Chapter 134: Hard Labor
“Come, over here. Carry everything over!” Tang Siqi called out.
She wore a rosy-red, tight-skinned, long skirt, and it perfectly outlined the wondrous curves of her attractive body. The three Armament Sect outer sect disciples watching her from the back nearly shot fire from their eyes.
Those three outer sect disciples were carrying over two large boxes of bones to the front door of Qin Lie’s stone tower.
“You may leave.” Tang Siqi waved her hands and sent the three reluctant outer sect disciples away. Then, she yelled out loudly, “Number two hundred and thirty! Number two hundred and thirty!”
“She’s calling for you.” Yi Yuan laughed gloatingly inside the stone tower. “I knew she was about to show up.”
Qin Lie frowned and helplessly left. He returned to his own stone tower.
There were two big boxes in front of the entrance of the stone tower. The boxes were filled with gray-white bones. Many of the bones were smooth, white, and clean, but there were also some that had rotted—gray-white on the surface but glowing with a faint, phosphorous light.
“Help me grind down these bones into dust. It has to be thinner than fine sand. Half a kilogram of bone dust will be worth a single contribution point.”
Tang Siqi looked smilingly at him with ill intentions in her eyes. “You have five days to complete the task. If you exceed that time, then it will be considered a failure, and you will not… get a single contribution point. Yep, better watch out, I’ll be back in five days.” Once finished, she giggled and left cheerfully.
With a scowl, Qin Lie carried the two big boxes back to the stone tower and, after pausing a moment, got to work.
Bone dust was a commonly used spirit material. It could be fused into the interior of many artifacts and was used to enhance the compatibility of artifacts. It made a lot of special artifacts harder.
In addition, bone dust could also be merged into spirit armor and increase its defense. It could even be used to make medicine…
Qin Lie knew that his days in Armament Sect would definitely not be calm ever since he offended Tang Siqi three days ago and had mentally prepared himself a while back. Thus, he conscientiously worked with the tools he had to break the bones and grind them into dust with a grinder. Then, he loaded the end product into a wooden barrel.
“Zzt!”
A phosphorous spark flew out from a bone and landed on the back of his hand. Part of the back of his hand painfully and suddenly decayed.
The stench of the phosphorous fire spread out inside the small workshop, and after sniffing it a few times, Qin Lie’s expression turned slightly pale. He felt upset and could not calm down any longer.
“It stinks way too badly at my place so I came here to rest and take a look at what you’re working at.” Sometime in the evening, Yi Yuan barged into Qin Lie’s stone tower with an ungodly stench, speaking while checking out Qin Lie’s task. “Grinding bone dust? This is far simpler than what I have, doesn’t look like Tang Siqi mistreated you, did she?”
“Look closer!” Qin Lie said chillingly.
Yi Yuan walked up and focused his attention on Qin Lie’s two arms. He noticed that there were many bloody wounds there. The back of his hands and his palms—they had all been corroded by phosphorous fire.
“Phosphorous poison?” Yi Yuan’s expression changed.
Qin Lie nodded.
Yi Yuan’s expression turned ugly. “From the looks of it, part of the bones came from a place with strong dark energy, and they must have been there for quite some time for phosphorous poison to form inside the bones. The corrosiveness of phosphorous poison is incredibly strong. If they spilled onto the human body, then your skin would fester on the spot. Moreover, the smell of phosphorous poison makes it easier for someone to become… upset or even incite a fiendish rebound. It causes people to lose control over their minds…”
He sucked in a deep breath. “It looks like your work is even trickier than mine.”
After a pause Yi Yuan nodded once and said again, “…It’s not really a surprise. You nearly burned Tang Siqi’s entire dress in front of a hundred people, and even though she obviously hates you, she had no choice but to hug you tightly. It may be Tang Siqi’s most embarrassing moment in her life. If she actually let you off easy, then something would be truly amiss.”
“Do we have to listen to their every instruction?” Qin Lie asked coldly.
“They’re the disciples from the inner sect, and… they even went out of their way to choose you and me as assistants. According to the rules of Armament Sect, we actually do have to listen to their every order.” Yi Yuan smiled bitterly. “Unless you and I can become inner sect disciples and share the same status as them, then we will not need to listen to their orders.”
“How do you become an inner sect disciple?” Qin Lie asked again.
“You need to be acknowledged by the elders of the inner sect, prove that you have the talent to become a powerful artificer, and show your potential in artificing…” Yi Yuan smiled while looking at Qin Lie. “Of course, there is also the easiest method and fastest shortcut.”
“Which is?”
“If you can gain something from the twelve spirit pattern pillars and incite a reaction from anyone of them… then you can immediately enter the inner sect and even acquire the acknowledgement of all important characters within the inner sect. They will treat you as Armament Sect’s future!”
“Spirit pattern pillars…”
“Hehe, I’m just saying that for the heck of it, you don’t have to take it seriously. For the past thirty years, Mo Hai and Tang Siqi were the only ones to have gained something from the spirit pattern pillars. Every day, there are Armament Sect disciples who attempt to gain something from the spirit pattern pillars, but in the end, they are just wasting their time. Without talent or exceptional potential, don’t even bother dreaming about acquiring a great opportunity from the spirit pattern pillars.
Not caring about the ungodly stench on his body, Yi Yuan sat down on his own, and consoled Qin Lie, “Just bear it for the moment. Those two women are just pissed off for now which is why they took it out on us. Once they’ve calmed down, they won’t continue to make our lives difficult any longer.”
Qin Lie kept quiet. In his head, the profound ice picture scroll appeared again and an idea regarding those twelve spirit pattern pillars came to mind.
