Han Xuhan calmly contemplated the order for what felt like an eternity.

"No." His reply was very well thought out and succinct, leaving no room for counterarguments.

Kong Ye's expression darkened upon realising what his order had sounded like. Slamming down his teacup, he cleared the misunderstanding immediately.

"Get your mind out of the gutter! We need to assess the artefact on your kneecap."

Confused, Han Xuhan looked down at the knee Kong Ye was pointing at. Hesitating, he said, "master, it's not humanly possible for that to reach one's knee...and, should you really be calling it an artefact just because I don't use it?"

The teacup in Kong Ye's palm emitted a cracking sound. Sensing a heavy, suffocating aura intensifying inside the room, Han Xuhan quickly rolled up the leg of his pants up to the knee...and saw something that nearly scared the soul out of him.

"What the fuck? How..."

His hoarse curse went unnoticed by Kong Ye, who bent down to observe the object strapped around Han Xuhan's kneecap.

It resembled a knee-pad, quite a small one at that, barely covering the joint. Gingerly, Han Xuhan prodded at it, watching Kong Ye for a reaction just in case that wasn't a good idea.

He was in for another round of surprise. He couldn't feel the item, rather, it was the skin of his knee that received the sensation of being prodded. His eyes clearly told him that his finger was touching a foreign object, a layer of protection above his skin. Yet his sensory nerves seemed oblivious to its existence.

No wonder he hadn't been able to sense it till now! When had this thing latched on to his knee? How?

He recalled Kong Ye's words quickly enough. He said this was an artefact...So Kong Ye did know something about it.

Sensing his inquisitive gaze, Kong Ye pulled his head back and nodded in a satisfied manner.

"Not a bad place to have landed a piece. With your luck, I had feared you might get a useless item...like that crown Mu Ran got and that set of artificial teeth Yuen Zhou snagged."

Han Xuhan caressed the dull, charcoal black knee-guard and said in a weak voice, "so what exactly is this...artefact?"

"It is one of the many miscellaneous items that inhabit the void inside the rifts. I'm sure you can recall the experience of travelling inside those dark passageways. Those rifts aren't natural, of course. Whoever or whatever caused them to open up, they must have lost control of the situation, letting the void consume a vast number of items that probably belonged to that side."

Han Xuhan felt his heart quake as the described scenery played itself out in his overly imaginative mind. The hair on his neck stood up in excitement.

Truly, the world of cultivation was full of wondrous occurrences!

"Although most of them are mundane objects, these items belonged to extremely powerful cultivators, a fact proven by their amazing compositions and properties. Your knee-guard is a fine example of that.

Not even you, the person wearing it can sense its existence as if it's just a part of your own skin. I suspect this is a part of an armour created for spies. It doesn't obstruct your movement at all yet provides decent protection from attacks." Kong Ye finished explaining, leaving Han Xuhan shaken to the core.

Good heavens! This item was that awesome?

It sounded like something out of a hardcore action novel! So cool!

But then Kong Ye's last sentence registered properly in his mind.

"Wait, if I can't touch it myself, can it really block others' attacks? This thing seems like an illusion to fool people at best."

His enquiry made Kong Ye release a peculiar smile. Han Xuhan found it rather familiar. Kong Ye always wore that smile on his face whenever Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou were around, asking off-key questions.

"Watch," he said, pointing two fingers at the knee-guard.

A tiny thread of qi rolled out from his palm and entwined itself around his fingers, constructing a taut, bow-like shape.

A smaller, thinner string of qi entered the construct and straightened into the shape of an arrow. It pushed back against the taut string, stretching it back to the joint between the fingers.

Soundlessly, the arrow shot out, too fast for Xuhan's eyes to track its trajectory.

"Aaahh FUUUCK!"

The meridians in his knee sent a painful sensation throughout the limb. Han Xuhan had never thought there would actually be nerves connected to his meridians. But this proved it!

Kong Ye' qi arrow felt like a needle wiggling in his muscles. But before the sensation could go beyond 'mild pain', he felt the qi dissipate into gaseous form and return outside.

"What the fuck was that supposed to prove?" He asked Kong Ye, too furious to care about etiquette at the moment.

Kong Ye seemed to have expected as such, maintaining his calm demeanour.

"Inject your qi into the knee-guard this time," he said.

Han Xuhan sent him a resentful look and did what he was told, keeping his complaints silent. This guy clearly could have said it the first time. What was the need to shoot that arrow inside his meridians?

