7.Yao Lei's first sword

A month passed, and Madam Ming was impressed by the great job Yao Lei had been doing with the sigil chiseling.

"We will make you a sword today Yao Lei. You are afforded cold iron, ground-up spirit stones, and normal iron. If you want other resources you will have to pay from pocket. You will be the one designing it."

It was an unofficial initiation ritual in the artificers and formations hall.

Being an artificer and a formation master wasn't that different. A spiritual artifact was just an object with formations etched into it.

The calm yin Qi is great for illusions.

Yao Lei performed a spell that created an illusory sword. He performed another spell to create illusory sigils.

When someone with Yin Qi learns sword arts, he can't cover the sword with his qi. The cold turns the metal brittle, putting its practitioner at risk. The proper way to create an artifact for a Yin Qi user is to cover it with a barrier twice. The practitioner would spray his Yin Qi between two barriers and achieve the same result as someone who covered his sword with Yin Qi.

There were Qi channels that fed into the mini formation at the base of the sword. The sigil made a complete circuit. That meant it could be hooked into Yao Lei cultivation or be fueled with spirit stones.

Madam Ming watched attentively. Yao Lei was moving like a professional. He never skipped a single move. Even tedious parts of the process have been meticulously attended to. The illusion version of the sword has been created. The sigils in the illusion worked after a couple of tests.

If Yao Lei wasn't a Yin cultivator, he could've just chiseled a sword and be done with it. Making this sword was also a test for Yao Lei. If he succeeded, he would be given more important jobs. With more important jobs, would come more contribution points, and more resources for Yao Lei to cultivate with.

Other cultivators from the hall stepped in. Teenager fire cultivator melted the cold iron with the help of the metal cultivator. Each type of molten metal was poured through its respective entry point. With the help of Madam Ming, the edges of the sword illusion had been made into a barrier. As glowing molten metal filled the barrier like a bottle, a glowing sword took shape.

Yao Lei screamed and poured his entire reserve of Yin Qi into the sword. The sizzling sword suddenly turned cold.

It was done. It only needed touch-ups with a Qi scalpel.

After Yao Lei was done chiseling and impatient Madam Ming snatched the sword from his hand.

She ran her qi through it. She gradually increased her Qi output as the sword held on. Sword even resisted the stain of her current level.

She turned toward Yao Lei.

"What did you do?"

Yao Lei sat down, feeling strained. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers.

"I've also added barriers to the insides of qi channels. To not defeat the purpose I didn't add even smaller Qi channels to feed the barriers on the swords Qi channels. Instead, I turned an illusion formation into a barrier formation. The more a cultivator pours in Qi, the more the barriers get reinforced. That pushes the sword's usability further than intended."

Yao Lei uncorked the hilt and ran his Qi through it. It produced a vein-like system of barriers in the shape of a sword.

He screwed the hilt back and fired up the sword again. The cold barrier formed around the sword this time. It glowed a dim white and blue. He put a failed sword between two chairs. Ya Lei swung his sword at the sword. The intentionally weaker outer barrier punctures and Yin Qi flash freezes the scrap iron and the impact with the second, stronger barrier makes it shatter like glass.

"It's a good sword." Yao Lei's eyes grew dark. "It's too good. I would get it pried out from my cold dead hands before I get a chance to swing it."

Madam Ming scoffed. Good sword? That's a great sword. Similar designs exist but are not often used due to the extreme concentration required. They are also not the same design as this. That means this brat has reinvented the process by himself.

"Brat! Become my disciple!"

Yao Lei twitched in fear at the sudden outburst. What's gotten into this old hag? Madam Ming's eyes were wide open and she was breathing heavily.

"What? Disciple? What about Senior Brother Jin?"

Senior Brother Jin is the oldest outer disciple of the artificers and formations pavilion. Everyone, including Senior Brother Jin himself, was expecting Brother Jin to become Madam Ming's direct disciple.

Yao Lei sighed. He could already predict Senior Brother's palpable resentment aimed squarely at him.

Madam Ming soured her face.

" That stupid boy keeps making the same mistakes over and over no matter how many times I warn him. I'm tired. He also doesn't have any imagination. He simply does what the manual says.

Last year, I deliberately gave him a faulty manual. The manual didn't adhere to the principles of formations. He went and did exactly what the manual said.

Even if I achieved immortality, life would still be too short to waste teaching anything to that donkey."

The disciples present, including Yao Lei winced at the prickly words. Elder Ming pondered a little.

"Your sect contributions are a bit lacking though. You are a Yin cultivator. Go collect some missions involving ghosts from the Mission Hall. They are easy prey for you."

The technical name for a ghost was a Yin apparition. When a person dies, their souls won't linger in the world and immediately dissipate. Yin apparitions are more akin to mirror reflections. Obsessions and grudges anchor the spiritual body of a dead organism to the land. Every lunar cycle, yin fluctuates and the apparition dissipates just to reappear in a more imperfect form.

The sect regularly dissipates the ghosts because ghosts subtly shift the nature of the spiritual energy around them into Yin energy. That causes nearby plants to mutate in a way that would cause Yin poisoning. Or worse yet, would cause Yin sickness in the mortals around them.

Mortals that were inflicted by Yin poisoning would shiver day and night until they were no more.

Yin cultivators are capable of making such beings visible through several Yin-specific spells.

The challenge of dealing with ghosts stems from their intangibility. Only Yin or Yang Qi is capable of disrupting an apparition's form. Other kinds of Qi just go through it.

Yao Lei bowed toward Madam Ming.

"I accept Madam Ming as a teacher."

Since Madam Ming talked about Senior Brother Jin in such harsh terms, Yao Lei was hoping that would quench his resentment or at least direct it toward Madam Ming.

On one hand, Yao Lei was now less capable of laying low, on the other hand, this position was closer to Hao Shun.

With that in mind, Yao Lei had decided to accept her proposition.

They finished that day's work and returned to their dorm rooms.

When he was returning to his dorm room Yao Lei felt a prickling at the back of his neck. In the distance was the silhouette of Senior Brother Jin just staring at him. Yao Lei's hair stood on end. He paced even faster.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

Senior brother Jin resentfully sneered at the little kid.

"You better watch your back kid."

This shameful young adult had stooped as low as threatening a child. Betraying Senior Brother Jin's expectations, the child didn't fold.

"Or you will do what exactly? Kill Me? Do you want to gain Madam Ming's ire forever?"

Brother Jin gnashed his teeth. The child was right.

Brother Jin stormed away. He couldn't stand looking at that smug little face. He smirked.

"When spirit stone day comes, I'll "rob" you. While doing that, I'll make sure to beat you black and blue."

Yao Lei's day was ruined.

A small celebration was waiting for him back in the dorm room. His roommates heard about him becoming Madam's disciple and bought some meat to sizzle on a brazier. Fatty Zheng smiled as he put the meat between the bread alongside the cooked potato. He poured some sauce on top and handed it to Yao Lei.

" Congratulations man. I couldn't dream of becoming an elder's disciple. You did it. "

Yao Lei took a bite. The sublime flavor of the juicy meat exploded into his mouth. Fatty Zhang knew his stuff. Yao Lei started talking while still chewing. No one had taught him manners in the Yao household.

"Madam Ming liked the meticulous work I did on the initiation sword. She especially liked the fact that I improvised in a place that mattered. According to her, I'm what she is looking for."

He took another bite, doing a little "This is delicious." dance while swallowing. He silently decided to do nice things for these three every now and then.