Sword Spirit
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chapter-8
Mysterious Yuan Dan. Body refining phase pill that can enhance soul force absorption speed. Price: Ten taels of gold each.
Meditation pill. Body refining phase pill that can calm a martial artists heart and it of its demons. Price: Twenty taels of gold a piece.
Bone Washing Dan. Body refining phase pill, helps martial artists clean out their muscles and marrow, removing the bodies impurities. It can help body refining sixth level and below martial artists to break through. Price: 100 taels of gold each.………
His eyes continuously swept past the prices of the pill bottles, Lu Xuan couldn’t help but feel a twitch in his heart. These were all good thing, especially that bottle of Bone Washing Dan. It was exactly what Lu Xuan needed right now.
But that price made Lu Xuan and Yao Lei give up those ideas.One tael of gold was was equivalent to ten taels of silver, that was to say, Lu Xuan didn’t even have a full five taels of gold on his body. He couldn’t even buy the cheapest bottle of Mysterious Yuan Dan, much less being able to buy the Bone Washing Dang that cost a hundred gold taels.
The amount that Yao Lei had was about the same as Lu Xuan. When he set out, he had brought ten taels of gold, but right now he had already use about half.
“His mother! These things really were meant to crack the teeth of rich people. With ten taels of gold, your grandfather could sleep with many ladies in the Qing Mountain Village.” Yao Lei cursed in a low voice. He had originally prepared to buy a pill to try out, but it looked like that was wishful thinking.
Lu Xuan also shook his head: “Lei, forget it. These pills aren’t something we can buy. Let’s go.”
Seeing that Lu Xuan wanted to leave, Yao Lei quickly delayed him, “What are you rushing for? Even if I can’t buy, does that mean I can’t look? There’s so many things here. Let’s look a bit more. Then when we go back later we’ll still have something to brag about right.”
Since Yao Lei persisted in wanting to look around, Lu Xuan also went with him. He had come out already anyway.
Inside this shop was a complete collection of goods on sale. Pills were outside of their price range, so the two continued to look at other things.Very quickly, Lu Xuan’s eyes were attracted by some scrolls to the side. He couldn’t help but walk over there. His eyes scanned across the description of the scrolls.
Hard Armor Rune. It is an enchantment that can be applied onto iron grade armor and up. It will increase the armor’s defense by ten to twenty percent. Price: 1000 taels of gold!
Enormous Power Rune. It is an enchantment that can be applied onto iron grade weapons and up. It will raise the attack power of the weapon by ten to twenty percent. Price: 1500 taels of gold!………
Seeing these sky-high prices, Lu Xuan was suddenly breathless, and couldn’t help but ask aloud: “Lei, come over here. What are these things? Why are they so expensive?”
“Oh, these are enchantment scrolls. Only enchanters can make them. Enchanters can burn through money, but of course, they can also make tons of money.” Yao Lei said as he clicked his tongue.
“Enchantment scroll? Enchanter?”
Yao Lei’s words instantly triggered a part of some memories in Lu Xuan’s head.
During those ten days, other than cultivating, Lu Xuan had long since gone over everything in the sword crystal’s memory. Other than the Tai Yi Soul Return Tactic and Blinking Sword Skill, the last part was writings about arrays and stuff. It was actually methods for enchantments!
Lu Xuan originally thought that those things didn’t have any use, but now it looked like it was completely not like that!
Seeing Lu Xuan’s interest towards enchanters, Yao Lei suddenly became more spirited. He began untiredly chattering about his own knowledge, determined to teach Lu Xuan a lesson.
Gently coughing twice and clearing his throat, Yao Lei began his lecture.
“Enchanters is one of the big three professions on the Sky Sword Continent, the others being alchemists and craftsmen.
Compared to alchemists medicine and a craftsmen’s equipment, enchanters can make different kinds of runes and condense them in to enchantment scrolls.
“Enchantment scrolls can be used to enchant a martial artist’s weapon or equipment. Different runes have different effects and degree of effectiveness. Users can select different types of scrolls as according to their needs.
“And after the weapon or equipment has been enchanted, its strength will increase by varying degrees. Some powerful enchantment scrolls can even raise a weapon’s prestige! A similar weapon, compared to itself with an enchantment, will be as different as the heavens and earth.
“Because of that, enchantment scrolls have such a high price.”
“It’s just that, enchanting isn’t something an ordinary person can learn. Because enchantments require studying many types of runes, there is a talent requirement that is very demanding. The threshold required is even higher than what’s needed for alchemists and craftsmen.”
“What’s even more important, enchanters need to use very expensive materials. It’s simply not something ordinary people can afford. A rune only needs one mistake for the rune to become ineffective, and all the materials used will be wasted.”
“A qualified enchanter is created through throwing money around. Of course, if one can really become an enchanter, then the speed of inflowing cash is also immense…”
Listening to Yao Lei speak, Lu Xuan’s heart was restless the entire time. Originally, there was such a precious thing in his mind, but he hadn’t paid it any attention and hadn’t analyzed it at all.
One low grade enchantment scroll was still priced above a thousand taels of gold. If he could become an enchanter and create enchantment scrolls, then wouldn’t he strike it rich? What Mysterious Yuan Dan, what Bone Washing Dan? He could eat them like candy!
