Chapter 24.1

"Senior Brother, do you need these?" Daoyi asked, looking at the miscellaneous leftover pieces of scraps from Tianyi's forging.

"Hm? You want these? I'll give the base materials instead of the scraps." Tianyi said as he moved to take out the materials.

"No, no, you don't need to," Daoyi said, quickly stopping Tianyi. "I'm only making some handicrafts and not artifacts. I'm still only at the Qi Gathering Realm, so I can't really refine any artifact. No need to waste all those materials, the scraps are fine."

Only when a cultivator entered the Foundation Establishment Realm were they able to condense and manipulate qi outside their bodies. Because of this, Qi Gathering Pupils could not refine artifacts.

Simultaneously, this meant that the so-called Qi Gathering artifacts were only pseudo-artifacts at best because a Qi Gathering Pupil couldn't refine them; they were ownerless items. Only when a cultivator could refine them and make them their own could an item be truly called an artifact.

"When you put it that way," Tianyi pondered for a moment before agreeing. He waved his hands and all the scraps collected into a container that he handed to Daoyi. "Some of the materials are rank three materials and above, so if you can't manipulate it, don't force yourself."

"Thank you," Daoyi said as she took the container, but then a thought occurred to her. "Senior Brother, you said rank three and above. Doesn't that mean you used materials at the Core Formation Realm and above?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"But the artifact you refined before, weren't they all in the Foundation Establishment Realm?" Daoyi asked, her voice slightly shaking.

Tianyi laughed. "Actually, to me, rank one and two materials are scarce. Even rank three materials are rare. Those materials are my mother's stockpiles from when she was a Core Formation Master and below. Most of the materials I have are rank four and above. But I'm afraid of wasting them, so I practiced using these."

Wastrel.

There was no other term Daoyi could use to describe Tianyi's usage of these ingredients. How many cultivators would cry if they saw this, Daoyi didn't know. But she did know that they would all point their fingers and scream at Tianyi.

"Wait, Senior Brother, you are at the Core Formation Realm. How can you use the rank four and above materials?" Daoyi asked.

"Oh, that?" Tianyi shrugged. "Not all materials are hard to handle. Materials are separated into ranks due to the amount of qi contained and the difficulty needed to process them. For example, a piece of wood is obviously easier to process than metal. Some rank four materials can even be processed by a Core Formation Master."

"So you only use the rank four materials that you can process?" Daoyi asked.

"Oh no," Tianyi shook his head. "Most of the materials I have are already preprocessed by my mother. So if I tried hard enough, I could make even Nascent Soul rank artifacts!"

"But earlier, you hadn't," Daoyi interjected.

"I wasn't trying, of course. If I really wanted to, I could've made one!" Tianyi looked away from Daoyi's piercing eyes. "It wasn't like I was actually trying to make a Nascent Soul rank artifact only to fail and created a Foundation Establishment rank artifact instead."

Daoyi got the distinct impression Tianyi was lying.

"A-anyways, what types of handicrafts are you going to make with them, Junior Sister?" Tianyi asked.

"Hm? Nothing much, just some jewelry. Back at the ducal estate, I only wore the bare necessities of accessories." Daoyi sighed as she recalled those days. "If I stood out too much, I would become a thorn to the duchess's eyes. The duchess is an easily jealous woman. I think she tried to kill Second Sister once because she stood out too much by wearing jewelry."

"She sounds horrible. Why didn't you say anything? I could've helped you get revenge on her." Tianyi said.

"Back then, I was still an outsider. How could I ask you for something like this?" Daoyi laughed. "Besides, I don't want revenge on the duchess. I hate her for making my life a living hell, but it is not like I don't understand her. Marriage is a relationship between two people. For a third person to interfere and not to be able to do anything about it, anyone would be driven to jealousy."

"But children are innocent. It was Duke Qi's actions that resulted in this, not you or your second sister's." Tianyi said. "The duchess isn't a good person. She lashes out on innocent people instead of confronting the root of her envy. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Daoyi shook her head and looked away. "You're the first one I heard such a phrase from. Most people see children as an extension of their parents, single or both. The sin or merit of the parent will be inherited by the child."

"Is that so?" Tianyi said. Now that he thought about it, the thought that children were innocent started to originate only around the Victorian era. So perhaps he was the one with the weird thoughts.

"But I agree with Senior Brother. Children should not be held accountable for the sins of their parents." Daoyi said with a smile. "Children are innocent, just like Senior Brother."

"Right," Tianyi nodded but suddenly paused as he processed what Daoyi said. "Hey, what's that suppose to mean!"

"Haha,"