Once Qing Shan realized that it was almost time for him to get to work, he quickly exited building 18-A and hurriedly left the Fallen Sky sect. He ran down the streets and entered the Smith's Respite. He was lucky that the shop was still closed for lunch break.
"Hoh, you're here. I thought you'd be late. By the way, I didn't see ya this mornin'. Didn't ya say something about a spear?"
Hearing what Tang Hua said, Qing Shan could not stop himself from putting his palm to his forhead and leaning his head back.
"Ha… I totally forgot about that. I got a bit sidetracked."
"I see…"
Suddenly thinking of something, Qing Shan wiped off the stupid look on his face before talking a bit more seriously.
"Since I am officially qualified to be a Runic Forgemaster now, what can you tell me about making runes?"
Tang Hua's face also hardened after hearing Qing Shan's question.
"Its not something I can teach you about in just an hour. Stay here tonight, and I'll give you a crash course on all you need to know. For now, just work as you had been doing."
With that conversation over with, Qing Shan started on forging while people entered the shop. He soon found out that his breakthrough had had a few subtle effects on is body that he had not noticed. Rather than being unable to control his strength, he now had much more precise control and greater dexterity. His attention to detail also increased. In addition, his focus was muchc sharper now than it was before. Because of this, he found that it was much easier to add intricate details to his weaponry. His speed had nearly tripled on top of all that! In just one afternoon, Qing Shan made over ten weapons! Even Tang Hua was surprised by this number.
Once everyone left, Qing Shan was practically shaking with excitement. Now that all of his emotions were not being hidden away, he was free to show his joy and anticipation. Although joy was one of the eight primary emotions that he had unlocked, only a portion of it had been freed before his breakthrough. In fact, during the breakthrough, Qing Shan's emotions had not only been released, but they seemed to have gotten stronger.
Although he was brimming with anticipation, Qing Shan stood silently and let Tang Hua teach him the secrets of Runic Forging.
"Some of this was in those books I gave you, but bear with me. Runes are a language that allows Qi to be manipulated in certain ways, sort of like the human body. However, Runes are only a vessel that needs two different sorces of energy to power them. One of these sorces is Qi, and the other is the herbal poultice that is matched to a set of runes. Unfortunately, different poulticies have to be created for different rune sets, so we have to use trial and error to find out which. Luckily, we can use some of the features of the herbs to determine weather or not they may match with the poutice we need.
"Those few things that I just listed, are the basics to how runes work. But, the reason that Runic Forgemasters have to be in the Origin Soul Realm is because of the ability to operate Qi in and out of our physical bodies. Unfortunately, Qi is limited to one attribute in the body. To overcome this, Runic Forgemasters along with other great scholars discovered the existance of Pure Qi. Pure Qi is not restrained to one element, and the Qi floating all around ous can be converted into Pure Qi with an easy procedure. With Pure Qi, Runic Forgemasters can infuse weapons with runes that have a different attribute than their own. Unfortunately, these runes will be weaker than runes fueled by Qi of the same attribute. What a lot of people don't know, is that there is a way around this.
Tang Hua walked over to the shelf filled with herbs, and brought back a small sack. He then reached into it, and pulled out a glowing green crystal.
"This is an Attribute Crystal. It is made by absorbing the essence of beasts of different attributes. If you stab a beast with a Qi Crystal, it will absorb the attribute of that beast at the same density as that of the Crystal. That means that Barren Qi Crystals will only give you a small amount of that certain attribute. Unfortunately, wether the crystal is a cube, orb, or shard does not matter. That means that is is quite expensive to get any attribute crystals of higher value than a Barren Qi Shard."
Qing Shan tried to process this amazing secret that he was just made privy to. Once he did, Qing Shan had a much different reaction to this knowledge than most people. His face hardened, his fists clenched, and disgust was clear in his eyes.
"Isn't that just a waist of money!?"
Tang Hua flinched backwards, surprised that this was Qing Shan's only response. Then, a smile broke out on his face, and he bent forward, clutching his stomach.
"Ah. Hahaha. Only you, lad. Only you."
Qing Shan shook his head from side to side, as if trying to dislodge a bad thought.
"Its gross, but there is nothing I can do about it. Why don't you just tell me how to make this Pure Qi. I don't think that I need to have anything to do with those so-called attribute crystals. I can just get someone with a different attribute to power my weapons, if I realy need it."
Tang Hua rolled his eyes at Qing Shan's antics. He was not sure why he expected a reaction that was any different from this.
"Okay. Here's how you do it…"
Qing Shan did not sleep the whole night, and instead went back to building 18-A and entered his pocket dimension. According to Tang Hua, it was easy to figure out, and Qing Shan was just itching to try.
'So first, I make an area where there is no Qi…'
Qing Shan moved the wall of Qi in his Finger tip behind his first joint.
'Then, I try to absorb Qi through that one area while blocking it with the wall of Qi.'
This was the part that gave Qing Shan trouble. The outside Qi just kept penetrating Qing Shan's defenses, and entering his Circulation Channels.
