“What?! You can move the pocket realm!” The older woman, Zhu Yi, was visibly taken aback by Li Lang’s claims. “I see. This changes things, then. Apologies, please allow me some time to confer with our elders. Please feel free to wait on the first floor.”
The woman turned around along with her partner, Ma Kong. Then darkness consumed them within an instant. In the blink of an eye, they were gone.
An advanced movement technique. I should learn one soon, too. Hopefully, this trip to the Dark Sea Arena will allow me to chance across something nice. A large gathering of Foundation Establishment cultivators should at least have a few amazing techniques up for trade, right?
Heading into the former teahouse, Li Lang spotted several servants managing the place. They were all mortals, and they politely bowed toward him, but didn’t dare to stick around to converse with him. He found himself a seat at the table where he once saw Jian Beiyun operate a gambling ring.
In fact, this table was where he made his first pot of gold. He was able to abuse his ownership of the Crucible to profit from it by manipulating the bets. Thinking up to that point, he suddenly had the urge to move away lest he get exposed.
Wait, they only suspected I had ownership of the pocket realm before, but now that they confirmed it, they know I fixed the bets! Well, it wasn’t like I cheated Nightmoon Valley out of their money, though. They shouldn’t care, but I’m not going to bring it up just to be safe.
With doubts about his money lingering in the back of his mind, the couple, Zhu Yi and Ma Kong, returned. They were unaware of what was going through Li Lang’s mind and only thought he was acting nervous because of his recent big reveal. In their minds, it was a huge deal.
The Crucible, formerly known as The Great Trial of Water Crest, was a special artifact in the minds of all organizations within the Luminescent Domain. They may not know it was composed of three Spirit-grade artifacts, but they did know its capacity was enormous. It was the only known man-made artifact that simulated natural pocket realms.
Regular pocket realms were tears in the fabric of space that led to a different dimension. It was simply a doorway that connected point A to point B, with the former being this main world. This doorway couldn’t be moved.
The Crucible was different. It was essentially a space ring with shocking capacity and could contain living beings! The harm it could cause was enormous. Just the fact that organizations could smuggle their entire force while being almost undetectable rang the alarm bells.
“Li Lang, we’ve conferred with the Valley Master about your newfound control of the pocket realm. First, the Valley Master would like to express his gratitude for being so forthcoming with us. He is also overjoyed about your breakthrough.”
“He is too kind. Please give my regards to the Valley Master for me.”
“I will,” Zhu Yi said as she nodded. “Now about your trip to the Sword Saint Isle, we believe it would be too dangerous for you to venture out alone while in possession of a Spirit-grade artifact. We aren’t sure which organizations are still suspicious of you. With a gathering of so many Foundation Establishment cultivators from both the orthodox and demonic paths, anything could happen. That is why we hope you understand our concern and allow us to accompany you.”
As Li Lang expected, they openly asked to tag along.
“I understand. You’re welcome to join us.”
With the matter settled, the two parties set a date before Li Lang returned inside the Crucible to inform his companions.
He confirmed to all his students about their upcoming trip, and many of them once again made their desire to participate in the event known.
“The Dark Sea Arena is for cultivators in the Foundation Establishment Realm. However, I only plan to allow one of you to participate. We can’t let others know that we have so many young cultivators who have managed to step into the second major realm. For that same reason, all of you in the Foundation Establishment Realm can only spectate the event if you have mastered both the Wave Dampening Art and the Dissipating Technique.”
“The event starts in a month, right?” one of the disciples cried. “There’s not much time to master two techniques, then!”
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“That’s just how we’ll have to proceed. None of you want to be targeted by various organizations vying for our secrets, do you?”
The young cultivators were quickly silenced, as they had been properly educated about the consequences of an information leak. They knew exactly how great of an opportunity they were offered, and that it came along with some responsibilities. They were just complaining because having to master a technique within a month was just that unreasonable.
The two techniques were the fruit of Li Lang’s research, and it had only been completed for a few days.
