V3C86: Forging and Waiting

They returned that day without finding much, although they still passed on everything about that terrain to the merchant and the teams that he had recruited to assist them in their efforts. A few teams came back at a similar time to them, having gone out and returned at similar times, and their contributions allowed a basic map of the near areas of the district to be created. Had they been searching for something in the near vicinity of the district, it would have been enough.

Unfortunately, while Wei Yi certainly couldn’t compare the exact size of the Chao District today to what it had been before, she knew that the fortress was some distance away from the northern district even when it was at its peak, with the largest territory and most strength, so it wouldn’t be close.

All that such a survey allowed them to confirm was that the district hadn’t been drifting towards the north as if it was some sea-bound ship that was being dragged along by the waves over thousands and thousands of years while the captain, presumably the patriarch in this comparison, is unaware and more focused on other matters.

It also gave them the opportunity to rush ahead at the beginning of the next day, set up some camps, then explore more distant parts of the sands.

At that time, Wei Yi and Shun Liu Min joined in, with the latter getting some combat experience over the course of that day and the previous one, although the greatest threat she had needed to face was in the very first stage of the second realm and was thus a complete pushover.

Combine that with its identity being a fat but short sandworm that moved no faster than a similarly fat snail, it was hardly some immense achievement when she manged to not die to it, instead stabbing it once or twice to some minimal effect before Wei Yi came over to finish it off and harvest anything relevant. The experience did tell her just a little bit about how to wield a weapon and strike at the weaker points of a foe, but it was quickly clear to both of them that she was no genius in combat, strategy or desert survival.

Given that neither of them had that expectation in the first place, it was no big shock, although it did disappoint the maid quite a little bit. She got over most of it fast enough, but she didn’t forget.

There were no pursuers this time, both due to the lack of people who would want to kill or rob from either of them in the local area and due to the large number of people that they had gone with, mostly to see how the hired and recruited groups would operate, so the day was less filled with action than before.

With the expert desert explorers around them, it soon became obvious that while Wei Yi did have experience with deserted locales and environments, and did have an obscenely large field of spiritual perception that others beneath the seventh realm could only dream of without cultivating their spiritual will, she was no skilled and experienced professional in this particular field. She was able to learn some things from them as she observed them, but they appeared to have quite a number of methods for getting through as much of the sandy wastes in the shortest amount of time possible, often acting faster than she would have in their place.

As a result of that dull day, amongst some other things, Wei Yi decided that it would be best to leave things to the experts for now and focus on something a little more interesting.

So that she wouldn’t just be sitting around and enjoying the dull stillness of a room far more than the horrid sands, which somehow had even less detail and character than a single rug being stared at for a decade, she decided to get to work on something with one of her more neglected great arts.

For the moment, she was unable to create much when it came to the shrinking item plan that she had before, so she instead got to work on something that was far more familiar – a spear. She had used one for a while thanks to the constant usage of arrow spears by Yi Fenwu, and had even scanned the interior of a high-grade artefact back then, so in combination with everything that she knew now, and every technique – mainly the Red Shaper’s Grasp and what it allowed her to do – that she had, she decided to make her own for Shun Liu Min to make use of.

The maid had pointed out that there was little need for a new spear when they had purchased one not long ago and had barely used it, but there was hardly a lack of materials in the Kong Prison Realm.

As such, she found a quiet and remote place and got to work.

Naturally, Shun Liu Min watched her from a safe distance, and couldn’t help but marvel at how the process seemed to differ when it came to standard blacksmiths and Wei Yi. The former was nothing more than mere fireflies in the face of a star… The more she thought about it, the more the likeness to a star applied, much to her own curiosity.

Whereas normal blacksmiths needed a flame, forge, anvil and strong hammer, the latter two were the only ones that Wei Yi had chosen to use. She instead supplemented them with a hammer condensed of killing will, flooded with physique energy, and empowered further with flaming planar energy.

With each strike of the metal, it was as if a small star fell to the ground and struck the metal instead, the flames bursting out in a spherical shape that quickly collapsed onto itself with little obvious effect to the unskilled eye. Perhaps more so than most, Shun Liu Min did not know much about the exact process of blacksmithing, nor whether a single one of the techniques used by her current master were even practical, but she could hardly deny that it looked amazing.

