Chapter 68: A Moment’s Worth of Impatience
Bleary-eyed, Anji woke up to the smell of food the next morning. She tried to read a little more before bedtime last night but fell asleep after ten minutes. Washing the dishes and clothes took up more energy than she originally thought. Lizi did them effortlessly every day. Now that she understood the difficulty, she appreciated the maid more.
Yan Ping left some steamed rice and dishes from last night on the table for breakfast, which she had heated. Anji appreciated her teacher’s kind gesture and headed to the backyard to wash up. Even after doing the laundry and dishes last night, there were still two more buckets full of water.
The morning was chilly, even though a little morning sun filtered through the thick forest. Anji noticed the water she used from the buckets and basin yesterday had already been refilled. Her teacher was nowhere to be seen indoors. She might have left to forage for food.
After washing up and eating quickly, Anji realised her shifu was still not back. Hence, the little girl decided to take her book to the garden, where there was more natural light, to finish the Chapter she had read last night.
Apart from elemental runes and logic gates, circuitry design was equally important. The right circuits could amplify an effect, making the spell more effective, or negate the effect, causing an explosion from qi deviation. Most importantly, drawing runes required some form of energy and intent. Many people could mimic the symbol, but few could create a functional rune. Without the right intent guided by qi, it was impossible to create runes.
Here, Anji wondered what symbols her shifu used to create her cores and valves. Yan Ping said the seal on her cultivator core had also been modified. Although it was not mentioned in the beginner spell guidebook, the young murim princess knew that more advanced spell users could disassemble spells and rewire them for a different purpose. Her teacher was someone who had deep insights into many profound subjects, including mathematics and philosophy. Her learning was second to none; even the seals she newly created after her breakthrough were beyond Anji’s understanding. Yet, Yan Ping wanted Anji to understand how her spells worked to unlock her meridians.
From birth, Anji knew that she could not cultivate even if she could someday master control over her explosively powerful golden core. According to her father, many of Anji’s critical merdian paths had been destroyed due to her core’s power at birth. Zhao Mingfeng sealed his daughter’s cultivation almost immediately. However, those few seconds were enough to cripple more than half of Anji’s meridians. If not for Doctor He and his medical expertise, Anji would not have lived as long as she had.
Browsing through the rest of the beginner spell guidebook, Anji did not find any other useful information that would give her a hint about the Shaoshang core seal. She contemplated meditating to have a closer look, using her inner world to recall the sensations her teacher told her to familiarise herself with yesterday. However, Anji refrained from doing so. The last thing she wanted to do was break her agreement with her shifu. She was, under no circumstances, allowed to practice cultivation without her teacher present. Many things could go wrong, and a moment’s worth of impatience was not worth a lifetime’s misery.
Instead, Anji flipped to the front of the beginner spell guidebook again and started re-reading. This time, she was determined to memorise the symbols of every seal in the book.