6 Blue Rose City
Engrossed in cultivating, Li Mo Shang had completely forgotten to go to school that day, leading to his mother's fiery scolding about his increasingly rouge behavior ever since he had disappeared for a day.
To he mother's painful yet warm love, Li Mo Shang could only give a wry smile; he had indeed gotten overly excited about the prospects of cultivation to remember about his studies, and he agreed that calming down and planning his actions would return a better result than blindly rushing in and potentially getting injured or inviting calamity.
His cultivation would still require a lot of time before reaching the stage he assumed was necessary to utilize inter-world travel, and living his university life was indeed a more pleasant thought than endless fights filled with gore and blood. At the very least, he was just about to start university life; he should enjoy it before thinking of distracting thoughts of wars and cultivation delusions.
Repeatedly assuring his mother that he will reflect upon his behavior, Li Mo Shang returned to his room to complete his immediate objective, to hide the Heretic manual as best as possible. Such a hot potato much assuredly capable of inviting ruin to his nine generations, he must ensure that nobody would find it. Regarding such a treasure, not even family bonds would exist against human greed.
Laying down on the bed, Li Mo Shang brooded over the best options to hide the book. His mother carried out a routine cleaning each month regardless of his protests of coming to age and capability to live independently, nor could he hide it in his new dorm due to the risk of light-handed roommates.
Just as he became increasingly panicked about being unable to find a location to hide the Heretic manual and yet be able to access the book on a daily interval, the book rose from the table, and became a stream of light as it disappeared within Li Mo Shang's chest, much to his surprise. Hastily observing his increasingly active spiritual core, Li Mo Shang discovered that the Heretic manual had nestled in the sphere's surface; a section of the sphere had transformed itself to holster a book, and within lay a miniaturized copy of the Heretic manual.
Focusing on the book and visualizing the turning of pages, Li Mo Shang discovered that he could still peruse the book like normal, only that it did not manifest before him; with this, his issue of agonizing where to hide his secret was resolved, and he would only appear to be in a daze when reading the Heretic manual's contents.
Early the next day, Li Mo Shang stood on the roof of the residence while staring at the fading vestiges of the purple qi in the sky, fiercely absorbing what he could salvage from that worldly aura, hoping that his spiritual core could adopt the purple qi's attributes of nobility and unsurmountable bursts of strength.
Releasing a sigh of satisfaction, Li Mo Shang easily leaped down fifteen meters onto the ground, before heading to Blue Rose University after saying goodbye to his relatives. Hidden from sight in a closed off room on the second floor, a wizened old man stared calmly at Li Mo Shang's disappearing figure; within that lucid gaze lay a roiling madness.
His useful subject had suddenly disappeared a month ago, and the old man assumed that Li Mo Shang was involved in the incident, but held inconclusive proof to make a judgement. Letting out a cold huff, the old man retrieved his gaze and turned back to playing with his medical plants.
The Li Family lived in Blue Rose City of Nan Qing Country, a smaller country in the Blue Flame World. Blue Rose City was a well-developed city, with advanced public transportation, utility, and social structure.
The city itself served as a hub of technological development, causing foreigner presence to fluctuate every winter and summer, creating an interesting cultural mix. Since its founding, Blue Rose City had advocated for a disengagement from traditional values, which had allowed for its rapid development as an influential city in Nan Qing.
Blue Rose University was regarded as the nation's best institute, where only the best students could enroll and study; all graduates had impacted the Blue Flame world in some way, be it cultural, technological, rarely was any graduate restricted to Nan Qing after completing their studies.
Li Mo Shang had barely reached the qualifications to enroll at Blue Rose University, achieved only due to months of intense cramming, and his family's reputation in Blue Rose City.
The Li Family owned a massive pharmaceutical chain in Blue Flame world, as the owners of the Golden Rooster Pharmacy. As proponents of traditional medicine, Li Shao Qing, Li Mo Shang's grandfather and Patriarch of the Li Family, had created a powerful medicine capable of healing any injury short of death, even regrowing missing body parts and restoring vitality.
He had derived several medicines, including beauty enhancers, mental stimulants, establishing the superpower of the medicine world. With each medicinal pill auction every month for an astronomical price, the Li Family had quickly rose from an unknown clan to a famous, influential entity in not only Nan Qing, but also in Blue Spirit World.
As the son of the successor of the Li Family, Li Mo Shang was evaluated to have high prospects in academics and medicine, hence allowing him to "enroll" into Blue Rose University.
Walking along the streets leading to Blue Rose University, Li Mo Shang released an appreciative sigh to his surroundings. Though the environment had modernized significantly, with metallic structures and corporation buildings towering everywhere, the city had not neglected the environment and aesthetics quality, with flora planted in vast quantities to provide a natural atmosphere to the residents.
With the government mandating which specified building heights based on location, the city's modernization provided an appearance akin to a maze from afar; the city's founder had accomplished his goal of creating a hub of development and architecture masterpiece. Particularly, the road leading to the Rose Fragrance Hall, a renowned pleasure hall, was a twisted and winding path, with both roses and tulips decorating each side of the path. Blue Rose University had maple trees and leading to its entrance, with a massive gate composed of compressed bluesteel.
