Chapter 610: Guidance
Bai Yunfei watched as the person in the cave stared absentmindedly at the ashen materials in the cauldron in front of him for a moment. A bitter look entered the person’s eyes before he waved away the useless materials in impatience. Several more materials appeared out from his ring before depositing themselves neatly into the cauldron for him to try again.
“In cases like this….it’s best to stop and think about why it went wrong. You have to wait for the anger and impatience in your heart to go away before you try again.”
He calmly spoke out to the male, causing the person to start and turn around to look at him.
“Instructor Bai, what are you doing here?”
Bai Yunfei smiled. “I was going to ask you that question, Ye Ming. It’s quite late, what are you doing crafting still?”
The person in question was Ye Ming.
Ye Ming stood up to give Bai Yunfei a respectful bow in greeting, “After listening to your lecture today, instructor Bai, I felt like I was beginning to understand a few things I didn’t get before. So I decided to take the chance and try tonight. I’m an early-stage Soul Exalt anyways, I wanted to see if I’d be able to craft a low-earth tier soul armament.”
“Oh? So you were trying to craft an earth-tier soul armament?” Bai Yunfei remarked. It was no wonder why Ye Ming’s attempted failed so suddenly then. If Ye Ming was trying to craft a soul armament higher in tier, the chances of success would be a lot smaller compared to a high-human tier.
And the fact that Ye Ming stood a decent enough chance to even attempt crafting an earth-tier soul armament was a slightly rushed one, but it was because of his jaw-dropping talent that he could even think about it.
Bai Yunfei stepped into the cave and sat down on a nearby boulder. “You trying to craft a low-earth tier soul armament is a little rash right now. You may be able to craft a high-human tier soul armament, but your crafting experience is limited. There’s many aspects you still need to consider, so I recommend that you don’t pursue that notion for the time being. Wait until you have a seventy percent chance of success when crafting a high-human tier before you try again.”
“Seventy percent?” Ye Ming looked crestfallen. His own personal record for crafting high-human tier soul armaments was only fifty percent. Reaching an additional twenty percent would take more time than he wanted to take.
“You’ve only been learning the art of crafting for two months.” Bai Yunfei smiled, “It’s impressive that you’re able to do this much, especially since you ‘switched’ over to my class compared to the other students. You haven’t crafted a soulbound armament yet, but with your talent, you’d be considered a genius in the Crafting School. Have you taken the aptitude exams for the Crafting School before?”
Ye Ming shook his head, “I never been to the Crafting School….
“But I did hear Mo Chen say before that they took a few of the fire division students over three years ago. They talked about a strange cave that got harder to walk in the further they walked. The ones in the crafting class are the ones who walked the farthest that time.”
“That’s what I thought….” Bai Yunfei muttered to himself. He had his guesses before, but this confirmed it.
But three years ago? That was when he left the Crafting School to enter the Soulbeast Forest.
In that case though, Wu Yang must not have taken the aptitude exams for the Crafting School. But the fact that his ‘achievements’ weren’t any less than the others….was a rather surprising and unexpected success.
Bai Yunfei’s eyes flickered to the floating materials next to Ye Ming. From the ones he saw, Bai Yunfei had to acquiesce that they were the normal materials one would use to craft an earth-tier soul armament. “As I said before, Ye Ming, you shouldn’t think about crafting any earth-tier soul armaments right now. The worst thing you can do while crafting is be impatient and force your way ahead. You might be more talented than others and have more success right now, but crafting an earth-tier soul armament is different than crafting a human-tier soul armament. Master the basics first and your future path will be smoother than before. Furthermore….”
Bai Yunfei paused here to take a breath, “I only briefly touched upon the topic about how to craft low-earth tier soul armaments today. And as you recall, I did say it was hugely different than the method to craft a human-tier soul armament. If you try to use what little information I said today to attempt crafting one, it’ll be impossible…..I wanted to wait for you all to reach a substantial degree of mastery before I start teaching about how to craft earth-tier soul armaments, but since your aptitude is much higher than that of your classmates, I promise you that if you can reach a seventy percent success rate in crafting high-human tier soul armaments, I’ll teach you how to craft earth-tier soul armaments earlier.”
