"Many thanks for the guidance, Zūnshàng. Jin Ai will remember." Jin Ai stepped forward to bow.
Jian Dan produced a blank jade slip, carved the recipe for the Maggots-on-the-Bone poison into it, and handed it to Jin Ai.
"This is a formula I obtained back when I was a Loose Cultivator. It is mainly used for assassinations. It is vicious. Use it for reference, and do not circulate it."
She had taken it during her first team hunt at sea in the cultivation world, after eliminating a teammate who tried to kill her and acquiring the Piaomiao Guhong Umbrella, a magic tool whose dagger hidden in the handle was smeared with this toxin.
"Yes. Jin Ai will refine it well."
"Each time you improve the formula, report to the Operations Hall's Hall Master and to Jian Li Zūnshàng," Jian Dan added, a gentle reminder.
"Yes. Jin Ai understands."
Jian Li could tell his Junior Sister was creating a double safeguard. If anything went wrong, there would be a clear chain to trace. Meng Congjian understood too and bowed at once.
Seeing the talent she had poached back already bearing fruit, Jian Dan felt genuinely pleased. She turned to Meng Congjian.
"Bring me the defensive array plate from outside this chamber."
Meng Congjian did not know why, but at a glance from Hall Master Jian Li, he opened the stone room's door and went to fetch it.
"Junior Sister, are you adding another layer of insurance outside the blood insect's spatial cage?" Jian Li asked.
"Yes. If the two of us had not been here today, they would have been in trouble."
Jian Dan tossed the spatial cage back into the air, then traced formation sigils in midair, especially infusing them with her golden light of merit. She pressed the finished sigils down into the floor array.
Her lines interlocked with the chamber's existing array as if made for it. She tried to restart the formation plate, and with a sudden bang the array on the floor collapsed.
The plate embedded below shattered.
All eyes turned to Jian Lu Zūnshàng.
Jian Dan gave a sheepish smile. "My mistake. My mistake."
Only then did everyone suppress their laughter and look away with stiff faces.
"Junior Sister," Jian Li said, rare humor in his voice, "I did not expect to see you slip."
"Senior Brother, that is not quite fair. Until I ascend, I still wear mortal flesh. Imperfections are inevitable. An occasional mistake is normal," Jian Dan replied with a small smile.
She swept her sleeve and erased the lines on the floor, then drew out the fragments of the broken plate buried below.
Before Meng Congjian returned, she tidied away the evidence and took out two blank array plates from her own storage ring.
Back when she tried to build the dream-trial array, the standard blanks could not meet her needs, so she had specially refined her own blank plates. These were strengthened with nether-beast bone and a dusting of Black Mountain Stone powder, giving them far higher tolerance.
In the end, the dreamscape was too complex and even these plates could not bear it. On Jian Jing's advice she abandoned array plates for a magic tool instead, which was why these custom blanks had sat unused until now.
She wasted no time and tossed both blanks into the air.
Under their gaze, the plates expanded. Jian Dan guided chaotic power to carve familiar lines across them, beginning with a foundational defense matrix.
She added the trap array next. When the two layers linked and lit up, she poured in the golden light of merit, tailored for the blood insects. Not every cultivator possessed merit, but as the refiner, Jian Dan did not stingily hoard it. In her view, merit did not grow by being saved. The more you used it where it should be used, the more the Heavenly Dao repaid it.
When the merit-laced power had strung every line together, she withdrew her hand. At the inlay, she engraved a magnolia imprint in the jade grooves for the spirit stones.
The completed plate fell back into her hand just as Meng Congjian returned and drew a palm-sized plate from his ring.
Jian Dan examined his and shook her head. Both the one he brought and the one she had just broken would not withstand her modifications.
So she sank one of her newly carved plates beneath the chamber floor and handed the damaged one to Meng Congjian.
"Hall Master Meng, this plate was damaged when I altered the array. I have already reforged and compensated for it."
She smiled and added, "This other plate I tailored for the blood insect. It combines defense and trap. You can replace the plate outside this stone room with it now."
At her first sentence, Meng Congjian's face was not very natural. At her second, his mood lifted at once. With a glint in his eye, he bowed with unusual warmth.
"Many thanks, Zūnshàng, for thinking so carefully of the Operations Hall. Only, the plate at the first blood insect's chamber is still the old one…" He did not finish the sentence, but the meaning was clear. He hoped for two more plates customized for blood insects.
"That is difficult," Jian Dan said mildly. "As you see, the materials I use are rare. I have only refined a few. I broke this chamber's plate, so I remade one and added another as compensation. As for the rest…"
She left the words hanging. Everyone understood. In the cultivation world, spirit stones do not fall from the sky.
Meng Congjian also understood. The corner of his mouth twitched as he began racking his brains for a way to have Jian Lu refine two more. He had felt the presence of merit in her plates. Not everyone could make that.
Jian Li smiled and came to his rescue. "Junior Sister, do not make things too hard on Congjian. I will publish a task through the Law Enforcement Hall. Will you refine two more plates?"
"Senior Brother has spoken. How could Jian Lu not obey?" She agreed with a laugh. Sect points would be welcome. She had spent a lot of them redeeming techniques for her disciples.
"My thanks to Hall Master Jian Li for his consideration, and to Jian Lu Hall Master for the aid," Meng Congjian said, beaming.
Jian Dan accepted his thanks and went on, "When the other two are finished, I will have Lü Se deliver them."
Then she turned to Jian Li. "I just came from Sect Master Jian Chong. Qi Hong Zūnshàng of the Artifact Sect has arrived. He wants to enter the Rubik's Cube Realm."
"Oh. That one is obsessed with refinement. The tribulation over the Rubik's Cube must have drawn him in."
"Exactly, Senior Brother. Those were his words."
Jian Dan started the chamber arrays again and tossed the blood insect back into the formation. This time it made no wild moves. It was locked in a tug-of-war with the golden smoke.
Off to the side, Jin Ai observed and recorded on her jade slip, wholly absorbed, the very image of a researcher.
Jian Li and Jian Dan left the room, with Jin Liuli and Meng Congjian following.
"I have already asked Jian Chong to consult the Zhēnzūn on this," Jian Li said. Then he smiled at Meng Congjian. "Congjian, an opportunity has come for the Operations Hall to earn spirit stones."