Although Yu Xian felt a bit disgruntled, it hadn't reached the point of flying into a towering rage or shouting for blood.
After all, Bat had been honest. When questioned, he hadn't tried to conceal anything, openly admitting that he had used a scheme, so for now, Yu Xian could only treat it as an exception not to be repeated.
Next came Nora's choice.
Nora actually had ambition. After discussing it with Chen Ling, she decided to give cultivating the Sunflower Sunward Divine Art a try.
Many vampires in the Blood Clan also trained in powers from other systems, but most yielded mediocre results. With qigong, for instance, most vampires found it difficult to reach perfection, while magic was usually limited to casting minor parlor tricks.
This was primarily because those systems were meant for the living to cultivate.
Strictly speaking, vampires were not truly considered living beings—they leaned closer to the undead, or dark creatures.
The biggest difference between Nora and those vampires was... she had been born from a mother!
Put simply, as a half-blood vampire, she possessed the traits of a living person. This was the fundamental reason she continued to grow up, which meant she truly might be a prodigy when it came to cultivating other systems.
Of course, that was all just Bat's personal speculation; at present, there were no reliable cases to corroborate his theory.
Apart from Nora, other vampires in the Blood Clan who "had mothers" were not half-bloods—their mothers were vampires as well. So Nora truly was one of a kind.
Besides, with the exception of Nora, vampires born through natural birth were treated like princes and princesses by the Blood Clan. Arrogant frogs in a well, they held themselves in high esteem and looked down on the powers of other systems.
Yu Xian downloaded the Sunflower Sunward Divine Art and forwarded it to Nora. Nora immediately opened her phone and read through it carefully.
Superpower Academy was indeed impressive; they had taught subjects like the extraordinary meridians as early as primary school. A cultivation method that Yu Xian couldn't even make sense of was understood completely by Nora, who was practically a little foreigner!
Seeing Nora and Chen Ling engrossed in studying the manual, Yu Xian went back to basking in the sun.
From time to time, he could hear Chen Ling whispering to ask Nora about the location of a certain meridian, followed by Nora's detailed explanation, even gesturing on Chen Ling's body to point it out.
"Right, now that my Blood Energy has mutated into Spatial Blood Energy, could I try learning spatial magic?" Yu Xian thought, gazing at the scenery outside the classroom as an idea suddenly popped into his head.
If it were merely ordinary Blood Energy, perhaps it could only be used to cast blood magic. But with Spatial Blood Energy, "spatial" came first and "Blood Energy" second; the spatial attribute clearly dominated over the blood attribute.
He immediately opened his phone and searched the database for spatial magic or spatial spells.
Because mages and sorcerers were relatively common extraordinary professions that mainly depended on personal talent, and many of them were willing to take on disciples, magic and spells were not kept strictly confidential. Qilin had a vast amount of materials on them.
For example, the seven members of the Monster-Slaying Squad, including Tianshu, were strictly speaking sorcerers. In addition to the spells passed down by their mentors, they also looked for suitable spells to learn in Qilin's database.
Yu Xian typed "spatial" into the search bar, and a long list of witchcraft, magic, spells, immortal arts, and martial techniques popped up.
He browsed through each skill carefully, looking for an ability suited to him.
Although the merit required to exchange for these skills was not high, he wasn't sure how good his learning aptitude was, so he planned to pick a skill he needed most urgently to test the waters first.
A few minutes later, his gaze settled on the Spatial Perception Art.
This was a Snake rank spell. The caster could designate a specific spatial coordinate and perceive all surrounding information centered around it.
Theoretically, the stronger one's mental power, the wider the range and the more comprehensive the perceived information.
Yu Xian decisively exchanged for the spell and opened it to begin learning.
First, visualize an invisible spatial seed in the mind. Then, sense the desired target coordinate in space, release the spatial seed to that location, and let it take root and sprout, blooming into an all-perceiving spatial flower.
Frowning, Yu Xian carefully read the meditation tips, then closed his eyes to imagine an "invisible spatial seed" in his mind.
Wait.
If it was invisible, how was he supposed to imagine it?
Yu Xian felt this was somewhat self-contradictory; he simply could not visualize such a seed in his mind.
The bell for the end of class rang. Helplessly opening his eyes, he went straight to the discussion board to ask, but the replies were all along the lines of, "You're asking me? I want to know too!"
An honest soul even specifically informed him that this Spatial Perception Art had been stored in Qilin's database for over five hundred years, and from ancient times to the present, not a single person in the entirety of Qilin had ever successfully mastered it.
Yu Xian was dumbfounded. He had finally found a spell that could observe distant locations, only to discover that no one had ever learned it?
Could this spell be a fake?
Indignant, Yu Xian contacted Xiao Cheng and grumbled, "Minister, I want to apply for compensation! No one can learn the Spatial Perception Art at all. I want a refund!"
"A refund? Don't even dream about it. I can tell you for sure, kid, that spell is an authentic Dragon-rank spell. Its true name is the 'Divine Art of Distant Vision to the Other Shore,' created five hundred years ago by the Earth Immortal, Master Kongkong. If you lot can't learn it, your realm is definitely lacking," Xiao Cheng said bluntly.
With that, he hung up directly, leaving Yu Xian staring helplessly at his phone.
Although the merit spent to exchange for the spell wasn't much, being unable to learn it felt like a total loss. Thinking it over, Yu Xian opened the cultivation method for the Spatial Perception Art again and read it word by word.
Yet after finishing it, he was still full of question marks.
"Nora, Chen Ling, let me ask you two a question. How do you imagine an invisible seed?" Unable to help himself, Yu Xian asked the two girls sitting in front of him.
Chen Ling shook her head. "No idea. That's completely contradictory."
"Does it have to be invisible? If you really can't do it, wouldn't it work to just imagine a visible one?" Nora asked back, looking puzzled.
Yu Xian froze. Right! If he couldn't visualize an invisible seed, why not just try visualizing a visible one?
No sooner said than done. He found a picture of a seed on his phone, memorized it, and began to meditate.
It wasn't smooth at first, but gradually he slipped into the right state. An image of the seed emerged in his mind, and at the same time, he discovered that the Spatial Blood Energy in his dantian was actually stirred into motion, naturally forming a tiny blood-red seed.
With a thought, the seed instantly appeared inside a spatial bubble outside Silver City. Then, the seed rapidly took root and sprouted, growing vigorously until it formed a blood-red spider lily within the space.
Next, a multitude of petals shed from the pistils of the spider lily and began to drift in all directions.
These petals were like extensions of Yu Xian's perception. He could "see" ants foraging on the ground, a grasshopper hidden on the underside of a blade of grass twitching its antennae, and an aphid munching on a leaf.
Suddenly, a snake seemed to see the petals of the spider lily; it paused, watched them, and then turned around and slithered away.
Chapter 75