God Of Crafting

Chapter 54: Claire's inquisition (part 1)

"I don't get it..." I muttered when the silence following Claire's statement grew to be unbearable; a reality that came all the sooner with her as close as directly sitting down on my lap.

And those four words of mine turned out to be good enough to break the silence, but not good enough to avoid putting a frown on Claire's face.

"Is it really that weird to dedicate your everything to follow the woman you love?" she asked, her voice a mix of apprehension and slight anger.

'How did she...?' I shook my head before hurrying it up to clarify the meaning of my doubts.

"That's not the part I was talking about. When it comes to your father's dedication, I believe it's perfectly commendable and worth admiration," I added, honestly expressing my stance on those things in order to soothe Claire's slighted feelings. "In fact, I wish this kind of approach would be the norm, but I believe the society is too far gone for it to be a standard anymore."

Claire's body relaxed a little bit, sinking just a slightly bit deeper down on my lap before her head rested against my shoulder as she looked up to my face.

"What confuses you, then?" she asked, her voice weirdly small and restrained.

'She's hiding something?' I thought, only to then roll my eyes. 'She's a woman, obviously she does. All I can do is hope one day she will deem me worthy to share her thoughts and feelings. Just... not yet.'

"You said that your father was cultivating diligently for years, so..." I hesitated for a second. "Why change now? Is not like he can gain a whole lot from those two devices I made and there's no guarantee I will be able to reach the level of crafting that will be of use to him anytime soon. What's more, aren't I just a massive risk factor for someone of the traditionalist faction?"

Claire shifted her weight on my lap a little as her expression returned to the casual one I was more or less already familiar with. What's more, there was even a lingering hint of a smile on her lips!

"You are quite observant, aren't you?" she mentioned only to sigh and shake her head before bringing her hands back to the armrest of the chair and then leaning back. "It is true that for pretty much my entire life, my father did nothing but diligently cultivate. But after all those years..." the slight smile on her face grew dimmer while her eyes dropped down.

"Right now, he has one... maybe two years left before the gates to the spiritual world will forever close to him."

'Huh?' I twitched a little when yet another detail of cultivation culture made itself known to be something I had no idea about.

"I thought you would be aware by now, but beyond some absolute basics, I know pretty much nothing about cultivation. Save for the first two stages of Qi gathering and Qi condensation, I don't even know the names of the rest, not to bring up the actual meaning of those stages."

Hearing my words, Claire only nodded her head while keeping a serious look on her face.

"Yeah, I'm aware of your lack of knowledge. And while it's the very next thing that we will work on, for now, just give me a true guess rather than an educated one."

Facing such a direct request, I no longer had any wiggle room to try to improve my answer. And so, just like Claire requested, I thought for a moment before raising my cheeks a bit while lowering my upper eyelids in a look of uncertainty before firing my shoot.

"Second... no, third stage?" I guessed, even going as far as to up my prediction a bit to make it more in line with the vibe Claire's questioning was giving me, even if it went against her request not to make it an educated guess.

"Close enough," Claire stated while nodding her head, only to then raise it right back and look right in my face again, "then, how about the improved version? You know, the one that actually looked nice, worked far better and caught the attention of my father?"

'Oh, that one?' I thought, recalling the sight of the device I completed while fully relying on my old, uncontrollable meditation.

"Let's say... fourth stage?"

Once again, I went against Claire's wish and instead of making a random guess, I put forth an educated one.

After all, the difference between the prototype and the perfected version... was not that big. Sure, it operated smoother and had four times the throughput of the prototype... But most of its improved qualities came from pretty much stacking four prototypes into a single device, not an added skill necessary to make it look as nice and complete as I did.

Then, while I was extremely ignorant about cultivation, even I knew that as one climbed through the ranks, their power didn't grow linearly. And while it wasn't exactly a geometrical increase either... I was much more inclined to believe the exponential growth to be closer to the actual baseline!

And with all of that in mind, while I obviously increased the top rank that device would be of use to... I struggled to believe going beyond just one rank increase would be reasonable.

Amidst all of this, however, just one question continued to ring silently yet persistently in my head. A question that if answered, would allow me to skip the whole process and arrive all the way at the end-goal of this exchange.

'Just where is she going with all of this?'