Jack walked down the main street of Tranquil Lake Town and visited a few shops that sold metals before he finally reached an old shop that looked like it would fall apart if a stiff wind blew on it. He took a deep breath and entered the Golden Dragon Store.
Inside he walked past the counter and opened the door that connected the store to the living quarters in the back. In the first room, he saw a familiar figure sitting at the table and drinking something. The young man whose teeth Jack shattered frowned slightly, before standing up and mumbling "I'll gek de Elda." He turned towards a door to his side and went through it.
Half a minute later old Long entered the back room and found Jack sitting in one of the chairs. He glanced at Jack's new clothes and chuckled. Walking over he sat opposite Jack, poured himself a drink, and said "Haven't seen you in a few months, boy. Or should I call you disciple brother now?" When Jack didn't rise to the bait he sniffed and asked "You need something important?"
Jack shook his head as he refused the offered drink that old Long tried to pour him and said "I think so. How much will 200 jin of Deep Water Iron cost me?"
Old Long froze for a second as a hint of greed flashed in his eyes. He emptied his cup in a single gulp to cover for his mistake and said "That's a lot of Deep Water Iron. I'd have to scour the entire town, and even then I might have to go to one of the towns up the mountain to get the full amount. We're not talking gold coins here."
Jack furrowed his brows a little as he repeated his question "How much will it cost me?"
Old Long poured himself another cup as he said "500 spirit stones. Upfront." and emptied his cup.
Jack snorted as his face turned serious "The other shops are selling it at a price of 1 jin for 2 spirit stones. Because we've known each other for so long I'm willing to give you 400, but don't try to cheat me."
Old Long looked like he didn't care about Jack's attempt at intimidation as he sneered and poured himself a third cup while he said "Yes, and if you asked me for a few jin I might even sell them to you for less. But I have to scrape together the stuff from all of the other shops. I'm willing to go down to 490, just because we've known each other for so long." he finished with a crooked smile and downed the drink.
They continued their negotiations for a few more rounds, and cups of what the locals called wine, and settled on the price of 460 spirit stones.
Jack left the Golden Dragon Store feeling swindled, but he couldn't do anything about it as he thought glumly 'There goes a fifth of my saved up funds. That blacksmith better be worth it. I'll have to increase the rate of caught spirits during the graveyard shift in the next couple months to have everything ready.'
He stood on the emptying main street and considered the merits of going to the martial hall or the library right away, but he gave up and turned to go back to his home.
When he got back he lay down on his bed and took out the identification medallion. With a thought, he filled it with spirit energy in less than a second. The few seconds it took him in the Spell Pagoda were just to fool the Elders.
He rolled the stone around in his hand as he thought 'How to make my spirit energy project of my body.' He tried a few attempts at just forcing it out of various meridians, but that failed and damaged his meridians a little.
Jack stopped his half thought out ideas and focused on what Elder Yu said 'If you could figure imbuement out, you can figure this one out too… What does imbuement have to do with projecting the spirit energy to the outside?'
He furrowed his brows for a few minutes before his eyes widened as he thought 'I thought that the reason that the Sect takes in disciples only at the fourth grade is because they can imbue things, but what if that's only a part of it. What if they can do other things with the help of imbuement?'
With his eyes closed, Jack tried something that he didn't dare try ever since his first attempt almost knocked him out. He imagined the air around him as a part of his cycle of cultivation.
At first, nothing happened, this bothered him a little, but on the bright side, he didn't get sick from the attempt so he considered it a small victory. He frowned slightly in thought, and a few seconds later brought his hands close to each other, leaving only a centimeter of space between the tips of his index fingers.
Once again he focused and tried to incorporate the air in-between his fingertips in his cultivation cycle.
As the spirit energy moved through the meridians of his right hand to the tip of his index finger, he felt a slight resistance for the first few times he attempted to join the cycle. With each attempt he pushed more and more spirit energy into his index finger, and just as it started to turn numb he more felt than heard a soft *pop*, immediately after it he felt the spirit energy that left his right index finger's meridian enter his left index finger's meridian and continued the cycle through his body automatically.
Jack let out a loud "Yes!" in English as he jumped on top of his bed and raised his fist into the air in celebration.
