The entire city of Karvallus knows me as the ecentric bidder at the arena during the beast girls eighth game and the one who took over the residence in the north workshop. I let the aura of my crafting show the world what tier of crafting I was master of. Whenever I came out of the workshop to check on auctions or visit their medicinal gardens, the staff treat me with the utmost respect. Management even surrounded me with a team of cute girls who are more than willing to duo cultivate with me for one of my pills.

I quickly found out that the title Denizens of the Depths is a term used by the mainland and on the island they perfer to be called the seafolk. The cute girls they provide me provided me a storehouse of information about the history of the island and it's citizens. By the time I finish my first set of artifacts, I became fairly knowledgeable about the island and its traditions and even adapted to a fair degree in the local dialect.

Stage eight experts do their best to win my favor and send my way all kinds of gifts that the auction house delivered to my workshop everyday, from cultivation resources to rare materials and spiritual herbs. When the auction house sold the information that I purchase rare demonbeast meat and cultivation wine materials, those resources quickly joins in among the gifts as well. To the gifts that catch my attention I invite them for a consultation to forge a weapon for them. They have already stockpiled the resources they need for their weapon, but unable to find an artificer to forge anything better than early stage eight artifact.

Seeing the spectral phenomenon of my one weeks of Artificing followed by a week of alchemy crafting made the experts in the city eager to ask for my help in forging their dream weapons and a few rare pills. I made the effort to get aquainted with the islander's top experts since I figure I will be visiting the island every hundred years for their grand auction. So I listen carefully as they explain their dream weapons and do my best to craft them their dreams.

By the end of the first month, I had all the top experts on the island in my pocket. I had only forged a handful of custom weapons, but the results made the rest eager to please me. My efforts to befriend the seafolk experts even got me an invitation to visit their sea king. I learned their sea king wants to reforge his clan's ancestral weapon that was damage in the last war with the beastfolk. Their sea king is unwilling to allow anyone who can't consistantly forge mid tier eight weapons to reforge his ancestral weapon.

After hearing me place twenty mid stage weapons I forge the first week on auction, the seafolk experts did their best to invite me to see their king. When I told them the reason why I came to the island is to bid on a Seed of the Undertow, the expert quickly explain that their king has several such seeds. No doubt their king would gift me one if I successfully reforge his ancestral weapon.

Then I told them I was expecting my disciple to show up within a day or two, the experts quickly dispatch a message to their king for further orders. I was surprise to see that two days later a glorius army of the seafolk arriving under the cheers of the citizens of Karvallus. The citizens line the streets to cheer the arrival of their sea king Umbarath. I watch the hulking sea king strode right up to the auction house and enter though the front doors.

I swept the workshop clean of my materials and store them back into my void ring and waited for the sea king's arrival. I pulled out some chairs and brought out a giant roast of a late stage eight Sea Serpent that I recently recieved as a gift a few days ago. Then I pulled out two jugs of my strongest cultivation wine called Alpine Breeze and cut hunk of Sea Serpent and dug in for the wait. I can feel my water affinity rise a tiny bit and my body techique as well, mostly in the speed and toughness departments rather than an over all growth.

Then I take a chug from the jug Alpine Breeze and feel my spiritual force rise a bit and thicken, I've been eating a meal of this each day since I recieve a gift of the Sea Serpent two days ago. Alpine Breeze is made from a berries of a Tracian Icetree that give it strong leafy taste and smell. Then added Kumbiard Hecklefruit to tone that taste down a couple of notches and give it a touch of honey lemon flavor. It smooth and refine and naturally cold to drink, but it is also the strongest alcoholic recipe master owned.

It's so strong, a stage six practitioner would past out after one cup, while a stage seven expert would have troubles walking after four or five cups. For a stage eight cultivator, they would probably go with something like 'finally a wine with some kick to it,' since their stage eight bodies have high resistance to drugs and liquor effects. Then you have those who specialize with body techiques who never get drunk no matter how much they drink. Let them down a jug of Alpine Breeze and they be drunk until their body defenses finally kick in.

