Focusing on his finger, Robert pushed a tiny needle out of its tip. Coating it with his energy, he proceeded to cut the metal item he was holding in his palm. Rob’s careful but fast motions showed a noticeable experience in this act. Burning through the tough material as it was made from butter, he slowly started to get rid of useless matter, forming a desired form. It took only around thirty seconds to finish the task. Despite the quickness of the process, it demanded a lot of concentration, as even the tiniest mistake would ruin everything. His improvised knife was too sharp for any mishap. Also, he didn’t have a lot of material to waste. Therefore, he focused on control. His mind was sensing the position of his own body by keeping his steel flesh conjured, raising his self-awareness to an insane level.

“Master! I brought another cauldron in case you need one!” The loud shout almost broke Robert’s concentration, making him look at the cause of the distraction. Luckily, he managed to finish the nail before the young man made his appearance. Gazing at this cultivator with Asian features, black hair tied in a ponytail, and surprisingly bright orange eyes, Robert sighed, recalling the last events.

“I am not your master, retard!”

“Master, I need to warn you that this is the last half-finished cauldron in the smithy,” Not bothering to comment on Rob’s reply, the young man cheerfully added.

“This isn’t the problem because I don’t need it anymore. Return it back,” Robert answered, pressing the nail against the wooden surface until it dived deep inside. Nodding himself, he rose and took a step back to look at the finished front door of the mansion he was working on.

“I will do it, Master… I think now it even looks better than before. Good job!” Xu Wong exclaimed, smiling like an idiot.

“Stop this nonsense with butt-kissing. What do you want to ask?” Robert sighed again, before asking his question. He wasn’t sure why he even agreed to the pleads of Xu Wong. Maybe the reason was in the pressing situation, where he snapped after taking a single glance at the frozen map that took him so long to finish. It appeared that a single tiny scratch was the whole result of an attack from those overconfident cultivators. It definitely wasn’t worth killing for, but Robert still did it. He thought that long solitude helped him, but it seemed it wasn’t so easy to fix his murderous instincts. That was the reason why he decided to spare the life of Xu Wong, even knowing that it might cause him new troubles. The problem was that he was mistaken about what form they would take.

Xu Wong started to kowtow and pleaded to learn the cultivation from him immediately after cleaning the blood. No arguments worked. At some point, Robert even wanted to point out that he wasn’t much older than the twenty-year-old man, who behaved like a teenager in his stubborn requests. However, then a realization struck him. With the loss of the need to eat or rest. With no fixed duration of the day. With the absence of a watch. With his long journey to get here. With everything he went through – the answer wasn’t so simple anymore.

No, I am much older… I can be easily forty at this point… But what is the age for me? Just a number. My body doesn’t age…

“I won’t teach you as I am not a cultivator, but I can give you some pointers until you reach the Core Formation realm,” Rob gave up, creating an outburst of happiness in his self-proclaimed apprentice.

There was another obstacle on his way to being left alone – Xu Wong didn’t have the capabilities to open the portal. It appeared the traveling device demanded precise control over external qi and more energy to start the charging process from other sources. If the latter wasn’t the problem with Rob’s filled storage, the former was an unstoppable wall. And again, the simple solution to kill the young man was already crossed out by Robert.

I just can’t murder anyone who bothers me… Well, I can, but don’t want to. That just won’t do.

It brought him to this particular situation, where he was periodically irritated by Xu Wong’s questions or requests. Fortunately, it seemed the cultivators were indeed ready to spend most of their lives in meditations, rarely speaking with each other for long. His apprentice once wanted to tell his pitiful story of how he struggled to get into the sect only to meet more dangers and awful attitudes from his peers and even some Elders. About his long-dead parents, who died horribly because of political reasons. There were more details about it, but Rob interrupted that speech almost at the beginning.

“Why are you telling me it? Do you want me to pity you? Not going to happen. I was also an orphan. Moreover, there were hundreds like me in the place, and some didn’t even live past their tenth birthday. The shit happens constantly. Nor me, not anyone else needs your teary story with plenty of drama to feel sorry for you. No one gives a damn, so focus on the present. If you want to change something – work for it. You want revenge – work for it. You want to make others avoid the same fate – work for it. You don’t get some kind of excuse because you’ve experienced a lot. Solve your problems yourself, and don’t wait for others to push aside their own wishes just to help you… Read on my lips – I don’t care about your past. And stop calling me a master!”

