Don't Cause Trouble Chapter 91: Yamata

When Ye Su arrived at the edge of the platform, quite a few people had already gathered around. On the stage, You Fushi was still frantically absorbing all the surrounding spiritual energy, and a shaft of golden light shone down from above his head, as if wrapping his entire figure in a thin veil of gold, dazzling and divine like a god.

The Chongming Sword stood quietly at his side, showing no signs of movement, behaving nothing like a demonic sword.

Ye Su stood silently among the crowd.

It was strange, she actually felt nervous.

"Young Master You should be able to form his Nascent Soul successfully." Xu Chengyu came over and stood beside Ye Su.

Maybe because the reassurance in his tone was so obvious, Ye Su couldn’t help turning to look at him.

Xu Chengyu noticed, and met Ye Su’s eyes. "You look worried about him."

"A little," Ye Su admitted, though this worry wasn’t quite what he meant.

She wasn’t sure about the differences between how demons and humans advanced in cultivation, and here was Kunlun, full of powerful cultivators. Someone might notice something unusual.

"Not even two days, and there are already clear signs," Xu Chengyu, who had formed a Nascent Soul twice himself, spoke with confidence. "Young Master You should be successful very soon."

Cultivators forming a Nascent Soul could take different amounts of time, as fast as a few days or as long as a year but once the heavenly phenomenon descended, it usually meant the process was close to completion.

Ye Su tilted her head up to look at the golden light above, then shifted her gaze to You Fushi. The junior disciple had been meditating for two days, breaking a record of sorts.

After a while, the surrounding spiritual energy condensed completely, and all the golden light was sucked into You Fushi, leaving nothing behind. The barrier around the platform seemed to shatter as if crushed by an invisible force, and the resulting shockwave forced the crowd below to retreat several steps.

Ye Su, instead of retreating, stepped forward closer to the edge of the stage.

At that moment, You Fushi finally moved. He simply turned his head to look down from the platform, and his eyes instantly met Ye Su’s.

The senior sister wasn’t surprised at all, and walked up to the platform in a few steps. She approached her junior brother, reached out her hand, and said, "Let’s go home."

You Fushi raised his head to look at Ye Su, as if confirming something, then finally placed his hand in hers and was pulled up. The two of them walked off the stage one after the other.

The Chongming Sword stood there for a moment, realizing no one was coming to pick it up, and its blade flashed faintly before it resigned itself to following after them.

"Early-stage Nascent Soul, right?"

"Should be."

The people around them began whispering. Xu Chengyu looked at You Fushi and found that sometimes he could sense a cultivation level similar to theirs, and sometimes he couldn’t feel it at all.

"Peak early-stage Nascent Soul," one of the presiding elders commented. "What a pity, if he’d waited a bit longer before forming his Nascent Soul, he might have gone straight to mid-stage."

"What a shame."

"In this sect tournament, the disciples who reach mid-stage Nascent Soul are all championship favorites."

"How many so far?"

"Four. Kunlun’s Lu Chenhan, Wuxing Sect’s Lian Lian, and two from the Western positions’ Wuming Sect, I think their names are Ning Qianyao and Jian Hu."

"The Buddha’s disciple, Gu Liangtian from Ten Thousand Buddha Sect, didn’t reach mid-stage Nascent Soul?"

"Ten Thousand Buddha’s secret methods are difficult to train, but they specialize in fighting beyond their level. You can basically treat Gu Liangtian as mid-stage."

"If you ask me, mid-stage Nascent Soul is nothing, who else can kill a sky demon while still at mid-stage? Just for that, Lu Chenhan is way ahead of the rest."

"Having a good sword is a huge advantage too," someone gestured at the sword trailing behind You Fushi, "didn’t it slice through a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator from Wuming Sect just three days ago?"

"We can’t compare to them, so let’s just try to get as many things as we can during the tournament."

"The next match is about to start."

"Young Master You, congratulations on advancing." Xu Chengyu and a few others came over to offer their congratulations.

"J–jun–ior br–oth–er, did–n’t y–ou ad–vance b–ecau–se y–ou c–ouldn’t s–it d–own?" Ming Liu Sha asked slowly. He had just heard what the presiding elder said earlier, and this was his first reaction.

You Fushi pretended not to hear. So what if he advanced because he was too tired to keep sitting? Even the mortal next to him wasn’t complaining.

Yan Hao from the Hehuan Sect suddenly popped up from somewhere, but this time his attention wasn’t on You Fushi and the others. He walked straight over to Ming Liu Sha and grabbed his hand. "Such a good young man, why are you stuttering? Come to the Hehuan Sect, we can get a healer to fix that for you."

