Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life Chapter 238

Since that first lesson on Teachings Peak—named “Enlightenment” but really just a “beating”—the mist in Clear Stream Valley seemed several degrees heavier than before.

For an entire month, aside from his rock-solid routine of checking in and reconciling ledgers at the Repair Hall, Su Ming behaved like a hibernating old tortoise, curled up in his cave dwelling and rarely opening even the heavy stone door.

Inside the cave’s meditation room, a single glowstone was set into the domed ceiling, casting a cold, sparse light.

Su Ming sat cross-legged on his meditation cushion. A jade slip recording “Introduction to Basic Offensive Runes” hovered before him. His brow was furrowed, and his fingertips tapped his knees unconsciously.

“Master, these last few days I’ve felt restless in my mind.”

Su Ming finally spoke, breaking the room’s stillness, “Those scenes Elder Gu He showed, especially the rune war chariot on Sky Wind Plain that the rampaging ape smashed to pieces, keep flashing through my head.”

“A sense of danger is good. It means your brain hasn’t rotted yet.”

Lin Yu’s phantom drifted out from the Xuantian ring, still looking lazy as ever, though his eyes carried a streak of seriousness. “But mere anxiety is useless. Can anxiety kill the enemy? No. We need to turn that fear-of-dying energy into productive power.”

He conjured a lightboard in midair and began lecturing like a proper teacher.

“On defense, you have the Like Water Art as a foundation. Your spiritual energy is long-lasting and resilient. With our improvised Minor Heavenly Cycle Water Rhythm Formation and the Silence technique, among peers you’re basically impossible to pin down if you want to run.”

“On support, you have the Repair Hall. Old Wang and the others gather intelligence and handle chores for you, and you have the Water Refining Method—a purification technique that’s basically cheating.”

Lin Yu’s finger paused, pointing to a final blank spot, his tone turning teasing.

“But on offense? Disciple, besides binding people with water or dazzling them with water mirrors, what methods do you have to end a fight in a single strike? If you actually run into that rampaging ape, do you plan to smash it with a spirit stone or choke it with a ledger?”

Su Ming forced a wry smile and spread his hands, “That’s precisely my problem. The Like Water Art benefits all things yet lacks a streak of ruthlessness. I’ve been poring over this ‘Introduction to Offensive Runes.’ The runes labeled ‘burst,’ ‘burn,’ ‘shatter’ mostly require violent fire or metal spiritual energy to drive them. Trying to simulate them with water spirit energy ends up as a failed imitation.”

“That’s because you haven’t thought outside the box.”

Lin Yu floated before Su Ming and tapped his brow lightly with a translucent finger. “Who told you water can’t kill? Who said ‘destruction’ has to explode like fire or be sharp like metal?”

Su Ming blinked. “Please enlighten me, Master.”

“Remember this: attack, destruction—they boil down to two things: extreme compression of energy, and an instantaneous, violent release.”

Lin Yu drew a circle in the air, then suddenly compressed it into a pinpoint. “You think water is soft because you’re not applying enough pressure. When you compress the volume of a great river into a needle, that thing can cut through steel like tofu. What’s that called? A high-pressure water jet… cough, call it ‘turning utmost softness into utter hardness.'”

A glimmer of thought passed through Su Ming’s eyes.

“Concentration and release of energy?”

“Exactly. Don’t keep trying to imitate metal’s sharpness. Find water’s own kind of sharpness.” Lin Yu waved his hand. “Stop theorizing—practice is where truth lies. Go to the Repair Hall. Give your underlings something to do, and while you’re at it bring us some ‘negative examples.'”

…

Repair Hall, Bing Character Seven Courtyard.

Although Su Ming was already an external steward, he hadn’t moved the Repair Hall; this place remained his base.

It was midday. The courtyard echoed with the steady clang of tools.

Wang Defa stood under the corridor, cradling a purple clay teapot and squinting as he supervised. Seeing Su Ming stride in, he quickly set down the teapot and hurried over.

“Hall Master, why are you visiting in person today? I’ve reconciled the ledgers these last few days and was about to—”

“Put the ledgers aside for now.”

Su Ming waved his hand, scanning the busy laborers in the yard before heading straight to the storeroom piled with items awaiting repair. “Old Wang, give an order. From today on, for all incoming formation plates and magical implements, anything damaged in ‘offensive’ runes or blown apart due to spirit energy detonation, separate those out.”

Wang Defa froze, his fleshy face bunching with confusion. “Hall Master, those are the hardest to repair. Their spiritual energy circuits are scrambled into a mess; if you’re careless they can detonate again. We used to avoid taking these jobs.”

“The past is the past. This is now.”

Su Ming picked up a charred heart-guard mirror, running his finger along the jagged crack and feeling the residue of violent fire spiritual energy.

“We need to record how they failed. Which rune first failed? Which node’s spirit energy first lost control? Did the explosion collapse inward or erupt outward?”

He turned to Wang Defa, speaking calmly but without room for argument, “Old Wang, if our Repair Hall wants to level up, we can’t just be patchworkers. We have to deduce methods of killing from these formation plates.”

Wang Defa nodded, half understanding, but he had one outstanding virtue—his obedience.

“Hall Master says so, we do it! Ah Sheng! Tie Zhu! Stop what you’re doing and follow the Hall Master’s orders. Dig out all those blown-to-pieces junk items!”

As everyone busied themselves sorting and cataloging, Su Ming stood in a corner and asked Lin Yu to help him enter an “observation micro” state.

With Lin Yu’s soul power boosting him, the scrap metal looked different to Su Ming.

No longer just charred metal, it became countless broken, twisted, and collapsing strands of energy. He watched a “burst” rune instantaneously draw in all surrounding spirit energy, tearing the carrier apart. He saw a “sharp” rune pierce a shield like an awl, leaving a hairline hole that led to total defensive failure.

In Su Ming’s eyes, those damaged runes reflected back, and the “Introduction to Basic Offensive Runes” in his Consciousness Sea began to map onto the real-world artifacts. What had been abstruse theory, validated by these “negative examples,” started to become three-dimensional and vivid.

…

Night fell, Clear Stream Valley, cave dwelling.

Su Ming stood barefoot in the meditation room’s center. The greenstone floor under his feet was damp with a thin layer of water.

He had not used a formation to clear it. Instead, he stared intently at a fist-sized water orb hovering before him.

“Sharp.”

He whispered the rune name, and his divine sense sliced like a blade, plunging into the orb to coax the water spirit energy into the pattern of the “sharp” rune.

The water orb trembled violently. Spikes bulged on its surface as it tried to emulate metal’s edge, but after only a breath it ruptured with a muffled pop and collapsed into a puddle of dead water on the floor.