Even though I went to Claire's shop with nothing more but some pocket money, when I left, I still ended up carrying two sizeable bags.

Apparently, cultivators were aware of the problem of prancing around the town with expensive products, making it a standard service to provide a low-key bag to pack all of one's purchases.

In a world where a single stalk of herb could go well into tens of thousands of Esecs, the value one could gather in a single bag was quite unbelievable.

As it turned out, however, when operating with money on the level that Claire and her father did, a mere voiced desire to sign a deal was worth enough to make the girl "lend me" all sorts of half-products off her shelves that easily amounted to a few hundred big ones.

That obviously made my return home quite a nerve-wracking experience, only to then leave me thankful that no one had ever paid me any mind.

Even if the city was policed well enough to make the streets relatively safe, one could never predict when a random assault or robbing attempt would come to face them.

'I really should've taken the bike,' I thought as I passed by the patio by the apartment building's entrance, before heading inside, up the stairs and hunkering down at my place.

Rather than moving to the task right away to make the most efficient use of my time… I placed the bags down and sat down on the bed, closing my eyes and leaning my head back before taking a long, slow breath.

For a moment, I allowed absolutely nothing to disturb the sense of peace in my head, breathing in the unpleasant air that I could only refresh by committing the greatest sin and actually opening the window to my room. Even then, the one-sided nature of the apartment meant I couldn't really air it out well, not without the help of some powerful fan… that I could never afford to buy.

And so, rather than venting my room to make concentration easier, I ignored the poor quality of the Qi-thick air before focusing my attention all on the idea that struck me back at Claire's shop.

Bit by bit, I recalled the founding idea, smaller bits of creative thought on how to solve various problems that were likely to arise… And bit by bit, the whole thought came back to me, materializing in my head not as just a loose desire to make something specific, but a solid idea accompanied by a general schematic pained by my thoughts directly in my brain.

'An air purifier… but of a cultivation kind!'

The idea was simple and heavily borrowed from my electric Qi condenser. In fact, it was the exact same thing… with the difference of what process that humans technologically mastered I could apply to the principles of cultivation. And, in a much simpler way, it was an idea I got when I realized that the stuffiness of the air… is as much of a technological concept as it is a cultivation one!

With my brain already perfecting the details of the air-purifier schematic, my hands moved to sort out all the things I'd brought over from Claire's place, organizing them within the limited shelving of my room. With everything now well within reach of my hand, sorted by its purpose, and size, and then turned, I blinked my eyes a few times before finally looking down at my small desk.

'No matter what, I will have to move out from here as soon as I can afford it…' I thought, despairing over my living standard for the very first time in an extremely long while.

Still…

"Okay, let's get to it."

There was no use wasting time and mental prowess on complaining or whining about my current situation. The same energy I would have to waste on those things I could put to better use by working to change what I disliked instead.

It didn't take long for my movements to become smoother as if all the doubt and hesitation vanished…

'No… that's not it,' I thought before I could even form a proper thought.

Sure, my movements suddenly smoothened out as if I already knew every tiniest element of the process ahead by my heart and soul… But it wasn't just a changed, focused mindset.

No.

There actually was a slight whisk of force that pushed my arms around, easing their task to cut through the thick air or contributing to the strength of me lifting something whenever I picked a part.

'Interesting…'

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As much as I wanted to focus on this feeling and figure out its exact purpose, source, meaning, extent, and all… Right now, I have some crafting to do.

The entire thing started as usual, with me picking out the pieces I brought over from Claire… Before either smashing them apart or carefully dismantling them I judged the piece to be too fragile for the rough treatment. It was only with this step completed that I finally moved on to the actual crafting as opposed to the preparatory phase that came before.

Following the schematic in my mind, I arrayed several pieces of thin, narrow, metal tubes, connecting them together with a simple, instant-weld paste before making sure they were all aligned perfectly well. Then, with some more of that welding paste and several other pieces I either scavenged from Claire's artifacts or outright bought in advance, I added a series of four sockets into the frame, one for each corner of the now three-dimensional structure.

Putting the frame away, I made sure the welding paste could settle properly as I moved on to the next… or rather, parallel step.