To supplement the lack of a forge with which to heat and regulate the metal, the Ascendant instead used her other hand. She did not bother holding the metal in place, instead allowing each strike of the hammer to do that for her, but when she did reach out and touch it, she would imbue certain properties into the material, slowing raising its quality so that it would be as good as the high-grade material used in Yi Fenwu’s ultimate arrow-spear despite using only some medium-grade goods. She was also imbuing some of the preparatory channels that needed to exist within an artefact in order to allow for the smooth passage of planar energy through the material and to convert it into the desired effects.

Like her maid, she also noticed that her hammer strikes resembled collapsing stars, which wasn’t fully intended by her but was instead the Cosmic Dao showing through to enhance the process.

When she needed heat and force, the star-like flame would emerge, turning the planar energy that covered her killing will hammer into the infernal surface of a star for just one moment, although it turned back to the standard crimson and gold not too long afterwards.

For the moment, even if she focused on the Dao and attempted to extract its full potential, she wouldn’t be able to produce much more than that without advancing it, which seemed dangerous to do until she could confirm with certainty that there wouldn’t be a repeat of the earlier Dao eruption incident, and the easiest way to do so seemed to be to enhance the various Dao at her disposal until the Cosmic Dao could not overwhelm them. After that, she could merge it with her understanding of natural law, or flame, or some other Dao entirely, and avoid her current problems with much less risk.

At the moment of forging, of the hammer striking the metal, however, this was pushed to the back of her mind, as she had only made use of her full comprehension of the proper nature of blacksmithing only a few times, so she needed a few more completely focused experiences in order to complete her grasp of it.

Even without it, something made with the aid of the Red Shaper’s Grasp certainly wouldn’t go down the drain of quality, so to speak, but that would only be in the eyes of others. In her own view, something like that was mostly insignificant and worthless, and she saw no reason to give anything other than full effort when she was making something for someone on her side, seeing as it would take about the same amount of time and energy regardless of whether she did or not.

When she was able to help those on her side, or those she cared about, without any risk to herself, she saw no reason not to do so. When there was some risk, then it would be weighed, but before then, she would have completed the spear and would have no reason to debate any further.

That dedication and focus, while their nature was not obvious to Shun Liu Min, did get through to her, as she was able to tell that every single action and movement of Wei Yi was smooth and flowing, each actions proceeding onto the next with such fluency that she couldn’t help but wonder whether her master was currently forging or performing some kind of flaming dance. While she had not seen much death in person in her life, she had witnessed quite a few dances of various kinds, and she certainly had to put this one above the majority- no, above all the rest.

It wasn’t even a judgement made despite the sparks, sweat, impacts and constant bangs of metal, no – it was made due to them.

To her, it almost seemed like such a dance was far more suitable to the Ascendant than a typical one, as a peaceful and simple set of movements would not be fitting to her master’s identity. However, with the flurry of flaming sparks surrounding and washing over her, occasionally settling and going out within her hair, the repeated and almost rhythmic strikes of the hammer onto metal, the intense focus on her work, and countless minor details that Shun Liu Min couldn’t even begin to mention due to her own inexperience, this fit nearly perfectly.

Had she known what her master looked like when she first attempted blacksmithing, her opinion might have been somewhat different, but for now she was able to remain blissfully ignorant, even with their earlier talks.

After they had expressed a desire to learn about and from one another, with the request put forward by Wei Yi being far more strange than the one made of her, the maid didn’t hesitate to ask her past, but beside the vague details already mentioned, she managed to say almost nothing at all. She instead explained that she was a rather significant individual in the eyes of some that would do a lot to capture and kill her, so speaking in a place that was not fully safe would only mean that it would be easier to find her, even if she attempted to put the proper precautions in place. To avoid such risks, she would be more open, but only when safety could be guaranteed.

Meanwhile, Shun Liu Min had no such excuses for not explaining the intricate details of maid work and tasks, and while she didn’t want to speak about it, she wouldn’t let down her current master just because she was shy or reluctant. She would share everything and anything she knew, even including the sexual aspects that she had been forced into after Wei YI confirmed that she wanted to hear it.

Such insistence on the details made her rather afraid that her master was going to run off and become a maid somewhere instead of committing to whatever great task she wished to undertake, but a single glance at her either in bed, during battle or at work, as she was now, crafting something great, would immediately dispel such silly notions. With the immense strength of body and mind that Wei Yi possessed, even if she attempted to become a maid, most would likely be too afraid to let her remain near them or ask her to do anything more than remain near their residence.

