Chapter 105: Tutoring


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Is he…okay?” Tang Yulian carefully asked upon seeing Li Lang striding over with a strange grin on his face.


    <span style="font-weight:400">His gaze kept alternating between her and Sima Xue. The two young women were both familiar with yearning gazes from the opposite sex, but they noticed something was different about his gaze.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It was entirely devoid of lust, but they couldn’t put a word to what it was. The unknown intentions made Tang Yulian unsettled at having ced herself under the instruction of the young man before them.


    <span style="font-weight:400">In contrast, Sima Xue’s curiosity was piqued. She was just about to confront Li Lang to investigate when Wei Ping interjected on their behalf.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“B-boss, you’re here. I was j-just about to ce get you.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, good thing I came in time, then. I was in the trials just now, so you would’ve wasted a trip.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Wei Ping’s eyes slightly widened upon hearing the news.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“H-how did it go?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Li Lang simply smiled and nodded in response.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So you passed?” Long Yi interjected. “Does that mean you’re finally going to do the martial trials now? It’s about time you suffered through what we all had to endure.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Thest sentence was spoken at a much lower volume, but Li Lang didn’t fail to pick up on it. He crossed his arms and grinned.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Sorry to disappoint. I won’t be doing that just yet. I still have to digest my reward and go over Brushweaving with Tang Yulian and Sima Xue. Maybe I will gain some inspiration from the tutoring session to tackle the Brushweaving trial.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Didn’t you say inscribing a three-rune talisman is a feat that is only done by those in the Foundation Establishment realm?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Normally, yes. It’s not impossible, though. It’s just that it’s much easier to inscribe three runes on Earth-grade materials that normally people don’t attempt it with Mortal-grade materials. It is dangerous, with a high failure rate. If I ignore efficiency, it should still be possible if I put my mind to it.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I don’t really understand, but you do you. As long as the realm isn’t deducting points from you, all is good.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">At the mention of that, Li Lang fell into thought about the potential artifact spirits running this ce. Everyone here was being monitored. If they were deemed to be making insufficient progress that day, they would lose a trial point. It was this system that forced him to do some of his research in reality. He wondered how they even evaluated adequate progress, and if they could assess the value of his less Qi-rted research projects.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Ahem,” everyone turned to find Sima Xue clearing her throat. “I believe we have an appointment today, right? Are you ready to get started?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Her words caused Wei Ping and Long Yi to back away. They both wished Li Lang good luck before beating a hasty retreat off to the adjacent table.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes, of course,” Li Lang replied. “Did you want to do it here?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That’s up to you. You’re in charge. Are you fine with being overheard by others?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Li Lang took a quick look around. There were more groups spread around the mess hall now. With such an attention-grabbing group, it was difficult for the others to not have noticed them. This became even more true after Tang Yulian had broken through. She had gained many new fans, and her secret admirers could often be spotted in the background.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Sure, I don’t mind. I can whisper if I need to, but I don’t really have any secret brushweaving techniques to keep. It’s not like I’m passing down my teacher’s technique to you or anything.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I hope not. You signed a binding contract, right? We just want guidance on how to inscribe oveid runes.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">The three got settled at the table. Li Lang and Sima Xue chatted merrily while Tang Yulian watched on stoically.


    <span style="font-weight:400">By coincidence, both girls practiced brushweaving. However, they were stuck on the third round of the trial. Ovepping runes was aplicated topic. There were just too many possiblebinations that could go wrong.


    <span style="font-weight:400">There wasn’t just one reaction that happened consistently when youbined two runes. You had to take into ount the different angles and the ovepped area, as just a few millimeters could drastically change the results. This caused there to be an uncountable number of possibilities.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It was a daunting topic for beginners, which also made it a challenging topic many struggled with. Not everyone had Ruby to safely test out the various reactions for them.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So…Can you get straight to the point?” Tang Yulian asked. “How can we improve our sess rate at inscribing oveid runes?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yulian!” Sima Xue clung to her friend. “We aren’t in that much of a rush, are we?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“At the end of the day, the pocket realm is a timed event. We can’t stay here forever. I want to spend my time as efficiently as possible.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Before the two could begin arguing, Li Lang interjected.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I agree. Let’s try to go over all the key points quickly, so you can go practice. It’ll be more efficient for you guys to practice yourselves ande together to review. Let’s start by having you each inscribe something for me. I want to see how you do it.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“There isn’t much to see, is there? We can’t reveal to you our techniques either, so shouldn’t we discuss the general principles behind oveid runes?” Sima Xue countered.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“We can get to thatter if this doesn’t work. For now, I just want to confirm the basics. It’s faster to show through action than to exin, right?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Okay, fine.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">The two girls nodded without suspecting too much, with Sima Xue taking the lead. Her tools materialized out of thin air and she got straight into it. Her possession of a space ring really cemented the fact she was a valued member of a prestigious organization.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Brushweaving in public wasn’t all that rare. It was typical for theirpetitions to proceed with an audience while they inscribed. The two soonpleted their talisman.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Throughout the process, Li Lang carefully monitored every stroke. He also noticed both of them had their eyes entirely closed as they focused on channeling their energies.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It was a method he had often seen as brushweaving was said to be entirely in the Qi techniques.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Do you want us to try doing an oveid rune now?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hmm, can you actually try to inscribe the same talisman you did just now?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? Why?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’ll exin itter. Knowing the reason may affect the results. Can you trust me on this one?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, it’s not that big a of deal, so why not? Are you okay with it, Yulian?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Seeing the aloof expert nod, the two girls once again inscribed a talisman. Once they were done, Li Lang wordlessly snatched their work andpared it side by side. He scrutinized everyst detail of it with his injection rod. That was because he had taken the liberty of turning it into a ruler as well.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The two girls curiously crept up behind him as they watched on in bewilderment.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Is there something wrong with the talismans?” Tang Yulian couldn’t help but ask with a frown. “They should all be fully functional.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, I have no doubts about that.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">The two girls waited a moment for Li Lang to continue, but he continued to ignore them and examined the talismans.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then what are you looking for?” Sima Xue pressed.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Just the minute differences in each stroke.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re not even using Qi sense to inspect it?” Sima Xue blinked nkly. “The strokes look the same to me. Do small differences that you need to squint to see really matter?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hmm, it depends. We can do a demonstration in a second. Just give me a moment here. Do you mind if I have these talismans?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">The two girls shrugged and gave consent, prompting Li Lang to get out of his seat. He moved away from view before having Ruby take the talismans. He didn’t need the auto-analyzer to be able to examine the visual difference between the two sets of talismans. There were other tools in hisb.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So they really don’t focus on producing consistent strokes at all. Interesting…”


    <span style="font-weight:400">A momentter, Li Lang returned to the mess hall. The two girls didn’t waste a moment and began asking him to exin as he sat down.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Before I go over the reason why I made you inscribe two talismans, I first wanted to confirm something. You both inscribe with your eyes closed normally, right?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. It’s what we were taught. As beginners, we should close off our minds to any distractions, or so they say.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then my first advice to you. Practice your strokes. You want them to be as consistent as possible. I haven’t seen you inscribe any oveid runes yet, but I think it’ll help you improve.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why? My teacher told me it doesn’t really matter. We just have to make the Qi structure within the ink line up into the correct runes,” Sima Xue asked as she tilted her head.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“While what you say is true. It doesn’t change the fact that the ink is what carries the Qi. With oveid runes that are so sensitive to any changes, having a consistent stroke will limit the ways the flow of Qi could go awry.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Seeing them blink nkly, Li Lang began to give them a thorough exnation of his theory.