Stelle drew both her baseball bat and flame spear, kicking off the second phase of her battle against the Abundant Ebon Deer. She barely scratched its health bar before the beast unleashed a ruthless regeneration skill, restoring its HP in an instant.
"Can't we nerf this thing already?!" Stelle grumbled as she pressed the attack, but a nagging realization hit her: so far, her arsenal lacked any real heavy hitters. March 7th's ice spears were all about crowd control, and these days, raw damage output was what ruled the battlefield.
"This isn't working—fall back for now, March."
"Got it!" March 7th revved up her ice spear's mechanism, flash-freezing the Abundant Ebon Deer into a glittering ice sculpture. Imaginary chains snapped around it next, locking it in place. Six-Phased Ice was no ordinary freeze—it obeyed the whims of imaginary laws, impervious to outside meddling. And with a slight tweak from Adrian, its durability was even more ironclad. The deer wouldn't budge anytime soon.
"Follow me," Welt said, his objective crystal clear. The roots of the Ambrosial Arbor had ravaged the Artisanship Commission the worst. To shatter the creature's Abundance blessing, they needed to start their investigation there.
...
Meanwhile, in the Furnace of Creation.
"Why this wall again?!"
Freesna's mouth twitched in frustration—it had shown up once before on Jarilo-VI, and she wasn't about to let it happen twice. "Damn it!"
"Heh, getting blocked by a barrier just means your power's not up to snuff," Blake taunted, stepping forward at last. This familiar crimson glow... it had to be another Emanator of Elation stirring things up on the Luofu.
"A mere wall like this? I'll shatter it with a flick of my wrist." Blake tossed out a casual burst of holy light, but the red barrier didn't even flicker.
Hmm...
He turned to find Freesna wearing a look of pure mockery. She said nothing, just fished a red ball from her pocket and lobbed it his way. "Here—suits you."
With his attack doing absolutely nothing, Blake got the message. "Oh~ So it's the wicked Lord of Elation at play." He plopped down on the ground beside her, abandoning the pointless effort. A barrier forged by an Aeon? Not even another Emanator could crack it.
"Looks like that Abundance monstrosity got flung over there," Freesna said, nodding toward the Divination Commission. She and Blake shared a vague sense of foreboding.
"May Eternity watch over us."
After a quick prayer, Blake unrolled a sheet of parchment and began meticulously copying passages from the Book of Eternal Virtues.
...
Deep inside the Artisanship Commission, everything felt achingly familiar: the same workshop, the same Master Gongshu, and the same cluster of battered mechanical constructs.
The moment Freesna and Blake appeared, Master Gongshu pieced it together and confirmed the identities of Stelle's group.
"I knew it... General Jing Yuan wouldn't send just the two of you to help out here. This must be the second wave of reinforcements..."
"Second wave?" March 7th wracked her brain but came up blank. Who could the old master be talking about? Had Diviner Fu shifted plans to prioritize the Artisanship Commission?
"Take a look—this is one of our unfinished masterpieces from the Commission: the Mirror-Painting Screen. Lucky for us, I had my disciples haul it out for testing right before the wood spirit crashed the party. The apprentices barely escaped with their lives."
Master Gongshu spun around and gestured proudly to the device. "You all remember those Jade Gate doors popping up out of nowhere? Well, this screen does the same trick—it links two spatial coordinates through some... ahem, method that's a bit too arcane for outsiders to wrap their heads around."
"With tech like this, why bother with star skiffs at all?" March 7th wondered aloud. It sounded like a stripped-down version of a hyperjump, low-spec but functional.
"Exactly," Master Gongshu agreed with a nod. "The only downsides are the range limit and the massive energy drain. Otherwise, this baby could put star skiffs out of business entirely!"
"So it's basically impossible to use reliably? Sounds way better than those domain anchors from the Trailblaze crew, though..."
Master Gongshu sighed, his shoulders slumping. "What can I say? We had plans to whisk you lot straight to the other side with it, but then—oops—the screen got all tangled up in those wood spirit branches. Ah!" He struck a dramatic pose, one eyebrow arched in clear invitation for Stelle's group to lend a hand.
"Thanks for the rundown, Master. We'll be off then!" Stelle clasped her fists in a quick salute. Someday, I'll have to pick up Adrian's Myriad Gates trick for real.
"Hey, hey, hold on! Have a little faith in this old timer. The Artisanship Commission's got ingenuity on par with creation itself!"
Stelle let out a wistful sigh. "Man, I suddenly miss Teacher Adrian. Compared to this Mirror-Painting Screen, his Myriad Gates feel a lot more trustworthy."
"Teacher Adrian's been gone so long without a word... Hiss—do you think he ran into trouble on the way back?!"
"March, there's a chance: after dropping off Lady Qingque, maybe he just hunkered down at that milk tea shop?" Stelle speculated. With Adrian's status as an Emanator, it wasn't hard to imagine. The Ambrosial Arbor's revival might shock anyone else, but he'd stay cool as ever, like he'd witnessed far grander spectacles. Sigh... That little Arbor's probably not even worth a sip of milk tea in his eyes.
"Hmph, a mere wood spirit? Piece of cake! Come on, let me show you something big." Master Gongshu bustled over to a cluster of instruments and began calibrating them with practiced hands.
"The second that wood spirit barged in, this old man's mind went straight to this."
He unveiled the device with a flourish. "Codename: Box of Flowing Light. The Cloud Knights commissioned it themselves—a weapon of tremendous power. The catch is..."
"Too short a range and way too energy-hungry?" Welt cut in, already guessing the flaws.
"As the saying goes, every strength has its shadow side. Sigh... But for dealing with this blind, burrowing wood spirit that's infested the Commission? More than enough."
Master Gongshu laid out the plan. "Fire beats wood—it's unbeatable!"
Stelle stowed her bat and ignited the Ambrosial Arbor's branches with her flame spear first, just to test. No dice. Her mouth twisted in a pout. Jarilo-VI tech is just too damn primitive sometimes.
She fine-tuned the Box of Flowing Light next, unleashing a barrage that splintered the rampant forks of the Arbor in a shower of debris.
"Not bad at all—master shows the door, and you walk right through. You're leagues ahead of my do-nothing disciples." Master Gongshu beamed, clearly pleased with Stelle's handling of the controls.
The ground trembled faintly, and he let out a relieved breath. "Whew... That's the stuff. Looks like we deployed this treasure just right. Bet that wood spirit's writhing in agony now—uncomfortable from head to toe. Hahaha!"
"Alright, no time to waste—let's hop through the Mirror-Painting Screen to the other side before those branches start regrowing."
"Hold up." Stelle unclasped her hourglass necklace and yanked it free. The flame spear had flopped, so why not try another Eternity relic from Jarilo-VI?
"Hey... this necklace is way too handy, isn't it?" It had slurped up Stellaron Cores before, vacuumed in Denizens of Abundance during that storm—surely it's not just a glorified shop vac?
"Master Gongshu, you're only skimming the surface here. I mean, that's not nearly thorough enough!"
Stelle slammed the necklace onto the ground, a wild idea sparking in her mind: What if I pull the Ambrosial Arbor's power straight out from the inside?