After returning to his room, Will was onto the next treasure.
Clothes.
His current outfit actually looked like part of a zombie Halloween costume. He put his rings back where they belonged and looked at the clothes he'd gotten.
It seemed to be split 40/40/20 between girl clothes, boy clothes, and unisex looking clothes. Because God forbid anyone just ask.
He had actually noticed that. No one knew his gender, and no one asked. He didn't really know why.
Not that it mattered. He didn't really care.
After he took off the bad clothes, he perused through the ring for something that was similar. The closest thing he found was a brown outfit that was a lot nicer. It was in the unisex category. It would do.
He slipped it on for now. He'd definitely need to take a bath at some point, as well, but he was busy right now.
He went into his ring and pulled out the plastic looking thing. It looked like someone had broken one of those little plastic buckets kids play with in the sand and took one of the pieces. It was white, vaguely triangular, and the top seemed to curve slightly forward.
He looked at it closely. It felt like a spiritual material. But he didn't know much else. The sign at the junk room hadn't had much info either. He put it back in his ring.
He took out the fire. The one that never went out. He opened the box's lid and inhaled it.
It felt like it was getting easier the more he did it somehow. But more importantly, the fire.
He understood it now. It was just like it said on the sign. It was a fire that did nothing but emit light. And you could only get rid of it until it was the size it was now, and then you couldn't get rid of it anymore.
He put it in dantian four, the empty one. He felt a lot of nothing. That was about what he'd expected from the fire that does nothing. It would probably be good to mix with something later, though. Not the life mixture. He took it out and put it in the extraordinary meridian running down his back.
He looked at the rings on his right hand. He had too many. All empty. But they were supernatural items, so he wouldn't just toss them. But he was pretty sure they might explode if he put them in his storage ring. There had to be a reason they were left behind, right?
So he needed to use them somehow. He felt like he had an idea how. He took off all of them, then set four aside. He'd give those to Li Rencai. He'd probably want them.
He moved another ring away from the rest. He focused, and inhaled. His plan worked. He managed to inhale… space. Or something like that. It seemed like the intricate structure holding together the storage space in a storage ring didn't work as well when it was forcefully removed from the ring. Shocker.
He observed it. It looked like a liquid that was bigger on the inside. The distance through it was more than the distance around it. It was pretty cool honestly. He put it in the fourth dantian. He felt spacious. It wasn't a very nice feeling, honestly.
He took it out and put it on his spiritual roots. The next one he took, he'd get in a better state.
He moved over another ring and inhaled. It seemed like he'd inhaled the link between the ring and the storage space with it. Could he connect this to something else?
He took out the plastic thing, brought it to his mouth and tried to exhale the link onto it.
It didn't stick. He inhaled it back up as he put the plastic thing away, then slapped it on his spiritual roots.
He brought over another. He inhaled. It looked like you could probably store a single banana in the thing he inhaled. But you could probably store it, and that was improvement. He slapped it on his spiritual roots.
He inhaled another one. This time, it was mostly intact. He put it on his spiritual roots and grabbed another.
He inhaled. It was almost completely intact. Spiritual roots. He grabbed another.
He inhaled. It was completely intact but was a bit scuffed up. Spiritual roots. He grabbed another.
He inhaled. It was in perfect shape. It went on his spiritual roots, he had a plan.
He had ten left. He brought one over and inhaled.
He examined the parts of it. It seemed to be composed of the link, the ‘space’, and some energy that maintains it.
The space wasn't really just space, it was the dimensional pocket that allowed the storage ring to function. The maintainer worked as a kind of filling to keep it from collapsing.
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His plan was to create a big link to get that marble into his dantian. He would send five rings worth of maintainer to the links, and five rings worth to the spaces.
He put his plan into action. He inhaled the nine other rings and made the big link. The spaces went into the empty dantian, because having that many dimensional pockets floating around inside him couldn't be safe.
He brought out the marble. He was pretty sure he knew how to use the big link. He just had to do what he did with a storage ring, right?
He opened the box it was in, and did it.
It worked. He tore down the link and put it in the dantian with the spaces.
Then he observed the middle dantian. He noticed that the mouse qi wasn't doing anything. He took it out and slapped it on his spiritual roots.
He picked up and put on the rings he'd saved as gifts as he observed the dantian. It had just started up its chaosifying.
One of the main reasons he'd wanted to get it in his dantian was because of its limitations. It was able to make spiritual energy chaotic, and the chaotic spiritual energy would come back while still chaotic and get sent out even more chaotic. But it didn't repeat endlessly. The more chaotic, the higher the chance of it going further away, out of range of the marble. Even if someone made a one-way spiritual energy barrier like his dantian was right now, it would be broken by the chaotic spiritual energy eventually.
But he didn't have that issue. He got to have it bounce around and keep hitting the marble repeatedly, getting more and more chaotic.
It also made his auto-cultivation better, since he had another thing that sucked in spiritual energy, though less so than the array. Because of that, he wasn't disappointed that the spiritual energy being chaotic didn't seem to be doing anything.
He also felt like he might be making another really dangerous thing. What his dantian walls could survive were a lot more than what everything else could. Like infinitely more, it was absolute.
Which meant he had no way of knowing what would happen if this stuff left his dantian. Which meant he might have gained a second end-of-the-world scenario!
Apparently he was a collector now. How fun. Well, it couldn't get out, so it was fine. He also had some insane intimidation factor now, as well. Though, he wasn't really hoping for that.
But the spiritual energy saga was done. Now it was time for Will to learn the sword. Or something like that. He was playing with the sword intent slab.
