Chapter 131: Chapter 113: The So-Called Three Artifacts
Back in the city, Chu Bamboo casually rode his dirt bike to the Third District Police Chief Bureau, where he saw the handsome young man whose vehicle he had commandeered.
"I’m so sorry about this!" Wall Announcements was currently attending to the young man, an awkward smile plastered on his face. His eyes lit up the moment he saw Chu Bamboo return.
"Returned in one piece!" Chu Bamboo tossed the keys back to the young man, saying lazily, "The bike is parked right outside!"
"What’s that supposed to mean? Whatever!" Although the young man had never heard that idiom before, he didn’t dwell on it. He ignored the keys, stared pleadingly at Chu Bamboo, and then, with a THUD, dropped to his knees and hugged Chu Bamboo’s leg. "Master!"
Wall Announcements: "?"
Chu Bamboo: "..."
"Master, please accept me as your disciple!" The young man looked like he was about to kowtow.
"Guo Hairui! There’s no need for this." Chu Bamboo’s eye twitched. He actually knew this kid. To be more precise, he had recently "dealt with" the kid’s father—yes, his father was the director of a medium-sized factory in the Third Industrial District.
"My name is Chu Bamboo, or you can call me Mr. Zhu. Why don’t you go home and ask your father... you’ll understand a lot more after that."
Guo Hairui froze for a moment, then his body jolted as if struck by lightning. Thoughts raced through his mind, and his eyes gleamed as he muttered over and over, "I knew it, I knew it..."
’He just knew all those novels couldn’t be fake!’
’So this seemingly peaceful world really did have countless famous and powerful sects?’
’Could it be that his father only built his business with the support of one of those sects? So his family was also connected to one?’
’This is great! I’ll go back right now, get my father’s approval, join a righteous sect, train diligently, and eventually become a great hero!’
Ignoring Guo Hairui’s wild fantasies, Chu Bamboo watched him grab the keys and leave. Then he glanced at Wall Announcements. "Why is it you? Where are Uncle Li and the others?"
"They’re out on a job!" Wall Announcements slapped his own cheeks and let out a long sigh. "Actually, this wasn’t supposed to be my problem! But I woke up late today... I called the captain, and he assigned this to me..."
"Damn it." As he spoke, Wall Announcements’s eyes grew red. "How come that rich kid, who looks like a total idiot, is so respectful to you? I’m a super... a Kung Fu master, too! You have no idea how much trouble that guy gave me!"
"Oh," Chu Bamboo replied calmly. "You were probably too polite to him."
Wall Announcements: "...Huh?"
"You should have given him a couple of hard slaps! Or smashed Captain Li’s desk with one palm, then shot him a cold glare like one of those grandmasters from the novels! He would’ve been on his knees, begging to be your disciple," Chu Bamboo said with a sigh.
’Wall Announcements’s abilities might surpass a normal person’s, but he’s just too honest... To deal with a chuunibyou rich kid whose brain is addled by novels, you have to play the part from the novels!’
"? A sadist?" Wall Announcements asked, uncertain.
"Let’s not talk about that." Chu Bamboo patted Wall Announcements’s shoulder. After a slight pause, he suddenly thought of something, and a playful glint appeared in his eyes. "Speaking of which, I’ve always been very curious about something... Who’s your master? Mo Ban? Or Mo Kai? Or perhaps..."
"Of course it’s... huh?" Wall Announcements belatedly realized something was wrong. He stared at Chu Bamboo in disbelief, breaking out in a cold sweat.
"Relax! I don’t have any ill intentions." Chu Bamboo plonked himself down in Li Kang’s chair, casually propping his feet up on the desk. He looked the increasingly uncomfortable Wall Announcements up and down with an interested gaze and said nonchalantly, "Besides, the captain and the others don’t actually know... Otherwise, I wouldn’t be discussing this topic now, when everyone else is gone."
Wall Announcements opened his mouth, then closed it again. He squeezed his eyes shut, clearly resolved to engage in non-violent resistance.
"Don’t be like that! I have nothing against the Moisture Teaching. I just want to ask, when is Mo Ban coming back? Also, do you know how to forge Forbidden Artifacts and Spiritual Artifacts?" Chu Bamboo rubbed his chin.
After a moment’s hesitation, Wall Announcements finally, cautiously, peeked at Chu Bamboo, bit his lip, and nodded.
"Great, I have a Third Realm assassin over here! Can you refine him into a Spiritual Artifact?" Chu Bamboo’s eyes lit up instantly.
"???" Wall Announcements almost choked. He glared viciously at Chu Bamboo. "Are you kidding me? What do you think forging is? You just find a random furnace, toss the assassin inside, and call it a day?"
"Isn’t it?"
"...First, we need to forge a weapon! This weapon has to be made with the most expensive materials possible. Only after it’s successfully created do we use a weapon-forging furnace hidden within the Moisture Teaching, employ our unique Divine Techniques, and combine it with skills honed through a thousand trials, to fuse the Cultivator with the weapon!"
"Not a single step in the process can go wrong! Otherwise, the weapon being destroyed is a small matter. The forger suffering from backlash, contamination, collapse, or going insane is the real catastrophe! Do you have any idea how precious a Cultivator who can forge weapons is? They’re worth far more than any Artifact!"
"Besides, the success rate for forging a weapon like this is actually very low!"
"How low?" Chu Bamboo’s expression turned serious.
