[Lord of Abundance] Chapter 52 — The Sea of Aether
Chapter 52 — The Sea of Aether
Kun secretly opened a slit in his personal storage space and casually tossed a sapphire-blue pearl over.
"Wear this pearl."
"It won't cure your illness overnight, but it will allow you to move around like a normal person. That's close enough to calling you healed."
"That settles the debt between us."
"Bye."
Si Shixiu was so annoyed she almost laughed.
"Who are you trying to fool? Since when are pearls blue?"
Kun simply waved without turning around and walked away.
He had already repaid the favor.
Whether the siblings chose to throw away the priceless jewel known as the Tear of the Deep Sea or wear it themselves was no longer his concern.
Even on Eternal Dawn, obtaining anything from the deep ocean was far from easy.
The Naga were notorious for being xenophobic and utterly unreasonable.
That treasure—also called the Tear of the Deep Sea—was an authentic Naga relic and anything but common. It contained exceptionally gentle water-element mana, making it one of the finest treasures for novice water mages learning to sense magical elements.
Si Shixiu tossed the blue orb in her palm.
Compared to a pearl, it looked more like a beautifully polished glass marble.
"The prop is pretty well made."
"But that guy sure knows how to make things up."
"If you don't like it, throw it away."
"No."
"This is my medal for standing up for what's right."
"I was the one who rescued them."
"You were just watching from the sidelines."
"Oh?"
"My chest suddenly feels tight again."
"I'm going to tell Dad you didn't take good care of me."
"...Fine, fine."
"It's all yours."
"You saved them."
"It's your medal."
"Can we go home now, Your Highness?"
"Alright."
She raised the blue pearl toward the light.
The translucent bead shimmered with the color of the ocean itself.
Its deep blue glow seemed almost bottomless, as though it could swallow a person's soul.
It's actually quite pretty...
Has manufacturing become so advanced that even a glass marble can look like a real gemstone?
She frowned slightly and took a deep breath.
...Is it my imagination?
Ever since she'd picked up the pearl, breathing had become strangely effortless, as if she were inhaling pure oxygen.
The tightness in her chest from moments ago had vanished completely.
How odd.
Meanwhile, the four who had left the convention early found their way to the taxi stand, only to find it blocked.
Li Xiaoyu gritted her teeth.
"You guys again!"
Didn't I tell you to wait?"
Brother Ma always keeps his word."
Ma Dengwei smugly rubbed the corner of his bruised mouth.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
Damn...
That bastard hit hard.
"This time..."
"...let's see who comes to save you."
Tu Xiao looked as though she were about to cry.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
"You only wanted my contact information..."
"I'll give it to you, okay?"
"Too late, sweetheart."
"That was just between the two of us earlier."
"But now my brothers got beaten up for nothing."
"Surely you're not planning to give every one of us your contact information?"
"Though if you're willing..."
"...I certainly won't object."
"Hahaha!"
"Haha! Brother Ma really looks after us."
"That girl's got an amazing figure."
"The one beside her isn't bad either."
"Heh heh..."
The group burst into lewd laughter.
Several pairs of eyes shamelessly wandered over the girls' bodies.
Li Xiaoyu shouted,
"Don't be afraid, Xiaoxiao!"
"They're just street punks."
"They don't actually dare do anything."
Kun blinked in realization.
"So..."
"These are what people call hooligans."
"It's my first time seeing one."
It would be even better if I could preserve one as a specimen for the laboratory.
"Oh, right."
"There aren't any bystanders here anymore."
"So..."
"...can I hit them now?"
Li Tianyun glanced around before curling his lips into a smile.
"No surveillance cameras."
"They deliberately picked a blind spot."
"Since they've gone to all that trouble..."
"...it'd be rude not to appreciate their kindness."
"Leave it to me."
Ma Dengwei burst out laughing.
"What?"
"Just you?"
"And you're a foreigner?"
"You think one person can beat six of us?"
"What, do you think you're King Arthur?"
"King Arthur?"
Kun smiled.
"I think you've misunderstood."
"I'm obviously not King Arthur."
"Strictly speaking..."
"...I'm the Grand Mage Merlin."
"Take this!"
"A mage's basic attack!"
His uppercut landed.
The thug closest to him instantly dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach.
He vomited violently onto the ground.
It looked as though he was about to cough up his bile.
"Gangzi!"
Ma Dengwei's eyes widened in shock.
Kun had moved so quickly that he hadn't even seen what happened before one of his men was already down.
Did we kick another iron plate?
If I embarrass myself again in front of my boys...
I'll never survive on the streets.
Grinding his teeth, he pulled a knife from behind his back and lunged at Kun.
"Everyone!"
"Get him!"