He brought it out in a spot where it would fit. The room was big, so it wasn't too hard to find one. Then, he deactivated the barrier, following the instructions that were written on its pedestal.
He looked at the remnant sword intent. His Automatic Universal Linguistic Knowledge Database Accessor let him understand it.
The swordsman was certainly mad. It wasn't like the fun, cool, mad that they called cool people, either. It wasn't the mad or crazy or insane that people were so often called. Heck, people would say “he's crazy!” because they refused to cut off their arms when some young master told them to. This was nothing like that. This wasn't even like those killers who lick their blade while giggling because they're addicted to killing.
This was a man suffering from hallucinations and manic episodes. He was just actually fully insane. His sword ability was not because of his madness, not in tandem with his madness, but in spite of his madness. It was clearly profound in some ways, but in so many others it just felt like ramblings in the form of an intent. It was somewhat interesting how he could learn all of this from just a remnant sword intent. It would probably be really useful against an actual swordsman one day.
The things he learned from it were interesting. But he couldn't make use of the knowledge. He didn't really have the will for sword intent. He didn't even have the will to sit still for a few minutes.
He moved closer and inhaled. He looked at the remnant sword intent he'd just inhaled. It seemed the word ‘remnant’ really did mean something in this case. It was like the outline of sword intent without any of the sharpness or material. To compare it to a real sword, it would be like a bunch of white fog in the outline of a sword. It was honestly pretty interesting. But it wasn't useful. He put it in the extraordinary meridian opposite the fire one.
He moved on and took out the mirror. It was a mirror with a handle, with the structure made out of metal. The mirror was cracked, though still held in the frame. He held it in his hand. He didn't feel much difference. He hadn't cultivated manually recently, so he put it down and cultivated for a few seconds. It was faster than it used to be, but he'd put a bunch of qi on it so that made sense. It wasn't that much faster, though. It seemed spiritual energy worked better for that kind of thing.
He picked up the mirror and tried it again. There appeared to be no difference. It seemed like this was something for people who actually cultivated, unlike him who just inhaled. It was disappointing, but it would be useful if he ever tried actually cultivating at some point.
He put the mirror away and took out the mask next. He was curious what it would make him look like. He was two hims that were the same person but also looked different in life. He might end up looking like a mix between the two or something. He put the mask on.
He looked like himself. Exactly like he had right before he put it on. Well, he hadn't expected much. He took it off and put it back in his ring.
He was bored, now. The rest of the stuff he had wasn't really that interesting. So he wanted to do something else. But what would he do?
He decided to head to the person who'd given him the last quest. The old man.
After a bit of walking, he was at the alleyway store. The door creaked as he walked inside.
“Really? Can you not just leave me alone, brat?”
“I need something to do.”
“Can't you go play with your brat friends?”
“Don't have any.”
“Then go make some. Now go.”
Will had an idea. Maybe he could join a sect. That would be something to do. If nothing else, at least the admission test could be fun.
“Do you know of any sects I could join?”
The old man looked at Will like he was an idiot.
“Aren't you pretty much a baby? Why would anyone sect recruit a baby?”
Will was a bit annoyed.
“Do they have an age requiwement, usuawwy?”
The man looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Now that I'm thinking of it, they usually don't do they? I don't think babies trying to join is a common enough issue to make rules over.”
Will saw a bit of hope.
“So whewe would I go to join a sect?”
The old man thought about it in his head, trying to think of any sects that would be doing admissions soon. He could only think of one.
“I think the Brightrose Sect might be having admission tests around this time?”
Will was excited.
“Where are they?”
The old man begrudgingly opened his chest and pulled out a large map.
“Right here.”
He pointed his finger at a spot labeled ‘Brightrose Sect’. Then he pointed at another spot on the map, this one unmarked.
“This is where we are now.”
He rolled up the map and held it out to Will.
“Here, the admission tests should be starting in a day or two. If you weren't lying about finishing the delivery, then you should be able to make it.”
The old man seemed satisfied about something.
“But that's only if you leave soon enough. So you best get out of my store and get going now.”
Will touched the map without taking it, copying it, then smiled brightly.
“Thanks owd man!”
He ran out the door and back to Li Rencai's house to share the news. He asked a maid for directions and found Li Rencai and his family in some sort of living room or something. Will wasn't sure. He looked at everyone and began his announcement.
“I'm going to join a sect!”
Li Rencai spoke.
“Is there any particular reason you've decided to do so now?”
“Bowedom.”
He remembered the storage rings he had left for everyone.
“Oh, by the way, there are fouw stowage wings in my room. They're a gift for aww of you.”
Everyone was a bit surprised. It was only when they remembered the sheer quantity of rings the kid usually wore that they calmed down a bit. Will told them all how to use them, then continued.
“The sect's name is Bwightwose Sect, I don't know much about them other than the admission test being soon.”
Xu Lanhua spoke.
“Are you sure you're ready? You don't need to leave if you don't want to.”
Will smiled.
“I know. And I'll be suwe to come back and visit fwom time to time.”
She seemed satisfied with the answer, so Will said “Bye!” and ran off.
He had an admission test to catch.
He headed over to his snake. It seemed like the destination was about a day away at full speed.
“~We're going to a new place this time. It's that way.~”
He pointed in the direction they were heading. It was somewhat opposite the direction to Dragon Flame City.
“~Full speed again?~”
Will nodded.
“~It's really far, so we won't be able to make it in time if we don't go full speed.~”
“~We're on a time limit for this one?~”
“~Yep. And it'll probably take a day even at full speed.~”
“~Alright then. You ready to set off?~”
Will nodded.
“~Of course.~”
And with that, the snake set off.