A few seconds later he calmed himself down and, with a slightly blushing face, brought his index fingers close once again as he stared at the air in-between them and started his cultivation cycle.
When a thin string of shimmering spirit energy established itself between his fingers Jack couldn't suppress the wide smile that appeared on his face.
After a few minutes of studying the feel and look of the spirit energy, Jack slowly spread his hands as far as they would go. The string of spirit energy remained intact and looked like gravity had no influence on it as it remained as straight as an arrow.
Jack slowly stopped the cycling of the spirit energy as he sat back down and took out the identification medallion. He held it in his left hand as he focused on trying to make it a part of the cultivation cycle with his right hand.
After a few minutes of failure, he took it between his thumb and index finger and tried to connect the meridians of his fingers again while the stone stood in the way. This time the spirit energy left his right hand, but as it neared the stone it dissipated out into the air without reaching it.
'So it doesn't work if the thing I want to imbue isn't a part of the cycle. Or is it just that the identification medallion behaves like that?' Jack placed the metallic stone down on his table and went out to get a similar sized rock.
He attempted the same thing with the rock as he did with the identification medallion. This time the spirit energy thread went straight through the rock and entered his other hand. The rock didn't look any different even after a minute of cycling spirit energy through it.
Jack's eyes suddenly widened as he thought 'Does the Elder do this to open the door to his study?' He imagined Elder Yu sending a strand of his spirit energy through the ground to activate some sigils that he had etched into the door's mechanism like a low budget magician and gave a slight laugh.
With a sigh, he placed the rock down on the table and picked up the identification medallion.
Jack kept spinning it around in his hand as he studied the sigils engraved into it. After a few minutes, he blinked and brought the stone closer to his eyes while he cycled spirit energy through his optic nerve to make the details clearer.
'There, a microscopic break, and there, and there… Five of them, there are only five sigils on the identification medallion.' Jack thought as he studied the metallic stone in his hand.
He stopped focusing on the sigils and thought back to this morning when he imbued the stone for the first time. 'I just thought of it as a whole and pushed spirit energy into it, but now I have to connect my spirit energy with just two of the five sigils while I'm still thinking of them like a whole. Damned mental states.'
With a renewed focus Jack picked up the identification medallion in his left hand and cycled spirit energy to his right. This time he imagined the two separate sigils as their own existences and almost immediately two spirit threads shot out of the meridians in his fingers and connected to the two sigils.
At the moment of contact, the two sigils consumed the entire spirit energy of the identification medallion and started shining brightly. Jack felt a peculiar kind of spirit energy riding on the wave of his cycling spirit energy back into his body, and then take its own chilling path through the meridians of his arm, chest, and neck, to the spot in his head that Jack felt crack open when he broke through to the fourth grade.
As soon as the strange energy reached that spot, Jack suddenly felt a stream of information get stuffed into his brain. He had a feeling of his head ballooning out and, just as he thought it would explode from the pressure, the information stopped coming while everything returned to normal.
With a drowning man's gasp for air Jack broke away from the trance of receiving the new information. He took quick shallow breaths as he stared down at the now dull identification medallion, while sweat poured down from his forehead.
He lay back on his pillow with a tired sigh as he thought 'No wonder they only take fourth grade people as disciples. The grades before it look like a joke when compared to this. Du Angliang must consider all of our efforts in training ridiculous.'
Jack broke away from his short melancholy as he sat back up and looked down at his hands. With an amused chuckle, he thought 'It doesn't matter anymore. Now that I know what we're up against our chances of succeeding increased by over 10%.'
In his intoxicated daze, he pointed a finger gun at the rock on the table and mimed firing it as he mouthed "Bang!" As soon as he did the gesture, a strand of spirit energy shot out of his finger and entered the rock.
One second later he had an incredulous look on his face as he stared at his finger, and then at the rock sitting peacefully on his table.
As quickly as he could he jumped down from his bed, picked up the rock, opened the door of his house, threw the rock far away into the forest, and closed the door. A few seconds later he heard a rain of tiny rock fragments shower the trees in the nearby forest and sighed in relief.
Jack looked down at the guilty hand in question and chuckled as he thought 'Need to practice more, a lot more.'