"Yeah, I reached here earlier than you. I went to meet up with Lian Rou first, and she gave me a bunch of hydrogen sulfate to refine. Once I"m done with that, I"m supposed to combine the refined powder with the Ruby Fire Crystal to trans.m.u.te it into a Volcanic Crystal."

"Oh…cool."

I didn"t know what else to say, so that was the first word that came out of my mouth. Tong Xue grinned.

"Don"t worry. You"ll get your turn soon enough."

"Fei Wu! Are you there?!"

Just after Tong Xue prophesized, I heard someone calling my name. Turning around, I caught sight of Tang Qi Hong strolling along the corridor of our apartment building and heading toward my room. I quickly stepped out of Tong Xue"s apartment and waved to her.

"Over here!"

"Ah, speak of the devil." Tong Xue grinned and gestured for me to leave. "Go talk to Tang Qi Hong. I"ll see you later then, neighbor."

"Sure. Later."

I bade Tong Xue farewell and closed the door behind me. Stepping into the corridor, I called out to Tang Qi Hong.

"Here! Sorry, I was talking to Tong Xue."

"Heh…so you guys are neighbors, huh?" Tang Qi Hong looked pleasantly surprised, and then she nodded in approval. "That"s good. You two can watch each other"s backs."

"Huh?"

There was something about the way she said that that bothered me. I c.o.c.ked my head to the side, perplexed.

"You don"t know?" Tang Qi Hong giggled. "The both of you have become pretty huge targets since three days ago. There are a lot of outer sect disciples who resent the both of you, and they"ll be looking to cause trouble."

"That ain"t good," I muttered, aghast. It seemed like I had bitten off more than I had chewed. I should have rejected the offer and left the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect as quickly as I could. I wondered if it was too late to quit now.

"Don"t worry about it. Both you and Tong Xue are tough. And you have me and Lian Rou looking after you! We"ll make sure none of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds bully you two. So don"t worry, okay?"

Tang Qi Hong reached out and patted me. I suppressed a sigh and wondered if the sole reason why she chose me as her a.s.sistant was just to tease me. It wouldn"t be too out of behavior for the usually mischievous girl.

"For now, let"s start on your first a.s.signment. It"s about grinding phosphorus into fine powder. She smiled. Ten kilograms for one gold coin. Easy money, right?"

"And how many kilograms do you need me to grind?" I asked, a sinking feeling starting in my stomach. Ten kilograms was no joke, and it would consume a substantial amount of time. Then again, for the price of one gold coin, it would be time that was well worth it. Of course, the more the better, but I wasn"t so greedy for money that I would sacrifice everything – especially my martial arts training and cultivation – just for it.

"As much as you can, of course." Tang Qi Hong looked as if I had just asked an obvious question. Lady, this was my first day in the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. of course I wouldn"t know anything about it. "Twenty, maybe thirty. You have about five days to do it. Make sure you hit the quota and at least get ten kilograms done by then, or you won"t be able to receive the gold coins as payment."

"I"ll get it done," I a.s.sured her, and then looked around. "Uh, where is the phosphorus?"

Tang Qi Hong giggled at my movements. "We haven"t gotten it yet, silly. I came here so that you can help me procure a supply of it. Let"s go!"

"Where are we going?" I asked as I followed her down the corridor and toward the elevator. Normally I would prefer to take the stairs, but the girls tended to prefer to take the elevators. At least the ones in my cla.s.s, anyway.

Tang Qi Hong gave me a strange stare. "The marketplace, of course!"

As it turned out, the marketplace in Tushan City sold just about everything. A row of shop houses lined up along a wide road where cars and vehicles bustled to and fro. What, were you expecting magical beasts and carriages instead? This is the twenty-first century. We had moved past that a long time ago and were now using automobiles.

On the other hand, it seemed more like the twenty-second or twenty-third century, because all the cars on the road were hovering. Powered by qi, they defied gravity and soared above the road, maintaining a low alt.i.tude and traversing in an orderly fashion so as to avoid accidents. Of course, this timeline wasn"t completely accident-free either, but due to the nature of the vehicles here, the drivers had to be more careful than usual.

