Reincarnated As God

Ye Jian walked into the stone room, and with a wave, brought all of the items he had requested in as well. He grabbed the fire crystal too, and looked at it with curiosity. Meng Li noticed his interest, and had a guess... This crystal probably didn't exist in Ye Jian's previous world. Meng Li's guess was confirmed a few seconds later, when he asked him what the crystal was.

Meng Li answered and explained the crystal. He also asked the system to drain the control room of most of the Qi within, so the fire crystal wouldn't turn it into hell on ear... hell in the control room.

The Qi within the stone room quickly plummeted to an extremely low level, and Meng Li dissipated the barrier around the fire crystal. Ye Jian, who was holding the crystal, showed a surprised expression and dropped the small crystal. Even though the density of Qi within the room was lower than even the one in the world, even this measly amount of Qi was enough for the crystal to emit small amounts of flame.

The small wisps the crystal emitted were barely even visible and looked like ordinary fire, but Meng Li sensed extreme heat coming from them. This was also confirmed by Ye Jian, who was looking at his red hand with even more surprise.

"Brother Ye, this is a fire crystal which creates fire when supplied with Qi." Meng Li explained. Ye Jian nodded slightly while massaging his red hand. Even though he was burned slightly, his strong vitality healed the injury within seconds. This was mostly due to Ye Jian's quick reactions, because the high temperature of the flames would've easily charred his hand, despite his high cultivation. The flames weren't only hot, but they also had the strange property of being able to burn Qi... Although only slightly.

Thus, even a barrier couldn't keep them out for long. However, this also made them extremely good flames for refining materials.

"So, brother Ye, where do we-, you, start?" Although Meng Li wanted to learn a bit, he was aware that with his total lack of skill, he wouldn't be of any help. Thus, the most he could do was spectate.

"Brother Meng, if you want to learn, we can first do something simpler... But first, I have to explain a few things." Ye Jian told Meng Li hesitatingly. He then solemnly sat on the ground, with Meng Li sitting slightly to the side. Ye Jian then started explaining the basics.

"The art of refining is often split into multiple categories, though they are mainly two. The creation of 'pure' treasures, and constructs. This is actually wrong - in fact, it's all the same thing, but with different aims." Ye Jian stopped for a second to think of an example.

"What most people call 'constructs' rely more on the formations which drive them, and to bring out their full might, they require someone with knowledge about formations. They are often very complicated and have multiple uses... This is one of the routes to power a specialist in formations can use. On the contrary, 'ordinary' treasures are simply treasures which don't require such knowledge of formations. They also tend to rely more on the strength of their materials, with the formations playing a smaller role. However, this doesn't mean that these are the only ways someone can use the art of refining - there are countless ways to use the tools of refining, and I don't dare claim that I'm even aware of all of them." Ye Jian explained. He showed an infatuated expression on his face while talking, and he seemed to be recalling something... After a few seconds, he snapped out of it and once again looked directly at Meng Li, who was eagerly listening.

"First, we'll start with something simple. It will still be quite complicated for a beginner, so you won't be able to create the entirety of this formation alone... I will create the complicated bits and will leave the simpler ones to you. I will also explain all of the concepts involved in creating formations as a whole and this specific formation too." Ye Jian continued before grabbing a few seemingly random items from the huge pile laying around them.

"The formation we need to create first is a flame controlling formation... The crystal you gave me is perfect for what our goal is, but it's far too chaotic and unstable. Thus, we need to create a formation which will control the flame, direct it and make it actually usable in refining." Ye Jian continued. He grabbed a small knife from the huge pile of items and started carving something into the ground.

"You know, I wanted to jump in head first, but the smarter thing to do is to teach you the basics." he said, still carving something into the floor. His hand was moving extremely quickly, and the sharp knife left small ridges on the stone floor... Meng Li guessed that the system made it softer on purpose, since normally, he couldn't damage the walls of the control room at all.

As Ye Jian scratched, the pattern started turning from random scribbles into a mysterious... Something. Meng Li was awed by the symbol, even though Ye Jian described it as the basics of formations, Meng Li could already sense profound mysteries within the symbol.

After Ye Jian finished, Meng Li still stared at the symbol without blinking. Although it seemed like a whole, he could also sense that despite working as one whole, in reality, it was made out of smaller parts, all working like clogs in a machine, to form the symbol.

"What... What is this?" Meng Li asked.

