Chapter 363 Taoyao Wine (1/2)

A study room of sorts in Spirit Rune Hall.

Zhou Yuan sat before a desk with a serious expression, the Heavenly Yuan Brush in his hand. A jade tablet had been placed in front of him. His brush fell, emitting a faint glow as almost magical strokes appeared one after another, while the surrounding Genesis Qi faintly began to gather over.

He was in a state of complete focus, the brush in his hand continuing to twirl for quite some time. With a final faint jerk of his wrist, he breathed a sigh of relief as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders as he gazed upon the rune that now adorned the jade tablet.

Zhou Yuan carefully placed the jade tablet on the table, where dozens upon dozens of other jade tablets could be found. On each tablet, one would find a complex Genesis Rune.

For the past month, he had been studying the Heavenly Lightning and Mystical Fire Boundary Yaoyao had selected for him.

This boundary was strong even amongst grade 4 boundaries, and successfully setting it up required one to coordinate several hundred Genesis Runes. For the sake of mastering these runes, Zhou Yuan spent an entire month tirelessly practicing.

The tremendous effort and energy invested pushed even Zhou Yuan to his limits, oftentimes finding himself so tired that he would fall asleep mid practice.

Fortunately, he had managed to endure this rigorous training, and was now quite confident in drawing the several hundred runes that composed the Heavenly Lightning and Mystical Fire Boundary.

However, being able to draw these runes did not mean much, because these runes were only akin to the components of a machine. To complete the boundary, he would still need to properly assemble them together.

This required even more practice.

Creak.

The study room door was pushed open as Yaoyao walked in with a stack of ancient texts in her arms. She arrived in front of the table and dumped her load, before fluidly swiping up the Genesis Rune jade tablets in front of Zhou Yuan.

She quickly checked through them, only taking a minute to separate a dozen jade tablets from the pile. She then pointed towards the dozen separated tablets and said, “These do not meet the mark, redo them.”

A pained look immediately filled Zhou Yuan’s face.

Yaoyao’s bright eyes swept a glance at him as she said, “Although these runes of yours are barely passable, some of the strokes are not satisfactory. They may seem fine at first glance, but if you use them to assemble the boundary, these tiny imperfections will cause the entire boundary to fall apart.”

“If you don’t plan on your hard work culminating into a defective product that can be easily destroyed with a few attacks, you’d better obediently practice more.”

After being lectured by Yaoyao, Zhou Yuan could only nod with a bitter smile.

However, after knocking him down a peg, Yaoyao gave a faint nod and said, “But reaching this level in a month is already pretty good.”

Truthfully speaking, ‘pretty good’ was quite an understatement. If any of the Spirit Rune Peak disciples found out about this, their jaws would surely drop from shock. The Heavenly Lightning and Mystical Fire Boundary was a grade 4 boundary that boasted astonishing power. Most disciples would take at least half a year just to grasp the basics.

Zhou Yuan took out another jade tablet and placed it in front of him as he chuckled. “Don’t worry, I will fully master it before the purple sash selection.”

Yaoyao nodded in satisfaction, looking as if her efforts on a little child had paid off.

She gracefully seated herself beside him and said, “I’ve been hearing that you’ve become quite a hot topic with regards to the purple sash selection, even catching up to the first seat gold sash disciples from the master factions of their respective peaks.”

She seemed to ponder as she continued, “It seems that someone plans for you to have a rather bad fall.”

Compared to Xia Yu and the other master faction’s first seat gold sash, Zhou Yuan’s foundations were quite shallow. And yet, he had someone been hyped up. It was clear that someone was pulling the strings, intending to make a fool of him during the purple sash selection.

“It should be someone from Sword Cometh Peak…” Zhou Yuan was not surprised as he smiled and said, “I played a part in foiling Kong Sheng’s plans in Genesis reservoir, and since they don’t dare to go after you, they have naturally turned their sights to an easier target like myself.”

Yaoyao gently tapped the table, her bright eyes looking towards Zhou Yuan as she said in a low voice, “Patriarch Cang Xuan mentioned that he suspects his death has something to do with the Cangxuan Sect…”

“Could the Sword Cometh Peak master Ling Jun have…”

Zhou Yuan raised his head, and exchanged a look with Yaoyao as she fell silent.

“We cannot make wild guesses without any evidence.” Zhou Yuan muttered as he shook his head. “The implications of such matters are too great. Without any evidence, even sect master Qing Yang would not dare carelessly take action.”

Yaoyao gave a slight nod, not speaking any further on the topic. Such matters were still far beyond them. The most important thing now was to somehow make Zhou Yuan the chief disciple by the year end, before entering the sealed main peak, and obtaining the second Saint Rune.

She had the feeling that someone would certain begin to move in the sect when the Saint Genesis Peak’s main peak was opened once again.

The two decided not to dwell any longer on this topic, and began to busy themselves with other tasks.

Yaoyao flipped through the ancient texts she had brought in earlier. A long while later, a soft gasp of surprise suddenly sounded. Zhou Yuan raised his head, only to find that her a look of joy on Yaoyao’s usually cold and expressionless face.

She was currently holding an aged yellow piece of tattered paper, happiness clearly present on her face.

“What is it?” Zhou Yuan could not stop his curiosity. What could possibly cause Yaoyao to show such an expression?

Yaoyao’s pink tongue gently licked her red lips, before passing the tattered paper to Zhou Yuan with sparkling eyes.

Zhou Yuan received it and took a look. He was first struck by confusion, before black lines began to appear on his forehead. He realised that he was looking at an extremely old alcohol brewing method.

“Making a fuss about nothing.” Said Zhou Yuan in a grumpy voice.

Yaoyao softly snorted and said, “What do you know. This is obviously a long lost recipe, and it's a great fortune to have encountered it here.”