Shi Feng gently tapped the magic crystal in his left hand with his right hand, which held the Philosopher's Stone.
The blood-red Philosopher's Stone released a faint crimson glow, and the magic crystal in Shi Feng's left hand crumbled into lime dust that scattered across the floor, leaving nothing behind.
A magic crystal worth eight silver coins — just like that, gone…
In the current Divine Realm, eight silver coins was roughly the income an elite party could earn grinding monsters in the wild for an entire day.
But Shi Feng didn't even blink. Without a word, he picked up a second magic crystal from the table and began Elemental Refining once more.
Two seconds later, another pile of lime dust scattered across the floor…
He tried over a hundred crystals in a row, and not a single one succeeded. Only then did Shi Feng stop the refining and lower his head in thought.
"Is Elemental Refining not working?" Shi Feng looked at the lime dust covering the floor and furrowed his brow slightly.
Zero Wing's membership was small, so the guild hadn't accumulated many magic crystals — just over six hundred. If not a single one out of over a hundred had produced a Magic Crystal Stone, then gathering the twenty-one he needed was utterly impossible.
"No, the probability must simply be too low. I need to increase the odds," Shi Feng recalled clearly that Magic Crystal Stones were found in areas rich with magic crystal deposits. But because players' levels were still too low to reach those locations, the only source of magic crystals was dungeon drops.
"Magic Crystal Stones are a highly concentrated product of magic crystals. In theory, refining them should work without issue. Could it be that the quality of these magic crystals is too low?"
With that thought, he pulled out another magic crystal to test.
This time, after initiating the refinement, Shi Feng fixed his eyes on the crystal, watching the refining process intently.
After the Divine Realm's evolution, both forging and alchemy had become far more realistic. And since Shi Feng was currently using a Virtual Reality Pod with a simulation rate of 97%, he could observe the refining process closely enough to identify potential causes of failure.
However, the refining speed was incredibly fast. Even with Shi Feng's superhuman dynamic vision, the process flashed by in a blur, making it nearly impossible to discern anything.
"System, activate full simulation mode for recording," Shi Feng said suddenly.
System: Identifying… please wait…
System: Player's port detected as Virtual Reality Pod. Full simulation mode is supported.
System: Full simulation mode has been activated.
Once the system enabled full simulation mode, Shi Feng picked up another magic crystal and refined it again. The result was just as expected — it crumbled into a pile of lime dust on the floor.
"System, open the full simulation recording," Shi Feng said, unsurprised.
A 3D holographic image appeared before Shi Feng's eyes — the very scene of him refining the magic crystal.
A Virtual Reality Pod didn't just give players a 97% simulation experience. It could also activate full simulation mode, meaning recorded video was no longer flat but holographic — essentially a shrunken, real-life recreation. This was a feature that ordinary and advanced virtual headsets simply didn't offer.
In the previous life's Divine Realm, virtually every Master Blacksmith and other crafting professionals would purchase a Virtual Reality Pod, precisely for this holographic recording function. It could faithfully recreate what the player had recorded, letting them experience details that flat video simply couldn't convey. Among those details was the refining process.
Beyond that, its greatest use was enemy analysis.
Players could record their battles and study their opponents' fighting habits — defense, attacks, dodging, and other extremely detailed movements. This proved devastatingly effective when it came to dealing with enemies down the line.