"Well, your sentence is over. Three days are up. It"s too much trouble to find you a cell to stay for the next few hours, so do us a favor and get back to the dorm."

"Yes, sir."

With that, I headed back toward the Blood Blades dormitory, feeling as if I was at a loss at what to do next. Well, I could just start inscribing the martial arts manual that I just discovered through the recordings in my gla.s.ses.

The alternative was to go to the base of Flame Volcano, sit down underneath a Spirit Engraved Pillar and start shouting out the names of whatever Spirit Diagram I was inscribing into a Spirit Tablet. I a.s.sure you, the tablets we used were a lot more hi-tech. we were using electronic tablets with stylus, screens and computing components, not some random piece of stone like the one Qin Lie was using. You would think that with nine hundred years, their world would progress in terms of technology, but no, for some reason most fictional fantasy stories remain in historical stasis, stuck in medieval levels of technology for millennia.

It made no sense, but whatever. That wasn"t my problem. Those were unrealistic fiction. This was reality. There was no use trying to look for logic in fiction.

Besides, I wasn"t Qin Lie. I didn"t have "talent that was peerless and unparalleled." That was the problem with not being a Mary Sue protagonist. I had to do things the hard way.

Unfortunately, when I reached my apartment, I realized something was amiss. A small disturbance in the surrounding qi, almost imperceptible to anyone who had not mastered Heavenly Flow and Earthly Paths. Fortunately, because I had learned that technique, my Heaven and Earth sense had sharpened to the point where I could detect even the most miniscule of changes. Of course, understanding what those changes were was another thing entirely.

However, the qi I was sensing was way too obvious to be anything else.

"Seriously, guys? You"re watching me from the shadows? I"m a Blood Blade too, you know? I can defend myself."

"Begging your pardon, Junior Fei, but it"s safer this way."

Four of my Blood Blades seniors materialized in a circle around me, kneeling. I stared at them, astonished, and quickly gestured for them to get up.

"Oi, stand up. Seniors, please don"t be like this!"

"No," the lead senior – I recognized him as Senior Zhu Zhang – replied. "You"ve to be aware of your status right now, Junior Fei."

"What status?" I grumbled. Okay, maybe Tang Qi Hong and Liang Shao Yang had the same status, and I was aware that they were sometimes protected by Blood Blades bodyguard, but it wasn"t all the time. Come to think of it, Zi Xiao Ji always had Da Ge and Zhao Shi protecting her as well, following her wherever she went, so it wasn"t unusual.

That didn"t mean I wasn"t uncomfortable with it. I preferred having my privacy, so I made a mental note to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all.

"You triggered a response from the Spirit Engraved Pillars," Zhu Zhang pinted out. "Three of them, in fact. So…"

"That means nothing. I don"t see Qi Hong or Liang Shao Yang being shadowed by bodyguards 24/7."

"Oh, the situation is a little different this time. We"re just temporarily guarding you for the time being. You see…you kind of complicated the situation by killing Liang Shao Yang." Zhu Zhang hesitated a little. "The Great Elders are concerned that you would be targeted by the Divine Shadow Sect for revenge. Even Sect Leader thought it was a good possibility."

"I hope he didn"t order a purge," I muttered, recalling what a certain r.e.t.a.r.ded sect master in a specific story did.

"No, we"re not murderous barbarians," Zhu Zhang a.s.sured me. "We don"t make enemies unnecessarily and kill innocent people just because they"re a.s.sociated with a particular sect. But we"re not going to risk your safety either, so we"ll be keeping an eye on you."

"…right."

I sighed and was about to open the door into my apartment when my smartphone buzzed. Suppressing a second sigh, I swiped the screen and saw that I received an email from Sect Leader Zi.

"Hmm? Isn"t this…?"

I frowned. Sect Leader Zi was asking me to meet at my earliest convenience…which meant he wanted me to meet him immediately. Being the sect leader, it was only natural that he was aware that my sentence was up and I had just been released.

"I"m going to meet Sect Leader Zi," I informed the Blood Blades who had been detailed to be my bodyguards for now, and then moved immediately. Using my footwork techniques, I sprang ahead of them. Even though I was moving pretty fast, credit to the four of them, they managed to barely keep up with me.

