Chapter 301 – Studying Artifact Forging for the First Time (2/2)
“I don’t think our relationship has reached the point where we can talk about her.”
Qian Rongzhi became sad. Li Qingshan was unable to discern her real feelings either. “She’s currently in the school of Yin-yang, learning the Cloud Bookcase of the Seven Lots with Ma Buyi. If you have something to say, spit it out.”
Li Qingshan could completely disregard Chu Tian’s so-called provocations from a genius, immediately cursing back, but when he spoke with her, he had to raise his guard slightly. He was reluctant to fall out with her over something as petty as this, and he just had a feeling that her concern for Xiao An was not fake.
Even if Chu Tian ground his teeth in hatred against him, he would not care, but if he sensed hostility from her one day, then only the word “kill” would remain.
“Thank you. Wei Zhongyuan. Do you have time?”
“You’re in such a hurry?”
Qian Rongzhi leaned against her hand. “You gotta be swift with revenge, right? I don’t need you to kill him right now either. I still need to plan a little.”
“Revenge? You mean yours or mine?”
“Mine, of course.” Qian Rongzhi rubbed her smooth cheek. She wanted to return that slap ten fold, a hundred fold. She said leisurely, “I can’t wait to tell vice sect master Wei in detail just how I tortured Wei Yingjie to death. After that, I will unleash the same method on him. Hehe, now that’s the joys of life.”
Under the principle that the enemy of an enemy was a friend, Li Qingshan sucked in a deep breath and held back his urge to curse her. What a fucking deviant.
Qian Rongzhi seemed to be extremely amused by Li Qingshan’s expression, as if she had finally found someone who would listen to her inner voice, and that person would be forced to listen too.
“As remuneration, I can investigate Chu Tian’s background for you. He won’t just leave the matter like this. Oh, and that female instructor who wants to harm Xiao An too.”
“We’ll see. The old man is about to begin,” Li Qingshan answered casually, neither agreeing nor declining. Wei Zhongyuan had to die anyway. As for the female instructor, he would kill her if he met her. It would bring him a bit of pleasure too.
However, little did he know that in the eyes of regular people, this thought of his made him seem no different from a deviant.
On the lecturing platform, the professor finally stopped drinking tea. He gently coughed twice with a satisfied expression. “Everyone, I’m Meng Xiqi…”
The two of them stopped conversing, focusing on the class.
It was fine when the professor called Meng Xiqi was quiet, but once he began, he did not stop. Words flowed out of his mouth like a river, going from the origins of forging artifacts to the development of forging artifacts. His voice echoed through the spiral lecture hall, clearly heard by everyone.
“Some people say alchemy, forging artifacts, and so on are all outer paths of cultivation, and they’re not wrong. However, it’s exactly because of these outer paths of cultivation that you can sit here in peace, without having to worry about attacks from daemons, yet those daemons that truly only practise a greater path of cultivation are forced to hide deep within the mountains or underground…”
This was basically the first time Li Qingshan had come in contact with the path of forging artifacts, so he listened extremely carefully. And just like what Zhang Lanqing had said, Meng Xiqi spoke extremely well, full of wit and humour and striking great interest in the audience. He was only at the eighth layer, but he could be regarded as an expert in the aspect of forging artifacts.
After giving a general overview on the history and significance of forging artifacts, Meng Xiqi began to teach the actual path of forging artifacts.
Li Qingshan was entranced by it. Only then did he learn just how wondrous the path of refining artifacts was. From the initial transformation and fusing of materials, followed by the infusion of glyphs and inscription of formations, every single step was extremely impressive.
He never thought that these “outer paths of cultivation” would actually be so closely linked either. The glyphs mentioned in forging artifacts were different from the glyphs from the path of talismans, but they were identical in nature.
Glyphs were characters, characters that communicated with the world. Just the common types numbered at almost a thousand, and they had a myriad of effects depending on their combinations. During the process of forging artifacts, the infusion of glyphs was a crucial step, so understanding a little about the path of talismans was critical.
And, above spiritual artifacts were arcane artifacts, which were inscribing formations into artifacts to produce even more powerful and complicated effects. Qi Practitioners obviously lacked the ability to achieve this, but if they wanted to become a real artifact smith, then they had to know some basic formations.
Li Qingshan knew he had to revise the subjects he would be taking, but he felt like he had found a direction in the darkness. He was overjoyed.
Meng Xiqi spoke for two hours before returning to the very basics of forging artifacts—transforming the state of the materials.
“A good blacksmith goes through many steps to forge a sword. The basics steps include smelting, hammering, and quenching. They need many tools, like furnaces, large hammers, small hammers, air bellows, tanks of water, grindstones, and so on. However, to us, just a single artifact forging furnace is sufficient, or even no furnace…”
Finishing up with his explanation, he picked up the wooden boxes he had brought with him. Inside were many small, square pieces of wood, arranged neatly. He made the disciples in the front row pass them backwards.
Meng Xiyi requested them to turn the wood into a sphere without destroying the wood grain. The wood was pine wood, so it was relatively soft and easy to mould. In order to learn artifact forging, they needed to be able to mould a substance with their own power.
Li Qingshan received a piece of pine wood too, and he immediately began to practice with it. He slowly channeled true qi into it, following the method that Meng Xiqi had taught him, gradually fusing the true qi with the wood.
With the purity of his true qi and the gentle nature of Gui Water true qi that made it easier to control, he succeeded on his first try with this.
As he began to mould his true qi, the piece of wood began to twist and mould with it too, as if it was not wood, instead becoming gas or water with the Gui Water true qi.