As they had planned, the trio were able to return to the mountain before night fell.

While they were scheduled to meet up with their peers in the mess hall, Li Lang headed straight for his chambers instead.

Long Yi and Wei Ping could only shake their heads at their friend’s antics, as they gathered their thoughts on how they would explain to their other acquaintances.

It didn’t take long for Li Lang to return to his chambers, where he immediately delved into Ruby’s artifact space.

“How much longer until the analysis of the sap is done?”

“The first batch is already done, master!”

“If it’s that fast, then the Qi must not be that strong. Well, that’s fine as well.”

Li Lang nodded to himself before heading over to the auto-analyzer to throw in the next batch of sap. The first one analyzed was the light blue one, and there were several other colors waiting to be examined as well.

He then headed over to his computer and began going over the results. A frown slowly formed on his face. Once he had read through everything, he materialized a sample into his hands, so he could inspect it visually.

“Strange. It doesn’t have anything that should make it take on this color. Is it the effects of the Qi?”

That question was answered once the second batch of sap was analyzed. It revealed almost identical makeup to the first. This caused Li Lang to view the material with even more scrutiny.

However, there was only so much he could glean from eyeballing it, so he soon began to use the sap in a round of inscribing. As he had done with the ink sticks, Li Lang began to infuse his Qi into it. It was likely he had to mix it with several other ingredients to form a proper ink, but a quick test with just the sap was enough for now.

His mentor, Yi Lin, had warned him of the increased difficulty of infusing Qi into liquid compared to solids. He experienced firsthand how true those words were. It was like the ink was slipping through his hands every time he tried to grasp it. It was much more straightforward when it was with something solid. With liquids, he had to worry if he had evenly infused it as well.

It took some time, but he eventually completed the task of preparing the ink. Next came the usual. He materialized some talisman paper and his brushweaving tools and got to it.

He started off with the simplest talismans, one that only emitted light.

When he began channeling his brushweaving techniques to transform his Qi into the runes, he surprisingly found that it had become a lot more arduous all of a sudden. It felt like he was trying to inscribe in mud. His movements were dull, and the flow of Qi was murky.

It made the entire inscription process last twice as long as usual. Even when he was done, Li Lang didn’t hide his displeasure upon seeing the finished product. As a brushweaver with some experience now, he could intuitively tell the quality of his own work.

His gut feeling told him that the new talisman he produced was subpar compared to his usual light talismans. He didn’t hesitate and actuated it to confirm his suspicions.

A soft, blue glow began to radiate from the talisman. The luminosity was noticeably dimmer. It also abruptly went out after only two seconds.

“Ruby, do you have any idea as to what went wrong? I don’t think I screwed up in any part of the process.”

“Master, I’m not sure either, but I think it’s just because of the material you used. It didn’t conduct the Qi that well.”

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Li Lang was just gathering different perspectives from a third party. Now that he was in another world, he no longer had other experts to consult with. It was a huge drawback for any researcher to lose access to the greater scientific community. Humans strived in numbers. One mind was sure to miss a few things and could only specialize in a limited range.

So it should be as I suspected. Let me do a few more tests and then try again with different talismans.

Like this, Li Lang inadvertently worked late into the night. He created new talismans with the blue ink and kept comparing the results. It was only when he performed dozens of attempts that he observed something irregular.

So far, all his tests have shown that the efficiency of this new ink was much worse compared to the usual ink. Li Lang believed it had something to do with the lack of preparation, using just the sap alone, but a different underlying cause should be present as well.

Those suspicions were confirmed when he attempted to inscribe a basic talisman of the water element.

As soon as his Moon Brush touched the talisman paper, he suddenly felt the flow of Qi break out like a dam. Everything had become smooth all of a sudden. Even the delicate part of the runes could be completed with ease, at record speed.

It was no surprise to Li Lang when he examined the effect of the completed product itself. The water talisman he had freshly inscribed produced over sixty percent more water than usual.

It seems like the blue tree sap is more conducive to the water element. No wonder, since my Vein Flow Calculation Method told me it’s rich in water Qi. While my auto-analyzer can’t make much out of the Qi aspect, thankfully I gained another avenue of analysis.

With the discovery, Li Lang was eager to see if those results were consistent with the saps of other colors. He examined them and found that the only difference was the element of Qi it contained.

Just like with the water talisman, he discovered that tree sap-turned-ink declined in performance when used for runes that were not affiliated with their elemental affinity. In turn, that meant it prospered when the conditions were right.

“This is just what I needed! If I am right, this shows that usual inks can carry all elementals, which makes it the most flexible all-rounder. These tree saps become ink that can mostly carry only their respective elemental Qi, refusing to hold other types. In theory, that should mean it contains less overall Qi as well!”

This discovery was very relevant to the issue Li Lang faced. To clear the next brushweaving trial, he needed to inscribe a three-rune talisman. The main challenge of that was the need for Earth-grade talisman paper to be able to hold all the Qi that the task entailed.

With the discovery of how the mechanics of Qi ink worked, Li Lang began getting several ideas. The most obvious one was that these element-locked ink took up less ‘bandwidth’ than their all-rounder counterpart. It shed the extra baggage of all other types of Qi, except one. This meant he could make do with Mortal-grade talisman paper that had a lower capacity.

Nevertheless, Li Lang wasn’t foolish enough to jump straight to attempting the three rune talismans. He wanted to document the various properties of this new ink, and then experiment with combining other materials to make a more refined version of it.

After all, the viscosity of tree sap made it clunky to handle, and he wasn’t sure how long it would adhere to the talisman paper, either.

Like this, Li Lang became obsessed with his new research for the next month. Each day he holed in the artifact space meant a trial point lost.

It was only when he ran out of materials to combine with the tree sap that he stopped. Following his theory, he mainly combined the tree sap with materials of similar elements. When he tried combining opposing elements, he found that they would refuse to mix together, like oil and water.

There’s a lot more potential to be explored, but I’ve used up enough of my trial points. It’s time to let up on it a little.

Just because he finally took a break from the artifact space didn’t mean he stopped with his research. Back in reality, he completed his usual training and satisfied the pocket realm before beginning his attempts at a three-rune talisman for real.

He had to make use of Ruby for that because he didn’t have unlimited materials, nor would he want to risk inscribing such powerful talismans in reality. The more Qi a talisman contained, the more dangerous it was when the inscription failed.

The amount of Qi that bordered on the maximum a Mortal-grade material could hold would prove to be deadly to someone only in the sixth stage of Energy Gathering.

More time passed, and two months passed after he had attained the tree saps. After countless hours of experimenting and practicing, Li Lang successfully used the tree sap to create a new type of ink. Using this ink, he managed to inscribe a three-rune talisman within his lab.

It’s about time I earn some trial points back. I should check out the others before I jump into the trials. I also need to procure the materials I’ve used here and test them out in reality first.

With those thoughts, Li Lang exited his room.