"…"

Ming Liu Sha broke out in goosebumps, and yanked his hand back hard. "Men and women shouldn’t casually touch each other! Who wants to go to your Hehuan Sect? I don’t want to be your furnace cauldron!"

Yan Hao was stunned for a moment by this outburst of fluent speech, then finally processed it and asked, "You… you don’t stutter?"

"He just likes to talk that way." Xiyu, who was next to him looking in a mirror, added calmly. Their own Qianji Sect members had been fooled by Ming Liu Sha’s way of talking for years, so it was understandable Yan Hao had misunderstood.

"I see." Yan Hao hurried to defend the Hehuan Sect’s name. "The rumors are nonsense, our Hehuan Sect does not do that furnace-cultivation nonsense, and we don’t tangle with Buddhist cultivators either. We are a proper, legitimate sect."

Xiyu said, "Even if you are a legitimate sect, we still won’t become Hehuan Sect disciples."

"R–ath–er d–ie t–han s–ub–mit," Ming Liu Sha added.

Ye Su glanced back at Yan Hao, who was still trying to recruit people, and seriously suspected that the Hehuan Sect was basically a cult in the cultivation world, specializing in scamming good-looking young men and women and brainwashing them.

"We’re currently expanding the Qianji Sect," Ye Su counter-offered with a straight face. "Why don’t you all come join us instead? That way you can see us every day. We don’t mind if you bring your whole family, and we very much welcome you to bring along your assets."

Yan Hao froze, then immediately backed away a step, awkwardly waving his hands. "No, no, the Hehuan Sect is fine. Goodbye!"

She quickly escaped into the crowd, as if something terrifying were chasing her.

Ye Su raised her eyebrows at her junior brothers and sisters, gesturing for them to learn the correct way to have these conversations.

……

Before the next match started, Huang Erqian arrived at the Kunlun arena with the materials. Since he couldn’t enter, he could only wait outside for Ye Su to come out.

"The scroll." Ye Su took the scroll from her qiankun bag and handed it back to Huang Erqian.

Huang Erqian hugged the scroll tightly, lowering his head for a long while. When he looked up again, his eyes were rimmed with red. "I thought it was gone for good."

This was the last item that represented the peak of the Wendong Materials Shop.

"Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be lost." Ye Su raised her head and took a sip of tea. That day, she had simply taken it back, guessing Ning Qianyao wouldn’t dare expose Jian Hu’s identity.

In the cultivation world, demons weren’t welcome, ranking only slightly higher than their mortal enemies, the devils.

Those two had only just formed a contract, if one was harmed, both would suffer.

It also helped that the fox king had given the scroll to his junior sister after the contract was formed. Otherwise, if it had stayed in his hands, Ye Su might not have been able to get it back.

Huang Erqian calmed himself, then took out all the materials Ye Su needed. "Everything from the list is here."

"How’s Wendong Materials Shop doing lately?" Ye Su asked.

"Still all right." Huang Erqian replied without thinking.

"Is that so?" Ye Su put down her teacup and looked up at him. "I heard from people at Poyuan Sect that the Wendong shop in Dinghai City got smashed."

"That happens in business, there will always be troublemakers." Huang Erqian gave a sheepish smile.

Ye Su said nothing, and the private room fell silent.

"More and more people have been paying attention to Qianji Sect lately." Huang Erqian changed the subject. "I even saw people betting on them to win, several of them!"

Of course, the other sects, especially Kunlun, had too many to count.

"It won’t be too long." Ye Su said suddenly.

No matter how powerful Zhanjin Sect and Quantian were, they couldn’t stop Qianji disciples from forging artifacts.

As long as they forged something those other sects couldn’t, there would always be people in the cultivation world willing to pay for it.

When Ye Su stepped out of the private room, she saw Quan Jiaying waiting outside.

"About what you mentioned last night, I’ve thought it over," Quan Jiaying stepped forward and said, "I agree."

Ye Su smiled. "Good."

The drawing matches were still going on. Ye Su moved to the outer area with Quan Jiaying to get ready to co-forge a magic artifact.

It wasn’t uncommon for two artifact forgers to cooperate, but Quan Jiaying and Ye Su working together basically meant Poyuan Sect was publicly making peace with Qianji Sect.

After hearing Ye Su’s proposal last night, Quan Jiaying had immediately reported to his father, and Poyuan Sect had held an emergency meeting through the night.

