"No."
Another large metallic fragment was tossed aside. The next, near identical section was presented.
"No."
Toss. At least Adam had gotten all the way up to five words in a row with no fire or smoke or whatever.
"No."
Toss. Made communication easier. Well, when calm. At the moment a light blue smoke trail was drifting with each growing word of frustration.
"No... Wait."
Closer look was needed. Matches the theoretical optimal pattern deciphered by 'Research' by over 80%, around 84% maybe. This one was not using lower quality metal, it seemed to have been cooled correctly or at least not shocked into brittle uselessness.
Adam's eye twitched.
The asshole had accidentally flipped one of the near identical formations when applying it. HOW!? Didn't the Sect use a template when making these things!?
"Hell No."
Toss. After considering natural wear and tear from being submerged in soil saturated with random spiritual energy flows, one would think the most intact sections of this grid would be of fairly high quality. Instead, the sheer AMOUNT of formation sections needed for a single land plot alone clearly lowered quality control at some point.
"No."
Toss. Sections of this massive formation had clearly been replaced over the years, the older stuff was both hand forged and somehow better quality than the new, more mass produced stuff.
"No... Huh. Bring it closer."
Hmm. This one was obviously, clearly wrong... but 'Research' detected a different method of connecting two existing segments using this formation. It might lead to an improvement during later design stages.
"Separate odd sections like this." They would need double checking.
The slightly shivering worker gave a frantic nod, and moved away from the growing mound of trash segments to be smelted.
The next field worker moved forward. More mass produced trash, damaged and only useful for scrap.
"No."
Sigh, wasn't this the easy part? Collecting the top soil had required ages just to uncover this aging mass of junk.
Adam continued judging section by section, his attention distracted as he attempted to cultivate while getting stuff done.
There was a reason people separated from others and focused alone in quiet areas to advance their Cultivation base. For most people, distraction is death. The idea of doing ANYTHING while Cultivating was horrifying to most.
But this was so. Damn. Boring.
Over the last week or so his Shard had finally filled up with enough Binding and Blue energy for 'Growth' to easily work with, especially after a few sessions of 'Purification' ensured his Shard internal power storage was cleansed of all that random energy goop. Progress towards the Third Order Barrier or to Fourth was slowly advancing, around 21% already as having a massive and pure supply of energy to work with really helped out a lot.
Anyway, even with the good inputs, 'Research' was using this current, ill-advised series of experiments to see if there was a slower form of Seven Pulse Cultivation Method that would be simple enough to use in the background while Adam was busy with other things.
Thus far? No. Occasionally 'Hell No.' So far this was all just wasted energy and a few near critical issues that 'Research' prevented.
Still, not as boring as doing nothing but this.
"No."
Toss.
A good chunk of progress filling his Shard had been granted by using his powers to rip all spiritual energy out of the Formation. Which uh... really caught Sister Quan's attention. Because the ability to depower a Formation without setting it off was a dream for both the Sect and treasure hunters in general. This culture revolved around finding rare and trapped secrets of the past in various tombs and hidden realms after all, passing on the works of a lifetime to those who can survive your post-death tests.
Not that Adam cared that much, he was just glad he didn't have to wait eight months for the Formation to slowly drain. This was painful enough as it was.
Glancing back at the plot's residence... yeah, Sister Quan was still Cultivating with little Tianshi. The two didn't find Adam's work as interesting, and the little one needed quite a lot of time to build up enough energy to reach Second Order Warrior.
The 'Houtian Realm First Order Essential Cultivation Method' may allow people to reach First Order within a week or less sure, but it didn't reduce the massive time it took to build up enough energy for advancing to the next stage of progress. Though hopefully the Method would make every advancement more easy and less painful than most people suffered through.
Either way, the girls were treating this like a vacation. Adam's work was massively slowed, he didn't need a lot of assistance, and it was boring to watch. Little Tianshi was mostly fine though, since the concept of growing more powerful daily was a big motivating force for his Disciple.
Right, the farmland.
Turns out the soil sucked. Near impossible to tell until someone (Adam) sucked all the spiritual juice out of the dirt first, but this stuff was WAY overworked. Just replacing the surface stuff with fresh non-spirit-saturated tainted soil would give an initial boost to herb growth. Didn't matter over time though, any weaknesses in the soil was handled by the river of spiritual energy that flowed through it daily.
Seeing how rough the materials were under that dead soil was the motivation to just... rip it all up, learn what he could, and design something somewhat useful to replace it with.