"Over here!"

Tang Qi Hong was skipping happily across the streets and gesturing for me to follow. I complied obediently, drawing more than a few envious stares from the outer sect disciples who were running errands in the city.

Gosh, but I hated attracting this sort of attention.

I stopped right at the entrance of a shop that seemed to sell animal parts as spirit materials. While monster cores were in high demand, the other parts of monsters and magical beasts were also frequently used as spirit materials. If not for forging artifacts and armaments, then for traditional medicine and supplements. Bones, for example, could be used as ivory, with certain magical beasts" skeletons being st.u.r.dy enough to use as the base for spirit weapons. Or, like my bag, which I had sewn using the pelt of a Silverback Wolf. Teeth could be used to create daggers, dragon scales could be used to forge armor, and claws could be used for blades.

There were so many possibilities that it would be pointless to try and list all of them here. Shaking myself out of my stupor, I pa.s.sed through the automatic doors, which slid open to allow me entry. Realizing that Tang Qi Hong had gotten way ahead of me, I hastened my steps and hurried after her.

"Wait…!"

"What took you so long?" Tang Qi Hong snapped impatiently. I smiled sheepishly and bowed my head apologetically.

"Sorry."

"Well, it"s fine." Tang Qi Hong turned to the shopkeeper. "Do you mind giving me two boxes of monster bones?"

"What kind of monster bones?" the shopkeeper asked.

"Any kind," Tang Qi Hong replied breezily. "Preferably those with high phosphorous content."

"Ah, you need phosphorous powder, eh?" the shopkeeper nodded in understanding. He turned away with a smile and proceeded toward the storeroom. "Wait here for a second, dear customer. I"ll be back shortly."

I understood why Tang Qi Hong requested that I accompanied her. Obviously she wanted me to be her courier, to carry her purchases for her. That said, it would be ungentlemanly of me to not help a girl ferry two large boxes of animal bones around, so I had no complaints.

"Here!"

Less than five minutes later, the shopkeeper emerged and dumped two huge boxes on the counter with an audible thud. I gulped when I saw the size of those boxes, and the amount of bones stacked up within them.

I"ve to carry those two boxes all the way back to the residence area?

Good thing it wasn"t too far from here or I would die from the immense burden. I wondered if Tang Qi Hong was doing this on purpose.

"Thank you!" Tang Qi Hong brightly thanked the shopkeeper and then produced her ID. The shopkeeper accepted it and scanned it with the card reader next to the cashier machine. After a beep, he handed it back to her.

"All right, I"ve recorded your purchase."

I wondered curiously how much two boxes of monster bones cost. After all, I might need to procure them in future. The question must have shown on my face, for Tang Qi Hong giggled before she spoke up.

"All spirit materials are free for inner sect disciples. That"s one of the benefits we have from becoming inner sect disciples."

"Heh…"

I nodded, impressed. So the system wasn"t entirely capitalistic…

Well, it still is, sort of. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The ma.s.ses have to work and slave away for the benefits of the few on top…

I might be cursing the inner sect disciples right now, but to be honest, if I became an inner sect disciple, I would most likely dismiss the suffering of the outer sect disciples and adopted the att.i.tude of "tough luck, if you don"t like it, work hard and get yourself promoted to the status of an inner sect disciple!" Easier said than done, of course.

It was likely that I might be doomed to be an outer sect disciple forever. Not that I actually planned on being in the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect forever, mind you. Eventually I would have to leave and strike out on my own, and find a way to rebuild and reestablish the Heaven and Earth Sect.

Hefting up the two boxes of monster bones, I then followed Tang Qi Hong out of the shop. She saw the expression on my face as I pondered over irrelevant things, and misunderstood what I was thinking.

"If you want to be an inner sect disciple, you"ll need to be acknowledged by the elders from the inner sect. you"ll have to prove that you have the talent to become a skillful and powerful blacksmith or Spirit Engraver, and display your potential in forging artifacts. Of course, that might take you a few years, if you"re lucky. Some people end up stuck in the outer sect for their whole lives, but it"s not a bad thing. There are benefits to being an outer sect member or elder, after all."