That was nice for her to consider, but it did not explain the reason behind her curiosity. She had tried to ask, but besides the standard vague response of being curious and wanting to expand her range of knowledge, the maid couldn’t get anything out of her.

As such, she had to make do with simply telling her as much as possible and hoping that the information would be used for some fantastic purpose, perhaps to topple the Ping District or to track down some foe of the world itself and defeat it by tricking it into believing that she was merely a simple submissive maid.

The earlier imagined scenario did come to mind at such a possibility, but it still seemed more likely.

While she had no clue about the actual principles and craft of blacksmithing, she could still understand when the process was nearing completion, and even if she couldn’t tell by the slow formation of the overall shape of the weapon that was being worked on, it would be difficult for her to miss the incredibly bright light that was slowly consuming the space around it. If the earlier strikes on the metal were akin to fallen stars, then what she was currently witnessing was an entire distant galaxy coalescing into a single entity, all of the separate stars and nebulae becoming one at Wei Yi’s behest.

In her mind, this sounded fantastical, but she was not far off from the truth. Indeed, the Ascendant had put in a lot of effort into creating the spear for two primary reasons, and now all of those elements were being united into one to make the weapon whole.

Her first reason was naturally her desire to invest all of her effort into her work, especially when an ally like Shun Liu Min or some other spear wielder after her could benefit from the weapon immensely. Much of the maid’s weakness could be supplemented with a suitable weapon, and with her current cultivation technique originating from Wei Yi, the latter naturally knew of a few methods to empower them further.

The other reason was that this was her first attempt to create a weapon that would not be corroded and exploded by her own planar energy. She still didn’t understand exactly what part of her cultivation method had resulted in the absolute rejection of her energy, but at least a small aspect of it had to relate to the fact that most weapons were built for specific elements of planar energy.

To prevent this from being a problem, she instead built the spear, which did not yet have a suitable name, to be able to contain energy itself, not binding it to any one form of it. It could be used with one’s average planar energy, or it could benefit from the infusion of killing will that would allow its properties to be extended and inverted at will, or one could even fill it with physique energy or bloodline power, although the exact effects of that were difficult to predict due to her not yet having made use of these things in weapons beyond their minimal involvement.

She did not think that it would solve the problem entirely, so she then spent most of her time working on the spear by reinforcing the parts that would make up the channels and the thinnest points of the spear shaft and tip by an enormous extent, making use of the property of metal to change its state with heat to apply the effects of Red Shaper’s Grasp far more than it would likely be useful in regular circumstances.

Then, by ‘washing’ the metal with her planar and bloodline power, she hoped to prepare it for the potential infusion of her cosmic energy, although she would naturally never risk destroying this weapon unless it was absolutely necessary.

In the end… Well, nothing could be concluded until the weapon was finished, and there were still quite a few things that she needed to complete before it could be anywhere near that state. Some of these things were simple, merely requiring her to touch certain points of the spear in order to infuse it with the penultimate quantity of Red Shaper’s Grasp energy – which she had been tempted to forcefully improve with some focused cultivation and Absolute Rupture, but decided to not undertake for now as she hardly knew enough about its initial state, not to mention where it could go from there – but one she decided to take far more seriously, and invest far more into it.

For an artefact forged of metal to be complete, it must be placed into a pool of suitable liquid to quench the metal’s heat and stabilise its form, and depending on what was being created, and whether it was done through hot or cold forging, the necessary fluid would naturally be different. Cold forging was rare and performed rarely in the extreme south, but the essence of it was to replace yang with yin and then replace the finishing yin with yang to achieve similar effects to usual blacksmithing.

Her current work was naturally done with the standard hot method of crafting, and so the liquid that the weapon would need to be doused in needed to be yin in nature, balanced just enough to avoid curving or bending the metal in the wrong way and ruining the spear at the last step of the process, wasting several hours of work.

The idea that she had come up with reminded her a little of those insane and unusual cultivator blacksmiths that would make use of extremely odd methods to create and complete their weapons, for her choice was certainly on part with certain ones made by that kind of person. She did not reach for something inside of the prison realm, nor the few things that were usually kept in the House of Gold, nor did she request or purchase something prior to beginning the forging process, all for one simple reason.

Control. She could get all kinds of things to cool the weapon that even she felt some heat from, but they would all be independent, giving her insufficient control to be certain of perfection.

