Even with all her research and knowledge about advanced spells and arrays, Anji struggled to keep up. Fortunately, her shifu did not seem annoyed by her slow progress.
"We will stay here until you fully morise how to undo all three seals on your golden core. We will practice it using the seals inside you, and I will suppress it before it unravels completely. Until then, you’re not allowed to go into isolated training or practice outside my watch."
Obediently, Anji agreed. She did not often learn with route counting. However, it appears as if morising the steps until she could recite them in her sleep was the only way for this.
Undoing her life seals was a scary thing. Anji had no idea why her teacher wanted her to master releasing them. Even if she were able to defeat everyone with a one-ti power-up temporarily, she would soon die if nobody else could help to reseal her golden core and repair her broken ridians. Even if that person were around, they would have to sacrifice at least of their cultivation progress for Anji.
"Shifu, is there really no way I can redo my own seals after I release them?"
Instead of giving her a direct reply, Yan Ping rely returned that question with one of her own.
"Can you operate on your own heart yourself?"
The question answered everything Anji needed to know. Although they could work hard and attempt to create innovative solutions, so things simply cannot be done, no matter how hard they try. This was one of those things.
Sensing the girl’s heavy silence, Yan Ping sighed. It was not an easy decision to make either. However, distant relatives cannot put out a near fire. If Yan Ping and Anji were to be separated, and there was an instance that Anji would die in a minute compared to two hours, she preferred the girl to take a gamble and bet on buying ti for Yan Ping to arrive.
"You just need to hold out for two hours," she reassured Anji. "Shifu will not let you die. But don’t use it recklessly. If you have to do it, don’t hesitate to do it, even if it is in the successor trial chambers. I’d rather you be disqualified than dead because no doctor or sage can bring the dead back. Not even practitioners of the dark arts."
Anji had a suspicion that the demonic cultivators brainwashed Pu Jianming into thinking the revival of the dead was possible. If her shifu, the half-sage of this world and wisest person in the mortal realm, says it cannot be done and is against the law of nature, then Anji believed her. After all, Yan Ping had no reason to lie. She simply spoke the truth.
This ti, it was Anji’s turn to sigh.
"Shifu, could you not make a fourth seal that unlocks the three seals? This is too difficult."
Humming, Yan Ping considered it. Even for her, this calibre of seal would take too long to unlock in an ergency. However, making the dead man’s switch too easy would have its own issues.
"I’ll think about it," Yan Ping noted. "But that doesn’t an you can skip studying all three seals."
Settling for a minor victory, Anji cheered but quickly promised not to be lazy. Even the most stable spells and arrays could easily be tampered with and beco unstable. Safety checks and manual control with a full understanding of the spell are required.
As Anji quickly returned to studying, Yan Ping pondered over the fourth seal’s design. Due to the complexity of Zhao Mingfeng’s amateur seal, Yan Ping did not know if she could include her own energy into the fourth gatekeeper seal to preserve Anji’s life if she truly needed that mont of power to save herself. At least two different energy sources clashed constantly in Anji’s body, barely stabilised by natural energy’s harmonisation.
Over the next few days, master and disciple worked separately with few interactions. Anji attempted to understand the different segnts of the seal and had many things to point out about the ones her father added.
"Don’t tell your father I said this, but he’s not the best array master I’ve ever encountered. I would have modified it completely if it weren’t a seal used to save your life. However, we cannot undo what is done without further risk."
Although her shifu had just called her father uneducated indirectly, Anji giggled. Compared to the Mystical Qilin Sect researchers, Zhao Mingfeng’s seal and array knowledge was only about the sa as that of a librarian. He had more knowledge than the average cultivator, but the design was clumsily done in haste. Anji did not bla him, even if it was causing her more headaches to morise the extra steps to undo her seal. If anything, she could almost trace her father’s thoughts as he crafted it right after she was born. Even if clumsy, the seal contained all his sorrow, hopes and love.
"But shifu, can’t we deactivate the redundant sequence on my father’s seal? It wouldn’t change much, right? It’s the sa way you modified my artificial cores. We can use the energy directly, not from my core to seal itself, but from so other natural source."
Hearing the new suggestion, Yan Ping paused. Could that really be done? Unlike the artificial cores she created in Anji’s ridian channels, the seal was not a diversion channel but a suppression lock. The idea of fighting fire with fire could be dangerous, but Anji had a valid point. Using Anji’s life force to weaken her powers was akin to refilling a drying well with its own water. It would slow the process but not change its fate. Anji’s golden core might progress and create more water, but the outco at best would beco a stalemate until they gained a new water source.
"Plausible," Yan Ping did not dismiss the idea outrightly. "But also highly dangerous. It’s like a heart transplant, and I’ve never done it before. Ruined ridians would cripple a cultivator. However, a ruined core could cost a life. This is not a simple decision."
Hearing that it was a highly risky procedure, Anji dismissed the idea completely and returned to her books. Although she trusted her teacher’s skills, she did not want to place the burden on her teacher, who would willingly sacrifice her barely returned cultivation level for her a second ti.
"Anji understands, please forget what I said. I’ll continue studying the seals. But first, can I have another cup of tea? My eyes are about to close."
Chuckling, Yan Ping denied her student that cup of strong tea. Ever since she introduced a tea popular among researchers to help them focus, the girl had seed to beco addicted just after one sip.
"No," Yan Ping pointed at the bed. "If your eyes are about to close, it’s ti for a nap."
Groaning, the girl closed her book reluctantly and headed to bed, not before glancing at the tea leaves hidden in the small kitchen behind her teacher.
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