The small scale tests were interesting. Too much purified energy actually KILLED these low quality plants. Smothered them, like flooding a field with water when planting the wrong crop. After that 'Research' had Adam designing a custom-ratio spiritual-energy-substitute for the area, to join with 'Research' designing new formation layouts and fertilizer recipes.
Adam didn't really expect the many random animal documents from the bottom of the Knowledge Pagoda to contain so much information relevant to poop in general, but it did provide what he needed when trying to fix the terrible soil quality he was stuck with. Theoretically, in the future, the plant related Martial Spirit of his Disciple could offer some benefits as well...
Eventually. Maybe if she unlocked an innate talent at Fourth Grade that was growth related... but even then, those abilities tend to suck until a few more evolutions of your Martial Spirit. So... years from now? At that point, this whole topic would be fairly well handled most likely, with Adam gnawing on the issue like a dog-bone.
Adam glared. "No. Man, that's a lot of damage." Was this metal not resistant to water damage!? This one Formation Segment was almost all rust!
The Toss was hesitant... Crud, too much talking while frustrated, that was a lot of fire. Calm. Center.
A quick breath out getting the smoke out of his system and he waved the next worker forward.
From the 'quality' of these pieces, would he even be able to trust the smelters and smiths being able to actually build his future designs?
...Shit, was HE going to have to make the parts himself!? That would be so ANNOYING. And a waste of time that could be spent looking at fun stuff instead. Maybe he could... no, that was a lot of work too.
Oh! Right, after getting the designs done he could request some jade slips covering all metal working related techniques the Sect was willing to share. A few refined abilities to manipulate metal and it would be someone else's problem. Maybe going with "I'm just a Third Order Warrior, I can't make all this stuff myself!" Yeah, that would totally work. Brilliant!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Elder Cho frowned. "How went the effort? Allowing that farce of a meeting with Elder Hawn seemed to go as planned."
Her people stayed knelt. "Estimates are still being gathered of what resources he burned to get the Elder Council to gather so quickly and quietly, but at minimum he will suffer three to six years of progress loss from that failure alone. A larger percentage of his staff than expected was attempting to watch his territory... so his outside agents were unguarded."
Her smile slowly grew. "Attrition rate?"
A nod. "A terminal loss of 73%, 24% of other known agents are now firmly under watch and monitored. Other targets are out on missions."
MUCH better than the original estimates. "He must have had high estimations of how that group meeting would have gone. Will he not be an active actor from now on?"
The shadow hummed. "Low chance estimated, and any such attempts should fully destabilize his ability to be a threat in the future. May even lose his position entirely, depending on which scenario he follows."
Well, that was some concern out of the way. "The brat is staying mostly quiet?"
Silently another report was passed over.
...Why metallurgy? Whatever, as long as he is kept busy. "Purchase the needed data from the Repository Pagoda, but use our proxies. I don't want the Sixth Elder trying to interfere with the child any further with his schemes."
The room was empty again, and Elder Cho had to face her greatest foe, paperwork.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Watching the off-duty field workers all sitting in cultivation circles, Adam paused.
Was he NOT supposed to teach this to everyone?
...Well it was probably fine. The important part was that his helpers would become more useful, as advancements in cultivation meant they could lift more, move faster, and get tired more slowly.
That and things were a bit boring right now. Even after getting the requested metal working data.
Adam had torn apart one field and dug deep, but hadn't finalized any designs. No completed ideas.
Because as annoying as it may be, there WAS a good reason to use the old crappy method: Plant Type Environment Enhancement.
Take those terrible 'Absorb all heavenly energy through the soil' Formations, turn them upside down? They become 'Absorb all earthly energies through the soil.'
One pattern, two totally different final growing products. And Adam refused to finish fiddling with stuff until his new design outperformed both, hopefully in a more simple way that was easier to reproduce without his skills by other Sect members. Because he wasn't stupid enough to make himself a required step in a process that may take decades to implement.
So his workers were now handling the other farms in his area plot while Adam fiddled with schematics and randomly corrected the dozen or so off clock farmhands. Little Tianshi might have complained, but she had her roadmap laid out: Keep cultivating using the 'Houtian Realm First Order Essential Cultivation Method'.
Sister Quan had ended up spending some time with the kitchen staff, as she apparently knew the apprentice of Sister Rong that was sent over to handle food for the plot's housing. Wonderful but quiet woman, Adam overheard a massive number of quiet compliments and so forth from the workers here, it was apparently an upgrade to the local cuisine.
