“This your soulbound armament?”

Bai Yunfei asked, curious about the shape and form of the item.

“Yes. But it’s not something as simple as that. If I had to give it a term…then I’d say it’s similar to the lifebound armament of your Crafting School. It’s name is the ‘Heart Compass of Fate’. It’s a treasured heirloom of our school with the power to observe fate.”

“The Heart Compass of Fate?” Bai Yunfei repeated, he didn’t sense anything from it when he touched it. “Why didn’t you ask me to upgrade it the last time we met?”

“This is very special.” Li Chengfeng held his right hand to where his heart was. “It was ‘inside’ my body at the time. I’d have to return to my school to take it out since this is my master’s item. It is mine to hold, but only my master can take it out and use it. It was only when we took out this compass the last time that we realized your school would have trouble.”

“I see…” Bai Yunfei gave a knowing nod as he stared at the compass.

“Wait—it was ‘inside’ your body?!” His head snapped up, “What do you mean by that?!”

“I’m not sure of the details, but I’ll show you after the upgrades are done.”

“Alright!”

Bai Yunfei was curious. Really curious. Holding the compass in his hand, he began to concentrate on it.

There wasn’t much content to the Heart Compass of Fate but what Bai Yunfei saw was more than enough to astound him.

This soul armament really did have the ability to observe fate!

A fifteen percent chance to!

Bai Yunfei remembered the strange tortoiseshell Nalan Yin had had only a five percent chance to predict something. This Heart Compass of Fate had a much higher percentage than that.

And the compass already had an effect to increase that chance of success by ten percent if the user utilized the soul to do so. Bai Yunfei wasn’t sure, but he assumed this effect could mean there’d be damage to the soul if abused.

“What’s wrong, can it be upgraded?”

Li Chengfeng asked when he noticed the shocked look on Bai Yunfei’s face.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’ll upgrade this for you.”

He composed himself while Li Chengfeng began to grow excited.

“Upgrade!”

……

A while later.

“Phew…”

Bai Yunfei exhaled his nervousness out from his body. Upgrading the compass had been a lot more difficult than he expected. He failed multiple times to get the item to +10 and experienced a strange obstruction whenever he tried to alter the outcome for a success. The obstruction always left him with a sliver of sweat, but Bai Yunfei managed to get it to +11 after a while…

“Are you okay, Yunfei?”

Bai Yunfei gave him a small smile. “I’m fine, just used up more soulforce than expected. Here, see for yourself the changes I made.”

“It’s gotten a lot sturdier!!” Li Chengfeng answered the moment the compass was back in his hands. “So?” He gave Bai Yunfei an expecting stare, “What new power does it have now? What is it?”

“You’ll have a ten percent chance of catching a glimpse of the future whenever you fail to predict something.”

“……”

After that, Li Chengfeng placed the Heart Compass of Fate to his chest. A strange energy began to hum around the compass before a golden light started to shine forth from the compass. Bai Yunfei’s jaw dropped open as he finally understood what Li Chengfeng meant about the soul armament being inside his body—the compass had melted into his body!

Bai Yunfei recalled from the archives that some powerful individuals from the ancient past could offer up their bodies to host a soul armament. The method of crafting a soul armament capable of this was lost to the world, but…the Fate School still had this method apparently!

He understood what Li Chengfeng meant now. The Heart Compass of Fate was something from the ancient past, thus why it was able to remain in Li Chengfeng’s body. The soul armaments crafted in today’s era hadn’t that same method, so they couldn’t be hosted in the body of another anymore.

…………

……

While Bai Yunfei was on the path back to the Crafting School.

In the Great Plain Province. The second floor of a teahouse somewhere near the heart of Redfire City.

Two individuals sat beside a window. In their hands were a cup of tea.

One individual was a young man dressed in a brocaded-silver robe with black linings. His hair was sprawled across the back of his neck and cut shortly near the front to reveal a rather handsome, but bewitching, face.

The other individual was a middle-aged man in gray. He looked to be around forty-years-old. He was currently watching the people on the streets walk by one another with a rather distracted expression.

“What is it, elder Dongfang, are you feeling nostalgic?”

The middle-aged man smiled.

“It’s been twenty years since I was last here. It is indeed quite nostalgic.” The middle-aged man responded. “I can no longer see the things that used to be here twenty years ago…”

“The passage of time always means some things will be lost to it.” The young man continued to smile, “And our appearance will mean even more will be ‘lost’ as well. I hope your ‘nostalgia’ won’t inhibit your abilities, elder Dongfang…”

The older male tore his eyes away from the streets to stare at the young man. “I need not you to remind of that.”

The young man faltered, his throat gulping faintly in fear of the stare he was given. Realizing his folly, the young man dipped his head to take a sip of his tea and went silent.

“The ones from the Wind Lightning School are here, let’s go.”

The young man looked back up almost right away to watch as his companion turn to walk toward the stairwell.

“They’re here?!” He noticed the powerful aura coming from the east and immediately brightened up. Standing up, the young man chased after the middle-aged man.

“Let’s meet outside the city to avoid the eyes of those inside…When do we strike, elder Dongfang?”

A voice spoke to the minds of the two males.

The middle-aged man didn’t even pause for a single step. “The sooner the better!”

……

Roughly around the same time as that meeting. Outside the Crafting School’s gates.

An elderly man walked in front of a young man toward the gates of the school. Soon, they were within eyesight of the students guarding the gates.

“Seniors, what business might you two have with the Crafting School?”

One of the gatekeepers was Zhang Sanxian. He bowed at once when he sensed the raw amount of power radiating from the two before asking for their purpose.

“I am Zhi Tian,” The elder smiled, “we are here to visit your esteemed headmaster. If you could send a message for him…”