V3C24: Mastering the Branches of Energy

They returned to the Planar Continents not long after, with Min Lian reporting her success and that the small branches of star metal were just thin and weak enough to be harvested,  from where Fu Zan had no issue handling the material while Wei Yi would either resort to requesting his help or try out the absolute yin and yang that her physique energy can produce, in combination with the Red Shaper’s Grasp, and discover whether any one of them was able to affect the form of the star metal in the slightest.

Until she was able to get a hold of a cloth or flexible material of similar strength to the star metal, or figure out a method of warping the latter according to her desires, there was no point in actually completing the gauntlet plates, so once she returned to her residence, she instead thought to work on her refining. It was the field most likely to be affected by the Silver-Leaf energy, so she wished to understand that effect and exactly how to maximise its usefulness.

Also, she had not had much time to practise the techniques and recipes she had acquired from her two competitors as a result of the Refiner’s Duel, although they were all firmly locked within the Ascendant’s Library and ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

She left Min Lian to continue working on her own practise of refinement and headed out to the Chu Alchemical Store, entering to find Fu Xiu in her standard place, but with a clearly healthier appearance than the last few times, being neither extremely tired nor outright burst with energy, processing the requests of some ordinary customer.

After their interactions concluded, she was able to approach to approach the receptionist, who greeted her with a warm smile.

“Wei Yi! Thank you again for all that stuff you did for me! Look, I’m not feeling tired or anything!”

“Yes, you appear to be doing fine. Please stop smiling that brightly, though…” she didn’t mention that without the extreme fatigue and with some of the benefits from the previous partial awakening of her physique, the woman looked incredibly attractive, “Can I purchase a few items from this list?”

“Certainly!” Fu Xiu continued beaming, entirely ignoring the earlier muttering, “Almost all of this is available for now, although the recent appearance of the mirror layer has slightly dissuaded even more merchants. I’m afraid that much of this may soon be unavailable unless the threat of that Mirror Plane Aberration group is dealt with…”

‘By the heavens, how can a person change this much and affect me to this degree? If not for the excess of mental cultivation methods I had practised in the past, I could’ve developed a crush or something… Never really did that when I was younger, as I was too obsessed with cultivation, then cultivation, then more cultivation, but it would have been an excellent time, had I figured out that I like women before I had been dropped into the prison realm,’ she thought to herself while the receptionist fetched everything that she had asked for, “Do you happen to know if your boss has made any developments in his investigations?”

“No, unfortunately. He’s been trying not to bother me too much as of late,” she replied.

“I see. Take care.”

“Good luck with whatever it is you’re refining! Remember, discounts on everything!”

Wei Yi nodded in acknowledgement and left, although her thoughts on the earlier subject hadn’t ceased, ‘Actually, with all of the random nonsense that exists within this world, there is almost certain to be an array or technique that specifically tests someone by putting them through common situations in order to test their maturity, age or something of the sort. At that point, it could easily be deemed that I am not truly as I old as I physically am, simply because I have never experienced common love or anything else of the sort. And yet, this is not something that I cannot possibly spare the time for now…’

If she slowed down and tried finding a partner with whom she could form a relationship, then form that partnership and spend enough time together to understand the complexities of it and go through all kinds of experience… The Greats wouldn’t allow that, for a start, but it would also waste so much precious time, just like most forms of pleasantries that did not occur within the prison realm, where her schedule was a little more relaxed.

It was also for this reason that she couldn’t even think of experiencing the whole process of having and then raising children, as it would put her in a poor state for a minimum of nine months, not to mention the fact that it would require either a forbidden skill of some sort, or her laying with a man, which was frankly too repulsive to her to be anything more than a feasibly path to a certain experience.

At some point, she was almost certain that she recalled her being less opposed to it, but the many years she had spent in the prison realm having fun with beauties while using her spiritual perception to observe the other people in the brothel for more knowledge about everything that occurred there, from casual sex to secret discussions about things that weren’t really within Wei Yi’s range of interest, as they primarily plotted against one another to try and win over in some small store or field that wouldn’t have affected her plans back then, had eventually led to her perception of men in the bedroom to drop significantly.