I did have to slow down a little for them to maintain the punishing pace. As unenthusiastic as I was about having bodyguards, I knew that they were acting under orders, and as a fellow Blood Blade, I didn"t want to make their lives difficult.

We managed to reach the top of Flame Volcano in short order and I pulled to a stop right in front of the gigantic villa in which Sect Leader Zi Shou De and his immediate family resided in. Tang Qi Hong didn"t seem to be present, but then again, with the main threat to her life (Liang Shao Yang) gone, there was no need for her to stick around and rely on her adopted mother"s protection. I was sure that her parents had a.s.signed a few bodyguards to keep an eye on her, just in case.

The guards at the entrance of the villa, fellow Blood Blades who I recognized instantly, immediately lowered their weapons. One of them seemed to be listening to his com bead, and he nodded after a few seconds, pulling back to open the gates.

"Sect Leader has been expecting you," he told me.

"Thank you, Jing Wei," I told him, and then stepped into the courtyard between the gates and the main house.

As I expected, I found Sect Leader Zi waiting for me inside the house, studying a tabet. I recognized the tablet as being of the same model and brand (Android) I was using during my time in prison, though I couldn"t tell if it was the same exact one I used. Sect Leader Zi glanced up from the screen when I stepped into his study room, a faint smile on his face.

"Fei Wu. Good to see you. I hope you"re all right?"

"Yeah, I"m fine." knowing that he didn"t summon me just to check on my condition, I fell silent and waited for his next line.

"I"ve been looking through the Spirit Diagrams you copied from the Spirit Engraved Pillars." Sect Leader Zi waved the tablet. Ah, so it was the tablet I was using during my stay in Fire Prison Cliff. "And you certainly are very fast."

"Thanks." Even as I responded uncertainly, I could hear a "but…" trailing off at the end of his sentence.

"I"m very sorry to ask this of you so soon after you"ve been released from Fire Prison Cliff, but can you redo them?"

"…eh?"

Of all the requests, I never expected this one. Redo the Spirit Diagrams? Why? The guy obviously hadn"t watched Rebuild of Evangelion. You can (not) redo.

"Did I screw up?" I asked nervously. Sect Leader gave me a somewhat kind smile, and nodded wryly.

"To put it simply, yes. You only copied the Spirit Diagrams without understanding them. As such, they are pretty…powerless. They don"t contain the enchanged abilities that Spirit Diagrams normally possess. You need to comprehend them before you replicate them, or these diagrams are pretty, uh, worthless."

He sure as h.e.l.l didn"t hold anything back. I felt as if I was being stabbed in the chest several times as he tried to inform me as gently as he could.

"It"s understandable. You tried to replicate all of them in three days. But Spirit Diagrams and Spirit Engraving aren"t something so simple. Don"t be impatient."

Standing up from his desk, he glanced at the huge window behind him, which gave him a great bird"s eye view of Tushan City below, at the foot of Flame Volcano.

"Fei Wu. In the past, those who comprehended the wonders of the Spirit Diagrams were neither impatient to understand the true meaning behind them, nor were they in a hurry to immediately inscribe them on a tablet."

Ouch. That was exactly what I did. No wonder I screwed up. Wincing, I asked hesitantly, "So I"m supposed to take a bit more time to understand them?"

"Correct." Sect Leader Zi clasped his hands behind his back. "The people of the past would first commit the Spirit Diagrams to memory – though you have an advantage there because of your video recordings and photographs – and then proceed to slowly comprehend it. Usually they take a few months to study and comprehend the Spirit Diagrams, or even years if necessary. Only then would they slowly begin to understand the mysteries of the Spirit Diagrams concealed within the Spirit Engraved Pillars. Such understanding cannot be achieved in merely three days."

"Whoops," was all I could manage.

Sect Leader Zi turned back to me, his voice soothing.

"There is no need to rush. Take your time. Quickly coming out with results is not productive and will not get you anywhere. You need to comprehend what you"re seeing, not just copy them. It"s not just a matter of simply copying down what you see. You need to disa.s.semble and a.n.a.lyze the intricacies of the Spirit Diagrams bit by bit, and then comprehend the totality of them, how these separate components add together to produce a greater whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Just simply regurgitating what you"ve seen is not enough."

