Chapter 103: A Multicolored Mist

For these past few days, Chu Feng had been preoccupied with martial arts cultivation, killing enemies, and traveling. He had found no time to settle down and properly study this ancient and mysterious storage bag, nor had he even taken stock of the various items within it.

At this moment, Chu Feng probed into the storage bag.

The first thing he saw, naturally, was the Thunder-Combining King Beast. It stood there like a leisurely steed, shaking its head and tail, appearing completely relaxed and devoid of any aggressive temperament.

As expected, gold ingots, silver ingots, and War-Shadow Iron were piled high like mountains, stacked in great heaps not far from the King Beast. The storage bag possessed the function of spontaneously generating metal-attributed items. After these days of continuous generation, Chu Feng was not surprised to find an increase in these treasures.

What surprised him, however, was that two spearheads, each about a foot long, had appeared in the bag. These were the exact spearheads of the Overlord Shadow-Chasing Spear he had previously placed inside. The shaft of the spear was made of wood, but the head was cast from a mixture of gold and refined steel—a metal-attributed material. Consequently, after several days of generation, while the wooden shaft remained unchanged, the bag had produced two identical spearheads.

Other than the metal items, everything else—non-metal objects including secret manuals, gold notes, Moon-Cave Flying Pearls, and the two puppets—remained exactly as they were, with no replicas appearing.

"Hmm, not bad! I must take this opportunity to calm my mind, focus completely, and observe the interior space of the storage bag; perhaps I can grasp a hint of its hidden mechanism."

With this thought, Chu Feng cleared out all the metal items from the bag, leaving nothing of that attribute behind. Once cleared, the piles of gold, silver, and War-Shadow Iron filled the room with a brilliant, dazzling golden light, and the space within the storage bag expanded significantly.

Chu Feng picked up a single gold ingot and tossed it back into the bag, his eyes locked onto it.

As the gold ingot landed, clouds of colorful mist emerged from the surrounding space, slowly converging toward the item. Chu Feng watched closely; there were five distinct clouds of mist, one from each of five directions.

These five clouds were a dazzling gold, a dark cyan representing wood, a clear transparent hue for water, a vibrant fire-red, and an earthy yellowish-brown.

"These five colors are distinct; this cannot be a coincidence. They must correspond to the five elemental phases: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth," Chu Feng thought as he carefully observed the changes.

The five elemental mists approached the ingot from different directions, varying in density and speed. The golden mist was the densest and moved the fastest, followed by the wood, fire, and earth mists. Only the transparent water mist appeared as thin as a wisp of smoke, moving with extreme lethargy.

By the time the other four mists had converged around the gold ingot, the water mist was still lagging far behind, struggling to move forward.

"Hmm? What does this mean? It suggests that the water element in the storage bag is not only scarce but also lacks vitality," Chu Feng realized, a flash of insight crossing his mind. The density and activity of the water mist were four or five times lower than the others, clearly acting as a bottleneck.

After a few breaths, the water mist finally reached the ingot.

In the next instant, the five elemental mists collided and merged like turbulent clouds. In the blink of an eye, the five individual colors blended into a complex hue. The combined mist enveloped the gold ingot, churning and fluctuating like boiling water. As the mist underwent these repetitive changes, it grew thicker and more concentrated, its shape becoming more regular, and its color increasingly uniform.

Soon, the mist ceased its agitation and vanished. Beside the original ingot, a second gold ingot had appeared—identical in every detail.

Having witnessed the entire process without missing a single detail, Chu Feng had finally grasped the logic behind the bag’s creation, though he was not yet ready to draw a definitive conclusion. He repeated the experiment with several more gold ingots, observing the process with unwavering focus.

Half an hour later, he reached a conclusion. The storage bag did not create items out of thin air; it utilized the five elemental energies within its space to replicate the objects exactly. Regarding the five elements, the water element was clearly the limiting factor—it was insufficient in quantity and lacked vitality.

"Looking at this, if the water element could keep pace, the time required to generate an item would be greatly reduced. Currently, the other four elements are abundant, but water is far too lacking. The five elements are essential for creation; not one can be omitted," Chu Feng reasoned.

Yet, how could he increase the quantity and activity of the water element within the bag? He paced the room, pondering this dilemma.

To Chu Feng, the bag’s generation process was like an old ox pulling a plow. The ox required the energy gained from eating grass to pull the iron plow. Similarly, the storage bag needed a source of energy to sustain its creation.

The problem was, what did the bag need to "eat" to gain this energy? Currently, the water element was stagnant, as if dormant. Should he add water to the bag to see if it would act as the necessary fuel or awaken the dormant element?

Chu Feng immediately rejected this reckless idea. Many high-level martial arts items were sensitive to water; if he were wrong, and the moisture destroyed the bag’s functionality, his regret would be bottomless.

However, he was certain of one thing: the storage bag was not functioning at its full potential. It was in a semi-dormant state, and he needed something to activate it fully.

"What could possibly activate the stagnant water element?" He searched his memory for the bag's origins. It had been given to him a year ago by a middle-aged worker at the Fear Gate just before the man died. The man had simply bought it by chance at a market. Chu Feng had discovered its miraculous ability only after fleeing the gate months ago.

"Strange! Why did it only begin to function when I was in the midst of my escape, in my most desperate hour? Did I inadvertently add something to it?"

Another half hour of deep thought yielded no answers.

"Forget it. No use racking my brain. Since this is a rare treasure left behind by someone centuries ago, it might be recorded in martial arts classics. I will look for such texts when I have the time."

Chu Feng set aside his obsession. "For now, the ability to generate metal items is functioning normally. I just hope it stays that way when I arrive at the Wu-Han Snow Clan—I cannot afford for it to fail at a critical moment."

With that, he gathered up the metal items scattered across the floor and stored them away.