Ye Ming’s eyes lit up as he nodded. “I understand.”
As Ye Ming went about to collect the materials, Bai Yunfei watched as the faint elemental fire around his body flickered away, “Ah, Ye Ming, I recall that you were a fire and lighting type?”
“Ah?” Ye Ming blinked, unsure why Bai Yunfei was asking a question he already knew the answer to, “I am.”
Bai Yunfei’s eyes flickered strangely as he pressed on, “Have you tried training in elemental lightning again?”
“Training in elemental lightning again?” Ye Ming grew even more baffled at Bai Yunfei’s question. “My essence lightningseed is already gone, and I’ve already focused on training with elemental fire to help me craft. I haven’t spent any time trying to reform a essence lightningseed, and even if I tried, it’d probably not work….”
“That may be the case, but you are still gifted with those two affinities. To waste them here would be a bit of a waste.”
“What?” Ye Ming replied, “Instructor Bai, are you saying….”
“I’ve a suggestion that’ll make use of your background in elemental lightning and won’t take up too much of your effort. Even better, it’ll help you improve yourself by quite a bit.”
“What suggestion? Please say it, instructor Bai.”
“Form a companion lightningseed.”
“Companion lightningseed? What is that?”
“It’s a more inferior version of an essence lightningseed, but the benefit in this is that your essence fireseed will remain there and will gain a boost in strength from it.”
Bai Yunfei held his palm out as he spoke. With a bang, a small fireball appeared over his palmtop.
Ye Ming stared at the fireball with slight confusion, but then something strange caught his yee. “There’s….lightning in the fire?”
He saw that within the flames Bai Yunfei was creating, there was a small spark of lightning that was boosting the intensity and heat of the fire!
Ye Ming knew quite a lot about training in elemental fire and lightning at the same time, and the ‘compatibility’ between the two elements. However, despite that information, he wasn’t able of reaching a point of synchronicity between the two elements, and neither was he able to make use of both the fireseed and lightningseed at the same time.
“Indeed. This is the effect of a companion lightningseed. It’s not like a standalone essence lightningseed and cannot produce a large amount of power by itself. But. When elemental fire is used as a catalyst, the ensuing elemental fire becomes a lot stronger and is imbued with a sliver of elemental lightning.”
“Something like that can be done?” Ye Ming asked in surprise. This was a first for him.
“Yes, however it isn’t an easy task I’m afraid. For the normal soul cultivator with high aptitude for lightning would be better off forming an essence lightningseed. For someone who didn’t, they might as well not try. This companion lightningseed of mine was formed after unordinary circumstances. I don’t know if another person will be able to do it, but for someone like you used to train in elemental lightning and changed to fire, you might as well give it a try. If it works, you’ll see plenty of benefit.”
He turned to look at Ye Ming, “So how about it, want to learn?”
“Of course!” Ye Ming nodded his head emphatically, “Please lend me your guidance, instructor Bai!”
……
An hour later after midnight, Bai Yunfei walked out from the crafting cave to leave Ye Ming there to train.
Bai Yunfei had given a detailed explanation on the feeling of forming an essence lightningseed, and how long it took for himself to form one. Ye Ming listened carefully, but whether he was able to form one or not was up to him.
Since it seemed like Ye Ming was going to spend the night training, Bai Yunfei didn’t want to stay and bother him. He leapt up to the peak of the mountain on top of a large boulder to enjoy the night breeze. He stared first off into the distance where the shining lights of the Capital was and remarked how lively it looked.
Just as Bai Yunfei was enjoying the peace and quiet of the night, a warm voice called out to him from behind.
“Young one, this old one has a few words to speak with you….”