Cha Ming nodded absently. The last plot of land was more an open yard than anything else. It contained a squat but sturdy building. Piles of materials lay within fenced areas on the open ground.
“I take it that’s the storehouse?” Cha Ming said.
Tian Zhi nodded. “That’s right. If you need any materials, ask them, and they’ll fetch them for you. If you need anything special, ask me directly, and I’ll get them from the vault upstairs.”
“All right,” Cha Ming said. “Any orders or assignments?” Pai Xiao would be eager to learn, but he was an employee after all.
Tian Zhi snorted. “Don’t bother trying to hide it. You want to shore up what you know and dig into our precious library.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide it, Boss Tian,” Cha Ming said. “I’m just aware that I need to devote a certain amount of time to special projects. You might also have a direction you’d like me to focus my studies on.”
Tian Zhi nodded. “Like everyone else, you’ll be assigned to reconciliation duty for three months.”
“Reconciliation duty?” Cha Ming asked, confused. Was he supposed to apologize to someone on his first day?
“We want productive employees, not distracted ones,” Tian Zhi said. “That applies doubly so for research and development staff. If you’re distracted by what’s out there, you’re not doing anyone any good. That’s why we have all new employees focus on shoring up their lower-level knowledge. Your assignment is to review the material in the library and propose corrections to it. You can verify anything you like by using a workshop, and the materials will be supplied free of charge. Each of your proposed corrections will be evaluated. Any successful corrections will be rewarded based on your contract rates. Bear in mind that any incorrect corrections proposed, though you won’t be punished directly for them, will make me very grumpy. And the last thing you want is a grumpy boss.”
“All right, then,” Cha Ming said. “I don’t suppose I have to go back to my residence every night?”
Tian Zhi smirked. “Though you’re not supposed to use them for frivolous reasons, people have been known to sleep in the workshops. It’s technically against the rules, but who am I to blame a man for working himself to exhaustion and collapsing inside a lab?”
They exchanged a few more pleasantries before Cha Ming went directly to the library. He wouldn’t read only to learn, but also to unlearn. If he exposed too much knowledge, the cover he’d spent months carefully crafting would be gone in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 16: Standing Out
Time flowed like a river. In the first month, Cha Ming read every single book on spiritual blacksmithing in the library. Though the contents weren’t as thorough as the ones he’d been privy to in Haijing, they provided a solid foundation for anyone who wanted to climb to higher ranks in the South.
While Cha Ming was only a fire-and-gold cultivator on the surface, cultivating two types of qi and using them to refine his body, spiritual blacksmithing wasn’t limited to only these elements. In the Blackthorn Conglomerate’s library, he “learned” of elemental wood, which could be used to better forge certain metals. This opened up a whole new world of possibilities to Pai Xiao.
At first, Pai Xiao was clumsy—and so was Cha Ming, as he’d grown used to using Grandmist flames for alchemical purposes and an orange flame for smithing—but soon enough, he got the gist of it. Using these new flames as inspiration, he solidified Pai Xiao’s base, verifying it through key experiments. By doing so, he left a paper trail of Pai Xiao’s incredible rate of learning.
After quickly fixing his mortal-grade fundamentals, Cha Ming skipped correcting any mistakes in their basic knowledge and proceeded directly to magic-grade smithing. There, he found countless holes waiting to be filled. To avoid suspicion, however, he was very selective about which knowledge he supplemented. An inspiration here, noticing a flaw there; the challenge of making himself look outstanding but not overtly suspicious was a refreshing activity.
His amendments to the knowledgebase completed, Cha Ming proceeded to improve some core smithing techniques. Though he was worried about divulging too much knowledge to the South, he needed to demonstrate a drive for profit and innovation. Besides, there wouldn’t be much left of the Wang family after he was done here. The competitive scene in the Southern Alliance meant the knowledge was unlikely to spread very far.
Cha Ming’s second month was both productive and profitable. Therefore, in his third month, he took a more relaxed approach. He alternated between cultivating in the Clear Sky World and consolidating his demonstrated knowledge with the patchy framework the grandmaster spiritual blacksmiths of the Blackthorn Conglomerate had cobbled together.
With the rest of his time, Cha Ming created and tested dozens of new products. Being a researcher, he had full access to the Blackthorn Conglomerate’s catalogue and capabilities. Using his skill as a formation artist, he filled some gaps in their armaments—mostly utility treasures. He hoped it was enough. His target wasn’t to become a normal product developer; it was to join the team developing a specific weapon. Only then would he be able to ruin Zhou Li’s plan. Incidentally, that would leave the Wang family’s reputation in tatters.
“It’s an interesting-looking device,” Tian Zhi said, unimpressed. He sat at a small desk in Cha Ming’s laboratory, fiddling with the metallic emerald fan inscribed with a wind-element runic pattern. “But it’s not very lethal, is it?”
“Lethal products aren’t the only useful ones,” Cha Ming said. He pressed a set of runes, and a few dozen mannequins rose from the floor. Each one was a mobile puppet, something the South excelled in crafting. Not only were they useful cannon fodder, but they were also good test subjects. Live specimens were good and all—cheap too—but their physiques were too variable for standardized tests. So in an ironic twist of fate, the
