Chapter 4 (1/2)

Chapter 4

Otherworldly Tang San’s First Hidden Weapon

Part 1

Early morning, Tang San returned feeling refreshed from the mountaintop to make breakfast. Since he used Purple Demon Eye every day, and also unceasingly cultivated in the morning, Purple Demon Eye had already made significant progress compared to before. His eyesight was already capable of clearly seeing the minute motion of a mosquito flapping its wings within ten meters. If not for Mysterious Heaven skill being unable to break through the bottleneck, Tang San believed, his progress in other aspects would be even greater.

Forging a fifty square centimeter block of pig iron into fist size; that task which was seemingly impossible at first, had already been accomplished by Tang San as early as half a month ago. With the force leveraging method Tang Hao taught him, he was also capable of more than twenty four hammer swings, every swing with flawless precision, including control of force. Although all along Tang Hao never had any praise for him, but since his father once in a while unintentionally revealed it, Tang San knew that this hammer method also had some small accomplishment at last, and again thought it was still important to depend on unceasing practice.

At once entering the door, lightly touching his wrist, Tang San’s face showed a trace of a satisfied smile; on his wrist was attached his first work since arriving in this world, and every step was completed by him on his own.

That was a spring loaded dart concealed in his sleeve. When speaking about Tang sect in the first place, the concealed dart is the most ordinary kind of hidden weapon. The key to manufacturing the concealed dart depends on the power of the mechanism as well as the degree of ingenuity of the design. Tang San’s manufactured sleeve dart was even equipped with a safety device, so no accidental injury was possible.

One set of sleeve darts was just like three arrows made to fit in a sleeve, even now it was without exception on Tang San’s hand. The material for this sleeve dart had consumed exactly that chunk of pig iron he had hammered for nearly a hundred days.

Just as Tang San delivered the completed task to Tang Hao, when he held that fist sized chunk of completely forged pig iron, he was shocked to discover that the piece of pig iron that originally had contained numerous impurities had changed into a chunk of iron mother, genuine iron mother.

In his previous life, let alone him, even if it was Tang sect’s best forging grandmaster, he could not accomplish this method to forge common pig iron into iron mother. But in this world it was reality. This in itself was an extremely inconceivable matter. This sleeve dart on Tang San’s wrist was made from that chunk of iron mother. To completely manufacture the sleeve dart, including three ten centimetres small arrows inside, he used all the iron mother he had.

Speaking of forging, Tang San was no good; far inferior to Tang Hao. But when speaking about making clever hidden weapons, let alone Tang Hao, perhaps all of Douluo Continent did not have anyone who could compare to his Tang outer sect genius.

Ordinary sleeve darts had a range of fifteen metres or so, but the sleeve dart made by Tang San could maintain an effective attack range of over thirty metres.

What is called effective attack range, is exactly the sleeve dart emission distance in a straight line, it is also exactly the distance where the weapon is fully able to kill or wound.

Tang San’s sleeve darts, even though only three, were made extremely ingeniously. On each sleeve dart were three blood grooves. If not because of the size being too small, he still thought to give the sleeve dart arrowheads barbs. The tail had four tiny fletchings that could cause the sleeve dart to fly extremely smoothly. The tapered arrowhead was spiral rifled, so that when the sleeve dart was launched it possessed even stronger piercing power.

Making designs for hidden weapons, Tang San was always pursuing perfection; even though this was only a single ordinary sleeve dart, nothing more.

Tang San knew that he was still young right now; Mysterious Heaven skill also could not break through the bottleneck. Even if he was an ordinary person he could not say he was worried; only in case he encountered a spirit master like Su Yuntao who could use spirits would his strength be far from enough. But with this sleeve dart it was different, Tang San believed that depending on it, even if his actual strength was not more powerful than a spirit master, he had ways to deal with it all.

……

【Tang sect Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record, general principles second point: what are hidden weapons: employed surreptitiously, a special martial weapon to vanquish the enemy and obtain victory. If the enemy knows you want to use it, like that, it is no longer a hidden weapon, rather an overt weapon.】

……

Tang San of course could not let his hidden weapon become an overt weapon. Tang Hao also never bothered about what he used this chunk of iron mother for, therefore this sleeve dart was a secret that belonged to him alone.

Entering the house, the appetizing smell of congee wafted out, the same as he made every day, and had already long since become used to.

“Dad, come eat.”

Tang San called towards the inner room.

Unusually, the Tang Hao who appeared every day when he heard about food was nowhere to be seen today.

Tang San’s heart at once tightened, was his dad ill? He hastily took three steps and ran two steps towards his father’s room.

Tang Hao wasn’t in the room. In however many years, this was the first time he was not still sleeping in.

