With Bai Yunfei being included as one of the disciples, there were now five one of them on the Western Point: The first, Song Lin. The second, Xiao Nanren. The third, Ling Yan. The fourth, Bai Yunfei (for now). And the fifth, Tian Yuhang, (Although young, he was by all rights still a senior).

Of the three older seniors, Bai Yunfei was most familiar with Song Lin and Xiao Nanren since the two of them had came into contact with him when overseeing the examinations. The only time he saw the third disciple Ling Yan was during the ‘social group meeting’. Bai Yunfei had been completely preoccupied with training afterwards and so social interaction was at an all time low for him.

Si Kongxian managed to give a respectful greeting to the third disciple Ling Yan before the man then turned his attention to Bai Yunfei. “Junior Bai, it’ll be a month since you joined the Crafting School in three days. I wanted to talk to you before then, but you’ve been stuck in training for the entire time. How goes it, have you finished with the Secrets of Firebending?”

“Thank you for your concern, senior Ling Yan. My training has gone without a hitch so far.”

“That’s good then.” Ling Yan nodded his head. “It was a surprise to see junior Bai come out here. I was blown away by your strength to say the least. You must have held back your strength when you fought with Fei Nian that time…..Though I’m sure even now, you’ve yet to show your true strength, right?”

He had been one of the few who were on hand to watch the fight in its entirety.

With a modest smile, Bai Yunfei replied, “Senior Ling Yan, you give me too much credit. It was just luck, that’s all. I’d like to thank you giving me this chance by not stepping in though.”

“I only just got here myself,” Ling Yan smiled. “I was just deciding on what to do when you finished up the battle so quickly….Everyone in the school has been thinking the same thing about you when you entered the school, so it’s good that you did what you did. I’m quite impressed actually; if anything, I’m sure they’re thoroughly convinced now. As long as you can show success in crafting, there shouldn’t be anyone else that’ll gossip about you.”

“Yes. Please rest a.s.sured, senior, I’ll try my best so that master and everyone else won’t feel disappointed.” Bai Yunfei smiled before taking in a deep breath. “Senior Ling Yan,” He began, “I’ve a question I was hoping you could help me answer.”

“Hm? What question is it? Say it.”

“In that fight just now, what was that last attack junior Chen did with his Rock Slicer…?”

“Oh, you mean that last move? That was the Rock Slicer’s armament skill, the ‘Earthen Confine’. With it, he can temporarily restrict his opponent’s movements.

“‘Armament skill’?” Bai Yunfei asked.

“What? Junior Bai, do you not know what armament skills are?” Ling Yan asked.

Bai Yunfei was embarra.s.sed, “Uh, I….I never heard of them before.”

Ling Yan smiled and began to explain, “Because of the materials that were used to create a soul armament, there’ll sometimes be one or several different elements focused into the soul armament. The higher the grade, the more noticeable it’ll be. Junior Chen’s ‘Rock Slicer’ was made from an extremely high quality ore of elemental earth and a primal stone, allowing for the sword to hold a tremendous amount of elemental earth in it. When a soul cultivator uses a soul armament, they can make use of the elements stored within them with the soul armament as the intermediary. This way, they can make use of an element that they aren’t able of using to begin with. Thus, a person is able of using moves they couldn’t normally use by using the soul armament in their place. These moves are called ‘skills of the armaments’, or ‘armament skills’. In a way, they can be thought of as another version of soul skills.”

Taking out a sparkling green longsword from his s.p.a.ce ring, Ling Yan continued to explain, “For example, this earth-grade soul armament has the wind element in it. I’m personally incapable of practicing the elemental wind, but I can still unleash blades of wind with this. These are known to be the most basics of ‘armament skills’.” With two flicks of his sword, two blades of wind shot out from the sword and faded away into the sky.

“Armament skills have their strengths and weaknesses and easy to understand ones and complex ones depending on several aspects. These aspects are thusly said to be the grade of the soul armament, the strength of the user, and the familiarity the user has with the soul armament, or their ‘soul compatibility’. Soul compatibility isn’t something only we of the Crafting School know. But if not for special circ.u.mstances of those in the outside world, only a few are capable of bringing their soul compatibility to 50% and creating a soulbound armament. By extension, armament skills are something that only the most excellent figures and the Crafting School understand to a greater degree.”

“Armament skills….” Bai Yunfei grew quiet as a result of Ling Yan’s explanations. He was extremely surprised by all these newfound things. “This….this is just like the effects of the equipments!!”

Bidding farewell to Ling Yan and Si Kongxian, Bai Yunfei returned to his room so that he could be in peace.

Now that he knew about the existence of ‘armament skills’, Bai Yunfei found himself to be in a new state of amazement. The fact that these ‘armament skills’ were the same as the ‘equipment effects’ gave him plenty to think about. He just had to know what differences or similarities there was between the two.

In a more simplistic observation, there were ‘active’ skills, and ‘automatic’ skills.

Armament skills were skills that the user could use to make use of the elements within the armament in subst.i.tution of the user’s own affinity. By manipulating this secondary element, it could be melded into the level of a ‘skill’.

It could be explained in the same way a soul skill could be explained, but a soul armament was required for an armament skill to be used.

The equipment effects were similar to armament skills, but they required a ‘trigger’ to then ‘automatically produce’ an armament skill.

Using an example to this simplistic explanation so far, Bai Yunfei could use the ‘Crescent Moon Blades’. They were both soul armaments with an affinity for wind so they could release a blade of wind with a command. At the same time, they had an additional effect that could automatically create a blade of wind and shoot it out without needing to command it.

Automatic and instantaneous. These two aspects were where the equipment effects had an advantage over the other. But the most important aspect was strength.

Of course, equipment effects couldn’t all be explained by using the theory behind armament skills. Being able to slow down another, inflict dizziness, sending them flying, or even the ‘doppelganger’ effect of the Fire-tipped Spear were beyond the realm of possibility of what armament skills could accomplish or even explain.

The Upgrade Technique by all rights was an existence that wasn’t a part of this world. By blending in with the laws of this world, a new ‘law’ was made where equipment could change after being upgraded.Whatever the ‘laws’ bestowed onto the equipment were unexplainable.

“This means I can use the additional effects of some equipment and pretend they’re armament skills as an excuse. And the ‘doppelganger’ effect of the Fire-tipped Spear can be pa.s.sed off as a soul skill…..I shouldn’t be under too much suspicion then.”

Thinking about the battle he had just had, Bai Yunfei thought, “I’ve grown a lot stronger after spending a month learning the Secrets of Firebending. My soul compatibility with the Fire-tipped Spear is a lot stronger, so I can use it more efficiently as well. The might of the +12 effect isn’t anything to sneeze at either. I haven’t been able to test the additional effect of the Ardent Sun Gloves though….

“I never thought that I’d be able to learn so much in just a single month of being here. Even if I didn’t become a disciple, the trip here would be so worth it.

“It’s a shame that I haven’t become a Soul Ancestor yet. I’m clearly at a bottleneck, so these things should be taken slowly and with patience rather than rus.h.i.+ng it….

“In just three days, I’ll be able to learn the art of crafting, I can’t wait….”