Regardless, as the pain has subsided, his mind cleared up.

Using your qi to fashion bows and arrows? That wasn't something he had ever considered possible. He used hardened, purified qi blocks for cultivation pretty frequently. But that form of qi was the result of complicated production by alchemists and their complicated industrial machines. Yet Kong Ye could do it so naturally?

Incredible! Even Mu Ran hasn't completely mastered the ability to make qi transition between gaseous and liquid freely.

Han Xuhan refined a stream of qi from the area around his knee and injected it into the knee guard carefully.

A familiar, tugging sensation jarred his mental force, making it lose its influence on the qi as soon as the first drop entered the knee guard. The stream of qi was sucked inside instantly.

The sensation jogged his memory, making him recall that time inside the rifts when he had left the Sunrider Sect for the first time. In the oppressive darkness, surrounded by slippery materials, all the qi inside his body had crazily left his control and vanished through his right hand.

Perhaps that was how he had come into contact with this knee guard. His flailing hand had grabbed onto it inside the void and the qi in his body had been sucked out by it.

But that raised the question, how did the knee guard attach itself to his kneecap? His hand wasn't anywhere near his knee at that time...

Deciding not to hide the issue, Han Xuhan posed the question to Kong Ye, describing his experience inside the void in all honesty.

"Hmmm," Kong Ye mumbled thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. "Remember what I said about this knee guard being a part of an armour? I assume it was activated by your qi in there and gained some form of sentience, a feature not so rare if we're talking about the treasures of powerful cultivators. Self-fitting armours have always been around, you know?"

Han Xuhan nodded in realization. That did make sense. A self-fitting, sentient armour would probably ingest qi as its fuel.

His eyes turned back to the knee guard.

This time, the heavens had not totally screwed him over! He had actually found something useful!

Has Mu Ran's luck been rubbing off my misfortune? Hahaha hahaha...

Wait a minute, Kong Ye said something about Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou being unlucky in this case, having found a brown and a set of teeth.

How can that be?

Han Xuhan's eyes narrowed as he observed the knee guard. This thing couldn't end up being a disastrous plot device in the future, right?

Oh my, oh my...that totally seemed plausible.

Meanwhile, a second string of qi appeared inside the bow between Kong Ye's fingers. It hardened into another arrow and faced the direction of his kneecap, ready to be shot.

"I'm going to shoot once more. Has the artefact shown any response to your qi?"

Han Xuhan shook his head and continued to pour more and more qi. He even extracted the entire reserve inside his meridians since refining external qi wasn't something he was proficient at due to his 'physique'.

By the time his entire reserve was about to be depleted, his mood had calmed down.

This artefact obviously belonged to someone with incredible cultivation. How could his meagre supply of low-quality qi satisfy its activation conditions? He would probably never be able to use its magical functions.

Hah, I was really getting worked up for a second there thinking my luck has improved.

Why is human nature so fickle? I should have known better.

Just then, the last drop of qi in his reserve was sucked away by the knee guard.

Kong Ye's pupils suddenly shrank as the arrow from his bow shot out, this time even faster than before.

Han Xuhan only saw the vaguest flash of colour covering the surface of the knee guard as soon as the arrow crashed into it.

Stunning both of them, the arrow exploded into countless specks of qi and disappeared soundlessly.

A moment of silence ensued.

"...Okay, whoa!" Han Xuhan exclaimed, unable to believe what had transpired.

"Just as I had assumed," Kong Ye said with a devilish grin.

"So it's a one-shot artefact!" Xuhan reasoned loudly. "It can only be activated by depleting the entire reserve of my qi."

Kong Ye nodded in approval. "Indeed. We can not stop at that, however. Further testing is required to determine how useful it will be to you."

Standing up, Kong Ye swiped in the air casually, making the tea set fly off swiftly towards his kitchen. "Wash these things first. We don't have any servants here to do these chores anymore."

Han Xuhan's excitement was quickly replaced with gloom at the implication of that order. As the weakest cultivator of this mountain peak, would he have to replace the servants?

Eyes flashing, he summoned Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian. Kong Ye watched him order the two minions to handle not only the dishes but also all the miscellaneous chores in the house.

"Good, good, good. You truly embody a humble, capable, meticulous disciple's spirit, Xuhan!" Kong Ye declared with a satisfied smile on his face.

"Now come, it is almost time for your first lesson in this archipelago. It's a very special one, designed by our sect master himself!"