Chapter 110: Cloud (1)

110 – Cloud (1)

His nails dug directly into the tentacle’s skin, and his originally black pupils now shimmered with a deep, ink-green hue. Paired with his sharply arched brows, fierce tattoos, and eerie, bewitching makeup today, that fragile, almost breakable aura vanished instantly, replaced by a kind of inhuman ferocity!

With a dull thud, the tentacle was torn apart! A smooth, ink-green fishtail broke free from the tangle of tentacles.

The end of the massive fishtail was adorned with ink-green gauze, which fluttered and spread out in the thick, almost watery mist. Qi Yun floated in mid-air, and all the mist surged toward him.

The dense water vapor churned and swirled around him as its center. In less than a minute, all the mist in the entire room was drawn to his side, leaving the room clear and bright. Only around Qi Yun did a sea of white clouds linger. Six high-powered fog machines were still operating, continuously producing water vapor. These white mists resembled six massive water tornadoes, constantly pouring into the space around Qi Yun.

Qi Yun suddenly turned around, his fishtail flexible and agile, tracing an arc in the air like the edge of a sunset, yet its texture was as hard as metal. With a single sweep of his tail, a tentacle was immediately struck down and lay limp on the ground.

“Tsk,” Qi Yun said. “See, how could this thing possibly be my kind? It’s too weak.”

Lin Xun remained silent. Some things were better seen through but not spoken aloud. He decided to temporarily forget how Qi Yun had just cowered as if about to cry.

With all the water vapor in the room drawn to Qi Yun, the entire room’s layout became clearly visible to Lin Xun. The floor, now free of moisture, instantly dried up, eliminating any worry about slipping. This was likely the effect of a water-element mage.

In the now clearly visible room, nearly a hundred tentacles were densely entangled on the ceiling. The corner in front of him and Qi Yun—where the prop master had shown him the pile of props—was particularly crowded with tentacles. Additionally, the doorway and doorframe were also covered in tentacles, firmly guarding the room’s exit. The prop master was moving toward it, trying to escape, but a tentacle had tripped him, and he was struggling desperately. Fortunately, the tentacles were professional monsters with a sense of ethics and did not bully the weak. No extra tentacles bothered the prop master; instead, more of them wriggled toward Lin Xun and Qi Yun. Lin Xun wasn’t sure whether their target was Qi Yun, himself, or both.

He said to Qi Yun, “You hold them off first. I’m going to unleash my ultimate move too.”

Qi Yun replied, “Alright.”

As they spoke, two more tentacles lunged toward them. Qi Yun moved swiftly, grabbing one with his left hand while flipping mid-air and seizing another with his right. He was no longer the frail, delicate beauty who couldn’t even harm a chicken. With both hands exerting force, he pulled the two tentacles closer, stretched them taut, and curled his crimson lips into a malicious smile as he tied them into a tight knot.

Lin Xun applauded him inwardly. Then he turned around, and the water vapor surged over, enveloping his entire body and drawing him into the range where Qi Yun could attack. At the same time, Lo appeared in mid-air, its blue light illuminating the previously dim room. It began to monitor the surroundings for Qi Yun, just as it had directed the seniors to deal with monsters in the subway station, helping him judge the tentacles’ positions and attack timings.

Qi Yun asked curiously, “Who is this?”

Lin Xun replied, “Your little brother!”

Qi Yun: “Come over and let your brother take a look.”

Lin Xun smiled. He sat cross-legged and took out his keyboard.

With Qi Yun and the Goddess of the Luo River protecting him, his pressure was greatly reduced, giving him enough time to modify some code and make his attacks more refined and targeted.

With his operating system managing all processes, he could multitask—even handle a hundred tasks at once. If he added some methods to make each sword Qi automatically find the most suitable attack direction and intensity, then controlling the battlefield would be effortless. The optimization method he had used in the subway station was a perfect choice.

In just five minutes, the modifications were complete. Lin Xun pressed F11, and thousands of sword Qi erupted from him, swirling through the air like a storm!

They didn’t look like sword light—their edges were thin, glowing faintly, varying in length and size, like white falling petals.

The petals drifted down, seemingly drawn to those creatures by some special affection, carried by an invisible wind as they swept toward them. Yet their edges were anything but soft—they were the sharpest blades in the world. Their descent seemed slow, because each sword light was calculating, searching for the most precise angle and trajectory.

Lin Xun pressed another key.

Ten thousand swords shot forth.

All the tentacles in the room suddenly thrashed and convulsed, slamming against the ceiling, floor, and walls with loud thuds.

Severed tentacles fell to the ground, quickly dissolving into black mist and vanishing into the air.

One, two, countless—each sword light harvested the lives of the tentacles, the process even carrying a hint of elegance.

Qi Yun: “…Incredible.”

Lin Xun: “You should try advancing to the Nascent Soul stage in a few days too.”

Qi Yun grinned, tearing apart a tentacle and throwing it to the ground: “Sure.”

With the sword Qi unleashed and Qi Yun, a fierce water ghost, tearing apart his own kind with his bare hands, the two quickly gained an overwhelming advantage. In less than ten minutes, the number of living tentacles had dwindled to about twenty. They seemed to cower too, their movements growing stiff before disappearing. Finally, the tentacles wrapped around the doorframe slowly retreated, evaporating into the air like snails sprinkled with salt. In just a minute, these ugly tentacles vanished without a trace, as if they had never been there. In the corner of the room, the pile of motionless props remained, like a large blob of jelly, except that nearby, there was now a pale-faced prop master, trembling unnaturally from excessive tension and teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. He wasn’t screaming anymore—probably because he had lost his voice.

