Chapter 97: New Skill Effect

He knew this feeling all too well.

Every time the Flying Blossom Sword improved even a little, he would fall into this same blind confidence.

At first, on a few occasions, he had foolishly and eagerly run off to challenge his master, and then... well, his master had beaten him so badly it was pitiful.

Lou Yuhui banished those miserable memories from his mind. In any case, unless they ran into another pack of Iron Hedgehog Beasts...

This time, Yu Yan would not make a move. He would do it himself!

And if the result could be anywhere near Yu Yan’s... no, even if it were only one-tenth as good, then he would believe what Yu Yan said.

Thinking of this, Lou Yuhui suddenly felt excited.

Yu Yan did not seem like someone who spoke nonsense. Since she had said so, perhaps his strength really had improved a great deal?

For a moment, Lou Yuhui was eager to test himself, impatient to encounter another senseless pack of Iron Hedgehog Beasts and put his greatly improved Flying Blossom Sword Technique to the test!

Unfortunately, Yu Yan had come to a stop on the tree.

Not only that, but an invisible layer of psychic force now covered her entire body. He knew Yu Yan had activated the skill that concealed her presence.

“Big Sister Yan?”

Lou Yuhui looked at her in confusion.

“Hush.”

Yu Yan gently shook her head at him. “Don’t make a sound. If you want to test your strength, there will be plenty of chances.”

Only, no one yet knew what kind of beast was coming this time, or how strong it was. If they were terribly unlucky and the beast horde that rushed over exceeded their ability to handle, then staying hidden and waiting it out was unquestionably the best choice.

After so long in practice, Yu Yan had also discovered something.

She seemed to have underestimated just how much the Heaven-Rank Twelve-Grade Plant Spirit had enhanced those four plant-spirit skills of hers.

Creation needed no further mention; by now, her plant-spirit small world had become a world of its own.

As the variety of plants and animals inside it grew richer, the last time Yu Yan had sunk her consciousness into the small world, she had actually discovered a species she had never seen before. They had three pairs of transparent little wings and flitted among the flowering spirit fruit trees.

A little like bees, and a little like dragonflies. If caught, they would chirp and squeal wildly, their eyes narrowing with fierce hostility.

These creatures were strange. It seemed they could coexist peacefully with everything that moved within the instance. Whether it was the young Cloud-Backed Golden-Eyed Crocodiles, already showing signs of a brutal nature at such a tender age, or the Rainbow-Plumed Golden-Spotted Plovers that had already begun laying eggs.

Once they saw these little creatures, they almost ignored them as if they were air.

Speaking of the young Cloud-Backed Golden-Eyed Crocodiles, they had devoured many low-rank sea fish in Yu Yan’s small world. They even eyed those few egg-laying golden-spotted plovers with obvious hunger. To keep them from tormenting her egg-laying plovers, Yu Yan had deliberately divided their activity zones within the space.

Yu Yan possessed absolute control over her plant-spirit small world.

With only the slightest movement of thought, whenever the little crocodiles tried to leave their designated area, they would be blocked back by an invisible barrier.

Otherwise, she truly would not have been able to keep raising these few little crocodiles.

That was Creation. Now to speak of Biotransformation.

Both being spirit-vein enhancers, her time refining a spirit vein differed from Yun Duoer’s by only two days.

Yu Yan had to keep entering and leaving instances to travel, and she also had to find suitable instance monsters to kill, so she had rarely had the chance to cultivate in peace.

By contrast, Yun Duoer was not brought into any S-rank instance by Yu Yan. Even in instances below S-rank, when mother and daughter traveled together, Yu Yan would always leave the child time to sleep and rest. When they were on the road, she would carry her or bear her on her back—mainly because Yun Duoer walked too slowly, and there was no comparison with Yu Yan herself under the boost of Windstride.

Yun Duoer was an ambitious child, and whenever that happened, she would find every possible way to cultivate.

Yet even so, she had now reached the peak of fourth grade.

As for Yun Duoer, though she too was fourth grade, she was only at the initial stage.

The effect of Biotransformation was plain to see.

