Before she had even returned to the store they had already received visitors who were asking about the new armor. It was only the fact that Breen had remembered that one needed to be peak Gathering for one’s chi reserves to last long with the armor that prevented every member of the guard from trying to order such armor.

  Shen knew that there was research which she could do to improve the armor, increasing its protection or decreasing the cost or chi use. The chi use or protection could be improved by using the more efficient formation, and there may be different materials she can use which would lower the production cost. Improving her understanding of the effect, however, would both decrease the chi usage and improve the protection, allowing her to further decrease the chi use in order to adjust the strength of the barrier. And, of course, if she could figure out how to incorporate her Dragon Scales, or acquire materials from a magical beast with a dragon bloodline, she could improve it even further. So, rather than accept the orders immediately, she asked Master Chen for the rest of the day off, then went to the training field.

  The first thing to do was to improve her understanding of the Wall technique. It was the most basic Cleansing level form that a barrier could take, as far as she was aware, and was something she learned just so that she would be able to make her first round of protection amulets. It wasn’t a formal technique, but was a fragment of one, like the Bolt or Ball forms, and any type of chi could be made into a wall in order to intercept attacks. To use it, one merely needed to put a layer of chi between themselves and the attack, like a blanket or net meant to catch the attack. It did, however, formed the basis for many further barrier techniques.

  Shen asked the field master in charge of the recent recruits for their permission to use the children for something. The Sect had switched to formal training in many basic magical techniques which anyone could attend, but only the latest group and a few children from last year’s group took them up on the offer. After introducing herself to the children, some of which were only three and a half years younger than her, she stood at the end of the range in front of the target dummies. “Ok, kids. I need to test a barrier. So here is what I want you to do. Throw your strongest attack at me as much as possible. If you get through my barrier, I will give you a spirit stone.” The best way to test a barrier, after all, was against live fire. These children would only have had a few months of practice with the technique, however, so there power shouldn’t be greater than middle Gathering at best, even if a kid had begun to cultivate before coming here, like she had.

  Excited about such a large possible reward, many of the children started charging up the strongest technique they could manage, though none of them were able to beat Shen’s expectation, with only a few meeting it. A few seconds later they started throwing their techniques. While the barrier stood up to the first few attacks easily, each consecutive attack was a bit harder to block. Shen started pouring more chi into the barrier, but this rapidly depleted her reserves. Even with the faster regeneration from her bracelet she was barely able to keep up. She forced herself to focus harder and find weaknesses in the barrier which can be repaired.

  After a minute or two all of the children had depleted all of their chi. Shen thought she was finished when another group of recruits came over. These children, most of which were from last year’s recruits, had been practicing their physical combat in a nearby field and heard about her offer. They were about to start launching their attacks immediately, but she held up her hand. “Let me refill my chi real quick while I think about how I can improve it.”

  She sat down on the end of the field and let her bracelet refill her chi while she meditated on how she had performed. She noticed several times she had started to lose concentration and noticed several flaws in her barrier which would weaken it. They were like runs in a piece of cloth which would let it tear more easily. She practiced making small barriers with fewer weaknesses and, while she couldn’t remove all of them, her barriers now were much improved. She opened her eyes to see the kids looking bored, so she sighed and pulled out a spirit stone.

  She held it between her palms, completely wrapping her hands around it, and started absorbing it as fast as she could. At first it only refilled her slowly, but once she reduced it to less than 98% of full capacity it could no longer draw in energy to replenish itself as it naturally released it and started to collapse, releasing exponentially more chi with each second. After about thirty seconds the entire stone had been absorbed and she checked how much chi she had now. She had gotten approximately 5% of her reserve back from the stone, and was now at 17%. She sighed and grabbed another stone.

  Once she was above ninety percent full, she stood up. It had cost her 16 stones to get to that point, a ridiculous amount of money in most situations, but she couldn’t waste the opportunity here and it had been useful training. “Ok,” she said, and the kids looked at her. “I’m ready. Anyone that wants to can throw attacks at my barrier.” She held out her hands and formed a barrier with only a few lines of weakness running through it. “Begin.”

  The older kids wasted no time in throwing attacks at her and the barrier started to weaken. She reinforced it and realized that it was using 20% less chi than it had at first. That wouldn’t directly translate into a 20% decrease in her formation’s chi usage, as the formation also alters the performance, but it will help. She could perhaps expect a 5-10% chi savings.

  Just as she thought that they were running out of chi, one of the older children stepped forward. He put both hands together and a solid mass of Earth chi began forming between his hands. That wasn’t expected, but she was certain that her barrier could withstand it. Then she realized that it was already Late Gathering in strength and was still getting stronger.

