Although Master Zhou had made a dramatic entrance to Baolei Town, it didn't take long for Jian and Shan to fade into the background. Jian spent almost all of his time in his workshop, while Shan did little more than run errands. Jian did get out for the occasional walk in order to take in some fresh air and maintain a minimum level of fitness, but his stern demeanor and formidable reputation ensured that those walks were quiet and undisturbed.
Meirong had delivered on her end of the bargain. Or, at least Jinghua had showed up the morning after the introductory banquet with the living jade in hand. All in all, this partnership with members of the Heavenly Sword Sect was looking much more promising than Jian's short-lived friendship with Tingfeng.
It was a rather distant working relationship, out of necessity. Jian's desire for Master Zhou to fade from the minds of the locals meant that he couldn't spend much time with Meirong and her friends, even if he had been of a mind to do so. They also had their own work to do.
Two days after his welcome banquet they had set off at the head of an expedition aimed to beat back the encroachment of the Verdant Doom. Jian hadn't been able to see them off, but Shan had reported that the whole town had shown up to support their warriors in what had turned into an impromptu martial parade. Jian silently wished them the best from his workshop.
He had his hands full with his own task. Living jade was every bit the treasure that the reference books claimed. Even just holding it in his hands was enough to give him the sense that he was holding something strange and precious. Prodding it with spiritual energy caused it to react more like a living thing than a rock. Already, Jian was beginning to think that molding it into a functioning heart would be more like training a pet than carving a model. He had a long way to go before he could even begin work on the project.
As for his facade as a master artist, fortunately that was easy to maintain so long as he didn't have to deliver any finished works. All that he had to do was keep his nose firmly pointed in the air during his rare outings. The marble block that he was supposedly carving into a statue to honor Meirong's imminent success had been delivered a few days after the banquet. Jian sometimes leaned against it on hot days, letting the stone leach the heat from his body. Otherwise, he had no plans to make use of it whatsoever.
He had also seen little progress in his investigation. Jian himself was limited in what he could do directly by the need to maintain his persona. He could imperiously poke his nose into forbidden spaces in the name of artistic inspiration, but that was a ploy that he could only use once or twice before it wore thin. He had been hoping that Shan would be able to provide him with some direction before he made use of it.
Shan had diligently worked his way into the good graces of the servants and common people who made their livings working in the city lord's compounds. As a result, he had collected more information about who was sleeping with whom than Jian had thought possible. Unfortunately, the rumor mill had been devoid of any stories of cavorting with demons. Unless you counted the horror stories about the chef's brother's mother-in-law, but Jian was pretty sure that she was not actually an extra-planar invader.
The lack of progress was a little frustrating, but Jian didn't let it bother him too much. Ultimately it was Meirong who was hoping to advance her position in the sect with a spectacular success here. He would have liked for success to fall into his lap so that he could smoothly exit his betrothal, but the bottom line was that as long as he put in a good faith effort he thought Meirong would at least hear him out.
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While Jian was far from beginning work on the next iteration of his artificial heart, that wasn't to say that he did no tinkering whatsoever. He was concerned about his inability to fight.
Jian wasn't a hothead like some cultivators, despite his youth. If he could get what he wanted through the persuasion of sweet reason, all well and good. If he was forced to resort to trickery and deception, that was fine, as long as he succeeded in the end. This mission he'd taken from Meirong was perfect, at least in that it allowed him to play to his strengths and get what he wanted without exposing his weaknesses.
No, he was happy enough not to seek out any fights. The problem remained, though, that he could easily find a fight thrust upon him. Reason and trickery were useful tools, but against a ruthless or desperate enemy it was necessary to have some amount of brute force backing you up. Jian had Shan to rely on, of course, and for the moment he enjoyed a dubious level of protection from Meirong and her friends, but he would feel much more at ease if he could rely on his own strength as well.
His strength as such had actually decreased with his breakthrough in cultivation level. Before he had been able to defend himself against low level Body Refining cultivators. Now, with the burden his artificial heart was putting on his body, he would probably lose in a fight with a sufficiently determined Essence Gathering cultivator. Even a mortal would be able to give him trouble. It was frustrating.
In the long run, replacing his first prototype with a superior artificial heart would resolve the issue. In order to survive long enough to reach that happy day, though, Jian didn't want to trust to luck or rely on his friends. Not alone. He needed a weapon.
With his improvement in cultivation and his ability to use liquified spiritual energy, he was at least theoretically capable of making formidable weapons indeed. Many famous crafters had created legendary weapons when they were only at the Body Refining level. Some didn't even bother advancing any further, instead focusing their time on their craft.
A few factors kept Jian from their level. Most immediately, he didn't have access to any of the advanced spiritual materials that were usually used in crafting serious weaponry. Even if he did have them, he didn't have any experience in using them, and his mentor was back in Bianjing Town, almost the full length of the Empire away. Jian had read about such materials and had a good memory for what he had read, but there would be quite a bit of trial and error in putting his theoretical knowledge to use in practice.
A more fundamental problem was the type of weapon Jian needed. Usually, a spiritual weapon was employed to amplify the abilities of the wielder. A sword might be imbued with the ability to manifest a plasma blade, increasing its ability to cut, but it would still be useless in the hands of a useless swordsman. For Jian, who could hardly fight at all, such a weapon wouldn't be of much use. It would make him more effective in the brief moments that his heart allowed him to exert himself, but against any sort of serious foe that would be far from enough.
Ideally, Jian would need a weapon that could wield itself. Of course, Jian wasn't the only person who could use such a weapon. Every cultivator in the Empire could use a self-wielding bodyguard that was nigh-impossible to destroy and utterly loyal. Such weapons were, of course, mostly the stuff of legends. Supposedly every cultivator in the higher realms had a flying sword or two that was imbued with independent will, but it was incredibly rare for such things to fall to the mortal plane, and those that did were snatched up by the mightiest movers and shakers of the Empire.
Jian didn't want to abandon the idea entirely, though. He couldn't make a sword that would level the playing field between himself and someone like Meirong. He couldn't even buy such a wonder, assuming it existed. But he thought he ought to be able to make something to restore his ability to fight on par with a lower level cultivator. Even if it just got him back to the level he had been at before Tingfeng had poisoned him, it might just help him survive until he could perfect the next version of his artificial heart.