Finally, at some time close to morning, Qing Shan managed to store the Qi right inside his fingertip. The tip of his right index finger was glowing, and he felt an warmth inside his body that he was not sure wether it was pleasant or painful. Qing Shan moved his wall of Qi slighly, causing a small part of this Qi to penetrate the tip of his finger. Then, Qing Shan discharged the Qi as he moved his finger through the air, leaving a trail of gray light its wake.
"YES!"
'I did it!'
Qing Shan did this a couple more times, until he felt that he could make Pure Qi reliably. Although he was unsure how the Qi did not retain the attribute of the surroundings, he did know that he had successfully created Pure Qi!
Excited by his success, Qing Shan decided to settle for using the Spring of Time in place of sleep. He had a lot to think about during the night. After all, Qing Shan needed to come up with a plan for his new spear.
Qing Shan retrieved Tang Hua's books from his room and brought them into the Primal Pocket Dimension. He then sat on the new island in the middle of the spring and began thinking. For his weapon, Qing Shan was not quite sure what runes he wants. Actually, because Qing Shan wanted the strongest runes that he can make, he needs to discover a herbal poultice that works for lightning type runes. All Qi attributes have two obvious rune patterns, an offensive one and one for assisting. An example of an assist rune is the 'lightweight' rune. An example of an offensive rune would be the 'heat area' rune, which makes part of a weapon red hot without melting it. This rune is normally applied to the tips of weapons to make wounds burn in adition to bleed.
'Actually, before I make a rune set for my lightning attribute, shouldn't I see if I can use fire and air Qi for those rune types?'
After Qing Shan reached the Origin Realm, he was no-longer always circulating his Qi. The circulation only happened when Qing Shan willed for it to do so. Because of the lack of motion in Qing Shan's circulation channels, his Qi split back into fire on one side and air on the other. However, because his Qi entered his nerves at a location along the midline of his body, all of the Qi in his body remained as the lightning attribute. This means that Qing Shan had three different attributes in his body at all times that he is not circulating his Qi. Because the attributes were not always mixing together, he had much better control over them. With just a bit of effort, Qing Shan built Qi pathways from his Fourth and Sixth Meridians down his arms, going in between important muscles. Because of this, there was now a visible line that looked like an extra-pronounced vein going from Qing Shan's shoulders to each of his middle fingers. With nary a thought, Qing Shan was able to expel fire Qi from his left side and wind Qi from his right.
'That was… much easier than I thought. What's more, all of this Qi was of the same quality as the Qi of people with either attribute. With this, Qing Shan took his first step towards being able to control the Fire and Wind attributes in addition to his Lightning.
'I guess I will settle for an offensive rune of each attribute.'
With a smile on his face, Qing Shan fell asleep. Unfortunately, he had to wake up less than an hour after he did so.
'Whatever. It is not as though I rely on sleep anyways.'
After his discovery the night before, Qing Shan decided that he wanted to spend as much of the day as he could at the Smith's Respite. After some practice during the day, Qing Shan planned to make his spear once the shop closed. In order to make the best spear possible, he needs as much practice as he can get.
Qing Shan walked to the shop, still thinking about the design of the weapon he wanted to make.
"I didn't think I'd see you here this morning, Qing Shan. I was certain you would be trying to master the creation of Pure Qi."
Tang Hua was surprised by Qing Shan's early appearance, but he was even more surprised by what happened next.
While Qing Shan remained in deep thought, he raised his right hand in the air, and stuck out his index finger. He then proceeded to write "I did." In the air with the Pure Qi.
After seeing this, Tang Hua's jaw droppedin shock, and his body started to shake. However, the man quickly fixed his demeanor, and a large smile bloomed on his face.
'This boy. He mastered something that took me a month in just a few hours… I can't wait to see what sort of masterpieces he will make in the future.'
Once the shop opened up, Qing Shan stowed himself away in the back and began forging. Because ordered weapons were only made for the really wealthy, most of the time in the back of the shop was spent making weapons to fill up a quota. This ensured that the Smith's Respite would not run out of wares. Luckily for Qing Shan, this also meant that he was free to practice designing his weapon during his shift.
By the end of the day, Qing Shan had a perfect image in his mind about what he wanted his new spear to look like. He had also successfully managed to infuse multiple different weapons with the runes that he had picked. He felt that he was ready.
Once the shop closed, Tang Hua came into the back of the shop. Usually, he and Qing Shan would split up time in the back half and half. However, Tang Hua wanted to give Qing Shan a chance to practice his newly obtained skills. Just as Tang Hua was about to say something to Qing Shan, he noticed that Qing Shan seemed to be in a state of extreme concentration, and seemed to be picking out what metals to use. Tang Hua looked at all the weapons that Qing Shan had created today and smiled gently to himself.
'He's going to go and impress me again, ain't he.'
Tang Hua left the room, and went around to an airvent that connected to the storage room adjacent the forge. He wanted to eatch Qing Shan, but did not want to be in a position to dusturb the boy.
Tang Hua muttered under his breath as he took note of the materials that Qing Shan had aleardy set out.
"This… will be interesting."