Consider the amount to time it took for the door chime to ring, he must have examined my auctions before finally showing up. He is a big man nearly three meters tall and obvious not used to being overly polite. So I cut to the chase and break the ice and gesture at the roast if he's hungry, then enjoyed good chat as we dined.

He is surprised at seeing a section of a roasted Sea Serpent and do as I do and cut off a huge chunk of it and sits down on one of the chair and digs in. He is pleasantly surprised that I manage to properly cook it, then he takes a hit from the jug next to his chair and exclaims "great wine!' I laugh and supplied "glad you like it, I find it goes well with Sea Serpent."

Umbarath relaxes and begin a honest story of his wish to reforge his ancestral weapon and ask if I be willing to do it. Then he pulls out the fractured weapon and hands it over to me to examine. Then he pulls out a ring containing all the reforging materials I need for the reforging. After I finish looking though the void ring I nod in approval and he then pulls out perfect specimen of a Seed of the Undertow encase in a high grade jade case and supplied "young master, please accept this for reforging my ancestral weapon."

I took the case and examing the perfectly preserved specimen and I cup my hand and give a slight bow of thanks. I got up and pour out the raw materials he collected and begin refining them all. I toss the mixture into my furnace to continue the refining and then examine the fractured spear, especially diving into it to memorize the arrays stored inside. The weapon arrays are mid tier eight that I already know, so I see no problem duplicating them for the reforge.

I toss the spear into my furnace to refine as well. I draw in both Dragonflames and Deepwater spiritual flames to help the refining process further. I ended up using a ton of spiritual Deepwater because it's an extreme water affinity artifact. The artifact spirit went crazy soaking in all the Deepwater spiritual fire and revive from it's sleepy state to a semi conconsious awareness.

It doesn't fight me at all, it must have realize I have the ability to reforge it and passively watch me use techniques after techiques to repair the damage. I drain my spiritual force using dimensional rifting to slowly fill in the cracks. Using this technique ensures the spearhead will be as strong as the original as I replicate the blade at the molecular level.

It's agonizing slow work, but it the only way to fully restore the spearhead. After fixing the spearhead, I replace the weapon arrays with updated versions so they give a slight over all improvement. Then I leave it the furnace to continue absorbing the excess materials to strengthen it even further. It took nearly a hour of pain staking difficult mental marathon before taking a break and pulling out a new jug of cultivation wine to quickly restore my spiritual force then I hand over the new jug to Umbarath and voice out "it's all done, the spear spirit is refining the excess materials to strengthen itself. Should take about another hour for it to finish."

I see he is excited and peers into the furnace to examing the reforged spear with obvious delight, because the spear is no longer a mid tier eight artifact and has advanced to late stage from the reforging. He turns towards me and bows deeply and hands out "young master! You are truely a gifted artificer! If there is anything you need, don't hesitate to ask my young friend!"

I laugh and supply "let's enjoy our dinner until the spear spirit finish refining all that material, in the mean time please continue with your stories of the undersea." So we sat and continue carving chunks off the roast and got drunk as we chatted away about the world of the undersea to satisfy my curiosity. I suppliment my drinking by chewing on resources now and then. Umbarath shakes his head at my outrageous behavior as I down a couple dozen tier nine resources through out the meal. It from habit when I see him shake his head to realize I still unconsciously down hand fulls of resources.

He is a peak stage eight expert and from his expression probably only refines a single stage nine resource carefully over a long period of time. I feel bad, but I hate the feeling of being weak after using Dimension Rifting for so long, but I'm starting to get the hang of it and have reduce my spiritual force spending by nearly ten percent. So I restore my qi quickly with the resources and my spiritual force with the wine.

