Chapter 43

Over and over again, he didn’t know how many times he had gone through the demonstration. Even a pig could have imprinted the incredibly complex process in its mind.

Just as he was recalling, countless bizarre symbols flew out from the cloud, disrupting the demonstration and distorting the entire process, reorganizing it. After a moment, a new demonstration appeared before his eyes.

Compared to the previous demonstration, this one was much simpler. The tens of thousands of energy lines and the incredibly complex weaving technique were now reduced to just a few hundred energy lines, connected in a loop.

Again and again, the demonstration continued to change, becoming simpler and simpler, until the entire process could be completed with just eighty-one steps.

The demonstration stopped changing and just kept repeating...

“Wake up... Wake up... Damn, this guy is really weak. With over six thousand combat power, he actually got mesmerized. What a master...” Amid a string of nonsense, Du Qian finally woke up.

“Ah! Time’s up, I need to go.” The first thing Du Qian did upon waking was check the time. It had already been so long. According to his schedule, he should have been home half an hour ago. Absorbing the spirit horns had a time limit, and he didn’t want to waste a single opportunity.

Fortunately, it was his day off today. If it were a normal working day, wasting half an hour could mean absorbing one less spirit horn, which would be a significant loss.

Watching Du Qian run away, the young man’s face turned green. What kind of person was this? He tricked a spirit charm and then ran away? Fortunately, his identity information was already logged. Even if he ran, it didn’t matter. Actually, logging or not didn’t make much difference. This job was piecework, with no strict rules, and it was impossible to enforce strict rules.

Well, that’s it. Wasting a spirit charm is just that. If it were some other useful spirit charm, Du Qian would have run, and he would have chased him down and strangled him. But this spirit charm, forget it, it’s useless. If it were really useful, would it be given out for free?

As the spirit charm entered his body, the few great masters at the top of the food chain in this world almost simultaneously felt a tremor in their bodies. This wasn’t about making someone submit to them; there was no need for that.

Instead, they sensed that the Heavenly Artifact had started to activate. This was bad news. The people they had sent out earlier would likely be useless. Once the Heavenly Artifact activates, it conceals itself, making it almost impossible to find.

Such is the will of heaven. The wind rises, the clouds move, and the waves surge. What must come, will come.

These great figures had nothing to do with Du Qian. At the moment, he was in a hurry to get home and absorb the spirit horns to boost his combat power. As for the rest, who cares?

What are these great figures? Not only did he not know, but even if he did, it wouldn’t matter to him. Occasionally boasting was fine, but he had seen people like Si Kong Yi, who were already top-tier figures, even more so than the city lord.

This wasn’t wrong. Si Kong Yi was indeed a great figure, at least close to the top tier, one of the closest to the elite circle.

Testing, recording, marking the curve, relaxing, deep breathing. Du Qian quickly entered the state. By the time he finished absorbing, it was already afternoon.

The rice and vegetables at home were gone again. He was truly a big eater, and it was getting worse. Going out to shop, fortunately, the delivery guy brought the goods to his door. The delivery guy made six trips to get everything inside. Fortunately, there was a kinetic energy ladder; otherwise, he would have run himself to death.

Looking at the curve, Du Qian frowned. This time, the absorption of the spirit horns didn’t significantly boost his combat power, but the absorption time was clearly reduced, finishing twenty minutes earlier. Was this change accidental or inevitable?

The following time was another idle period. He was already tired of reading books. He knew his knowledge system had problems, but he couldn’t focus, finding it too dull.

“There’s something to do.” Du Qian slapped his forehead. His swollen face had already reduced a lot. When he went to work, there shouldn’t be any trouble, at least he wouldn’t be unrecognizable.

Indeed, there was something to do. He went to the association, initially disappointed, but in the end, he found something to do, a job that paid ten yuan. This was a big job.

He knocked his head, feeling a bit worried. The weaving process he had seen earlier wouldn’t be forgotten so quickly. Even if Du Qian’s memory wasn’t super, after seeing it so many times, it would be hard to forget.

Is this a spirit charm? Indeed, it’s very magical. Why don’t those spirit charm masters create learning spirit charms? They always make useless ones.

Look, if they made elementary, middle, and high school knowledge spirit charms, you could activate them casually, and after a few hours, you’d graduate from high school. Is it necessary to study for ten years?

With enough of these spirit charms, I could graduate from a top university. Just choose the spirit charm of the university you want. How great would that be, benefiting all of humanity...

