Jiang Lin carefully placed the crystal into a glass bottle and tightened the cap.
The gem rotated slowly within the bottle, its internal starlight refracting through the glass in a mesmerizing blur of light.
“You three can decide how to split the remaining weapons and books.”
Jiang Lin stowed the crystal bottle into his spatial ring and turned to continue exploring the hall.
On the other side of the hall, he discovered another door.
This door was tightly shut, its surface covered in intricate elven runes far more sophisticated than the three-layered seal he had just broken.
He deployed his Space Perception, attempting to probe what lay beyond the door.
“There’s something there. And it’s alive.”
Fenrir immediately set down the weapons he was holding, shouldered his greatsword, and walked to Jiang Lin’s side.
“Guardian puppets?”
Jiang Lin stood before the sealed stone door. After his Space Perception was repelled by a backlash, causing him to take a step back, he raised a hand to signal Fenrir and the others to retreat.
His golden eyes stared at the precise, flowing elven runes on the door. His limit-broken Space Perception allowed him to clearly “see” the structure behind it.
“Twelve of them, all 5th-rank or higher.”
Jiang Lin retracted his perception.
“Beyond the door is a long corridor leading to another hall. The puppets are stationed on both sides of the corridor, providing cover for each other. Triggering one will alert them all.”
Fenrir’s expression turned grim.
Twelve guardian puppets of the 5th-rank or higher was a force capable of shredding everyone present.
He gripped his greatsword tightly, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. “Teacher Matthew, how should we fight them?”
Jiang Lin pondered for a moment before manifesting the Eight Extremities Holy Sword, a weapon he hadn’t used in a long time.
The white-gold blade was wrapped in deep blue ice soul power, and the eight-colored runes at the crossguard flowed slowly.
“It’s simple. I’ll just take care of it myself.”
...
A moment later, the stone door slid open silently.
The corridor beyond was longer than expected. Every ten paces, a fist-sized moonlight stone was embedded in the walls, emitting a constant pale blue glow.
The floor was made of smooth black stone slabs, with an unknown dark red substance solidified in the cracks, gleaming with the color of old blood under the light.
Twelve puppets were arrayed along the sides of the corridor.
They were forged entirely from silver-white metal, humanoid in shape, roughly two meters tall, with complex gear structures at their joints.
A fist-sized pale blue crystal core was embedded in each chest, glowing with the flow of magic essence that pulsed like a heartbeat.
They held a sword in the right hand and a shield in the left. The blades were etched with pale green wind magic patterns, while the shields bore earth-yellow defense runes.
The eyes of the first two puppets lit up with deep blue light, locking onto Jiang Lin as he stepped into the corridor.
The first puppet stepped forward, its right arm swinging the longsword in a horizontal sweep.
The strike was incredibly fast. The wind runes on the blade flared, and a visible gale of green sword qi erupted from the tip, tearing through the air with a sharp whistle.
As 5th-rank peak guardian puppets, their offensive power far exceeded that of ordinary 5th-rank adventurers.
Jiang Lin did not retreat.
He tilted his body, letting the sword qi graze his clothes and strike the stone wall behind him, where it exploded into a web of cracks.
At the same instant, he thrust his sword forward with effortless grace, the tip accurately striking the crystal core in the puppet’s chest.
Deep blue frost spread rapidly from the point of contact, covering the entire crystal core in an instant.
The blue light in the puppet’s eyes flickered violently twice before going dark. Its massive body froze in place, stuck in the middle of its swing, motionless.
“One.”
Jiang Lin retracted his sword and continued forward.
The second, third, and fourth puppets moved simultaneously.
They no longer fought individually but covered each other, attacking from different angles.
Longswords chopped, thrust, and parried, their blades weaving an airtight web of death.
Shields bashed, blocked, and pushed, attempting to corner Jiang Lin.
Jiang Lin lifted a foot and slid back half a step, letting the three lead swords miss simultaneously.
Then, his figure suddenly blurred as if merging with the wind.
Phantom Step · Shadow Wind was pushed to its limit, pulling a golden afterimage through the gaps in the sword web.
His limit-broken super-tier movement technique was practically unbeatable in combat at this level, especially since his opponents were only 5th-rank puppets.
The puppets’ perception systems could capture his movement trajectory, but they couldn't keep up with his changes in direction.
He appeared beside the fifth puppet. The Eight Extremities Holy Sword flicked upward, the blade precisely slicing into the gap of the puppet’s right arm joint.
Ice soul power surged from the tip, freezing the gears, the transmission structure, and the entire arm.