Instead, she decided to go for something that she had in abundance, and something that she would have perfect control over, especially due to the fact that it tended to be filled with her physique energy at all times, especially when she explicitly made use of her physique abilities, like now. She decided that the best fluid for the completion of the spear, potentially confirming its state as a high-grade artefact, was her own blood.

She had not shared that decision with the maid, which made for quite the scare when she suddenly thrust her palm down onto the tip of the spear, weakening her flesh sufficiently to allow it to pierce seamlessly, reinforcing it again as she did so.

It was so shocking that even her expression remained stuck for a few moments.

In that time, the golden and red blood within Wei Yi’s veins already poured from her hand, but it was not warm as it would be in the body of a normal individual. No, she had the physique of the Yin-Yang Ascendant, and so with a single bidding her flesh and blood could freeze, turning to absolute yin that overwhelmed all other forms of energy, and yet gave her perfect control over every step of the process.

Even in the cold state, it covered the spear nearly instantly, the temperature of the weapon dropping rapidly as the blood around it wouldn’t heat up no matter how much warmth passed to it from the spear contained within. The metal lost its bright white hue and glow, rapidly descending to yellow, then orange, then red, the rather unnatural colour of the completed work slowly showing through beneath the blood.

Although the metal that she had started with was silver, as most middle-grade metal-type materials were, what she currently had in her hand had turned a mixture of crimson with platinum, resulting in quite the colour combination that slowly showed through as she recovered her blood.

The tip of the spear was purely crimson, with the largest quantity of blood having covered it at the beginning and thus infused it with a small fragment of the bloodline power within it. In terms of design, it was simple and useful, sharpened on two edges so that it could be used to cut as well as to stab, whichever would be easier for the maid to manage.

Below that, the shaft was ornamented with slight extrusions that resembled chains, although they also served to guide the hand of the user into optimal positions to hold onto the weapon while aiding them in keeping their grip on the weapon and doing little to impede the potential of throwing it at a foe, although even with the many ideas borrowed from the golden arrow spear used by Yi Fenwu it was not intended to be used for such a purpose. On the bottom was a flat and blunt point to strike someone without stabbing them, either for utilising blunt force to kill or to aid in knocking someone out.

A faint glow surrounded the weapon, both figuratively and literally, making its state as a high-grade artefact rather indisputable and unmistakable.

‘I did succeed in that, then. The internal structure also seems solid and sound, which is good. Whether or not it achieved the exact effects I wished it to… that much is not something I can conclude. Even a drop of my current planar energy could be sufficient to shatter the weapon in an instant, so long as I did not properly secure it from such a fate,’ Wei Yi thought, examining the weapon from various sides before looking over to her maid.

At this point, while she had been able to understand that she had not imagined the scene of blood pouring from her master’s palm, she had not understood why such a thing was occurring, and so it took her a while to realise that attention had returned to her.

“Take the spear,” she was instructed, which she obeyed quickly and gingerly, “It should have a series of functions that I will allow you to make use of and try out, but we should probably not do so in a place where we can demolish numerous buildings by stabbing in the wrong direction. We’re going out, just not too far.”

Even if she had wanted to argue, there was little room for her to do so, prompting Shun Liu Min to follow with the spear in hand.

It earned quite a curious gaze from the guards at the gates, but besides that, it did not draw too much attention from the crowd of the district. As if to supplement that, the maid gave it far more than enough attention instead, examining the weapon closely and very carefully.

She knew that she was holding a powerful and durable weapon right away, but she couldn’t help but treat it with more care than needed when she looked at the extremely intricate details on the shaft. While she was able to understand the reasoning behind the placement of the chains easily enough, since they matched the exact principles bestowed to her by Wei Yi in their occasional training lectures, she couldn’t understand the reasoning behind the shape and design of this ornamentation, much like she failed to comprehend exactly when they had appeared on the weapon in her hand.

Besides the matter of the crafting process, which she did not expert to understand to any degree within her lifetime, the chains were something that she had expected to be aware of, and yet wasn’t. It was difficult to tell whether they were related to her or to Wei Yi, perhaps evoking a chained and restricted past of one or both of them, or if there was an entirely different meaning to them.

While they were travelling, she decided not to ask the question until she saw just what the weapon was able to do, as she would then be able to understand her master’s thought process a little better.

They headed to a part of the district’s outskirts where a few dunes would prevent any casual observers from seeing them by accident, and then stood together so that Wei Yi would be able to guide her maid through the proper method of using the spear.