I have no doubt my fellow cultivators would be thinking I waste so much resources, but I don't care, my cultivation has not move since the Alchemist Tomb. So I treat the tier nine resources like candy, since only then do I feel a tiny growth in my cultivation after week of stuffing my face.

After hearing his stories about the undersea until the spear spirit finish refining the remaining materials, he hands me his personal mark allowing me to visit him anytime. In the end before he leaves with his reforge spear, he insist I call him big brother, despite that fact he is a couple thousand years older than me. But he does look about early thirties, so I agree to his offer since we hit it off rather well.

Besides, his stories of the sights he has seen in the undersea has peaked my curiosity. So I'm rather intrigue about the undersea and planned to explore it someday. Like the nations on land, the undersea has many nations and kings as well. Umbarath controls all the surrounding water around the island for nearly six thousand miles north and west and about four thousand miles south.

His palace is but a thousand miles northwest of the island, he has a secret teleportation gate about a hundred miles north in a hidden underwater cave. He tells me when I want to visit him, his personal mark will grant me full access to teleportation gates thoughout his kingdom. He even allows me to scan and memorize his personal map jade which included nearly a score of underwater kingdoms he has visited.

Then I give him something to look forward to by adding in "big brother! Please take this selection of my best wines I've brewed so far, when we meet again I want your an honest opinion of what you think about them. I hope you can fulfill your promise the next time we meet big brother! If you can satisfy me, I'll let you pick your favorite wine and give you a unbreached barrel of it." Then I cup my hands and give a slight bow and follow up with "take care big brother."

He takes the void pouch and take a quick peek and I can see his expression lights up, and he claps my left shoulder and provides "little brother is too kind! I'll send you a message as soon as my people has searched through the friendly sea kingdoms, when you visit I will wine and dine you until your stuffed!" and laughs as he leaves the workshop.

I look over to the pile of gifts he had left after appaising the finished spear, with my divine sense I can see I can make another ten weapons. I look at the small pile of thirty water cores and smiled, looks like fate really wants me to work on water attribute artifacts.

So I stuff the gifts with the rest of my stock and take out the lesser materials and the ten weakest water cores and produced ten more weapons, them I toss them into my void ring for trading. My current auctions should be enough bring in enough funds for now. Besides I already have a Seed of the Undertow, so I no longer need to go all out in crafting and just work on customs for now on.

I stared at the Light of the Divine and sigh, it's just too handy fixing and ripening spiritual herbs to their peak as I place the Seed of the Undertow on the outer edge of it's pulsating light. I replaces the ripe herbs with those on my list of important spiritual herbs that need fixing and decide to hold off until I can find another Light of the Divine or if I truely need to boost to my meridian or spiritual veins. With that in mind, I ask the auction house to spread the word that I am need of one and that I will craft a weapon as a reward.

I'm already quite happy coming to Karvallus, the seafolk main auction house provided me with six Dragon Veins of high quality, and my new big brother promise to send his people search the auctions houses of friendly sea kingdoms. I had shown him my best Dragon Vein and he promise to find a few better ones for me. He even told me he knew of a supreme quality Dragon Vein that is protected a peak stage eight Kracken that he always wanted to fight, now he is happy that I given him a reason to fight the monster, but I think it is more about testing out his ancestial spear.

I had already settle in with obtaining the best high quality Dragon Vein for myself, since only a handful of supreme quality exist and they are all own by the six most powerful sects in the world. Minor sects use weak quality Dragon Veins with cultivation arrays to build cultivation chambers with natural qi that double that of the outside world. High quality Dragon Veins can raise that to three or four times the outside world, while supreme quality Dragon Veins would give cultivation chambers at least five times the normal amount.

So it looks like I'm set for Dragon Veins, now I just need to get to peak stage eight, and I just don't see that happening any time soon as I crunch down another handful resources and nothing happens as usual. I am begining to believe the dantian inside me is just a void masquerading as a dantian. My thoughts stir about finding another lucky chance like the Alchemist Tomb.