Chapter 636: Cloth

Liam steadied his mind, knowing that there would be no turning back after he made his move.

Another item came out in the open. Liam’s new bow materialized in his hand, forcing him to adjust his position due to how big it was. Honestly, it was more correct to call it a longbow since it reached his shoulder.

The search hadn’t given Liam much time to familiarize himself with his new rank 3 weapon, but bows belonged to a special category in his mind, and there wasn’t much to learn in the first place.

Compared to the Black Bow, the silver longbow was rather simple. It couldn’t alter the weight of its bowstring. It could condense Liam’s Qi into ethereal arrows, but they couldn’t explode.

The longbow’s only superiority was in how much Qi Liam could pour into the ethereal arrows. It was an extremely solid rank 3 weapon, no different from the silver cauldron in that regard, capable of withstanding immense quantities of energy without flinching.

The issue was that stuffing arrows with more energy than necessary didn’t really do much. Since they couldn’t explode, they could only gain better piercing properties, but that was it.

That was on Uriah. His limited knowledge of archery had gotten in the way of his inscription skills, limiting him to a well-made, reliable, but simple tool. Yet, Liam could work with such a weapon more than its creator intended.

First, that reliability was similar to the rank 3 silver cauldron. The longbow could likely endure all manners of abuse without suffering a single dent. Even Liam’s poisonous Qi couldn’t corrode it.

Chances were that the longbow could also work as a mace just fine.

Considering Liam’s unique Qi reserves, that extreme reliability was a perfect match. He would stress his new bow more than any other branching expert ever could, so he desperately needed something he wasn’t afraid of breaking, a companion that would remain intact even as he broke himself.

That played into another use Uriah hadn’t intended. More Qi meant more poison in Liam’s case. The arrows the longbow created through his energy wouldn’t be mere projectiles, and he could push that feature one step forward.

The longbow’s lack of a unique ability didn’t prevent Liam from concocting some anyway. He had the third layer of Qi mastery after all.

If anything, the longbow’s binding process had been its most unique feature. It hadn’t been anything as challenging as the Black Bow, but it had been a test of sorts nonetheless.

Thinking about that brought Liam’s gaze to the bright red cloth tied to his upper arm. He had felt the longbow probe his mind similarly to the Trial of Lust in the inheritance, and it was obvious what it had been looking for.

Uriah saw the weapon as a dowry, meaning it needed to confirm the user’s feelings toward his family and, especially, his daughter. Obviously, Liam had passed the test with flying colors.

’It still carries her scent,’ Liam casually thought as he secured the red cloth to prepare it for the imminent struggle.

Naturally, the scent in question belonged to Rachel. She had been the one to tie the cloth, too. The practice was apparently customary.

Liam could guess the custom’s purpose, but he hadn’t asked. He was only glad he had managed to compromise for a piece of cloth since Rachel’s initial requests had been far, far worse.

At first, Rachel wanted to go with Liam, which just couldn’t happen, not with what he had in mind.

Then, Rachel somehow twisted the issue to try to get married right away, obviously including the first night as a married couple.

Afterward, Rachel settled for just sex, which Liam once again refused. Even when the negotiation moved to the pieces of clothing, he had to reject every article of lingerie she offered with way more specific scents to them.

In short, a piece of cloth that carried Rachel’s scent was the absolute best Liam could hope for, at least in that situation. If Grace were there, he would have preferred her farewell kiss, just like she had done before his trip to the Cathedral.

’Let’s get started,’ Liam eventually sighed internally, clearing his mind of useless thoughts, focusing solely on the target ahead.

The Sky-Splitting Bolt would likely fail at such a distance. The rank 3 weapon art could reach that far, especially now that Liam had access to superior Qi, but he couldn’t launch surgical strikes when he barely sensed his opponents.

Still, Liam had no plans to use that deadly attack, and a longbow even reassured him on the range issue, so he could focus all he had on the third layer of Qi mastery.

Liam stood straight and lifted the longbow to the sky, closing his eyes. He drew the bowstring to its utmost, pouring Qi into his weapon only afterward.

The floral patterns on the bow’s limbs began to shine with a dark light as Liam’s Qi flowed through the weapon. An ethereal arrow materialized inside it, already nocked and ready to fire.

However, Liam didn’t release the bowstring just yet. He kept pouring energy, but not in its raw form. He altered it to give it a specific final shape, no different than using various ingredients to concoct a specific product.

Actually, the theory came straight from alchemy. In Liam’s mind, what he was doing was nothing more than a concoction without a cauldron.

The arrow’s final shape was nothing unique, at least on the surface, but releasing it revealed its true nature.

With the bow’s size, the string’s weight, and Liam’s slightly enhanced physical strength, the arrow left no trail or trace of movement. It suddenly disappeared, instantly reaching high in the sky at a speed that surpassed even the best the fan could offer.

When the arrow came down, it wasn’t alone anymore. It had split into hundreds of smaller bolts, as if they were needle-shaped shards of broken glass raining down on the distant encampment.