Chapter 33: Artifact Refining (3)

"Sigh... this scoundrel's contracting skill seem to improve everyday. At this rate, the next time that he comes to me, he'll end up getting things for free..."

...

At Mo Fan's forge...

"Sigh... I am broke once again..." The golden-haired kid let out a sigh from his mouth before a surge of rage overtake him and he angrily slammed a strange brush and the two books about arrays on the forging table. "Thirty thousand points just for a fucking Qi Brush! Fuck you, old Meng! Fuck you!"

"If only I had been at the Qi Transforming realm, I wouldn't have needed to spend this much on a single fucking brush!"

...

Why did Mo Fan spend so much for a brush? Well, the reason, like he just stated, is because of his lack of power. Since he hadn't yet reached the Qi Transforming realm, his internal energy still couldn't exit from his body, and the runes, to properly function, require one to draw and imbue them with pure external Qi.

So, to overcome this problem, Mo Fan had to buy a Qi Brush. Initially invented by the array specialized families to permit their young masters to learn from a young age the Array Dao, the Qi Brush is a brush that permits its user to write runes by simply being infused with the user's Qi and then bringing this to the tip, immediately transforming it into external energy.

But if one hasn't reached the Qi Transforming realm yet, how can he imbue his energy into something that isn't his body? Well, to resolve that issue, the array geniuses thought of making the brush with the Spirit Leeching Wood, a rare material that, if surrounded by Qi, immediately starts to absorb it. And being the material quite pricy, that's the reason why Mo Fan had to pay thirty thousand points for it.

Unfortunately, despite the high price, there were huge downsides to using it: if one gathers too much Qi on the hand holding the brush, the Spirit Leeching Wood will slowly absorb all of it, eventually breaking if the amount of the energy surpasses the three-sold of its capacity, and so, because of it having quite a little of a Qi storage, the quality of the array drawn with them can at the very most reach the Top Ordinary grade as better runic formations require much more energy than what the Qi Brush can possibly hold.

...

"Sigh... I think that I should really start to focus more on cultivation rather than refining so much my martial skills..."

...

After two hours of reading the books, Rune Basics and Introduction to Spirit Arrays, Mo Fan had learned quite a few new things.

Every rune was made from numerous strokes and lines. In general, the more strokes, lines and Qi imbued there were, the greater the quality and might of the rune formed.

Arrays were, if we were to make a comparison with math, like an equation of runes. Each rune intertwined with one another with absolute precision; only a rune drawn improperly or uncompatible with the rest led to the array not working properly and sometimes even to something dangerous happening, a reason for which ordinary cultivators don't usually tend to follow such a risky Dao.

And most of the runes were divided in four different categories: elemental, rudimentary, gathering and connecting runes.

Elemental runes are inscriptions capable of strengthening one's Qi attribute if it is of the same type as the rune while weakening it if it's not. For example, if one uses a fire elemental attack and is under an array, or an artifact, with a fire rune used in it, the attack will be stronger, while if someone uses a wood elemental technique under the same array, it will be weaker. Elemental runes are generally linked to the five basic elements, Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, Metal, and to the Yin and Yang elements, while the others are rarer as they are either unique or a combination of various attributes, like Ice, which is a mix of the Water and Yin elements.

Rudimentary runes are, instead, just simple inscriptions that like for example enhance one's natural capabilities, such as strength, speed, endurance...

Gathering runes are, like the name suggests, inscriptions that help one to gather more Qi into one place, greatly helping cultivation or, if connected to an elemental rune, to attract the energy of the linked attribute.

And finally, the connecting runes that, like the name once again suggests, is just an inscription to link other runes to one another, and so essential for arrays to work.

Having now gained enough knowledge about runes and arrays, Mo Fan deemed that it was finally the time to try drawing some runes, obviously starting on a piece of paper as it was the first time of doing such a thing, and he surely didn't want to try it on the sword for Su Yan, risking to ruin it.

...

After an hour of trying...

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Why do I keep messing up!"

"It's already been an hour and I haven't been able to draw a single rune properly! Not even the simplest one!"

"And I'm sure that I've been doing anything in the correct way! I'm not giving the brush too much Qi, I'm not pressing too much on the paper, and I am drawing it as perfectly as the book shows! What's the problem then?!" And just when he said those words, the sound of water copiously falling from the sky to the ground reached his ears from outside, meaning that it had just started to rain. "Now it even starts to rain! What the fuck? Are even the heavens against me now?!"

"Wait? Water? That's right! I have to imbue the same amount of Qi into every stroke and line of the rune! How didn't I think about this before?!"

...to be continued

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Guys, for the runes and for the brush, I'll use the system from the opera 'Yuan Zun', which I deem to be great. I'll obviously change something to make them more compatible with the Martial Peak world, like names, how they work and stuff like that (Genesis Brush became Qi Brush). I needed to use this because Martial Peak doesn't really explain how arrays and artifact refining works. Also, if you know any other novel in which those things are throughoutly explain, please comment it.

And also another thing, if sometimes i use 'runic formations', i mean arrays.

Remember to check my other work "Uniqueness Emperor" and "Nano Machine: The Player"