Du Qian’s thoughts raced at the speed of light, who knows where they went. An outsider can never understand the insider. To him, he seemed smarter.

There were two weaving methods. If he guessed correctly, the extremely complex weaving method at the beginning came from the spirit charm. But what forced its way in later? It changed the previous weaving method and kept changing, eventually forming a method that Du Qian found extremely simple.

Where did this weaving method come from? It was related to one of the three nebulae he had seen. Du Qian thought about this, but it was all useless; he couldn’t understand it at all.

After hesitating for a few minutes, Du Qian decided to try. Ten yuan, after all.

He opened his eyes wide and mobilized the energy inside his body, starting to separate the energy threads. As soon as he separated the energy threads, he understood why the minimum requirement was five thousand combat power. According to the weaving method he had seen, to separate enough energy threads, one needed at least five to six thousand combat power.

Five thousand combat power was the absolute minimum. For a beginner like Du Qian, even with over six thousand combat power, it might not be enough to separate enough energy threads.

“Damn, this job is not easy.”

Of course, it wasn’t easy. This was just the first step of separating the energy threads. The subsequent steps were even more complex. Even experienced hands couldn’t afford to be careless. Ten thousand energy threads, each requiring half of the combat power, this level of control was not something just anyone could achieve.

After separating, the threads had to be connected according to the rules, not a single knot could be wrong. Imagine how many knots needed to be tied with ten thousand threads. One wrong knot, and it would be a waste. This ten yuan was much harder to earn than he had imagined.

In Pingchuan City, only the poorest and most resourceless people would take on this job. After ten days of hard work, completing one qualified product was already quite good. In a month, completing three products could be considered skilled. Completing five was a master.

As for completing ten...

Forget it. If someone had the ability to complete ten such complex items in a month, would they need to rely on this for a living?

Don’t think that the association opened this task in the exchange area right away. Even now, in Pingchuan City, there are fewer than a hundred people who do this job regularly.

Five thousand combat power is already much stronger than most people, who could find better jobs.

Even the experts only earn fifty to sixty yuan, less than what Du Qian, a small patrol officer, earns. Who would want to do this job?

There are few professionals, but many part-timers. Less than a hundred people take on the job seriously, but there are thousands of part-timers. Since they have free time anyway, they treat it as a way to practice their spirit energy control. Completing one item earns them some money, which is still attractive to those with light work and low pay.

In ten minutes, Du Qian felt flustered, only managing to separate less than a hundred energy threads, and they were uneven in thickness, wasting a lot of energy. At this level, the result could only be one: six thousand combat power was not enough to separate ten thousand energy threads.

Others closed their eyes, sensing the combat power inside their bodies, and separating it. When it came to Du Qian, he felt he could see it, so he opened his eyes wide and looked carefully, but his eyes ached, and he still failed.

“This method doesn’t work.” Du Qian shook his head, rushed into the bathroom, and placed his head under the faucet, rinsing it with cold water for half a minute.

Shaking his head, the short hair on his head, like steel needles, splashed water everywhere, covering the walls and floor with droplets.

The second method was much simpler, requiring only a few hundred energy lines, using a loop connection. With fewer lines and larger knots, it was easy to understand. For some reason, connecting these knots gave Du Qian a very familiar feeling, as if he had done it before.

When he actually started, Du Qian realized that something that looked simple wasn’t necessarily easy. Just separating the energy threads required practice to ensure they were uniform in thickness, size, and length, and contained the same amount of combat power.

This was easier said than done. It was like making dumplings; you need to divide the dough into small pieces. Others do it quickly and well, with uniform sizes and a pleasing appearance.

Simple, right? Try it yourself. Ninety-nine percent of people, when they first try, end up with uneven sizes.

At this moment, Du Qian felt the same way. The energy threads were either too big or too small, too long or too short. After much effort, they looked almost the same, but upon closer inspection, the combat power varied greatly. What was this?

“Money is hard to earn...” After playing for a full hour, Du Qian stopped. Damn, it’s too difficult.

Difficult or not, he had to do it. He had already circled around the association, seen everything, and found no suitable tasks. Even if there were, they wouldn’t pay more than this job, and they would be much riskier.

“I don’t believe it...” Du Qian’s stubbornness kicked in. It’s just about evenly dividing the energy threads. If he couldn’t handle this, how could he go out and face the world, let alone tell others he was a patrol officer?