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It was a call that I made to my uncle, after all, a call that broke the unspoken vow of silence between the two of us that lasted for years.

"When?"

Hardly giving me any time to breathe after this taxing call, Chihrio asked shortly, sparing no effort to make his question fanciful or, in fact, using more than just one, absolutely necessary word.

\'I wonder if he would speak at all if he could ask without raising his voice...\' I thought as I turned my eyes to the man.

"Either today after the closing of his office or tomorrow before it," I reported dutifully, only to watch Chihiro nod his head with a profound expression on his face... and then turn his eyes over my shoulders, to one of the tables behind me.

"That\'s good," he muttered while rubbing his chin, only to continue his gesture for just a little while longer before properly locking his eyes over on the object that clearly caught his eye.

And even without turning back, I could tell just what was so likely to be the culprit of snatching Chihiro\'s attention.

"It\'s not a product I\'m trying to sell. In fact, it\'s nothing more but me trying to learn something new while doing whatever it was that my creativity pushed me to do," I explained while holding back a sigh of defeat, turning around not to confirm my suspicion, but to grab the long, wooden rod nearly as long as I was tall.

"A stick?" Chihiro asked as he took the would-be handle out of my hands and took a moment to inspect it before raising his eyes over to my face and then lifting his left eyebrow to make a slightly doubtful expression.

"A boom-stick," I corrected the man only to put a small smile on my face. "But it\'s not even finished yet. I\'m still waiting for the glue to settle before doing the last and most crucial step."

Even with the time I spent just cuddling around with Claire, sleeping through the night, or eating breakfast in the tense atmosphere, I still found just enough opportunity to add high-grade glue to the parts of my handle and then stick all of the carved blocks together.

Yet, even with all the time that passed since I added the last part, I still had to wait at least a few hours more.

After all, there were more than then blocks that had to be glued together... each of which consisted of two parts that I too had to glue together in order to let go of the strings that I used in lieu of said glue before.

The amount of the high-quality glue used made it rather hard for it to settle quickly... which was absolutely necessary before I could move to the next and pretty much last step of preparing the handle - pouring purified mana dust into the carved-out insides of the stick.

This was the reason why I carved its insides before and why I covered the carved-out parts with a layer of non-conductive sealant. Yet, due to the extremely fine nature of the mana-dust, if the glue was still even remotely wet once I started to pour the dust down the hole in the shaft...

Then, rather than turning this dust into a conductive circuit for the spiritual energy to pass through the handle and activate all the runes I engraved into the very path of said dust, it would combine with the glue instead, turning into an uneven slurry that would only serve to hamper the potential of what was merely a part of the full project.

"A boomstick?" Chihiro raised the stick even closer to his face, only to then turn it in his hands and raise its upper end only to look down the hole in its middle.

Then, despite there being nothing to conduct the spiritual energy, he still poured his own Qi into it... Only for his face to twist as he raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"A boomstick indeed..." he muttered, only to rapidly pull the stick away as the small bit of Qi he sent into the stick to investigate its insides went through all the runes engraved into the wood, bounced back, and then nearly shot him right back in the face!

"Woah!" Claire shouted in surprise as she backed off a step, even though not only wasn\'t this energy aimed anywhere near her, it was nowhere near powerful enough to threaten to do her, or her father, any real harm.

"What an ingenious design!" Chihiro marveled with his eyes opening up wide as he held the handle for what was supposed to be my scythe with great reverence in his hands. "Is this your take on a cultivator\'s gun or something?"

Feeling the weight of the man\'s stare, I considered just going along with his idea for a moment...

Only to ultimately shake my head as I took the stick out of the man\'s hands and rested its butt down against the ground.

"It was designed to be merely a handle. And the spiritual circuitry inside of it is aimed at accelerating the rate at which one would be able to infuse its actual blade with QI."

That was the idea behind the design of the runes I carved into the wood, the step that turned what should be a simple job of just sanding down a long stick to a desired shape into hours upon hours of patiently dabbling into the wood to give its insides just the right shape.

Because why should I just use a material that could conduct spiritual energy by itself, if I could go one step further and actually accelerate this energy? And what was acceleration, momentum, if just not another way to express energy itself?

Then again, while this wasn\'t my initial idea, now that Chihiro mentioned it...

"A boomstick, huh?" I muttered, only to realize a little bit too late that by voicing my thoughts out, I actually made both Chihiro and Claire look right at me with weird expressions on their faces.

"What?" I asked, weirded out by their silent and perfectly shared reaction that made it seem as if someone had taken Chihiro\'s expression, copied it, and then plastered it all over Claire\'s much more delicate facial features.

"You just got another idea, didn\'t you?" Claire wheezed as if already tired just by the very thought of something like this happening.

"Well, I wouldn\'t exactly call it my idea..." I protested while turning my eyes over to Chihiro before hanging them right on the man\'s face.

After all, wasn\'t he the one who suggested it to begin with? To turn what was merely an overengineered handle for an unnecessary and likely unwieldy scythe into a stick with actual purpose all in itself?

"Oh right," Chihiro suddenly yelped while his eyebrows shot up his forehead. "I called it out myself, didn\'t I?"

"Thank you!" I rolled my eyes as if the man\'s words just absolved me of...

Of what exactly? Of having yet another good idea of what I should make in the future?

"Oh right, I\'m sorry for changing the topic, but now that you are here, sir," I spoke while shaking my head as if to indicate just how different my next thought would be in relation to everything we discussed prior. "Would you mind sharing your insights about the sixth stage of cultivation?"

Chihiro\'s face darkened a little while his eyes filled with worry.

"I appreciate your eagerness to grow stronger, young man, but..." the man hesitated for a moment only to glance over at Claire as if to seek support in that direction...

Only for his face to grow still and his look to sharpen up, gaining some mystic undertones as he looked deeper and deeper into his daughter\'s face.

Then, finally, he took a step back while raising his eyebrows again and heaving out a small sigh of exasperation.

"You advanced so soon?" he mumbled as if he was not yet done showcasing just how surprising news it was to him.

Claire\'s dad then turned his eyes to me, giving me a similar stare... Only to take another step to the back before averting his eyes a bit.

"I see, if you both grew so quickly, then it could only be... this..." he mumbled under his nose in a voice just on the edge of what I could hear and what would turn into a mere background noise.

"I think I know what you are thinking about, father, but I can assure you," Claire suddenly took a step forward, as if to pursue her father with a determined and somewhat insulted look on her face, "It\'s not what you think. I\'ve broken through because Tim helped me out with the enlightenment!"

"Is that so?" the weirdly young-looking man looked over at me again before using his hand to push aside his long hair, as if he couldn\'t bear the thought of them covering his handsome face. "And is that why you asked about the sixth stage?"

I took a deep breath to calm down.

It wasn\'t every day for one to get a chance to ask an actual expert for advice. And given how Claire couldn\'t really talk about anything beyond the fifth rank from the standpoint of someone that actually experienced it, the insights someone of the ninth rank could offer...

"Well, it\'s not like I ever minded it, I was just surprised... And worried," Chihiro sighed out. "Worried, because it would do you no good to study the upper stages that you are not ready to challenge yet. But, given how you both broke through already, let me indulge you a bit."