“So, as I see you have noticed already, the proper grip positions have been made a little more obvious with the chains. They are thin and small, so if you need to move your hands you should be able to manage with little challenge or discomfort, but in most cases, those positions are the only ones that you will really need,” the Ascendant explained, shortly before conjuring her own version of the spear through a modified variation of the Living Spear technique, “I have attempted to embed three active states and two passive, so let me take you through them.”

Saying that, she took it in a basic stance and performed a few simple attacks to test it out for herself.

“Looks good, actually. Fits well for me as well. Now, any attack made with it will be affected by the two passive abilities, so let me show you those first,” she said, performing a simple thrust after sending a small amount of energy into it, choosing to use spiritual will just in case her planar energy caused the fake to explode.

As soon as a strike was made with some energy inside of the spear, a small fragment was expended, but the force of the thrust seemed to be greatly increased, as if the power of her very attack was somehow multiplied. In addition, despite her weapon reaching only so far, a large cloud of sand that had been passing by was struck by a seemingly solid spear tip a metre away from where it had actually stopped.

With how obvious this was, it didn’t need to be said that these were the two abilities that she had mentioned so far.

“This will allow my weaker attacks to still be effective, while letting me still hit things when I judge the distance poorly?” Shun Liu Min quickly figured out some uses for these abilities, injecting a quantity of her own planar energy and repeating the same strike.

When she performed it with her weapon, it had a distinct wooden shade, and the extended spear was also more visible, but it did not differ other than that.

“Exactly. The three abilities that you have to consciously use are more impressive, however. First, assume this position, hold the weapon tightly, and aim at something in the distance,” she demonstrated these things, using her spiritual will to raise some sand far away into a vague humanoid shape, “Before you try anything, it is important to mention that you shouldn’t actually throw this, no matter what. It may turn out to be effective, but you will lose your weapon and lose most of your advantage over any foes. Not a good idea, in other words.”

“Then, what am I supposed to do from here?”

Wei Yi loosened her stance and placed the end of the spear onto the ground, instead choosing to observe for this demonstration, “Just perform a throwing motion, but keep a tight grip on the weapon.”

Such instructions were strange, but when she was the one providing them, Shun Liu Min felt that she not only had nothing to fear, but that there was little room for them to be any more sensible. After all, these directions were provided by someone with far more experience than her in almost every way, meaning that there could be countless layers of reason behind every word.

With this in mind, she brought her hand back, then thrust it forward like she might imagine a spearman throwing their spear, focusing on the distant humanoid figure made of sand. If she had thrown the spear, she did not believe that it would be able to hit this target, given that she had never done this before in her entire life, and since her physical strength was unlikely to be sufficient to clear such a large distance between them with one flimsy throw, but she trusted her master’s words.

Just as the spear began to stop at the end of her thrust, however, she witnessed much of her energy launching out of the weapon, passing through the metal and emerging from the tip as a replica of the spear in her hand, except it was made of her planar energy and forcefully coalesced by the weapon.

It glistened and glowed with a wooden colour as it flew and miraculously hit the sand dummy. Not a moment after that, all of the energy exploded as suddenly as it had appeared, scattering the sand and throwing up a large spherical cloud of sand to obscure anything that might have remained of that figure of the desert.

The wood-type planar energy scattered into the air, slowly melting into the natural universal layer of energy that existed all around them, showing just how little was necessary to achieve this effect.

“See, if you don’t release the spear, it doesn’t leave your hand and you can get straight back to doing something else, which seems rather important in most battles,” Wei Yi said, grabbing her replica of the spear again, “Now, this demonstration will require you to stand away from me if you’d like to keep your limbs, although you aren’t going to miss much since we’re in the desert with all of this sand around. It should show the exact effects very clearly.”

Since the maid would be unable to distance herself quickly, the Ascendant instead jumped away herself until she would be outside of the range of the second unique ability. It was a highly damaging one to those of lower cultivation realms, and since she effectively had four times the stages of each realm with her perfected stages and realms, she would likely be able to inflict great harm with a poorly placed strike. Fortunately, she was the one to create the three embedded techniques and knew exactly how they functioned with the use of their original forms of energy, and it just so happened that spiritual will was the original catalyst for the second technique.

With the replica spear in hand, a tight grip on a particular point of the shaft, she raised it into the air and then stabbed down, the weapon seemingly igniting as it neared the ground. Even with only her mental energy being in use, the flames were emboldened in mere moments until they were alike to the same flame of the stars as she had used during her creation of the original weapon.