Thinking of this, Lu Xuan could no longer restrain his excitement. He already could not wait and wanted to dive into those enchanting skills in his mind.
“Lei, I have some stuff I need to do, I’ll head back first. You can slowly shop around. Oh yeah, after returning, I’m going to cultivate. Remember to not bother me.” Lu Xuan threw out these few sentences and then raced back to the inn, rushing to close his room’s door to do research.
Lei Yao had just been speaking passionately with spittle flying out. He hadn’t thought that Lu Xuan would say he was going and the just leave. He was shocked for a moment. Only after he watched Lu Xuan already run out of Spirit Materials Street did he yell out, “Older brother Xuan, wait for me!”
Lei Yao yelled as he helplessly chased after Lu Xuan. He didn’t know drew Lu Xuan so wildly, but if he was alone there, then he would be too lazy to go around. He couldn’t buy anything anyway.
With Lu Xuan’s peak body refining third level’s strength, his speed was far faster than Lei Yao’s who was only at body refining second level. Very soon he had returned to the inn. He quickly closed his door and began to check the memories concerning enchantment, carefully re-examining them.
After carefully visiting these memories about enchantment, it was not outside of Lu Xuan’s expectations. In this small piece of memory, there were only some basic enchanting skills. At the most it could be used to enchant treasure-stage weapons, but for Lu Xuan right now, it was more than enough.
The weapon a martial artist used was different than the weapons used by a normal person. The ones used by ordinary people didn’t have any way of bearing a martial artist’s enormous strength, it could only be used as an ordinary item, and it could not be enchanted.
Martial artists weapons were divided four grades of iron, treasure, spirit, and the legendary divine equipment. Body refining stage martial artists could only use iron grade weapons. Treasure grade weapons were for the use of martial artists above the body refining stage. For Lu Xuan, that was something still far away.
It should be known that right now, Lu Xuan didn’t even have an iron grade equipment.
But even for the beginner enchantment skills, Lu Xuan still felt it to be very profound, and very subtle. Those extremely complicated runes, if even I stroke was wrong, would create different effects. In a moment, Lu Xuan forgot about making money and threw his entirety into studying the enchantment skill.
Enchantment skills placed great importance on talent and perception. Lu Xuan’s actions undoubtedly reflected his talents.
At that time, the arcane runes had long since been deeply ingrained into Lu Xuan’s memories, making analysis require half the effort.
After spending three full hours and going very carefully through the memories once, the beginner enchantment techniques had become very clear for him.
To produce an enchantment scroll, first one needed to use a specialty blank scroll as well as a special ink used to write the runes. Different runes required different inks.(TN: The Chinese used here is actually juice rather than ink, but I felt like juice might give off the wrong impression.)
Those things were all too luxurious and right now Lu Xuan was only practicing rune proficiency. Naturally it didn’t need those luxuries, not to mention, he didn’t have enough money to buy those luxuries anyway.
Taking a deep breath, Lu Xuan calmed himself, and then began to practice drawing the runes.
For enchantment letters, theory and practice were both indispensable. Since he had inherited the sword crystal’s memories, Lu Xuan already knew the enchantment skills techniques, but if he wanted to really write it out, it wasn’t as simple as that.
Since there wasn’t enough material to let Lu Xuan practice, he could only use soul force to write in the air.
Carving symbols in the air was a rather high-leveled technique for enchanting skills. If it was a beginner student, at the start they definitely wouldn’t be able to learn it successfully, but Lu Xuan had directly inherited that part of enchanting through memories. These techniques had long since been stored in his mind. Right now he was only practicing his own body’s degree of coordination and degree of perception.
The enchantment rune Lu Xuan was practicing was called the Wild Explosion Rune. After enchantment, it would enable the weapon to have a chance of exploding out with twice or more damage. It was a very powerful and useful rune.
Stretching out a finger, Lu Xuan began to moving his body’s soul force. Very soon, a bit of faint flashing light of soul force suddenly was gathered to the tip of his finger.
Lu Xuan began his first time writing a rune according to the memories in his head, moving his finger where it ought to go.
The finger constantly moved, a crystalline line suddenly appeared before Lu Xuan’s eyes, and the number of lines slowly increased. The rune was constantly nearing completion. Lu Xuan’s face was also becoming more and more pale. He didn’t have enough soul force.
As a body refining stage martial artist, there was no way to store soul force into his dantian. Right now as Lu Xuan was drawing the rune, he was relying solely on the soul force in his meridians.Lu Xuan
Lu Xuan grit his teeth and persevered, but his finger could no longer endure and began trembling, and because of this shaking, the run in the air flashed, then disappeared. The first attempt at drawing was a failure.
Lu Xuan’s aptitude towards enchanting was indeed good. The first time he had drawn a rune, he hadn’t made any mistakes. The problem in this time’s failure wasn’t because of Lu Xuan’s drawing skill, but was because he didn’t have enough soul force.
It was just that, this kind of problem wasn’t something that could be solved anytime soon. He couldn’t wait until he broke through to body refining fourth level and then try again.
Although he had failed, Lu Xuan also was not discouraged at all because he knew that just now as he was writing, he didn’t grasp his soul force well enough, resulting in over half of it leaking out, wasting it.
If he could efficiently use all of his soul force, then completing the Wild Explosion rune would not be a problem at all. Thus, for the next step, the thing he needed to practice was the control over his soul force’s leakage.