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The Science of Cultivation - Chapter 284: Name
🕑 Added 2025-04-17 22:30:02 +0000 UTCAnother week passed by as Li Lang busied himself with various matters. He was currently working on the formations around the island during the day and synthesizing Neuraflux, the drug that would hopefully restore the cognitive functions of deviators, during the night.
Formations were suddenly brought to the forefront of the priority list of things to study once the island was up and running. They weren’t to be neglected as they would not only protect their home, but could also tap into the Qi within the ley lines to increase the concentration of ambient Qi in the area.
What Li Lang could create may only be in the Earth-grade, but they had to start somewhere. For now, they relied on the fact that no one knew where their headquarters were to protect them. It wasn’t the best option, and the main reason why most cultivators didn’t start sects and organizations until they at least reached the Violet Core Realm. However, they didn’t have that luxury. They could only work with what they had.
“Teacher Li, wouldn’t it be better if the formations around the island manipulated the mountain range around us to defend? It would be more efficient instead of creating a purely Qi barrier,” Xiao Dong suggested.
A few other students who had taken up with formations nodded beside him.
“Hmm, you’re right,” Li Lang replied with a thoughtful expression. “But we need coverage over the skies as well. Maybe we can alter it to be composed of both?”
To Li Lang, formation mastery was likely his weakest suit among the five crafts. It worked on a modular sigil system, where a cultivator drew onto the earth itself to produce certain effects. It didn’t help that results could vary based on how you combined certain sigils, so Li Lang could only use trial-and-error to improve.
He had tried making headway at deciphering the language of it, but to no avail yet. With enough time, there was a chance he could extrapolate new sigils or discover rules to follow to make it more akin to something like programming. It was something he could only hope for.
“Li Lang, we’ve been looking for you!” Long Yi called out as the wooden doors to the warehouse opened.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Everyone is in a heated debate right now. We need you to settle the matter, and hopefully sooner rather than later.”
“What? What are the rest of you doing?” Li Lang cried out with a frown.
“Just come. That goes for the rest of you as well.” The latter part was obviously for the students, who quickly nodded obediently and followed their teachers.
They left the warehouse behind and soon arrived at the main building, which was now called the main hall. Furnishing had come a long way while Li Lang wasn’t looking. There appeared to be some people with an eye for it among his students.
The interior of the main hall was no longer bare concrete, but now had proper wooden floorboards and painted walls. Earth-grade light talismans were generously used to brighten the place up. In fact, its use had become so common that Li Lang considered it a top contender for what his next iteration of the Weave Press would print.
Walking up to the second floor and through the freshly painted corridors, they soon arrived at their new meeting room. The white room was accented by the black marble table in the middle and large solid wood chairs that circled it. Li Lang had no idea where they obtained such furniture, but he was of no mind to ask about it right now. It was because the entire room was currently in chaos, with everyone in a heated debate, all trying to talk over each other.
“What’s going on here?” Li Lang’s voice wasn’t too loud, but it somehow reached everyone in the room, causing them all to turn to him.
He saw Wei Ping sitting silently near the end of the table. The masked man nodded toward him before tilting his head toward a small group of three huddled in the corner.
“Jun Ziyan? What’s going on here?” he called out to the leader of their group.
“Just a friendly debate about the future of your organization here. Your students are quite passionate about it.”
The bald man, Da Xing, standing beside her, shook his head at her incomplete account of the situation and stepped forth.
“What Ziyan means to say is that we accidentally started a debate among your students. It wasn’t malicious or intentional, but you may want to settle it soon.”
“And what’s this debate about?” Li Lang projected his voice toward his students.
None of them dared to meet his gaze, awkwardly staring at the wall or at the ground.
“They’re arguing about the name of your nascent organization or sect—whatever you plan to call yourselves,” Jun Ziyan revealed with an amused grin on her face. “They barely made any progress, though. They’re still undecided whether to name your group according to the standard of a sect or a demonic organization.”
“Does it really matter?” Li Lang said as he shook his head. “There are a few sects in the Luminescent Domain, and not all orthodox groups have 'sect' in their name, either. It can be whatever we want it to be.”
“But Teacher Li!” a girl by the name of Shi Yan called out, aggrieved. “While we’re mostly orthodox cultivators, we have to demonstrate to the rest of Violet Isle that we’re neutral. I think we should go with the naming convention of the Luminescent Domain to balance things out and stay true to our roots.”
