Chapter 226: Different Paths

Chapter 226: Different Paths

Yilin’s research was more focused on observation. Zheng Yichen could tell that she wasn’t unwilling to go further, but she had some reservations that kept her limited to this. Zheng Yichen cooperated with her on many studies, most of which were centered on directly grabbing magic. Those spells that Zheng Yichen grabbed were later sealed away by Yilin using some method, forcibly frozen right before they would have erupted.

There were dozens of magics sealed like this. Zheng Yichen also noticed that Yilin seemed hesitant to speak several times. She was like that until the very moment she left.

“What did you want to ask?” Considering she had generously lent him her research notes, Zheng Yichen couldn’t help but ask when he noticed her apparent difficulty.

“Could you give me some Dragon Blood? Your Mana would work too.” After hesitating for a moment, Yilin finally spoke. The reason she hadn’t said this earlier was mainly due to concerns about Loris and Dan Marina’s reactions. “I can offer something in exchange.”

“Uh, I see. A little bit is no problem.” Zheng Yichen shook his head, looking at his claw with some worry. His body’s scales were extremely hard. Trying to cut himself was like an ordinary person hitting their own arm with their fist — it could hurt and bruise, but drawing blood was truly difficult.

“Thank you.” With Zheng Yichen’s agreement, Yilin immediately spoke, her hand quickly and gently pressing on the center of his outstretched claw. A few drops of blood were drawn out in an eerie manner. This method was much gentler than Loris’s approach of tapping with a finger. Zheng Yichen didn’t feel even a hint of pain.

In fact… Yilin could have easily not told him about this beforehand and quietly taken some of his Dragon Blood without him noticing. This was probably a specific Magic as well. So much for his racial Magic Resistance as a member of the Dragon Clan — it really wasn’t much use in front of someone like her.

“…” Yilin looked at Zheng Yichen with some surprise. The blood-drawing Magic didn’t cause harm, but it was a spell that acted on the subcutaneous layer of the body. Just now, her Mana briefly touched the Mana inside Zheng Yichen’s body and most of it was assimilated in an instant. If she hadn’t reacted quickly, diverting her Mana away from that flow, the remaining portion would have been completely assimilated too. And this was from an area with relatively low subcutaneous Mana concentration.

If it were inside the body… This characteristic meant Zheng Yichen could basically ignore any Magic directly targeting his body internally, as long as he had enough Mana inside him.

Lightly tapping a test-tube-like container Yilin produced, Zheng Yichen squeezed out a portion of his Mana. After all, once his Mana left his body, it seemed diluted. Even if it retained its original effect, it was greatly weakened, so he wasn’t worried about someone using it against him.

“These are for you.” After carefully storing the blood and Mana Zheng Yichen provided, Yilin plucked three strands from a lock of hair resting on her shoulder and handed them to Zheng Yichen.

Uh, what was this, playing the role of Guanyin Bodhisattva? Giving three strands of hair? Looking at the three dark blue strands in his claw, Zheng Yichen couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. The Mana contained within this hair was immense!

Just one strand contained Mana close to one-third of his own total Mana Capacity. Moreover, its quality was far higher than his own Mana. The Mana inside was also perfectly sealed, with no tendency to dissipate. And this was just one strand! Looking at Yilin’s full head of dark blue hair, Zheng Yichen’s jaw slackened. It seemed she could easily kill someone by throwing a single hair.

She really could just pluck one, throw it, and detonate the Mana inside. No extra steps needed. Once this high-quality Mana detonated, the power wouldn’t be less than that of a spell.

“When you cast magic, you can draw upon the power within the hair. If fully consumed at once… it could increase the overall power of the spell you release by about three to thirty times.”

“…Uh, listen, with my large size, a few drops of blood seems a bit stingy. How about we trade some more?” Zheng Yichen asked, his heart moved as he looked at Yilin’s full head of hair. The next moment, the environment before him suddenly twisted, and when he regained his senses, he was back under the lakeside shed.

Shaking his head, Zheng Yichen placed the three long, dark blue strands into a small box. A three to thirty-fold increase, and it was an overall power boost!

