Chapter 6. Becoming an Inscriptionist
After returning to the Grand Clarity Pavillion, Lin Yue ate a scrumptious lunch and began to fuse with the memories on Inscriptions in his room.
For a Martial Artist practice without high quality medicine would be several times slower than otherwise.
Lin Yue had received two Golden Deer Pills from the Lin family in the past to cleanse his body of impurities, but he gave one away to Lin Ming and only used one.
At this moment, for the healing medicines he only owned half of a 100-year old Blood Ginseng that came from Lin Xiaodong and one third of a 100-year-old Blood Ginseng that was left over from the past because he didn't use it. As for pills that help with cultivation speed, he didn't have any.
When it came to his finances, Lin Yue had 223 gold taels of his life's savings, which he accumulated over 14 years of his life. In truth, two hundred of it came from selling the herbs that he received from the Lin family.
Lin Yue wasn't a direct descendant of the Lin family, he wasn't even from the Lin family! In addition, his martial talent was only above average and he had no real accomplishments, so the family didn't invest much into him apart from providing him with education and basic necessities.
What Lin Yue always focused on in the past was mostly combat training and studies, and he didn't spend any money on cultivation pills or medicine. 232 gold taels was still a high amount of savings for someone with his family situation.
'However, 232 gold is far from enough to start an Inscription business. I guess I'll simply use it to buy a Golden Deer Pill and then try to acquire more start-up funds soon,' Lin Yue thought inwardly.
Having this thought at the back of his mind, Lin Yue moved on to study the Inscription information in his mind.
The memories on Inscriptions comprised the bulk of that little soul fragment, and they were also very obscure and difficult to understand. For Lin Yue, fusing with them took a few hours, until early evening.
In the evening, Lin Yue finally opened his eyes. He smiled while resisting the severe headache he felt.
The inscription techniques that originated from the Realm of the Gods were beyond exquisite and utterly profound. They were not something that the lower planes even dare hope to compare with!
The inscription techniques found within the soul fragment were simply amazing. They could not only increase the level of equipment, but also the strength of medicines.
One could also engrave the body itself to enhance the speed of cultivation - this method was also already known by Lin Yue!
This was the sum of countless millennia of knowledge within the numerous dimensions of the Realm of the Gods. And it was only a tiny fragment! The lower planes might possibly have had some similar techniques, but most were without a doubt lost in the passage of time due to destruction of ancient sects or other such reasons.
Sky Spill Continent's engraving inscription technique can only increase the level of equipment; moreover, even it can only do so by a tiny amount! To compare this with the Realm of the Gods' techniques was truly comparing the Heavens and Earth.
Lin Yue raised himself to stand. Suddenly a wave of nausea swept over him. The massive amount of information emerged from within the recesses of his mind. It was a pain that came with a certain virtue.
He also felt relieved. It really appeared that he could use the materials from the Sky Fortune City to create Inscriptions from the Realm of the Gods.
Lin Yue quickly ate second lunch. He deboned a few vicious beasts with Lin Ming when the latter came back, and then began to seriously practice Inscriptions that very night.
Although Lin Yue fused with the memories of the soul fragment, he could not make light of the difficulty of Inscriptions. In order to obtain more knowledge to fill the gaps, he had to practice body and mind spiritual coordination in order to fully integrate the soul's memories within his body.
At this moment, Lin Yue used the true essence and soul force to practice, drawing Inscription Lines and Symbols in the air with his finger.
He circulated the energy in his body, and every time it seemed to sync with the memories from the soul fragment, he carved that feeling into his mind.
This was a very tedious and spiritually taxing process, but in Lin Yues mind he could see tens of thousands of pages flipping one at a time, again and again, as his soul and body gradually acclimated and his movements became smoother.
The soul force required was very demanding.
Every now and then Lin Yue would need to stop and revolve the True Chaos Formula to recover his True Essence reserves, restoring soul force during the process as well.
In regards to Inscriptions, what Lin Yue initially wanted to focus on practicing was a single and most basic inscription that he could create for sale, the method of increasing the efficacy of medicines and other compounded drugs, and body engraving method to use on himself.
It had to be known that there existed certain pills, drugs and herbs in this world that were prohibitively rare and precious. Even if you had any amount of money, you still might not be able to purchase medicine like them!
If the engraving inscriptions for medicine were applied, then the strength of one impossibly rare medicine could become, for example, six! Naturally, it would be simply too wasteful to take this kind of medicine without using the absorption rate enhancement inscription.
As for the bodily engraving inscription, it was equal to enhancing one's own grade of talent, increasing the speed of practice. For those in the lower realm, it was truly a heaven defying method!
Unfortunately Lin Yue quickly realized that there was a solid reason why the original Protagonist didn't use the medicinal and body inscriptions before joining the Martial House.
Compared to creating the simple object inscriptions, the medicinal inscriptions were several times harder to create! Furthermore, the ingredients just to create the Lesser Cure Symbol were way too expensive to use them casually on regular medicine.
