Yang Yan lay sprawled across Yang Kai's stone chamber in a most undignified pose, fast asleep. Yang Kai shook his head with a helpless smile.
A full month of artifact forging seemed to have completely exhausted her. She lay there breathing heavily, her body splayed out in the shape of the character for "big," seemingly unconcerned about the effect she might have on Yang Kai. Her ample, magnificent chest heaved proudly with each breath, and her slender, graceful figure was a truly striking sight.
Even the noise Yang Kai made upon returning hadn't woken her.
He turned around and walked back out of the cave, caught a few wild animals on the mountain, and set up a fire pit outside the entrance to roast them. Yang Yan's physical and mental energy had been severely depleted — some food would help her recover.
He had only gotten halfway through roasting when Yang Yan came running out with her nose twitching, arms folded and grinning from ear to ear. She squatted beside the fire, eyes locked intently on the golden-brown rabbit on the spit, eagerly awaiting her meal.
"Feeling rested?" Yang Kai glanced at her.
"Sort of. I'll need a few more days," she replied casually, then called out in a petulant whine, "Flip it already! It's burning! Ugh, you're hopeless — let me do it!"
Before Yang Kai could react, she snatched the spit from his hands without ceremony.
Yang Kai didn't mind. He sat off to the side, happy to rest, and regarded her with a puzzlement. "You're a Void-grade artifact refiner — so how did you end up in such a sorry state?"
This was something he genuinely couldn't figure out. Yang Yan clearly had the skill. If she simply showed people what she could do, she would be able to live a life well above the ordinary. Any faction on the Dark Star would welcome her with the most generous terms, and they'd practically fight each other for the privilege.
Yang Yan pouted. "What do you know? You think I should go join one of those big factions, don't you?"
Yang Kai nodded.
"I don't want to join any of them," Yang Yan huffed. "None of them are any good. I won't forge artifacts for people like that."
At that, Yang Kai understood.
Without the backing of a major power, a woman like Yang Yan couldn't truly leverage her abilities. She had no way to obtain high-grade materials for forging, and if she entered somewhere like an Artifact Refining Hall, people would question her credentials and only commission her for low-grade Artifacts.
Even if she claimed to be a Void-grade refiner, no one would dare hand over Void-grade materials to test her skills.
It was a vicious cycle. If she wasn't miserable, who would be?
Even Yang Kai wouldn't have readily believed her without first giving her some of his own unused materials to prove herself.
"Do you have some grudge against them?" he asked.
"Not a grudge, exactly. I just don't like them. I've heard that in every faction, it's all tangled up in power struggles and entangled interests. I just want to forge in peace — I don't want to get dragged into that kind of mess."
That much was true. The more skilled an artifact refiner was, the more attention and courtship they would attract. And no faction was a monolithic block — even a small family like the Haike Family was rife with internal divisions, let alone a behemoth like the Shadow Moon Hall.
If Yang Yan walked into one of those places, she'd probably be driven mad by the lot of them.
The smell of roasting meat drifted through the air. Yang Yan eyed the roasted meat in her hands with satisfaction and tore off a rabbit leg, offering it to Yang Kai. He slowly shook his head, and only then did she happily sink her teeth into it, eating with obvious delight.
"Oh, by the way — I sold those Artifacts you forged," Yang Kai said offhandedly.
"Hmm, they're yours. Do whatever you want with them."
"They went for twenty thousand high-grade Saint Crystals total."
"The price seems fair enough. You didn't get ripped off," Yang Yan nodded, barely paying attention.
"How many Saint Crystals do you have?" Yang Kai asked.
"Why?" Yang Yan immediately grew wary, subtly shielding her space ring with her hand, wearing the expression of someone terrified he might be after her crystals. After a moment's thought, she decided that was unlikely and mumbled, "A little over two thousand... low-grade."
"That poor?" Yang Kai was speechless. He shook his head and sighed, then produced a quantity of high-grade Saint Crystals and several bottles of restorative pills from his space ring and handed them over. "Artifact forging takes a huge toll. Take these."
Yang Yan wiped her hands and didn't stand on ceremony. She took the Saint Crystals and stuffed them into her space ring, then opened one of the bottles and sniffed, her expression changing. "Saint King-grade pills?"
She clearly hadn't expected Yang Kai to be so generous. A single bottle of Saint King-grade pills was worth a fortune — several bottles together amounted to half the value of an Artifact she'd forged.
"You seem to be rather well-off," Yang Yan said, eyeing Yang Kai with a strange look. He had produced materials from seventh- and eighth-grade demon beasts without batting an eye, casually given away several bottles of Saint King-grade pills, and possessed a high-grade Saint King Star Shuttle and the Void-grade Artifact Seven Colored Flags.
Yang Kai found it hard to imagine that a Third-Order Transcendent could own so many valuable things.
Compared to her, the gap between them was like heaven and earth. Where had he gotten all of this? He certainly didn't look like someone with a powerful background.
"Don't skimp on the pills. Come find me when you run out — I have plenty," Yang Kai told her. He'd come to understand Yang Yan's personality well enough by now. She was the frugal type, the kind who treasured every last crystal. He genuinely worried she wouldn't use the pills to recover her depleted energy.