Grenades
Ever since his sect master and master had gone into seclusion, Yi Xuan had returned to his own little courtyard, living like a salted fish every day.
During the day, he set up his stall outside. Business was the same as ever, with fewer than one customer a day on average. Most of the time, Yi Xuan sat in his rocking chair, pretending to nap.
After dinner each evening, Yi Xuan went into the secret chamber and fed No. 01 all kinds of information, so it could keep learning and upgrading at all times.
As more and more information was entered, No. 01 grew increasingly intelligent. It could even start holding simple conversations with Yi Xuan, and its store of knowledge grew larger and larger.
During that time, Yi Xuan also had No. 01 optimize the robot design it had previously stored. To his surprise, the results exceeded his expectations.
The optimized robot design had gone somewhat beyond what Yi Xuan had originally envisioned. In other words, No. 01's scientific knowledge had reached a fairly advanced level.
The only pity was that No. 01 was still just a computer. Limited by its hardware, no matter how perfect a design it produced, Yi Xuan still had to build it himself.
That frustrated Yi Xuan. After all, the ultimate goal of technology was to let humanity lie flat, but the technology he had now couldn't make his wish come true.
After thinking it over, Yi Xuan decided he ought to put in a little more effort after all.
With that change in mindset, Yi Xuan actually skipped sleep that night and cultivated instead.
When he woke up the next day, he found that his cultivation had risen again, from the seventy-ninth layer of the Qi Refining Realm to the eightieth.
Remembering how his sect master and master had worried about his lifespan, Yi Xuan found it rather funny. With his strange body, even dying would be difficult if he really wanted to.
The senior recorded in the sect's records, who had likewise been a person without roots, had spent his entire life fretting over his cultivation speed. In the end, with his allotted lifespan nearly exhausted, he had no choice but to let go.
Yi Xuan also worried about his cultivation speed. Unlike that senior, though, he worried that he cultivated too quickly.
Sometimes, he thought that if he still had the drive he'd had when he first came to this world, he might have surpassed even the two-hundredth layer of the Qi Refining Realm by now.
Unfortunately, even a thousand layers would be useless. Comparing the True Qi in Yi Xuan's body to the True Essence of cultivators at the Foundation Establishment Realm and above was like comparing gunpowder to nuclear material.
The amounts might look the same, but theirs was thousands, even tens of thousands of times more powerful than his.
One day a month later, the weather was no longer as hot as before. Yi Xuan lay in the rocking chair behind his stall, enjoying the warm morning sunshine.
Suddenly, a jumble of footsteps came from the entrance to the alley.
Several sect disciples marched into the alley, looking ready for a fight. They didn't stop until they reached Yi Xuan's stall.
Looking at the sect disciples surrounding his stall, Yi Xuan felt a little uneasy. He thought long and hard, but couldn't recall making any enemies recently.
He put a hand inside his Storage Bag and smiled at the group. "Fellow disciples? What would you like to buy? If you're not satisfied with the things at my stall, I have other things in my courtyard!"
The five or six people neither spoke nor looked at Yi Xuan, instead examining the wares on his stall.
After looking for a while, they exchanged glances and shook their heads.
Yi Xuan was somewhat baffled by their behavior.
Then a young man stepped forward from behind the others. He held something out on his palm and asked Yi Xuan, "Fellow disciple, did you sell this here?"
At the sight of the object in the man's hand, Yi Xuan's heart tightened. He hurriedly asked, "Where did you get that?"
Although it looked completely different from its original form, Yi Xuan, its maker, recognized it at once.
The object in the young man's hand was one of the round objects Yi Xuan had pressed on his junior sister Mu Anqing when she left a month ago.
But it no longer looked the way it once had. What the young man held was merely a fragment of it.
What Yi Xuan had given Junior Sister Mu was none other than a grenade he had developed—or, rather, it could also be called a True Essence Grenade!
Its principle was simple, just like the grenades from his previous life. But Yi Xuan had replaced the gunpowder inside with a cultivator's True Essence as the explosive.
Of course, its power had changed too. True Essence was far more powerful than gunpowder, and the force of the explosion was tremendous, making the fragments from the grenade even more lethal.
Yi Xuan had also improved the material used for the fragments inside the grenade, replacing it with mysterious iron. This material was extremely common in the cultivation world, but it was many times stronger than ordinary steel. With fragments made of mysterious iron and True Essence as the explosive, although Yi Xuan had yet to have a chance to test it, he only had to imagine it to know the thing was not to be trifled with.
At that moment, however, Yi Xuan didn't care about the grenade's power. He only wanted to know how his junior sister was doing. The appearance of a fragment of the grenade's casing after it had exploded meant that Junior Sister Mu had encountered danger and been forced to use the grenade he had given her.
Seeing the anxiety on Yi Xuan's face, the young man said, "You're worried about Senior Sister Mu, right? Is she all right?"
Hearing that Mu Anqing was all right, Yi Xuan breathed a sigh of relief, but then asked curiously, "Where did you get this, then?"
The young man patiently explained, "A month ago, Senior Sister Mu, several other fellow disciples, and I took on a mission together to deal with a Demon Beast at the Foundation Establishment Late Stage. It should have been a sure thing, but we never expected the Demon Beast to break through to Foundation Establishment Perfection!"
Hearing this, Yi Xuan understood. "It looks like you couldn't handle that Demon Beast, so Junior Sister Mu had to use the grenade I gave her."
The young man nodded. "Grenade? That's what this thing is called?"
"After we saw the Demon Beast had broken through, we originally decided to abandon the mission and leave. But Senior Sister Mu wasn't willing to give up, so she took out this gre... grenade! Right, grenade! She threw it at the Demon Beast. We didn't expect the Demon Beast to catch it in its jaws and swallow it whole."
"Uh!" Hearing the young man's account, Yi Xuan couldn't help admiring the Demon Beast. Wasn't holding a grenade in its mouth a little too gutsy?
The young man continued, "When we saw the Demon Beast swallow the grenade, we all thought it hadn't done anything. Then, unexpectedly, a muffled bang came from its belly. The Demon Beast started vomiting blood, and when we saw it was injured, we surrounded and attacked it under Senior Sister Mu's lead. In the end, we killed it!"
Yi Xuan nodded, then asked curiously, "Since you were able to find me here, does that mean she's already back? Why didn't she come over? Is she hurt?"
The young man shook his head. "No. Senior Sister Mu gained some insights from the battle, so she went into seclusion after we returned!"
Only then did Yi Xuan breathe a sigh of relief. He also asked, "Then you came to see me because...?"
Seeing Yi Xuan staring at the grenade fragment in his hand, the young man nodded. "That's right! I'd like to buy some grenades! Would you be willing to sell them?"