Chapter 86 Birth of an Inscription Master

Invisible sparks flew as the two elders matched their powerful gazes.

On one side was the Head of the Nanqing Family, Nanqing Dingtian, as well as the parents of the Nanqing siblings, Nanqing Rui and Nanzi Meiya, who were both at the Peak Essence Condensation realm.

On the other side was an established inscription master of the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower.

Everyone could feel the tension in the air and it felt like it was getting more and more difficult to even breathe.

In the end, it was the Head of the Nanqing Family who relented.

The imposing pressure being emanated from Nanqing Dingtian disappeared without a trace, as though it never existed in the first place.

Nanqing Dingtian smiled gently and nodded, "This is the territory of the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower, and my Nanqing Family naturally have no qualms about going along with your rules. This one is only here to get an inscription placed, and would still have to rely on your kind assistance later."

"As long as it is within our means, the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower will be honoured to help with the inscription that you want," Inscription Master Nanbai smiled confidently, as though he had expected this result from the start.

There was no doubt that in terms of individual combat strength, Nanqing Dingtian was above Inscription Master Nanbai.

However, they were currently at the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower, and Inscription Master Nanbai was not the only Origin Core realm martial artist present. If a fight were to break out at this moment, the Nanqing Family would definitely be at a disadvantage.

Even if that was not the case, there was simply no reason for the Nanqing Family to fall out with the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower over such a small matter.

As the Head of the Nanqing Family, Nanqing Dingtian naturally understood this point well.

He did, but his great grandson Nanqing Zhengxian did not.

"Great grandfather!" Nanqing Zhengxian could not believe what he just heard. "They are just two inscription assistants! If we let them off the hook like this, how am I supposed to face other people in the future?"

"Be silent when the elders are speaking!" Nanqing Rui berated his son, causing Nanqing Zhengxian to fall silent.

"There is no need to worry. I meant it when I said that I would vouch that this inscription assistant will be the one to place the inscription," Inscription Master Nanbai glanced at Lu Tianzi with a meaningful look in his eyes. "Well then, what are you waiting for?"

"Thank you, Inscription Master Nanbai!" Lu Tianzi gratefully nodded towards the elder.

Lu Tianzi decisively picked up the sabre from the front counter and turned to leave, not sparing anyone else a second look.

In his mind, Lu Tianzi had already started focusing on the task ahead.

"Tianzi, wait for me! I will help you with the processing of the materials!" Yueya called out as she hurriedly followed.

Inscription Master Nanbai smiled as he turned back to Nanqing Dingtian, "Well then, this might take a while. Shall we have tea as we wait?"

"It will be our pleasure," Nanqing Dingtian nodded, and the group from the Nanqing Family followed Inscription Master Nanbai upstairs into a private room.

The people in the crowd cursed in their hearts as they saw them disappear upstairs.

This was essentially excluding everyone else from knowing the results of the challenge! How were they supposed to deal with the burning curiosity in their hearts now?

Nevertheless, those belonging to powerful influences decided that they definitely had to investigate the results of this challenge, as well the background of those two inscription assistants.

Even though this was the territory of the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower, it was still surprising that Inscription Master Nanbai would choose to defend two mere inscription assistants in such a forceful manner.

While there were no benefits to the Nanqing Family falling out with the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower, the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower similarly had no need to clash directly with the Nanqing Family in such a manner, especially when it involved the Head of the Nanqing Family himself.

Those who were more experienced immediately realised that there must be more to this than met the eye, and they were not wrong either.

Indeed, Inscription Master Nanbai had his own reasons to step out at this moment.

Unlike everyone else, Inscription Master Nanbai had already done his investigation into Lu Tianzi's background. After all, Inscription Master Nanbai was not so careless as to let Lu Tianzi remain as his inscription assistant without trying to understand more about him.

Thus, he knew for a fact that Lu Tianzi had already officially joined the Nine Suns Sect.

In fact, he was even recommended by the famous Nanlan Qianxue, and had been personally inducted by Elder Diansheng even before the day of his selection test. Not just that, but even the Inner Sect member of the Nanqing Family, Nanqing Haowen, was on good terms with him as well.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, Lu Tianzi was also a genius in the art of inscriptions, or at least in the theoretical aspect. This meant that he could possibly grow to become one of the pillars of the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower in the future.

Rather than to offer gifts of congratulations when someone had already succeeded, it was always better to help him out when he was down.

Whether Lu Tianzi succeeded or failed this challenge was of little importance to Inscription Master Nanbai.

More importantly, with his decision to act today, Inscription Master Nanbai had started paving the road to good relations with someone who would potentially become one of the future pillars of the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower, and perhaps even of the Nine Suns Sect as well.

The future was what this Origin Core realm martial artist was truly after.

In the private room, Lu Tianzi stood alone behind a table filled with the materials that Yueya had just helped to process.

The private inscription rooms within the Heaven Constellations Inscription Tower were all laid with a basic energy gathering formation to aid the inscription master, as well as a basic concealing formation to keep out prying eyes.

Lu Tianzi had his eyes closed at the moment as he calmly regulated his Spiritual Essence with the Undulated Currents Breathing Technique.

With the concealing formation in effect, Lu Tianzi no longer had any qualms about tapping into his Spiritual Essence cultivation to draw the inscription, and that was the reason why he had estimated his success rate to be as high as eighty percent.

