Translator: TheBrokenPen
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
Being no stranger to making purchases from the Vault of Providence, Lu Ye knew exactly how to quickly find what he needed.
He stood in the middle of the Vault, fenced in by a labyrinth of shelves and racks each filled to the gunnels with myriads of different Spirit Artifacts.
There were just so many types of Spirit Artifacts that the sheer number of selections could satisfy anything that a Cultivator could ever need.
The Spirit Artifacts used for Telekinesis and weapons for real combat had real differences, according to Shui Yuan. The former required at least three types of enchantments for Telekinesis to work properly: Spirit Bank, Reinforcement, and Sharpening.
The Spirit Bank enchantment was to ensure a Telekinesis’s duration.
Without this enchantment, a Cultivator’s Spiritual Power would quickly leak away over time, just like Inviolable would lose all of Lu Ye’s Spiritual Power after only just minutes of using Telekinesis.
Reinforcement and Sharpening enchantments, on the other hand, were very common types of Spirit Artifact enchantments. The former was to ensure a Spirit Artifact’s sturdiness while the latter is to intensify any amount of damage dealt by the Artifact.
Lu Ye strolled amongst the jungle of shelves and racks like a hunter on the prowl, searching for his prey. Still, he had yet to find anything that was perfect. Every single piece of equipment here—even after filtering everything based on his criteria—was just too expensive. Forged with nine weapon enchantments, Inviolable, despite being one of the best weapons in the Low-grade tier, was priced at only a hundred and thirty-five Contribution Points. Yet Telekinesis-qualified Spirit Artifacts with nine weapon enchantments cost almost close to two hundred Points.
He began to appreciate just how economical Inviolable had been.
Just when he was about to pick one, he paused before the decision was made. He did not have to buy here, he realized. Hua Ci should have a lot of Spirit Artifacts by now.
Hua Ci had barely spilled any blood during the Battle Royal of the Legates. But it was by her assistance that the many legates on the Grand Sky Coalition side managed to rake up innumerable kills. Hence to thank her for her help, many of the legates and prolegates showered her with spoils after they cleared up any scene of battle.
By the time Lu Ye and she returned triumphantly, her wolf golem was strapped with scores of Storage Bags hung all around it like ornaments on a Christmas tree. There would have been even more Storage Bags had she not had the wisdom to sort and organize whatever she collected back then.
Lu Ye got out of the Vault of Providence and the first thing he did was contact Hua Ci, who came from the direction of the training chambers in no time.
“Wow, you’re Seventh-Order now?” Hua Ci exclaimed with surprise. They had been so busy training and meditating since their return from the Battle Royal that they barely saw each other, and she would not have known that Lu Ye had made a breakthrough if he did not ask to meet.
“Mmhmm. Do you have anything that’s suitable for Telekinesis?”
“I guess so. I’ve kept everything, but not here,” said Hua Ci, twirling around on her heels and walking away. She waved, “Come with me.”
They made a beeline straight back to the training chamber quarter.
They stepped inside Hua Ci’s personal training chamber and there Lu Ye saw mounds of Storage Bags piled up in a corner. Those must be her spoils from the Battle Royal.
“You have not opened all of them yet?”
“I’ve been saving them for you.”
“What for?”
“Sister Shui Yuan told me that you’ve been making great improvements in your studies of Glyphs. It would be just a matter of time before you’d be needing these Storage Bags.”
Lu Ye did not understand at first how his making great strides in his studies would have anything to do with the Storage Bags, although he caught on pretty quickly. With a dawning look on his face, he said at last, “Thank you so much.”
Hua Ci picked three of the Bags out of the pile and handed them to him. “The Spirit Artifacts are all inside these three Bags. Go through them yourself. Who knows what you’re looking for.”
Lu Ye took the Bags and sat down on the floor to pore through the contents.
Hua Ci just left him be and went back to her meditation.