Half a year ago, after he had successfully inscribed the Spirit Storage, Spirit Gathering, Amplification, and Strengthening Diagrams, he could vaguely feel that the Soul Suppressing Orb’s second door was about to be unsealed. He felt that he would be able to break through the seal very soon and uncover the world behind it.
However, the frost picture scroll that had evolved from the frost concept had suddenly turned into a diagram in that world, and the door that was about to be opened seemed to be sealed tight yet again.
It was as if he would only be able to get through to the next area by completely learning the essence of the frost picture scroll and all of the diagrams and pictures in this world.
“The frost picture is very similar to the twelve spirit diagrams. If I can comprehend the essence of the frost picture, then maybe I can understand the diagram inscribed on the twelve spirit pattern pillars as well. Then, I can easily enter the Armament Sect’s inner sect,” Qin Lie inwardly thought as he decided to spend more effort on comprehending the frost picture.
“C’mon, let’s go and get something to eat. I’m starving,” Yi Yuan suddenly said after nagging for a moment.
“Does eating require contribution points?” Qin Lie came to.
“Not really. Heh, of course it’s their responsibility to provide food and housing.” Yi Yuan gave a cool smile and pulled Qin Lie outside. “Just follow me. I know where the dining hall is. If the two of us go in together, then I guarantee that, whether they be human or god, they will stay away.”
He made it clear that he had no intentions of bathing or changing his clothes, and he did not allow Qin Lie to clear the smell of phosphorous poison from his body either. The two gods of plagues then rushed to the dining hall together.
There was the ungodly stench of spirit beast bile on Yi Yuan’s body, and Qin Lie’s arms were still riddled with the bloody wounds corroded by the phosphorous poison which was a kind of sour stench on its own. When the two headed into the dining hall, every Armament Sect martial practitioner who met them covered their noses and escaped far, far away in disgust.
When the duo arrived at Armament Sect’s dining hall, the dining hall, which originally had the smell of food, immediately became enveloped by a terrible stink.
“Dammit, who the fuck fell into a shithole and came in without washing themselves?” The disciples eating inside the dining hall abruptly shot up from their seats, covered their noses and broke into loud curses.
“It’s that number ninety-seven from that day! And number two hundred and thirty!” The person’s face chilled as he cried out, “My seniors brothers, these two are the perverted bastards who insulted Senior Sister Tang and Senior Sister Lian Rou, and that number two hundred and thirty even touched Senior Sister Tang with his evil claws. They should die ten thousand times over!”
“Dammit, so it’s those two bastards!”
“As expected, they look just as shitty as the shit on them. These two fuckers must have come here on purpose to ambush us. They’re planning to kill us with their stench!”
“Teach them a lesson!”
“They have been an eyesore since a long ago!”
Seven or eight Armament Sect outer sect disciples rolled up their sleeves and angrily rushed over. Spirit energy surged from their bodies even as the random assortment of spirit artifacts swung down beforehand.
“Ding ling ling!”
The sweet sound of a bell rang, and sparks of cold light appeared from the sky. When examined closely, one would discover that these star-like cold lights came from metal sheets about the size of a fingernail.
These metal sheets were sharpened razor-thin. Cold light glittered off of them, and the spirit energy wave the sheets emanated was not weak at all.
“Bang bang!”
Once the metal sheets flew over and landed on the stone table, the stones had exploded upon impact. It took only one glance to know that its power was impressive.
Qin Lie weighed the odds in his heart, and just when he was hesitating about whether he should use Heavenly Thunder Eradication or not, Yi Yuan abruptly stepped forwards and coolly opened an umbrella.
The umbrella enveloped both him and Qin Lie as the metal sheets fell like show and shot at the umbrella’s surface. Sparks flew ignited upon contact.
Yi Yuan let out a gentle smile on his face, but there was now a sharpness in his eyes as he softly said to Qin Lie, “It’s likely that all of the outer sect disciples have a bone to pick with us. If we don’t display some of our strength, then we may face an endless wave of nuisances in Armament Sect.”
Once he finished speaking, Yi Yuan turned the handle as rays of purple light suddenly shot from the sides of the umbrella.
The purple light was like a sword beam or an arrow, shooting in every direction and causing the Armament Sect disciples’ expressions to immediately shift. At once, they put on some fine spirit armor, and it only took a glance to realize that many of these sets of armor were of extraordinary quality. They were of much better compared to Dark Asura Hall’s Beastskin Armor.
However, the moment they were struck by the purple light, the Armament Sect disciples still staggered backwards and turned pale.
After three people of slightly lower realms were struck dead center in their chest by the purple light, there were obvious cracks on their spirit armor. There was even blood at the corner of their lips.
Qin Lie was right under the umbrella. He could see how the spirit energy inside the umbrella flowed when Yi Yuan spun the handle and felt that Yi Yuan’s aura had changed out of nowhere. It was a wave that was as wide and dangerous as the sea.
“The late stage of the Natal Opening Realm and nine Natal Palaces. This Yi Yuan… is not simple.” Qin Lie was moved on the inside.
“We are all Armament Sect’s outer sect disciples. Why must we fight and kill each other. Isn’t it nicer to just hang out together peacefully?” Yi Yuan’s smile was brilliant as he looked at those injured outer sect disciples and said, “I personally do not like to fight, but I also dislike it when someone has it out for me. So please restrain yourself in the future, or I may not always hold back in the future.”
“How boastful!” While Yi Yuan threatened the crowd, a roar came from outside the dining hall as a figure burst into the fray.