The two guards walked side by side, each with a sack heavy with scrolls.
"I still don't get why Young Master is obsessed with inscriptions," one muttered. "Does he think that he can redeem himself with the Inscription Pavilion by learning them?"
"It is likely so," the other replied, lowering his voice. "But he's been drowning in pill furnaces in the last moon. How could he have time for engraving inscriptions?"
"You're wrong on one point," the first corrected, a half-smile tugging at his lips. "He hasn't engraved even one basic successful inscription."
The two stopped in a remote grove within the sect. Cicadas whined in the quiet dusk. They glanced at each other once, then tipped the sacks over. Scrolls cascaded to the ground in a useless heap; they were shredded very fine, now meaningless. With a flick of a flint, flames licked the edges, consuming the wasted inscription paper in a few breaths.
The first guard sighed at the scene. "From one look, I can see that it was all the Empty Scrolls that he bought through us. Alchemists really do earn too many spirit stones…" His voice carried the faint taste of envy.
"They do. He wasted it all. Still… I like Young Master's dedication."
"Yes. It's too bad his Spirit Root is so poor. With a Class five or higher, his alchemy talent would have been unmatched in the Nine Provinces. He wouldn't be focusing on extra activities then."
"Yes, maybe his short lifespan compels him to do such things. Wasting time on inscriptions."
The other shook his head. "What can't be changed, can't be changed. Let's go."
When they returned to Arthur's courtyard in the residence, they bowed. "It has been taken care of, Young Master."
Arthur gave a small nod. "Good. Do not speak of this to anyone, especially not to my father. If he learns I've been spending recklessly, I'm done for."
"Rest easy, Young Master."
They excused themselves. The courtyard gates closed, leaving silence in their wake.
Arthur turned. Inside his chamber, moonlight streamed through the latticed window. On the table lay a pouch of spirit stones, the unopened Origin Tempering Elixir… and the cool gleam of the inscription etcher.
He sat, drawing the pouch to him. Slowly, he pulled at the seam.
His hand trembled, yet steadied. Instead of a scroll, he pressed the etcher to the thread of the pouch itself, a line so minute it was barely visible. This was why hundreds of scrolls had been wasted: to practice for this moment.
Every motion required absolute stillness. A breath too heavy, a slip too wide, and the thread — the tiny inscription scroll — would snap, or worse, the inscription would collapse.
Arthur reached to the side, adjusting a small contraption he had cobbled together: a set of thin, polished glass pieces mounted on sliding brass arms. Each pane could be shifted and locked into place; when three overlapped in alignment, the world before him magnified several times over. This was his way of compensating for a greater spiritual vision.
The pouch's thread was clear through the layered glass. The etcher's tip became like a spear descending upon a plain.
His vision flickered.
The five immortals sat in their circle, eternal and unmoving.
The man in the long coat stitched with steel runes leaned forward
"…Why etch on stone or jade? Too crude. I etched on fine scrolls instead. When they were rolled together and wound, it became a thread."
Arthur's eyes sharpened.
The other immortals barely stirred. One yawned. Others drummed their fingers. They had heard this tale countless times.
But to Arthur, it was new.
"A scroll… as thread?" Arthur murmured.
He was now fully aligned with the stories; after decades, he could understand the logic of the Immortals and the world from which they came. He was fascinated by Mo Daoming's genius, the Inscriptionist Immortal.
Mo Daoming continued.
"I gave this 'thread' to that arrogant Immortal Lei Yuan of the Lightning Palace. He thought himself heaven's favored, cloaked in thunder. He dared look down on me?" His eyes gleamed with cruelty. "I forced him into a trade. He thought he got me good. But the fool never suspected that the thread on the gift sword was an inscription."
His lips curled into a wolfish grin.
"The moment he unraveled it, the inscription aligned. His own thunder aura poured into it — ha! — and in that instant, a formation snapped shut around him. For a single heartbeat, he was bound. That was all I needed. To decimate his entire city."
Arthur felt excited.
"I left nothing of him. His palace, his wives, his children — gone. Lightning Palace was mine before he could even realise. I became the fastest under heaven. But don't mistake it —" Mo Daoming's eyes burned like coal — "it wasn't his lightning that felled him. It was the thunder that came after. It was my hand that cut his head."
The other immortals gave no more than faint chuckles. To them, it was a stale memory. To Arthur, it was a revelation.
Back in his room, Arthur blinked, breath shallow.
On the table lay six scrolls, each etched with the faintest gleam of runes. At first glance, they looked like delicate strands of silk thread. But as Arthur guided them together, the strands intertwined.
The etchings of one tiny scroll touched another, and in that instant, the false simplicity fell away. The runes joined, aligned, and birthed an inscription.
When the whole thread was bound, the inscription lay dormant. The etchings touch at random, never in harmony. But when unbound, the runes aligned as one, drinking greedily from the natural aura of any cultivator who touched them. Unleashing their sealed effect.
Arthur's hand trembled as he inscribed the effect to be released. He could not recreate the formations that Mo Daoming once used; he lacked both the materials and the strength. Instead, he laced the weaving with the Heart Withering Venom of Xu Lianhua.
When the inscription was activated, the pouch opened, and the threads aligned. There would be no need for force. The victim's own cultivation energy would betray them, fueling the inscription and releasing its dreadful effect. The venom, cruel beyond measure, would seep through contact alone, threading itself into blood and meridians until it spread through the body.
He kept the thread tied because he did not want the effect to be released on himself.
Arthur sat back, staring at the finished work. His lips curled into a faint smile.
"This… what should I call this?" he whispered after a few breaths.
"…Venom Thread Seal."
A weaving of Mo Daoming's thread inscriptions and Xu Lianhua's deadly toxin.
Arthur understood one truth with clarity. Duan Zi Xuan stood at most at the Peak of the Solar Ascendance Realm, for why else would he seek the Whiteflare Bloom Breakthrough Pills?
It meant that the venom alone could not kill him outright. Not with Arthur's limited cultivation, the inscription's frailty, and the poison's diluted strength. But with six moons' worth of spirit stones given alongside the pouch, the poison would creep slowly, inexorably, until even Duan Zi Xuan would feel its weight.