"In three years, those Qianji disciples will go from Foundation Establishment to Core Formation," Rong Qiuchu said, "and one of them has even been taken as a disciple by Crazy Xin. That proves their talent. And from what I hear, the top rank in the Eastern division is also from Qianji."

"That one doesn’t really count," Elder Zhang said. "I heard it’s because his sword has a sword spirit, and it fights on the stage day and night, which is why his points are so high."

"Anyone who can command a sword spirit is no weakling," Rong Qiuchu looked at the Poyuan Sect Master, "and besides, ever since Wendong Materials Firm got involved with Qianji, they came up with the cold crystal mud. It’s hard not to suspect there’s a connection."

The sect master raised his hand to calm them and looked toward Quan Jiaying. "What do you think?"

"I want to co-forge a magic artifact with Ye Su," Quan Jiaying said. "Maybe it will give me a chance for a breakthrough."

In the end, Poyuan Sect decided to take a gamble, betting that Qianji could turn things around, and agreed to let Quan Jiaying work with Ye Su to forge a weapon together.

Because time was tight, the two of them could only refine the materials separately, but the refinement degree had to match exactly.

It was the first time Quan Jiaying stood in a forging room with someone else, so at first he felt a bit uncomfortable. During the refining process, he inevitably got distracted.

"Knives, maces, forks, and swords.Those are yours," Ye Su turned her head to tell him. "Spears, scythes, whips, and crossbows. I’ll take those."

They planned to co-forge a magic artifact that could change its shape, each of them handling four types, then combining them into a single artifact in the end.

"Brother Quan, you can still back out now," Ye Su said seriously when she noticed him distracted.

"I’m just not used to this," Quan Jiaying shook his head. "Let’s keep going."

The materials were provided by both of them, then refined together.

If it had been before, Quan Jiaying would have needed a long time just to refine them properly, but with Ye Su as a comparison, he felt a sense of urgency. After that, he devoted himself fully to the work, and was actually going twice as fast as usual though his spiritual energy was burning out quickly.

In order to merge several types of weapons into one and still have them work properly, Ye Su and Quan Jiaying had to make sure their material ratios were absolutely perfect.

Just for this one part, the two of them wasted more than ten batches of samples.

There were two materials that, when refined together, somehow exploded, nearly blowing up the entire forging room.

Luckily Poyuan Sect covered the damages, and after paying compensation, the two of them temporarily switched to another forging room.

Quan Jiaying was popping spirit stones while forging, and when he finished forging the second weapon blank, he called out to Ye Su, "I still have some spirit stones left, I’ll give you a few."

As a weapon refiner, he simply didn’t have enough spiritual energy, so he had to rely on spirit stones to keep going.

Over this long stretch, Quan Jiaying had only seen Ye Su use a spirit stone once, so he assumed she might be running out.

"No need," Ye Su refused, "I have spirit stones."

There were only a few days left before the drawing of lots ended, and she had to finish the combined forging before then.

"Do you have enough spiritual energy?" Quan Jiaying asked skeptically.

"Enough," Ye Su buried her head and continued refining the weapon blank with spirit fire.

Quan Jiaying was puzzled: it almost seemed like he, a late-stage Golden Core cultivator, actually had less spiritual power than her.

……

Seven days later, the two of them finally came out, faces both haggard and exhilarated.

"Senior Sister, the lottery round is over. The next round is about to begin!" Xiyu called anxiously at the entrance.

As soon as Ye Su came out, she saw Ming Liu Sha and the others waiting outside together with people from Poyuan Sect.

"Senior Sister, hurry over!" Xia Er came running from a distance. "Everyone else is already there!"

Ye Su wiped her face, trying to shake off the exhaustion and wake up a little, but before she could say anything, Quan Jiaying suddenly tilted to the side and collapsed straight to the ground.

After seven days of no rest and intense forging work, Ye Su's reactions were a little delayed. She could only watch as Quan Jiaying fainted.

"Jiaying!" Rong Qiuchu rushed over to support him, reached out to check his pulse, and finally let out a sigh of relief. "He's just out of spiritual energy. Too exhausted."

Whatever artifact they had forged must have drained not only their spirit stones but also all the spiritual power in his meridians.

Ye Su handed Rong Qiuchu a brown, round staff about three feet three inches long, then quickly ran toward the competition arena.

Rong Qiuchu held the thing that looked like a fire poker in her hand and called after her, "What's the name of this artifact?"

Before going in, the two of them had agreed: once they finished forging the weapon before the end of the month and before the next round began, they’d immediately submit it for the Baiqing Ranking evaluation but it had to have a name.

Ye Su’s voice drifted faintly from ahead: "Yamata."