Yu Gan strolled across the various halls before crossing courtyards to one that connected to a large heavy-looking metal pavilion; immense heat and the smell of burning metal could be felt. Yu Gan entered revealing a huge room in the centre was a large furnace with racks of weapon and armor moulds spread out. In one corner a large workbench with a huge vice sat beside open books and loose papers.
He shut the door and ran over to his desk excitedly. Once Yu Gan had entered his work shop he could be far more unrestrained - playing a senior elder figure was extremely tiring. He retrieved a small thick wooden crib and placed it on the desk and gently lowered Yu Jiao in. The crib was filled with plenty of cushioning from animal furs. He placed Yu Jiao inside to keep her safe from the heat, before setting to work.
As Yu Jiao walked her father work feverishly, she felt touched at his love of the craft. It was truly rare that she could find a somewhat decent man who only cared for his craft and family.
In between hammer blows against the anvil Yu Jiao was constantly trying to calculate the force against the ingots her father used through sight and the tremors.
Jason’s enhancements meant she could feel vibrations with much greater sensitivity, and she was able to slow down her relative time through consciously focusing. Yet what she could perceive astonished her: her father with each blow could make the entire pavilion shake, yet the ingots barely warped at all. However sat in her crib she could not analyse anything.
“Wahh wwaaaah” Yu Jiao began crying, shaking her head inside - here she, a world renowned scientist was resorting to crying to get attention.
Hearing her cries, Yu Gan stopped mid-strike and dashed over, when he did he picked up the crib and consoling his crying child. She stopped then began pointing to the various ingots stacks in one corner. His eye’s lit up
“Oh? Do you want to play with the ingots?” He asked teasingly. Seeing Jade’s continued points he picked up an armful of various ores and metal ingots before sitting Yu Jiao up in her crib and showing each one individually.
“This is Dharstic ore” he said, presenting a grey coarse rock with speckles of dark brown inside. “It’s a very flexible metal used for light armor. It’s not a treasure ore but the City guards armor is all made from this so it’s always in high demand. “This here is a Xarxus ingot, a very useful metal for weapon guards, its very resilient but very heavy so rarely is a whole weapon made purely out of it…”
Towards the end he picked up a small blue-green diamond in a box. In a hushed voice he said excitedly “This is my favourite - it was because of this that I met your mother. It’s a blue star diamond, an extremely valuable material that can hold class eight inscriptions and higher such as a space compression inscription. However I am merely a class six inscriptionist.” He said, lamenting with a sad look.
After Yu Jiao had picked them all up, looked them over and (unbeknownst to her father) licked them all; she had gone silent and resumed feigning sleep.
By re-wiring her arm’s biology to be able to emit electrical impulses as well as send signals back up to the brain, it can be used like a sonar on an extreme level. Needless to say, Jason’s readings were in depth. Her tongue similarly had been enhanced. Thousands of individual sections could react differently to things she tasted yielding a more perfect analysis than just sweet, dry or salty.
Through this endeavour she had gained much information that Jason had stored. She had even deduced that they all had varying amounts of qi inside - with the better materials having more qi inside regardless of differing atomic structures and elemental compositions.
In fact the structures and elemental compositions made absolutely no sense. By her estimates the ingots should have been shattered or flattened from much smaller amounts of the energy received. Furthermore due to the qi invading the material, the individual atoms had also undergone mutations.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Jason Create a new database titled materials and deposit your readings there under sub sections of ingots or gems as needed. Include the qi and element compositions as well as the molecular structure; record any mutations in a further database for analysis. Understanding how this qi affects this world is critical.”
*Yes Ma’am*
Jade sat back contented, looking forward to the results. She yearned to be able to be up and moving, to explore this world as there were so many new mysteries that could be discovered. She ignored her working father until he came over with a one handed sword.
He locked the sword in a vice and placed his palm on the wall in front of the desk whilst looking over at Yu Jiao with a childish smile: “watch this”.
A small light passed through his palm into the wall, causing all the rocks over the desk to light up brightly; Yu Jiao laughed inside thinking “at least they’re practical and not completely primitive”.
“They’re called glow stones; you can insert your qi into them and they light up; they’re fairly common but I managed to create a small looping inscription that when placed on them stops them from leaking out qi into buildings so much.” He explained with pride and glee, “now they’re far more usable and a bit more valuable; it was due to this that I got the attention of the old clan master”.
Yu Gan opened a drawer in the desk and removed a bundle of blank scrolls inside before stacking them on top one another. He took a deep breath and his eyes suddenly changed to those deep in focus before turning towards Yu Jiao and patting her head lovingly whilst putting his index finger over his lips; “Father must make the inscription now ok; so help father and be veeeeery quiet for me”.
He turned to look back towards his stack of scrolls and placed one out in front of him. His right index finger was raised and suddenly began glowing grey as it was pressed against the scroll. His finger moved astonishingly fast as he created tiny ruins on the paper feverishly; this continued for an hour before he stopped inscribing. He was panting, sweaty and exhausted.
After catching his breath he looked over towards the wide eyed Yu Jiao, before laughing loudly at her little face’s expression before explaining: “This sword is a gift for the city lord’s 2nd son for his 13th birthday; a fine and just warrior who studies a lightning sword art. Thus I created an inscription for qi storage and thunder sparks to go with the lightning attribute sword. You’re my lucky charm Jiao’er, normally I would have failed 2 times as it was a grade four inscription; creating inscriptions has a certain element of luck to it”.
He lifted the scroll from the bench and placed it beside the sword in the vice; his hands illuminated again in grey, but this time whipped back forming a small grey dome. Yu Gan’s palms slid under the paper dissolving it as the inscription itself was sealed in the dome and then pressed against the sword. The runes began slowly wrapping around and shrinking into the sword; the sword slowly changed colour to a deep royal violet.
Seeing that the most interesting parts were over; Yu Jiao went back to sleep - leaving her further development to Jason. After creating a sheath for the newly created gift; Yu Gan carried his daughter back across the pavilions and courtyards to the tired but loving arms of the still-weak Yu Xue.
Kneeling down beside his beloved’s bed, Yu Gan couldn’t help himself staring at the tranquil scene of mother and daughter lying together in peace. He eventually snapped himself back to reality;
“How do you feel? Have there been any changes?”
Yu Xue turned her head slowly, gazing into his eyes, a slight smile appearing on her thin lips “Dear, you ask me everyday; are you in that much of a rush to get rid of me?” Her reply was tired and slightly hoarse but her tongue was as sharp as always.
“No no! I wouldn’t dare… have you considered the request of the clan master yet? He continues to press me for an answer.” Yu Gan sighed in exasperation.
“No decent parent would ever want their child to be used for only political gain; she’s not even a year old - she has no idea about her own path in life. I feel it’s cruel to arrange a marriage that she has no say in - regardless if they are the descendant of the city lord family.”
Yu Gan’s position in the clan lead to many privileges; but that was only due to the desire for his services; the Yu clan’s monopolisation of his services made him a chess piece of considerable value both financially and politically. A spiritsmith was a position of considerable influence in Bluecloud city. Any influential family would try and forge some good relations with them - even the city lord’s Zhang family would be no exception. However any rash movements could lead to surging undercurrents in the current balance of power held in the city.