14 A New Seed Brings New Growth

After successfully forming her Neidan Yun finally left her seclusion in her quarters. After exiting she quickly discovered that she had been in there for an entire week and had missed this week's best tasks for her subordinates. After picking up the remaining tasks that she could assign she presented them to her group with her apologies, but none of them seemed to have too great an issue with it as they saw how much more powerful she was. After entering the Neidan Forging realm a cultivator would be able to store energy within their bodies and emit this energy as their own, as a result their body would now 'breathe' energy on its own, creating an energy field around them that would put pressure on those who had weaker cultivation or potential.

As she spoke with each of her subordinate disciples they could feel a powerful suppression from her and knew that she had broken into the nascent Neidan Forging realm, but they could also feel that her Neidan was incredible because of the level of pressure she exuded.

Once she finished assigning tasks to her group of disciples she returned to the mission desk to retrieve some tasks for herself. This system was separate from the distributed tasks that were obtained on a weekly basis for the lower disciples and was intended only for the Core Disciples to complete. These were tasks with a significantly higher level of danger that required a cultivation in the Neidan Forging realm or above to even accept.

While looking at the tasks available, the attendant at the desk leaned over to talk to her, "You know, with an aura like yours I can tell you must be quite powerful, you can likely complete the higher level tasks on the next page. Do you have a weapon chosen yet?" This question actually gave Yun pause. She hadn't actually taken the time since she arrived to choose a weapon and learn skills for it, how could she forget?

"Actually, now that you mention it I have not chosen my weapon. I suppose this means I should head to the Weapons floor and take care of that before I really choose something. Thank you for the reminder."

"No problem, please come back anytime."

A few minutes later Yun was standing at the desk of the Weapons floor looking at the incredible variety of weapons available. It seemed like an endless list of choices, from swords and sabers and spears to chains and whips and needles and claws. Everything you could imagine, and many that seemed preposterous, were available here at levels of quality that a general citizen would never see in their lifetime.

Walking along the rack of displays left Yun feeling a little bewildered, so she asked the attendant, "What weapons among these have an easy set of basic techniques, but can also become incredibly powerful with advanced skills?"

This question made the attendant pause to think a few moments before he replied, "Swords and sabers both have fairly basic early learning, with much more advanced techniques and skills available once you've mastered the basics. They also have a very wide variety of techniques, but because of their length they leave you more vulnerable against beasts and long weapons before the Houtian realm. Spears, halberds, and glaives are much longer and thus cover that weakness, but they are also much heavier. Also, among those three, you have the choice of flexible or firm, which can also significantly affect your use of them. Finally there are fist and foot weapons that are fairly self-explanatory. They rely on your own ability to fight in close quarters and don't have any one established basic set of skills. Just like spears and the like, you also could choose a staff. They are similarly long, but there is no sharp element to them and all strikes are the same in terms of potential damage. All of those weapons are placed in these few groups of materials over here on the other side, the more difficult and rare weapons are placed further towards the back of this space. Within each section there is a room that is only for Core Disciples, and a further room beyond that which is only for the Direct Disciples with authorization from their Elder. As a Core Disciple you can choose two weapons to take with you today. Please proceed."

After hearing this explanation from the attendant disciple Yun walked over to the racks he indicated before and began to look and touch the weapons. This was her first real contact with weapons, and she didn't know entirely what she was looking for yet. As she lifted the first long sword she encountered she actually marveled that it felt like almost nothing in her hand. She looked back down at the informational card and was surprised to find that this seemingly light weight sword already weighted more than her, it felt like almost nothing in her hand!

Moving along down the racks she hefted a few more weapons, but none of them felt right in her hands. Too light. Too stiff. Too awkward. She went through nearly all of the weapons before she encountered a strange spear. This spear had a standard long shaft and lacked a great deal of decoration. The head of the spear was a wide two-edged blade that was fairly curved on both sides, but swept up into a deadly point at the end. This sort of spear head was good for slashing and stabbing attacks. The mounting point was plain and consisted of a locking ring that secured the head on a pressure mount, making it easy to do maintenance without having a unified object, this appearance was mimicked on the butt of the spear with a rounded space and a permanently set matching ring, so that when the spear head was taken off the spear would be perfectly balanced into a staff. What a great weapon for various combat needs! Even if the spear head was damaged you could still fight effectively without it.

Quickly she looked in the Core Disciple space and saw another similar spear that appeared to be in better condition and made of significantly better materials. After confirming the presence of the other spear she stepped back out and kept looking through the other available items until she came upon a set of arm and foot guards that looked to contain some sort of augmentation. When she looked closer she found that there were some mystic stones set into specific locations on them, creating something like an array diagram. Yun wasn't very familiar with mystic stones, but she knew there were a number of unique minerals that were brought up from the deepest depths by the numerous volcanoes. The Volvaka were well known for being masters of using these gems to augment and improve their equipment, but the Lynhär were swiftly becoming better at using them in powerful and unique ways.

She knew that equipment with these kinds of gemstones set into them were significantly more rare, but this one was placed in the Inner Disciple selection area, so she picked it and the spear up and took them to the desk to record. After recording her choices the attendant once again offered her a suggestion, "If you are not familiar with fighting with weapons you should first find a basic weapon manual for your weapon type in the library, then after you study it you should see if anyone is willing to teach or spar. In this way you can solidify the use of your weapon in your very bones, making it instinct to use it to attack and defend in various ways." Nodding her thanks to the attendant, Yun did just that.