Housewarming Gift

With the four elements hovering around him, Shui steadily confirmed and verified his insights on their manifestations. However, the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead proved that this wasn't as simple as it seemed. Although the main requirement to learn this corna was comprehension rather than energy reserves, these powerful manifestations still took much effort to maintain. The void flame, which could be considered the most self-sufficient, actually provided the heaviest burden as Shui couldn't let it wreak havoc on the world and was actively restraining it. 

In the first place, if he was to rely on his own understanding of the elemental laws, Shui would only be able to pull off the manifestation of wind. For the manifestation stage, imagination was more important than comprehension, so even the perfect transmutation that was involved in the manifestation of earth could be accomplished fairly simply, despite the fact that even Kings studying the laws of earth could only transmute ores of mortals with pure comprehension. This would become a roadblock when he reached the intent stage of the Four Elements Technique, but it wasn't a problem for the time being.

After a few more days had passed, Shui had attained basic mastery of the manifestation stage and was ready to tackle the manipulation stage. This stage was much simpler as it mainly involved him getting used to controlling his manifested elements. 

'Good thing I know just the place to start practicing.'

Despite making no visible progress, Shui was the last to finish his meditation. By the time he was done, Serina had made her breakthrough to the second level of the Soul Realm, and Sef had reached the eighth level of the Mortal Realm. Fatty felt upset as he was the only one without any major progress in his cultivation, but he was now closer to reaching the fifth level of the Soul Realm. Once they had wrapped up their cultivation, the three spent time exploring the city. 

A day before Shui was ready, Reinhart left the meditation room. Due to Shui's concealment array he couldn't tell what he was doing, but his senses were sharp enough to detect his presence. He wondered why he stayed in the living room, but it wasn't too important so he went past him without much fuss. After talking to Sef about his future plans, Reinhart suggested that he find a place of residence in Marto.

"The Darino Gang's influence doesn't reach this far, so they shouldn't be able to find out about you here. Of course, if you have another city in mind then suit yourself."

Despite Reinhart's oddly authoritative tone, Serina could tell that he was being sincere so she also tried to persuade her brother. 

"I think senior brother's right. Although there don't seem to be any ore deposits, if we search we should be able to find somewhere for you to forge while you're here."

If it was before, Sef would have wanted to find a city with a mine nearby, but his recent experiences had changed his thoughts on how to progress as a blacksmith.

"While I do like being near untouched ores, I know that my skills are too poor to make proper use of them. As long as I can find a place to peacefully sharpen my craft, then I ask for nothing else."

With his agreement obtained, they went to a realtor service and managed to get a property with a forge attached. It was a bit pricey, but a couple spirit gems were enough to cover it so Serina bore the cost. Sef felt guilty for depending on her so much, but Serina was simply glad to pay him back for taking care of her.

On the day Shui stopped cultivating, he found everyone else at Sef's new residence after a subtle scan of the city. There were a few Sky Realm experts present, but none of them could detect it. The house Serina bought was a small mansion with three bedrooms, two floors, a basement and a forge in the yard. It was simple, but Shui could see himself living in a similar place if he ever felt like staying in the city. He went straight there and found everyone else already settling in.

Reinhart was the first to notice him, but he continued to sip his tea in the living room. Instead of entering the mansion, Shui went towards the forge where he sensed Sef. Sef was focused on fixing up the inside of his forge, so he didn't notice Shui until he knocked the open door. 

"Who, oh Master Shui."

"Master?"

"Yes, after seeing you forge I was able to figure out my future path, so I believe it's only right that I give you the proper address. You don't have to consider me a disciple, it's just my way of showing you respect."

Though it was unexpected, being referred to as Master didn't bother him, so Shui simply shrugged.

"If that's what you want, then sure. By the way, congratulations on your breakthrough."

"Thank you, Master Shui. I think it was a blessing left over from meeting the qilin. I should be able to reach the Soul Realm with enough time and resources, but I plan to focus on my skills as a blacksmith so that I can forge an artifact before taking that step."

Shui nodded in approval. Although he didn't disdain forge masters who stuck to the conventions of forging artifacts suited for their cultivation, he believed that a true master should always strive to go above their limits. Uncle Bartos was a good example of this as he kept striving to forge supreme spirit-rank artifacts despite being in the Soul Realm. 

"Then as a housewarming gift and encouragement, let me add my personal touch to this place."

Without waiting for Sef's reaction, Shui took out several brushes and beast spirit blood. He applied the blood to the brushes and sent them at set points of the mansion with mental control. Once Reinhart and the others detected these movements, they quickly deduced that Shui was the source and went to see him. Reinhart arrived first, but he stopped himself from speaking once he saw how focused Shui was.

Shui still maintained his awareness of the surroundings, but most of his attention was on the brushes around the mansion. With his breathing as stable as possible, he began the process of drawing arrays. He planned on drawing protection, sound dampening, spirit gathering and concealment arrays to cover the entire mansion. It was a simpler task than drawing arrays to cover the Heaven clan, but he was also challenging himself by doing all four in one go.

He started with the sound dampening array, which was the easiest, then went on to the concealment array, protection array and finally the spirit gathering array. As each array had to be in sync with the array before it, the task only grew harder at each step. Shui completed the sound dampening array without a struggle, but he furrowed his brows while drawing the concealment array and began sweat during the protection array drawing. The process grew slower the closer he was to the end, but he was still able to finish the four arrays right as the moon became visible. It had taken a couple hours but that was still impressive for someone with his cultivation. 

"Okay, it's finished."

As they didn't want to disturb him, everyone else had retreated to the mansion, but they could still watch part of the process from the second floor. Applauded him while feeling the flow of nature energy being directed towards the mansion. Thanks to the combination of arrays used, Sef would be able to forge in peace without disturbing anyone, and would be safe unless a late Earth Realm expert took action. Shui could have improved the protection array, but making it too good could attract attention so he chose to settle with this since Sef didn't seem like the type to get into trouble.