He sighed, looking at the pattern. Make something better? Easy. Make something Simple? Easy! Make something with more features? No problem!
All three?
It was taking some time.
With a snort of frustration (Which spewed twin flames of fire that thankfully MISSED his papers), Adam got up to stretch a little.
His muscles may be getting more fit and powerful now that he had more Cultivation Cells to allocate to them, but it wasn't like he had any reflexes or whatever. Not useful ones for a fight. And while he wasn't going to dedicate his life to martial arts, he HAD designed those new Sect Martial Styles... And researched others...
Time to practice the footwork. From what he read, everything relied on those basics.
But... well, his Martial Spirit was a Crystal. Basically a rock. Learning fast footwork or quick attacks really went against his fundamental nature.
From the long list of martial arts he had reviewed (Considered basic and free information because why bother learning something so 'useless'), Adam gravitated toward something called Hung Ga, also called Hung Kuen or Hung Ga Kuen. Translated, it would literally be the 'Immense Fist' style.
It focused on deep, low stances and strong hand techniques like the bridge hand and the tiger claw... from the core, this fighting style was considered basic and focused on brute force. On raw power and stability. Only the advanced levels of the arts progressed towards internal focus, on the Battle Qi that this society thrived on. It was considered worthless for that reason.
Adam just found that it was focused on being stable. Solid.
It resonated with his Spirit in a way, as while rocks may slide and roll and tumble, they did so with force.
...Anyway, it was easier for Adam to adapt to thanks to his 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique' (Version 2.1211). A few meals and some manipulation, and his muscles were easily redistributed to better support the new fighting method. He wasn't a master yet by any means, but it gave focus on what areas needed to be tougher and more reinforced when it came to body sculpting.
And it was soothing in a way. Focusing on each strike, trying to force the body to accelerate and instantly stop, it kept his mind clear and his body from fidgeting.
Adam paused. Again.
Was he allowed to share all those refined martial art methods as well? It was derived from various Sect practices after all.
Glancing at the small group of field workers nearby in the local training area, doing a variety of stances according to the dozen or so martial arts he had already refined and distributed...
...The Sect MAY be giving him too much leeway.
Well, not his problem.
An hour or so later, a much more relaxed and tired Adam sat back at his work area and with a flaming sigh got back to prototyping new field designs.
Who knew this farming thing would take so much time? He hadn't even finished returning the soil back yet (Which would take forever), and Adam was already bored out of his mind!
If this wasted another week of his time, he would just give up and make SEVERAL Formation designs instead of trying to be all fancy with one. It would be much simpler, but the failure would leave a bitter taste in his mouth.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan entered the meditation room, a jade slip in her hand. "I got it!"
Little Tianshi jumped to her feet! "Let me see!"
She snorted. "Sure, but you still can't read this stuff yet. This is the advanced version of the language used for technical manuals."
The older woman was mostly ignored as the child dove in and grabbed the slip. "The headers and summery never are though, Master wants people to know what they are getting into..."
Sister Quan hummed. "It is an interesting list of martial arts. I recognize some of the forms... but the stances have been organized, and what few things I know are explained much better here."
Tianshi smirked. "Of course! My master is a prodigy after all!" She glared at the slip and carefully used her new cultivation base to access the data. "Still... there are a lot of options here."
Quan herself was considering changing her own training schedule to include one of the listed options that was very close to her own attack style, since this one didn't provide the same headaches and annoyances to work with like the terrible material she first started with back in the day. Clear steps, explanations, massive wording and careful deconstructive cross-examinations...
Well, there was a reason she had already passed a copy up the Sect chain. This was similar to Adam's first review and rebuilding of the 'standard fighting style' provided by the Sect, but expanded with more details about each style, rather than attempting to only show enhanced versions of the Sect's basics. It included some refined information about a lot of styles from the First Floor of the Sect Repository of Knowledge Pagoda, stuff that was normally too dense and useless to work with and thus unpopular.
Here though? Well, Sister Quan quickly recognized how simple the new arts were to teach the local farm workers and asked Adam to document what he was teaching. Since the boy was still waiting for smithy information (Why?), he was happy enough to help out when she got his attention.
Not that the child needed more resources. His contribution points were refilled constantly from his various advancements donated to the Sect, his social pull was growing at an astounding rate (The Burning Sage? Wow.), and his needs were... near nothing. She wasn't sure the boy even remembered what he was giving various funds for at this point.
