The Science of Cultivation [Xianxia]

Chapter 174: Eagerness

After having escaped from the Yan Family estate, Li Lang kept himself out of trouble by staying at the lodging his companions found while he was away. The next day, they uneventfully departed from the city after purchasing some Mortal-grade materials unique to the province of Vermillion Dragon.

He left most of those errands to his companions while he focused on teaching their new students. There was a lot to go through to give them the basic education he desired of them.

Thankfully, the newly ignited desire of his students in pursuit of cultivation fueled them to pass through these lessons. They were all motivated, having been given hope that they too could cultivate despite their aptitude. Like that, they quietly traversed through the borders between orthodox and demonic cultivators.

They uneventfully made it back to Polarity City, where it seemed to be even more lively than before. As the main auction that took place at the end of the event drew closer, more and more cultivators arrived.

Previously, it was mostly just the wealthy juniors running errands for their elders or newly ascended Foundation Establishment cultivators looking to pick up a few items. Now, many elders had arrived, with more to follow.

“What do you guys want to do?” Long Yi asked. “Should we stay until the end of the event or make our way back to Emberglow first with the kids?”

“If w-we plan to attend the main event, t-then there is no point leaving. We’ll h-have to take our new students with us anyway,”

“No,” Li Lang stated otherwise. “We will be returning to Emberglow first and returning when it is closer to the main event.

“Okay, I’ll go take a look at the auction schedule while you guys do that—Wait, what?”

“No need. I don’t plan to attend any more of them.”

Li Lang’s words had taken both his companions off-guard. They exchanged glances as if to confirm they had heard correctly. Seeing this, Li Lang elaborated.

“We’ve bought enough for now. We’ll need to keep an ample amount of funds for when we set up a place for ourselves. For now, I want to prepare for a certain project I’ve been looking forward to and I need the guidance of Senior Tie Qian to do so.”

With that, no more words needed to be said, and both Wei Ping and Long Yi understood where this was going. They could see from the gleam in Li Lang’s eyes that he was dead set on carrying out his research. They knew it was useless to try to convince him otherwise during these fixated frenzies.

With that, they didn’t even stay the night and departed for Emberglow City right away. With the traffic around Polarity City increasing, so too did the volume of Skyrunners traveling between the two cities.

No Qi beast or cultivators with nefarious intentions ambushed them, and they safely arrived above the barren earth that Emberglow City lay beneath.

To the amazement of their new students, their vehicle hugged close to the ground before traveling through narrow tunnels to reach the giant underground city.

“This place is unbelievable!” Xiao Dong exclaimed. “I can’t believe people managed to build such a large city down here. Do you think those glowing mushrooms on the ceiling are artifacts some cultivators created to light up the place?”

“It is natural we cannot use the common sense of mortals to evaluate a city created by cultivators,” Wu San retorted.

“You guys,” a younger child by the name of Ouyang Jie timidly called out. “This place is filled with demonic cultivators, you know? Aren’t you guys scared?”

“Our teacher had already gone over the characteristics of demonic cultivation,” Wu San explained. “They’re just techniques. It doesn’t decide the character of its practitioner. While it may have some influences on their mind, we can’t just say they are all—”

“Okay, okay. I understand that, but still. Every single one of these good demonic cultivators could go rogue at any moment!”

“You k-kids!” Wei Ping interjected. “Save your d-discussions for later. We’re landing n-now, and the last thing we want is for anyone to overhear y-you guys.”

While the kids were discussing their new environment with both enthusiasm and apprehension, Li Lang quietly meditated beside them. To be precise, he was within Ruby’s artifact realm.

“Ruby, are you sure you aren’t able to replicate the creation of an artifact spirit?”

“Yes, Master. I’m sorry for not being of use, but I feel other artifact spirits just don’t seem to be possible.”

“Hmm, I guess it could be considered as something alive or sentient. Still, would you know if the results of my experiments will result in an artifact spirit or not? Even if it doesn’t form, you should be able to tell that, right?”

“I have no idea, Master,” Ruby pitifully replied. “I don’t have any memories or experience of what will happen.”

“Hmm, I guess the only thing to do is to try.”

Returning back to reality, their group soon landed in a spacious plaza. As soon as they did, Li Lang hopped off the Skyrunner.

“You guys go find us some temporary housing. Come fetch me from Senior Tie Qian’s place once you do.”

Without letting anyone respond, Li Lang quietly walked away into the bustling crowd of the city. He was familiar with the place and headed straight for where his artificer mentor’s workshop was.

He strolled through the front of the store and into the back, where he usually found his mentor. When he didn’t see her in the crafting room, he headed for her office. There, he finally found the person he had been looking for, looking over some papers.

The muscular woman, Tie Qian, sensed him coming long before he showed up. When he opened the door, she greeted him without tearing her eyes away from the paperwork.

“Li Lang, you have returned already. Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Senior.”

“It seems like there’s a reason you’ve come to me in such a rush. Go ahead, I can listen while I work.”

“Thank you for your understanding, Senior. I will cut to the chase, then. I want you to show me how the process of forming an artifact spirit works.”

His words made the stoic elder swiftly put down the sheet in her hand as she stared at the young man before her.

“You haven’t even learned artificing for a year and you want to learn how to make an artifact already? As someone who has some attainment in Alchemy and Brushweaving, you should know there’s an order to things. It is still too soon for you.”

“Please, teacher. I wish to at least know the methods.”

Seeing his determined eyes, Tie Qian sighed upon realizing how stubborn her student was about the matter.

“What did you come across to make you so eager? Techniques from another school, or maybe Earth-grade beast cores?”

Li Lang saw no need to hide the truth, especially when so many people had witnessed him win his bids.

“I bought a few sets of Mortal-grade beast cores. I know it doesn’t mean I’ll succeed in crafting artifacts, but I want to research how the process works as soon as I can.”

“Using beast cores to sate your curiosity, how lavish of you! Fine, I will go over the methods, but just know that you will only waste your treasures if you believe that’s all it takes to craft artifacts.”

For the next few hours, Li Lang studiously listened to the teachings of his artificing mentor. She went over her school of techniques in how an artificer utilized beast cores. Li Lang found it to be a lot like the brushweaver techniques that imbued their ink with powers that enabled talismans.

However, instead of simply imbuing his energy, artificing was a lot more akin to alchemy, where the materials he used in every instance were different, and he had to make the correct adjustments on the fly.

“How in the world does this technique manage to create something sentient like an artifact spirit?” Li Lang muttered aloud what was on his mind as he tried to understand the technique.

“There are many explanations for it, but the most popular one is that we aren’t creating something from scratch. Instead, we’re gathering the residual soul that remains in the beast’s core to form a new being. Much like humans, the soul of each Qi beast is unique, which explains why every attempt to create an artifact is different.”

Many explanations just mean the artificer community has no idea and can’t settle on one answer! And what is this vague explanation about stitching together pieces of souls to form a new life?

Li Lang looked down as he fell into deep thought.

If that is true, then it’s like we’re using the lives of Qi beasts to make a biological operating system of some sort for artifacts. That is unsettling, to say the least.

Wait, does that mean Ruby and the three spirits from the Crucible were once Qi beasts?