Three chances for a Critical Strike! If he encountered a tough enemy, he could wrap the hair around the Sword of Promised Victory and unleash a Critical Strike version of Light Tide. That power would probably be outrageously strong. As for the variable ratio, being from Earth, did he even need to think? Lower-level spells would definitely have a higher multiplier. Regarding the minimum three-fold guarantee, Zheng Yichen wasn’t sure if Yilin meant based on his own situation or hers.

Probably his, right? For Yilin herself… her hair already had such an effect; she probably didn’t need to pluck hair for a magic Critical Strike anyway.

After carefully storing the item, Zheng Yichen lowered his head to look at the notes he brought back. Lily, meanwhile, held a small stick and was gesturing toward an empty space beside her. Zheng Yichen pinched his chin and thought. It seemed there was a decent Academy in Kaja City too. When things here settled down, he could send her there. Hmm, before that, he needed to make a disguise artifact first. That required considerable Potionology knowledge. He’d better cram quickly and ask Yilin tomorrow if she had any materials.

Not disturbing Lily, Zheng Yichen focused on reading the notes. The top one was her latest entry, about Magic Arms… Just for that, Zheng Yichen decided to read this one first. The Magic Weapon Summoning Book was truly outstanding; it almost gave him unlimited Mana, with immense development potential.

However, after reading for a while, he helplessly put it aside. Yilin’s research on magic and Magic Arms followed a completely different path from his own. Even though she also seemed able to control the form of magical arms—like the hammer before—apart from that, her choices differed from Zheng Yichen’s.

Zheng Yichen’s attitude toward magic arms was weapon-centric, while Yilin’s was magic-centric, with the weapon merely serving as a carrier to solidify and alter how the magic manifested!

For example, a fire-element Explosive Flame spell. Casting it conventionally resulted in one explosion, which could be easily blocked. Among many Protection Magics, quite a few lacked continuous protective effects, but their single-instance protection was exceptionally strong, even capable of offsetting higher-rank spell attacks with lower-rank Mana consumption. Since it was a one-time, short-duration protection, it was more effective against specific attacks.

But when fused with a Magic Arm, it could trigger multiple Explosive Flame bursts during an attack, achieving an additional enhancement effect and better countering that type of protective magic. Even standard Protection Magic would be broken under the accumulated power of multiple flame bursts. An attack with the effect of four or more Explosive Flames would only require the consumption used to forge one Magic Arm capable of bearing the Explosive Flame spell, plus the cost of casting Explosive Flame once.

As for the technique, Zheng Yichen found it impressive but completely beyond him. The theory, however, could serve as a reference. Hmm… this kind of combination, an Explosive Flame sword?

The multi-stage Explosive Flame bursts from combining Explosive Flame and a Magic Arm were just one example in the notes. Although it was a simple 1+1 combo, depending on the spell fused into the magical arm, the additional effects could be extremely varied. For instance, Zheng Yichen saw a key record at the end of the notes about integrating a Spatial Rift spell into a Magic Arm…

The Spatial Rift spell was a fixed-point spell and had a delay upon manifestation. Anyone with some Magic Talent could sense the strong fluctuations before a Spatial Rift appeared. Anyone hit by this spell could basically be said to have died from sheer stupidity. Of course, as one of the very few recorded effective spatial-type magics.

The power of a Spatial Rift was undeniable. Most materials touched by it would be cut, unless encountering specifically countering spatial confinement or protective spells. This spell was typically used for things like opening doors. If you encountered a locked door without a key and happened to know someone who could cast this spell, just blast it onto the door. No matter how sturdy, it would be torn open.

The difficulty of casting this spell was nine stars… out of a maximum of ten!

Originally a spell extremely hard to hit anyone with, after fusing with a Magic Arm, it underwent a qualitative transformation. The entire Magic Arm would possess the effect of a Spatial Rift. Anything the weapon cut would be as if directly touched by the rift itself, making it essentially a Magic Arm that ignored defense. Unfortunately, the difficulty of achieving this combination was too high. Even for Yilin herself, the success rate was only about one in ten.