Appreciating the dark blue metallic hue of the Blue Rose University's gates, Li Mo Shang once again released an praising sigh. Compressed bluesteel was created by rapid expansion of a carbon and steel alloy, then refined over a temperature high enough via a natural blue flame, hence deserving the name 'bluesteel'.
The material's reputation spread over to its performance, with a single cubic meter of bluesteel being capable of supporting tens of tons of force concentrated to a single point, and mankind had yet to be able to melt the material back into a liquid form. Weapons had evolved to the stage that any common military grade armament could easily surpass the speed of sound, and after a few more years of research, beam weapons would be miniaturized to the size of a regular firearm without losing any destructive potential.
Medicinal technology had not lost in the race of development, with the natural lifespan of humans surpassing a hundred and twenty years of uninterrupted life; in short, the arduous practice of cultivation had declined under the constantly evolving technology and its temptation of sweet relief and opportunity.
People no longer cared about immortality or divine strength, since those conditions took too much time to achieve, and there was no guarantee.
After confirming his identity with the guards and terminal at the entrance of the university's commons, Li Mo Shang quickly made his way to the classroom 1-B, the location for the general classes' lectures. Although he tried his best to keep his entrance as quiet as possible, his presence was noticed by the entire class, and the sudden quieting of the lecture hall caused the professor to pause her energetic lecture on history, and glare at Li Mo Shang with a furious expression on her delicate face.
"Li Mo Shang, I see you finally grace us with your presence today! Since you have been absent during the entire orientation, and shown up late, you can spend the rest of the lecture facing the wall in the hallway!"
Grudgingly, Li Mo Shang was ejected from the classroom no less than a minute he had stepped in.
Facing the wall, Li Mo Shang's mind remained on the lecture, or rather, the professor giving the lecture. Thinking about the beautiful figure in the short black skirt and sleeveless shirt that tightly stuck to her skin, accenting her curves, he could not help but give rise to licentious thoughts.
Professor Ning, since the moment she had introduced herself as the class' general studies professor, had won over all of the students' hearts as their goddess, not just due to appearance, but also her intellect. Evaluated as one of Nan Qing's most intelligent people, she had proposed a revolutionary systemized model of trade import and export regulations at the age of sixteen, easily tripling the nation's economical prowess and making the small nation quite an influential figure in Blue Flame world.
She had become class 1-B's general studies professor at the age of twenty, making her the ideal figure to pursue in the male students' hearts due to her beauty and gentle manner. Even her angry expression while chasing Li Mo Shang out of class was considerably cute in his eyes, particularly her soft yet angry voice.
Deciding not to appear like a fool standing in the hallway, Li Mo Shang ventured in the university, roaming within the building aimlessly. Each hallway was constructed out of polished marble for the flooring, and purple sandalwood panels describing each room decorated the smooth granite wall. The lighting system was built on the most recent theory of conducting electricity through a glass-like crystal discovered a decade ago, which was called 'composite tear' due to the crystal's transparency; if arbitrarily placed on a surface, the crystal would appear invisible due to the perfect transparency of the material.
As the crystal emitted pure, warm light electricity was conducted, 'composite tear' was widely preferred over regular conductors in electronic devices, except that the crystal was very expensive, with a single kilogram selling for at least ten thousand RMB. That the Blue Rose University could easily replace all of its electronic conductors with 'composite tear' demonstrated the overwhelming wealth of the institution.
Finally arriving on the rooftop, Li Mo Shang swept an appreciative gaze around the overhead view of the city. As one of the tallest buildings in the city, most of the city could be seen, and with his enhanced vision, Li Mo Shang could easily spot his residence from the rooftop. He saw his mother open the windows to do the laundry, and the neighbors conducting their usual business with happiness. With ease of mind, Li Mo Shang affirmed himself to attempt creating a personal martial arts technique today, one that implemented worldly qi.
Reviewing the Heretic manual to see if there were any specific instructions on developing martial art techniques, the only warning Li Mo Shang could find was to limit himself to siphoning qi from the orbiting ring of qi, and not from the spiritual core itself.
The manual stated that until all of the golden engravings were filled to maximum capacity, of which then a light purple luster would manifest, any miscellaneous siphoning from the core would increase the chances of a backlash and fragmentation of the core. Finding nothing else, Li Mo Shang tentatively extracted qi from the orbiting cluster, then expelled it towards his hand. Aiming to manifest a sword of dense qi, he visualized the form of a short blade held in his right hand, only to have the projection end in failure.
After successive failures, Li Mo Shang stopped attempting to produce swords of qi, and reflected on the process underwent by the qi, to pinpoint the causation for the projection to fail. Slowly refining qi towards his hand, he made a grasping motion in the air, detailing his visualization with a thin iron sword about a meter in length, five centimeters in width, and two centimeters thick. Finalizing his visualization, Li Mo Shang gave a short shout as his qi surged from his hand into the air, forming an iron longsword.
