“Is he…okay?” Tang Yulian carefully asked upon seeing Li Lang striding over with a strange grin on his face.

His gaze kept alternating between her and Sima Xue. The two young women were both familiar with yearning gazes from the opposite sex, but they noticed something was different about his gaze.

It was entirely devoid of lust, but they couldn’t put a word to what it was. The unknown intentions made Tang Yulian unsettled at having placed herself under the instruction of the young man before them.

In contrast, Sima Xue’s curiosity was piqued. She was just about to confront Li Lang to investigate when Wei Ping interjected on their behalf.

“B-boss, you’re here. I was j-just about to c-come get you.”

“Oh, good thing I came in time, then. I was in the trials just now, so you would’ve wasted a trip.”

Wei Ping’s eyes slightly widened upon hearing the news.

“H-how did it go?”

Li Lang simply smiled and nodded in response.

“So you passed?” Long Yi interjected. “Does that mean you’re finally going to do the martial trials now? It’s about time you suffered through what we all had to endure.”

The last sentence was spoken at a much lower volume, but Li Lang didn’t fail to pick up on it. He crossed his arms and grinned.

“Sorry to disappoint. I won’t be doing that just yet. I still have to digest my reward and go over Brushweaving with Tang Yulian and Sima Xue. Maybe I will gain some inspiration from the tutoring session to tackle the Brushweaving trial.”

“Didn’t you say inscribing a three-rune talisman is a feat that is only done by those in the Foundation Establishment realm?”

“Normally, yes. It’s not impossible, though. It’s just that it’s much easier to inscribe three runes on Earth-grade materials that normally people don’t attempt it with Mortal-grade materials. It is dangerous, with a high failure rate. If I ignore efficiency, it should still be possible if I put my mind to it.”

“I don’t really understand, but you do you. As long as the realm isn’t deducting points from you, all is good.”

At the mention of that, Li Lang fell into thought about the potential artifact spirits running this place. Everyone here was being monitored. If they were deemed to be making insufficient progress that day, they would lose a trial point. It was this system that forced him to do some of his research in reality. He wondered how they even evaluated adequate progress, and if they could assess the value of his less Qi-related research projects.

“Ahem,” everyone turned to find Sima Xue clearing her throat. “I believe we have an appointment today, right? Are you ready to get started?”

Her words caused Wei Ping and Long Yi to back away. They both wished Li Lang good luck before beating a hasty retreat off to the adjacent table.

“Yes, of course,” Li Lang replied. “Did you want to do it here?”

“That’s up to you. You’re in charge. Are you fine with being overheard by others?”

Li Lang took a quick look around. There were more groups spread around the mess hall now. With such an attention-grabbing group, it was difficult for the others to not have noticed them. This became even more true after Tang Yulian had broken through. She had gained many new fans, and her secret admirers could often be spotted in the background.

“Sure, I don’t mind. I can whisper if I need to, but I don’t really have any secret brushweaving techniques to keep. It’s not like I’m passing down my teacher’s technique to you or anything.”

“I hope not. You signed a binding contract, right? We just want guidance on how to inscribe overlaid runes.”

The three got settled at the table. Li Lang and Sima Xue chatted merrily while Tang Yulian watched on stoically.

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By coincidence, both girls practiced brushweaving. However, they were stuck on the third round of the trial. Overlapping runes was a complicated topic. There were just too many possible combinations that could go wrong.

There wasn’t just one reaction that happened consistently when you combined two runes. You had to take into account the different angles and the overlapped area, as just a few millimeters could drastically change the results. This caused there to be an uncountable number of possibilities.

It was a daunting topic for beginners, which also made it a challenging topic many struggled with. Not everyone had Ruby to safely test out the various reactions for them.

“So…Can you get straight to the point?” Tang Yulian asked. “How can we improve our success rate at inscribing overlaid runes?”

“Yulian!” Sima Xue clung to her friend. “We aren’t in that much of a rush, are we?”

“At the end of the day, the pocket realm is a timed event. We can’t stay here forever. I want to spend my time as efficiently as possible.”

Before the two could begin arguing, Li Lang interjected.

“I agree. Let’s try to go over all the key points quickly, so you can go practice. It’ll be more efficient for you guys to practice yourselves and come together to review. Let’s start by having you each inscribe something for me. I want to see how you do it.”

“There isn’t much to see, is there? We can’t reveal to you our techniques either, so shouldn’t we discuss the general principles behind overlaid runes?” Sima Xue countered.

“We can get to that later if this doesn’t work. For now, I just want to confirm the basics. It’s faster to show through action than to explain, right?”

“Okay, fine.”

The two girls nodded without suspecting too much, with Sima Xue taking the lead. Her tools materialized out of thin air and she got straight into it. Her possession of a space ring really cemented the fact she was a valued member of a prestigious organization.

Brushweaving in public wasn’t all that rare. It was typical for their competitions to proceed with an audience while they inscribed. The two soon completed their talisman.

Throughout the process, Li Lang carefully monitored every stroke. He also noticed both of them had their eyes entirely closed as they focused on channeling their energies.

It was a method he had often seen as brushweaving was said to be entirely in the Qi techniques.

“Do you want us to try doing an overlaid rune now?”

“Hmm, can you actually try to inscribe the same talisman you did just now?”

“What? Why?”

“I’ll explain it later. Knowing the reason may affect the results. Can you trust me on this one?”

“Well, it’s not that big a of deal, so why not? Are you okay with it, Yulian?”

Seeing the aloof expert nod, the two girls once again inscribed a talisman. Once they were done, Li Lang wordlessly snatched their work and compared it side by side. He scrutinized every last detail of it with his injection rod. That was because he had taken the liberty of turning it into a ruler as well.

The two girls curiously crept up behind him as they watched on in bewilderment.

“Is there something wrong with the talismans?” Tang Yulian couldn’t help but ask with a frown. “They should all be fully functional.”

“Oh, I have no doubts about that.”

The two girls waited a moment for Li Lang to continue, but he continued to ignore them and examined the talismans.

“Then what are you looking for?” Sima Xue pressed.

“Just the minute differences in each stroke.”

“You’re not even using Qi sense to inspect it?” Sima Xue blinked blankly. “The strokes look the same to me. Do small differences that you need to squint to see really matter?”

“Hmm, it depends. We can do a demonstration in a second. Just give me a moment here. Do you mind if I have these talismans?”

The two girls shrugged and gave consent, prompting Li Lang to get out of his seat. He moved away from view before having Ruby take the talismans. He didn’t need the auto-analyzer to be able to examine the visual difference between the two sets of talismans. There were other tools in his lab.

“So they really don’t focus on producing consistent strokes at all. Interesting…”

A moment later, Li Lang returned to the mess hall. The two girls didn’t waste a moment and began asking him to explain as he sat down.

“Before I go over the reason why I made you inscribe two talismans, I first wanted to confirm something. You both inscribe with your eyes closed normally, right?”

“Yeah. It’s what we were taught. As beginners, we should close off our minds to any distractions, or so they say.”

“Then my first advice to you. Practice your strokes. You want them to be as consistent as possible. I haven’t seen you inscribe any overlaid runes yet, but I think it’ll help you improve.”

“Why? My teacher told me it doesn’t really matter. We just have to make the Qi structure within the ink line up into the correct runes,” Sima Xue asked as she tilted her head.

“While what you say is true. It doesn’t change the fact that the ink is what carries the Qi. With overlaid runes that are so sensitive to any changes, having a consistent stroke will limit the ways the flow of Qi could go awry.”

Seeing them blink blankly, Li Lang began to give them a thorough explanation of his theory.