  Shen quickly got to work fixing every flaw she could find in the barrier, but after only a few she found that her every attempt to repair the barrier introduced more flaws elsewhere. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to reinforce it before he launched his attack. So, she should try something different. This was an Earth attack, so she only needed to cancel it or absorb it. Canceling would mean using Wood chi, which was her worst element, so she decided to use Metal. She quickly replaced her barrier with one made of Metal chi. By combining it with the technique that let one fuel their ability off of the feeding element, including the enemy’s attack, it might be able to reinforce her barrier as it tried to break through.

  Once the boy was out of chi he hurled the ball at her. The head-sized mass of energy that looked much like a boulder slammed into the barrier, sending off a metallic ringing sound. Then the boulder started to shrink, making the metal in the barrier purer and therefore improving its strength. Five second later the boulder was gone and, when none of the other children launched an attack, Shen reabsorbed the chi. Interestingly, she actually had more chi than before he had attacked. He must have a large reserve to pour into it.

  The boy cursed. He had thought for certain that he would break through that barrier.

  Shen walked up to him. “Nice attack.” she said. “The only problem was that I had a way to counter it with another element. That, combined with the fact that it took too long let me adjust my barrier to the best way to block it.”

  The boy gave her a mean look. “So you cheated by changing your barrier.”

  “I didn’t promise not to do that. But if you want to, I can let you try again later when I’m using a neutral barrier. I’m Shen.” She held out her hand.

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  He sighed. “Herm.” he said, then shook her hand.

  “In that case, I’ll see if I can come by tomorrow, Herm.” With that she thanked the kids for helping her and went to the library.

  She spent the next few hours looking for books on relic crafting. Unfortunately, with the sect having discouraged their use for so many years, it was hard to find anything more than the basics. From the books they had, the only way she found to incorporate a bloodline trait into an object was to use part of the body of the creature that had that trait. She might be able to get a minor improvement by mixing in her own blood with the mana conductive fluid that filled the formation, but to get the actual Dragon Scales ability she would need body parts from a creature with the trait, preferably skin or scales as that is what dragons channeled the ability through. She had no scales of her own and there was no way she would cut off her own skin to add it to the armor, even if a healer could grow it back within hours or minutes, so she would need to find a different source.

  She briefly considered asking Sho the next time they met at Fisher, but decided against it. While Sho would have access to dragon parts and might even be willing to donate some of her own scales, Shen didn’t feel right doing it. It would be like asking a human to donate their fingernail clippings, and would be weird. Maybe she could trade for them with the villagers? Or would that be even weirder? She would have to think about it.

  She did find one minor technique, the Gathering stage Barrier form. It was basically just a stronger version of Wall which wove together threads of chi to make something far stronger which was harder to unravel.

  With no other way to get the materials she needed she went to the mission hall. The sect didn’t yet have a proper monster material vendor like she had heard other sects and cities had, but if she put out a mission for it she might get something.

  She went to the front counter. “Hello.” the woman said. “Here to take a mission, Shen? I hadn’t heard that you were promoted to Inner Disciple and don’t see you carrying any magical plants.” The last several times Shen was here she was handing in requests for magical plants that either the dragons had traded her or which she had found in the mountains.

  “I’m actually here to create a mission.” Shen said. “In order to make better relics I need materials from a specific family of spirit beast.”

  The woman nodded but sighed. “That might be difficult. Because spirit beasts become intelligent beings, usually when they reach Foundation, the Elders banned hunting them for sport. We can only hunt them if they are a threat to others, like we would treat bandits.”

  Shen scratched her head. “Well, do you have any materials from anything with a dragon bloodline?” she asked. “I’m hoping to reinforce a barrier with the Dragon Scales ability, so it likely doesn’t need to be that strong of a bloodline. I know that even beings that are less than 10% dragon can have the ability.” She still wasn’t ready to tell them that she was such a being.

  “Maybe.” the woman said. “A group killed a Peak Gathering giant snake that was attacking livestock about a week ago. They said it was using some kind of barrier to make it almost impossible to cut without Foundation techniques.”

  “That sounds like ‘Dragon Scales’.” said Shen, excitedly. “Any chance you have any of the skin or scales left?”

  “There weren’t independent scales.” the woman responded. “Just skin. And unfortunately we have already sold the skin to one of the leather workers that is going to make some armor from it.”

  “Can you tell me who?” Shen asked.

  The woman nodded and gave her the man’s address. Shen also checked on Beast Cores, but apparently they were it too high of a demand, so the mission hall was out of them. Shen couldn’t really afford to buy them in bulk for above the market price, so she simply asked the woman to keep an eye out for any from dragon type beasts and contact her if she saw any, and left. One nice thing about the cores of dragons was that they refilled themselves by automatically generated elemental chi with a higher purity than their stage would suggest, which would be useful for making relics.

  She made her way to the leather worker’s business in the water district. It didn’t exactly smell good, but the smell wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. She went inside and knocked on the counter and a woman came to the front. “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Shen.” she said. “I’m from Chen’s Talismans and Relics. I was told by the Mission Hall that you bought the skin of a giant snake a week ago? I was hoping to buy it.”