"Probably, nine out of ten will fail?" Wall Announcements guessed. "At least, that’s the case for me... My master’s rate should be higher, I think?"
Chu Bamboo: "???"
"Alright... pretend I never said anything!"
Chu Bamboo mentally withdrew his previous forging request.
’?’ Wall Announcements’s eye twitched. ’It’s not like I agreed! What’s with that look of disdain? I’m shaking with anger!’
Taking a deep breath, Wall Announcements continued, speaking with a hint of caution, "Of course, even if it’s a failure, what you get is a temporary Forbidden Artifact. It’s just that the more of a failure it is, the more severe the consequences of using it."
"I see!" Chu Bamboo nodded in understanding. "You scared me there. So a failure just becomes a Forbidden Artifact... which means a Spiritual Artifact is a successful product?"
"...You can’t really put it that way!" Wall Announcements’s expression grew even stranger. He sighed. "Uncle... Uncle Zhu, you really don’t know anything about this, do you! Well, I guess only an outsider like you would be brazen enough to just come up to me and demand I forge a weapon."
"To be precise, Spiritual Artifacts and Forbidden Artifacts are both successful products! A failed product is called a temporary Forbidden Artifact! Or a Pseudo-Forbidden Artifact! A Pseudo Artifact for short! The difference between the three is... Spiritual Artifacts and Forbidden Artifacts can be used long-term! Pseudo Artifacts can’t. They break after a few uses, and the side effects are usually quite severe!"
"Spiritual Artifacts and Forbidden Artifacts are both successful products! The biggest difference between them is... not only are the forging requirements for a Spiritual Artifact higher, but its effect at the same realm is actually a bit weaker compared to a Forbidden Artifact... For example, that weapon you want to forge, Uncle Zhu—if it were a Spiritual Artifact, it wouldn’t have any side effects, but its power wouldn’t match up to what it would be as a Forbidden Artifact."
Wall Announcements’s penchant for lecturing was clearly triggered. Even though Chu Bamboo didn’t ask any more questions, he was now chattering on enthusiastically.
"But, under normal circumstances, if you can have a Spiritual Artifact, you definitely choose the Spiritual Artifact! After all, the contamination is really... But that’s also the biggest problem! The requirements for a Forbidden Artifact are lower."
"Lower?"
"Yes, I don’t mean the difficulty of forging... I mean the weapon materials capable of housing a Spiritual Artifact are not only rare, but also extremely expensive! The market price is basically ten times that of materials for a Forbidden Artifact of the same level!"
"Most importantly, aside from the Cultivator, the other materials for a Forbidden Artifact can basically be bought with money! You can’t do that for a Spiritual Artifact... and what’s more, they’re controlled substances!"
Wall Announcements gave Chu Bamboo a strange look. "For example, Captain Li previously investigated a weapons workshop. Although that workshop wasn’t actually forging Artifacts, they were involved in smuggling materials..."
Chu Bamboo: "..."
’If you had just said they were controlled substances from the start, wouldn’t I have understood? You went on and on! And if it was the Captain’s Office that conducted the search, why are you still acting so secretive and cautious?’
"I get it! No need to say any more." Chu Bamboo nodded slightly, walking towards the exit as he thought.
’This wasn’t easy. For once, I didn’t feel completely dominated by Chu Bamboo from start to finish.’ A joyful smile appeared on Wall Announcements’s face.
But he quickly realized something, and his expression froze. He hurriedly chased after him. "Wait, Uncle Zhu! Um, you still haven’t told me... how did you know about that? And... and."
After catching up, Wall Announcements lowered his voice, his face filled with terror. "You really haven’t told the captain and the others about this, have you? And you’re not planning on telling... the captain and the others in the future, right?"
"..." Chu Bamboo shot Wall Announcements a sideways glance. Seeing as the kid had cleared up some of his questions, he didn’t deliberately keep him in suspense and offered a few words of comfort. "Isn’t Ning Linglong from Natural Taoism? Does anyone discriminate against her? Didn’t she make it to the position of vice-captain? In fact, it’s your attitude that’s strange..."
"...It’s not the same, not the same at all!" Wall Announcements looked up at the ceiling and sighed, his voice filled with grief and indignation. "Vice Ning was transferred here on secondment! In university terms, she’s like a top-tier talent who studied abroad... I was dragged into this! I’ve already got some... if they find any more problems with me."
Wall Announcements shuddered, his mind filled with some unknown terror.
Seeing this, Chu Bamboo said no more, simply watching as Wall Announcements nervously walked back to his post.
’He’s still just a kid, after all.’
Chu Bamboo sighed to himself. In the previous timeline, he had talked to Li Kang about this, so he knew very well that under the current circumstances, even if Wall Announcements was exposed, it wouldn’t be a big deal... As long as Li Kang trusted your loyalty, and as long as you didn’t openly provoke anyone by publicly declaring yourself a follower of the Moisture Teaching, what could possibly happen?
But...
Wall Announcements right now gave him the distinct impression of a high school student who hadn’t done his homework and was watching the teacher start to collect it, feeling as if the sky were falling—
’Once you actually get out into the real world, you realize... it’s not even a big deal!’
Shaking his head, Chu Bamboo cleared his mind of stray thoughts. He walked out of the Police Chief Bureau and gazed into the distance, his eyes turning sharp.
"And now... it’s your turn!"
"My dear B2!"
