Chapter 350: Welcoming Gifts

Not even a second had passed since Hai Dongqing had started to observe Bai Yunfei, but the younger male felt as though time was stretching on for far too long now.

Thought after thought weaved with one another as Bai Yunfei tried to think of a way to stop this mysterious old man from forming some sort of grudge with him.

Thinking that his best bet was to do something, Bai Yunfei immediately prepared to try and change how this elder might perceive him.

“Cough cough, er… senior Hai, this junior… happens to have some writings of what I’ve learned in Go. Since this is our first time meeting, please allow me to offer this as a gift…” In a flash of inspiration, Bai Yunfei took out a small gray scroll from his space ring.

A while back, Bai Yunfei had been bored enough to write down a few memories about Go. The scroll detailed certain ways to best approach certain situations, and in a way, they were basically past records of various Go games for the average layman.

“Oh, such a thing exists?” Hai Dongqing’s eyes lit up, but with some suspicion. “Young one, is this something you wrote? Are you decent at the game? Don’t try and trick me with something you cobbled together.”

“Hai you fool, how could you speak to my disciple like that? The game of Go was created by Yunfei himself. Can you really say he’s not decent at the game?” Zi Jin backed Bai Yunfei in his attempt to save himself.

However, Zi Jin was also interested in the scroll in Bai Yunfei’s hand.

“Oh? You created Go?” Hai Dongqing remarked in surprise. He gave Zi Jin an odd glance Zi trying to confirm the truth. He then raised his right hand up. With a twitch of his finger, the scroll in Bai Yunfei’s hand flew to him. A pleased smile appeared on Hai Dongqing’s fave after looking through the scroll with his soulsense. He then deposited the scroll into his space ring, afraid that someone might steal it.

“Haha, very good! What a knowledgeable young man! Not bad at all!!” Hai Dongqing laughed. Bai Yunfei gave a mental sigh of relief when he heard an amicable tone in his laugh.

A look of disappointment flashed across Zi Jin’s eyes when the scroll disappeared into Hai Dongqing’s ring. Responding to Hai Dongqing’s pleased words, he said, “What nerve you have. Accepting a gift from your junior without giving him one in return. Is that any way a senior should act?”

“Uh…” Freezing into place at the accusation, Hai Dongqing could only cough into his hand to disguise his emotions. “Who said I wasn’t going to give a gift? In fact, I was just about to give one, but how can you call yourself his master if he was the one who had to give a gift? Really now, pay attention to your own image as the headmaster of the Crafting School, okay?”

“.......”

Thinking about what to give for a moment Hai Dongqing sighed, “Forget it. In order to avoid being called a cheapskate by that old fogey, have this item young one! I was going to trade this to your master for something equally good…”

Hai Dongqing waved his hand, and a fist-sized white stone flew toward Bai Yunfei. Catching the stone from the air almost reflexively, Bai Yunfei looked at it. He felt as though it was familiar...

“This is…”

Shocked by what he saw, Bai Yunfei quickly took a look at the notification that popped up.

Elemental Affinity: None

Upgrade Level: +10

Special Effect 1: Increase the chance of success when upgrading by 700%. Effect cannot be stacked with the effect of another item.

Special Effect 2: Increase the chance of success when crafting by 500%. Effect cannot be stacked with the effect of another item.

Cannot be upgraded.

Bai Yunfei’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Any thanks he wanted to say to the elder was momentarily forgotten as he stared at the gift that had been given to him. It was actually an upgrade stone! A high earth tier one!!

The last stone he had owned had only been a mid-human tier upgrade stone. This stone was far better than the last one!

An increase of 700%... a percentage seven-times greater than the previous one!

Even Zi Jin looked surprised at the object in Bai Yunfei’s hand. He nodded in satisfaction and gave a meaningful look to Hai Dongqing. “So you’ve what it takes to be a senior after all.”

“Ugh, I never should’ve come to the Crafting School! Your school has plenty of treasures, but not only did I get none of them, I lost most of my own! What a disappointment…” Hai Dongqing sighed.

Picking up his gourd to leave, Hai Dongqing said to Zi Jin, “I’ll be leaving first, but expect me to come back in a few days. I want to take a good look at this scroll, so you better prepare yourself for a complete massacre when I return!”

Then, Hai Dongqing disappeared from Bai Yunfei’s sight. In no time at all, he was up in the sky flying off into the distance. With Bai Yunfei’s strength, there was no way his soulsense would’ve picked up on the fact that Hai Dongqing had left.

With Hai Dongqing gone, the friendly look on Zi Jin’s face reverted to his impassive one. Storing away the Go board, he sat on a nearby chair and motioned for Bai Yunfei, “Yunfei, come and sit.”

