{Author: Day 3/6 to complete the challenge.
That day was a close call.
For now, Brazil hasn't lost the World Cup.
The description took longer because I had to redo it.
---
Also, I'm writing an ASOIAF SI fanfic featuring Tommen; if anyone is interested, feel free to check it out—the first chapter is already up. (Speaking of ASOIAF, can you believe I found people online saying Edmure Tully was wrong for not following Robb's plan—the plan Robb never actually told him about?) I'm also thinking about creating an X-Men fanfic based on the *New X-Men: Academy X* saga, with a protagonist who has mutant powers just like an Osmosian's.
If you can, please leave a rating; it's currently at 7 and closing in on 10. Reaching a score of 10 could get the story onto the rankings—something I think would be really cool.}
And thank you for reading.
....
The small workshop remained silent.
The yellow glow of the oil lamp cast long shadows across the earthen walls.
Upon the table...
Three small Gu rested quietly.
They were Blade Gu.
Despite the name...
They resembled no swords.
Despite its name, it was shaped like a rhombus—almost like a spearhead—with a polished, pristine silver appearance that, depending on how the light struck it, revealed a faint yet steady crimson sheen; its cutting edge was finer than a strand of hair.
Lacking a handle or any grip, it could only be used as a raw material.
Beside them...
Three ordinary steel sabers.
Mortal weapons.
Without the slightest trace of Dao.
Worthless to a Gu Master beyond the value of their steel.
And finally...
Three hungry copies of the Sculpting Skill Gu.
The tiny golden creatures remained perfectly still.
Their bodies resembled little wooden rabbit-eared statues, like toys carved by a master craftsman.
Silent.
Waiting.
Hungry.
...
Weed stared at them for several long seconds.
Then he took a slow breath.
"Let's begin."
No one answered.
Only a faint golden shimmer came from the three Sculpting Skill Gu.
Like children waiting for dinner.
He had contemplated the problem countless times.
The Blade Gu represented cutting.
A blade.
A weapon.
The Sculpting Skill Gu represented...
Sculpting.
Or perhaps not.
Perhaps it represented something far deeper.
But...
He still didn't know what.
And that was precisely what he intended to discover.
He picked up one Blade Gu.
Then one of the copies.
Placed both into the refinement vessel.
Primeval Stones shattered one after another.
Green Primeval Essence flooded the small cauldron.
The two Gu began spinning.
Faster.
Faster.
Until...
Crack.
A muffled explosion.
Ashes.
...
Weed looked inside the vessel.
Nothing.
The Blade Gu had died.
The copied Sculpting Skill Gu survived only because it had been expelled an instant before the explosion.
Silence.
He simply wrote on a small sheet of paper.
Attempt 31.
Direct fusion.
Absolute incompatibility.
Without the slightest emotion.
He picked up another Blade Gu.
The second attempt.
This time...
He added a saber.
Perhaps a physical vessel would ease the fusion.
The energies began rotating once more.
The steel started glowing.
The Blade Gu trembled.
The copied Sculpting Skill Gu slowly drifted closer.
For a brief moment...
It seemed to be working.
Golden light enveloped the steel.
Then...
BOOM!
Another explosion.
The saber slammed into the wall.
The Blade Gu turned into ashes.
The Sculpting Skill Gu rolled across the table, completely dazed.
...
Weed merely sighed.
Another note.
Attempt 32.
Physical vessel.
Failure.
The third attempt.
A simple sculpture.
A small swordsman.
Nothing elaborate.
The Sculpting Skill Gu slowly absorbed its Artistic Value.
The sculpture gradually crumbled away.
Luminous particles surrounded the Blade Gu.
Then the saber.
For several seconds...
The three energies coexisted.
Then...
Everything collapsed.
There wasn't even an explosion.
The concepts simply rejected one another.
Like oil and water.
Weed silently stared at the remains.
"..."
He grabbed another sheet.
Wrote.
Crossed it out.
Wrote again.
Hours passed.
The following day...
He tried again.
He changed the order.
Changed the amount of Primeval Essence.
Changed the timing of inserting the Blade Gu.
Changed the saber.
Changed the sculpture.
Changed nearly everything.
Nothing.
...
Failure.
On the third day...
More failures.
On the fourth...
More.
On the fifth...
Even more.
The growing pile of notes already occupied half the table.
Hundreds of lines.
Hypotheses.
Corrections.
Mistakes.
No answers.
The money he had earned over an entire week slowly dwindled away.
Every destroyed Blade Gu meant ten Primeval Stones lost.
Every ruined saber.
More money.
Every attempt.
Hours.
Days.
Energy.
Even so...
He continued.
That night...
Another explosion.
The refinement vessel itself cracked apart.
Fragments of clay scattered across the floor.
Weed stood motionless.
Then quietly began gathering the pieces.
Without complaining.
Without cursing.
Simply cleaning up.
Then...
His foot stepped onto a small wood chip.
His balance disappeared.