Then again, she wasn’t even sure if she could get pregnant. All of those physiques, breakthroughs, injuries and whatnot could have easily affected that at some point, preventing her from ever experiencing that side of life.

‘As usual, all of this stuff is just speculation, given that I have no reason to investigate this in any depth at the moment, but assuming that I am ever able to succeed and defeat the Greats, that Hunger of the Beyond, one of which became known as the Beast, and whatever else is out there, if I am not too old by then, I might figure this out and find some route of passing down my bloodline. Perhaps my children could inherit some of my better traits and make good use of them once I am gone.’

She shook her head and threw that series of thoughts into the back of the mental library. This was of no relevance at the moment, and thinking about future possibilities would only worsen her mood without anything in return, while there were plenty of things that she could do with far greater return, like processing the ingredients that she had obtained and seeing whether the Mysterious Silver-Leaf energy was able to affect other ingredients just as it did metal, as that could allow her to multiply everything she comes into possession of until she had limitless supplies of all kinds.

Well, it was only likely to work on metal-type ingredients, but that was still roughly one seventh of all ingredients and materials for the other great arts, which was immensely valuable.

Not all ingredients and resources could be grown in all locations, with some simply requiring unique conditions while others relied on a series of phenomena that coincided to permit the growth of some miraculous planar herb, or the formation of a rare metal, just like the star metal, so to circumvent that was certainly an ability worth refining further, except not with the Truth of the Universe. Besides most of the results that it produces being incredibly lifeless and uninspired, in the literal meaning of the word, it also consumed too many anchor points to be throwing them around without much care. After some basic tests, she would have to consider going out and finding some reasonably powerful bandits to defeat and borrow anchor energy from.

‘That’s a decent idea in general, actually. Getting some more practise in combat, getting rid of some people that would harm the district regardless of the presence of the Greats, perhaps accidentally coming across another otherworldly demon or something else of that nature would all be beneficial, especially if that demon’s abilities are those that I need and can obtain,’ she considered while she entered her home and sat down on her bed, ‘Getting distracted again. I should focus.’

Condensing a pill furnace from her killing will, she decided to work on one pill that took a long time and little effort to refine from Chen Shujin’s collection while also experimenting with other ingredients in between that process.

Once the flames of her planar energy began to burn the first set of ingredients, she moved on to an herb called Four-Leaf Copper Clover, which was a moderately rare planar herb that was sourced from the Fu District’s seemingly bottomless supplies of materials, a phenomenon that seemed to interest even assassin organisations such as the Scorching Blades. In itself, the herb was nothing special, only being useful in its raw form when it comes to dealing with split ends of hairs and that kind of thing. In alchemy, it could be used to stabilise other ingredients, but it only thrived in very particular recipes that she knew only a few of.

However, it was a metal-type herb, meaning that if her new abilities worked on anything, they would work on it.

If this attempt was successful, then it would also meant that she could add Yi Shi Ming’s plant resuscitation technique and her many lifeforce-granting physique abilities on top of it to vastly multiply the growth of any ingredient, making them available for the use of anyone within the prison realm and, eventually, her own faction on the outside.

Raising the clover to the level of her eyes, she held it on an open palm and infused it with silver-leaf energy, carefully observing every little detail of the clover in order to better understand the features of her new planar energy.

Whether she would only be able to understand it a little better, or if she was able to outright develop a forbidden skill that contained a segment of the Great Dao, any improvements that she could make without any cost to herself naturally had to be pursued, for there was no doubt that her foes would do the exact same thing, potentially leaving her behind and greatly overwhelming her with both knowledge and outright power the moment that she allowed them to.

After a certain quantity of energy entered the clover, it rejected any more for a moment and slowly released roots from its severed stalk, the roots not finding a place to settle but instead going outwards, small seeds appearing on the roots and then bursting into more clovers, but these had a slight silver-like shimmer to their appearance that the original lacked.