When Tang San was in the middle of thinking over where Tang Hao could have gone, Tang Hao returned.

“Little San, where on earth did you go this early in the morning?” Tang Hao coolly asked.

Tang San said:

“I went out for exercise. Every morning I go out for a run.”

This did not count as a lie, he truly did go out to ‘exercise’.

“Oh.”

Tang Hao did not try to dig deeper, and coolly said:

“Today you won’t practice forging again. Get your things ready, tomorrow old Jack will take you to Nuoding city.”

Tang San was dumbfounded for a moment,

“Nuoding city? Why on earth there?”

The last time he had gone to Nuoding city was roughly a year ago. Old Jack went into town to do some shopping, and brought him along to let him experience it.

Tang Hao gave him a look, and said:

“Do you not want to study spirit master abilities? Old Jack can take you to Nuoding city’s primary spirit master academy to become a working student. There you can study whatever you want.”

Hearing his father’s words, Tang San’s pulse suddenly sped up, and he found it difficult to speak from the surprise and excitement he felt. Mysterious Heaven skill’s inability to break through had all along been a puzzle that was his greatest preoccupation; a spirit master’s spirit ring was clearly an opportunity.

“Dad, what changed your mind?”

Tang Hao returned with a question:

“Do you still want to go or not?”

Tang San said:

“But if I leave, nobody will make you food.”

By now he already understood the reason why his father had gotten up this early in the morning; unexpectedly, it had been to see village elder Jack.

Part 2

Tang Hao coldly said:

“Do I still need you to look after me? You just leave. This is your chosen path. Every year Holy Spirit village has a quota of one, do not waste it. I have handed over the forging methods to you, so you can look for work as an apprentice in a smithy in town. It should be enough to cover tuition and food expenses.”

Even though Tang Hao’s words were very indifferent, but the edges of Tang San’s eyes still felt hot. For who knows how many months, even though Tang Hao treated him in a manner that certainly never changed, but Tang Hao taught him forging; the tall wide ashen man before his eyes already gave him an increasingly paternal feeling. He of course wanted to go study the lore of spirit masters, but at this moment he somewhat hated to part with his father.

Tang Hao said:

“Letting you go to Nuoding comes with a condition. If you agree you may go.”

“I promise.”

Tang San spoke without the slightest hesitation.

Tang Hao’s brows wrinkled slightly,

“You will promise easily without even asking what I demand. As a man, promised matters must be done, do not become a person who promises lightly.”

Tang San spoke at ease:

“No matter what dad asks me to do, I will promise. Dad definitely acts for my good.”

Tang Hao was slightly panicked. Tang San spoke without thinking, but it was precisely that trust which caused his feelings to stir a little.

“From now on no matter how you cultivate your spirit power, I want you to promise, you must not let your hammer spirit absorb any spirit ring, so much so that you cannot let another person see it appear. Moreover, do not let other people know that you have twin spirits. Can you do this?”

Tang San was stunned for a moment, “That blue silver grass spirit then?”

Tang Hao said:

“The blue silver grass spirit you can use as you please, cultivating, exerting whatever spirit is also no problem. With twin spirits both spirits do not need to rely on spirit rings to promote spirit power to be able to cultivate. Provided you have one spirit that possesses a spirit ring, the spirit power promotion bottleneck will disappear.”

Tang San said:

“So in other words, from now on I only use blue silver grass spirit, right?”

Tang Hao nodded,

“Only if you encounter a life threatening situation. Otherwise, do not use that hammer.”

“Very well, I promise you.”

Tang San nodded solemnly. From his point of view, cultivating a spirit or not, using some spirit ring, it was all no problem, as long as he could find the means to break through Mysterious Heaven skill’s bottleneck.

To other people it seemed, perhaps blue silver grass was only a useless spirit, but Tang San had all along not become gloomy because of blue silver grass. Cultivating Tang sect hidden weapons to a certain level, ‘when picking the fluttering flower the leaf can also hurt’ were not some empty words, but simply truly existed. Blue silver grass was exactly Mysterious Heaven skill internal force condensed by means of spirit power. As long as the internal force was sufficient, there were practically limitless hidden weapons.

“Good, let’s eat.”

Tang Hao said.

In a home not much different from destitute, Tang San did not have anything at all good to prepare. Packing those clothes with various sized patches he had took only a moment to finish.

However, this day he did not listen to Tang Hao to only put things in order; forging sounds still resounded in his room. For the sake of being able to produce every kind of hidden weapon in the future, Tang San understood he could only depend on himself for everything. Though his father had passed on the forging technique it was definitely essential to put in more practice. When the hidden weapons unique skill was not cultivated to its pinnacle, the hidden weapons quality just had its own conclusive effect. Particularly for a kind of super hidden weapon like Buddha Fury Tang Lotus, an error in precision of more than an iota could not appear.