Robert’s advice partly worked as Xu Wong stopped trying to talk about every single sad event in his life. That lessened the stress on Rob’s mind by a lot, after his years of war, where the horrors of becoming permanently disabled, fears of death, or the pain from the loss of close friends were just normal background emotions, to feel any sympathy about the victim of bullying that was a target of six-year kids sounded like an absolute nonsense. Maybe it was entirely different for this specific kid, but Rob simply failed to feel anything special about it, viewing it as a problem of the plants in a greenhouse. The falling bomb from a dirigible onto your head even on paper sounded much worse than any bad-mouthing coming from other children. Or it could be he just became numb.

On the other hand, it led to the situation where Xu Wong started to treat him like a real teacher, asking for opinions on different subjects. Obviously, his addressing him with a “Master” never stopped, bothering Robert and making him feel really old. The other thing that irritated him was his apprentice’s childish attempt to get something through the flattering. It seemed it was a cultural thing together with kowtowing and bowing way too many times for his liking. Unfortunately, Rob failed to find a way to prevent such behavior.

“What do you want?”

“I planned to fight in Tower for training… It’s hard to battle in those conditions even against realm-lower puppets, but it already raised my combat skills by a noticeable margin…,” Xu Wong started to explain only to be interrupted by annoyed Rob.

“What do you want?” He asked again, repeating the same question. His apprentice didn’t know but it appeared the Ascension Tower granted only a single entrance per day. It wasn’t individual like Robert thought previously, making each fight more valuable in terms of experience. He could imagine that considering the number of cultivators in the sect, it could be easily treated as a valuable opportunity for anyone. The only good thing about it was that Rob got stuck against four opponents and had no idea how to proceed without finishing his project with cultivation. He basically lacked firepower to kill the damned robots, while not getting much from those spars, apart from releasing anger.

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“Well… I wanted to ask for permission to enter the library again… I need to clarify a few things about my new cultivation technique. It’s more profound than my previous ones, and the pattern of qi circulation is just too hard to memorize at once… So, may I ask you…”

“It’s the third time you've forgotten something in it! Nope, wait… it’s actually the fourth! How the fuck do you manage to do it again and again?” Robert wanted to facepalm, looking at the young man, who smiled innocently. Rob couldn’t describe himself as smart, but all those patterns weren’t that difficult in his opinion. For him the knowledge to become a shielder was something mind-blowing and insanely hard, resisting all his efforts to keep the information inside his brain. The cultivation circulation, on the other hand, was just complex schemes, nothing else. You didn’t need to know the details to make it work. Moreover, most of them had similar pieces, twisting only some parts for the specific type of Qi. He even started to see the system in this magical version of artificial evolution.

The source of Robert’s irritation was the need to stay with him on the same floor. By finishing the trial, Xu Wong got the same offer to join the sect. However, in his case, it was the position of an Outer Disciple with the additional need to confirm it by an Elder as he barely managed to finish four rounds. Luckily, Rob was the one, granting the rank at once. However, that still limited access to the Pavillion of Techniques for Xu Wong to only thirty minutes per day and just the first two floors. The only exception to the rules was personal permission from the Elder, and only in his presence. Therefore, Robert had to stay there with Xu Wong all the time. Considering the desire of the latter to ask questions, this time-spending wasn’t pleasant for someone like Rob, who enjoyed the solitude.

“Stop dropping on your knees each time you want to ask something! Where is your pride? Fine, I’ll do it. But this time you better listen to me – you may throw away your desire to have a cultivation technique with a powerful name and focus on the usability of it. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, master,” Xu Wong smiled, shinning like a fool. In Rob’s opinion, the young man was the one, despite being quick-witted. Mainly such evaluation came from the limited experience of the young cultivator. Sitting crossed-legged in mediation to accumulate more qi, he missed a few years, thus copying the behavior of a teenager. Robert knew that Xu Wong had blood on his hands, but one random bandit that attempted to kill and rob him wasn’t something worth mentioning.

At least this one doesn’t want to blow me up with a hidden bomb…

“Find me at the peak, when you are done,” Robert spoke, before turning around and walking away. The rest of the day he spent working on the creation of his own version of the cultivation technique. Frankly speaking, Rob had at least several circulations that he could keep running without ruining his own body by accident explosion. He had already felt the effect of them, but one thought made him continue his research.

