Jack regulated his breathing as he saw a couple of disciples giving him the side-eye. He hunkered down and focused back on the scroll in front of him.
'A cultivator has to focus the intent he wishes to imbue into the correct sigil, only then will he have the ability to adjust its workings.' Jack read. He took a different scroll and continued from a specific paragraph 'Using the proper sigil in your spell requires sound judgment. Imbuing a sigil for flame with the intent to burn will create a drastically different effect from imbuing the one for fire.'
Jack's brows furrowed as he pulled over the next scroll and kept reading 'One has to remain vigilant when designing your sigils. A single mistake can lead to disastrous consequences.' The next one he took had a more dire warning 'Any inexperienced person that tinkers with the design of standardized sigils will die.'
All of the scrolls had warnings about adjusting existing sigils without experience and described them more as an art form that only allows the cultivator to imbue his intentions in them. They made sure that the person reading knew that the cultivator's intent mattered more for the needed effect than the strict shape of the sigil.
'According to the scrolls, a person can't make a sigil for air break a tree on its own. It has to have additional helping sigils that will allow the accumulation and compression of the air. No wonder that parts of so many sigils showed up in the Air Blast spell.' Jack thought as he placed the last scroll down on the table and rubbed his forehead.
'But still, those bastards make it look so mysterious when they're just drawing pictures that will contain their intent.' He started getting angry again, but a second later his eyes widened as he contemplated 'Did my Air Blast turn into a weak gust of wind because I expected it to look like that from the memories that I received? I must have unconsciously imbued my expectations in the gathered sigils. I need to get my hand on all the possible permutations that one can make from the sigils in Air Blast before I can start doing adjustments to the spell, or those warnings might turn into the truth.'
Jack stood up and took a couple of steps towards the reception desk before he caught a glimpse of the shadows from the plants in the park through the open doors. He stopped in his tracks, turned around, picked up the scrolls from his table, and carried them over to the reception desk.
Li Manning gave him a professional smile as he asked "Leaving already?"
With a nod of his head, Jack said "Yeah, have to go back to work. I'll see you early tomorrow."
Jack thanked Li Manning for the help and left the library. He just had to push the outer doors and he could exit them without using his token, the doors closed automatically once he went through.
He hurried to the restaurant that made the food for his people after exiting the library. When he saw that they had everything ready he walked with the servers back to the Gravedigger courtyard.
As soon as his people saw the new food they cheered and lined up, with his closest friends at the top of the line. Jack hesitated a bit if he should serve them the food himself, or just let the servers do it, but when he saw the expectant looks that everyone gave him, he shrugged his shoulders helplessly and went to serve the food.
After their meal, Jack drove the corpse cart up the Eternal Rest Mountain. He gave the unit their usual task of digging the graves, while he went back to the courtyard and drove the cart to where Elder Yu's spirit puppets took them.
He studied the movements of the puppets while they emptied the cart, looking for any trace of humanity they might show. He couldn't see any. With a sad sigh, he climbed up to the driver seat of the cart and went to store it for the night.
Instead of waiting around for his unit to return from the graveyard, Jack went there and helped them dig so they could finish faster.
When they did, he sent everyone except for Shi Furui and Kuang Bindun back to their homes.
"Bindun, I need all of the saved up paper that you have and don't need for tonight's lecture; and some charcoal. Please get them for me." Jack said as he turned to Kuang Bindun.
With a nod, Kuang Bindun took off running towards the houses.
Jack looked at Shi Furui and said "Let's go."
They arrived in front of a distant door of the manor and bowed down while Jack said "Disciple Song Tanda asks for permission to enter."
A few seconds later the door opened, and a spirit puppet stood in the doorway while staring at Jack. Once it did some internal check it stepped out of the way and gave Jack permission to enter the room.
Jack entered the dusty dim room and looked around. The small room held one shelf filled with collars, and one filled with knives for the graveyard shift. In the back there stood a small wooden pedestal that held an unremarkable pouch on it.
Du Angliang informed Jack of its name and the way on how to make it work, but he didn't allow him to test it out, so Jack had a lot of expectations for the Star Bag. Apparently one could store a whole planet into one in certain legends, and the people here called planets stars, so its name turned to the Star Bag. Ever since he came to this world he had great curiosity towards these strange things that made what he previously thought impossible, possible.
He gently picked it up and started imbuing it with his spirit energy. As soon as he did he somehow saw, in his mind's eye, an oblong space with walls made purely out of sigils that held a small hill of Spirit Capturing knives and a small hill of Energy Dispersal devices. From Jack's estimation, the oblong space had around a thousand meters cubed volume, judging by the size of the knives.
Jack reached into the pouch, thought 'I want a knife.', and pulled his hand out. It held a Spirit Capturing knife in it. A small smile spread across his face as he returned the knife back to the pouch and took out a collar.
After a final look around the room, Jack left through the door.
