In his crafting abode, Matt was looking through his system window. This would take a while, he had 220 people so he needed to make the same amount of battle robes, the thing with robes was that higher graded robes could be used by lower-level cultivators. While using higher-level weapons taxed their cultivation more while executing attacks, due to robes having mostly passive buffs.
Weapons past the common grade had a lot more spiritual energy in them, kind of a mind of their own. They would work against a cultivator if they weren't ready for it, so giving mortal grade weapons to the Qi condensation juniors wouldn't be such a good idea. But the robes, on the other hand, could be used for their passive enhancements.
*It's kind of strange, people in this world don't really pay attention to the armor side of gear... guess it is due to the body refining skills. They probably think that they don't need any more defense anyway.*
Matt wanted to give everyone a nice battle robe that would increase their defense and give them as many supplementary passive bonuses as possible. Luckily he wouldn't need to spend many points for this, as his clan had spent most of their spirit stones to procure the resources that he needed to fashion two hundred mortal grade robes and twenty earth grade robes for his people.
The biggest problem was the design, Matt didn't want any generic looking robe design, he wanted something cool. The color would be in the blue or azure as he wanted to keep the water theme going. He didn't want one of those baggy robes that a lot of xianxia people liked to wear, they were good for long sleeve swishing but got in the way of fighting. He was thinking about certain space wizards that liked to fight in robes as well, though theirs were a lot easier to move in and a lot cooler too look at. He went for the evil counterparts of them though, giving the robes a darker bluish hue.
After upgrading his abode he could edit or even create his own designs. For now, he choose a design that looked the closes for what he was going for. He added a hood to it so that the wearer could use it for more protection. He also thought about adding a mask, it would add more protection but it would limit the vision. But an evil space wizard without a mask didn't feel right, so he scanned through the building options and found something that let the user see just fine.
The helmet came out futuristic looking, it covered most of the head and the eyes were wide but narrow. By the mouth, you could see vent like openings that filtered the air, the headgear could be used as a gas mask. It had azure stream patterns etched into the shiny metal and the helmet was kind of skull-shaped. Due to the enchantments, the vision wasn't impaired and it would even help with the breathing.
*Maybe I should change my robe too, then shoot lightning out of my fingers, though I can already do that.*
Matt kind of laughed to himself as he was geeking out while fashioning his 'battle robe' for his clan members, the foundation establishment elders would get a version with a cape while the ordinary Qi condensation members would get ones without it. Also, the masks would be a little bit different to indicate a different rank.
*Guess it's time to dance as I've never danced before...*
He turned on the crafting contraption and heard a tune from his earth days, at least in here he could enjoy some music. These robes would all be mortal perfect grade, by this time he could do this without any worry. His reflexes had gone up with his increased cultivation, he had no problem in hitting all the right steps over and over again. The only problem was that he needed to repeat this procedure one hundred ninety-nine times.
While Zhang Dong had locked himself in his crafting abode and wouldn't come out before he had all the armor and weapons ready the other cultivators were diligently working on their progress. Zhang Zhi breathed in, his toned body was giving out a pungent smell as black sweat and blood were getting expelled. This was a common occurrence when you switched over to a good cultivating method, your body would be refined from the inside while disposing of the impurities that arose from previous techniques.
The man was quite stunned by the ingenuity of this new method that the patriarch had given him. He felt like a new world had opened up to him, he already managed to patch up any cracked pillars that he had blundered in creating. The new insights that were presented in the improved version of this technique let him progress at an increased rate as well.
"It's all so clear now!"
This new development made him look at the young Patriarch in a different light. Before he thought that man would bring them to ruin, the moment the dark palm sect appeared he vanished. He was at that banquet as well, he saw how this Patriarch behaved not knowing any decency while confronting the young master of a powerful sect. They were lucky as the young master didn't bother with any punishment, but that could have cost them dearly.
But now, he saw potential in him. Someone who could modify an old cultivation method on the fly had to be special. He either was a genius among geniuses or he had some kind of fortuitous encounter and managed to find an immortal legacy. Zhang Zhi was more prone to believe the latter.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"If someone can get us through this, it's him..."
He had made a decision, he would fully support this man in his future endeavors. If he got out of that expedition alive, then this clan could go even further. He also believed that maybe this man could get through the bottleneck that all the clans in the area were in, the bottleneck of the nascent soul. If Matt knew what this man was thinking he would probably buckle down under the pressure of his expectations.