For Example, the child passed a MASSIVE chunk of contribution points to the Orphanage so that Sister Rong would continue to provide him high quality food and drinks... and that was basically it. Over payed by a stupid margin, didn't care at all and ignored everyone's opinion. The only other cost was the various items he wished to research (Partially subsidized by the Sect, as they loved the results) and the constant supply of jade slips for storing his thoughts and results.
SHE needed more supplies than that. Pills? Spiritually empowered rare dishes? Unknown treasured herbs? Adam was happy with a rich soup and some nice bread. So cheap it was near negligible really, and his cultivation progress hadn't been delayed in the slightest.
Sister Tianshi pulled her from her wanderings. "Sister Quan, I wanna learn this one!"
She blinked. "T'ai chi ch'uan? What an odd name."
The small child was bouncing. "It says that there are variants that can assist when manipulating ice, blood or plant life!"
Huh. Looking at the slips, she decided taking a much more in-depth look herself was a wise choice.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Glaring at his notes... Adam had to give up.
Holding back a tense desire to just KICK THIS WHOLE MESS AND BURN IT, he focused on softer thoughts.
After a week and a HALF of failures, it turned out that it would be best, if he couldn't smush all his desires into one amazing Formation, to split it into FOUR Formations. How frustrating.
One that circled the field, acting as a filter and purification process to make internal manipulation easier. As he wasn't cheating (Lazy past Cultivators) and shoving raw power through the dirt all the time, he needed to separate the field into a bubble of controlled space. This outer boundary acted as a warning system, an area designation method for further modifications, and a storage system that should take unwanted energies for later use.
One Formation focused only on soil modification. Moisture percentage and distribution, mineral and nutrient percentage and distribution, and energy injection from the designated energy reserves. Forcing energy into the plants ABOVE the soil (At least at THESE concentration levels) would just kill everything. Better to let roots do their damn job for once.
Next, the biggest and stupidest Formation, Energy Management. The power supplied by the outside Formation ring was compared to samples stored by Adam in the pattern, those powers needed for the 'Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy Mix' (Patent pending!) were separated, purified, and ready for the soil Formation to call when needed. The rest of the mixed energies were processed (Hopefully getting some freed energy to shove back into the needed storage areas), stored into a reservoir for potential use, then when that storage area was full released back into nature.
The bulky parts were his pathetic attempts at filtration and purification, as well at 'processing'. Both the filtration and purification patterns were related, and were experimental successes so far after 'Research' studied his personal abilities and the harder to understand Formations from the really old metal farm formation segments. Massively worse at the job than Adam himself unfortunately, it didn't require his input, so... good enough. For now.
Processing however was pathetic. Just smashing the energy flows together and hoping some useful stuff was knocked loose. It was a bit embarrassing to show others, but at least it would work. Probably.
Finally, and least distressing, a Formation for the Control Hub. Compared to everything else, this was simple and easy to use. Some notes above each dial or lever, organized to show the controls for each of the other three Formations, and a few preset 'Default' options so if something goes wrong the whole mess can be brought back to a known 'good' state so others can try and find out what messed up.
All four formations were TEN TIMES larger than need to be, and his finished jade notes showed the nice, small version he had originally designed, that he had wanted to build... but this big bulky mess would be far easier to produce and easier to maintain, possibly even expand in the future.
Which was important, because the new forging and metallurgy abilities he crafted were... well. Both overpowered and almost worthless.
ADAM could now easily smelt massive amounts of material, pour it into molds supported by his Battle Qi as an energy source, and accelerate heating and cooling without damaging the metal's properties (No idea how, physics is odd here). HE could make himself heat proof (No point), enhanced his strength for smithing (Overkill really, and he had no real world skill with hammering or whatever), all these tricks and stuff were simple!
Everyone else didn't have the required level of Qi control, at least according to Sister Quan.
So the final version of the 'Metallurgy Art Techniques' jade slip offered the advanced (impossible) abilities, able to manipulate metal at will and apply high precision techniques... as well as a bunch of inefficent, inellegant, and far less useful varient options. Crappier versions of the skills that could actually be operated by someone with a fire natured Martial Spirit, as Sister Quan showed after some begging by Adam for her to help him test several unstable and experimental abilities.
The healer could now safely melt down a chest sized piece of metal, extract impurities, shift it roughly into a blob shape, and cool it.
Woo.