I nodded. From what I knew, outer sect disciples could get promoted to outer sect supervisors or managers who took charge of the branches of the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect"s armament shops scattered across the Great Zhou Empire.

"Of course, there"s also a much easier and faster method…"

"Huh?"

I glanced at Tang Qi Hong, surprised. She smiled proudly, and I intuitively realized that she was going to boast about herself.

"If you can gain enlightenment from communing with the nine Spirit Engraved Pillars and rouse a reaction from at least one of them, then you"ll immediately receive the qualifications to belong to the inner sect. n.o.body will question your status, they will definitely acknowledge you as a treasure of this sect, as someone who will be the future of this sect!"

"Uh…really?" I rolled my eyes at that. "Easier said than done."

Tang Qi Hong burst out laughing at that. "Of course, but I just wanted you to be aware that it"s still a possibility. But you"re right. Over the past two years, only Elder Hai Mo and I have been able to attain enlightenment from the Spirit Engraved Pillars!" she puffed her well-endowed chest out proudly. "How about it? I"m impressive, right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Tang Qi Hong pouted at my lack of reaction. She poked a finger at my shoulder, almost causing me to drop the two boxes I was struggling with from shock. d.a.m.n, but there had to be at least fifty kilograms dispersed about the two boxes!

"You should give it a try!" she insisted. I snorted incredulously.

"Come on, don"t be ridiculous. I"m aware that there are Nine-Tailed Fox Sect disciples who try to commune with the Spirit Engraved Pillars everyday in hopes of attaining enlightenment. Most of them end up wasting their time. Unless I have exceptional potential or immense talent, there"s no way I"ll be able to provoke a reaction from the Spirit Engraved Pillars."

Tang Qi Hong looked a little disappointed and she glanced down, muttering to herself. "At least give it a try before giving up, geez!"

"Maybe one of these days," I told her while struggling to cope with the tremendous weight of the two boxes of monster bones. "For now I"ll focus on the a.s.signment you tasked me with."

Tang Qi Hong waved flippantly. "I trust you, and I gave you five days. I know you"ll get it done. What you do using your free time during the five days is entirely up to you."

She was hinting that I make use of the time to visit the platform in the middle of the lake and attempt to commune with the Spirit Engraved Pillars. Well, I preferred to spend that time on honing my Heavenly Draconic Meteor Swordsmanship instead…

Speaking of which…

"Oh, is there something under the platform? Something below the lake?"

I remembered the indescribable yet familiar sensation I felt when seeing the platform earlier today. It was as if there was an abyss lying beneath the platform, and it was definitely not the lake. It was something different, like something monstrous, dark being dwelled at the bottom of the lake, dormant.

No, it wasn"t even at the bottom of the lake. It was beneath the lake itself, far deeper than the watery depths of the huge lake.

"Huh? The lake is below the platform. There"s nothing else underneath it. Maybe water and lots of fish, and other aquatic magical beasts."

"I don"t mean the aquatic magical beasts…not unless there"s a dragon living at the bottom of the lake."

"What are you talking about?" Tang Qi Hong giggled. "You"ve been watching way too many movies. There"s no dragon in the Lake of Fire, and hasn"t been for millennia. It"s just a normal lake, with ordinary aquatic magical beasts."

Ordinarily, someone from my original world wouldn"t perceive the existence of aquatic magical beasts as "normal", but I had almost four years to get used to the logic of this timeline. So I merely nodded without any further questions.

"Are we heading back to your forge?" I asked Tang Qi Hong, frowning when I realized that we were heading right back in the direction where we came from.

"Heavens, no. I"m sending you back to your apartment, then I"ll return to my workshop. You have five days, you"re not possibly planning on spending all of them in my workshop, are you? You can get the task done in your own workshop. Don"t worry." She smiled mischievously, misunderstanding the rationale behind the question. "I"ll make sure to drop by regularly to check on you, so you don"t have to worry about feeling lonely."

"That"s not what I"m worried about," I muttered.

It didn"t take long before we returned to my apartment. Tang Qi Hong watched me stagger into my apartment with the two boxes in tow, then when satisfied, she departed. Left alone to do my task, I began working on it as quickly as possible.