"Oh?"
"We're done comparing fists..."
"...and now we're comparing weapons?"
Clang!
The plastic-looking Excalibur effortlessly blocked the knife.
Ma Dengwei froze.
What?
Isn't that supposed to be a plastic toy?
Where did that metallic clang come from?
And why can't my hardened military knife even scratch that cheap plastic sword?
Kun spoke calmly while parrying the attacks.
"Battle qi and magic are different powers..."
"...but they share many similarities."
"For example..."
"...both are shaped by the user's heart."
"A person with unwavering resolve produces battle qi that is virtually indestructible."
"A hesitant heart creates battle qi that shatters at the slightest touch."
"As for wind-attribute battle qi..."
"...it should be free."
"Unrestrained."
"Following one's will."
"Dawn's personality is far too rigid."
"You, on the other hand, came to this path halfway through life."
"The same flaws that aren't problems for him..."
"...become enormous weaknesses for you."
"Watch carefully."
"This..."
"...is my Gale Break."
Wind mana intertwined with threads of battle qi.
They spread like living vines.
Within moments, all six thugs were tightly wrapped.
Instead of exploding violently...
The battle qi simply lifted them high into the air...
Before smashing them into the ground.
Instantly...
The alley echoed with miserable screams.
Kun smiled faintly.
"Hmph."
"It's only a few broken bones."
"What are you screaming for?"
For some reason...
Saying those words to weak fighters felt incredibly satisfying.
No wonder Dawn had loved saying the same thing back at the Marquis's estate.
"Now get lost."
"Y-Yes!"
"We're going!"
Terrified out of their wits, Ma Dengwei and his gang scrambled away without caring about their injuries.
"You know Gale Break too?"
Kun shrugged.
"Dawn isn't just your teacher."
"He's my martial instructor as well."
"Is it really strange that I know Gale Break?"
"I'm an official warrior too."
"After all..."
"My surname is Arlan."
"Military House Arlan."
"Have I ever bragged about it?"
In truth...
Thanks to those rare ibis-feather plumes he had found in the Forest of Eternal Darkness...
He was already close to advancing to Rank Two.
But there was no point in crushing Li Tianyun's confidence.
After all, relying on potions to increase battle qi was merely a shortcut.
It worked well enough against amateurs...
Or opponents beneath one's own rank.
But against elite warriors like Dawn...
Such strength was little more than paper.
"Wow!"
"I never imagined you knew martial arts!"
"That move was incredible!"
"You just waved your hand, and all those thugs flew away!"
"Can you teach me?"
Not only Li Xiaoyu...
Even Tu Xiao looked at him with sparkling eyes full of admiration.
Kun smiled apologetically.
"Sorry."
"...Huh?"
He snapped his fingers.
Li Xiaoyu instantly froze.
The excited smile remained on her face...
But she became as motionless as a statue.
"Xiaoyu?"
Kun turned toward Tu Xiao.
"Look into my eyes."
"...?"
The moment their gazes met...
The light faded from Tu Xiao's eyes.
Li Tianyun spoke up.
"While you're at it..."
"...erase the part where I got hurt too."
"Going to the hospital over something this minor is such a hassle."
"And honestly..."
"...I've never liked the smell of disinfectant."
Though he hated admitting it...
Having spent most of his life surrounded by hospital rooms and antiseptic...
Li Tianyun instinctively resisted going anywhere near hospitals.
"No problem."
Suppressing Li Xiaoyu's memories was easy.
Long ago, Kun had already planted subconscious suggestions in Li Xiaoyu, her father, and her mother.
They would instinctively ignore the mysterious "friend" who occasionally walked out of Li Tianyun's bedroom.
Whenever something about Kun seemed impossible...
Their minds would unconsciously invent a reasonable explanation.
As for Tu Xiao...
Before learning psychology on Blue Star, altering memories like hers had been rather troublesome.
Now...
It only took a few minutes.
Even Kun often marveled at it.
Although Blue Star possessed no mental mages...
Its understanding of the human mind rivaled—and in some respects even surpassed—that of Eternal Dawn.
"Done."
In less than half a minute...
Their relevant memories had been sealed away.
Kun shook his head.
"If Blue Star's psychologists ever learned mental magic..."
"...that would be terrifying."
He quickly dismissed the thought.
If that ever happened...
The Magic Association's forbidden discipline would no longer be necromancy.
It would be mental magic instead.
Back at Li Tianyun's home, Kun prepared to leave.
"You're not staying for dinner?"
"We're having braised fish tonight."
"Isn't that your favorite?"
Braised fish was something impossible to find on Eternal Dawn.
Kun swallowed reflexively.
Still...
He shook his head.
"I'll pass."