...
Thud.
His forehead slammed violently against the sharp corner of the table.
The workshop spun.
The world blurred.
He remained lying on the floor.
Breathing slowly.
Somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness.
...
"What is a sculpture?"
The question appeared without warning.
...
What was it?
Wood?
Stone?
Clay?
No.
Those were materials.
Not sculptures.
...
"What is a blade?"
Steel?
Iron?
Bronze?
No.
Those were merely materials.
...
"What separates a block of steel..."
"...from a sword?"
Silence.
...
"What separates a piece of wood..."
"...from a sculpture?"
Silence once more.
Then...
Like a single thread connecting two entirely unrelated ideas...
A third question emerged.
"What separates a house..."
"...from a home?"
...
Weed remained perfectly still.
The pain in his head slowly began to fade.
His mind...
For the first time in days...
Stopped thinking about recipes.
Stopped thinking about materials.
Stopped thinking about refinement.
It thought only...
Of meaning.
A house could exist without people.
A home could not.
A sword could exist without purpose.
A blade could not.
A sculpture could be nothing more than wood.
Or...
It could carry something far greater.
Something invisible.
Something without weight.
Without shape.
Yet undeniably real.
...
A memory.
An emotion.
An intention.
A meaning.
...
His breathing gradually slowed.
The words from the Legends of Ren Zu surfaced naturally in his mind.
"Heaven removes excess and replenishes deficiency."
For a long time...
He had believed those words spoke merely of balance.
Now...
He realized they were far deeper.
Heaven never truly created something from nothing.
Nor did it truly destroy anything.
It merely transformed.
A tree became ashes.
The ashes nourished the earth.
The earth nourished another tree.
Nothing vanished.
Nothing appeared.
Everything merely changed form.
...
Humanity did the exact opposite.
It accumulated.
It seized.
It concentrated.
It strengthened itself.
Creating excess within itself.
And deficiency in the world.
That was how cultivators ascended.
Yet...
Excess.
Deficiency.
Creation.
Destruction.
Transformation.
They were all different faces of the same truth.
...
His gaze fell upon a tiny splinter of wood.
"Form..."
he whispered.
"Form was never what mattered."
Wood was merely a vessel.
Steel as well.
The human body too.
Then...
What truly mattered?
Essence.
Meaning.
The intention engraved within that form.
If a sword carried the concept of cutting...
And a sculpture carried meaning...
Then refinement was never about combining objects.
It was about uniting...
Essence.
Words.
Meaning.
Concepts.
Truth.
...
Or rather...
As this world called it...
The Dao.
His breathing stopped for a brief instant.
Weed's black eyes widened.
"..."
Michelangelo.
A sentence from his previous life suddenly resurfaced.
"The statue already exists within the stone. I merely remove what is unnecessary."
Remove excess.
Replenish deficiency.
Sculpt.
Heaven.
The Dao.
Everything pointed toward the same destination.
At that moment...
Weed understood.
The Sculpting Path never created.
It never added.
It revealed.
It revealed the essence that had always existed within matter.
Just as the Blade Path did not revere steel...
But the concept of cutting itself.
Just as the body was merely the vessel of the mind...
A sculpture was merely the vessel of a concept.
The entire world...
Was nothing more than a vessel for the Dao.
We were only fragments of a greater whole.
The self...
Was an illusion before that totality.
Humanity was the cosmos looking back upon itself.
Or rather...
Humanity was the Dao observing itself.
Admiring itself.
Trying to understand itself.
...
The two Paths sought the same destination.
Blades cut.
They define.
They separate.
They divide.
To wound and to kill were only small expressions of that principle.
The Sculpting Path, meanwhile...
Gave form to the meaning that already existed.
And gave meaning to form.
...
Slowly...
Weed stood up.
His forehead still hurt.
But the pain felt distant.
When he looked around the workshop again...
Everything had changed.
Or rather...
He had changed.
The grain of the wood no longer looked like random lines.
Each vein seemed to indicate the exact place where it wished to be cut.
The saber lying upon the table was no longer merely a weapon.
Its center of balance.
Its weight.
Its intention.
Everything appeared perfectly clear.
As though he were seeing beyond form.
Beyond matter.
Directly into essence.
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
Small.
Almost imperceptible.
Yet genuine.
"I understand..."
he murmured.
"I shouldn't create a sculpture."
His hand rested upon one of the special logs acquired from the caravan.
Wood that had grown within a forest scarred by the battle of Immortals.
It seemed to pulse beneath his fingertips.
"I only need to set it free."
"Give form to meaning."
"And meaning to form."
At that very moment, without heavenly phenomena, without radiant lights, without a single notification from Heaven...
Weed's understanding of both the Sculpting Path and the Blade Path silently crossed into an entirely new realm.
He had reached the level of Quasi-Master in both Paths.
And for the first time...
He truly believed that creating a Gu belonging to a Path that did not yet exist might not be an impossible dream after all.