Arc finished eating and found that his headache had weakened, and prepared to clean up, but as he turned around he found Aurora standing before him
He looked up to see she was fully armed and ready for combat, and he couldn't help but remember being punched through several walls yesterday
Before he could do anything she began to laugh lightly, the armar then turned into robes and sword disappeared,
"I will wait for you to recover before attacking, anyways we have something to do today, lets go"
She grabbed his arm as she spoke, they moved extremely fast when Arc could register that he was moved it was already over
"Can you please warn me next time"
Arc spoke bitterly
"You'll get used to it"
She said plainly as Arc looked around he realized they were in the forge
"Are we making the lighting rods today?"
Arc spoke excitedly he truly wanted to see how a master would forge
Aurora nodded before having Arc turn on the earth fire and prepare the material they would use, it seems as though she took some inspiration from Arc
As the ingredients included silver gold, mythrail, and a few other ingredients that Arc could not recognize
Arc began preparing the materials to mix them, a large quantity would be needed to contain the lightning, the mixture was a 10/10/15/25/40
of all the materials with gold and silver being the lowest in quantity followed by Mithral
The remaining materials Arc didn't currently know what they were, and it could be distracting to ask Aurora questions so he decided to hold off until they finish
After making several billets, he took one and beginning heating and hammering it to shape, the material was hard and his hands felt numb, each one took more effort than the last strike
Arc's eyes went wide as he realized one of the materials was absorbing the spirit qi within his body, causing his strength to leave him faster than normal,
Aurora waited until he seemed to be at his limit, and switched places with him, they then began taking turns preparing each bar needed for the lighting rod cage
While Aurora could last significantly longer than Arc, his recovery speed was astonishing, as he could simultaneously absorb spirit qi and world qi, he is essentially absorbing more than double the energy, in half the time
This allowed them to just barely take turns, as this swappings was happening Aurora begin thinking to herself
'It was arrogant for me to use such a large piece of abyssal dragon's horn, but it is the highest quality material I have available'
This material is what was rapidly absorbing energy from both Aurora and Arc was from the horn of an abyssal dragon,
The nascent soul grand elder luton, brought that back from one of his travels across realms, and gifted it to Aurora knowing she would soon attempt to advance
After forming all the bars they then began twisting them, each bar would have to be heated and twisted 32 times, and it would also be flushed with earth qi in-between each heating cycle
This would cause a chemical change in the materials, allowing them to become more resilient and more resistant to attacks
This part was simple as it took less force from both Aurora and Arc, allowing them to complete it at a much faster speed
After finishing the twist, they laid out each bar, and marked the locations in which they wanted them to intersect
Arc decided to show her a little trick, and used his qi like a Stick welder, to tac the bar's allowing her to activate a spell with them steady
With them together, Aurora took certain areas the intersections and began heating them up using a technique, to manipulate the elements within the material to allow it to bond
The intersections turned liquid and mixed together mending at the deepest level
After that, the remaining bars, were added sticking out of the cage, appearing to be lightning rods, one on the top and two on the sides
Aurora and Arc both let lit a sigh in relief realizing that they had finally finished after nearly 15 hours in the forge
"That was fairly quick"
Aurora spoke with a light smile on her face
"How was that quick?"
Arc asked shocked
"Many smith's can take up days or months to forge that same cage, you have astonishing recovery, and i'm a gold core cultivator with a spirit body"
" Naturally were able to do it at a quicker speed as earth energy comes simply to us"
Aurora explained lightly looking at Arc's slightly confused face turn into one of understanding
She reached out her hand and patted his head as she spoke
"Thankyou for your help Arc"
Arc's face flushed slightly before he nodded and said "no problem"
Aurora then got serious before speaking
"The date for the "party" will be in 2 months, and after discussion it with the other grand Elder's, we have decided to take a risk"
"Currently our sect only has 1 nascent soul cultivator, thankfully Luten is known for his mastery of spells in combat"
"His ability had improved the standing of our sect, but he wouldn't be able to handle 3 nascent soul cultivators simultaneously"
"We have decided that i will attempt to advance before the date of the party, to relieve pressure and lessen the chance of a attempt against us"
Arc's face was unsightly, he was worried, but he had confidence and trust in Aurora and her spirit,
he spoke the truest words he felt
"I love you, and I know that you can do it"
Aurora face slowly turned red before she grabed him, and taking him to her room
The next morning when they left the room, Aurora and Arc were wearing their full combat gear,
Arc prepared to spar with her once more heading towards the same forest as last time
After arriving his spear stuck out and was immediately deflected by the handguard on her sword before it swung down towards his head
Arc realized the attack would be coming and used the back end of the spear to block the attack
This time was different from their last fight where Aurora was attempting to find Arc's limits.
