Power rippled around Shao Xuan. While the blacksmiths could feel it, they did not understand what he intended to do. It was not totemic power either.
Even though they were utterly confused, they did not look away. What was the Grand Elder doing with the knife? What was the blood for?
As he brushed his thumb down the blade, it created a long stain. While the colour was not dark, they grew even more confused.
That’s not supposed to happen!
Based on the strength used to rub the blood in, it should not stain like this!
For example, when the guy was cut by the knife during the previous scuffle, if he had used his finger instead of shirt to wipe the blood off, he should easily clean it without stains.
It was as if the spot where Shao Xuan’s thumb rubbed across was a sticky substance- like cooked grain- that was not the blood they knew.
But that was indeed blood!
Strange!
What followed was even more shocking.
Shao Xuan slapped the end of the bloodstain with his palm.
Whoosh—
Flames erupted from his palm, burning across the blood streak.
It’s... burning!
Burning!
Everyone had their jaws on the floor.
The fire was burning without wood or charcoal!
No, that’s no normal fire.
The blacksmiths were sensitive to fire- even totemic warriors could easily distinguish the types of fire, let alone them.
This fire was different from the fire seed. It seemed to have its own aura and power.
But how did Grand Elder burn a knife?
“I see!” muttered Shao Xuan as he looked at the knife.
He had an idea when he saw the Gu tribe fighting the fearsome beasts while they were downstream. They first trapped the beast with net and then set the net ablaze. After that, he even tried it and realised he seemed to be immersed in a different state of mind- like he instinctively knew what to do next.
The threat tied around the beast also burned the same way then, but Shao Xuan could never replicate it again after the incident. It was because he was not familiar with the technique and it was a different environment. The Gu tribe’s fire seed had created a special battlefield that allowed the tribesmen to easily set things on fire through different overlaying forces. Replicating this action outside of this energy field would be difficult.
Secondly, also the most important reason was that he had been experimenting on new green bronze weapons!
When he tried setting them ablaze, he kept feeling as if his power would not focus and there were many entities repelling his energy. He then realised there was a difference between this knife and the other green bronze weapons.
Even the sword made by Gongjia Heng was made of various materials, therefore it was less pure than this knife. Only this knife was pure enough!
Perhaps there would be a day Shao Xuan would master this ability well enough to set them ablaze but up till now, other than white silk, this was the first object he set ablaze.
Understanding the reason, he started to laugh. He retracted the energy from the flames, who died along the blood streak until the knife returned to its original state as if nothing had happened. The smear had lightened greatly.
Shao Xuan touched the blade, then chopped a few pieces of wood, finally relaxing when he found that it had not changed in quality.
It could also be due to the small quantity of blood, short burning time or sturdiness of the knife itself... Basically, he could not see any obvious changes for now. The net at Gu Tribe had turned to ash after burning so Shao Xuan had many reasons to worry.
He must be careful with every experiment in case it affected the knife.
Satisfied, Shao Xuan left the room, leaving everyone inside in a daze.
Now that the knife proved that crystal core could produce weapons as good as green bronze, everyone rejoiced despite Shao Xuan’s puzzling behaviour.
Shao Xuan brought an animal skin scroll over to the trading point, looking for Yi Si.
Since they rarely met, Yi Si was very surprised but temporarily shut his operations when he read Shao Xuan’s scroll.
“You wrote these?” Yi Si recognised the circles and symbols on the scroll being Yi mathematical formulae.
Yi Si was the only person from his family on this side of the ocean. However, he already had his suspicions that Shao Xuan was good at mathematics so he quickly calmed after the initial surprise.
“You want me to solve these?” asked Yi Si.
“Yep. As for compensation- just tell me.” These were parts that Shao Xuan could not solve as they utilised ancient Yi family equations, that was why he needed Yi Si.
“Compensation?” Yi Si thought for a moment. “I’ll keep that in mind, I haven’t thought of anything yet. I’ll get back to you on that.”
“If you want anything that is out of my abilities, I won’t be able to pay you for this.”
“Don’t worry, I know that. A strength of mine is the ability to read the room.” Yi Si was not in the mood to talk. He had a lot of bookkeeping to do and had to drop his tasks for Shao Xuan.
Yi Si fell into deep focus as he started his calculations, one hand holding a pen and the other hand’s fingers tapping incessantly. Although this scroll was not long and looked much simpler than Yi Si’s many-paged accounting tasks, these were complicated ancient formulae.
It took him half a day of non-stop calculations to solve it. When he was done, the sun was already setting.
“Here you go!” Yi Si wrote the answer on the animal skin scroll and tossed them to Shao Xuan. Rubbing his eyes, he said, “Remember the compensation you promised!”
“Don’t worry, I keep my promises. “
Shao Xuan brought the scroll away. It was only the first step. There were many more for him to solve.