was part of the marks!