God Of Crafting

I knew that what I just said was quite provocative. Heck! It would be weird if the guards, people set to protect the borders of this extremely conservative place, took it any other way.

But in this precise moment, with the feat I'd just learned to be some sort of a great achievement…

How could they even think about responding to my provocation in any way one normally would?

"Traditional belief…" one of the guards muttered while squinting his eyes and tightening his hold on the ceremonial spear he held in his hand. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

I glanced over at Chihiro… but the man looked away.

'I'm quite sure he will come and help if things take a turn for the worse, but for now…' I held back a smile from emerging on my face, 'I am to drink the beer I brewed, right?'

I took a deep breath, held it in my lungs for several seconds before slowly, slowly breathing it out while letting my shoulders drop a little.

"I can't expect you to know this kind of detail pertaining to my personal lore, but…" I pretended to hesitate, even going so far as to look away to imply some sort of deeply ingrained shame, "it took me five years to actually learn how to meditate. In fact, it only happened after I was kicked out of the institution!"

Rather than digging even further into the provocative tone I started the topic with, I quickly shifted to talking about my history instead.

"Five years?" the leading guard raised his eyebrow… but didn't seem all that impressed or surprised.

"Ah!" Chihiro suddenly made a noise, all to draw everyone's attention to himself. "Most of the people born in the spiritual world are cultivators from the moment of birth," he quickly explained a crucial piece of information I had no clue about beforehand.

"Oh, so they don't even need to overcome this kind of hurdle?" I raised my eyebrow as I figured out what it was that Chihiro actually wanted to say.

Dropping my eyes down, I shook my head and sighed to show the level of my exasperation.

"Well, that does explain why they stagnated for the last several hundred years," I muttered, fully aware I was once again provoking the guards… Which should be a stupid idea, given how they were the ones deciding whether to let us pass or not.

But while this tactic wasn't something I discussed with Chihiro or Claire beforehand… We never discussed the possibility of me breaking through on the spot either.

And between me being an obnoxious little fuck and a genius who could reach greater heights on a whim… The former was an infinitely better impression to leave the guards with than the latter.

'I would much rather be mocked and ridiculed than have everyone be aware of my potential.'

Shaking my head, I refocused my attention on the topic at hand, rather than the tactic that prompted me to start said topic to begin with.

"You see, historically speaking, five years is the longest mortals were supposed to take to learn how to properly meditate, how to get in touch with the spiritual side of the world. If someone failed to do so for five years straight, he would be deemed talentless and barred from ever cultivating again," I turned back to the guards and explained so that they could have a full picture of what I was talking about.

"It wasn't until I actually tried quite the unorthodox method that I finally managed to properly meditate, finally stepping onto the path of cultivation. But that delay, that time that I wasted…" I shook my head, only to then lean back as far as I could without losing my footing, only to then cross my arms over my chest, "all that time changed how I perceive cultivation."

I breathed in and out, mostly to give the guards time to internalize what I'd just said and maybe, just maybe, think about it for a second or two.

"That's why, even though I'm still ways off from reaching the level necessary for a proper invitation to the spiritual world, I can already tell that either the knowledge passed down to the outer clans is intentionally mixed with sham, or simply imperfect to begin with," I stated while shaking my shoulders as if to express just how little I cared. "How else would my own understanding, born from modern knowledge and based in science, allow me to perfect my early cultivation to the point the traditional cultivation methods couldn't even fathom?"

With that said, I simply smiled before leaning my head over to the side while staring right into the leading guard's face, as if challenging him to prove me wrong.

"So you think that your own understanding of early cultivation is better than the understanding based on the manuals perfected over literal thousands of years?"

Rather than flying into a rage, the guard… The guard had to hold his laughter back, clearly amused by my statement and the confidence I infused those statements with.

But my image of an arrogant young master acting like a proverbial frog in the well wouldn't be solidified if I just gave up now, would it?

"In math, if you make a small mistake right at the very beginning of a complex calculation, it doesn't matter how long and hard you work to calculate the rest. In fact, the more you calculate, the greater the margin of error will be," I claimed only to then shrug my shoulders.

"And here you go again with science," the guard quite clearly dismissed all that I'd said, already set to consider me as nothing more than an arrogant youth, too full of himself to see and respect the giants on whose shoulders I stood. "But didn't your breakthrough from just now prove that there are times when human understanding of an event can be dwarfed by them just… feeling it?"

Hearing this, I squinted my eyes.

Because… to a degree, this was quite the valid point.

Contrary to my breakthroughs of the past, which were based on the theories I crafted myself—or, with the help of my constitution—my breakthrough from just now… It indeed felt much, MUCH smoother and more natural.

But just like the saying went, 'sweat a lot while training to bleed a little while fighting,' the ease of the breakthrough only made it hard for me to fully internalize my new limits! While after my past breakthroughs, while it was quite challenging to formulate all my theorems necessary to construct a theoretical path to advancement, once I broke through…

Once I broke through, I simply found myself on a logical next step of the process, with the theories of how my cultivation worked all there, perfectly saved and internalized in my head from long before I actually advanced!

"I don't think that's the case," I shook my head and rolled my eyes, still set on playing the role of an arrogant youth who just didn't know any better. "Especially when you are trying to take what's uncertain and an object of my questioning and turn it into proof of your own reasoning," I stated only to roll my eyes again before leaning my head back and casting my stare at the guard along the bridge of my nose.

"That's, however, the limit of the wisdom I'm willing to share for free. Now then, unless you are willing to pay the price of my teachings, how about you stop wasting my time and just let us pass already?"