The Occupational Disease

Yun sat down again, clearly struggling to accept what she had just been told by her friend, and stared fixedly at the teacup on the short table in front of her. Focusing her mind on that singular point and excluding all else finally helped her manage to calm down and reign in her mind.

With a few deep and intentional breaths she prepared herself again.

"Please tell me you aren't planning to drop such news on me again, Cai'er. Not sure if this Yun's mind can take it today."

Zhu Cai smiled genially at her friend, relishing a little bit of the mind-breaking shock she just exhibited, and eventually responded affirmatively. After reassuring her friend she also sat down and talked with her again.

"Other than your obviously superior primary weapon you mentioned using a few Volvaka Hunter spears, right? Show me those?"

"Sure Cai'er, here. Don't tell me anything crazy about them either!"

Zhu Cai accepted the pair of spears with a nod and began to inspect them, mumbling to herself. "The workmanship is obviously good, as expected of Volvaka craftsmen. The material is exceptional, again expected. There's a very slight flex to the shaft, but overall extremely stiff. Sharpness doesn't appear to have degraded on the head, nor are there any signs of damage. Overall decent quality Volvaka service weapons."

After appraising for a short time Zhu Cai stood up and walked to her workbench, asking Yun questions as she did.

"Length seems a good fit for you, do you agree Yun?"

"Yes, the length is perfect as a pair."

"Weight seems a little high, and flexibility is extremely poor, opinions?"

"Agreed again, though the weight isn't so much a concern as this Yun's strength grows."

"Hmmm. . . I think I have something here. . ."

Zhu Cai was spiritually examining things on her storage artifact in the corner as she mumbled about sizes, weights, durability, and flexibility before finally taking out a long tube and bringing it over to the table. Laying the tube down she uncapped it and handed it to Yun for inspection.

"Let's see if this will fulfill your need. They're a set of spears that are a little shorter, but they're well balanced and made for throwing and close quarters combat. There are six of them in the tube, the primary metal used in the alloy is the metal from the Volvaka axes you left me before, alloyed in the shaft to add flexibility, but pure in the head to retain sharpness and durability. The shaft cover is something you're used to, the weave of Immortal Wyrm fibers, and the pommel is similarly pure Volvaka steel in the same style as your current weapon, a flanged spike useful for a variety of attacks, with a set of pass-through spaces in each flange that reduces weight as well as providing utility space for things like attaching a rope to throw or something of the sort."

Yun listened to her best friend rattle on about the makeup of the set of spears in front of her, but most of it meant little to her. Instead she grabbed a pair and stood up before moving to an empty space.

"Wait a moment, Yun'er. Let me get the practice materials."

Saying this, Zhu Cai walked to the corner and again retrieved her storage artifact before walking to a wide open space in the workshop. Once there, she crouched down and used her spirit to activate the spatial storage artifact, causing a five meter wide platform to appear just above the floor and fall down. This platform was made of strong woods and had a few dummies standing on one end made of metals.

"Here you go, Yun'er, test your skills with those spears on this platform."

Nodding, Yun mounted the platform with the two spears while Zhu Cai brought over the case with the other four. First she stood in the center and tested the spear's weight, balance, flex, grip, and maneuvers. After familiarizing herself with the spear's specifics Yun began to stab and slash the spears in the air, not hitting anything, for a few minutes, working out her tight muscles.

Swinging overhead she smashed the spear down onto the floor, leaving a small gash from each spear in the incredibly tough wood. Raising the spears back up and choking her hands up the shafts to get to a balanced point she began to stab rapidly at the dummies, leaving slight marks on those as well. Finally, with a twist of her body, she brought both spears to the same side and smashed them sideways into the waist of the dummy, causing a cracking sound to come from the mounting point of the dummy!

Nodding with satisfaction, Yun praised these short spears that Zhu Cai had manufactured while she was away.

"Cai'er, these are quite impressive. Your ability to alloy metals seems to have grown by leaps and bounds! Between these spears and the... the other thing, how long did you spend?"

"The spears took me a few tries after figuring out the alloying technique with these metals, but all in all it only took a little over a month from inception to the finished product. By comparison, the uniform took me the better part of three months just to weave! That really was too ambitious. The treatment that lets it change color took another two months to perfect and manufacture enough for that whole uniform as well, so all told i spent five of your six months on these few things. I was originally planning to use the Starmetal Mantis you brought back to make you a new spear, but now I think it would be best to make you something else with that material."

"Cai'er, you really are too much. How could you spend so much time just making things for me?"

"Really, Yun'er, you give yourself too little credit. You're our sect's pride! A nine year old at nearly the Small Success realm of Neidan Forging is too incredible. By comparison this is just my occupational disease, my obsession and life. If I didn't craft it would be too boring!"

Yun shook her head with a smile at Zhu Cai as she returned the spears to the container, then placed the container in her spatial storage artifact.