"I'd planned to stay here for a few more days."
"But one of the Flesh Seeds I casually scattered sprouted much sooner than expected."
"I need to personally control that puppet."
"If I leave it to instinct alone..."
"...it'll probably die."
"And I'd waste a precious opportunity to successfully infiltrate another world."
Li Tianyun forcibly shoved words like Flesh Seed, puppet, and infiltration to the back of his mind.
Expressionless, he nodded.
"If it's important..."
"...I won't keep you."
"Oh, right."
"Have you really made up your mind?"
"You're planning to abandon your original body?"
"All your previous effort will go to waste."
"You'll have to learn battle qi all over again."
Li Tianyun smiled bitterly.
"Starting over is still better than lying there unable to move."
"Who knows how long that'll last?"
"A month?"
"A year?"
"Besides..."
"...didn't you improve the Divine Blood Potion?"
Kun shook his head.
"That's only the diluted version."
"It can't compare with what you drank."
"My advice is still the same."
"Give it another chance."
"The fragments of law within your soul and bloodline simply need time to harmonize."
"Doesn't Blue Star have a saying?"
"'A sharp sword is forged through relentless tempering.'"
"Some things..."
"...simply can't be rushed."
Li Tianyun laughed.
"At least you used the proverb correctly this time."
After a brief silence...
He nodded.
"Alright."
"I'll keep trying."
He knew Kun meant well.
After enduring so many years...
Waiting a little longer wasn't impossible.
As desperately as he wished to recover...
There was no need to rush this final stretch.
A moment later...
Kun returned to the secret chamber beneath Blackstone Castle.
He first checked on Dawn.
Wrapped tightly within countless vine-like threads as fine as spider silk...
Dawn remained asleep.
However...
All of his vital signs had stabilized.
That meant the Bloodline Potion was gradually being assimilated.
What remained...
Was the hardest part.
He needed to successfully merge the two bloodlines...
Awaken them...
And make the newly acquired bloodline completely his own.
This was where the twenty percent failure rate truly lay.
After all...
Even diluted a thousandfold...
It was still the divine blood of the Sky Goddess.
Subduing it was never going to be easy.
Had it been an ordinary Fourth-Rank bloodline...
Dawn would already have awakened.
But if he failed to master this divine power...
He would sleep forever...
Until death finally claimed him.
There had never been such a thing as effortless power.
Least of all...
The qualification to step into the Realm of Heroes.
Even Kun could do no more.
He had already reduced the original ninety-seven percent mortality rate...
To only twenty percent.
If Dawn ultimately failed...
Then perhaps dying at the very threshold of his lifelong dream...
Would not be such a tragic ending.
Besides...
Failure was still only twenty percent.
Unless Dawn was spectacularly unlucky enough to hit that one-in-five chance...
His odds of awakening remained overwhelmingly favorable.
Kun quickly drew an intricate magic circle across the floor.
The Soul Transfer Array was an extremely obscure spiritual formation.
Very few mages alive could construct it.
The true rarity, however, wasn't the formation itself.
It was the materials required.
White Soul Sand...
And the True Spirit Flower, which had to be sacrificed as the vessel's soul substitute.
The True Spirit Flower was extraordinarily rare.
Though not quite as mythical as the Fountain of Youth...
It could only be found in a handful of the continent's deadliest forbidden regions, such as the Forbidden Scorched Wasteland.
Even for Kun, a Fourth-Rank Abundance Mage...
Cultivating one himself was no easy feat.
Yet it was indispensable.
Without it...
If the transferred body died...
The damage would fall directly upon Kun's own soul.
Soul injuries were among the most terrifying afflictions imaginable.
Minor damage could plunge the mind into irreversible madness.
Severe damage could reduce a person to a mindless shell.
The True Spirit Flower functioned like a fuse.
With it...
The Soul Transfer Array was relatively safe.
Without it...
The ritual became unimaginably dangerous.
Compared with the inexpensive puppet grown from a Flesh Seed...
Kun valued the True Spirit Flower far more.
Fortunately...
As long as the Flesh Seed vessel survived...
The flower could be reused indefinitely.
Sitting cross-legged at the center of the formation...
Kun retrieved the frozen True Spirit Flower from his spatial ring.
With a casual gesture...
He dispersed the frost surrounding it.
Then...
His consciousness slowly descended into his Sea of Consciousness.
For a mage...
Entering one's Sea of Consciousness...
Was meditation.
According to the magical understanding of Eternal Dawn...
Every living being possesses its own Sea of Consciousness.
Countless such seas were linked together through mysterious connections...
Forming the vast Sea of Aether.
Beyond every individual Sea of Consciousness...
Lay the Sea of Aether itself.
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