After breaking through, Qing Shan was annoyed by the fact that he had no time to accustom his body to the breakthrough. He quickly dipped in the Primal Water and left the pocket dimension before heading back to Senior Teng's shop.
Once Qing Shan entered his shop, Senior Teng could immediately tell that something was wrong. The brat had a well-rested look about him, and he seemed like he was currently not under any mental pressure. Senior Teng knew these signs well, but he checked first.
'Could it be?'
Upon looking closer at Qing Shan's body, senior Teng was astonished to find that his suspicions were correct.
"You broke through!"
Qing Shan looked at his teacher, a genuine smile on his lips.
"Haha, Of course I did. After Teacher's guidance, it was not much of a trouble."
"Good, good. However, don't think that I will celebrate with you while you are training. You are to do the same as yesterday. I expect a perfect sword by the end of the day."
Qing Shan nodded, before heading to the forge and directly starting his work.
Unfortunately, even after his breakthrough, Qing Shan's first attempt at a sword did not differ much from the previous day's work. While he finally managed to make the iron somewhat balanced, his handle was too small, and the blade was dulled to a perfect curve. Not to mention that the whole thing had been extended to almost two and a half meters after Qing Shan had flattened the iron to his liking.
Soon, however, Qing Shan finally noticed a certain aspect from his complete breakthrough. After his first critical lecture from Senior Teng, Qing Shan felt a large change in his thinking. When he tried to make the sword again, he found that he could distinctly remember almost every criticism that he had been told with the last lecture. Qing Shan also found that after learning about his mistakes he had become almost ten times better.
Because of this, Qing Shan only made four trial swords before he began to prepare what he figured would be his last attempt.
Qing Shan was off to a good start. He first started by heating up the metal, and folding it in on itself to make it sturdier. While the metal did get thicker like this, the thickness was also remedied by flattening it out once more with his hammer. After doing this multiple times, Qing Shan felt like he had a great piece to start with. The iron had turned into a strip one and a half meters long, a sixth of a meter wide, and a sixth of a meter thick.
Qing Shan then went to work on the handle. He flattened it out as much as he could without it becoming to weak, and compressed the iron so that it took up less space. Once he felt somewhat satisfied with the shape of the handle, Qing Shan used the tongs to hold up the piece of iron by the meeting point of the blade and handle. His goal was to make the sword balanced, or at least almost balanced with the blade being a small margin heavier.
Seeing that the blade still seemed to be too heavy in comparison, Qing Shan began to compress the handle more, using some iron from the blade and using it evenly throughout the handle. Once the blade and handle were almost balanced, the blade still heavier, Qing Shan went to work on shaping the blade.
He flattened the blade even more so that it was thickest in the middle with edges tapering off into points from the center line of he blade. He then carefully shaped the tip to that it would not break off. Once he got the blade looking like the shape of a diamond, with the longer diagonal going perpendicular against the length of the blade, Qing Shan forced himself to stop.
While the blade had a good shape, it was after all still made only from iron. It would not do much good in a fight, but Qing Shan felt that it was at least aesthetically pleasing.
After looking for any flaws left on the blade and handle, Qing Shan grudgingly handed over the weapon to Senior Teng. He had found a few minor flaws, however Qing Shan knew that each of these flaws would take much more time and effort to fix than they were worth.
Senior Teng looked at the weapon that Qing Shan had made with a look of grudging respect in his eyes. He had thought that it would take Qing Shan at least a month to get this far, but the boy had managed to reach this level of comprehension and skill in just two days. After giving a few half-hearted criticisms, Senior Teng told Qing Shan that he should now start learning about the other aspect of Runic Forging: runes.
While Qing Shan had been looking forward to learning about runes, he was immediately disinterested when he saw what Senior Teng had in his hands. It was a large book, almost as thick as the piece of iron Qing Shan had been working with both today and yesterday.
"Here boy, now I want you to read this book.–"
"Teacher, I cannot read."
Of course, this was not entirely true; Qing Shan could read a little, but he had never like the act of doing so. He felt it boring.
Hearing this, Senior Teng burst out laughing.
"Well, I guess that is a bit of a problem. Luckily for you, this book is filled primarily with images! While there are a few complex words you may need my help to understand, you should be able to piece together most of this information just through the pictures."
Taking the book, Qing Shan immediately began to flip through. Senior Teng was right. About three quarters of each page was taken up by either a large picture or diagram. Every image was very intricate, and symbols in the shape of objects helped Qing Shan to understand.
After seeing that it was already dark, Senior Teng sent Qing Shan on his way. Meanwhile, Qing Shan was bewildered. It had clearly been before noon when he started his final sword. Had time really passed that quickly?
Qing Shan trudged back to the Dusty Heights, the large, most likely boring book, weighing on Qing Shan's mood.