There were just so many Spirit Artifacts that the other Grand Sky Coalition legates had collected during the Battle Royal that Hua Ci couldn’t carry any more Storage Bags, hence they had to assemble all the Spirit Artifacts into three Storage Bags for her convenience.
And amongst the number, there had to be many that were suitable enough for Telekinesis.
Lu Ye was amazed to find more than several hundred Spirit Artifacts in total, all of them crammed into the three Storage Bags—Spirit Artifacts of different shapes and sizes. Trading all of them off to the Vault of Providence would surely bring Hua Ci a huge sum of Contribution Points.
But since she wasn’t in need of Contribution Points yet, she might as well just tuck everything aside for posterity.
Hua Ci had eased quite comfortably into her role and position as prolegate of the Crimson Blood Sect outpost. Shui Yuan has been very kind to her and as a Medical Cultivator, Hua Ci’s learning from her could reduce a lot of trial and error, and naturally, she was keen to do her part for the Sect.
Finally, after some time of rummaging through the hoard of Spirit Artifacts, Lu Ye found a one-foot-long knife.
The weight and length of this short weapon were just what Lu Ye needed; all he took was one glance and he knew that it would be perfect, especially since this knife did not have a hilt, just a double-edged blade.
Lu Ye could only surmise that this knife must have once belonged to a Thousand Demon Ridge legate who was killed during the Battle Royal. It had nine enchantments so it would have fetched a price of at least a hundred and eighty Contribution Points in the Vault of Providence.
Of the nine, two were Spirit Bank enchantments, three were Reinforcement enchantments, and another two were for increasing the deadliness of the weapon. Lu Ye could not recognize the remaining two, but they had to be something to help increase the weapon’s potency, by his best guess.
“Pick a few more. I hear that a Cultivator with incredible control of Spiritual Power can Telekinesis a few Spirit Artifacts at the same time,” urged Hua Ci when she saw him with only one.
“I’ll have this one first to practice. I can always come looking for you when I need more.”
“As you wish. It’s not as if I’ll be leaving any time soon.”
“Why does it sound as if you’re being held captive here?”
“Who knows?”
……
Lu Ye left Hua Ci’s training chamber and went back to his own. The first thing he did was channel his Spiritual Power into the knife.
Inviolable was a weapon Lu Ye bought from the Vault of Providence. A Spirit Artifact that had not recognized a master, unlike the hiltless knife.
The hiltless knife once belonged to an enemy legate. Even after his death, the knife still carried traces of his Spiritual Power, imprints of his ownership of the weapon that the knife had been accustomed to. Hence, even with Lu Ye channeling his power through it, the hiltless knife might not just yield willingly.
Hence Lu Ye needed to channel his powers continuously into it, keeping it inundated with his Spiritual Power so that it would slowly grow to acclimatize to him. That would help him to be able to use the knife to its fullest.
That was what Lu Ye did to gain full control of the Mystic Spirit Bell after he looted it from the heir of the Nine Star Clan after he slew him. He could not even activate the Mystic Spirit Bell at first and it was after speaking to a smith during a visit to one of the Divine Trade Association branches that he learned what to do.
For this reason, no one ever picked up someone else’s weapon to use in the heat of battle. One only relies on one’s very own ones.
With Spiritual Power as pure as the morning dew and now that he had reached the Seventh-Order, Lu Ye trusted that the process would not take too long. Within hours, the hiltless knife was wheezing to and fro in the air like a swallow flying around freely.
Lu Ye broke down into tears that streamed uncontrollably down his face.
After such a string of difficulties, Telekinesis, at long last! 𝑜𝘷.𝘰𝑔
Feeling cramped up inside the chamber, Lu Ye decided to take his practice outside and he was rewarded by the howling whistles of his knife shooting around in the air like a bolt of lightning.
An even bigger surprise was how long his range was: almost a hundred and twenty meters! That delighted him for most Seventh-Orders would not even make it past the hundredth-meter mark.
