Chapter 595: Supernatural Ability

The sun finally left the peak of the snow mountain, and the plateau sky was once again covered in a pure deep blue. Luo Qi haphazardly put on his coat, patted the mud spots off it, and headed straight for Du Zhengyi with a head of messy hair and sleepy eyes.

"We're not in a rush to leave, are we?" Luo Qi forced his eyes open and scanned the people around him briefly, his hazy gaze lingering on Guan Xinyue's face for a few seconds before he pulled it away before she could open fire on him. He smiled ingratiatingly at Du Zhengyi, "Pineapple bun or salmon rice ball, which one do you want?" Du Zhengyi glanced at Luo Qi's raised hands, where the initial Magic Energy for manifesting food was ready to go. He really hadn't eaten breakfast; he had long since grown tired of magic beans, and finally, someone was willing to delve into Cooking Magic. "Salmon rice ball, I guess."

"Uh... I only know how to make pineapple buns," Luo Qi said.

"Then why the hell did you ask?"

"Doesn't asking like that make me seem like a gentleman? What if you had chosen a pineapple bun, wouldn't that have worked out?" Luo Qi said without blushing, "Or would you prefer an Oreo..."

"No Oreos," Du Zhengyi said quickly; he had had enough of days filled with Oreos, "Just the pineapple bun."

Du Zhengyi watched skeptically as a bulging bun slowly expanded above Luo Qi's palm. A grid pattern appeared evenly on the bun's caramel-colored belly; in appearance, it was indeed a pineapple bun.

"Do you ladies want any?" Luo Qi turned to Liu Ziyi and Guan Xinyue, his eyes still heavy with sleep. Guan Xinyue had been feeling nauseous and declined weakly, and Liu Ziyi also shook her head vigilantly.

Luo Qi ignored the others, took a big bite of the bun, and continued to ask Du Zhengyi, "Latte or black tea, which would you like to drink?"

"Black tea..." Du Zhengyi looked at Luo Qi's wide-open eyes and said tactfully, "Make it a latte."

Luo Qi triumphantly performed his alchemy and made two lattes, "Standard espresso with sixty-degree milk."

Du Zhengyi looked at the coffee cup, "It seems there's no milk foam."

Luo Qi's face turned a bit green, "I don't know how to create foam. How about you add some Oreo crumbs? Oreos really are the universal seasoning."

"Thanks, it's a latte even without the foam," Du Zhengyi said hurriedly.

Luo Qi squinted his sleepy eyes, broke off a piece of bread for his kitten, and yawned over the mellow coffee. It was rare for people to walk straight into the small circle they had formed, so Luo Qi perked up a little.

"Child, are you alright?"

Luo Qi looked up and saw the concerned look in Xiang Qian's eyes. Her jawline was too firm, and her frame was broader than the average woman's, but only her eyes shone with a gentle and steady light. "Morning, Nainai. Would you like a cup of coffee?"

Xiang Qian looked at him for a moment, "You slept quite soundly, like a human child."

Luo Qi bared his teeth in a smile at her, better behaved than the cat. Suddenly, another person nearby butted in bluntly, "It looks like he's fallen into Chaos. You've heard of it, right? A common ailment for Mind Mages: the consciousness falls into fragments of Chaos and cannot recognize reality; it can manifest as deep sleep or schizophrenia."

Luo Qi immediately felt a mouthful of bread stuck in his throat and turned to glare at Zhou Ruisi in annoyance; that dense bookworm loved to talk about the knowledge in his head.

"It's all the biological clock's fault; I usually wake up much later than this," Luo Qi said thoughtfully, sneaking a glance at Du Zhengyi to see if he was paying attention. Du Zhengyi looked down on Zhou Ruisi a bit, and Zhou Ruisi talked too much nonsense; perhaps Du Zhengyi wasn't listening to him at all.

Unexpectedly, Zhou Ruisi could not agree with him in theory and was quite addicted to debating, so he retorted in one sentence, "That's impossible. The biological clock can only exist in a natural state. Given our physical characteristics as Mages, the noise caused by so many people moving and talking is equivalent to a human hearing a train pass by; one would be woken up immediately. Luo Mage, have you fallen into a mild state of Chaos? I think you have."

