"Thank you very much, Senior Brother. I really like it." Daoyi gave a dazzling smile that blinded Tianyi's eyes. As the disciple of Xi Mengfei, her views had been broadened considerably since her times a concubine-born daughter of a Duke Family. So with a single glance, she could discover the extraordinariness of the Artifact in her hand. So she could tell that it was extraordinary even as a Foundation Establishment Formation Artifact.
The first Artifact forged by Mengfei had also been a Foundation Establishment Artifact. Originally, having used Immortal Realm materials, the rank of the Artifact should have been much higher. But taking into consideration that Daoyi couldn't handle an Immortal Realm Artifact, especially as a Lifebound Artifact, Mengfei had forcibly downgraded the rank. In the future, just by raising her cultivation, Daoyi's Lifebound Artifact would rise in rank with just a simple refinement from Daoyi.
"It's nothing much," Tianyi said, averting his eyes. Daoyi thanking him like this made him feel a bit embarrassed. He had pretty much stolen the slot to create one of her artifacts for his personal satisfaction, so the pure admiration and gratitude in those eyes were incredibly piercing.
"Hmmm, this..." Daoyi inspected the silver earring closer, find the shape familiar.
"I based the shape on the earring you were looking at when we toured the city outside the sect," Tianyi said as he handed Daoyi the blue crystal earring. "I bought it that day, and I wanted to give it to you. But I forgot about it after our encounter with Daoist Lu."
"This?" Daoyi took a moment to recall that insignificant memory. "Senior Brother, it's just an earring. You didn't need to."
"Yeah, I know. But I want to do something for you." Tianyi said before his face flushed at the easily misunderstood words. "As you senior brother! Not as a... you know."
The more Tianyi said the redder his face became. Finally, he covered his face with his hands, showing none of the dependability he tried to portray. In response, Daoyi gave a bell-like laugh.
"Senior Brother is very cute. Maybe I should call you Junior Brother from now on." Daoyi teased.
"No, no, no!" Tianyi said with his hands crossed in front of him. "I'm not giving up this position no matter what."
"It's very good," Mengfei said when she inspected the earring Artifact. Had it not been to her standards, she would have made Tianyi forge another one. And if Tianyi couldn't make one to her standards, she would have forged one herself. But luckily, Tianyi was able to forge one that met her standards. Still, Mengfei decided to refine the Artifact. Tianyi's methods were innovative but unrefined.
After dropping off the Artifact, Tianyi returned to his abode in order to continue creating the E=MC^2 Self Detonation Technique. But not before making sure to tell them to keep him up to date on Daoyi's Core Formation Heavenly Tribulation. He did gain some unique insights when he was a trance crafting Daoyi's Artifact, but that was not at all related to converting matter to energy. Tianyi was not making much progress on converting matter into pure energy, so he tried to think of a different way to approach the problem. Why not try converting pure energy into matter?
He already had a good source of energy to work with. With a flip of his hand, the lightning storage capsules appeared all around him. Although lightning wasn't pure energy and was an ionized state of gas known as plasma, it was an excellent place to start. Since plasma is a state even above a gas, then he had to compress it. Matter changes with temperature, but it also changed with the distance between the molecules. And now Tianyi was simply forcibly compressing the lightning into a solid state. It took a lot more energy than he had expected.
Tianyi looked at the golden cube between his fingers. Once he got it into the solid state of matter, maintaining it was simple. He recalled that when the bonds within an atom were split, a large amount of energy was released. And in reverse, it took energy to form bonds. A nuclear fission reactor was powered by breaking the atomic bonds. Tianyi felt like slapping his face. Why couldn't he recall this information? It was like he was trying to solve the issue by going an unnecessarily convoluted route.
"Well, time to follow Occam's Razor now."
Tianyi muttered to himself. Although he found a correct method, saying and doing were two completely different actions. Still, Tianyi never expected that science from Earth would aid him so much. Perhaps he should try to apply more scientific knowledge in the future. He had thought that science wouldn't work since he was in a different universe altogether, but he was obviously wrong. Perhaps, science can even correlate to the Great Dao.
A few weeks later...
"KABOOOOOM!!!!!!!!"
Tianyi walked out of the giant wreckage with soot and dust all over his body. If he needed to breathe, he would have been hacking all over the place. "On second thought, testing out the technique in such close proximity was a bad idea." He then looked at the crater he was in. "And inside my own house too. F@#K!"