Obeying his master, Bai Yunfei walked over to the other chair and sat down. “Yunfei, this crafting stone you got is extremely precious as a crafting ingredient.” Zi Jin explained, “It can increase the chances of success when crafting an item, but you do not have the skill to use it efficiently. Wait until you grow strong enough to craft more advanced soul armaments, then you can use the stone.”

“Crafting stone? Oh, yes, I understand, master.” Bai Yunfei quickly masked the surprise on his face and nodded his head. The most important aspect to this stone was the fact that it could increase the chance of success when upgrading, hence why Bai Yunfei had named it the upgrade stone, but the stone was called the ‘crafting stone’ by everyone else since they could only make use of the secondary effect of it.

Looking away from the stone, Zi Jin warmly smiled at Bai Yunfei, “Yunfei, how do you feel about what happened in Mo City?”

“Many things happened to me, and I learned a lot. I feel as though I’ve grown as a person.” Bai Yunfei responded honestly.

“That’s good. If you’ve learned, you’ve benefitted. The outside world has many things to teach, things you wouldn’t ever learn in the Crafting School. Words can’t teach you everything, you need to learn by experience as well.” Zi Jin nodded. “Explain to me the most important things that happened to you in the city. Tingting gave me a brief summary of what happened, but the details are still unclear to me. You’d best explain how you came to regain your strength.”

When Kou Tingting came back to the Crafting School, she had not been able to explain everything that had happened to Bai Yunfei and Tang Xinyun, so Kou Tingting could only relay the major events, like their complete recoveries. She couldn’t explain the finer details.

“Yes, master. After your student accompanied Xinyun back to her home, I…”

“……”

Recollecting his thoughts, Bai Yunfei began to recall what had happened to him during his time in Mo City. He made sure to mention the fireseed spirit mushroom he had bought at the auction house, how it was stolen, how Tang Xinyun had been kidnapped, how he had eaten the mushroom to form a second essence fireseed, and how his first essence fireseed had been awakened to destroy his enemy… one after another, Bai Yunfei explained each event without leaving any details out.

The more Bai Yunfei talked, the more his master looked alarmed. By the time Bai Yunfei talked about forming a second essence fireseed after eating the mushroom, Zi Jin’s face was completely overtaken by a look of utter shock. When Bai Yunfei mentioned that he had killed Ta Shan and divided the two essence fireseeds away from one another, a bright glint of light appeared while Bai Yunfei continued on with his story.

“And then I started to rest and recover my strength for an entire month before returning home…”

The entire narration took nearly a whole hour by the time Bai Yunfei was finished. Taking a deep breath, he looked at his master, only to see that Zi Jin had his head bowed low deep in thought.

“Master? Is there something wrong?”

“Yunfei,” he raised his head, “you said that you now have a second essence fireseed, and that nothing happened during that one month since you obtained it?”

Not knowing what Zi Jin was getting at, Bai Yunfei could only answer honestly, “That is correct, master. Ever since, I have stored one of my essence fireseeds in my Cataclysmic Seal, I didn’t dare to put the two together again…”

“That’s good. You did the right thing.” Zi Jin praised him, “Yunfei, take your lifebound armament out for your master to see.”

“Yes.” responded Bai Yunfei. His Violet Soul Ring pulsated with light for a second as the Cataclysmic Seal popped out. A slight ripple of elemental fire emanated from it.

A stunned look appeared on Zi Jin’s face as soon as the Cataclysmic Seal popped into sight. Clearly, there was something different about the soul armament now.

He studied the brick for several seconds before extending his right hand.

The moment his finger touched the Cataclysmic Seal, the brick softly shivered. A vibrational hum came to life as if rejecting Zi Jin’s touch.

When he pulled away, the brick settled back down.

Testing the brick again, Zi Jin poured a bit of his soulsense into the brick to make contact with the second essence fireseed. When the two entities touched, the Cataclysmic Seal exploded with a blindingly bright amount of elemental fire!

Surprised, Zi Jin immediately pulled his hand back while Bai Yunfei moved to rein in the Cataclysmic Seal.

“Master…” Bai Yunfei started to speak.

“Haha, it’s nothing…” Zi Jin answered while maintaining eye contact with the brick. “Yunfei, give me your hand.”

Bai Yunfei complied with his right hand.

Touching Bai Yunfei’s hand with his own, Zi Jin transmitted his soulsense into Bai Yunfei.

Knowing that Zi Jin was looking for something, Bai Yunfei offered up no resistance. He allowed the foreign soulsense to circle his body for a while before it pulled out.

“Amazing… there really are two… two completely intact essence fireseeds!!” Zi Jin announced as soon as he pulled his right hand away, “The method you used to make two essence fireseeds is strange, but without a doubt, you have two essence fireseeds… this means… this means…”

Delight slowly spread across Zi Jin’s face. He spoke as though he was thinking about something incredibly special.