As for the body inscriptions, according to the expert's memories, they required absolute knowledge and attainments in Inscription to use, being even more complicated than medicinal inscriptions.
Thus, Lin Yue only focused on practicing object inscriptions first, over and over again. 80% of his time he focused on the single most basic one he found that he should be able to create - the Overwhelming Symbol.
Because it was already late evening, Lin Yue practiced Inscriptions only for an hour before it was time for him to go to bed.
…
Next day Lin Yue didn't go to train with Lin Ming either. After eating breakfast in the Grand Clarity Pavillion's kitchen, he walked through the Sky Fortune City and visited the Lin family branch.
He didn't go there to meet Lin Xiaodong, but wanted to meet the Lin family elder in charge of the Lin family's businesses in the capital, Lin Gong.
It was his luck that at that moment Lin Gong was present.
After waiting for half an hour, Lin Yue was finally led into the family head's office. He saw a muscular middle-aged man handling some accounts behind a desk.
"Lin Yue pays his respects to Elder Gong." Lin Yue cupped his fists upon entering.
Lin Gong sent Lin Yue a brief look, before he returned to looking at the documents. He casually said, "Nephew Lin Yue, why is it that you wanted to see me in person?"
If it was any other side-branch Lin family junior then Lin Gong would be annoyed if they were wasting his time, but when it came to Lin Yue, he had heard rumors about him and was a bit curious.
Lin Yue got straight to the point and said, "Elder Gong, there is a business opportunity that I noticed. I wish to take a loan."
"You wish to take a loan?" Lin Gong turned his head from the documents and looked at Lin Yue, raising his eyebrows.
Lin Yue continued, "I want to borrow two thousand gold taels. In a month from now I will return two thousand two hundred. Of course, we will write a loan recipe."
Lin Gong looked at Lin Yue. He thought for a long while. Although they would write a recipe for the loan, there would be no guarantee that Lin Yue might be able to repay it, and he might even disappear with the money.
However, two thousand gold taels wasn't a small amount of money, but it wasn't a lot either. Just for two thousand gold taels, would Lin Yue abandon the family and leave Sky Fortune Kingdom as a fourteen year old youth? Too unlikely. Furthermore, if he failed to pay it off, Lin Gong could always demand compensation from his parents.
Lin Gong said, "You want a whole two thousand gold taels. Are you so confident that your business will succeed and you will be able to pay it off?"
Lin Yue nodded. "I am fairly confident."
Lin Gong analyzed Lin Yue's expression and felt a sense of confidence emanating from him that was neither forced or fake as if he had a trump card up his sleeve. He said, "Good, the young must be bold in business. I will give you a loan, but you must pay it off within a month or the interest will keep increasing."
"I understand," Lin Yue said. He was very glad that Lin Gong agreed so easily. Whether Lin Gong wanted him to fall into debt or what other intentions he had, he didn't care.
Lin Gong smiled. He said, "Nephew, can you tell me what your business idea is about?"
Lin Yue plainly smiled and said instead, "Elder Gong, I also want to order Sky Worm Silk, is that okay? As much as one hundred gold taels can buy."
'Sky Worm Silk.' Lin Gong was taken aback. Sky Worm Silk is extremely expensive when it comes to making clothes, thus it's mainly only used for creating zithers in these parts. Did Lin Yue plan to make a zither or a bow? No, just how did that make sense?
Lin Yue said nothing more and only plainly looked at Lin Gong.
Lin Gong saw that Lin Yue refused to talk about his business and changed the topic, so he didn't probe. How did it make sense for Lin Yue to talk about his secret and how did it make sense for an elder to bully a junior of his own family?
Although Lin Yue's martial talent is ordinary, he was praised for his advanced mathematics knowledge and intellect, so he might actually have some talent in business and Lin Gong wasn't against trying to invest into him either. In the end, there was no risk in this deal and the amount involved wasn't high.
After chatting a bit more, Lin Gong agreed to order Sky Worm Silk for Lin Yue and then he wrote him a loan recipe.
Lin Yue signed the recipe with his finger print and a true essence signature, and then received 1900 gold taels.
After leaving the Lin family compound, Lin Yue excitedly walked through the various stores and bought the rest of the materials required to create Overwhelming Symbols.
Sky Wind Grass juice, rank 3 desolate beasts' blood, long-tailed cicada's molt, ice bound shrimp… Ling Yue purchased these materials in a frenzy.
Not all names perfectly matched those in his mind from the Soul memory fragment, but Lin Yue was still able to purchase everything that should be necessary to create the Overwhelming Symbols - the simplest Inscription that Lin Ming chose to create in the novel.
Since Lin Ming in the novel succeeded in creating inscriptions, Lin Yue was quite confident in doing the same.
In a short amount of time, Lin Yue spent seven hundred gold teals on various materials. He estimated that it should be enough for him to create five to six Overwhelming Symbols if the amount of Sky Worm Silk he acquires wouldn't limit him.
Calculating his finances, Lin Yue owned 2132 gold taels after he ordered the Sky Worm Silk, but now he only had around 1470 gold taels left.