The puppet’s right arm froze in mid-air, its sword unable to fall.
“Two.”
Jiang Lin withdrew his sword, his figure flashing again.
The sixth and seventh puppets flanked him, their swords thrusting toward his sides simultaneously.
He raised his left hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together, and made a light horizontal swipe toward the left puppet’s blade.
Space Cutting!
Wherever his fingertips passed, a razor-thin black rift opened silently.
The moment the puppet’s sword entered the rift, the blade snapped in half, the cut as smooth as a mirror.
The rift closed, and the severed half of the blade hit the ground with a metallic clink.
Third Style · Snow Dance.
The sword in his right hand transformed into a flurry of shadows, each strike accurately hitting a puppet’s crystal core.
Frost spread, and the cores went dark.
“Three.”
Fenrir stood at the entrance of the corridor, his mouth agape, making a choking sound in his throat.
“Is Teacher Matthew... is he fighting puppets or just chopping vegetables?”
Alicia didn't speak. She just stared at Jiang Lin’s figure, the light in her pale gold eyes growing brighter.
“Four, five.”
Jiang Lin’s figure flickered through the corridor. With every pause, a puppet fell.
His movements grew faster. Space Perception allowed him to track the positions and actions of all the puppets at once. Every move he made was on the razor's edge of danger, yet he always managed to evade attacks at the last possible second.
When the crystal core of the ninth puppet went dark under his blade, the final three puppets at the end of the corridor stopped in their tracks.
The deep blue light in their eyes flashed rapidly, seemingly re-evaluating the threat level of this intruder.
Then, they changed.
The right arm of the puppet in the middle suddenly transformed, its blade becoming a massive silver-white battle axe etched with fiery red runes.
The shield on the left puppet’s arm manifested ice-blue defense runes, its surface doubling in thickness.
The puppet on the right took a step back. The light from its crystal core no longer radiated outward but instead began to contract and compress inward.
“They’re switching combat modes!”
Elune’s voice rang out from the corridor entrance, tinged with anxiety.
“Be careful, Matthew! Those puppets are adjusting their tactics based on their opponent!”
Jiang Lin didn't look back; he only gave a slight nod.
His Space Perception had already captured the shift in the magic essence flow within the puppets.
The battle axe puppet’s strength was concentrating on its blade, the shield puppet’s defense runes were stacking layer by layer, and the puppet in the rear...
The magic essence, compressed to its limit, suddenly released. A thick beam of pale blue light erupted from its crystal core, shooting straight toward Jiang Lin.
A long-range attack.
Jiang Lin’s eyes narrowed. He raised his left hand, fingers splayed, and made a grasping motion toward the incoming beam.
Space Folding.
The space between his palm and the beam compressed instantly, temporarily erasing the ten-meter distance.
The moment the beam left the puppet’s chest, it was already touching the tip of Jiang Lin’s sword. Jiang Lin thrust forward violently, directly interrupting the attack while it was still charging.
As the light beam dissipated, Jiang Lin had already vanished from his position.
The battle axe puppet’s massive axe swung down, but it only struck an afterimage.
The shield puppet’s shield released a ring of ice-blue shockwaves. The shockwaves expanded and struck the walls, sending stone fragments flying, but they didn't even touch the hem of Jiang Lin’s clothes.
Jiang Lin appeared behind the puppet that had fired the long-range attack. The Eight Extremities Holy Sword pierced through the back of its neck and emerged from its chest, precisely skewering the crystal core.
“Ten.”
He withdrew his sword and turned, his golden eyes calmly regarding the remaining two puppets.
The fire runes on the battle axe puppet’s blade flared to their limit. The entire axe transformed into a mass of burning flames as it swept toward Jiang Lin.
Jiang Lin stepped forward. Instead of retreating, he charged toward the flames.
The moment the axe blade was about to touch him, his figure blurred. He stepped onto the back of the axe and performed a mid-air flip, sailing over the puppet’s head.
As he landed, his sword pierced the back of the puppet’s neck, skewering its core.
“Eleven.”
Only the shield puppet remained.
It didn't attack. Instead, it held its shield in front of it and knelt, protecting its entire body behind the defense.
The ice-blue defense runes on the shield stacked layer by layer, the light growing brighter and thicker.
Jiang Lin walked up to it, raised his sword, and made a light horizontal swipe against the heavy shield.
Space Cutting.
A razor-thin black rift appeared where the sword tip passed. The multi-layered ice-blue shield split apart, the cut as smooth as a mirror. The rift tore through the shield, through the puppet’s torso, and through the crystal core in its chest.