The passage of this one day seemed particularly endless. It was also the first time since Tang San arrived in this world that he felt ill at ease. Concerning the outside world, he had both expectations and some fear. Whether in Tang sect or in Holy Spirit village, he had never gone out to undergo experience and training. Regarding this point, he truly was no different from the children. All along he thought, after all what brilliance could the outside world produce?

After supper, Tang Hao left without a word to go out drinking, as if there was nothing different from the routine. He told Tang San not to make noise and disturb his sleep when he went out for his morning run the next morning.

Early morning, Tang San sat atop a large rock on the summit of the hill. In his hand he picked up tree leaves, in his eyes a purple lustre. Not knowing whether it was because recently his body was more robust and strong compared to before, but Purple Demon Eye advanced very rapidly; the leaf in his hand, even if it was the smallest lines, he could distinctly observe them. He knew his Purple Demon Eye had already begun to enter the realm of the very finest details.

With nine distinct tiers to Mysterious Heaven skill, Purple Demon Eye only has four levels: Survey, Detailed, Mustard seed, Boundless. The requirement for Tang inner sect disciples is to enter Detailed, which is sufficient to use hidden weapons. Owing to Tang San’s early cultivation, aided by not having completely dispersed inborn qi after being born, by the age of six years he already possessed a trace of detailed perception. But he also knew, of Tang inner sect disciples practically everyone’s Purple Demon Eye could reach the detailed realm, but including sect master mister Tang Da, nobody could enter the next realm of Purple Demon Eye.

After reaching Detailed, Purple Demon Eye’s cultivation became extremely slow, and there must be no interruption in daily assimilation of the eastern purple qi. That kind of persistence could not be explained in a few words. Therefore, just like Tang sect disciples after entering the detailed realm, there were also very few who would continue cultivating. In legend, Tang sect had an elder whose Purple Demon Eye reached the Mustard seed boundary, but also did not have any particular results. Only compared to the detailed realm he saw still a little more clearly, that is all. And that elder had already cultivated Purple Demon Eye for more than thirty years.

Mysterious Heaven skill welling forth, suddenly pouring into the tree leaves, the soft leaves immediately became perfectly straight. Tang San’s index and middle finger jerked slightly, and the tree leaves spun out, splitting the air as they flew forth.

Part 3

Just one metre, the leaves only flew out to a one metre distance, then were already unable to maintain their rotating state when they stopped being hard. As it left Tang San’s finger, Mysterious Heaven skill’s inner strength effect naturally vanished.

“The effect is still too weak.”

He could not help but shake his head. Tang San stood up, it was about time to return. Today was his departure from the village; he did not know when he would be able to come to this hilltop again.

Standing on tip toes, his lower legs emitting force, Tang San gave free rein to Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, faced down the mountain and left.

The intimately familiar scent of congee wafted out. Before departing the village this was the very last time he cooked for his father, so Tang San naturally could not be lazy. Checking the firewood under the stove, adding some water to the congee, thus when his father later wakes up he can drink the hot congee.

Old Jack had already arrived. Perhaps because he wanted to leave for Nuoding city, today the clothes old Jack wore were especially new, making him look even more hale and hearty.

“Little San, let’s leave. That idle bum of a father of yours can’t get out of bed.”

Old Jack called to Tang San.

Tang San made a silencing gesture in Jack’s direction,

“Grandpa, please be quiet. Dad dislikes having his sleep disturbed the most.”

While speaking, he took out a chunk of burnt out charcoal from the stove, and on the ground wrote several lines. He again turned his head towards his father’s room, reluctant to part, and only then did he rise with a cloth bundle on his back and quietly left with Jack.

Regarding this world’s written language, Tang San did not understand much. When the village’s school taught the children characters, he once in a while went to see. After all he had a foundation from his former life, so he also grasped a little of the basic texts.

The door curtain lifted, and a large shadow came out from the room. In Tang Hao’s eyes there was no trace of sleep. When he walked over to the doorway, he could still vaguely see old Jack and Tang San’s frail body.

Tang Hao stood there and didn’t move, even when Tang San and village elder Jack’s backs had already completely disappeared, he still stood there blankly for a long time.

As if recalling something, Tang Hao abruptly turned back into the smithy, looking at the part of the ground Tang San set aside for his writing.

A few very simple words,

“Dad, I and Grandpa Jack left. You yourself must take good care of your body, drink less. Congee in the pot, don’t forget to eat.”

Gaze changing direction from the writing on the ground to the iron cooking pot to the side, Tang Hao briskly walked over and swept open the pot lid by one handle. With both hands he directly lifted the iron pot.