“Ha! That’ll only show the orthodox sects we’re fully in the other camp. At the end of the day, we’re orthodox cultivators. We can’t afford to alienate ourselves with our peers,” another girl by the name of Chu Qinghe retorted. She was normally seen as a pair with Shi Yan, so it came as a surprise to Li Lang that they were on opposing sides of the conflict.
As the two girls grumbled, Li Lang steadily made his way toward Wei Ping.
“I’ll leave this matter to you,” he whispered. “I don’t really care what we’re called, but I do agree a name is long overdue. I trust you to make a good decision.”
Once again, Li Lang placed a hand on his companion’s shoulder to gesture that he was leaving it to him, but this time, he barely took a few steps before he was stopped. Several of his nearby students grabbed onto his sleeve, preventing him from leaving.
“Teacher Li, you have to be the one to decide this time. Otherwise, no one will be satisfied with the results,” they called out in unison, drawing more attention to his attempted escape.
With no way out, Li Lang resigned himself to see this matter through and returned to sit at the head of the table.
“Boss, I t-think we should clear up eve-everything today. You need to not on-only decide on a name, but also the structure of our gr-group as well. Better now than when mo-more people join.”
Hearing someone laughing off in the corner, Li Lang closed his eyes to focus. To be precise, he dove into Ruby’s artifact space to gain more time.
“How do I satisfy all of them?” he muttered. “Can’t I just go with something simple, like The Science Sect? Hmm, but their contention is whether to use 'sect' or other naming conventions. Maybe Science Conclave? Valley? No, in our case, it’s Isle or Island. None of that really fits, though.”
“Master should obviously name his group after himself!” Ruby chimed in as she materialized into existence. The two dark red buns of hair on her head jiggled as she passionately gave her suggestions to her master.
“Umm, Ruby. The point was to create a name, so we stop getting called Li Lang’s group or whatever filler they used. We need an identity if we’re to deal with other factions from now on.”
“Bleh, who cares about what they think. Master should still name it after himself anyway, so the masses can learn about your brilliance!”
“No. Bragging about myself will only make me seem conceited. They already see me that way due to my age. There isn’t a whole lot to brag about in the first place. To most other cultivators, I’m just a cultivator of average talent who happened to have the good fortune of becoming the owner of the Crucible—”
“Those guys are barely dirt when compared to me!” Ruby argued with both cheeks puffed up.
“Yes, yes. If anything, I should be bragging about you.”
“Hehehe, I’m just doing what I should for Master.”
A moment of silence befell the two as Li Lang was contemplating names while Ruby giggled to herself.
Nothing is coming to mind—wait a moment, what did I just say? Maybe I can brag about Ruby by using her name instead! But what if someone recognizes Ruby’s name? It’s not a unique name, but I don’t want to take the chance of some old expert coming to snoop around. If anyone has an inkling about the nature of Ruby, they definitely wouldn’t hesitate to kill me to obtain such a treasure.
So, no Ruby, Star Ruby, or whatever I thought up, but maybe I can replace Ruby with some other word? Gem—Star Gem? Sounds like STEM.
He chuckled to himself and flashed a wide smile at Ruby, the artifact that had the most impact on his life. If it wasn’t for her, he would’ve likely still been struggling in Xiangyang City somewhere, doing odd jobs to save up enough funds to begin his experiments. It couldn’t be understated how much Ruby had changed his life for the better.
“Thanks, Ruby.”
“Hmm? There’s no need to thank me, Master! I’m here to help!”
Li Lang simply chuckled as he basked in her positive energy for one last moment before exiting back to reality.
He opened his eyes to find the room had once more descended into chaos, likely because he hadn’t said anything in some time. He cleared his throat to grab their attention before standing up from his seat.
Everyone could sense that he had something important to say, so the room instantly turned deathly quiet.
“I’ve made a decision,” Li Lang proclaimed. “How about Star Gem Academy?”
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Comments
RandomParanoia
And call the students STARGAzers
Scrutinizer
There are a few sects in the Luminescent Domain, and not all orthodox groups have [']sect['] in their name, either.
Scrutinizer
Are those two girls the fire/ice duo? "Academy" should be expected, in retrospect, but I don't think anybody will understand the "Star Gem" part. I also don't think calling it "Ruby Academy" would put Ruby in any more danger of being discovered anyway, since "Ruby" is a name that Li Lang made up. "Science Island Academy" could also work.