The Wave Dampening Art satisfied the first half of what he set out to do: to mask the aura a cultivator gave off. It wasn’t the most difficult technique to learn, but maintaining it in a stable manner throughout the day required a lot of practice. For now, even the creator, Li Lang, could barely maintain it for a few hours.
As the name implied, it allowed its users to dampen the aura they gave off, disguising their cultivation to a lower level to any observers. This was achieved by identifying the location of gaps within the meridian channel where Qi escaped from the body and then applying the Ascension Technique in a manner that weakened the input, so the output would be affected as well.
Li Lang had managed to reduce the movement required to simple hand signs. It wasn’t perfect, but combined with a cloak to hide the subtle movements, it worked well enough for most purposes.
For the other half of his goal, which was to create an anti-divination technique, he resorted to creating a separate technique. That was because he realized the two objectives required different conditions to satisfy. One was to weaken Qi while the other was its complete erasure. The two objectives would only coincide if he planned to make a technique that eliminated any traces of Qi that his body gave off. That was too ambitious of a project for his limited experience in technique development and time.
In fact, he could already achieve an effect similar to an anti-divination technique by merit of his Primordial Star Fire alone. The heavenly flame could burn even Qi, but his goal was for his students to use this technique as well. With that goal in mind, he eventually developed the Dissipation Technique.
It was a simple technique, as energy efficiency wasn’t a consideration at all. The goal was simply to exhaust all Qi from the target, effectively removing any spiritual traces to achieve the anti-divination effect. It ran contrary to what technique development was all about; to create the most energy-efficient move.
“Enough questions for now. Just focus on your training. Your daily life won’t change much until we arrive at Sword Saint Isle. Only Teacher Long and Teacher Wei will be accompanying me outside the Crucible during our travels. You’re all dismissed!”
After satisfying his students’ curiosity, the trio retreated into Li Lang’s room by themselves to plan out their trip.
However, on their way there, Li Lang noticed Wei Ping’s doubtful expression despite the wooden mask shielding his face.
“What’s wrong, Wei Ping?”
“Umm—I h-have a request.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“C-can you have Xiao Dong or one of the other students replace me? I d-don’t see a reason why a mortal like me should a-accompany you over someone in the Foundation Establishment R-Realm.”
“What? Who cares about that? Those kids barely have any experience fighting with their life on the line. They barely know any techniques, too. It doesn’t matter how great their cultivation is if they can’t express it properly.”
“Xiao Dong h-has been working hard for the past few months. He’s p-prepared to even participate in the arena.”
“Regardless, they’re still too green to be relied on. You’ve trained for a lot longer than them. You have experience traveling solo as well. You’re much more suited for the job. Even if we got bodyguards from Nightmoon Valley, knowing what to do in an emergency makes it that much easier for them to protect us.”
“Li Lang is right,” Long Yi supported. “There’s no need to worry about it just because you haven’t broken through yet. In your case, it’s only a matter of time. You may very well be able to overcome your bottleneck during our travels.”
Hearing this, Wei Ping frowned.
“F-fine.”
Long Yi slapped his friend’s back heartily before quickening his pace. Li Lang could see still some hesitancy within Wei Ping, but after some thought, he went on ahead as well. There was only so much convincing he could do. Problems within one’s heart could only be solved by themselves. There wasn’t much else he could say.
The two knew Wei Ping to be a resilient man. To them, the matter was settled. The trio soon gathered in Li Lang’s room as they began to go over the details of their trip.
These plans involved how to approach all the different sects and organizations within Violet Isle. Now that they were no longer irrelevant mortals, it was time to carefully plot how to introduce themselves to the world. They slowly and surely set up the framework to create their own organization.
While they still lacked the qualification to establish anything respectable, it wasn’t considered improper for cultivators in the Foundation Establishment Realm to receive disciples. They also had various unique advantages, such as the Crucible. If they leveraged their advantages properly and established alliances, they could very well stand on their own two feet with their meager power.
It was only a matter of time until they properly introduced themselves to the entirety of Violet Isle.