This idea made Zheng Yichen’s heart race. A weapon that ignored defense — just that point made him check his Magic Weapon Summoning Book to see if anything there could compare. Attaching a Spatial Rift effect… not only ignoring defenses, but also making it an invincible armor-piercing weapon, a Divine Artifact for shattering other weapons. Even High-Level Magic Soldiers, if they clashed with the edge of the Spatial Rift, would be severed into segments along the rift’s lines — no discussion!

As for encountering such a weapon in the future? Zheng Yichen wasn’t worried. Probably, aside from Yilin, no one else could manage it. Given that, what did Zheng Yichen have to worry about? Not to mention, very few people could master spells like Spatial Rift — mostly because they were troublesome, had low hit rates, and had major limitations.

No one would go out of their way to force an enemy to stay in place just to hit them with a Spatial Rift… if you had that kind of control power, why choose such a time-consuming, labor-intensive, and delayed spell? Wouldn’t using another type of single-target attack spell be better?

“A spatial attack spell… maybe I’ll have a chance to research and forge a Yamato with Yilin someday?”

Muttering to himself, Zheng Yichen flipped through the remaining notes. They contained insights into various magics. Aside from some advanced spell insights that Zheng Yichen found hard to grasp, the rest involved low-tier spell insights. Zheng Yichen digested all the understandable parts and memorized the parts he couldn’t comprehend for later. By the time he put down the last notebook, the sky was already bright. Zheng Yichen took out a Pocket Watch sized for his body and checked the time — the corner of his mouth twitched. Was it already noon?

No wonder he felt a bit hungry.

“Back to reality? Little Dragon?” Looking down at the woman who had approached him, Zheng Yichen gathered all the notes placed beside him. Forget about not cherishing things that weren’t his own — precisely because they were borrowed, Zheng Yichen treated them with extra care. Since they were borrowed items, he owed them proper responsibility.

“Something up?”

“Mmm~ I heard you’re quite good at designing underwear?”

“…Who told you that?” Zheng Yichen’s eyebrow raised. It seemed only Loris herself knew about this. Even the Ghost Maids didn’t know. How did Dan Marina come to learn about it… uh, could it be?

“Do you know what this is?” Dan Marina took out a dark blue crystal, tossing it in her hand. Seeing Zheng Yichen shake his head, she continued, “A key to one of Irene’s storerooms. It stores materials, and you can take whatever you want.”

“Alright, what style do you want?” Zheng Yichen pondered for a moment. Underwear designs… don’t ask why he knew so much. Who goes shopping without passing by underwear stores? Who hasn’t suppressed curiosity to sneak a quick glance or two?

Who hasn’t accidentally clicked on some pop-up ad while browsing online and seen some striking pictures? Weren’t these all references?

Zheng Yichen suspected this woman, Dan Marina, had been planning this for a long time. Otherwise, why would she appear before him right when he needed materials for experiments, offering something he couldn’t refuse temporarily, requiring only a small effort on his part?

Not trade? Of course not…

“Wow, seems like you have many ideas. Can you show me all of them so I can pick and choose?”

Zheng Yichen snorted lightly through his dragon mouth, arms crossed. If someone else said this, Zheng Yichen wouldn’t mind doing so. Dan Marina? If he did that, he worried this woman would look them all over, turn around, and leave to have them made herself. Witches weren’t foolish; if anything, having lived long, they hadn’t developed senility but could each be called old foxes.

“Keeping something like this a secret too, you’re really stingy.” Tossing the crystal to Zheng Yichen, Dan Marina said in a somewhat displeased, coquettish tone, “Mmm~ How about that black one, with patterns? The kind Loris wears? But I don’t want just a band of cloth.”

Was lace that appealing? Zheng Yichen waved his hand. “Alright, I got it. I’ll give it to you later. As for cup size, go adjust that yourself with someone else.”

Zheng Yichen indicated he wasn’t an old hand at judging figures, able to guess someone’s measurements with a glance. In his current body, he couldn’t even figure out his own form. A dragon’s measurements? Damn it! What kind of measurements did a dragon’s body structure even need?

For beauty comparisons among dragons, wasn’t it about whose wings were more majestic and imposing, whose tail was more powerful, whose claws were sharper?

As for the rest… Zheng Yichen didn’t understand. Anyway, he was practically face-blind looking at other members of the Dragon Clan. Even looking in a mirror, he sometimes felt face-blind toward himself…