Liu Xing cycled qi according to the pattern Bai Lin taught him, reciting the long poem in his head—he still didn't have enough familiarity to do it without the poem. He tried to will the technique to materialize something other than a wasp. As Liu Xing reached the part where the qi cycling pattern made the wind swirl around him, he decided to substitute it with one of the patterns of the Lightning Palm Technique, and it worked. Instead of swirling wind, he emitted a little circle of electricity around his feet.

He could see in his peripheral vision that the old man's eyes widened, but he didn't have time to pay attention to him. He needed to find something more intimate to him than wasp, a thing that he could easily visualize and materialize. The first thing that came to mind was his turtle, so Liu Xing nodded and intended to materialize a small gray turtle on top of his palm.

He chained the qi cycling patterns quickly. While the pattern was still foreign to him, he would gain familiarity the more he used the technique. Later, he was sure activating this technique would be as easy as breathing.

When he finished the cycling and activated the technique, a ball of blue qi floated on top of his right palm. The blue qi was larger, since Liu Xing imagined a turtle and spent a lot more qi than before, but it also felt heavier, as if he was holding a bowling ball on his right hand instead of a little wasp. Willing the technique to materialize, Liu Xing tried to calm his beating heart. If this experiment succeeded, then he would gain a very versatile technique.

The blue qi exploded into a bright light show for a moment, and then it settled, letting him see his creation. The creature that fit onto his palm was in the form of a turtle, complete with two little gems as its eyes, but it was not a real turtle. It was a little statue in the form of a turtle. He was initially surprised by this result, but soon realized that this was what he had imagined.

Before Liu Xing could be glad or digest the meaning of what he had accomplished, the turtle began to crack, and blue qi gushed out from the little statue as if the turtle was a vase that contained a sun that wanted to explode. Realizing the intense qi released from the turtle, Liu Xing's eyes widened, and he threw it as hard as possible to the sky. For a moment, there was only silence, before a blue explosion, akin to a firework, bloomed in the night sky.

"A failure," Liu Xing muttered.

"A failure?" Bai Lin muttered, his eyes locked to the sky filled with fading blue light, "that's an impossible feat! I just taught you the technique, how could you modify it already? Were Purple Moon Sect disciples all like you? A prodigy is not enough to describe you. You are a monster!"

"I'm not the most talented disciple in my sect. There are a lot of people that are better than me." He replied to Bai Lin automatically, but his mind actually focused on how to improve the technique.

It seemed like this technique, while it could materialize things from qi, was not aligned to materialize his turtle statue. It was as if he tried to use his Lightning Palm technique to create a gentle and flowing stream of lightning. It was the wrong way to use it. He suspected if he wanted to materialize a real turtle, he needed to visualize a living, breathing turtle. But truth be told, he actually didn't remember the last time he had encountered a real turtle, so it would be hard to visualize it.

"Should I buy a turtle?" Liu Xing muttered. He ignored Bai Lin, who sat leaning on a tree and murmured about the impossible thing that he had done, and cycled the qi into the pattern to activate the technique once again. "Too troublesome, I think I'll try it again."

He tried to imagine another turtle, but this time, it was not his statue, but a giant spirit beast that was a hybrid of a turtle, mushroom, and worms that he had encountered in Dragon Skull Forest. The result was a mess. What materialized was a big mushroom with a turtle head jutting out from the cap that looked and felt more like an abomination than a spirit beast. Before he could digest the weird feeling it emitted, the thing suddenly cracked. Once again Liu Xing threw his creation into the sky, and it exploded in a brilliant blue light.

Again and again, he tried to materialize a turtle, but there was not a single instance where he actually succeeded. From all those experiments, he came to a conclusion.

"It seems that this technique can only materialize certain things." He could not use this technique to materialize everything that he could imagine.

Aside from the intent of the user, there was also the intent of the creator of this technique, and this intent probably etched itself on the whole sequence of cycling patterns. It was like trying to use a sword as a shield or vice versa. He needed to find out what these "certain things" were that this technique could materialize. A wasp was the ultimate example, but since he could materialize a turtle statue and some kind of unholy combination of turtle, mushroom, and worms—albeit not perfect—it was a sign that this technique was quite flexible.

"Should I try a wasp once again?" He muttered, then shook his head. At this point, he didn't want to revert to a wasp. He had a feeling that a wasp was not fit for him, so he needed something else. But the only animal he could conjure within his imagination was only a turtle.

He decided to sit and reflect, trying to find a perfect animal to materialize using this technique. The first thing after a turtle that he could imagine was a snake. Emerald Fang was a peculiar spirit beast that could talk, but he doubted he could conjure a snake using Emerald Fang as the base of his visualization.

He thought for a while, and an interesting idea came to his mind. "What if I don't need to visualize an animal?"

He decided to stand and began to cycle his qi in the pattern of the technique. Once he let go of the idea that the thing that he could conjure was only an animal, his mind began bursting with ideas of what he wanted to conjure, like a lightning dragon or lightning turtle, but the easiest thing that he could visualize was actually a lightning blade. Different from the normal Lightning Palm Technique, the lightning blade variant needed visualization, but he did it so many times that at this time, visualizing this technique was as easy as breathing.

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With his heart excited once more, he recited the poem in his heart while cycling the technique and changed the part about the wasp into a lightning blade while adjusting the cycling pattern. The poem became weird, but it was alright. This poem was merely a tool to learn this technique. He could not let a poem dictate the way to use this technique.

Liu Xing stretched his right hand once again, and a little blue ball of qi, the size of a little marble, floated on top of his palm. There was no weight to it, as if the ball was as light as a feather, yet, the light of it was so brilliant that the clearing illuminated as if there was a giant light bulb glowing. Several arcs of electricity came out from the marble and attacked his palm, yet, not only did the attacks not hurt, but it felt quite warm and pleasant.

