Chapter 121 “Amazing Skill, Blink Shield”
Following Feng Shen’s departure from Glass City, Ling Yue’s been spending most of her time training inside her personal dimension while only occasionally helping out at the Drunken Immortal.
In this period, both sisters had spent some quality time sparring together.
Way back when Lan Caier was but fifteen years of age, she had taken part in Da Xia’s annual royal competition and came up in tenth place, proving her talent and degree of training surpassed everyone in the Ye family’s younger generation.
All in all, the total numbers of times Ling Yue fought with Lan Caier remains at ten. Discouragingly, she never once manages to come out on top using only her martial art, and the only time she does was by using her spirit force in unison with her attacks. That’s of course based on the fact she never used her blood daggers or miasma attack. If she were to be pushed into a real fight, Ling Yue’s quite confident she can win over Lan Caier.
Always safe than sorry. A little trick up the sleeve never hurts anyone, it might just save her life in the future.
“Ling Yue, I have to say your foundation is very solid, just that your martial art lacks variety and only knows how to be on the offensive. Towards opponents weaker than yourself, this method of fighting will work by overwhelming the other side, but against foes that’s stronger than you by two levels or more, your blind adherence to attacking becomes a weakness. Without defense, it’s easy to be stuck in a passive mode when you can’t hit like you are against me.” As expected of a general’s daughter. Lan Caier easily figured out Ling Yue’s biggest flaw and shortcomings.
Musing over the words, Ling Yue agreed with her saying. Indeed, all she’s learned were the eighth-ninth rank moves from her family’s martial shrine. Among them being the Lightning Burst Fist and the Jade Flower Hand, both attacking skills with no defenses in mind. Even her spirit moves are aimed at damaging the opponent.
If she can’t fight on even grounds with someone like Lan Caier, what hope does she have against the genius in the Hong House, Hong Ming Yue, a Dan realm martialist.
Remembering the mountain she still needs to climb, Ling Yue’s mood quickly turned moody.
I’m certain there’s no fitting technique to learn on the martial art side, then maybe there’s something for my spirit force.
Thinking of this, Ling Yue then remembers today was the day she had to offer up the monthly blue patterned Dan pills to the association. According to the rules, she must give ten of these pills as membership fee.
Why not take advantage of this opportunity to ask the president if there’s any spirit force techniques he can teach me, maybe there’s one aimed at defending!
Bring with her the needed number of pills, Ling Yue heads straight for the alchemist association branch in Glass City.
After paying the membership fee, she then caught the old president on another floor.
“Defensive techniques are indeed very important to us alchemists, and I just so happen to have one in my possession that’s suitable for a three-cauldron alchemist. It’s just that….” President Liao throws his bait.
By this point Ling Yue was familiar enough with this old grandpa to know he’s not as honest as he plays out to be.
“If the president has any request then please go ahead and say it,” Ling Yue pinches her mouth to one corner, implying ‘I knew you are like this’.
“Haha, it’s not a difficult matter. I’m sure you’re aware of this yourself. Your Dan pills are more effective than what others make here, so I only need you to help me make some blue pattern Xuan Yin Dan pills. One hundred will do, not much.” Seeing he’s been seen through, President Liao chuckles in return. After being cheated by the little fox, how can he not turn things around for a change.
Besides, this matter cannot be blamed on him either because the one making the order was a super picky individual. If any old run of the mill will do then why does President Liao needs to care, right?
“Well this won’t be hard; however, the materials must be supplied by the association. For one hundred pills, I need a thousand jade ores.” She didn’t even flinch when lying out of her ass.
Ever since her cauldron evolved into an elemental cauldron, her success rate in alchemy likewise increased with her growth.
Back then she would normally require two pieces of jade ore to produce one pill, but now, its reversed. One ore for two pills.
Of course, she would never tell the president about it.
This is what you get for coercing me into doing this. In my life, I hate being coerced into something I didn’t decide for myself. I’ll consider the extra as my payment, humph!
Seeing the girl accepting so readily, President Liao mistakes this as him being on the winning side. Without hesitation, he rummages through his pocket and hands over a jade carving.
“This jade records a defensive technique I came up with using the experiences I gained in life. As long as you train this well, you will be able to block off even an upper celestial master’s attack. Best part of all, this ability will grow following your advancement with the spirit force, making it extremely unique.” Speaking of his life’s work, President Liao sounded very proud of himself.
Hearing all the good merits, Ling Yue couldn’t wait to try it out and infused her spirit force into the jade for a peek. Sure enough, there’s the instructions for the new power explained clearly inside.
“Blink Shield? President, it can’t be that you are toying with me now are you?” Reading the strange name, Ling Yue became a little startled and got suspicious.
What sort of people names their life’s work like this? It sounds like he just coined the name randomly out of boredom!
“Little lass, you can’t say that now. Once you master this technique you will then understand the greatness of the blink shield.” Unhappy, the president starts giving Ling Yue the usual disgruntled look for being snubbed by his poor naming scheme.
After leaving the association, Ling Yue did as per the president said and started to practice the move right away. She’s fluent in controlling weapons with her spirit force, but to use her spirit force as a shield, this was honestly the first.
The so-called Blink Shield, as the name implies, was to condense one’s spirit force into a thin layer of shield to block off any attack from the foe.
“Gather the force and compress it to take form,” she repeats the phrase as the instruction says. Sadly, whenever she manages to gather enough of her spirit force to work with, the energy would disperse before she can compress it into shield form. The old man didn’t lie, this blink shield wasn’t easy to learn.
Continuing like this, she trains for several more days.
“Gather the force and compress it to take form.” This time around, the air around her body started to fluctuate.
As the vast amount of spirit force compresses together in front of her body, a fist sized ball shield appears before Ling Yue.
Unfortunately for her, the newfound success didn’t last very long. In two short minutes, the entire thing collapses.
She continued this repetitive training until her reservoir became emptied. By the end of it all, the tiny ball was now a proper shield in which she can maintain for half an hour until the usual collapse. It’s not perfect, but it’s an improvement.
“Hmm, why wait, let’s go find big sis and try out my chances today.” Ling Yue wipes the sweat off her forehead and heads off for Lan Caier’s home.