“Blood masters,” Tian Zhi said, shuddering once they were out of the premises. “It’s so hard to get used to them, even after all this time.”
Cha Ming frowned. The man didn’t often talk about his past. “You mean there weren’t blood masters where you’re from?”
“Nope,” Tian Zhi said, shaking his head. “But this is the South. You do business with whoever pays you.”
“I understand,” Cha Ming said. “The Spirit Temple is one thing—it’s orderly and organized. But the blood masters… Well, let’s just say I don’t like the way they look at me. It’s like they think I’m food.”
Tian Zhi grunted. “They see everyone as food.”
A few hundred feet away from the monastery, they started flying back, much to the awe of the pedestrians below.
“Still, I’m concerned about the mental effects,” Cha Ming said. “They seemed to recover in the short term, but what about longer-term effects?”
Tian Zhi shrugged. “What can they complain about? They’re getting what they want, fast, and you warned them. Plus, I’m going to let our lawyers know to put in all sorts of indemnity language, as well as our recommendation of a pilot test. They’ll refuse it, so our rears will be contractually covered.”
“If you say so,” Cha Ming said begrudgingly. Inwardly, he smiled. After all, the runic diagram he’d supplied, while matching these blades exactly, was a flawed one. It wasn’t a matter of if they’d suffer mental backlash from using the blades, but when. Legal indemnity was one thing, but the loss of goodwill and reputation from such a blunder wasn’t insignificant. Likely, they’d come after him, the developer of the weapon, despite his warning.
Everything was going exactly according to plan. Just to be sure, he’d need to make an extra major “breakthrough” in the Breaker, if just to remind the Tian Zhi and Director Yong of his value when things went sideways.
Chapter 19: Progress
For the next three months, Cha Ming spent most of his time holed up in his private laboratory. There, he mostly secluded himself in the Clear Sky World, only making appearances when people visited. No one questioned his work ethic—after all, during this time, he made significant contributions to the Breaker, sometimes in areas outside his expertise with the occasional useful insight. And while he legitimately spent much of his time training his spiritual blacksmithing in the time-accelerated environment, most of his time was spent cultivating.
At least twelve hours a day—which corresponded to two and a half days inside the Clear Sky World—Cha Ming cultivated in seclusion. The gaseous qi in his core grew thick and pure, to the point where many would consider it high time for him to break through. Still, he didn’t take that extra step. Not only because of the commotion it would cause when someone broke through to the peak of core formation, but because of his high standards. He’d suffered from the negative effects of an unstable foundation before, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.
Cultivation. Crafting. Researching. Slowly but surely, he was building Zhou Li’s dream weapon. It was evident, given the purpose of the weapon, that it would be used to destroy large sections of a wall, allowing the Southern army to blast through the North’s fortified defenses and pour into their undefended lands.
Still, he built it. Not only to keep up his disguise, but because with each advancement, he introduced flaws to the project. These flaws wouldn’t do much on their own, but when the final product was assembled, they would combine into a much greater one. A catastrophic one. Ironically, sabotaging Zhou Li had become the least of his worries.
“Are you sure these runic components should align that way?” Shao Qiang asked as he traced runic ink on the core.
“I can’t say for sure,” Cha Ming said, frowning. “But look at the energy conduits here. Surely pushing the energy flow through these soothing runes as they cycle back to the core would lead to a reduced loss of power. Power conserved is power gained, right?”
“I suppose,” Shao Qiang said, painting the runes. Not only was Shao Qiang a seer, he was also a runic artist who had studied in Haijing several decades ago. He’d returned to the South with an elder-level mastery of formations. Unfortunately, that was far from enough for him to detect the trap Cha Ming encouraged him to lay one insight or suggestion at a time. At most, some of the changes he suggested would seem superfluous.
It was difficult to argue with results, and as far as Cha Ming knew, a deadline was approaching. He’d heard it in passing several times, but no one was sure about the exact date. All everyone knew was that the deadline kept creeping closer and closer. Everyone scrambled, in case next month was the last month allotted for their very important project.
“It’s still not powerful enough,” Cha Ming muttered. “We need a purer energy source.”
“He Yin is working on it,” Shao Qiang said. “All we can do is affect distribution and deployment. Power sources are alchemy based, no matter how you look at it. We can use runes to improve them, sure, but it still all comes down to basic reagents.”
Cha Ming didn’t correct him. In a month or so, he would slip some sort of inspiration to He Yin. He had a knack for it, something everyone had quickly realized during his time in the group. Everyone would invite him for coffee or tea, and sometimes invite him to restaurants. He often refused, using the latest project he was working on as an excuse. Despite his frequent refusals, they kept coming back. This both pleased and bothered him. On the one hand, it made them easy to manipulate. On the other, he felt increasingly uneasy due to their growing friendship. What he was planning would hurt them greatly, and there was little he could do about it.
“Let’s call it a day,” Shao Qiang, said, noticing the change in his