Otherwise, even with the aid of the energy gathering formation, there was simply no way that he would have sufficient Essence energy to complete the inscription with just his Advanced Essence Buildling realm cultivation in the Slaughter Essence system.

As for Yueya, Lu Tianzi had politely requested her to leave the room.

But even if she had stayed, being at the Primary Essence Building realm, she would have been unable to even detect Lu Tianzi's cultivation level, much less differentiate between his Spiritual and Slaughter Essence energy.

Still, Lu Tianzi believed that it was better to be safe than sorry.

When Lu Tianzi finally reached his peak mental state, his eyes snapped open and his leg stomped on the ground, activating the energy gathering formation in the room.

World Origin Energy within the room was immediately riled up and started gathering towards him, called upon by the formation.

At this moment, Lu Tianzi's hands started moving so fast that it appeared as a blurred shadow, completely untraceable to the mortal eye.

Pointing out with his fingers, Lu Tianzi drew rune after rune as the processed materials flew through the air in a chaotic manner.

Yet in this chaos was an inexplicable order.

These processed materials slammed into each other and the resultant mixtures were sent directly towards the bright light at the tip of Lu Tianzi's fingers. Upon contact with the light, the resultant mixtures burnt up in an instant, transferring the energy within to the resplendent light at his fingertips.

With each different component, the colour of the light changed accordingly, allowing Lu Tianzi to move without stopping as he proceeded to draw a myriad of inscription runes with entirely different properties.

Lu Tianzi had practised drawing these inscription runes countless times over the past couple of weeks, and was already extremely familiar with them.

This allowed his speed to even approach that of Inscription Master Nanbai!

Every single one of Lu Tianzi's pores opened up, greedily absorbing the World Origin Energy that had been summoned by the energy gathering formation. But even so, the energy within Lu Tianzi's inner world plummeted at a terrifying rate as his energy expenditure far exceeded the rate at which it was being replenished.

In a flash, over a hundred inscription runes remained floating in the air. Altogether, they emitted a brilliant light that was comparable to even the brightest of stars.

The first of the three portions was finally completed!

However, what came next was a process that could be considered as uncharted territory for Lu Tianzi.

Lu Tianzi had managed to form multiple theories about the combination of the inscription runes, but he never had the opportunity to test them out in practice.

Fortunately, Nanqing Zhengxian had not specified what kind of inscription he wanted, and thus Lu Tianzi was now able to freely select the one that he was the most confident in.

He had no time to hesitate.

Having to maintain over a hundred inscription runes floating in the air, each moment that passed took a deep toll on Lu Tianzi's energy reserves.

Driving his Spiritual Essence to the limit, he directed the inscription runes one by one, allowing them to fall neatly into place as they formed into a wide array.

But as more and more inscription runes fell into place, Lu Tianzi suddenly sensed that the interactions between some inscription runes were slightly different from what he had expected.

Lu Tianzi closed his eyes for a moment as his thoughts raced at an incredible speed.

Not more than a couple of moments had passed before he opened his eyes once more, now armed with a brand new solution to the arrangement order.

With a flick of his fingers, dozens of inscription runes immediately pulled away from the floating array. After which, they started falling in place once again, this time in an entirely different order.

Such an action caused his energy consumption to skyrocket, but Lu Tianzi did not care one bit about that.

Lu Tianzi had now entered into a state of absolute focus.

At this point, the challenge from Nanqing Zhengxian had already completely slipped Lu Tianzi's mind.

He finally came across this rare opportunity to practise placing a complete inscription after so long. Now that he had even managed to come so far in the combination process, there was simply no way that Lu Tianzi was going to squander it by settling for a subpar version!

By the time the final inscription rune fell into place within the wide inscription array, Lu Tianzi was already completely drained of Spiritual Essence energy.

If it were any other human martial artist, this would mean that they had failed the placement of the inscription. After all, there was still one last step of placing the inscription onto the item itself.

But Lu Tianzi was no ordinary human martial artist.

At this moment, he drove the Slaughter Essence within him to the limit, and a separate burst of energy surged forth from within his inner world.

Lu Tianzi pointed to the sabre that lay on the table, and the wide array moved to hover directly above the sabre.

Weng-!

With a loud buzz, the brilliant array condensed into the size of a coin before it slammed downwards to contact the blade of the sabre.

The buzzing sound crescendoed, as though the inscription array was facing a powerful force resisting it from searing itself into the blade.

The sound was about to reach an unbearable degree when all of a sudden, the room went silent.

The loud buzzing sound stopped, and the light from the inscription died down.

All that was left was the sound of Lu Tianzi's heavy breathing.

Even after depleting all of his Spiritual Essence energy, Lu Tianzi had almost expended all of his Slaughter Essence energy as well.

But the most important thing was that he finally managed to complete it!

On the sabre blade, an inscription with the mark of a small water droplet could be seen.

This mark of a small water droplet was Lu Tianzi's very own signature marking, proof that this inscription was placed personally by him.

Lu Tianzi grinned in satisfaction as he admired the completed inscription that he just placed on the sabre.

With this, he knew that he had just stepped into the world of inscription masters!

Now, all that was left was to test the actual effectiveness of this inscription that he had just placed!