This was a straight saber nearly two meters long. Its scabbard was embedded with two purple gems and patterned with dense lightning motifs.
Yu Xian did not even need Appraisal to know this was an extraordinary weapon. The question was... was this a gift for him?
He instinctively glanced at the Dragon King Golden Toad, but it kept its eyes shut, refusing to look at him.
Oh!
Now he understood.
Enlightenment dawned on Yu Xian, a smug grin spreading across his face.
It had been a staring contest between him and the Dragon King Golden Toad. Because the toad blinked first, it admitted defeat and gave him a treasure, acknowledging that he had won!
"Thanks! Let's go another round next time!"
Yu Xian reached out, gripped the precious saber, and beamed at the Dragon King Golden Toad.
Once the toad pulled back its tongue, however, it slowly turned its back on him, clearly having zero interest in another blinking contest.
Seeing this, Yu Xian didn't know whether to laugh or cry, though his mood was wonderful. Forbidden zones weren't so dangerous after all—at least some transcendent creatures were quite friendly.
Seeing that the Dragon King Golden Toad genuinely had no desire to deal with him, he simply left a bubble on the ground, told the toad he would visit again next time, and continued on his journey.
Along the way, he sat cross-legged inside the bubble, turning the precious saber over in his hands to examine it.
The weapon was remarkably heavy, weighing around half a ton. An ordinary person couldn't even lift it, but for him, the weight felt just right. The Dragon King Golden Toad had probably seen through his strength before offering the gift, which was why it suited him so well.
He gripped the hilt and slowly unsheathed the saber. Instantly, tendrils of electrical arcs wrapped around the blade, radiating white light.
*Bzzzt... bzzzt... bzzzt...*
As he drew it completely free, the sound of electric currents crackled incessantly from the blade. Then both the arcs and the crackling gradually faded, replaced by what seemed to be a streak of flowing lightning along the edge.
This was definitely a treasure!
Yu Xian looked at the saber and cast Appraisal on it immediately.
——————
[Manji Flash Thunder Saber]
[Rank: Dragon]
[Ability: With each swing of this saber, the wielder's body is reinforced with lightning. The speed of the next swing increases by 1%, up to a maximum boost of 2,500%, and the blade grows sharper.]
[Summary: Too slow! Too slow! Too slow! Too slow! Slash, slash, slash, slash! Without madness, there is no survival.]
——————
As expected of the Dragon King Golden Toad.
A gift from it was truly out of the ordinary—this thing was ridiculously powerful.
Although the Manji Flash Thunder Saber's attributes were very straightforward, they were extraordinarily potent. Once the speed stacks were maxed out, the attack frequency would skyrocket to a terrifying level.
On top of that, Yu Xian possessed spatial abilities; combining the two would make mincemeat of any small fry with a single slash.
He sheathed the thunder saber, leaned against the bubble, and gazed at the sky, though his mind involuntarily replayed the scene of that tongue shooting forward. That moment earlier had been close.
What if the Dragon King Golden Toad had intended to attack him?
Spatial abilities weren't one hundred percent foolproof. The toad's sudden strike was proof enough.
His mind immediately went to his Bubble Clone Art. Outside his current bubble, he conjured another, then cast Bubble Clone Art inside it.
Next, he used Silver Blood to enhance his light-absorption ability, turning his body pitch-black in an instant, and adjusted the bubble carrying him so that it became completely transparent.
In the blink of an eye, only a single bubble appeared to float in midair, containing his clone.
"This should mislead a fair number of creatures!"
Sitting inside his hidden bubble and watching his clone from a distance, Yu Xian thought slyly to himself.
The rest of the flight proceeded without incident. Humans probably weren't on the menu for most beasts, and flying at high altitude meant none of the transcendent creatures on the ground showed any intent to attack.
He didn't stop until dawn, watching the sun slowly rise from the east in the distance.
Because there were many forbidden zones to bypass—some covering vast expanses—his flight path hadn't been a straight line, nor could he fly too quickly, lest he lack sufficient reaction time if an unexpected hazard arose.
As a result, he had only covered a third of the journey over the entire night, still far from Ice City.
Hoping to surprise Nora, he left several spatial bubbles at different coordinates after watching the sunrise, then teleported home.
"What a long night!"
Yu Xian appeared out of thin air beside the reclining chair on his balcony. Collapsing onto it, he grew thoroughly languid.
A few minutes later, he headed to school with Nora.
Once in class, he simply slumped onto his desk to sleep. His body wasn't tired, but his mind was exhausted; he needed to clear his head.
Sleeping all the way until noon, he woke up, glanced at the sunlight outside the window, and resumed pondering spellcraft.
His impromptu idea from the previous night—using a bubble clone as a decoy for his real body—worked well, but it still had many rough edges. With his current mental strength, he could control at most one clone; any more, and flaws would emerge.
Chiefly, these clones required his active control. Casting the spell didn't grant the clone sentience; in plain terms, the bubble clone was essentially a marionette whose every move he had to direct.
At night, he could turn pitch-black to absorb light and blend in, but during the day, that trick wouldn't work.
Furthermore, the bubble clone lacked actual eyes. Its sensory radius depended on the perception range of the Equinox Flower petal inside it, which was very small—only spanning about one or two meters around its body.
That meant Yu Xian couldn't control it from a great distance, because once it was too far away, he was blind to its surroundings.
Unless he created an abundance of Equinox Flower petals to establish a sensory field across a hundred li, he couldn't stray too far from the clone. These were all problems in need of solutions.
In addition, the defense of the bubbles had to be upgraded.
The first idea that struck him was incorporating Blood Shield Art and Blood Barrier Art into the spatial bubble. If he could adapt Mirage Clone Art into Bubble Clone Art, why couldn't he integrate Blood Shield Art and Blood Barrier Art into the bubbles as well?
With the success of Bubble Clone Art, his creative horizons had broadened completely. Since one breakthrough was possible, a second surely followed; failure never even crossed his mind.
Tucking his hands inside his desk compartment, he first conjured a bubble, then cast Blood Shield Art, applying the blood shield over the surface of the bubble.
Step one was a success.
Yu Xian then attempted to shrink the shields and generate more of them to enclose the bubble entirely.
It would be something like a bunker, leaving only a slit at a certain height to see outside, which he could rotate at will during an attack to shift the slit away from incoming strikes.
Perhaps because the approach was rather straightforward, he brought his concept to fruition with ease.
However, he quickly uncovered a new problem: shrinking the shields made them thinner, causing their defensive capability to drop substantially, whereas larger shields were difficult to arrange neatly.
In the end, plenty of issues remained.
Of course, the biggest drawback was aesthetics. With numerous blood shields encrusting its surface, the bubble looked like a red balloon.
It made him an outright sitting duck—the target was simply too conspicuous.
Chapter 84