Why the h.e.l.l did Sect Leader Zi sound like my graduate school advisor? That was the same reason why I failed in graduate school, just blindly memorizing theory and regurgitating them, applying them and citing academic sources without truly understanding the different nuances and having a deep comprehension of their conceptual arguments, merely skimming the text superficially and not getting past the surface of what was written.

I had spent too much time in this timeline that I had forgotten to work on that flaw of mine. Then again, n.o.body would think to apply such academic rigor learned only in graduate school to stuff in a martial arts world filled with pseudo magic.

"You need to proceed gradually, take this one step at a time, and slowly explore the mysteries of the Spirit Diagrams. You need to invest a good amount of time to truly understand the meaning hidden within, not just a few days."

I sighed, feeling a sense of dread. "In other words, I"ll have to return to the Spirit Engraved Pillars and activate them again."

"Correct." Sect Leader Zi nodded again. "And spend more time sitting under them and studying the Spirit Diagrams they offer."

G.o.d d.a.m.n it, I sure as h.e.l.l wasn"t going to spend months or years sitting under the Spirit Engraved Pillars just to understand Spirit Diagrams! My goal wasn"t to be a blacksmith or Spirit Engraver, it was to be a martial artist!

I was content being a Blood Blade. I didn"t want to waste too much time on being a d.a.m.ned blacksmith or Spirit Engraver. I wasn"t Li Yao. I had different goals and aspirations.

And before the readers could jump on me and criticize me for being narrow-minded and stuff, claiming that being a blacksmith or Spirit Engraver would make me a stronger martial artist…uh, no. It did not. Sure, it would help me in that I would be able to somehow forge more powerful weapons for myself, but as I said, having powerful weapons were pointless if I myself wasn"t strong or skillful enough to wield it. And already my past year in Nine-Tailed Fox Sect had proven over and over again that I didn"t have the talent for smithing, no matter how hard I tried. I would be at best an above average blacksmith, not someone who could forge a legendary Spirit Weapon.

I wasn"t a Mary Sue, after all.

Furthermore, think about it realistically. In reality, did you need to learn how to forge guns and rifles in order to be a good soldier? Yeah, you learn the basics of gun-stripping and cleaning your rifles, and a.s.sembling your rifle, and I certainly already grasped the basics of maintaining, repairing and sharpening my weapon. But you didn"t have to be an armorer or a gunsmith to be a good soldier. Nor did you need to master smithing to be a good swordsman. Blacksmiths and swordsmen were two separate vocations for a good reason.

And I wanted to be the latter, not the former.

As for those who would definitely ask, "why can"t you be both?" it was because I didn"t have the talent, nor did I have the time to master both. Look above where I already stated that I would never be more than an above average blacksmith. I would rather invest all that time into sharpening my martial arts. Already I had to take out quite some time from learning martial arts because of my personal project regarding my Snow Aegis, and engraving Spirit Diagrams on my battle-automata, and if I spend more time on smithing, I might as well give up on martial arts. Not to mention, I only completed Snow Aegi with Tang Qi Hong"s help. I would never be able to do it on my own…

…wait.

I suddenly had an idea.

"Sect Leader, do you mind if I a.s.semble a discussion group? A…group of, um, I guess, academics and blacksmiths? I would like to share the Spirit Diagrams with them, and ask them for help in comprehending these Spirit Diagrams."

If I couldn"t do it on my own, then what happened if I asked for help?

"Qi Hong has also triggered a response on the Spirit Engraved Pillars before. I"m sure her input will be invaluable."

"I see…" Sect Leader Zi"s eyes widened, as if he had never thought of that idea. "A research group, in other words. That"s a brilliant idea! Why didn"t anyone think of that?"

That was a very good question. Why didn"t the idea of a collaborative effort ever occur to anyone in this timeline? In my previous timeline, that was how academic discussions and research and development projects worked. That was how archeologists and scientists worked. We didn"t just sit down individually and meditated under a site. We formed groups and worked together on historical sites or scientific projects. A team of engineers gathered together to work on a blueprint – that was what my brother and friend/roommate (both of whom were engineers) told me. n.o.body just sat down in his office and came up with a blueprint on his own. Even in literature, history and academic stuff, scholars engaged in dialogue. No one just stayed in his own bubble, isolated from feedback and discussion, and pretended to comprehend the mysteries of academic theory on his or her own.