"This is merely one of the basic building blocks of formations. By itself it does nothing, but when combined with other blocks like it, it can achieve practically everything..." Ye Jian explained. He then shifted a bit to the side, before he started carving once again. Meng Li followed after him, looking at what he was carving.

It was another complicated symbol, and Meng Li could sense some similarity with the one Ye Jian drew before. But even though it was similar, it wasn't the same... There were some minute differences, which Meng Li couldn't really pinpoint. He positioned himself so he could see both of the symbols at once, and started trying to spot the differences. Eventually, he managed to spot the differences, but with confusion, he found that despite looking similar, in reality, the two symbols were completely different...

Practically no two lines were alike, but on the whole, the two symbols seemed to be practically the same...

When Meng Li was trying to spot the differences between the two symbols, Ye Jian was already a few metres away, having drawn numerous symbols along the way. Meng Li didn't try to catch up, and instead tried to remember each and every symbol Ye Jian had carved. He had already told him that they were merely building blocks, and when combined, could produce marvelous effects, but all of this would only be possible if Meng Li could remember all of them.

As Ye Jian continued to carve the symbols into the floor, covering practically the entire stone room in formations, Meng Li was still only on about the fourth symbol Ye Jian had carved.

It turned out that actually remembering them was much more difficult than Meng Li thought... He had several times moved on just to realise that he did not, in fact, remember the previous symbol and could only return angrily.

After a few hours, the entire stone room was covered in carvings. Ye Jian had carved the symbols into the walls, even starting to carve the ceiling, only stopping when about a half of the ceiling was covered.

To put this into perspective, the stone room was about ten metres by ten metres, five metres high... And the symbols Ye Jian had drawn were merely a few centimetres in diameter each, some even smaller.

Only a small circle in the middle of the room was left clear of the symbols, which Ye Jian proceeded to sit in. It was left clear so that Meng Li wouldn't have to look under Ye Jian's seat to search for the runes when learning...

Even the giant pile of items had disappeared, as at some point, Ye Jian put them into his bag of holding. It was far easier to have them all in there, since you could take out items with merely a thought, compared to having search the giant pile for what you wanted...

With Meng Li 'taken care of', Ye Jian got to work.

The twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth...

Twenty symbols, thirty, forty...

The entire room was covered in hundreds, if not thousands of these symbols, and Meng Li didn't even make it past the first percent. Still, he wouldn't let these kinds of things discourage him, as he had no concept of time, existence, or numbers whatsoever at this point - the only thing which existed within his mind were the symbols.

Eventually, he managed to make it past the one hundred mark. However, he didn't even notice this fact, as he was lost in trying to remember, or even decipher, the symbols carved into the floor...

As he remembered more symbols, his learning speed got quicker as well. Previously, to completely carve the symbol into his memory would take about half an hour, after the one hundred symbols, it went down to about twenty minutes. Although it was small, it was still an improvement, and Meng Li could go through the symbols even faster.

As he was going through the symbols, Meng Li eventually hit the five hundred mark. When he had completely carved one symbol into his memory, he searched for another one close by, and didn't always go straight - many times, his path was confusing and winding. Several times, he had 'locked himself into a corner' by going in a circle, learning the symbols within. When such a thing happened, Meng Li didn't mistakenly try and remember the symbols he already knew, and instead tried to search for new ones, which he didn't know.

This signified that the symbols were truly carved into his memory, and that at least in the near future, he wouldn't forget them easily.

After a long period of time, Meng Li had already learned over a thousand of the symbols, and was nearing the fifteen hundred mark. By this point, the time he needed to completely learn a symbol was down to less than ten minutes, and Meng Li was quickly learning even more.

As Meng Li was obsessively memorising the symbols, Ye Jian was sitting in the middle of the room, using the flame from the crystal to refine some materials. The flame crystal was placed within a small circular hole in the ground, and around the hole were a few circles, which were all made up of tiny symbols, connected in intricate ways...

While Ye Jian was refining the materials, the circles carved into the stone floor had a strange... sheen to them. When someone looked at them for too long, they might get the illusion that the circles, or rather the runes, were moving, even though they were completely stationary...

Ye Jian didn't seem to notice the strange happenings, and instead worked tirelessly refining the various materials he had asked Meng Li for. There were already several materials floating in the air beside Ye Jian. They ranged from puddles of liquified metal, through charred sticks, to slightly charred bones. All of them were prepared for what Ye Jian wanted to create... The testing pagoda.