This time Aurora was matching both the strength Arc was using as well as speed meaning this would be purely skill against skill
Arc failed to keep up her attacks were unrelenting and even her defensives led back into more powerful attacks
He didn't immediately realize that the force was identical to his own ,but he could tell the massive disparissie in combat skill,
he began to "record" and learn, engraving good habits into his own muscle memory, while getting rid of bad ones
She never gave him a chance to breathe, and since this time she wasn't boosting his recovery he was losing stamina quickly
As his stamina was lost he began to slip and she would ruthlessly strike him with no mercy
His eyes were wide and his hands shook he began to organize his thoughts and instinctively began using ki,
His ki radiated outwards, and he found that it was smooth and pure,and merged into his qi he remembered that his self made technique combined his energies
He has been using two halves of a whole, now his body instinctively activated both simultaneously allowing his body fo reach its true potential
Aurora found the change interesting but it wasn't enough to bring her alarm, as there are always outliers in the cultivation world,
she had killed more dangerous creatures with abilities more powerful that Arc's
This change did help the flow of his Aura but didn't help much with the attacks he was using,
she was significantly more skilled and activating his ki only delayed the inevitable
She stuck out with the sword breaking his guard and separating him from the spear
then she kicked him away through a tree leaving him on the floor in pain
She did make sure to include earth qi within the last attack to prevent him from getting hurt
Arc laid flat the ground before he could say anything ,
Aurora gave an exact play by play of the entire fight and the placed
She then noted the things he missed and corrected the mistakes he didn't even know he made
" you stopped my swing the first time with the back of your spear from then on in the fight, you attempted to block with the back of the spear"
" this allowed me to easily maneuver it into a position where I could pull you away from it, allowing me to separate you from the weapon"
Arc nodded and was happy that Aurora took her time to help him gain combat experience and corrected him on his mistakes
Normally sparring alone could not replace true combat training, but in this situation fighting her is no different than fighting a real enemy, as she held back all her attacks for aiming to kill
Her qi flow is so precise that at the last moment she could change the element's properties, making a absorbable for Arc,
but she would only do that if the strike would kill, in any other scenario she would allow him to get injured
She was ruthless when it comes to combat, and when it came to his cultivation Arc was cold and calculative
This allows them to blend very well in this training allow them to see bring out the maximum potential in Arc in a very short period of time
The conversation slowly drifted though, and they began to speak about various topics mostly forging, he then asked her what material they used for the cages
"Oh, I used a giant piece of the horn of an abyssal dragon, also used another metal to stabilize it, but it seems we didn't put enough as the horn was still absorbing a massive amount of our energy"
After that, they chatted lightly before going their separate ways, Aurora had to get back to work,
Arc headed down the mountain toward the book store, as he walked he began practicing the eagle claw technique once more,
Now knowing how important his ki control is, he attempted to maintaining eagle claw with both ki and qi, simultaneously
While it was somewhat tricky to get used to, after he got accustomed maintaining both powers, was as simple as breathing.
'I guess I can go in order the formation flag to add to the spear'
Arc thought to himself as a he began descending the mountain
Arc has spent a long period thinking about what effects he wanted the formation flag to hold
He has decided on 3 effects,
the first being a way to change the size of the flag itself,
So that it could take the shape of either a streamer or a large flag
The being an isolation formation, to stop the enemies movements in combat
And the third effect of being a defensive formation place upon it itself, so that the flag can be used as a shield in certain situations
Arc found himself heading towards a formation Store that he found out about during his time outside the sect the Golden Duck
This store was highly rated and had many locations, leading him to hear of it, and after finding out that one of the locations was near the sect he decided to have the formation made there
"Welcome how may i help you today"
The store's attendant spoke cheerfully
"I would like to commission a formation flag"
As Arc spoke he brought out the spear that he found most comfortable, and explained how he wanted the flag to fit and which effects he wanted on the flag
The attendant noted this down on a notebook, with a title on the front that said commission's
The attendant then entered this information into the system, to determine the price of such a flag
"Yes it's been determined, the cost would be 14,000 spirit stones"
Arc was slightly shocked by how expensive it was but it was still within his acceptable price range, but he would have to live frugally for a little while
'Spending money is as easy as drinking water'
Arc thought to himself as he paid a deposit, as he would not be expected to pay the whole thing without even getting to see it
After settling all those matters Arc headed back up the mountain to begin studying the various combate manuels that he recorded during his time in the library
He began to read them as soon as, and he found that they contained a lot of helpful information
The way to move his body,
where to position the weapon, it wasn't a one size fit all scenario,
but it helps as a reference as these were written by combate tested experts
Arc read each book cover to cover, and compared them to what he was doing in the fight against Aurora, and against the demon bear
Both fights played out in his mind, and he noted where he could have applied the technique from the books to have gained more ground, or land an attack
Naturally, gaining more ground would've been impossible against Aurora, as he isn't arrogant enough to believe he could land a blow on a Golden Core cultivator who specializes in close combat
Arc sat there for awhile contemplating and researching, until he heard the sound of someone knocking on the door,
'Who could that be?'