  The woman nodded and called into the back for the other person that worked there. “My husband bought it, yes. But we’ve already cut it up.” Shen looked a bit upset as the woman explained the situation to her husband.

  “I didn’t realize anyone else would want it. It’s monster leather, though, so I figured it would make good armor.” he said.

  “Did you make the armor already?” Shen asked.

  “Some of it, yeah. We don’t start cutting won valuable materials before we are ready to do something with it.”

  Shen nodded. “In that case, can I buy the scrap?” No matter how you cut out the shapes from the material there were always scrap pieces left over.

  “Well, some of the bigger pieces might still be useful to make boots or something, but I guess I can sell you some.”

  Shen nodded. When the man went to the back of the store to get the scrap she decided to ask the woman something. “Have you sold all of the armor, yet?”

  “The two we made were special orders, so yes. Why?”

  “Well, I was thinking about buying one for myself.” While she already had the ability, she could turn the armor into a show piece, then give it away or sell it if she wanted. There would be some complications to adding formations to it, but Shen was confident she could find a way to add them.

  “Well, we have enough left to make another custom suit, but you’ll have to ask my husband about that. I’m not as good of a leather worker, so I don’t work on the custom orders.”

  “Understood.” said Shen before walking around the showroom to see what was available.

  A minute later the man came back to the front of the store carrying a box. “Here is all of the scrap parts that we have made so far. We only accounted for four full suits of armor when we calculated the material cost of the armor, not this, so what are you willing to pay?”

  “Not sure. I don’t know what you paid for the skin, so I don’t know what a fair price would be.” After a bit of talking the leather worker couple calculated that the box contained about five percent of the skin. They paid five hundred stones for the skin, so five percent of that would be 25 stones, though they calculated the cost of materials at one quarter of the skin when pricing the custom work, so this was excess material and would be pure profit. Because it was mostly small scraps that weren’t useful for much else Shen managed to eventually talk them into accepting fifteen stones for it, and promised to buy the rest of the scraps at that price as well once they made the two remaining suits and assuming that it was only enough for two new suits.

  Once they finished discussions and Shen paid, she brought up the possibility of buying herself a set of armor made from it. “Unfortunately I can’t make a set for anyone that hasn’t stopped growing yet. It’s impossible to properly size if the person is still growing.”

  “Plus,” added the wife, “The chest size varies wildly between different women, so I’ll need to measure you separately. We might be able to size you after you turn 16, but probably not before that.”

  “Then is it possible to have a suit made it a standard size for a man so I can use it as a display piece in my shop?”

  The man shook his head. “If this was just generic spirit beast leather, sure, but it’s a special material, so I don’t want to use it for something other than custom work.”

  With no other questions Shen thanked them for their time and left with her box of scrap leather. She got back to work just before closing and got a wooden shield with a metal band around the rim. After shoving it into her bag, the opening barely big enough to allow her to do so, she went home.

  Once there she pulled the shield out of the bag. First, she added a large gathering array to the surface of it, then a gathering array to the back of it which would allow but not force the user to feed it chi. Both were tied into a compression formation that would put the chi at middle Foundation levels of pressure. Then, once she was done, she started measuring and gluing scraps of dragon-snake leather to the surface using a special chi-conductive glue made with powdered jade. Two hours later she had a leather faced shield and several small piles of much smaller scrap pieces.

  Once she was sure the glue was dry and the formations were feeding chi into the material properly, she decided to take it to the field. She shoved it back into her bag just as Mae entered the room. “Hey, Mae.” she said. “I’m about to head down to the training field to try out a new relic. Want to come along?”

  “Actually, I haven’t done any combat training in a while.” Mae responded. “So sure.”

  They made their way to the field even though it was nighttime. The field had someone on duty all day long so that anyone could practice at any time, but few people came out there at night, so the attendant was surprised to see them. They replaced the shield on one of the training dummies with the shield Shen just finished and went back to the line they were meant to stand behind.

  Once there she and Mae threw all of the attack spells they could at it, Shen even overcharging a lightning bolt before cycling through every element just to make sure.

  Once they were done and their ears had stopped ringing from the sound of the lightning strike, Shen went to get the shield and they returned home. Upon close inspection she could see some minor damage in the tiny cracks between the pieces of scrap. They were essentially acting as the runs in her Wall shield did and letting chi from the attacks get through while lowering the efficiency of the shield’s chi usage.

  She had two ways to fix the issue. The first would be to fill the gaps with the glue or another chi conductive material. This would mostly fix the efficiency issue. The second was to do like the Founders had done with the Jade when building the city and layer the material so that the gap in one layer was covered by solid material in the other. This would fix both but would double the material needed.

  After a few minutes of thought, she decided to try a compromise. She cut some of the smaller scrap pieces which she was unlikely to find another use for into long, thin strips, then glued the strips into the cracks. It took almost an hour to finish, but when she was done she could feel that the defensive ability of the shield had almost doubled. She was now ready for the next round of tests.