Meanwhile, his dreams of having Sect Members tap the fields, reforming the entire metallic framework underground without shifting the soil, and letting Adam move on to more interesting jobs was a bit dashed. At least metal workers could use the failed abilities to easily undo mistakes, or use the heat resistant skills and strengthening tricks to just hold the burning metal with their hands while working and not get overheated or sweaty.
That should increase production quality, right? RIGHT?
Sigh.
Adam moved to the massive scrap pile, a tap of his feet allowing his 'Metallurgy Art Techniques' to be primed for use with his prepared blue Battle Qi mist.
His Shard established his Domain over the local area while dozens of mental processes aligned. "Heat Modification."
The mound of rust and mistakes began softening into a glowing red pile that started to spread. Right, next time move this off the dirt.
A foot tap. "Refinement."
Eugh, a mound of rust and dirt and terrible metal fillers that someone in the past had added in to 'save money' or whatever began surfacing and falling off the mound. The color of the mess became more uniform as the heat generated had less materials to glow with. At least that went well.
If he hadn't gone through the 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique', he would likely need to apply the 'Heat Resistance' and 'Body Reinforcement' tricks... but his cells loved the high temperatures even if his clothes were starting to smoke a little. Better hurry along.
Stepping back slightly, he tapped once more as his mind continued to apply the tricky 'Heat Modification' skill while many MORE thought processes attempted the next step forward. "Qi Forms."
Adam winced. DAMN that stung. Even abusing the 'store Qi patterns into memory' trick didn't make operating both skills simultaneously much easier. This was pushing his boundaries quite a bit... maybe Sister Quan had a point about how tricky this would be if not dumbed down.
Then again, most people didn't have his Domain allowing raw information of the materials and the area to be absorbed and processed by 'Research', which helped ensure his skills didn't destabilize and evaporate his lung or something. And Adam's Shard made energy manipulation almost instinctual at this point, so that probably helped too.
Point was, now the mass of metal was flowing into the dozens and dozens of Qi Casting Molds that were forming WITHIN the mound of molten material, ingots of refined material staying liquid in the new containers thanks to the forced temperature levels by 'Heat Manipulation'. Speaking of which.
"Heat Manipulation."
OWW. Oww. Damn that stung.
Note to self, do NOT try to force ingots to cool while surrounded by liquid metal you are forcing to stay hot. The Qi Molds did not restrict the flow of heat from one side to the other at ALL.
That... that had actually hurt to accomplish. The temperatures were fighting each other in a way.
Damn it, he needed some form of telekinesis to get those bricks out of that mess, otherwise they would just stay submerged in that mound of slowly spreading metal. At least he could force the thinest outer layer to stay solid so it wasn't turning into a flat puddle.
A twinge, and 'Research' made a quick connection... And suggested that Adam change the 'Qi Forms' previously established shape, lengthen a support from below, escape the mound of metal, tilt...
Dozens of ingots fell free onto the nearby grass, 'Heat Manipulation' forcing them to remain only warm to the touch... and allowing Adam to drop that entire Qi matrix.
Instantly his head stopped stinging, the blood from his nose and eyes transforming back into storage mode and returning to his body. Wounds across his body, more than he had originally noticed, shifted back into a healthy formation as the many Cultivation Cells moved back to proper areas or replaced damaged material.
With a relaxed sigh, Adam released all the other skills, a metal shell filled with liquid heat and a mound of refined ingots left over. Also that pile of slag, odd metal additions and dirt and rust and who knows what that made a mess over to the side. Forget attempting to make his own Metal Formation Sections himself, just refining the metal into ingots was annoying. Let others handle that.
As for his new abilities, it would take... practice. Lots of it, to use these newly designed skills without causing his body to decompose while getting stuff done.
Then again, considering that these Qi powered skills would normally require a Shard power to operate at all in his home Realm though, he felt pretty damn proud of his progress right now.
He blinked as Sister Quan walked outside. "Adam, I heard some strange noises out... Why are you naked?"
Right, HE was heat absorbent, his clothing was not. At least his jade slips and storage ring handled the situation with no difficulty.
Adam nodded. "Need stronger clothes."
She sighed. "I would try and get closer but you feel like a furnace."
Right, he should modify the 'toned down' version of these skills to both protect clothing AND not accidentally leave the Sect Warriors utilizing them as walking bonfires after use. Things to note.
...And he should get pants.
Shit. Was considering updating one of my stories or copying this one over... But that is terrifying.