‘Alright, what have I done this time? Fortunately, these are small enough to be throw into the House of Gold, so… Four-Leaf Billon Clover?’ she raised an eyebrow at that description, throwing the rest of the clovers into the House of Gold to confirm that this wasn’t limited only to that one herb, ‘Well, the four-leaf clovers are typically rated by the metal they resemble, so if this now has a quantity of silver within it, doesn’t it meant that it has been improved? What if I add silver-leaf energy to this mixed clover, then?’

She did exactly that, removing one of the Billon Clovers and applying that energy to it once more, which it was able to accept more of than the previous Copper Clover.

Once it was full, it also refused any more for a moment and proceeded to grow and spread roots, from which more clovers grew quickly. They were similarly a mixture of silver and copper, but this time, they did indeed have more silver within them than before, and their quality likely increased by a similar degree.

As if to make things more complicated, this time they were called Four-Leaf Tibetan Silver Clovers, and although she had no clue what that was referring to, it did appear to be another improvement.

Naturally, she stored those clovers in the House of Gold and repeated the process once more, and this time, she managed to produce Four-Leaf Silver Clovers. Whereas the copper variant was a two-star ingredient, this was a four-star ingredient. The gold variant would be a six-star item, and the variant after it was likely to be an eight-star item, although there were no mentions of such a thing in any of the vast records within her possession, so she did not know what kind of metal it would resemble, nor what the specific properties would be.

That did not matter, fortunately. She had plenty of other metal-type ingredients, and if this wasn’t a one-off situation, then she would have a nigh-infinite supply of them very, very soon. She placed the clovers into the storage space, then removed some other ingredients and got to work.

“Who is she? You understand your master’s powers, so how did she find me?”

“Oh, Great Aberrant, forgive me! I have failed you!”

“Shut your mouth, fool! Tell me her identity, and everything you know about her! Have you attempted to induce her into the Mirror Plane Aberrations?”

“That… was an option?”

“You moron!”

Her initial suspicions were confirmed by a House of Gold full of herbs and a prison realm that had no idea how to deal with a sudden appearance of thousands of various metallic herbs; she could only affect materials with a metal element within them through the silver-leaf energy, whereas everything else would barely be affected at all.

Rather than making her disappointed, it made her incredibly eager to discover the other combined elements that could be invoked through the Ascendant’s Path.

The only two combined elements she had before this were blood, which had an incredible variety of uses that had helped her prior to the prison realm, and the lightning technique… had become completed at some point. She suspected that it had occurred during the unification of all things into the Ascendant’s Dao, but until she randomly tried to condense some lightning in her hand a few minutes ago, she had somehow overlooked it. Presumably, it was some remnant consciousness within the Truth of the Universe that played some part in it, just like how memories from the Master of Yi City occasionally leaked through, leading to her learning all kinds of words before she even knew that there was another world that could produce them.

Lightning was the foundation for some of her most powerful abilities, so if she could uncover the combination of earth and fire, she suspected that she would be able to acquire the power of earth fire or magma or something else of the sort, which was bound to have great combat potential as well.

However, something like earth and metal might let her condense dirt into various ores, or a combination of earth and wood could permit her to sense the very veins of the world, if they existed as some believed them to. Fire and water were almost certain to result in something resembling steam, although the exact abilities of it were far less certain, whereas her knowledge of the elements allowed her to guess that combining wood and fire would relate to the extraction of energy from other items, but not how this would manifest.

‘Nonetheless, the power of combined elements stems from the individual six core segments of reality: fire, water, earth, metal, wood and planar energy itself. If metal and wood can grow herbs like that, then wood itself is bound to contain that secret as well,’ she reasoned, storing the several sets of pills that she had completed on the side of her experimentations inside of opaque bottles, ‘I just need to force it out.’

She was about to leave her residence, when she noticed a familiar presence outside her door.

‘It’s one of the people serving that Great Aberrant. I doubt that he could have figured out that I had watched them, so why would he come here?’ Wei Yi couldn’t come up with an immediate answer, but when he calmly walked up to the door and knocked on it, she decided to go along with it for now, opening it for him, “Do you need something from me?”

