Chapter 345 - Two Days and a Difficult Technique

Chapter 345: Chapter 345 - Two Days and a Difficult Technique

Lu Canghai had barely finished recovering from the strange experience of deliberately beating his disciple when Su Bai brought up another matter.

"Master, about leaving the sect..."

Lu Canghai’s hand paused halfway toward his beard.

He looked at Su Bai for several breaths.

This time, however, he did not immediately refuse.

Su Bai had already explained the situation before his Nascent Soul breakthrough. There was someone among the demonic cultivators who could secretly provide information, and the matter involved movements that even the Radiant Sky Sect had yet to understand completely.

Lu Canghai studied his disciple.

His reasons for keeping Su Bai inside the sect had become increasingly difficult to defend.

The brat had survived a Nascent Soul tribulation that should have killed him several times over. His physical body had actually died, yet his Nascent Soul remained stable enough to help him crawl back into it afterward.

Earlier this day, he had walked into the edge of a Void-Shattering tribulation.

After returning, he had happily asked his own master to beat him.

Somehow, getting hurt had become another method of training.

Lu Canghai was beginning to suspect that keeping Su Bai completely out of danger might require locking him inside a mountain and removing the mountain afterward.

Even that might only encourage him to study earth pressure.

Lu Canghai finally sighed.

"You may go."

Su Bai’s eyes brightened.

Lu Canghai raised one finger before he could celebrate.

"After two days."

Su Bai paused.

Lu Canghai glanced toward the distant peaks.

"There are still too many outsiders inside the sect. You already know that not everyone who came here has good intentions. Some are merely curious, some are calculating what they can gain from us, and I would be surprised if none of them were passing information elsewhere."

That much Su Bai agreed with.

The strange heavenly phenomena surrounding his breakthrough had drawn too much attention.

Shen Youran’s return to Void-Shattering had only given the visitors another reason to remain interested.

"If you leave while everyone is watching our movements, someone may notice," Lu Canghai continued. "Let us finish the remaining meetings and send most of them away first. It should take less than two days."

Su Bai thought for a moment before nodding.

"That works."

The delay was not particularly troublesome.

It was only the fifteenth day since he had emerged from Fallen-Star Sanctuary, and he had encountered Ning Shuang several days into his journey afterward.

The crude map she had given him was still safely stored away.

One of the marked locations lay near a city famous for its tea, and Ning Shuang had casually mentioned that she might remain there for a few weeks.

If she had followed the route she implied, there was a good chance she was still somewhere around that area.

Even if she had already moved on, Su Bai knew the next place she had hinted at.

Waiting another two days would not ruin anything.

Lu Canghai nodded when he saw that Su Bai had accepted the condition so easily.

"I’ll help finish dealing with the visitors. Use these two days properly instead of finding another tribulation to sit beside."

Su Bai looked offended.

"Master, that only happened once."

Lu Canghai stared at him.

Su Bai reconsidered defending himself.

His master turned and left Clear Cloud Peak soon afterward, apparently deciding that removing the visitors quickly was safer than allowing his disciple too much idle time.

Su Bai watched him disappear.

’Two days.’

That was enough time to accomplish something useful.

He returned to his courtyard and considered several things he had postponed.

One idea immediately rose above the rest.

Su Bai looked down at his robes.

He had been thinking about this problem for a long time.

His clothing had an unfortunate tendency to suffer whenever something important happened.

Lightning burned it. Enemies cut it. Cultivation accidents damaged it. His own techniques occasionally made matters worse.

Even the recent Void Lightning experiment had reminded him how inconvenient it was to keep changing robes manually every time something tore.

The cultivation world possessed techniques capable of splitting mountains, flying through the sky, sealing souls, and manipulating space.

Surely changing clothes should not require several minutes behind a screen.

Su Bai retrieved several robes Liu Meng had made in the past.

They were the pieces she considered failures or rejects.

Some had slightly uneven stitching. Others had minor flaws in their formations or simply failed to reach the quality she expected.

To Su Bai, they were perfect.

If his experiment destroyed them, no one would complain nearly as much.

He placed several sets nearby.

Soon after, he activated the Dao-Shattering Jade.

The familiar clarity descended. Complexity peeled away. Su Bai’s thoughts accelerated as he examined the problem again.

He did not need the robes to move through ordinary space.