The runes on the shield went dark layer by layer.
The blue light in the puppet’s eyes flickered twice before fading completely.
“Twelve.”
Jiang Lin sheathed his sword and turned toward the corridor entrance.
Fenrir, Alicia, and Elune were all frozen in place with varying expressions.
Fenrir’s mouth was wide open, his jaw nearly hitting the floor, and he had even forgotten to lower his greatsword.
Alicia’s eyes were incredibly bright, her pale gold pupils reflecting Jiang Lin’s figure. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were silently counting something.
Elune was relatively calm, but her pale purple eyes held an indefinable shimmer.
“Let’s go. Let’s see what’s inside.”
Jiang Lin took the lead, stepping over the wreckage of the puppets and heading toward the end of the corridor.
At the end of the corridor was a massive circular hall.
The ceiling reached dozens of meters high, embedded with dozens of fist-sized moonlight stones. Their light wove together into a pale blue curtain, illuminating the entire space as if it were daylight.
The walls surrounding the hall were covered in dense elven runes, far more complex than those in the previous storage room.
In the center of the hall, a massive altar floated.
The altar was over ten meters in diameter, forged entirely from silver-white metal and covered in dense elven runes.
Silver-white light flowed through the runes, moving slowly across the altar’s surface like living veins.
At the top of the altar, three fist-sized crystals floated.
One was pale gold, with countless tiny golden specks flickering, merging, and exploding within it, as if an entire nebula had been compressed into the small gem.
One was deep blue and transparent, with liquid-like ice-blue light flowing inside, radiating a bone-chilling cold.
One was silver-white, with countless tiny spatial rifts constantly forming, closing, and reforming within. Every opening and closing released a faint but stable spatial fluctuation.
“Are those... Star Core Fragments?” Alicia’s voice was filled with disbelief. “Three of them? And two of them have completely different elemental attributes?”
Jiang Lin walked to the edge of the altar and reached out to touch the silver-white crystal.
The moment his fingertips touched the surface, the spatial rifts inside the crystal suddenly became active, like a disturbed swarm of bees.
He could clearly feel the rifts opening and closing frantically within the crystal, each movement releasing massive amounts of spatial magic essence.
“This is a space-attribute Star Core Fragment.”
He withdrew his hand and turned to the other two.
“The gold one should be light-attribute, and the deep blue one is ice-attribute.”
“Ice-attribute?”
Fenrir scratched his head. “An ice-attribute Star Core Fragment? Isn't that for ice mages? Does anyone here even know ice magic?”
Jiang Lin remained silent for a moment before reaching out to touch the deep blue ice-attribute Star Core Fragment.
The moment the crystal touched his hand, a bone-chilling cold surged through his fingertips and into his body, creating a powerful resonance with the Eternal Ice Soul deep within his soul.
The sensation was like two magnets attracting each other, or two strings vibrating at the same frequency. The ice soul power within him suddenly became active.
The ice-blue light within the crystal began to flow, moving faster and growing brighter.
Then, the entire crystal suddenly erupted with a blinding ice-blue light, enveloping him.
The light lasted for several breaths before slowly receding.
The ice-attribute Star Core Fragment in his hand had dimmed significantly, with only about half of its original light remaining.
“Can you feel it?”
Elune walked up to him, studying him closely. “Is there any change?”
Jiang Lin closed his eyes and looked inward.
The Eternal Ice Soul had grown considerably, expanding from the size of a child’s fist to that of an adult’s.
His ice affinity had increased by another margin. The ice soul power that he previously had to consciously mobilize now flowed naturally with just a thought.
Even his every movement carried a faint, almost imperceptible chill— a natural manifestation of his excessively high ice affinity.
“My ice affinity has increased by about twenty percent.”
He opened his eyes and placed the now-dimmed ice-attribute Star Core Fragment into another crystal bottle. Then, he reached out to touch the space-attribute Star Core Fragment.
However, it seemed that because he had already absorbed a previous space-attribute Star Core Fragment to his current limit, he was unable to absorb this one.
Thus, he picked up the golden light-attribute Star Core Fragment.
The light-attribute Star Core Fragment felt warm to the touch, lacking the bone-chilling cold of the ice one. It possessed a pure energy that made his spirits rise.
The moment the energy surged into his body, the holy light magic essence granted to him by the God of Holy Light began to flow faster, resonating with the crystal’s energy.
The feeling was completely different from the ice attribute. While the ice attribute resonated with the Eternal Ice Soul within him, the light attribute resonated directly with his own holy light magic essence.
This was his most fundamental power.
...
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