Chapter 102 - 93: Magic Staff Upgrade Ideas and 2 Years

Chapter 102: Chapter 93: Magic Staff Upgrade Ideas and 2 Years

Chen Shang finally stopped in his tracks. He saw that the beating of the black-robed person’s Energy Core had fallen into complete disarray. It no longer pulsed with the rhythm of a heart, but rather struggled madly like a trapped beast.

Through the vision of the Eye of True Sight, he could see visible cracks appearing on the surface of the core. Dark red light poured out from the fissures. The black-robed person was trying to force out all the Energy inside the core at once, regardless of whether his body could withstand it.

Suddenly, he let out a low roar. His body abruptly swelled in size as dark red Energy surged out of him, coalescing around his form into a massive, translucent Energy Body. The Energy Body had no fixed shape. Its surface continuously swelled with dark red bubbles, and each bursting bubble released a shockwave.

Chen Shang sighed. The opponent was trying to take him down in a mutual destruction suicide attack; this Energy Core was already ruined. Thus, he stored his Magic Staff back into the Space Book, raised both hands to his chest, and spread his ten fingers wide.

Divine Technique—Call Wind!

Wind began to pick up in the canyon. Within the vision of the Eye of True Sight, pale cyan Wind Elements sprouted from every crevice in the rocks, every piece of gravel, and every grain of sand. The terrifying attribute of this Divine Technique directly extracted one of the four Basic Elements that composed matter itself!

Cyan-white air currents surged from all directions, converging into a swirling Wind Wall in front of Chen Shang and distorting the air.

The black-robed person’s Energy Body lunged forward. The dark red sphere of light slammed into the Wind Wall, only to be torn apart by the swirling vortex, breaking down into countless tiny Energy fragments before dissipating completely.

Chen Shang pushed the Wind Wall outward. The cyan-white air currents spun at high speeds within the wall, letting out a low hum like a swarm of bees. The black-robed person’s Energy Body began to deform under the pressure of the Wind Wall. Its surface no longer bubbled, but was instead crushed inward by the force.

Dark red light seeped from the indentations, growing brighter and increasingly unstable. Chen Shang’s Eye of True Sight saw the black-robed person’s Energy Core shatter completely in that instant.

BOOM!

Dark red light exploded from the center of the Energy Body, like the final struggle of a small star before its collapse. Shockwaves spread in all directions. Wherever they passed, rocks shattered, sand was swept into the air, and a layer of the ground was sheared off.

With a thought from Chen Shang, the Wind Wall switched from Defense mode to attack mode. The cyan-white air currents stopped spinning. Instead, like countless fully drawn bowstrings releasing at once, they shot out from the surface of the Wind Wall, transforming into innumerable Wind Lines as thin as hair.

The Wind Lines sliced through the dark red Energy Body with the precision of surgical scalpels. Under the cutting force of the Wind Lines, the dark red Energy Body was dismembered into countless tiny fragments, dissipating into the depths of the canyon.

The black-robed person fell to his knees on the ground. The black robes on his body had been blown to pieces, revealing grayish-white skin covered in cracks. Chen Shang watched through the Eye of True Sight as his Energy Core gradually extinguished, the dark red light fading from bright to dim. The core crumbled into powder, and losing all support, the black-robed person’s body collapsed to the side like a charred piece of wood.

The wind stopped.

Silence returned to the canyon. Chen Shang stood in place as the Call Wind Divine Technique slowly withdrew back into his body, and the cyan-white air currents dissipated from his fingertips. The One-Element Heavy Water flew back from a distance, landing in his palm, as quiet as before.

Chen Shang walked over to where the black-robed person had fallen. Only a pile of grayish-white powder remained on the ground, most of it already scattered by the wind. In the center of the powder lay a solitary, dilapidated dark red crystal the size of a fingernail. Chen Shang swept his gaze over it with the Eye of True Sight and found almost no residual Energy or Spirit fluctuations.

He crouched down, used a rune pen to nudge the crystal into a specialized sample bottle, and stored it in his Space Book. Then he stood up and patted the dust off his robes.

"Why go to such lengths?" Chen Shang shook his head. He could only guess that the other party had undergone some kind of inhumane modification and therefore harbored a deep hatred for Wizard Apprentices, otherwise, there was no need to resort to such mutually assured destruction tactics. He swept the surrounding ground once more with his Eye of True Sight. Confirming that he hadn’t missed any valuable remains, he turned and continued walking out of the canyon.

Upon returning to the High Tower, Chen Shang found the stationed Wizard and gave a brief report on the matter regarding the black-robed person.

The stationed Wizard was a young First Level Wizard. Hearing the report, he frowned and recorded a few lines of text on his Crystal Plate.

"Non-compliant native modification... dark red Energy Core characteristics... self-destruction..."

He looked up and glanced at Chen Shang. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

The stationed Wizard nodded and closed the Crystal Plate, pausing for a moment. "Understood, I will report this to my superiors. These kinds of things happen from time to time; it’s nothing new. Some people pick up broken Wizard equipment, some wander into Ancient Ruins by mistake, and others are used as test subjects by Black Wizards.

"But you should be aware... the Alliance doesn’t really care about this sort of thing."

"I understand. Thank you for your trouble, Master." Chen Shang understood the situation. He wasn’t looking to cause trouble for anyone; he was just reporting it according to protocol.

Back in his laboratory, Chen Shang took the items out of his Space Book one by one and arranged them on the Recording Platform. A Wind Crystal Core, the dark red sample bottle, and a few pieces of Wind-Eroded Ore he picked up from the canyon... He sat in his chair, opened his Crystal Plate, and began to tally his gains and losses from this trip.

First of all, the Eye of True Sight had completed the Wind Element. Out of the four Basic Elements—Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire—he was now only missing Fire. The intensity of the Samadhi True Flame was good, but there was no way to integrate it into the Eye of True Sight. He would have to find another method.