Li Ziqi and Lu Zhiruo soon caught up with Sun Mo.
“What do you all want to have for dinner tonight? It will be my treat!”
Sun Mo was in a very good mood. Although the number of students who came to listen to his spirit runes lessons wasn’t that many, the effects were undoubtedly very good. He then patted the papaya girl’s head in passing and got the system to open the treasure chest.
After the glow faded, the black-iron treasure chest opened, revealing a giant medicine packet.
Sun Mo was a little disappointed. “Dumplings!” This was a dish Lu Zhiruo liked very much. In addition, her teacher today was very impressive and they should really celebrate. Hence, it was a must for them to eat something good.
Li Ziqi wanted to say something, but she hesitated. She wanted to ask Sun Mo about the matter with the spirit gathering rune, but she was worried that she might cause complications for Sun Mo. After all, it was normal for some people to be unwilling to talk about a secret.
“What are you thinking about?”
Sun Mo turned and glanced at Li Ziqi. “I’m your teacher, just tell me straight if you have something you want to say. There’s no need to treat me like an outsider!”
After hearing Sun Mo’s warm voice, Li Ziqi smiled. Her smile was like a hundred flowers blooming at the same time. That was right, Sun Mo was her personal teacher, and he was simply so warm and gentle and would surely not rebuke her.
“Teacher, did you modify the second spirit gathering rune?”
After Li Ziqi spoke, she stared at Sun Mo with trepidation.
“That’s right!”
Sun Mo nodded.
Li Ziqi was still waiting for more words, but she discovered that Sun Mo no longer had any intentions to continue speaking. He was discussing what type of dumplings they should eat together with Lu Zhiruo. “We must definitely get the famous three veg fresh! (potato, chili, eggplant).”
Lu Zhiruo wasn’t a fan of meat.
“A dumpling with no meat filling is like a human with no soul!”
Sun Mo persisted.
“Eh?!
Seeing Sun Mo and Lu Zhiruo speaking about hotpot dishes, Li Ziqi was dumbstruck. Sun Mo’s reply was two simple words, yet it would definitely cause a huge storm of commotion in the world of spirit runes. This was because he had modified the spirit gathering rune!
(And isn’t junior apprentice-sister Zhiruo too simple-minded? Our teacher has just made such a huge contribution, can’t you act a little more proper?)
Li Ziqi felt a little dazed. Were dumplings even more important than the modification of the spirit gathering rune? “What’s wrong?”
Sun Mo noticed Li Ziqi’s unusual reactions.
“Teacher, how long have you studied for before you modified the spirit rune?”
Li Ziqi was curious.
“How long?”
Sun Mo frowned.
“Wait a minute, don’t tell me you modified the spirit rune extemporaneously?”
Looking at Sun Mo’s appearance, Li Ziqi stared at Sun Mo in shock. If that was really the case, wasn’t her teacher a little way too impressive?
“You mean the second spirit rune I drew? You could see through it?”.
Sun Mo counter-asked. He didn’t feel awkward that he was seen through.
When he was drawing the first spirit rune, he did it normally. But during the second one, he was afraid that the students might grow impatient.
As a teacher with 6 years of teaching experience in his previous world, Sun Mo knew that students were most afraid of a dry and boring lecture. The enlightenment he had gained after lunch allowed Sun Mo to grasp the essence of the spirit gathering rune. He was also very confident, and this was why he could increase his speed and improve the spirit gathering rune by simplifying it extemporaneously.
Sun Mo’s design philosophy was that under the situation where the core of the spirit rune remained unchanged, he would reconstruct the lines and make some changes to the details. By doing so, the effect of the spirit gathering rune would be slightly lowered, but the drawing speed would be quicker!
From the angle of practicality, the effect of this spirit rune had worsened and become an inferior-grade product. But how would the students be able to see through all of this?
Moreover, when Sun Mo was lecturing, he was using the first spirit rune he had drawn.
He didn’t expect Li Ziqi to see through it.
“That student who received the rune paper most probably cannot tell either.”
Li Ziqi added. At the same time, she felt an indescribable shock in his heart. How high exactly was her teacher’s attainments in the study of spirit runes? He could actually modify a spirit rune anytime he wanted?
“Ah?”
Sun Mo furrowed his brows. If the other party used the rune, he would surely be able to discover that the effect of the spirit gathering rune was weaker than normal. “Ziqi, I will pay. Go and help me purchase it back!”
Sun Mo didn’t lack money now.
“Why?” Lu Zhiruo didn’t understand.
“The effect of that spirit gathering rune is slightly weaker.”
Sun Mo explained.
“But why do you have to purchase it back even if the effects are slightly weaker?”
Lu Zhiruo shook her head, a look of puzzlement could be seen on her face.
Yet, Li Ziqi already understood the reason for Sun Mo’s worry. She involuntarily consoled, “Teacher, you are thinking too much. No matter how much weaker the effect is, your spirit rune is one that could generate a spirit qi tornado. It is at the fifth-level at the very least and the market price for such a rune would be above 500 taels of silver. Even if the effects are weaker, it would only be considered slightly inferior to other runes at its level.”
Li Ziqi silently mused, ‘No matter what, the effects of the runes teacher drew are much better compared to the majority of runes being sold out there.’
“Teacher, that student won’t sell it for sure!”
Lu Zhiruo hurriedly told Sun Mo the situation she had seen earlier when Lu Changhe rejected a purchase offer. Lu Changhe even mocked the other party for not knowing his stuff. “That student truly admires the spirit gathering rune you drew and it seemed that he wants to store it.”