Moreover, Yu Yan could feel that as both her plant-spirit mark and her rank as a plant-spirit enhancer rose, the effect of her Biotransformation skill was also increasing. If the effect when she had first obtained the Spatial Illusion Lotus plant spirit had been one, then now it was at least three, perhaps even five.

These two passive skills were like that.

As for Mimicry and Illusion, since advancing to the Mystic Rank, they too had acquired new abilities.

Yu Yan’s disguise now had two layers. First came the Illusion skill, which concealed her identity as a plant-spirit enhancer.

If there were an enhancer whose rank was higher than hers—like Lou Yuhui, whose wind ability was already at Mystic Rank, fifth grade—then he would be able to see the plant-spirit mark that Mimicry had formed on Yu Yan’s brow, a Mimicked Fire-Shadow Illusion Lotus mark.

The newly born ability of Mimicry had surprised Yu Yan greatly.

It could actually bring out part of the abilities of the mimicked plant-spirit mark.

In other words, if the plant-spirit mark she had mimicked was the Fire-Shadow Illusion Lotus, then she could use the Fire-Shadow Illusion Lotus’s plant-spirit skill—A Skyful of Fire-Shadow.

Although the effect would be greatly weakened, it was still a skill she had gained for nothing.

When unleashed, A Skyful of Fire-Shadow made for a grand spectacle.

Though its actual killing power was ridiculously weak, A Skyful of Fire-Shadow had always been a bluster-heavy skill to begin with. Among the rain of scorching fire-lotus petals, if one out of a hundred actually carried killing force, that was already excellent.

The version Yu Yan mimicked had an even lower proportion.

Roughly only one or two out of a hundred petals could exert true fire-type lethality.

But for confusing enemies, and combined with her Illusion skill and wind blades, the effect was truly spectacular.

Yu Yan imagined the scenes of future battles.

In one-on-one close combat, of course it would be the perfect assassination combo of concealing her aura with Illusion, using Featherleaf Razor-Banyan Leaves, and striking with Windstride.

If it were group combat, then A Skyful of Fire-Shadow, wind blades, and the countless fake wind blades and fake fire-shadow lotus petals created through Illusion would mix together, true and false interwoven, false and true indistinguishable.

Among the wind blades were also special ones that guided direction and executed pinpoint attacks.

Tsk tsk. If the enemy’s mental fortitude were just a little weaker, they would probably be scared to death on the spot.

Even someone with a strong psyche would likely end up with a throbbing headache from the sight of it.

Yu Yan could not help but curve her lips in a small smile.

As for Illusion, it was the skill Yu Yan was most satisfied with out of the four. Even before its newly born ability emerged, she had already grown increasingly unable to do without it. Roaming through instance worlds, Illusion had spared her countless troubles.

Precisely because of Illusion’s existence, monsters below Mystic Rank, no matter how numerous, could no longer pose any threat to her.

Of course, that excluded a few instance monster groups especially gifted in spiritual perception or psychic power.

Now that it had developed a new ability, the things Yu Yan created through Illusion had acquired a degree of physical quality.

She had discovered this not long ago. The Firefly-Patterned Yellow Butterfly she had conjured within the Soul-Devouring Firefly Sea was mostly a dual deception of sight and spiritual perception.

In truth, she was still Yu Yan herself. She had not truly become a Firefly-Patterned Yellow Butterfly.

Yet on her arms, the backs of her hands, and even on the exposed skin all over her body, luminous yellow spots had appeared in stripes and patches.

Those were precisely the most distinctive features of the Firefly-Patterned Yellow Butterfly.

This even led Yu Yan to suspect that within that Soul-Eating Grassland, and among the ghost orchids growing on the trees, there might in fact be beings above seventh grade. But because the Firefly-Patterned Yellow Butterfly she had created through Illusion possessed part of the butterfly’s physical quality, they had mistaken Yu Yan for a real Firefly-Patterned Yellow Butterfly, and thus had not attacked.

Later, when she used Illusion to create Soul-Eating Grass leaves, the same thing happened. Yu Yan’s body had not changed; she still had arms, legs, and a head.

Yet her skin had turned the exact same green as the Soul-Eating Grass leaves, blending into the sea of grass almost as one.