After Qing Shan shared his drink with Yuan Long and Su Yuesha, he quickly retreated to his pocket dimension. After that, he immediately started to pour over the runic book in earnest.
"Flame Rose flower mixed with… Nirn Root... The six elements given form…"
After reading through countless different ingredients and diagrams, Qing Shan realized that he had actually studied through the night.
Qing Shan left the pocket dimension and got a small midday meal, bringing it to eat at Senior Teng's place. Once he arrived, the two shared a meal while Senior Teng helped Qing Shan understand a few sections of the book he had marked. Once their meal was over, Qing Shan quickly returned to his room and entered the Primal pocket dimension once more.
For the next two months, Qing Shan kept up the same routine. He would cultivate and study throughout the night and afternoon, have a meal with Senior Teng and share drinks with his acquaintances. However, in these two months, Qing Shan's growth spiked again.
As the tempering of Qing Shan's body to accept the lightning Qi had amplified Qing Shan's body far beyond what was considered to be the peak of his level, Qing Shan did not have to worry much about cultivating his body to breakthrough. Actually, even just after Qing Shan had broken into the 2nd Level of Formation Soul he had already been able to fill his Life Core with external Qi. Unfortunately, Qing Shan's fast mind did not help him to cultivate his mind, which Qing Shan felt was the hardest part of achieving a complete breakthrough.
In these two months, Qing Shan had managed to read through the entire runic manual that Senior Teng had given him. He found that just reading the manual had counted as cultivation of the mind. Because of this, Qing Shan had actually been able to breakthrough twice over these two months, reaching 4th level Formation Soul. He noted that it had taken him five times the amount of gained knowledge to step into the fourth level than he had needed to enter the second and third levels. This was because the fourth level was the first step into the middle stages of the Formation Soul realm.
After both of these breakthroughs, Qing Shan believed that he could most likely beat any cultivator below Origin Soul Realm. However, as Qing Shan did not have Master Liu there to test his strength, Qing Shan did not know for sure if he could really contend against peak Formation Soul cultivators; however, Qing Shan figured his chances had to be at least something close to a forty percent chance to win against someone on the cusp of the origin Soul realm.
Now that Qing Shan had finally finished reading through the entire runic manual, he wanted to celebrate. Qing Shan went and brough his favorite liqueur, the cheapest palatable kind sold in the city, and ran off toward Senior Teng's shop.
On his way through the Market District, Qing Shan was in such an excited hurry that he was not paying any attention to where he was going. Why would he? Qing Shan had already memorized all possible routes toward Senior Teng's shop. He was most excited about the fact that he had not seen Senior Teng since he broke through to the 4th level, just a half-week ago. That would be another surprise for his Teacher.
Bang!
Qing Shan felt himself slam into someone, but he who was in a hurry did not really have time to care. He had bumped into at least a quarter of the people that had shared a street with him so hard.
Just as Qing Shan was about to continue onward, he felt an iron-like grip on his arm. On instinct, Qing Shan immediately injected Qi into the loop around his Sixth Meridian, building up strength in his right arm to pull away from that grasp.
The hand did not budge.
Qing Shan looked behind him to see an elegant looking man gripping his arm tightly, a genial smile on his face. However, the man's eyes seemed to be holding a kind of power that actually made Qing Shan feel surpassed. This had only happened two times before: when Qing Shan met Master Liu, and when Qing Shan met Senior Teng. Even more frightening was the fact that Qing Shan only felt this suppression when the someone held a larger cultivation method than him. Shifting his gaze downward, Qing Shan immediately realized what had happened.
There was a person sitting on the ground after they had been knocked over by his shove. Unfortunately, this person happened to be exactly who Qing Shan thought it would be worst to meet with in this way. After all, what woman likes being pushed around.
That's right, the person sitting on the ground rubbing her shoulder–which was where Qing Shan had bumped her–was the Young Miss of the Rising Sun Clan.
'Ah Shit. Way to mess up my perfectly good mood…'
Qing Shan immediately put a fake smile on his face, before asking a question innocently.
"Oh, Young Miss, are you okay? What happened?"
Qing Shan suddenly acted as if he actually cared about what had happened, looking around for a culprit even though he himself had shove this girl. Unfortunately, Qing Shan had been unable to help himself. The girl had just been so annoying that his body 'subconsciously' knocked into her…
"Cut the act you dirty swine. Your jokes may fool someone else, but I can clearly see through them, maybe you should try to use your 'logic' on someone else."
Hearing the Young Miss begin to speak, Qing Shan began to sweat.
'What makes you think I am trying to hide the fact that I am mocking you. Better question: Why would I need your permission to mock someone other than you?'
At this point, Qing Shan honestly felt that the spoiled brat was a real pain in the ass.
'Why the hell won't Heaven let me stay jubilant for just one week. One week is all I ask…'