Chapter 89: Chapter 87: Huazhu Bathed in Fresh Blood_1

Training base, northeastern entrance, abandoned warehouse.

After exchanging pleasantries with Elder Child, Ye Hanjun was led here by a soldier.

This was the place where the guard soldiers usually trained. With a cursory glance, the light was dim, and signs of flame scorching and toxic corrosion were everywhere. The rusted metal walls were riddled with damage.

"Huazhu, come out."

Ye Hanjun released his perception, confirmed that there were no problems, and then activated the mark on his left wrist.

The soft, goose-yellow glow flickered. The Desert Witch opened her eyes, and her dull vertical pupils immediately met his gaze. The focused look in her eyes seemed to be waiting for an order.

"Haven’t you always been looking forward to understanding skills? Now’s your chance."

Ye Hanjun smiled faintly and pulled out a bottle from his bag, it was as large as a fist and was entirely silver-white.

"Huh? Skills?"

Huazhu momentarily doubted if she had heard wrong, her eyes slightly dazed as she asked back.

"Concentrated Blood Juice of the Sand Wolf King."

Ye Hanjun shook the bottle in his hand and mysteriously proclaimed.

"Pop——"

The cork was pulled out, and in an instant, the closed-off abandoned warehouse was filled with a nauseating smell of wet mud.

"Before the trial exam, I made some preparations."

"For example, the second Peanut essence was used up, and the resulting second pot of Moke bamboo rice balls was sold off for Spirit Stones."

"Including the previous savings, a total of 422 Lower Quality Spirit Stones were all exchanged by me for resources."

As if talking about something trivial, Ye Hanjun calmly added:

"The Concentrated Blood Juice of the Sand Wolf King is the second most important treasure among these."

"The so-called ’Sand Wolf King’ is not the name of a species of Fond Spirit, but a blood elixir made from the blood plasma of dozens of Sand Wolves."

"Because the attributes match, according to my estimate, you have about a 45% chance of learning a skill through it."

"45%... such a high chance?"

"Are you calling this high?" Ye Hanjun laughed, "This thing sells for 180 Lower Quality Spirit Stones, it’s definitely a luxury for a first-stage Patron."

"In the academy, even a little rich woman like Su Mei has to grit her teeth and make up her mind, only after accumulating enough pocket money does she have the ability to buy it."

"If other Fond Spirits of the Sand attribute use it, the probability of learning a skill is at least 95%."

"You cut it down to 45%, which in the end, is still due to the negative effects of the Gray Flash’s difficulty in learning skills."

"I see..."

Huazhu nodded lightly, "Randomly learning a skill, this effect is too exaggerated. If it really triggers on me, it would be a good thing no matter what."

Yehan Jun revealed a faint smile: "I agree with that."

Other Sand Spirits that are aligned in attributes, if they can learn a skill through this, in the best case scenario, they can obtain a powerful skill above 80 patterns, which would put them ahead of their peers at the same level.

But this is a low probability event. If they comprehend a weak skill of 15-35 patterns, it would be a significant loss for someone who had to grit their teeth to accumulate these spirit stones given the high cost of 180 spirit stones.

——But Huazhu is different.

If she could understand it, given the nature of the Gray Flash, she would definitely get a weak skill, and the Chaos Spirit Pattern would definitely not exceed 25 patterns.

But this is not the point.

Suppose the Concentrated Blood Juice of the Sand Wolf King could help Huazhu randomly comprehend a Sand attribute magic attack skill.

Given her years of survival experience and combat experience, coupled with the expert-level ’Gathering Sand into Shield’, there would definitely be a breakthrough in Huazhu’s way of fighting.

This——is what’s truly worth looking forward to!

...

"Are you ready?"

"Master, let’s begin."

In the abandoned warehouse, the Desert Witch took a deep breath, tilted her head back, and closed her eyes.

"Whoosh——"

Standing just half a meter in front of her, Ye Hanjun raised his right hand and suddenly tipped the jade bottle in his hand.

The earthy-yellow elixir fell onto the Witch’s face.

Instantly, her eyebrows knotted, her teeth clenched tightly, and the subconscious clicking sound that came out seemed like she was going to grind her molars to pieces.

"Uh!"

Even though she had mentally prepared herself, knowing that it would be extremely painful.

Huazhu, who has ’unyielding’ as her core personality, was still in so much pain that her limbs convulsed and her entire face twisted.

She began to breathe heavily, her pincers clenched tightly, and the scorpion tail behind her randomly stabbed at the air.

About five minutes passed, the flowing sand legs were unable to support the stability of her body, resulting in sand flying everywhere uncontrollably.

Time ticked away...

Ye Hanjun closed his eyes, his super spirituality was fully activated, and his strong perception completely enveloped the whole abandoned warehouse.

Finally, after two hours of deathly silence, Huazhu’s trembling scorpion tail gradually stopped.

She opened her eyes, the yellow sand at her feet surged and ended up condensing into a nearly half-meter long illusory fist, throwing a punch into the air in front of her.

"Master, have I...succeeded?"

Huazhu stared blankly at her handiwork, an illusory yellow sand fist that hovered around her at will, reaching as far as five meters away.