On the moment of impact, a vast quantity of crimson light formed around the spear and rapidly descended to its tip, reaching it fully only a moment after the spear itself.

At that moment, it burst out of the spear itself, erupting in a great shockwave that grabbed the upper layer of sand on the desert ground, forcefully tearing it away and throwing it asunder, clearing a large area all around her within a two metre radius with no movement being necessary other than the simple downward strike. Some crimson sparks and arcs remained in place and warned of the true nature of the energy, but it would not show its full potential until it was utilised against a true foe.

“That would be to push enemies away when I am unable to handle them, right? Can I control how much energy is used on this, or is it just something that I need to learn and get used to?” Shun Liu Min managed to understand the ability’s purpose rather quickly.

“You can control it to an extent, but until you are certain about what you’re doing, it would be ideal to let the spear do its thing. Depending on how you do this, you might even be able to learn a thing or two about the technique that is makes use of, then implement it into your own life, one way or another,” Wei Yi explained, tapping the side of the spear, “The channels inside of an artefact are alike the meridians, although they are rarely even an exact match, or else every blacksmith would also be a devoted combat cultivator.”

“I suppose… To be honest, I can’t get my spiritual perception into the weapon yet…”

“That’s fine, I’m sure you’ll manage eventually… knowing someone with average levels of spiritual perception will also help matters in the long run,” she added, tossing the spear into the air and then grabbing onto the bottom end of it, holding it like that for a little while, “I’ll let you try out that one in a moment, but here is the third ability. Take the spear like so, then…”

She pulled her hand back, then, without any warning, thrust it forward, stabbing out as far as possible before revoking her hand just as suddenly, causing the spear to fly backwards the instant that she released it, allowing her to return her grip to the usual point on the spear within seconds.

Meanwhile, as she had stabbed the air, rather than the usual metre of range bestowed to all by the spear, a great wave of force that was four metres long emerged from the end of the weapon, stabbing out but not following the spear’s return back, resulting in all of the carried force exploding at the end of its trajectory. That burst of force exceeded her original thrust’s power as well, the automatic empowerment of the spear affecting even this.

“Wow… Does that technique come with the spear, or do I need to figure it out myself?”

“It does not, but the movements are hardly all that complex, especially when planar energy is involved. You also don’t need to make them, since it is only the thrust itself that matters.”

She demonstrated it again, this time keeping her replica spear reached out at the end of the thrust only to result in the exact same outcome. From there, she was able to return her grip on the spear to the usual location however she wanted, and the attack would have still successfully completed whatever she had wanted to achieve with it, so long as it could.

“Essentially, this is for you to be able to attack something without needing to get too close, or perhaps for striking something that would endanger the weapon itself if it was brought near it, like someone or something with an immense degree of control over metal. This should give you the chance that you need to strike at it without any risk to yourself, which should be the best in your situation. Once you are able to confidently fight, even if it is only at a low level, you will be able to use this for more tactical purposes,” Wei Yi explained, playing around with her replica spear in the meanwhile, “Go on, have a go with these. I’ll just be… watching over you.”

With all of the information she needed to remember and make use of, the maid did not notice the pause in her master’s words, nor how she quickly disappeared from the scene and departed to a dune in the distance.

There, Wei Yi focused on the planar stones within the Kong Prison Realm that she had already embedded into the ground, preparing one to add to the spatial realm’s planar energy pool while the other was to be used for her. She was not too far away from the fourth realm at this point in time, so she wouldn’t need to use the last of the pills for this purpose and could then either give them to someone else or use them for herself to be able to reach the second stage a little more quickly, although she expected the quantity of energy required to be even more immense at that point.

With her earlier experience of using these for her cultivation, she was able to quickly absorb the energy of the planar stone, nearing the next realm, but she did not proceed onto the next realm.

She stopped only a short time before reaching that threshold, however. Wei Yi felt the approaching realm, but something about it prompted her to pause, whether it was the potential explosion of energy that would occur or some potential use for the breakthrough that could be found at a later point. She couldn’t understand it right away, but after a moment of further thought, she momentarily abandoned her pursuit of a greater realm, merely taking in the energy and storing it.

As she returned to the place where Shun Liu Min was practising the techniques embedded within the spear, she found the maid making decent progress in simply utilising them, although that hardly meant that she would be able to seamlessly make use of them within any actual combat.

‘If she was interested in achieving this, however, I’ve got good news for her. There’s still plenty of waiting to go…’