Chapter 57: Departure Again

Bang—

Su Lin fired several shots, and sword light danced through the air.

“Unsportsmanlike bastard, why don’t you bring a Maxim gun?” Kleine cursed under his breath, his figure flickering and leaping through the flames.

He began attempting to disrupt Su Lin’s “spiritual thread,” hoping to dull Su Lin’s mind.

Indeed, Su Lin’s aiming precision began to drop; a formation appeared beneath his feet, water coils wrapped around his body, automatically blocking the daggers Kleine hurled toward him.

The magician’s elemental manipulation could elevate conventional destructive power to an extremely terrifying level, but the Sequence abilities in this world of the Secret Master were uniquely oriented toward conceptual Boyi .

Sword light soared, flames exploded.

With the aid of the historical projection, Su Lin pushed all his abilities to their absolute limit.

Sword qi and golden light struck from front, back, left, right, and above; Kleine snapped his fingers, leaving behind a paper doll as a decoy.

At the same time, a seed sprouted beneath Su Lin’s feet, a rose bloomed, and a thunderous explosion erupted, accompanied by fire and swirling smoke.

This was Kleine using an illusion technique.

Without giving Su Lin a chance to recover, he fired several air cannons toward the location of Su Lin’s spiritual thread.

The smoke cleared; Su Lin’s body bore several holes, yet his form was dissolving into particles.

Kleine was not at all surprised.

Hum—

A sword’s ringing echoed from the sky; Kleine looked up, and a figure merged with the sun.

A crimson phoenix silhouette spiraled out from behind him.

Sword qi was icy, howling like a northern wind; Su Lin descended like a meteor from beyond the heavens.

From the sky, he fell.

—————————

“Old Zhou, what are you lying here for?” Lu Mingfei dragged his exhausted body, steps unsteady; he didn’t even want to cultivate anymore, just wanted to go back and sleep.

That bastard Ye Fan drained too much blood—he won’t recover in less than ten days.

He said it was just a small bottle, so Lu Mingfei generously agreed.

He never mentioned that the bottle was a treasure, capable of holding countless things.

Lu Mingfei was drained until stars danced before his eyes; he had to swallow several Blood-Replenishing Pills just to recover, but cultivating for the next few days was out of the question.

Along the way, he ate whatever healing fruit or herb he found by the roadside, just as Ye Fan didn’t hold back with him, so he wouldn’t hold back with Su Lin either.

He signed the indenture contract—eating a few fruits is just fair pay for labor.

Technically, it wasn’t really indenture, but Lu Mingfei, for the sake of the fruits, decided to treat it as such, so he could eat and drink guilt-free.

When Lu Mingfei passed the training ground, he saw Kleine lying on the grass beside the path, staring at the sky, lost in thought, sunlight bathing his face in serene calm.

“I’m wondering why a Fortune Teller like me has to train in close combat with him every day,” Kleine propped himself up, sitting on the grass, looking at Lu Mingfei’s weary face. “Now I might have to consider whether cultivation causes kidney deficiency.”

“I’m like this because I got drained…” Lu Mingfei sighed in explanation, then remembered to ask: “Who won today?”

“I did.” Kleine glanced at Lu Mingfei, then fell into thought again.

“Same as always, so why are you sitting here thinking about this?” Lu Mingfei was puzzled; nine out of ten times, Kleine won, and at this point, he should be happily returning to his rented room with his victory prize—his bet—to play video games.

Sometimes it was worthless fruits, sometimes rarer spiritual fruits, sometimes small objects with special abilities—cultivated treasures.

“It’s getting harder to fight,” Kleine recalled his recent battles. “If Su Lin is truly a Golden Core cultivator, without his puppet or prior preparation, the outcome is uncertain.”

After all, he’s not a Sequence built for direct confrontation.

From his first easy win to now, Su Lin has caused him more and more trouble.

Of course, a large part is due to Su Lin’s clone ability and his historical projection power, similar to that of a Sequence Three—Ancient Scholar.

If Su Lin were merely at Foundation Establishment, defeating him would be easy—his spiritual thread is always right there.

“His clones are already a nightmare,” Lu Mingfei agreed. “Who knows if the one you’re fighting is even the real one? No one even knows how many clones he can make.”

“Take down one, another pops up—like a Russian nesting doll,” Lu Mingfei noted while watching. “You finally win, and right beside you, another full-health clone walks out. Isn’t that infuriating?”

Lu Mingfei sat beside Kleine, thinking he might just sleep right here—the sun felt warm.

“Is there a possibility,” Kleine’s expression turned strange; having seen Su Lin use that ability so often, he always felt something off, “that my Sequence—the Ancient Scholar’s ability—is…?”

“That I’m the one who copied it?”

Every time Emiya Shirou activated Durex ON, things appeared from his hands; but every time Su Lin projected something, he reached into his pocket…

And considering he drank that fake wine Su Lin projected—could Su Lin have visited his world?

Kleine had never considered this before, but with Lu Mingfei as precedent, he now suspected Su Lin might have obtained their world’s Potion…

Kleine simply couldn’t understand: how could a Saint be this weak, and still cultivate?

In truth, Kleine would never guess that Su Lin’s ability is assembled from scattered parts.

“It’s not impossible,” Lu Mingfei no longer denied any possibility; after these months, even if you told him the world would end tomorrow, he wouldn’t argue—anything is possible.

Lu Mingfei lay on the grass and asked Kleine: “Are you planning to go back?”

“Mm, I’ve rested enough.” Kleine nodded; unlike others, his main goal was to return to his old environment for a while.

During this time, he felt his mental state stabilize considerably. Though this Earth had no one he knew, playing games every day helped him forget.

Mm, and delicious Chinese food—fried chicken high in oil, salt, and fat, carbonated drinks, and dishes packed with familiar spices.

Some of the money he “earned” with Su Lin went toward these things; he also bought many items to take back, planning to offer them to the Gray Mist for preservation.

Of course, these items were stored in storage pouches—he traded a low-grade sealed object with Han Li for several such pouches.

One of them held many spices—roughly dozens of crates; since Kleine hadn’t yet decided what modern item to “borrow” back to start a business, he’d become a petty trader for now, aiming to get rich quick.