"Hmm, what tools do I have?"

Scrounging through the workshop, I found the appropriate gear and began to prepare them. Placing the two boxes of monster bones next to me, I began grinding them with a grinder and then poured the product into a plastic container.

"Er…am I doing this right?"

To be honest, I wasn"t sure. I hadn"t actually done proper armament forging before. This was my first time in a workshop. My previous experience consisted totally of just freezing ice swords out of thin air.

"Um…like this?"

I ground the bones into phosphorous powder, making sure they were extremely fine, and then put them into the container. Consulting my tablet, I used Google to make sure I was getting the procedures right.

Yes, even in this timeline, Google existed. And it was great for finding the answer to anything I needed.

However, there was quite the danger of working with phosphorous. It was a highly reactive element, which meant it caught fire easily. Some of the powder burst into flames when I used too much strength to grind it, the phosphor sparks flying from the broken bone and landing on the back of my hand.

"OW!"

I winced and withdrew my hand in reflex, almost dropping the grinder. Blowing on it, I frowned when I saw the burn mark.

"Oh, that hurts."

Consulting my good friend Google again, I realized that I was missing a vital step. That was, to ensure that I had adequate protection. Despite knowing that the element phosphorous was highly reactive, I wasn"t very experienced with actually working with it. This was why Teacher Lian Jin Shu always reminded me that theory was different from practical. Even though I had a solid foundation for the theoretical concepts and knowledge, when it came to actually carrying out practical experiments and tasks, I was still quite the amateur.

"Gloves, I need gloves…"

Muttering to myself, I grabbed a pair of gloves from the workshop and heaved a sigh of relief to myself. There was also a mask, which helped to prevent me from inhaling phosphorous powder. So I donned it as well. Once I had covered my hands and face, I resumed working again.

"Ugh, how exhausting!"

"…"

I didn"t even bother to look up when Tong Xue strolled into my apartment to watch what I was doing. I had been so carried away with completing my task that I didn"t even realize that it had already turned into evening.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, stopping my work and placing the grinder down. Removing the mask, I greedily gulped down a lungful of fresh air.

Tong Xue snickered. "Taking a break, of course. I"ve been working for hours. You too, you should rest. You spent the entire afternoon grinding bones nonstop. Time for dinner!"

"Oh, right." Now that Tong Xue mentioned it, I realized just how ravenous I was. Taking off my gloves, I straightened up and dusted myself off. "Shall we go have dinner together?"

"Yeah! That"s why I"m here. Let"s go to the cafeteria together!"

"Sure. Give me a second."

I made sure to place away the monster bones neatly, not wanting to leave my workshop in a mess. I had a bit of an obsessive-compulsive disorder regarding not leaving things in my desk or workplace like that.

While sweeping the phosphorus powder into the plastic container, I briefly wondered if I could create a phosphor weapon like a certain priesthood that worshipped machines in the forty-first millennium. That would ignore cover and light up the targets like tracer rounds!

"You should be careful," Tong Xue informed me as he studied the remaining monster bones. "Some of these bones are saturated with powerful yin qi, and they have become slightly spiritually toxic. It"ll leave burns on your hands if you"re not careful."

"I learned that the hard way," I replied with a chuckle, and then waved my gloves. "Good thing I have these, eh?"

"Yeah." Tong Xue smiled back. Then he rubbed his stomach. "Anyway, let"s go! I"m starving!"

"Right. So am I." I was about to follow him when I remembered something important. "How much do they charge for meals in Tushan City?"

"Oh, don"t worry about that. If we visit the outer sect cafeteria, the meals there are free." Tong Xue smiled rea.s.suringly. "It"s the sect"s responsibility to provide food and housing, after all. As long as you"re in a sect, they"ll take care of you."

I vaguely wondered if "taking care of" us didn"t equate to actually "teaching" us. At least I didn"t have to worry about necessities and survival.

"Follow me," Tong Xue was already hopping out of my apartment, getting all impatient. "I"ll bring you to the outer sect cafeteria. The meals may be free, but they have some really good food there!"