The additional twenty meters might not mean much in conventional skirmishes, but to opposing Cultivators both fighting with Telekinesis, the extra range would give Lu Ye an edge to grasp the initiative quickly.
In fact, the speed of his Telekinesis seemed to outstrip that of other Seventh-Orders by a far stretch. He had seen enough of Telekinesis in action back when he was fighting enemies in the Battle Royal and after comparing what he saw with his own Telekinesis, he discovered this advantage.
With greater range, higher speed, and better momentum, Lu Ye might not even need to lift a finger to defeat opponents of the same rank.
In the meantime, his demonstration of Telekinesis had attracted the attention of scores of other fellow acolytes who stood by to watch. Everyone cheered at the sight of the shiny bolt of steel streaking around like a shooting star.
All of a sudden, the sky rumbled as it slowly grew dark with gloomy cumulonimbi clustering overhead.
Lu Ye withdrew his knife and waved everyone away. “Show’s over, everyone. Now, off you go! It’s gonna rain!”
He wheeled around and headed back to his training chamber.
Having made headway in mastering Telekinesis, Lu Ye realized that he needed to put it to the test to actually know how effective his Telekinesis really was. His hiltless knife might look all quaint and dandy flying around as freely as a bird, but it would still be useless if it could not perform during real combat.
And to do that Lu Ye thought of entering the Rift of Illusions.
He extracted the Mystic Fruit seed and paid fifty Contribution Points to step into the illusory mist.
The gossamer strands curled and swirled around him. Before long, Lu Ye saw it: an insectoid monster of similar rank as his charging right out of the mist, heading straight for him.
But the monster only just appeared when a tiny bolt of light speared through it with the ease and smoothness of a fiery-hot knife slicing through butter, eliciting a spray of greenish slime.
The monster crashed to the ground within seconds of its appearance
Lu Ye tilted a brow with interest. [Telekinesis really is useful], he mused. [Beats having to run and dive around whacking at it with Inviolable…]
The mist rolled uneasily again. This time two insectoid monsters emerged. One of them tumbled to the ground the moment it appeared, just like the first monster, while the other crumbled after barely two steps.
Lu Ye effortlessly breezed past the next few rounds with the help of Telekinesis. But there was only so much his hiltless knife could do. By the fourth round, Lu Ye had to attack any remaining monsters with Inviolable, owing to the present limitations of his Telekinesis.
The knife’s Spiritual Power was finished in the fifth round and Lu Ye recalled it, switching to close combat to deal with the insectoid monsters.
Minutes later, Lu Ye reopened his eyes, his face chalk-white and he was back inside his training chamber. He had made it up to the eighth round before he was “killed” by one of the monsters.
The difference between Sixth-Order monsters and Seventh-Order monsters was noticeably huge, just like the gap between Cultivators of both ranks. But with Telekinesis, he felt stronger—so strong that the gap did not seem too significant, at least to him.
Even though he did not manage to reach the ninth round, Lu Ye wasn’t at all distraught. It had only just been a few days since his ascension to the Seventh-Order and he had only just mastered Telekinesis. Prior to this, the fifth round was pretty much the best he could do and with the addition of one Telekinesis-sensitive knife, he was able to reach the eighth round. That in itself was a major breakthrough.
If only he could control more Spirit Artifacts using Telekinesis, he wondered. He might really be able to make it to the ninth round then. He would be able to fight against that humanoid opponent once more.
That would mean another visit to Hua Ci’s to procure more suitable Spirit Artifacts. It was easy enough controlling his new knife and Lu Ye sensed that he could at least magically wield one more. Such was the benefit of having immaculate control of his Spiritual Power.
All of a sudden, the thunderous groans from high up in the skies only seemed to grow louder and longer. The rain really was coming.
Then he felt a throb coming from his Battlefield Imprint. It was Li Baxian sending him a message. “Watch out, Lu Ye! An insectoid attack is coming!”