Chapter 94

Chapter 94: Stacking Two Strikes to Summon a Fire Cloud

Two hours later, Immortal Lord Chang Li returned to the training field; Shen Sang Ruo’s hair was soaked with sweat and she looked spent, yet her bright, steady eyes stayed locked on him.

He did not bother with polite questions this time, and with a casual lift of his hand, countless fireballs gathered behind him; with a snap of his fingers, the fireballs shot toward Shen Sang Ruo like before.

She had prepared well and reacted the instant they flew out; pouring in all her strength, she swept her fan, sending a vast wave of sunset light to collide with the fireballs, as if that wide attack might swallow them all.

Immortal Lord Chang Li frowned, because he could see no fire cloud forming in the sky; this strike was still only the first stage of the Sunset Glassfire Art, grand in show but without real effect on the fireballs. [Has she really not figured out how to summon the fire cloud in two hours? Is she still stuck on just making the attack bigger?]

He pressed down his doubts and kept watching.

Flames roared across the field. The fireballs pierced her attack with ease, and her face showed she had expected that result. Without a hint of panic, she used what remained of her strength and added a second sweep of the fan in quick succession; sweat flicked from her hair tips, arced through the air, and flashed into steam under the heat.

That second sweep almost drained her dantian and meridians of spiritual power, and it was clearly faster than the first. Aside from speed, though, Immortal Lord Chang Li sensed no difference, and still no fire cloud formed. [Does she think one sweep is not enough, so she will swing again to stack damage and smash my fireballs? If that is her plan, I am not impressed.] [Either her idea is too naive, or she is underestimating my fireballs.]

Widening the range meant spreading the damage thin, and it was still only first stage flame. To the fireballs, this was just a surface scratch. Worse, she had no spare spiritual power left for a third strike.

Countless thoughts flashed through Immortal Lord Chang Li’s mind; he was about to recall the fireballs and send her back to practice more when something changed and his eyes widened on their own.

The second wave of sunset light caught up with the first; the instant they overlapped, a layer of fire cloud bloomed overhead. The cloud stretched forward along the path of the second wave like a Phoenix sweeping its wings, and wherever the second wave passed, the fire cloud covered the sky.

At that moment, her attack changed in quality. Rolling Glazed Flame poured down from the cloud to meet the fireballs head on, sparks bursting in every direction. In this way she raised both range and quality at once. [If one fan sweep cannot solve it, then use two.]

In the end she only cut each fireball’s power by half, but she halved all the fireballs at once. The shift was so wild that Immortal Lord Chang Li froze for a beat, then his surprise flipped to delight.

If she repeated those two connected sweeps, she could wipe out every fireball in a very short time. His doubts turned into excitement as he stared at Shen Sang Ruo, eager for her to unleash that dazzling Spellcraft again.

Instead, Shen Sang Ruo folded her Luan Feather Fan and plopped down on the ground; she tossed her hands as if to say she was done and simply let the half strength fireballs keep coming, making no move at all.

Immortal Lord Chang Li was stunned. When the nearest fireball was less than a meter from her, he flung up a hand and yanked all the fireballs away, so rushed that he choked on his own spit and coughed: “Cough, cough!”

He had acted in time. The closest fireball vanished when it was only a palm’s width from her. His heart felt ready to leap out of his chest, and then he saw her calm, smiling face and stalled again.

He scolded her, still shaken: “You are awfully calm. Why did you not keep attacking? If I had been a moment later, you would have been roasted.”

She flicked her Luan Feather Fan and answered lightly: “Those two sweeps used up all my strength.”

He stared, incredulous: “So you just chose to slack off?”

She looked reasonable as ever and said: “What else?”

Back in the Wind-Moon Spirit Ruins she had faked weakness to worry Immortal Maiden Azure Luan, but this time she truly had no strength left, and she also wanted to annoy Immortal Lord Chang Li a little. Immortal Lord Chang Li was speechless. [Isn’t the normal story that even with not a shred of spiritual power, the heroine never gives up and fights to the end to show her character? She is the main character. How will that inspire readers?]

Shen Sang Ruo explained that her main goal was to test whether two sweeps stacked could summon a fire cloud. Now that she had proved it, there was no need to fight for a few more minutes. She had more on her day’s schedule than Immortal Lord Chang Li and needed to manage her energy wisely. There would be plenty of chances later to train hard.

Under his hesitant gaze, she patted the dust from her clothes and said with a show of courtesy: “The morning went by so fast. Thank you for the guidance, Immortal Lord Chang Li. I will go find Immortal Maiden Azure Luan now.” With that, she did not wait for any critique or summary and slipped away.

Immortal Lord Chang Li did not call her back. Curious about the two sweep fire cloud, he could work out the trick on his own. The operation was not difficult. The clever part was Shen Sang Ruo thinking up such an elegant Spellcraft. Rubbing his chin, he murmured in a low voice: “This new brain sure is handy.”

On the other side, Shen Sang Ruo went to the cave where Immortal Maiden Azure Luan was temporarily staying. Somehow, Immortal Lord Chang Li and Immortal Maiden Azure Luan had talked things through and convinced Azure Luan to live at Ninghua Sect.

Shen Sang Ruo pushed down her itching curiosity and focused on the next round of practice. Azure Luan trained her on wind, of course. Too lazy to act herself, she summoned an Azure Phoenix much like the Fire Phoenix. On the ground, Su Xi Yu and the other three all looked up together, watching their soon to be Junior Sister chased all over the sky by the Azure Phoenix, and they once again sighed at Immortal Maiden Azure Luan’s ruthless methods. Bai Ruo An, gentle as ever, said with a light smile: “Tie a string to Junior Sister’s ankle and we can fly a kite.”