Yan Hong Min gave a huff but still sat down to solve the matter, diligently working until the crystal was embedded and couldn’t be taken out without force and only needed to be shifted. The pattern he had finally gone for was indeed a triangle as he had thought of before.
Handing the device back to Mei Chao Bing, Yan Hong Min motioned at the pattern. “I made sure the sides aren’t even. The sharpest tip is the one for the demonic mode. I guess the other two aren’t as important.”
Originally, he hadn’t thought of this but with Mei Chao Bing stressing twice how these changes had to be made so the device could be used easily while out in the field, he finally figured that the disciples would also need an easy way to distinguish the modes in times of emergency. They couldn’t turn the device around in the middle of being chased to check which side was which mode, could they?
Mei Chao Bing took the device and nodded. “Thank you. I am sure this will help us out a lot.”
Yan Hong Min gave a hum and then went to a cupboard at the side, rifling through it before he found what he was looking for. Then, he went back with a handful of paper ducks and stuffed them into Mei Chao Bing’s hands though. “Sect Master Zhang said you could likely use these in the border region as well so I made a few more. There are some smaller and some bigger ones that can cover different distances. You just see what you need.”
Mei Chao Bing nodded again. “Thank you for this as well. I am sure they will come in handy.” He hesitated for a moment and then raised his brows. “Do you have anything else that might be helpful?”
Yan Hong Min blinked his eyes in surprise before they slowly lit up. His little junior really had good taste! Finally, somebody appreciated his talent and was directly asking for some of his inventions.
If he had sounded slightly miffed before, then now, nothing of that could be heard or seen anymore. Instead, he treated Mei Chao Bing especially warmly. “Of course, there are a lot of things! What do you want? Something for protection? Something to attack? Some tricks to divert attention? I also have a lot of devices that can come in handy for other situations. Basically, there is a bit of everything.”
Mei Chao Bing gave a hum and first put the scanning device and the paper ducks away. “Well, it’s tough to say ahead of time. Of course, if you have something for protection that doesn’t rely on their level too much, that would be good. The younger disciples are vulnerable and the other side has a lot of preparation time on us and often likely the higher level.”
Yan Hong Min gave a drawn-out hum and thought about it. “Actually, most of my devices do rely on spiritual energy to a large degree. Otherwise, wouldn’t that be too Heaven-defying? But there are some workarounds that can be utilized.” He thought for a moment and then raised a finger. “The collar I made for my little junior’s spiritual beast is like that. Basically, it relies on the materials used to fend off attacks.”
Mei Chao Bing nodded. Honestly, he didn’t know much about forging weapons but he had heard some general knowledge. What Yan Hong Min described seemed to be a common approach. “Then do you have some ready-made ones?”
Yan Hong Min nodded and started to look around for them, slowly piling them up on the desk. “You can look through those. I don’t really keep track of them in detail so you’ll have to figure out the levels.”
Mei Chao Bing gave a hum and started to sort through them. He took out everything that was only at the level of a Qi refining or foundation establishment disciple. After all, when it came to this level, even the younger disciples would be able to fend the attacks off by themselves. There were several defensive tools at the core formation or even the nascent soul stage though.
Mei Chao Bing looked at the small pile with a complicated expression. The amount of material that had gone into this … he’d rather not think about it. Elder Baili would probably also have a heart attack if he found out.
Others would use this to forge a life-bound weapon or a major defensive tool that could be used when they had reached a high level themselves and were able to fully utilize the strengths of the tool. But Yan Hong Min made things like this that … well, they weren’t useless but it surely wasn’t common to do it this way.
These tools were indeed best suited for younger disciples to use for protection in case of emergency. They didn’t need much or even any spiritual energy to be imbued and instead worked all on their own. Surely, they would have shortcomings though. “How many attacks can they fend off?”
Yan Hong Min glanced over his shoulder at the defensive tools Mei Chao Bing had picked out and pursed his lips. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“Well, who is attacking them, and with what level and strength? They can definitely all withstand at least a single attack of a cultivator at the same level. But further than that, it’s tough to say. They’re more like … a one-time kind of thing.”
Mei Chao Bing gave a hum. He had thought as much. If there was such a thing as a defensive tool that could be used without imbuing spiritual energy that still reached a high defensive value, then the downside had to be the durability. In this case, because the material was used to defend, each attack would whittle away at the strength of that material. Finally, it would break under the onslaught, and then it was over for the disciple hiding behind this. It seemed he’d have to stress this problem to the disciples when they handed the tools out.