I grabbed a bunch of quickly-setting clay, molding it with my hands into the shape of a simple bowl, the circumference of which was just slightly bigger than the radius of the frame I made before. Once done… I did this step all over again, altering it bit by bit until I made sure both parts could be perfectly aligned and then joined together.

Rather than doing that right away, however, I sprayed the clay with the special reagent before again, setting it aside to let the clay settle and harden.

While waiting for that to happen, I pulled out one of the more important parts of the whole building, Dryair leaves.

According to the description Claire's shop provided, those simple, hand-sized leaves had two different qualities that both made them just the perfect fit for my purposes.

And so, while the clay hardened, I removed the package from the leaves, letting them air for a bit as I set up the small cauldron from Claire's set to boil roughly half of its volume of water.

"Haaa…" I breathed out as I wiped all the sweat off my forehead with my forearm.

Every step required precision that, in turn, required focus comparable to what I needed to throw my punches out. And that, despite not physically taxing almost at all, still put a huge strain on my brain.

Still, even though I could already feel the first tingles of exhaustion, I couldn't even fathom the idea of stopping!

With my forehead now dry, I picked up both the hardened clay bowls and the leaves… Before plastering the leaves all over the bowls, leaving only the inner side of the bowl uncovered in the leaves.

This process alone required as much creative thinking and precision as it needed delicacy and a sense of a greater picture.

Still, one by one, leaves found their place on the outer side of the clay bowl, all wrapped over the bowl's edge to secure the entire thing in place. Then, with all the care I could muster, I slowly lowered both parts of leaf-covered clay into the cauldron with boiling water, nearly going as far as actually submerging my fingers in the boiling water just to avoid dropping the piece into it.

"Now then," happy with the progress, I moved over to the easiest part of the task.

Contrary to how I used Spricur stones in my Qi condenser device, I opted for Spriox stones for this build. After arranging them in opposite directions with a small gap between them, I then used some tiny steel wires to first insert and then secure in place a square-looking socket between the stones. Next, I covered both sides with a flat, plastic kitchen funnel, using cold glue to force it to stay in place.

Then, while waiting for the bowls to boil out, I repeated this step four times before finally bringing the base frame back and carefully placing each of the four purifying pieces into each of the four sockets I pasta-welded in advance while making sure to keep the bulk of the pieces on the inner side of the frame, directing all four outflow funnels to the very middle of the half-made device.

From then on, I only had the easiest and the hardest steps to complete.

First, I fished the bowls out of the water before crushing all the hardened clay away, exposing the now sturdy layer of the leaves. The first quality of theirs that caught my interest was that when submerged and heated up, those leaves would release a strong binding agent.

With the clay gone, I finally moved the two big, green cups over before gently placing them over the sides of the device, while making sure that the division between the two parts would perfectly align with the entrance of the slots in each of the four corners of the frame.

Then, after repeating the process of softening up the leaves and releasing their inner glue, I moved on to the hardest part of the whole process, using spare Dryair leaves to cover the gap between the two bowl-like covers, masking it as just another part of the strange, fruit or maybe a seed-like object.

This time, there weren't many finishing touches necessary, save for carefully binding and manipulating the leaves as they dried out and solidified, all for the sake of creating hidden access to the slots of the device inside.

Slots that I then filled with store-bought air purifying mesh.

"Haaa…."

Gently placing the finished device down on my desk, I sat down in my chair before leaning back as I stared at the product of my own hands.

The idea was simple.

Use Spriox stones to turn the air into its Qi-infused version. Then, pass this air through the air purifying mesh, so that all the filth materialized upon infusing the air with the Qi would be cleansed, allowing only the pure air to pass to the second Spriox stone, where it would be turned back into its normal version.

What made it a tough project, was both my desire to replicate the system several times within the single device to increase its potency… and then my attempt at making it look like some sort of ancient treasure, that cultivators would accept for a mystical artifact rather than some sort of elaborate device.

With that said, when looking at the now-finished product and waiting for it to dry out, I couldn't help but smile.

"Now, I'm ready to meet Claire's dad," I muttered to myself as I stared at yet another ace card I procured for tomorrow's negotiations.

Yet, this smile of mine wasn't long-lived at all, as I've realized that this mindset… was nothing short of empty arrogance.

And as my eyes moved over to the laptop stashed far into the corner of my room,

'On a second thought, though…'