But cultivators in this world weren't very difficult to figure out if you showed them some love they would repay you fully. The world was very cutthroat, everyone kept to themselves and daily battles for resources were common. People didn't receive charity often and when they did, they liked to do melodramatic things like swearing oaths of allegiance. Though not everyone was like that, as you would always find some snakes among them.
Things like this were happening back in the houses of the other clan members, each of them young or old was slowly reinforcing their cultivation base. Their bodies were getting cleared up from the imperfections while their foundation pillars increased, or got repaired. They were quite thankful to their young Patriarch that at this moment was moonwalking while thrusting his hips back and forth, in his crafting abode.
This act of improving techniques might have been easy to him thanks to his system, in reality, something like this required an unfathomable amount of knowledge. People could live for many hundreds of years and this was how far the old members of the clan brought their techniques too. Even if someone was able to improve something, most of the time they would keep it to themselves in the hopes of rising up. Most people didn't see a reason to share their hard work with others, they wanted to elevate themselves first. If they managed to do that, then if they had the time they would throw some scraps at the others.
Matt had a different mindset than these people, he would rather have more people uplift themselves together. He hoped that a domino effect would start and everyone would start improving together. But he knew well that it wasn't that easy, he would need to slowly change the mindset of these people. First, he would need to get past that dungeon, he already had something in mind for when they got back. He would introduce new institutions and laws, there would be more jobs for the common populace so there would be a lot of work ahead of them.
Time passed and Matt was finally out of his crafting chamber. He wobbled out and placed his hand on the nearby wall. His other hand was placed on his forehead, which he rubbed while giving out a loud sigh. He had to dance, not once, not twice, but over two hundred times. He even managed to fail a couple of times, which resulted in something of a lower grade.
"If I have to line dance one more time... think I'll vomit... what's wrong with those Americans?"
The thing about the dance dance revolution crafting was, that if you crafted the exact item over and over, it tended to use the same song. On this occasion, it was the country classic line dance. It wasn't all that difficult, but the longer he did it the more annoying it got.
"Well, at least when I was crafting the officer armor I got to listen to some MJ"
He looked into his spatial ring, he had all two hundred elite soldier robes in there along with the twenty officer robes. All of the robes had the Chinese symbol for the Zhang clan on them. If you looked at the robes and the masks, there was one word that came to mind, that word was 'edgy'. Even then, they were a lot more functional than the regular robes that the clan was using. The old ones were quite baggy and had long sleeves that got in the way.
Besides looking 'cool' the robes had more advantages. They were a lot more resistant, being able to tank a couple of good hits that were above the level of the person that was using them. The user could even pump in some spiritual energy for a greater temporary defensive buff. They had a function that helped the user collect ambient spiritual energy, it had buffs to water elements and various other stat boosts.
*Hm, should I get a mask for myself too... Eh, probably better to just get my body refining up for defense.*
*I don't know if I need to make those common grade weapons for the kids. The clan has a lot of those in stock, even the perfect grade ones. But the perfect grade mortal ones are a different thing, most of those got lost in the first expedition.*
He dived back into his crafting abode after massaging his legs, he had all stats for his officers, what type of weapon they liked and what type of skills they used. Luckily besides Zhang Zhi no one was using a weapon that wasn't fit for them, so they didn't need retraining. He wanted to try maxing out those advanced grades, he had a lot of cores to use up.
First, he made a sword for the man in question, this wasn't a long sword-like he used but a katana. There were many types of swords and bladed weapons to make, but after further examining the man's affinity he could see that he was suited for the weeb weapon of choice. He could already imagine the man doing quick draw techniques and bisecting people, their bodies slowly breaking into two parts while he looked into the distance.
*I got lucky that the sword technique manual was fit for katanas as well.*
Even though the weapons fit into a certain bracket, it didn't mean that a 'sword technique' could be used with any type of sword. It was different to wield a two-handed longsword than it was to use a broadsword, even though they both were considered swords. Luckily for our brainy Patriarch, the Zhang Clan technique was quite varied and could be used for swords that had a blade on one side. He would have to pay attention to things like this, otherwise, he would run out of points soon.
*Would be nice if I could modify more techniques as well... but... not enough time for that."
He packed his gear after he was finished, it was almost time to hand the items out along with the techniques that he upgraded. After this, he would lock himself in his chambers and cultivate till the late stage both in body and cultivation. He would have Zhang Jin and the others instruct the juniors, for now. He would probably take a while to advance as the closer he got to the late stage the slower the progress was.