Chapter 91: Discussion

Translator: Irene Editor: Pranav

Changing direction mid-air!

Between the shades of light and shadow of the bean pod’s image, the fuzzy figure of the earth elementalist could be seen charging towards Zu Yan. He flew into the sky and made a major turn halfway. The deflection was very large, like a bat gliding in low altitude.

Zu Yan accumulated all the strength in his body and directed it to his heavy leg, but he still missed.

The earth elementalist made a bizarre arc and appeared behind Zu Yan.

The moment he landed, Zu Yan’s muscles seemed to have tensed. Both of them watching were seasoned battlers, and upon seeing Zu Yan’s slight movement, they knew it was getting serious.

The earth elementalist sprung up from the ground, and his back struck Zu Yan.

They promptly saw Zu Yan turn into an afterimage as he flew out of their field of vision like a rubber ball shooting upwards from a seesaw. The wood elementalist controlling the mirage bean pod was obviously shocked by this scene. The scene was frozen still for a good few seconds before the wood elementalist regained control of his senses and redirected the mirage bean pod.

In between the light and shadow of the mirage bean pod, Zu Yan’s body could be seen stuck to the light cover like a baked flatbread.

“Must be painful,” Zhou Xiaoxi commented, as he looked lifelessly at the flatbread man in the image and swallowed his saliva with a little bit of difficulty.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt.” Li Wei shook his head with a similar dull expression. “He’s unconscious; he can’t feel a thing.”

Snap! The light and shadow image disappeared from the nepenthes cage.

“That’s…. that’s it?” Zhou Xiaoxi, who had just regained his senses, fell into a daze once again. Two seconds later, a mournful shriek loud enough to tear the roof apart sounded out. “Not one minute’s up and it’s already over? Where’s the absolute art? I can’t even see his face clearly! Earth elementalist? Where’s the sand puppet? Where are the other people? That’s all? How dare you sell the tickets at a hundred thousand yuan for this kind of show? Ahhhhhh…I’m gonna kill somebody! Don’t stop me!”

“A hundred thousand?” Li Wei looked disdainfully at Zhou Xiaoxi and did not forget to rub it in. “I don’t know if you have assets in terms of face and body, but money? I know you do! And brains? None for sure!”

Pfff. A puff of mist exited the nepenthes, releasing a burp-like sound that seemed to give an affirmation to Li Wei’s words. “Light-swallowing, shadow-spitting” nepenthes sounded like a mighty name but it was actually a very simple type of plant—its most unique trait was that it wasn’t picky about food.

When the wood elementalists first bred the mirage bean pod, they found an awkward fact—the smell of the bean was rejected by all flora and fauna.

The initial test subject was a colorful chameleon. Its skin could spray out multicolored light, creating an illusion around its surroundings to protect itself. But the experiment had quickly failed because the chameleon was badly poisoned after eating the bean.

Images stored inside the movie bean were screened successfully only after the wood elementalists had discovered a special kind of nepenthes. This was how it was given such an imperious name.

The two of them briefly stood in silence, digesting the scene from earlier.

“There’s finally a powerful fellow but he turns out to be an earth elementalist. How unexpected.” Zhou Xiaoxi was disappointed as the North Sea was recruiting water elementalists.

“It’s a pity there’s no sand puppet.” Li Wei was curious. “An earth elementalist good at battling close-range…I really wonder how his sand puppet would be like.”

Seasoned fighters like them knew that in order to evaluate an earth elementalist, they would have to understand his sand puppet. The sand puppet was the real trump card.

One must not judge a wood elementalist’s battling abilities before assessing his sand puppet.

“That was a mid-air direction switch, eh?” Zhou Xioaxi was slightly uncertain. “Recognize the move yet?”

Between the two of them, although Li Wei looked a little more forthright, their personalities were completely opposite. Zhou Xiaoxi had a carefree personality while Li Wei was more meticulous in nature.

“No.” Li Wei shook his head. “Doing a mid-air switch is possible, albeit difficult. Don’t forget that he’s an earth elementalist. He has a sand puppet.”

“Reasonable.” Zhou Xiaoxi lightly touched his chin before asking, “Don’t you feel that the back leaning move was similar to [Arching Fish Back]?”

Actually, when he had first seen that move, Li Wei had immediately thought about the series of dents on the wall of the Suspending Golden Pagoda. Could it be Ai Hui? This idea flashed through his mind before he quickly shook it off. Although his build matched the dents, he had just activated his natal residence. It was impossible for him to possess such combat strength.

Plus, this was an earth elementalist. Ai Hui, on the other hand, was definitely of the metal attribute.

“I’m more willing to believe that it’s [Back to the Mountain],” Li Wei said.

Zhou Xiaoxi understood; although the earth elementalist’s move seemed to be similar to [Arching Fish Back], the power released far exceeded that of it.

[Arching Fish Back] was a technique that was used for struggling free instead of attacking.

“There are all kinds of freaks this year. How can an earth elementalist be an earth elementalist if he doesn’t engage his sand puppet when fighting?” Zhou Xiaoxi mumbled to himself.

“Youngsters nowadays are fierce!” Li Wei sighed. Zu Yan’s performance was already pretty solid but that earth elementalist’s abilities were even more outstanding. The disparity between levels could be made up with time but a gap between talent wasn’t something that could be easily filled.

Li Wei did not know why, but after viewing the movie bean, he all the more yearned to urgently recruit Ai Hui.

He felt that Ai Hui was undoubtedly the most suitable fellow for the Infantry Division!

What should he do?

Li Wei decided that no matter what, he had to meet Ai Hui personally before thinking further.

The embroidery workshop.

As usual, Mingxiu was reporting to her teacher. The workshop had received many orders of different priorities; some were urgent while others could wait. Some required her teacher to attend to personally while others could be taken care of by Mingxiu. She organized and handled the tasks well; Han Yuqin was extremely reassured and satisfied with this beloved disciple of hers.

After listening to Mingxiu’s report, Han Yuqin asked about Ai Hui. “How’s your junior doing recently?”

“Not much progress.” Mingxiu shook her head, and she hesitated a little before continuing, “I’m afraid that Twilight Silk’s too difficult for him. It’s not easy even for me. Should we change it to something else?”

Han Yuqin hesitated as well. Mingxiu didn’t seem to be exaggerating.

Unlike what Ai Hui thought, Twilight Silk was not sold in the market at an extremely high price because of the rarity of twilight silkworm cocoons. In fact, twilight silkworm cocoons were really cheap. They were resistant to water and fire, as solid as iron, and not many insects liked nibbling on them. Herbal medicine used to treat the cocoons were not worth much either.

Actually, it was so pricey because it was too difficult to collect.

The silk spinner had to have sufficiently pure elemental energy to solidify the gluey natural silk. Furthermore, a very stable and precise control of elemental energy was needed. Any slight disturbance in concentration would cause the silk to break.

Once the silk was broken, it couldn’t be joined back—this meant that it was impossible to make a long silk strand from many short ones.

And the whole process was time consuming and produced little output. Whenever Han Yuqin needed it, she would purchase it directly instead of producing it on her own.

To be fair, Han Yuqin also felt that Twilight Silk was too difficult for Ai Hui.

But to change it?

Thinking about this, she couldn’t help but ask, “How does Ai Hui feel about it?”

After all, she was someone who had already taken in disciples. She knew that when it came to youngsters, difficult tasks would dampen their zeal.

As an afterthought, Han Yuqin added, “Discuss it with him first.”