“Teacher, you don’t have to worry. Students who suddenly receive a spirit gathering rune worth a few hundred taels would be so happy that their hearts are leaping in joy.” Li Ziqi consoled. “Speaking of which… Teacher, is it true you simplified three spirit lines for that spirit gathering rune? Then you merged the simplified lines into six lines?”
“You can even see through this?”
Sun Mo was shocked. Although he knew that the little sunny egg Li Ziqi was very intelligent, he didn’t expect her to be so intelligent to this extent.
A spirit gathering rune contained a total of 27 spirit lines. They were grouped up into seven small pictures and they were re-assembled into the final form of the spirit rune.
Even for people who drew spirit gathering runes often, they wouldn’t be able to tell there was a discrepancy just by glancing at it. It was as if Chinese words were arranged in disorder, but it might not actually affect the reading experience. “Wouldn’t it be shocking if I can’t see it instead?”
Sun Mo didn’t reply, instead, he turned to Lu Zhiruo.
“Mn?”
The papaya girl leaned her head to the side. Her mind was filled with dumplings, and she basically didn’t know what the two of them were talking about.
“Alright, let’s not harp on this. What type of fillings do you want to eat?”
Sun Mo wanted to have a minor celebration.
“Three veg fresh!”
Lu Zhiruo moved toward Li Ziqi and stared at her with wide eyes, like a little kitten begging for food.
Li Ziqi was speechless. Her teacher basically wasn’t aware of how impressive his action had been.
If someone that knew his stuff were to see it, that person would have surely shouted out ‘godly genius!’, with so much excitement that his voice broke.
Ding!
Favorable impression points from Li Ziqi +30. Friendly (336/1,000).
After spending 50 taels and having a sumptuous dinner, Li Ziqi went home and Lu Zhiruo returned to the dorm. As for Sun Mo, he carried his bonsai and headed toward the Sorrowless Lake.
Sun Mo had a new idea.
Spirit runes were considered consumables because as time flew, the spirit qi contained in the spirit lines would dissipate.
If one wanted to activate a spirit rune, there was a need to depend on the spirit qi in the spirit lines. They were like an ignition switch, a necessary component to start a huge fire.
If the spirit qi in those lines was able to last eternally, wouldn’t that mean that before the spirit runes were damaged, one could always continue using it? Naturally, even spirit rune ink that contained spirit qi wasn’t able to achieve this effect. What should he replace spirit rune ink with then?
How about plants!
Just like the silver queen plant in Sun Mo’s hands, spirit qi flew within its branches. If he channeled the spirit qi into a spirit gathering rune… unless this entire plant died off, wouldn’t the spirit qi in the spirit rune last forever?
By doing so, wouldn’t that mean the spirit gathering rune could be used repeatedly?
Upon thinking of this, after he arrived at the lake, Sun Mo sat under the tree from this afternoon. He began to draw a spirit gathering rune on one of the leaves of the silver queen plant.
As an extremely unlucky person, Sun Mo was very superstitious. He felt that the Fengshui in this place was good and could aid his contemplation. However, it was a little dark.
No matter, the moon today was very bright. With its pale radiance, in addition to the fact that Sun Mo was at the second-level of blood-ignition and had Divine Sight, it wasn’t a problem for him to see things clearly.
This time around, Sun Mo used the flower spirit rune ink.
Sun Mo drew very seriously and it took him about half an hour.
From the start to the end, Sun Mo kept Divine Sight activated. He was observing the spirit qi within the plant’s branches.
When his last stroke landed, a booming sound occurred as the spirit qi in the surroundings surged over, forming a spirit qi tornado.
“It succeeded!”
Sun Mo was very excited. It was like he had bought a new game and was impatient to continue drawing on.
One leaf, two leaves, three leaves! One spirit qi tornado, two spirit qi tornado, three spirit qi tornado!
His speed got faster the more he drew.
However, at the sixth leaf, Sun Mo frowned. He inclined his head and glanced at the cobblestone pathway of the Sorrowless Lake. A male student was walking on it with a distracted look on his face.
The sound of the footsteps disrupted Sun Mo’s thinking
“Che, he is someone that fell out of love?”
Sun Mo’s lips pursed. Back when he was in university and doing self-revision at night, he would occasionally see students sitting at a path beside a small forest or sitting on a rock by the lake, crying. Back then Sun Mo had found these kinds of people to be lacking in civility. Why were they hiding in such places to cry? Were they trying to scare people? After he graduated, he also thought about it. If he had gone up and passed a pack of tissue over while consoling those girls, he might have discarded his status as a single dog.
Anyway, the person in question now was a male, and Sun Mo definitely didn’t swing that way. Hence, he continued to focus on drawing the spirit gathering runes.
When Sun Mo finally finished his work, it was already late at night. The campus was deathly silent, and the trees wavered when the wind blew by, creating an extremely ghostly feeling
How tiring!
Sun Mo stretched his waist and was prepared to head back to rest. In the end, when he cast his gaze into the distance and wanted to relax his tired eyes, he saw the male student from earlier. The student hadn’t left yet.
This fellow wandered around the lake for three hours. And right now, his body was leaning forward slightly as he stood at the edge of the Sorrowless Lake.
“Damn, it can’t be a suicide, right?”
Sun Mo felt depressed.
He could only approach silently and prepare to stop the student while observing the situation. At the same time, he forcefully endured the swell and pain in his eyes as he activated Divine Sight once more.
A line of red-colored warning immediately jumped out.
“Will: 0. Suicide is already something inevitable.”
Sun Mo’s vision continued to peer downward and focused on the words below the warning.
Potential value: Extremely high!
Sun Mo was speechless a moment later. (Your potential value is so high but you want to commit suicide? Are you not wasting your natural talent?)