Storage rings already allowed objects to enter and leave spatial storage almost instantly.

The real difficulty was making the clothing appear around his body correctly.

Su Bai selected one robe with his spiritual sense.

The connection formed easily.

He pulled it from storage while directing Qi around himself, attempting to guide the cloth directly onto his body.

The robe appeared.

Su Bai looked down, and his expression slowly changed.

The new robe had indeed appeared around him.

Unfortunately, he was already wearing another one.

The two sets overlapped in ways clothing was never meant to overlap.

One sleeve had somehow passed halfway through his existing sleeve. A section of the inner robe had appeared between layers of cloth near his waist, while the collar sat at an angle that made it look as though someone had dressed him in complete darkness.

Su Bai stared at himself.

"That is technically progress."

Technical progress did not make it wearable.

He separated the robes and tried again.

This time, he attempted an exchange.

His spiritual sense locked onto the robe he was wearing and the replacement robe beside him.

Qi circulated through his meridians.

The Myriad-Path Meridian Web adjusted automatically, finding a route that linked his spiritual sense, body, and the two sets of clothing.

Su Bai triggered the exchange.

His old robes vanished.

The replacement appeared.

But then, a loud tearing sound followed.

Su Bai slowly lowered his gaze.

Part of the original robe had been pulled away too violently and ripped during the exchange.

The new robe was also crooked.

One trouser leg had twisted around his calf, the outer robe had settled too far to one side, and his sash was hanging somewhere it had no business hanging.

Su Bai stood completely still.

If anyone saw him now, explaining that he was creating a profound new technique would not help.

He removed everything and started over.

The next attempt placed one sleeve correctly and the other behind his back.

Another left the collar facing sideways.

One particularly impressive failure positioned the entire upper robe almost correctly while turning the lower half enough that Su Bai needed several breaths to understand what had happened.

After some time, discarded robes covered part of the courtyard.

None were completely destroyed, although several had become significantly more deserving of Liu Meng’s original classification as failures.

Su Bai sat among them and rubbed his forehead.

He had expected the technique to be simple.

Storage ring. Robes. Exchange. Done.

Apparently, clothes had opinions.

He closed his eyes again.

The Dao-Shattering Jade continued stripping away unnecessary complexity.

Su Bai reviewed every failure.

The problem slowly became obvious.

He had been treating the robe as a single object.

It was not enough to know which robe he wanted.

The technique needed to know exactly how that robe was supposed to exist around his body.

Sleeves had positions. The collar had orientation. Belts had alignment.

Every layer needed to appear outside the correct portion of his body rather than merely occupying roughly the same location.

He had been trying to exchange objects without establishing a proper spatial reference.

Su Bai opened his eyes.

"That should have been obvious."

He looked at the robes scattered around him.

None offered sympathy.

The solution began with his own body.

Su Bai circulated Qi again.

This time, he did not immediately touch the replacement robe.

He allowed the Myriad-Path Meridian Web to spread the circulation evenly through his body.

His spiritual sense followed.

A thin layer of Qi traced his outline from head to foot, recording his posture, orientation, and the exact arrangement of the clothing already resting against him.

Su Bai raised one arm.

The mapped outline moved with it.

He lowered his arm.

The map followed.

His eyes brightened.

Now he extended another thread of Qi toward the replacement robe.

Instead of simply locking onto the object, he used the mapped outline as a reference and adjusted the robe’s intended position around it.

Sleeves aligned with arms. The collar aligned with his neck. The lower garments followed the position of his legs. The sash settled around the waist.

Only when everything matched did Su Bai attempt the exchange.

His spiritual sense locked onto both sets.

Qi surged.

The robe he wore vanished.

The replacement appeared.

The discarded robe landed on the floor beside him.

Su Bai froze.

He looked down.

Both sleeves were where they belonged.

The collar sat correctly.

The lower robe had not somehow wrapped itself around his knees.

Even the sash was almost properly positioned.

Almost.

Su Bai pulled lightly at one side.

The fit was slightly loose and the exchange had taken noticeably longer than he wanted, but he was finally wearing the robe correctly.

A grin appeared on his face.

The principle worked.

He glanced toward the remaining pile of robes.

Now he only had to make it fast enough that using the technique did not leave him standing naked between exchanges.

Su Bai’s smile faded slightly.

There were still several hours before sunset.

He returned to work.