Luo Qi gripped his bread, wanting to roast this idiot but finding himself speechless. This tactless, blunt youth couldn't read the room at all. Luo Qi couldn't believe he had suffered such a loss; he looked at him, then at his bread, still unable to speak, his facial muscles stiffening. Du Zhengyi put down his coffee cup and looked at him silently.

Who would have thought that Zhou Ruisi wouldn't let him off, like a good student who refused to give up on a point of knowledge, "I saw Du Mage call you several times, and he even shook you a few times."

Luo Qi didn't want to actually get angry out of shame—that would be too embarrassing—but his old face was starting to turn red. Just then, Guan Xinyue finally took her hand off her forehead and looked at Zhou Ruisi impatiently, "Why are you being so aggressive toward Luo Qi?"

"What... me?" Zhou Ruisi was taken aback, looking at Guan Xinyue in surprise.

Guan Xinyue frowned and spat fire at him, "And what's the meaning of you insisting on comparing us to humans? The movement of this few people is like a human hearing a train to you? Such delicate ears; I hear dog ears are like that too, what's there to be proud of?"

"I... I didn't mean to offend," Zhou Ruisi looked at Guan Xinyue uneasily. A frail-looking young girl was pointing fingers at him, and he was a bit flustered.

Guan Xinyue gave an impatient "Tch" and poured all her anger onto Zhou Ruisi, "Don't talk as if you know humans very well. Indeed, our ears are far inferior to a dog's, but when it comes to sleeping, it varies from person to person. Some people wake up because someone is walking in slippers upstairs, while others sleep like the dead living right next to a railway."

Zhou Ruisi couldn't get a word in, even holding his breath. He looked around awkwardly, but no one wanted to rescue him. Luo Qi silently continued to eat his bread and even took a leisurely sip of coffee.

Zhou Ruisi's uneasy appearance let Guan Xinyue vent her anger, so she stopped talking about him. Whether to break the awkwardness or not, Zhou Ruisi spoke to Luo Qi again, "What is our mission today?"

Luo Qi looked up from his bread, "Ah? I don't know."

"Then... did the magic experiment by Du Mage and Liu Mage not yield any results?" Zhou Ruisi looked puzzledly at the magic array in the corner of the camp.

Out of the corner of his eye, Luo Qi caught Du Zhengyi and Liu Ziyi exchanging a subtle glance. He swallowed the nonsense that was about to burst out, "Do you want a cup of coffee?"

Zhou Ruisi looked at him with concern, "Luo Mage, why aren't you paying any attention? Don't you have any spells to try here? In theory, Mind Mages are capable of driving Ancient Magic. I think you should try to establish a connection with Progenitor Magic and actively trigger the Background Magic here to respond to you. Yes, I think it's Background Magic; there must be some already-activated magic sleeping at a shallow level here, otherwise, we wouldn't all feel a bit uneasy."

Luo Qi swallowed the bread; this time, the bread seemed to have stiffened in his stomach. He knew how to open the door and roughly knew the possible direction, but in terms of protocol, he had neither the qualification nor the possibility to know these things. That aside, why did this short-sighted, blunt youth hit the nail on the head with every sentence? He must have had bad luck to run into such an idiot.

This time it was Xiang Qian who spoke, looking at Zhou Ruisi in confusion, "Everything you're saying is from ancient records, right? No one has believed in these for the last few hundred years; the sources of ancient records aren't necessarily reliable."

"Yeah, it's too dogmatic," Luo Qi followed up, swallowing the bread in two or three bites, "What exactly is your misunderstanding of me? I'm a junior Mind Mage. A beginner! A novice! What do you expect from me? To chant a spell and have the heavens collapse and the earth crack and the Ancestor appear?"

But Luo Qi was destined to be unlucky today. Just as he finished speaking, a bolt of Lightning Technique streaked across the high sky. He looked up subconsciously, thinking his eyes had played tricks on him. Then, a huge thunderous sound came from the glacier. Everyone looked toward the glacier, and a spherical blue lightning bolt streaked across the peak again. The thunder echoed through the He Gu, and the ground beneath everyone's feet trembled accordingly.

"Fuck!" Luo Qi muttered, looking at the snow mountain while facing Zhou Ruisi's suspicious gaze.

(End of chapter)