I can do better. I don’t need to use something less efficient if it’s only a matter of time until I get the desired result.

Rob was sure that he was close. He managed to successfully merge a few different cultivation techniques into one. Each of them only used some specific meridians, barely touching even a third part of all that existed and were used by the sect’s members. That was Rob’s main idea – to squeeze everything from the potential energy supply system, but the problem was that the energy streams started to conflict with each other, clashing at some points. Therefore, the proper adjustment was a must. And he was working on them, having an advantage over any cultivator before him – there was no permanent damage or risk of self-crippling from the mistake for his steel body.

Pondering about it even while sitting near Xu Wong in the pavilion, Robert once again returned to his crazy idea that he was brushing away for a while. The only thing that stopped him from successfully converting his energy into something akin to qi was a lack of observations on living subjects as details in the local library were too vague and descriptive to clarify the picture for him. However, he had one who had enough inner wish to grow strong as much as he could just to avoid potential revenge from the uncle of his deceased senior brother.

“Master, can you explain me this part?” As if sensing something, Xu Wong asked, pointing at the scroll he was reading.

“What were you reading again?” Robert focused on his apprentice’s face, not sparing a single glance at the paper.

“As you know, Master, I decided to abandon my sect’s standard technique. Instead, I’ve chosen a new one – the Lighting Roaring Ape. The affection test showed my good combability both with lighting and wind types of Qi, and this ape heavily relies on the usage of arms. I don’t have a refined weapon, so I should focus on…,” As often he did, Xu Wong once again went into a detailed explanation that had limited connection to the topic, causing Rob to sigh before barking at his apprentice.

“What is the problem? Focus on the important part, damn it! And stop calling me a master!”

“I struggle to understand how to readjust the meridians in my arms correctly. The description escapes my understanding. On the contrary, the filters were easier, but without meridians, I just can’t…”

“Who was the author?” Robert interrupted Xu Wong, leaning forward and finally taking a look at the name at the top of the scroll, written with awful calligraphy. The recognition was immediate, creating a frown on his face, “Okay, that dumbass was indeed bad with explanations. No wonder he got stuck at Core Formation in the end… Luckily for you, he wasn’t the only one who used this technique. Check the second shelf there,” Robert pointed at the distant corner, but before Xu Wong managed to stand up, he grabbed the hand of his apprentice, “But…”

“What, Master?”

“I have an offer to you, boy. I can create a cultivation technique that would be tailored specifically to your body… Possibly… At least I am sure it would be more powerful than anything you can find here…”

“Thank you, Master!” Almost dropping to his knees, Xu Wong deeply bowed with respect.

“Listen first, fool, before thanking me! It won’t be completely safe, and it will only range from the first to the fourth realm. However, from Nascent Soul and further it’s all about accumulating energy and nourishing your soul… You still will get a good foundation, which will increase your chances to advance and make your energy reserves better, but nothing else. But again, if something goes wrong you may explode from inside,” Robert warned, “This is not an exaggeration.”

“How certain are you in success?” After going silent for a dozen seconds, Xu Wong asked, making a serious expression for once.

“About seventy percent… I can already merge two different techniques, but I want to go further than that. I can’t see or sense any Qi, so I will need your help in explaining your feelings in detail. That’s all that I ask,” Rob’s reply was sincere. He didn’t want to force his idea onto the young man. Robert was sure that he would eventually make it even without outside help, but it was unwise not to use an opportunity to speed up things.

“I thought you were a cultivator, Master, just with a much higher realm to hide your Qi,” Xu Wong looked dumbfounded, “You are an Edler in sect…”.

“Haven’t you listened to my words, idiot? I literally told you from the beginning that I am not. You can think of me as a much more advanced puppet from the Ascension Tower that has the soul of a human, but I am unable to use any Qi at all. However, I’ve read everything here and managed to systemize it enough to be sure that I can make it better. Yes, there is a risk of death, but you, cultivators, are often in search of troubles just to get more power. So, tell me your decision? Are willing to take a risk or you better go to that shelf to fix your problems with Arm’s meridians?”

“I will risk… on one condition,” Xu Wong spoke with a light smile after a short pause, “You will stop shouting at me for calling you a master.”