Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 510 – Youthful Idleness, Old Age Regret

Lin Fan opened her eyes to the pale light of dawn filtering through the window.

She lay in bed without getting up immediately, stretching lazily as the thin blanket slipped from the edge of the mattress and pooled onto the carpet.

She was in a good mood.

Last night’s energy potion refinement had exceeded her expectations by thirty percent.

That was largely thanks to her old friend, Thunderous Fury.

Its efficiency was more than a full tier above crafting energy potions by hand.

Lin Fan sat up and glanced at the bedside table.

Twelve glass vials stood in neat rows, their emerald-colored Energy Raw Pulp radiating a cool, otherworldly fragrance.

This was a single night’s output.

Once diluted, it would be enough to complete a full round of enhancement for three hundred sixth-level Evolved beings.

She stored the vials into her System Space, then padded barefoot across the carpet toward the washbasin.

Cold water splashed against her face. The mirror reflected features so perfect they seemed almost unreal.

White hair cascaded past her shoulders, and faint starlight flickered within her dark pupils.

A ninth-level mid-stage Lifeform had no need for sleep, but she enjoyed the sensation of lying down.

It was probably one of those old habits she’d kept.

After slipping into a fitted white long robe, she made her way to the dining hall.

At the entrance, Lu Yuan and Zhu Yan stood side by side.

Lu Yuan was holding two meal trays, his face pale, eyes sunken, legs looking unsteady.

A peak seventh-level light-type Evolved being, yet he looked like a laborer who’d been drained dry for three days straight.

Zhu Yan beside him was the complete opposite.

Her skin glowed with a rosy translucence, her eyes were unnaturally bright, and even her hair radiated a healthy sheen.

Her early eighth-level aura was steady and full, even more condensed than yesterday.

Both of them froze the moment they saw Lin Fan.

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“Morning, Lei Jie.” Zhu Yan spoke first, her voice half a note softer than usual.

“Boss…” Lu Yuan’s voice was as hoarse as sandpaper scraping wood.

Lin Fan’s gaze swept between the two of them.

A small patch of unnatural redness marked the base of Zhu Yan’s neck, and her collar was pulled higher than usual.

Lu Yuan’s shirt buttons were misaligned—the third button had been fastened into the fourth buttonhole.

“Oh?”

Lin Fan leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

“One of you is glowing with radiance, the other looks like death warmed over.”

Her gaze finally settled on Lu Yuan’s face, her tone dripping with undisguised schadenfreude.

“Lu Yuan, were you dragged off to plow fields last night?”

The corner of Lu Yuan’s mouth twitched.

“Boss, please don’t make fun of me…”

“His abilities are fast anywhere.” Zhu Yan interjected flatly.

Lu Yuan nearly dropped the trays.

“Yanzi! Can you not say things like that in front of Lei Jie—”

“Just stating facts.”

Zhu Yan turned her head away, refusing to look at him.

But Lin Fan keenly caught the speed at which her earlobes flushed crimson.

That meant Zhu Yan’s heart rate was far above normal right now.

It also meant she was just as nervous—she was simply better at talking tough than Lu Yuan.

Lin Fan laughed.

Not the cold smile of a commander, but a genuine one, tinged with playful mischief.

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“Alright, stop standing around like a pair of posts.”

Lin Fan pushed off the wall and patted Zhu Yan’s shoulder.

“Those clothes you tore up yesterday, no big deal. I’ve got all kinds of stuff in my collection—black, white, sheer, modest—plenty to rotate through. Come find me whenever you need.”

Zhu Yan’s face went from red to deep purple in an instant.

“Th…thank you, Lei Jie.”

Her voice shattered into the faint buzz of a mosquito’s wings.

Lu Yuan leaned against the wall, wearing the hollow look of a man who’d narrowly escaped death, though his gaze drifted uneasily.

Lin Fan caught that micro-expression and, with a hint of exasperation, delivered one final jab.

“Look at you, so pathetic. If you don’t work hard when you’re young, you’ll regret it when you’re old. Go eat some mutated beast kidneys to replenish yourself later. The way you are now is just embarrassing.”

Lu Yuan opened his mouth but didn’t dare to respond.

Zhu Yan let out a snort of laughter, then quickly straightened her face.

But her shoulders were still shaking.

Lin Fan didn’t tease them further.

She walked into the dining hall, grabbed an apple, and pushed open the door to the communications room while taking a bite.

The holographic screen in the communications room displayed real-time energy readings of the Rifts worldwide.

Lin Fan’s chewing paused.

The data was jumping.

Twenty-four hours ago, the average Energy Threshold of the 103 Rifts was still at the peak of Level Seven.

Now, the readings had stabilized at the early stage of Level Eight.

A full day faster than Chu Chen’s projected expansion rate.

Lin Fan tossed the apple core into the trash bin, sat down at the console, and pulled up the Rift expansion curve.

The curve wasn’t rising at a steady rate.

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There was a distinct sharp spike around midnight last night.

As if something had forcibly pried the passage open from the other side.

Lin Fan’s finger tapped on the inflection point, her pupils contracting slightly.

Midnight.

She remembered what she had said to Long Ye at White Bone Pass.

“Devouring the Crystal Bones of Blue Star’s Evolved beings can break the Bloodline seal.”

She had personally set a trap for Long Ye.

Long Ye had been stuck at the early-stage Level Eight bottleneck for thirty years, his craving for a breakthrough having reached the point of obsession.

The expression on that old schemer’s face when he heard the words “Crystal Bone”—she remembered it clearly.

Greed.

Crazy, undisguised greed.

The Rift could now pass Level Eight beings through.

Long Ye happened to be at early-stage Level Eight.

The other Pureblood Dragon Clan members didn’t know that Blue Star’s nuclear arsenal had been depleted, but Long Ye did.

Because he had personally ordered those three thousand cannon fodder to be sent over, with the sole purpose of exhausting Blue Star’s trump cards.

In his plan, the first wave of Demi-human Race cannon fodder would consume the nuclear weapons, and the second wave of Pureblood elites would probe the defenses.

The third wave—he would come personally to reap the harvest.

Five days.

That’s what he had said—five days.

Counting from that night at White Bone Pass, today was exactly the fifth day.

Lin Fan leaned back in her chair, her gaze passing through the holographic screen to the sky outside the window, dyed white by the morning light.

If Long Ye had already crossed through the Rift to Blue Star…

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A living early-stage Level Eight Lifeform.

Lin Fan’s finger tapped lightly on the armrest.

She was currently at mid-stage Level Nine. The Rift could only pass Level Eight, and forcing a crossing would cause the passage to collapse.

But what if she could temporarily strip away part of her energy before crossing, compressing it below Level Eight?

She needed a container.

A living container strong enough to hold her overflowing energy for a short period.

At least Level Eight.

Lin Fan lit another mint cigarette and exhaled a plume of pale blue-white smoke.

Long Ye.

You should have arrived by now.

She stood up and walked to the window.

The mountain ridges in the distance grew clearer in the rising sun, and the energy fluctuations of the Spatial Rift pulsed like a heartbeat, beating again and again.

The communicator lit up.

Lin Fan glanced down.

It was an automatic alert from the AI monitoring system that Chu Chen had left stationed at the Western Sichuan base.

[Anomaly detected: Magic City Rift, two Level Eight energy signatures recorded passing through. Time: one hour ago.]

The corner of Lin Fan’s mouth curled up.

Two?

Magic City.

Smoke rose from her fingertips, the crisp coolness of mint mingling with the warmth of the morning light.

“Now that’s an unexpected bonus.”

Lin Fan crushed out the cigarette, turned, and walked out of the communications room.