The one that approached was the ordinary-looking man with a spot of dark and malevolent yin on his neck, although it was far fainter now, almost invisible to the average human eye.

“You are Wei Yi, the alchemist, yes?”

“That is me. Once again, do you need something from me?”

“Have you heard the good word of the Great Aberrant?”

She slammed the door in front of him immediately.

‘I can’t say that this is what I had expected. Isn’t this an extremely stupid thing to do, considering the current reputation of the Mirror Plane Aberrations and everything that they have done? Why would they ever… Huh. That’s actually an opportunity for me, is it not? I wanted to know more about them, and I can resolve anything that person could possibly do to me, if he even dares to appear in front of me, so… I could join their cult?’ she had to pause for a few moments and consider whether this was actually reasonable, but her idea remained sufficiently sound, ‘Yes, I can drop out at any time, and so long as I inform a few people about this shortly after I join, I should not acquire any suspicion after I betray the Great Aberrant. Even if they decide that I am untrustworthy, I can always just escape and move on. There is still a long way to go to the district that I am looking for.’

Opening the door once more, she found that the man on the other side had also realised that his approach had not been the most reasonable nor the most effective.

“I apologise, I should have spoken differently. When you have worked with your ingredients, surely you have realised that there is some kind of influence within so many of them, bl- tainting them to their core? The Great Aberrant knows, and he seeks to solve it, but he requires the aid of great minds!”

‘You nearly slipped up there, you f- Right, I should be civil, even in my mind. There have been times when I have blurted out something inappropriate in the past, so I should try to avoid it this time,’ she pretended to listen to him seriously and ignored the fact that he had nearly admitted that the Great Aberrant was responsible for the malevolent yin, just as expected, instead saying, “That sounds very interesting, but you should be well aware of what people think of you around here. Are you certain that saying this to me, in the open, is a good idea?”

Immediately jumping in with support would seem odd, so she instead decided to appear reasonable but doubtful, thinking everything through before acting.

Fortunately, her acting abilities surpassed the member of the Mirror Plane Aberrations, and so he displayed no signs of distrusting her approach, instead nodding in acknowledgement of her remarks while stepping closer, “Yes, I understand, but the Great Aberrant’s condition is caused by the Fractured Mirrors – a curse placed upon him for acting against them. As a result, he will fly into rages and assault districts, after which we must calm him down and bring him back to humanity.”

“Uh-huh. Very unusual, but plausible,” she said. Curses were rare, but they did exist, and damaging one’s actions or perception of reality was common, which was the reason why they did not often appear. Had they had the ability to outright change one’s mind, instead of deceiving it in various ways, they would have only occurred from the fifth realm and above, but their shortcomings meant that someone in the third realm could muster a curse upon their foes with a great deal of preparation and effort, usually requiring some kind of stationary altar to keep the curse active without needing to stay beside the target and stabilise it with their planar anchor.

In other words, curses were complex, fancy techniques and arrays that most people avoided due to their impracticality and inefficiency. Typically, if you could curse someone, you could harm them in other ways that would be cheaper and quicker, so it was rarely studied by any.

Wei Yi wasn’t so much of an exception to this as she was someone who had simply read too much in the past, as well as present and likely the future, but even she only knew about the common functions and styles of curses, not their specifics nor how to perform one, or else she would have likely tried it against one of the Greats by now.

“I cannot change the perception of my master in one go, but if his curse can be cleansed and the plague dispelled, those who work with him will be known as heroes!”

‘Now trying to lure me in through fame, are you? How did these people ever recruit one another to begin with? Surely, they could have sent that person over – or were they too afraid to slander the name of the Great Aberrant and thus sent the person that was closest to him? I’ll be making myself look like an idiot by going along with him, but I suppose that I can allow it seeing that he is unlikely to spread the word to anyone beside those in the Mirror Plane Aberrations, which, after I leave, will appear rather untrustworthy, if any survive,’ she thought quickly as to not create too significant a pause in the conversation, then said, “I don’t care for that sort of thing. Come in and tell me more about the details instead.”