The day after Wu Ling finished his reawakening, he settled down on a stump near the lakeshore and began to plan his carving. Su Xiang hovered nearby, as though she needed reassurance that he really was fine after the eleven-day apparent ordeal he'd been through to become a Mystic.
"Sister Xiang," Wu Ling called out before his sister could become fully absorbed in her sword practice. "I received some help from my master on a number of things aside from my breakthrough and reawakening. Would you like to see how she helped me with repainting Yue?"
"Your master helped you with Yue?" Su Xiang asked, arriving at Wu Ling's side in half a breath's time. "She's still Yue though, right? Repainting her doesn't change who she is inside, does it?"
"No, Yue will always be Yue," Wu Ling reassured her, summoning the fluffy Silver Snow Rabbit.
Once Yue emerged from Wu Ling's inner world, she wasted no time in abandoning her master to snuggle into Su Xiang's eager embrace. The rabbit eagerly buried her face in the young swordswoman's chest, tickling her nose with floppy ears and contentedly twitching her whiskers.
"Yue," Wu Ling said, prodding the happy ball of fluff. "She can't see your changes like that."
At Wu Ling's gentle prompting, the rabbit finally pulled back from Su Xiang, preening and fluffing her shining coat as though she were a refined lady showing off a new dress. Even with her sharp eyes, it took Su Xiang a moment to realize that Yue's fur now sported a pattern of brighter spots, as though a swirl of platinum had been scattered across her silvery coat. When she looked closer, she realized that each of those brighter spots was actually a tiny, meticulously detailed snowflake!
"I could never have painted those details," Wu Ling admitted. One day, he hoped to reach those heights, but at the moment, he was honest enough to admit that it was beyond him. "I managed the shape of the pattern but Master is the one who really brought it to life."
"It's beautiful," Su Xiang breathed, stroking the cool softness of Yue's fur. "Does this mean that Yue's grown stronger as well?"
"She has. Yue, can you put on a show for Sister Xiang?"
At Wu Ling's request, the small rabbit wiggled her nose, twitching her whiskers and summoning a chill breeze. The chill breeze intensified, turning into a small whirlwind nearly five meters across. A few breaths later the whirlwind began to fill with first a dusting, then a flurry of snowflakes. Within twenty breaths, neither Wu Ling nor Su Xiang could see out of the miniature snowstorm that Yue conjured!
"Okay, Yue, that's enough," Wu Ling told the fluffy Guardian Beast. "So, what do you think? Isn't Yue even more amazing?"
"She's even better than amazing," Su Xiang agreed, stroking the proud-looking rabbit and nuzzling her affectionately. "You know, if she can do this once summer starts, I'll have to fight off the others for time with her," she added with a smile.
"I'm sure she'll enjoy being so in demand," Wu Ling said with a laugh. "Yue, I need to practice for a bit so I won't be able to play with you but I know Sister Xiang could use a partner to practice with. Will you help her out while I work on my carving?"
It wasn't until Wu Ling saw Su Xiang and Yue settle into a comfortable exercise that the last of the worry seemed to melt from his sister's aura, vanishing like Yue's snow in the warm spring morning. When Wu Ling thought over the group and the challenges to come, he was almost grateful that Fang Lin still needed more time to recover. He and Su Xiang had been through a few too many intense experiences lately. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to give her several days of spending time in each other's company and letting the days roll by as they cultivated.
Thoughts of cultivation brought him back to the project he'd come out to begin today. With Hua Jue's help, he'd revised his plans for using the bones they'd collected and he'd made a decision about not only the first totem he intended to create but who he'd be making it for.
As an Artist, it was difficult for Wu Ling to be oblivious to the emotional states of the members of the group, even before his cultivation advanced. Last night, during the impromptu celebration, he'd come to realize that the dynamics of the group had shifted slightly during his own breakthrough.
Yu Jinqi had become the first member of their group to reach the second stage. Not only that, he had both saved Fang Lin's life and he'd successfully healed the lesser injuries of everyone else in the group. Going even further, his constant work resulted in cultivation advancements for virtually the entire group. Only Wu Ling and Su Xiang escaped the feelings of gratitude so deep that it felt in some cases like indebtedness.
Yu Jinqi, for his part, had shaken off some of his uncertainty and timidness. While he remained humble, particularly in Wu Ling's presence, he no longer conducted himself as someone who was inferior to the other members of Zhang Buyan's circle of friends.
For Wu Ling, it was a positive change. He imagined that Yu Jinqi had been suffering as the time spent stuck at a bottleneck wore on and seeing him slip free of that inspired Wu Ling to create something special for the young alchemist to thank him for his tireless dedication to the members of the group.
For this totem, Wu Ling carefully selected one of the skulls from a Red Mist Wolf and began working carefully with a fine saw to remove a section from near the top of the skull. If he was careful, he'd be able to make two totems of this type from a single skull and would still have enough bone left over to craft something different from the beast's jaw and snout.
Since becoming an Understudy, Wu Ling experienced dozens of minor changes that affected the way he practiced his art. His eyes felt sharper, making it easier for him to find the right places to set his tools to slowly bring out the shape he wanted to create. His fingers had become more sensitive, improving his precision when he worked with rasps, files, saws, and chisels to refine the emerging piece.
In fact, all of his senses had improved to various extents, making it easier to elevate the quality of his art. More than that, however, his perception had improved as had his ability to visualize the results he wanted to achieve. He still scratched reference lines on his workpiece but he made fewer mistakes that needed revision and the end result that slowly emerged from his sawing and filing more closely resembled the idea he'd started with than his simpler work before his breakthrough.
Before he realized it, the world around him had fallen away and Wu Ling became completely absorbed by the totem taking shape in his hands. It was as though he had connected to the piece on a deeper level and his hands wouldn't stop until the work was complete…