Dialogue. That was the focal point of modern academic environment. Everyone was in dialogue with one another, discussing theories with one another. Networks. Discussion. Collaboration. We had moved past a world where everything was individual achievements and enlightenment. If I wanted to truly understand these Spirit Diagrams, it was pointless to just sit down and medidate on my own. I needed to discuss with like-minded people and get feedback and ideas.

"Certainly, Qi Hong would be a great idea. So would Hai Mo. A few of the elders…yes, I would love to personally partic.i.p.ate too."

Sect Leader Zi.

"I can"t believe I never thought about that. Or anyone, for that matter. It"s something that"s so blindingly obvious!"

"Well, most wuxia and xianxia settings emphasize on individual effort," I pointed out dryly. "So that the protagonist can hog all the credit to himself and be praised for his achievements, which he attained all on his own without any help or a.s.sistance from others. It"s to put the protagonist on a pedestal and show off how much of a genius he is, to comprehend something that no one can comprehend before, to do everything on his own. People love reading about overpowered protagonists who become G.o.dlike or legendary…that explains the ma.s.sive wave of Mary Sues infecting the Internet."

"…huh?"

Sect Leader Zi was staring at me, baffled. I cleared my throat and quickly shook my head.

"Nothing. I was merely thinking who I should ask. Maybe Lian Rou might help too."

"Yes, yes." Sect Leader Zi was eager to get the ball rolling. "I"ll get this collaboration group organized as soon as possible. Perhaps with our combined efforts, we"ll be able to comprehend the Spirit Diagrams you accessed for us."

In other words, I still needed to go to the Spirit Engraved Pillars. Well, I should be able to keep them activated for short spans of time before my spiritual defenses failed against the malevolent ent.i.ty staying there.

I wondered if I should tell Sect Leader Zi about that. Perhaps we would be able to come up with a countermeasure against it.

"Um, there"s one more thing I need to tell you."

I briefly informed Sect Leader Zi, and he stared at me in disbelief.

"None of the other people who comprehended the wonders of the Spirit Engraved Pillars ever mentioned anything like that before."

"Yeah, they weren"t compatible with the malevolent ent.i.ty, which was why it didn"t bother to possess them."

"Then what makes you different?"

That was a good question. One I wasn"t sure I could answer. I could tell him that I was a member of the Heaven and Earth Sect, which was quite a huge secret, but…

"It"s probably because of the martial arts I practiced."

"Huh? Nine-Tailed Frost Fox Formula?" Sect Leader Zi raised an eyebrow. "Why would that make you more compatible with this…demonic ent.i.ty that"s living underneath the Spirit Engraved Pillars?"

"No, not Nine-Tailed Frost Fox Formula. My main martial arts, from my primary sect…"

Sect Leader Zi looked as if he wanted to ask the ident.i.ty of my main, primary sect, but he hesitated. It was sect policy not to pry into the backgrounds of the disciples who joined them, not unless they posed a threat (like Liang Shao Yang) or were already well known. As long as you had the ability and showed promise, Nine-Tailed Fox Sect would recruit you without question.

"I see." Sect Leader Zi paused for a moment. "You said Qi Hong helped install a spiritual barrier function in your Snow Aegis, which helped to guard against this demonic ent.i.ty?"

"Yeah, that"s correct," I confirmed.

"Show me your Snow Aegis. Perhaps I can upgrade it for you."

"Really? Thank you so much!" without any hesitation, I pa.s.sed my Snow Aegis over. Sect Leader Zi took a look at it, and hten nodded.

"Give me an hour, and I"ll upgrade it and return it to you. In the meantime…" he picked up his cellphone and dialed a number. "Great Elder Luo Zhi Chang? Are you free right now? Good. I need you to…"

Taking a deep breath, I glanced outside the gigantic window behind Sect Leader Zi, my eyes stopping on the plaza with Spirit Engraved Pillars at the foot of the Flame Volcano below. Even though I wasn"t very enthusiastic spending too much time on Spirit Engraving and smithing, at least this burden would be a lot easier to bear now, since I was currently sharing it.

Pushing my gla.s.ses up, I smiled in relief.