Chapter 650: 650

"Lady Paula, if I might make a suggestion about the best way for him to repent in a short period of time?" Cain asked.

"Speak, strange creature." The Phoenix replied.

Cain sent a telepathic response so that nobody but her could overhear their conversation.

[If you make him find you the most delicious meal, then use Regression on him, followed by Phoenix Blessing set to be triggered when he reaches the Immortal Realm again, you get to watch him panic all through his third life as he fears that the curse will activate again.

That should be enough to make him beg forgiveness properly.] Cain told her.

"There is no need for you to have the book, Elder Shang. This creature has convinced me to forgive the rude one. He only needs to bring me one Lava Dragon Egg, poached and garnished with thousand-year-old Spirit Grass, and then I will forgive him and let him start over again." Lady Paula the Phoenix informed the Elder.

The man looked a bit pale at those conditions, but it seemed somewhat fair to Cain. She only wanted him to make her lunch. Lunch with a dragon egg and rare seasonings, but still, only one lunch.

The rest of the cultivators also seemed to be rather concerned by the conditions, so Cain decided to just ask instead of skimming through random thoughts to find the answer.

"Is the problem the Lava Dragon Egg or the grass?"

Elder Shang looked at Cain as if he had grown a second head, then managed to stammer out an answer. "The only Lava Dragons on this continent live in the Dragon Peak Volcano, where their ancestral dragon also resides. Going there and retrieving an egg is, well, suicide.

No matter what we try, I don't see any way that we could actually recover the egg alive. Then there is the issue of poaching an egg that thrives in the heat of an ancient volcano and is immune to Dragon Fire."

Cain stopped the Elder there and turned to the Phoenix. "You must still be really mad at him. Would you like a different kind of egg? I am sure that their spirit is willing, even if their flesh is weak."

Lady Paula thought about it for a while and then got a big smile on her face. "You're right. I can ask for any egg I want as long as they can find it and bring it to me. In that case, I want an omelet made of two eggs from a Swamp Crocolisk, with Thousand Year Spirit Grass and Minotaur milk cheese."

That sounded more reasonable to Cain, as the Swamp Crocolisk was a Spirit Rank beast and not an Ancient Dragon. They were enormous and violent but not impossible to overcome for a team of adventurers or a Cultivation Sect.

Getting someone to milk the minotaur to make cheese could be interesting, though.

Elder Shang thought about it for a while and then nodded. "That we can do. It might take a few months to find a Crocolisk nest and to make the cheese from a minotaur, though."

Lady Paula only shrugged. "I don't care if it takes a year. I'm not the one who messed up my own cultivation."

Once she was done speaking, Paula jumped into the air and transformed back into a small Divine Phoenix before flashing over the horizon in a streak of red light.

"So, he insulted an adolescent Phoenix by calling her ugly? I am guessing that there is more to the story, likely some idiotic idea that she might give him a feather to prove her beauty." Cain said to Elder Shang.

"Nobody knows for sure, but she certainly holds a grudge. I have heard that her kind takes fifty thousand years just to reach adulthood, so her juvenile rebellion and attitude might have played a part in the incident.

Either way, we need to make amends with her." Elder Shang replied, then turned to face the crowd.

"Most of the ingredients we already have, but we need two Swamp Crocolisk Eggs in perfect condition. So, the Divine Phoenix Sect is issuing an official Quest. The first two cultivators to bring us the eggs will be richly rewarded with Immortal Realm Treasures from our treasury."

His announcement brought a huge level of excitement to the crowd. Hanging out in the valley for an entire season got boring for many of the more spirited Cultivators, and a hunting mission was exactly the sort of thing that would brighten their days.

Immortal Realm treasures weren't easy to come by either, even in this world, so the risk of fighting a few Spirit Rank monsters while looking for eggs was nothing at all compared to the reward.

The excitement had drawn all the attention away from Cain's position behind the table, so he took advantage of the distraction to get to his feet and pull the entire setup into his inventory, returning the space to bare grass.

He had said that was the last request of the day, and he intended to stick to his word so that these greedy sorts wouldn't try to keep him there all night.

That didn't seem like it was going to be an issue, though. The crowd was clearing out pretty quickly, with only a few lingering Elders still hanging around and going over their notes from the day's projects.

The sights of the day, especially the statue, had simply been too exciting for most of the crowd to focus on trying to learn anything at all about inscription and Rune Crafting techniques in the end.

"Elder Cain, do you have a moment for this old man? I have a question about the Rune Crafting portion of your lessons today. Using raw energy won't activate the runes, and no known Element will do as a substitute, so how do you activate them so smoothly without an artifact?

I have a technique that transforms accumulated mana into Origin Power, which activates them without an issue, but normally only Cultivators who have reached the entry to the Divine Realm can use it." A white-robed man with an impressively long white beard and a well-polished bald head asked as Cain was about to leave the edge of the Sect camp.

Cain didn't really know how to explain it to the man, as the energy used by the Ancients had a special quality to it simply due to their bloodline, so he decided to just make something plausible up.

"It has to do with my Cultivation Technique. It alters the mana just a little bit and gives it a hint of otherworldly power. It is enough to activate the Runes without trouble, but I can see how that could confuse others who haven't progressed far enough to reach the bottleneck of activation."

"Could you make a Talisman that would do the same job?" The old man asked.

That was a good question. With Rune Crafting, Cain could theoretically make a talisman that would create a hint of Ancient Aura to transform the energy that was passed through it. But that sounded like a hassle, even with his ability to recall thousands of books he had read and skills he had seen used in the past.

"I could, but the conversion of the talisman would be extremely inefficient. It really isn't something I have specialized in since I can do it myself much more effectively." Cain offered.

"Do you have a moment to check my work? I think I have it right, but it just isn't activating." The man asked, eager to verify that he wasn't making a mistake now that Cain had verified that it was possible to create a Talisman to transform energy enough for those without a relic or a special technique to activate the Runes for the first time.

"Sure, let me see what you have managed."

The man took out a short wooden club with the word BONK written on it in Runic letters, which made Luna giggle.

"Oh, I started a new trend. I always knew that I was secretly an industry leader." The little Demon laughed.

"You know the bat of bonk, little one?"

The old man began to idly stroke his beard as he contemplated the reasons that the girls were sitting at the table today. Presumably, they were his personal disciples and were there to learn the skills that Cain was using, so it was plausible that they had some skills related to the technique that even he didn't know yet.

"I don't just know of it. I made it. The essence of Bonk is not to be underestimated." Luna said with a big smile on her face at the memory.

"She really did. It was a demonstration for a Sect Elder." Cain agreed.

"Well then, I have two expert advisors, if you don't mind helping me. See, here I have the drawing of the original that I was working with, and the placement seems to be correct, and I examined the lattice of energy, so I think I can do that part, but I can't get the initial step to complete when the runes initially activate.

My energy is correct, I have made an item before, and this one looks simple. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong." He explained.

Cain let Luna look first, and it only took her a second to see where the inscription went wrong.

"The third rune has been drawn out of order. The runes move energy in a specific pattern, much like calligraphy brush strokes, they aren't the same at both ends, so when you carve them in the wrong stroke order, they are incorrect, despite being the right shape.

Luna took an unadorned bat from him and drew the four characters with a paintbrush and black ink, then handed it back.

"Try it now."

The runes started glowing the moment that he put energy into them, and the old man looked overjoyed at the revelation, picking Luna up and spinning her in circles as he celebrated.

"Thank you, young lady. I will remember this kindness."