Arc thought to himself as he headed towards the door
He opened the door to find the 'MC' potential kid, who is currently the direct disciple of the sect leader
"You're the lavier kid?, oh wait i heard you changed your name"
Arc spoke somewhat surprised why this kid showed up
"Hello my name is wuji now, i came because you once helped me in the forge and i was curious whether i could commission something from you"
He spoke quickly, and confidently
Arc thought to himself before speaking
'Well considering he is the disciple of the sect leader it wouldn't hurt to help him'
"What is it that you need help on?"
Wuji looked around before asking to enter he didn't seem to want anyone to listen
After making sure that no one was around he reached into his spirit ring and pulled out a bone that radiated energy
Arc could instinctively tell that it was from some powerful, but he couldn't tell what
Wuji looked at him and spoke
'Could you use this to forge a set of flying swords'
Arc looked at him then the bone, then spoke
"That pretty small, i could make one sword, but a whole set would be difficult"
"unless you're okay with the bone only being on the blade, and the rest of the sword being other materials"
Wuji was about to disagree but then he remembered how easily Arc fixed the 'ring' with just mortal metals, He then thought to himself
'If I can get some high quality metals he should be able to make the set of swords without loss in quality, what do you think gramps?'
'It can work, but it would be even more expensive, and don't forget to have him make Dao vow, so as to not share this information'
He spoke exacerbated at wuji, he directly just showed off an extremely valuable material, without any form of defenses
Wuji felt his back covered in a cold sweat, he was so excited he forgot to maintain defenses against Arc
Arc didn't seem to notice anything, even though he can see the soul, the power difference between him and the old man in the ring was too great, so he couldn't see the old man
And as for hearing the conversation Arc can only understand the soul's of others if they want to be understood,
So from the perspective of Arc, it just looked like wuji was thinking to himself the viability of using other materials, and then realized a problem with that
Arc then spoke
"the bone has a powerful yin energy, if you want to maximize its potential you would either need other material of yin energy
"or get a material of the same quality of yang energy, to form a yin, yang sword set"
Arc then gave several examples of types of materials wuji could bring him so that he could better refine the swords
This calmed both the old man and wuji, as they found that Arc didn't care about the bone, and was much more interested in forging the weapon itself
'This kid is really gifted in forging'
The old man sighed as he thought to himself
'I kinda wish this kid found the ring, wuji is a good kid, but he still has a long way'
Wuji on the other hand didn't notice the old man's thought as he was writing down the information that Arc was sharing with him
He once entered the forge to work, so he could immediately tell that this was high quality information
Arc continued speaking and then even forgot how the conversation started and it turned into a forging lesson
Wuji himself didn't get how this turned into a lecture but he didn't mind, he noted everything down, and asked questions when he had doubts
This continued until they heard a slight laugh coming from behind them, they turned to find that at one point the sect leader and Aurora let themselves in and were watching the lecture
Aurora couldn't help be laugh lightly and the sect master had a slight smile on his face
It brought him joy to see that the his disciple became a good friend of Arc so quickly
One of the sect master's biggest worries was that the nature of cultivator's made it difficult to want to have teammates or friends
And as the leader of the sect,he's had to face a lot of arrogant people who think of only themselves
Layered upon layered corruption, was slowly stripped away,
he has been finding a balance and creating a place where people can work in unison,to better themselves has been very difficult, and it has been his lifelong journey
So seeing both Arc and Wuji, demonstrating what he has been working towards made him very proud
Arc and wuji greeted both the sect master and Aurora,
the sect master then said he was looking for Wuji and couldn't find him,
Aurora claimed to have seen him near her portion of the mountain, so she helped him to find Wuji
After sorting that out the sect master left with wuji,
Aurora after making sure the sect leader had left, bent down and gave Arc a kiss,
one turned into two, two into three and before long she found herself leaving his room with messy clothes and hair as well as a slight blush on her face
Arc had big smile and a bright red face, it took awhile before he could calm back down, once he did he began thinking what his next move should be