The Silly Alchemist

“To be honest, this Tai Ya’s sabre could be better. I’ll study sword casting in the future and make a better weapon for you,” Ye Lang looked at the Tai Ya’s sabre in Tigress’s hands, seemingly unimpressed.

If anyone else had heard what he said, they’d want to choke him. This Tai Ya’s sabre was made using many rare materials. It was a dream artefact for many people, plus the top artisans were hired to make it. The cost was so high, even royalty may not be able to own a weapon like this.

Instead, he created such a weapon for “his servant girl”. He truly was a prodigal. 

Money matters aside, the most frustrating thing was him complaining the sabre being not good enough. This alone was enough to drive everyone mad! 

Sword casting was not some martial arts treasury product, it was a coveted skill. In Ban’s alchemy notes, alchemy was utilised to create a weapon, or to refine a weapon. Of course, martial arts treasury also had related records too, so Ye Lang combined these with some of his own knowledge and turned it into a new skill.

However, the process would take a long time and he hadn’t mastered the ability yet. Perhaps in a few years he would master it, perhaps even longer than that.

“It’s already amazing, I love it,” said Tigress, caressing the Tai Ya’s sabre.

…

Stab, raise, hack, chop…

Tigress held Tai Ya’s sabre, doing all kinds of movements in the backyard. She wielded the sabre expertly as blades of air scattered in all directions. 

…

“Backstroke!”

Tigress turned and spun Tai Ya’s sabre beautifully, then stabbed directly behind her. The sabre carried Douqi as it cut through the air. 

“Clap…”

As she heard applause, Tigress saw Ye Lang standing in front of her. She was so focused on practising she hadn’t noticed Ye Lang’s presence.

“Young Master, you’re awake? I’ll serve you immediately…” said Tigress as she withdrew Tai Ya’s sabre hurriedly.

“There’s no need for that, I washed my face and eaten breakfast. You can continue practising, your backhands are improving. I think you could stab someone to death even without a spearhead,” said Ye Lang while smiling. 

To be fair, Tigress had already prepared everything. All Ye Lang had to do was just pick up the chopsticks to eat, or pick up a towel to wash his face. If he couldn’t do that on his own, he’d practically be a vegetable. 

“Thank you, young master,” said Tigress, she always had a question she’d never gotten the answer to…

She had no idea why her young master loved to say ‘even with no spearhead you could kill someone’ so much. 

It was simple, no? With enough determination, you didn’t need to be a master to be able to stab someone to death. 

Afterwards, Ye Lang took out a bunch of books and records to continue his research on alchemy. He was obsessed with it, discovering many interesting things along the way. 

Not only could alchemy be used in battle, but it could also be applied in many areas, i.e. his recent research on sword casting. Using alchemy’s Transformation Array, forging with a furnace was no longer required to create a weapon. And with practice, one could even surpass the quality attained through forging. 

It was also so much faster than forging. The only downside was it required excellent alchemy skills and a huge amount of energy, and a person’s energy was limited.

Since alchemy could be used to create weapons, with the same logic, it could be used to create other things too.

There were countless possibilities. When Ye Lang combined things from the martial arts treasury with alchemy, the effect was an unexpected chemical reaction.

And it was called Qimen Formation and Alchemy Extraction!

The Qimen Formation was a small section in Qimen Forecast (also known as Qimen Dunjia), but this small section was enough for a person to spend their entire lifetime mastering it. Qimen Forecast as a whole was even more comprehensive, with many more subsections. 

According to the explanations of modern studies, Qimen Forecast was considered a treasured form of divination of the Chinese people. It was also the most secretive technique among the Three Secret Treasures: Qimen, Liuyi, Taiyi. Easily the highest level of forecast studies, it was also known as the Emperor’s study or Heaven’s practice. It was a scientific masterpiece on the laws of celestial bodies, humans and the movement of the earth. The magnetic field of the earth affected observations too- all incorporated into the art of Qimen Dunjia. This made it the most esoteric, the best tool to reveal how matters developed based on natural laws of the universe.

The well known Kuji-kiri [Note: it’s the practice of martial arts using hand gestures], also called Qimen Nine Knacks, did not belong to Buddhism. This alone would take a person a very long time to study too. In conclusion, alchemy included many, many things.

This was the reason why Ye Lang’s studies on Qimen Forecast was so shallow could only be considered as ‘peeking into a hallway’- but this was already enough for him to learn so much.

Alchemy Extraction was a legendary skill related to many parts of alchemy. Products like gunpowder and the legendary elixir of life could be created using this skill.

We can only wait to see what would happen when these two fields merge into one! 

So far what Ye Lang needed to do was to assimilate the knowledge in martial arts treasury into this world. It would take a long time and many trial and errors. 

Of course, he did not deny the knowledge in this world, it was quite the opposite. To be able to combine otherworldly knowledge, he had to first double his understanding of this world. Only with full understanding could he combine the two together.

His identity and background allowed him to have the time, energy and money to experiment without any worries. Then again, he studied alchemy anyway so he could carry on with his research with raising suspicions.

As long as he didn’t deliberately show off his skills, no one would suspect a thing, i.e. what skills he was practising and the abilities he had.

Time slipped by. The two of them were there as they usually were, one reading quietly, and the other waving a long-handled weapon as if whipping up a thunderstorm. 

Tigress moved faster as she practised, her body form barely visible towards the end. The shadow of Tai Ya’s sabre could be seen everywhere, and her energies filling up the backyard.

Although it felt like the sabre was everywhere at once, Tigress’ moves were not complicated. This was merely an effect she caused due to her speed. The speed at which she wielded the Tai Ya’s sabre was fast enough to leave afterimages!

The afterimage was one of the criteria for determining the greatness of a martial artist, those who could achieve an afterimage were considered experts. More specifically, they’d be Level 5 fighters. They weren’t exactly very experienced- compared to other masters- but this level was high enough among commoners.