In the end, Ekaterina chose to leave. As she departed, both Ekaterina and her elf turned back, gazing wistfully at the broken sword.
"Come on, partners, cheer up!" Ekaterina then encouraged, "With your aptitude, breaking through to Champion-level is only a matter of time. Only with life can you have a future."
"But this thing also helps us break through to the realm of gods," Jynx mumbled quietly.
With their aptitude, breaking through to Champion-level was indeed only a matter of time, but the problem was that reaching Champion was easy, while entering the realm of gods was difficult.
Ekaterina, her face darkening, could only console them, "Only we know about this place. We'll come back for it after we break through to Champion-level."
This time, Jynx didn't object.
Taking advantage of the fact that Ancient Sword Leopard hadn't returned, Ekaterina quietly left the snow mountain from the other side of the summit.
Although she didn't find the egg of the Haxorus, for Ekaterina, this harvest was definitely no less valuable than finding that egg.
"As expected of my future ideal envoy, truly a person with great opportunities. This time, we've intercepted someone else's opportunity," Ekaterina remarked with emotion.
Jynx suggested, "We can just compensate him well when we get out. Consider it an early investment."
Ekaterina nodded.
"I wonder if he received that seed," Ekaterina said as she picked up her tablet.
There was probably no hope on this snow mountain. Ekaterina decided to search for it herself. To avoid delaying her progress, Ekaterina set a time limit for herself.
If she didn't find the egg within half a month, she would have to go back.
Moreover, she had to tell her family about the news here – a newly discovered Tier 3 deity, and one representing disaster.
Evil gods generally have higher combat power than benevolent gods, and an Ice-type evil god... the family had to know about this.
............
Under Lu Li's tireless efforts, the melting furnace was finally designed.
Due to the lack of localization in weapon refining, a magic treasure-level melting furnace was out of the question. So, Lu Li had to settle for second best and design a magical artifact-level melting furnace.
In the world of cultivation, magic treasures are divided into: magical artifacts, magic treasures, spiritual weapons, and immortal weapons.
The biggest characteristic of magical artifacts is that they can be used by people who don't cultivate. The disadvantage is that magical artifacts generally can't be used as weapons and are very troublesome to use.
After the melting furnace was designed, Lu Li came to the entrance of the villa.
Next was the real test of his weapon refining skills.
Just as Lu Li was about to start refining, a sharp cry suddenly rang out in the sky.
A Pidgeot descended from the sky and landed in front of Lu Li.
The Pidgeot was clutching a small box. After glancing at Lu Li, the Pidgeot threw the box to Lu Li and flew away without looking back.
Lu Li looked at the swift Pidgeot with a dumbfounded expression.
Out of caution, Lu Li carefully scanned the box on the ground and only picked it up after finding that there were no dangerous items inside.
Inside the box was a note.
Sir, this is the Lychee Berry seed you requested.
Looking at the contents of the note, Lu Li instantly remembered Ekaterina's previous promise.
"So fast?"
The corners of Lu Li's mouth slightly curved upwards.
Another big shot was coming to compete on the rankings, which was a good thing for him.
Although Lu Li hated trouble, if trouble could bring greater benefits, he wouldn't mind having more of it.
The effect of the Lychee Berry was similar to that of the Salac Berry. The former increased a Pokémon's Attack, while the latter increased a Pokémon's Speed.
Both are very precious berries, and the difficulty of planting them is almost the same as that of the Salac Berry.
Lu Li just put the seed away and didn't rush to plant it.
Lu Li planned to plant the seed after Ekaterina left the Asia Alliance. Lu Li didn't want Ekaterina to know that he could grow rare berry trees.
A 16-year-old berry tree planting master... that's a bit too dangerous these days.
After putting away the seed, Lu Li began to refine the magical artifact.
Refining a magical artifact-level melting furnace was very troublesome and required the help of the Earth's core magma.
Then, Lu Li called out Onix.
"Onix, do you know where there are magma veins nearby?" Lu Li asked.
Finding underground magma was Onix's specialty. After all, wild Onix had to rely on underground magma to evolve.
In terms of finding underground magma, the Onix family was undoubtedly the expert.
"In the places I can sense, it seems that only the secret realm of Qingyun City has underground magma. If the trainer needs to find underground magma, I do have a method, but it's a bit time-consuming."
Hearing this, Lu Li probably knew what method Onix was talking about.
That was to directly dig open the Earth's crust and find magma deep in the mantle, which was the simplest and most direct method.
But the problem was that the Earth's crust in this world was about 40 kilometers thick. After putting the melting furnace in there, even transporting materials would be a problem.
Although as a cultivator he could withstand the high temperature in the mantle, the problem was that it wasn't just a matter of high temperature.
The Qingyun City secret realm was definitely out of the question. That was a secret realm controlled by the Alliance. Even if he had Yu Zhonggang's background, he couldn't frequently enter that secret realm.
Moreover, he would need to transport a large amount of metal materials when making steel. There were too many people in that secret realm, making it too easy to expose his secrets.
As for finding a nearby volcano?
Lu Li specifically checked the geographical data. The closest volcano to him in the real world was more than a thousand kilometers away.
That's right!
Lu Li, who was troubled about how to solve the venue problem, had a flash of inspiration.
How could he forget about that place?
The Qingyun Mountains weren't just the secret realm deep in the mountains.
The home of Tropius was a large secret realm, and such a secret realm definitely had volcanic zones.
However, considering that it was a large secret realm, Lu Li ultimately suppressed the idea of courting death in his heart.
It was just finding a volcano, there was no need to work so hard.
"It seems that I can only look for a volcano around Kyushu University then," Lu Li thought to himself helplessly.
Extracting the essence of steel required a melting furnace and magma. Now, although the problem of the melting furnace was solved, the problem of magma was even greater.
After figuring out a solution, Lu Li began to refine the weapon.
Because it was the first time he had refined a magical artifact-level melting furnace, Lu Li spent more than a day to get the melting furnace done.
Including the design, Lu Li spent almost three days.
If it weren't for Wei reminding him, Lu Li would have almost missed the regional competition.
Hastily putting away Charmander and Milotic, Lu Li rode Tropius towards Qingyun City.
There was no way around it. Tropius's flying speed was too slow. He had to go to Aunt Liu's ecological park to borrow an Elite-level Pidgeot to use as a mount.
