"Cool. Can you teach me more about imprints, Master?"
"Haha! Now you're calling me Master. I like that. Sure, sure. Since you are my disciple, I will do my best to teach you the way of cultivation. But first, draw the imprint on the blade so you can turn it to your arm."
"Yes, Master." He closed his eyes and concentrated on the image of the imprint. At first glance, it looked complicated and hard to understand. However, comparing to the higher level of imprinting techniques, these are merely lines connecting to form patterns. Between the lines are rows of circles and forming a bigger figure of a triangle.
"Master, what do you call these patterns which looks like paths?"
"The whole array imprint is also known as Transistor. It is a medium used to channel the flow of qi into an artifact. The set of lines and patterns are called Circuit. They are the main vessels of energy, they provide a complete path for electrons to flow. Those circles are called Diodes. It allows or prevents the flow of qi. They are also responsible for absorbing them, modifying them, and tranforming them into different kinds of energy. Once your qi is supplying the whole Transistor, they will work as a whole to transform it to a different type of qi. The resulting qi will then apply to the artifact, and the artifact will respond to the change."
Levi started drawing the imprint to the blade through her blood. The process was arduous and requires a long amount of time. She have to be careful because one misstep will ruin the whole formation. As intstructed by his Master, he first drew lines as straight as possible. Minutes passed, the lines multiplied and they interweaved each other through rows and coloumns. After nearly an hour, the exact pattern was copied. But it was not yet finished, he have to draw the Diodes to the exact position they must be. Since he can't do erasures, he must measure keenly the distant of every circle, their diameter and etc. This process took two hours before he was able to construct the traingular formation of circles. And at last, for the finishing touch, he must draw the second set of Transistor to his left shoulder.
"Now that all was done, place carefully the blade right near your shoulder and connect the Circuit of the two. After that, you may now release your qi. Just concentrate your mind to the left shoulder part. Try to guide all of the qi in your spine to move to this part."
Levi relaxed. She drew in the largest amount of air she can until it fills her lungs, then she exhaled. Using her mind, she guided the qi to concentrate on her left shoulder. Warmth spread to her system and her body temperature increased significantly. This was not a good sign. Natural qi are flowing calmly and unrestrained. But when they are forcefully controlled, it created friction among the cells and generates heat. It was as hard as trying to reverse the flow of blood.
"Relax. You're being excited too much. Release your control of qi's movement. Qi are just like little babies, if you try to pull them, they will cause haywire. While the heat may not be that damaging, it can still destroy your inner foundation and worse, can cause deviation. That is highly lethal. And I won't gonna deal with those. Give freedom to your qi. Just politely invite them to follow you by showing their path."
Levi relaxed his mind. He released the control of his qi. He decided he have to change his sort of action. So he first gathered energy to his heart. It was the easiest step. Then his consciousness entered his own system, and he guided the accumulated qi to follow him to his left shoulder. It was easier than he thought. He would just have to show the path and the qi will follow it like gushing streams of water.
At last, his qi filled his left shoulder and they began doing constructive works to heal his wounds. However, Levi has to guide them again to the array imprint of the Transistor. The Transistor provided the neat path of qi to flow. It first divided qi into electrons and protons, the negative and positive charged energy, also known as yin and yang. Both energy flows to their respective path up until they circulated the whole Circuit.
"Levi, use your consciousness as circuit breaker to temporarily prevent the flow of natural qi. Once the first batch of electrons and protons does their job, then you can open up once again to resupply. This may take more time but safety is most important."
This process was also visible to the naked eye. From the outside, it could be seen that the Transistor is glowing with two colors. One is red (proton energy) while the other is yellow (electron energy), both intertwining through patterns of lines until they reached the Diode circles on which they mixed into a green. From this, it can be deduced that the qi convertion array is fully activated. From Levi's natural qi, was being turned into another form of external qi.
"Levi, your natural qi is not enough to refine this extraordinary artifact. You must use the Nirvana Flame qi."
"How?? And where? I can't sense any flame qi anywhere. Where is it?", he asked in his mind.
"It was stored in your middle dantian. Spinning into a vortex, it is still in the process of creating a core. Be careful. If you forcefully recruit it, it may go haywire and even I won't be able to help if it makes you explode. To draw some of its power, you could only do so little by little."
Levi's conciousness entered his middle dantian, which is in the middle of the chest. There was indeed a vortex inside. And qi of flame is bursting inside. It's like a volcano going to erupt. They were madly rampaging anywhere. However, a tiny stream of black energy is holding them off from exploding. It was forcefully stirring them in order to condense to a core. His consciousness is far away from the dantian, but he can sense extreme heat invading him.
"This place is too hot. I am trying to attract their attention but it seems they are not paying attention to me. I think I would just melt if I dwell here any longer."
"Endure, disciple. This is but a mere challenge. You just have to raise your will. These higher forms of qi have already developed their consciousness. They won't be willing to be subdued especially by a mere human. But they are also attracted to the icy field of yin. And will fight any kind of yang flame."
"So what I need to do is to create an icy field around my consciousness and they are going to follow me?"
"Pretty much yes. But it's harder to create ice. Why don't you just create another flame around your arm. They might be willing to come out and fight it on."
Levi nodded. Making an ordinary fire is indeed much easier. He just needs heat, fuel, and air. He awoke from his meditation and gathered a bunch of dry leaves, he placed them near the blade and on his shoulder. He generated heat and they immdiately blazed with fire. Levi was nervous his skin might burn too. However, it was not that long before another kind of flame withdraw from his dantian and fought the fire. It was the Nirvana Flame. When they sensed another flame trying to intrude their abode, they burst out in anger and directly devoured the fire. Levi used this oppurtunity to lead some Nirvana Flame qi to his Transistor.
And it was succesful. The flame qi of Nirvana is very much effective in refining the blade. The Circuit glowed brightly and their process multiplied by the tremendous energy.
Visible to the naked eye, the blade seemingly melted and changed to the shape of a hand. The hand was connected to his shoulder and it perfectly fits. As more and more qi contributed to the job, the transformation of the blade into an arm is no doubt a success.
Levi breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her new left hand, the exact opposite of her right. The feeling was refreshing. She can't help but raise it up high and performed a series of action.
"Whoa whoa, kid. Take it easy. Your wound is still not fully healed. Your new arm might fall off your shoulder if you get too excited."
"I can't help it. It was very nice to have my left arm back! Even though it was only lost for a day."
"Now now. Relax. The process is still not over. You still need to do one last thing."
"Which is?"
"The blade has already been forged into an arm. It still has its external abilities such as sturdiness. However, an arm is still different from a blade. I mean, even if you have both arms, you gotta need something to defend yourself. Right?"
"Right. Will I need to forge another saber?"
"No, idiot. What I'm saying is that you have to draw another array imprint on that left arm of yours. So you can return it into its saber form whenever you like."
"What? Another imprint?"
"Of course."
Levi nearly fainted. Such a difficult job is kind of boring. But she agreed anyway. After all, these kind of skills can only be learned in this time. In the future, she might be too busy gaining experience that she won't have time to study these. Since fate has revealed these treasures, she would be a fool if she rejected.
"Sigh.. All right. Teach me."