After spending some comforting his mother that: yes, he was completely okay, and no, this wouldn't again. He was just careless this one time, thank you very much.
Oh, the irony.
Tianyi felt sorry for the people who would have to rebuild his house, but hey, he wasn't an architect nor a builder. Not that it would be hard to learn with him at the Nascent Soul Realm, but leaving it to the experts would be better. Plus, he needed a new house anyway. This time, this new house should last him till the Transcending Mortality Realm, according to his mother.
But at the very least, he completed the preliminary foundation for his new self-detonation technique. But it needed a long to accumulate since he needed to break the bonds of as many atoms as possible at the same time. Just breaking one or two atoms wouldn't suffice. And there was a problem if the enemy could somehow negate or absorb the pure form of energy. So he would need to add another layer of technique to convert the energy to something more lethal.
Tianyi slapped his face as a thought occurred to him. "Frick! I just planted another flag for me to turn in a bomb!" Oh well, at the very least, his new technique should be finished. It was the most powerful it could be, but for its current power, even a Unity Realm Venerable should fear dying to a Nascent Soul Grandmaster should they use the technique. And no he wasn't testing the technique by self-detonating, he was testing it using a puppet with a false Spiritual Core. He wasn't suicidal. He already had enough of being a ticking time bond when he was in the Core Formation Realm. Ironically, he was purposely creating a technique that would turn him into the bomb.
Another good piece of news came as Su Bojing visited him. It was a bit awkward to receive Su Bojing at the Jade Peak Palace, but Tianyi pretended nothing had happened to his house to the clueless Su Bojing.
The reason for Su Bojing's appearance was because of the matter entrusted by Tianyi during the Three Heavens Connection Gathering. But the files received on Longwei were surprisingly thick with little information. It was like Longwei had suddenly appeared out of thin air with no rhyme or reason. His first confirmed appearance was a few years ago. He had already entered the Core Formation Stage at that point and displayed frightening prowess above his realm. But his origins were unclear.
"That loose cultivator Longwei is very strange. There are sightings of people with the same appearance as him all over the Heaven Continent, so we aren't clear what region or even force he is from. Our investigation hasn't brought many results." Su Bojing said.
Tianyi nodded. He hypothesized the documents were censored to leave sensitive information on the Dragon Emperor's Clones out. The investigation also reported that Longwei visited many regions where sightings of people with the same appearance appeared. So, it was unsure where Longwei originated from. But if Tianyi had to guess, then Longwei was hunting down and absorbing the soul fragments of the Dragon Emperor Clones.
On another note, the report had detailed information starting from a few years back because that was when Longwei got his first harem member. With the women following him, it was much easier to trace Longwei's path. Tianyi could only stare dazedly at the reports of how Longwei kept adding to his harem. Although, Ji Muyang wasn't mentioned. Probably to leave face for her, being associated with Longwei right now wasn't exactly an honor. But what made Tianyi's eyes pop was the amount Longwei was worth.
In fact, Longwei's bounty was currently was enough to even make True Immortals green with envy. The bounty was so high because Longwei carried at least three Immortal Realm Artifacts. So even though he was a mere Nascent Soul Grandmaster, he had a bounty even higher than some demonic True Immortals. At least that's what most people would think. Tianyi had a sinking suspicion it was due to how much potential Longwei showed.
Tianyi asked Su Bojing to check if all the Immortal Realm Artifacts Longwei were connected to the Dragon Emperor. But not before asking him to investigate Lei Jingye's clan. Tianyi still had information on Lei Jingye from his experience in the ruins of the Immortal Court so that it wouldn't take too much information to locate him. And Tianyi asked Su Bojing to investigate information on Jiang Chunye as well.
Su Bojing left shortly after. Tianyi didn't ask him to do all this work for free. He thought himself a generous person -as long as you didn't offend him, that is- and gave Su Bojing several techniques he copied from Ironword's pagoda in the inheritance site.
Once Tianyi finished that. It was time to learn the Heavenly Truth-Seeing Eye. Honestly, Tianyi was extremely excited about this. He had been enamored with the Journey to the West ever since he watched the tv series on it when young. He had seen the drawing of the Heaven Equalling Sage in the ruins of the Immortal Court. With the technique of the eye of Erlang Shen, it only affirmed that the legend and classics he knew on Earth were real. Although there were some minor or major differences.