Blergh!
As soon as Lee attempted to move the wind particles, he involuntary convulsed and spewed out a mouthful of blood. And then another one.
This wasn’t what he went through after regaining consciousness when Arax fed him the earth spark. Back then he only coughed up the blobs of impurities that had accumulated while he was unconscious.
Now he was actually internally bleeding. And externally as well. Blood was seeping through most of the tiny cuts across and for a split mont Lee felt as if he was a sieve.
Fortunately, he didn’t bleed out. Lee forced himself to calm down and perford a simple breathing exercise, designed to normalize the flow of elental energies, and that stopped the bleeding pretty quickly.
One didn’t have to be a genius to realize that the damage was caused by the wind elent that tore him apart from the inside. Either there was a trick to using it, or a technique, but it was clear that before attempting anything Lee had to recover first.
During the next couple of days Lee continued to ditate, and, while the wind within occasionally got out of control, and he was forced to cough up blood every ti, the outer wounds were quickly healed. He couldn’t use any elent, though. The mont he tried, he go hit by a storm from the inside that resulted in spewing blood.
Lee’s best guess was that after swallowing the other sparks, while he was unconscious or tornted by the agonizing pain, it took months for his body to get accustod to them. Or maybe it was the other way around – the new guests had to properly settle down. Either way he decided to not actively use elental energies for now.
The little workshop was a bloody ss and to get it in order actually took a longer ti than for him to recover.
He had a lot of it, though. From the three months he got from Bastil less than half a month had passed, and Lee began to practice the Assassination Thrust again.
Daniel did pester him a bit about the ritual Lee supposedly perford. The best explanation Lee could co up with was that his technique had gone wrong, but now everything was fine and the plan was back on the table.
His neighbor was upset with the fact that earlier he had to rush his work and finish the weapon so quickly, but Lee didn’t feel bad at all. He had no clue his recovery wouldn’t last the usual two months, and thanked Heavens for that. It provided him with the extra ti to practice, despite the fact that he couldn’t use the wind elent yet.
***
"What the f ... what is this crap?!" Bastil roared at Lee, looking at the pants Lee supposedly crafted.
It was a premium artifact from the Celestial Abyss’s collection, but it was designed for a regular human. Judging from what had Lee promised, it was clear he was going to create sothing specifically designed for Lucien Duvant. Unfortunately, the retarded artificer’s apprentice created sothing that would never fit the dwarf.
"Lord Bastil!" Lee pretended to be taken aback, "Those are incredible trousers! You can try them yourself!"
"So what? Don’t you know that ..." Bastil intended to scold Lee, and even punish him, but then realized the kid had seen Duvant only for a brief mont months ago. He probably didn’t even rember how the lord of the castle looked like from the stress.
More importantly, Bastil might be ruthless, but he wasn’t an idiot. The results of Lee’s work clearly showed the kid had a promising future. He could continue to craft artifacts for decades, and maybe centuries if he managed to beco an elental lord.
Bastil wasn’t going to take the bla though. He shouted and cursed Lee for a while, and left, slamming the prison door behind him.
Only then Lee could finally heave a sigh of relief. The third stage of the plan was a risky one.
Now began the fishing part. Lee had to force Duvant to et him, thus he began to fake-work on the next big project.
He drew a person’s image on the wall, a person of more or less regular size, except few features like the shoulders and hands which resembled Duvant’s. Next to it he drew separate pieces of armor – helt, chest armor, gloves, belt, trousers and boots.
When Bastil ca next ti, he glanced at the wall, forbade Lee to create any of that, and ordered to make a normal artifact weapon. Lee had two more left, and already expected he will have to fake-craft both.
During the next two months he drew runic symbols next each of the imaginary armor pieces on the wall. They were random ones he copied from the seal on his palm, but he drew them in the form of circles, triangles and even stars, and for a non-expert they certainly looked mighty impressive. It was obvious Lee was researching sothing incredible, and it didn’t take too long for Bastil to co to that conclusion.
anwhile, the ti Lee got was fully invested in practicing the thrust. He kept polishing the move from day to day and probably had perford it hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tis.
When three months had passed after he swallowed the wind spark, Lee began to practice the application of the wind energy.
There was an unexpected problem. Previously he could use one of the elents for a brief mont without too big repercussions. Unfortunately, with the addition of the wind spark, no matter what he tried, as soon as any elent was infused in any move, Lee felt like there was an explosion taking place inside of him.
His inner organs got damaged every ti, and he had to rest for the night so that the water spark could fix everything. Unfortunately, the activation of the water elent carried the sa side effect, and Lee found himself stuck in the loop of self-destruction.
The only salvation were the breathing techniques he kept performing for half the day so that he could practice the other half. No techniques, at least none of the ones he knew, helped to balance the elents. Only the breathing exercises were effective, but turns out even those had a downside.
Of course, Lee was probably the only person in the world who would call the rapid increase of elental particles within his Dantian a downside. People diligently cultivated for years to achieve the result he got in days, but he only beca more desperate.
Lee guessed that it was because of the synergistic effect the four sparks had, but to him it was a ticking ti bomb. The stronger the elents within him beca, the bigger backlash he experienced every ti he infused his move with one of them.
The only ray of hope was the prospect of eting the overlord as soon as this was over.
***
After Lee fake-crafted his last spare weapon, Bastil’s curiosity about his research was finally peaked. He carefully inspected Lee’s fake schematics on the wall, and inquired what characteristics these artifacts would have. Lee didn’t invent a complete nonsense, but wasn’t too down-to-earth either. He managed to capture Bastil’s interest the mont he ntioned the potential resistance of the armor set against the spatial elent.
As soon as he saw the change in Bastil’s expression upon ntioning a spatial attack, Lee changed the whole concept. It was too obvious that for so reason the shorty downstairs was afraid of this particular elent and it turned out to be the best bait.
"Are you sure you won’t need spatial sparks?" Bastil asked.
"Mhm." Lee nodded, pretending to fully focus on the drawing on the wall, "I’m going to neutralize the effect using ..."
"Alright, make it!" Bastil said.
"I ... I’m sorry, your Lordship." Lee said, "I don’t dare to craft armor anymore. The last ti I did you were angry at for crafting the wrong size ... let forge only weapons for you in the future, alright?"
"I’ll give you the asurents." Bastil said.
"I ... I’m afraid I’d have to take them myself ... your Lordship!" Lee said in a trembling voice, taking a half-step back as if afraid Bastil would smack him.
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