He solidified his will in his mind and then ordered the marble to form into the thing that he imagined. Suddenly, an explosion of blue light traveled outward alongside the sound of distant crackling thunder. Bai Lin flinched in his peripheral vision, his mouth opened wide, but Liu Xing focused all his sight toward the thing that he had materialized.

The thing that he created with this technique was quite different from his imagination. What he imagined was a simple lightning blade. He imagined it to be around as long as his pinky finger, with a thin body, and one sharp edge. Instead, he materialized a small lightning sword with two blades. Its body was as straight as an arrow, and the sword even had a handle. Twin arcs of electricity, akin to butterfly wings, extended from the sides of the sword. All in all, this thing did not resemble his lightning blade at all, but a lightning sword shaped like a butterfly. It was so weird, since it came out so different from his imagination. This mini sword actually had a handle, and there was not a single moment when he imagined his lightning blade having a handle.

"Why did it come out different from my imagination?" Liu Xing muttered.

Old man Bai Lin came to him and observed the little floating mini lightning sword on top of his palm. And while he had surprised eyes, he still offered his opinion. "There was an instance where I realized that the wasp I created had a little pattern on its wings. This pattern was not intentional, yet, every time I created a wasp, that pattern always existed. Thus, I concluded this must be the result of the technique."

"What do you mean?" Liu Xing asked.

"The technique fills in the missing details of our visualizations.. Simply put, we as the users of the technique only need the rough image. The technique will handle the rest."

Liu Xing pinched his chin. It was a convenient aspect of the technique, though he suspected that it was not solely the technique filling the gap, but rather the user's subconscious seeping through. But, even with this explanation, he doubted that the handle and wings of the little sword were a product of his consciousness. After all, visualizing a lightning blade was not new to him.

Liu Xing ordered the sword to take off from his palm, and it flew so slowly and so wobbly like a drunken dragonfly. Upon seeing this, his stomach felt weird. He suspected something was at play here. There was no way his subconsciousness conjured something like that. He knew his lightning blade. Even if his subconsciousness played a part, there was no way it overpowered his visualization.

He glanced at Bai Lin, who muttered, "at least the technique is not stable yet," as if trying to console himself, and thought that there was no way this old man tampered with his technique.

A moment later, the sword suddenly bent and twisted, as if there was an invisible hand that tampered with it, and then it exploded into brilliant fireworks.

Bai Lin sighed and muttered, "I needed several months to make my wasp take off before it died."

Liu Xing focused his face toward Bai Lin. Thus far, he had ignored him and focused solely on using this new technique, but as he saw the sad face of Bai Lin, his eyebrows rose a little. Was him using the technique so easily making the old insecure?

The expression on Bai Lin's face said that the answer to that question was yes. And it was actually understandable. The old man said he got this technique when he was still a child, he could only create three wasps, and he needed years to use this technique reliably. In contrast, Liu Xing just got this technique and could modify it to his pleasure. His actions, while not intentional, perhaps had hurt Bai Lin's pride.

"Old man, I think you're reading too much into it," Liu Xing said. "I'm not a prodigy, and you were not lacking either."

"How so?" Bai Lin said, his voice rose slightly. "I had used that technique for years, yet, I never realized that it could be modified. Moreover, you used it so easily as if it was a run-of-the-mill technique."

"Do you know that I am a Core Splitting cultivator? I have two cores," Liu Xing said.

Bai Lin nodded automatically, looking at the ground, but then he turned his head so fast that he feared his neck would be twisted. His eyes widened so comically that it felt like his eyes would leap out, and he opened his jaw so wide that it could easily fit a fist. "Y-you are a Core Splitting cultivator?"

Perhaps the old man didn't realize it because when they met again, the focus was his grandson, and right now, the focus was the Heaven Grade Technique. Whatever the reason was, right now, the old man knew that Liu Xing was no longer a Lock Opening cultivator. As proof, he flexed his qi a little and made it press on the old man, which made the old man shiver and his feet tremble. The old man looked like he contemplated kneeling before Liu Xing lifted up the qi pressing him and flashed a smile.

"Now, you understand, right? The reason I could use this technique easily was merely because I was at a higher realm than you, and this higher realm gave me a benefit in the form of precise qi control. The truth is, while I am talented compared to a normal cultivator, inside the sect, there were lots and lots of people that were more talented than me. Do you know a kid with the name Hao Yun? He is the son of our patriarch. He is almost ten, but he is at the very least already at the Sun Refining realm. That is what I call a true genius."

"T-ten years old? Sun Refining realm? How?"

"No idea," Liu Xing shook his head. He decided to cycle the technique again and try to activate the technique once more. "Anyway, I think I wanted to modify the technique a little bit more, and I would appreciate it if you offered me some guidance. After all, you have years of practice."

The old man looked at him, but his eyes actually felt glassy, as if he saw through him rather than at him. He remained silent for a moment, then a small smile bloomed on his face. "The first thing you need to understand is that materializing the technique is the easiest part. Control is the real challenge. Forcing the wasp—or in your case, the sword—to fly is the wrong approach. You need to let the technique fly naturally, gracefully, as if it knew how to fly the moment it came to be."

Liu Xing nodded. That was cryptic advice, but he would try to incorporate it. What he told the old man was not merely flattery. Sure, part of it was because he wanted to console the old man who was kind enough to give him a Heaven Grade Technique, but the other part of it was serious. The old man must have quite a lot of advice regarding this technique, and Liu Xing intended to use it to perfect his technique.

As for the strange feeling when his sword materialized, he believed that as he sculpted the technique to his will, and as the technique needed less to fill the gap, the strange feeling would disappear.

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