Every punch thrown, while not causing a dramatic sonic boom, created a faint sound of air being torn apart, alerting the ears. If it had hit a weaker Fond Spirit, it would have caused some damage.

"Your skill..."

The usually mild-mannered Ye Hanjun wore a somewhat odd expression.

Even without Talent Identification, he could tell that this skill was called ’Gather Sand into Fist.’

The Desert Witch Clan mastered the Sand Magic. However, different individuals at the same rank could comprehend skills that greatly differed in terms of potency.

Skills such as ’Raising Sand,’ ’Gathering Sand into Shield,’ ’Sand Snake’s Bind,’ and ’Quicksand Trap,’ are landmark race techniques that could be mastered with high probability as one’s rank increases.

Other skills varied greatly with no certainty.

However, Ye Hanjun had various statistical and research reports indicating that a few offensive abilities, once mastered by a Desert Witch, would make her unusually formidable among her peers.

Such as ’Gather Sand into Sword.’

And ’Solidify Sand into Soldiers.’

’Gather Sand into Sword’ allows the manipulation of yellow sand, converging it into a giant sword. Be it swinging downwards or sideways, sturdy wild beasts would find it utterly formidable; the weaker Fond Spirits would easily be crushed into mush if struck carelessly.

’Solidify Sand into Soldiers’ forms both defensive and offensive formations, with the transformative effects greatly enhancing the combat capabilities of the Desert Witch. Even when outnumbered, she may not be at a disadvantage.

Relative to those, ’Gather Sand into Fist’ lagged behind in several aspects.

This skill’s average strength in a Mud-cast fetus ranged between 45-55 Spirit Patterns.

Yet, because its effects were too simple, such as punching with a fist, it lacked flair and elegance. It was far from popular among mainstream witches.

Desert witches would not learn this skill if they had a choice, preferring instead to invest energy in refining or exploring other skills—unless they learned it naturally during the process of rank advancement.

"Bam! Bam, Bam, Bam!"

The sand fists whistled through the air, gradually evolving from rigid straight punches to uppercuts and undercut punches.

In Huazhu’s dim pupils, a trace of luminous light shimmered as if a child who had received a beloved toy was gleefully testing out a brand-new skill.

"Gather Sand into Fist, when used to bombard a prey, is still fairly cohesive."

"However, your fist, 18 Spirit Patterns, is still in a weakened state, not even comparable to your Gathering Sand into Shield."

"That’s alright. This is my first magical attack!"

Huazhu laughed heartily, the leftover scars on her cheeks juxtaposing her pure and uncontaminated laughter, causing one to feel somewhat moved.

"Your previous four skills, due to the lack of sufficient attack medium, virtually forced you to continuously refine your skill proficiency and skill combination in an attempt to overcome powerful opponents with weak abilities."

"This experience, although miserable, has been endured. Now you get skills—from unfamiliar to proficient—the speed of transformation is far from comparable to that of ordinary witches..."

"Yiye~~"✧*｡٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧*｡

When there were no outsiders, Ye Hanjun would let the little tadpole out to play for a while.

The little fellow in the floating bubble stared curiously at the swooshing sand fists, its rice-like eyes filled with intense interest.

Seeing it like this, Ye Hanjun felt somewhat cognizant.

Yet, he had probably set his expectations too high. This time, Guagua still did not learn the skill and simply acted as a spectator, watchfully observing Little Black Hat practicing boxing.

"Hoo—" Ten minutes later, Huazhu halted her casting, a fleeting flash of fatigue appearing on her face.

The ’Gather Sand into Fist’ skill could be maintained over a long period.

However, the longer it was maintained, the more it taxed her.

Of course, Huazhu remained excited, encouraging herself with unwavering certainty:

"I feel that I only need to practice a few more times, and my skill proficiency could break through to ’Proficient Mastery’, initially reaching a handy level."

"Yiye~ Yiye~"

The little tadpole, seeming not to care whether it understood or not, joyfully circled around Huazhu.

Ye Hanjun smiled, restraining from commenting.

However, his hand reached directly toward his forehead.

"Not just a few times, not even a few days; today will be enough."

"Come, today’s Death Challenge, I’ll give you a new opponent, a cute rabbit with red eyes."

Huazhu’s breath hitched.

"Bang!"

A mini version of the Gate of Life and Death appeared behind her.

Key of the Gray Sun was drawn out, aligned with the keyhole, and inserted perfectly.

Light before her turned black, then bright again, and Ye Hanjun appeared high in the sky. Hovering behind him was the massive version of the Gate of Life and Death.

"Death Challenge, begin!"

The gray semi-spherical barrier rose quickly, a gray shadow rumbled and squirmed.

After a few seconds, a well-prepared Huazhu looked at the red-eyed, meat-eating rabbit, its eyes crimson like blood, as if it had been starving for seven days and nights. Her lips curled slightly.

Is what adults call this... cute?

"Rip!!"

The vicious rabbit forcefully dug its legs and quickly pounced.

Among the dancing yellow sands, Huazhu, with her scorpion tail stemmed and solemnly vigilant, reflected an increasingly solid hand in her unblinking eyes.

...