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Outside, he gave Shi Furui the collar and started walking towards the graveyard.
On the way there Kuang Bindun caught up to them and handed over the papers and charcoal to Jack. Once he delivered the materials he ran back to make the evening meal and do his lectures.
Shi Furui and Jack walked over to the small shack that stood next to the graveyard and sat down with their backs against its wood. Jack gave Shi Furui a piece of charcoal and a few papers and said "Make sure to draw them exactly like they look on the collar. I need to know what he's using."
With a "Sure." Shi Furui took the papers and charcoal and started copying the sigils from the Energy Dispersal device. Jack fished out one Spirit Capturing knife from the pouch and started copying the sigils from it.
The Sun almost finished setting when they ended their work. With a satisfied smile, Jack opened the shack and stored the drawings in it.
They went over to the Eastern side of the graveyard and started their patrol.
By now Jack didn't need Shi Furui to carry him around while he absorbed spirit energy. He had enough focus to walk around while still performing his cultivation method in the areas of his body that didn't move around while walking.
With the increase in his cultivation his reflexes and speed increased too, so he had no problems with getting to the hostile spirits before they reached Shi Furui. He still couldn't use his spirit energy to make the knives fly, but he felt certain that with some research he could do it in the future.
They quickly captured fifteen spirits and avoided the rest while jogging through the patrol route.
On the way back Jack took the papers with the copies of sigils out of the shack and handed it over to Shi Furui to return to Jack's room, while he went to the room from where they took the graveyard shift tools. He handed the captured spirits over to the spirit puppet and returned the Star Bag to its pedestal with slight regret.
When he got back to his home Kuang Bindun had just started his lecture outside of Jack's house, with the help of Jack's Light Orb. With a slight surprise, Jack nodded to Kuang Bindun and entered his house. The still warm food waited for him on the table, and next to it lay the sigil drawings.
Jack took the food outside and watched Kuang Bindun's lecture. After it ended he gave a few pointers to his friend and left for the clearing from last night to practice. He took the remaining paper and charcoal with him.
While sitting on a stump Jack slowly created one connection of the Air Blast spell after another and carefully drew every permutation on paper. A few times he felt tempted to try changing something to see what would happen, but he beat that temptation down and stayed the course.
Once he finished everything he tried using the Air Blast while focusing his will on increasing its power, but he only saw slight improvements in its strength from what he did last night.
When he almost emptied his dantian he gave out an exhausted sigh as he thought 'At least I know it works somewhat, now I just need to figure out on which sigils to focus my attention.'
The next morning Jack waited for twenty minutes at the gate of the library before Li Manning showed up.
"Ah, the thirst for knowledge!" Li Manning exclaimed when he saw Jack. He unlocked the doors and his face took on a more serious expression as he said "I know it well, just be careful about biting off more than you can chew. A lot of enthusiastic disciples found their deaths that way."
Jack nodded his head and gave him a non-committal grunt.
Li Manning sighed and led the way to the library.
On the way Jack caught the park's pond in the corner of his eye and spoke up "Disciple Brother Li, can I read the scrolls out here?" Yesterday some of the people in the library talked amongst themselves while he read and annoyed him.
Li Manning looked over his shoulder at Jack with a glint in his eyes and said "Why not just rent a private room?"
Jack's eyes narrowed as he countered with "Why don't I give you two silver for each incense stick worth of time that I'm out here and we don't tell anyone?"
Li Manning furrowed his brows for a few seconds before saying "Make it four, I'm the one risking things here."
In the end, they agreed on three silver coins per an incense stick worth of time.
When they reached the reception desk, Li Manning lost his jolly attitude and took on the role of a professional shopkeeper.
"What interests you today, Sir? Some additional sigil research; or maybe a different topic caught your fancy?" Li Manning asked as he looked at Jack from the other side of the reception desk.
Jack shook his head in amusement as he said "Get me scrolls that contain examples of sigils and their uses. The more examples and descriptions, the better." and took out ten silver coins.
Li Manning frowned slightly as he said "We have the basic few thousands down here, but for anything more advanced you will have to visit the top floor."
Jack's brows rose in surprise at the number as he said "I better start with the basics then, and work my way up. Please bring me some that center on air control."
Li Manning nodded and went to get the requested scrolls.
A few minutes later Jack exited the library and walked over to the pond. It had a small tree next to it with just enough shade for a person to sit under and relax.
Jack sat down under the tree and took out a few sheets of paper and a pouch with charcoal from his robe.
He opened the first scroll and smiled once he saw a familiar shape of the air sigil at the top.
An hour later, Jack's deep dive into a scroll got interrupted when a shadow fell over him and a soft voice said "You are sitting in my spot."
Jack looked up and saw a young lady in a light green robe that held a couple of scrolls looming over him. She had a slightly upturned nose, full sneering lips, and scornful almond-shaped eyes. She shifted her ponytail from her left shoulder to her right as she said "Move, this is my spot."