The system notification sounded: Quest completed, rewards distributed, please claim.

As for the hidden quest mentioned by the system when this side quest was issued, there was still no sign of it.

Qi Yun still floated in the air, gazing longingly at his own body: “So strong. I don’t want to change back.”

Lin Xun helped the prop master up and began dragging him out, saying as he went: “Will your master agree?”

Qi Yun: “He’ll definitely scold me for disgracing the sect.”

So he knew about disgracing the sect.

“It’s fine,” Lin Xun said. “Cross-species communication is meaningful.”

Qi Yun: “How much does a fog machine cost? I want to install one in the monk’s dormitory. Then I won’t have to sleep in the bathtub at night—it’s uncomfortable. I want to sleep in a bed.”

Lin Xun: “Where will he sleep?”

“If he doesn’t want to squeeze in with me, he can sleep on the floor. Otherwise, I’ll let him have the bathtub,” Qi Yun said.

“The dormitory has power restrictions.”

Qi Yun hung his head dejectedly: “Oh.”

He continued, “I’m getting dressed, don’t look.”

Lin Xun replied, “Alright.”

He turned to the side, placing the prop master aside as well, faced the wall, closed his eyes, and entered the System Space.

The side quest had ended. To be honest, this mission was quite dangerous, with intense combat scenes, and everything had happened too quickly, leaving no time to call for help. If Dong Jun hadn’t sent him that operating system file package, he would likely have ended up explaining things to Qi Yun here. Fortunately, the mission was finally completed, and the system had issued the rewards.

A Chaos Treasure Box—time to test his luck once again. Lin Xun placed his hand on the lid of the box, took a deep breath, looked away, and just like many times before, opened it suddenly when it was least expected.

Inside the box lay a skill book, but strangely, the cover of the skill book had no writing on it. This was the first time he had encountered such a situation.

Lin Xun took out the skill book and opened it, only to find the title page blank as well. He continued flipping through, rustling through the entire book, but not a single Chinese character or even a letter could be seen.

A wordless heavenly book? Could it be a divine artifact?

Or had he drawn some useless trash item?

Lin Xun felt the second possibility was more likely. After all, when you walk by the river, how can you avoid getting your shoes wet? In any game, the chance of drawing a completely useless trash item was always quite high.

However, just as he was about to put the item back, the system’s voice rang out.

“Acquired rare item ‘Skill Enhancement Book.’ Skill book effect: Advance any skill by one level. Please select a skill.”

A floating light screen unfolded before his eyes, displaying several options.

Skill One: Light Body Technique.

Skill Two: Heavenly Eye Technique.

Skill Three: Teleportation Technique.

These were the three skill books he had obtained before, each with its own uses. The Light Body Technique allowed him to float in the air, make brief leaps, and greatly increased his agility and speed. It was the skill he used the most, coming in handy in every battle—he couldn’t do without it. Based on simple logic, enhancing the Light Body Technique would undoubtedly make him even lighter, allowing him to fly higher and faster, perhaps even turning him into a bolt of lightning. This made Lin Xun very tempted.

The Heavenly Eye Technique, on the other hand, was the most redundant skill for him. Its only function was to turn the world into a chaotic mess of code structures in his eyes, allowing him to detect enemies in time. Without this skill, he would indeed face some limitations, but he could still manage—as long as he remained vigilant enough, he could always spot potential dangers. Not to mention, he now had the Goddess of the Luo River’s all-around assistance. Therefore, he had no intention of enhancing the Heavenly Eye Technique.

The last option, the Teleportation Technique, was the skill Lin Xun found the most interesting—it could even be said to be the soul of a programmer. Its function was replication, copying non-hostile code into his own body. When he first obtained this skill, he had three chances to replicate, with each replication allowing up to ten thousand lines of code. If he enhanced this skill, what changes would occur? Would the replication range expand from non-hostile targets to all targets, or would the number of lines or replication chances increase? Whichever it was, it could bring unexpected benefits.

Lin Xun found himself in a dilemma.

Enhancing the Light Body Technique could significantly improve overall combat efficiency, while improving the teleportation technique might become a stroke of genius.

He pondered for a long time but couldn’t reach a conclusion, eventually deciding to set them aside for the time being. When a programmer encounters a difficult bug, setting it aside is his instinctive response.

Estimating that enough time had passed, Lin Xun opened his eyes.

—Only to see Qi Yun, who had put on his upper garment but was now huddled inside his black studded thin windbreaker, barefoot, with the windbreaker reaching his knees, revealing snow-white calves. With a miserable expression, he said, “My pants are gone.”

Lin Xun: “Gone?”

“The Spiritual Power fluctuations when I transformed into a fish were too intense, and they shattered.”

Lin Xun glanced at Qi Yun’s current state. The man was wrapped tightly in the windbreaker, but his calves were exposed, his ankles unusually slender. Without the cover of clothing, they appeared even more fragile than before. Still, it wasn’t indecent—just that going barefoot might risk stepping on debris, though it wasn’t an insurmountable difficulty.

“It’s fine. If you have no other plans this afternoon, just go home.” He put on his mask, dragged the half-dead, pale-faced prop master with one hand, and pulled the weak, disheveled Qi Yun with the other, pushing the door open to leave. As soon as the three stepped out, the elevator doors across from them slowly opened, revealing Gao Liao and his assistant standing before them.

Gao Liao’s eyes seemed to freeze for a moment at the sight.