Chapter 191: Unexpected re-HOW ARE YOU HUMAN?!
The ball of energy that Zhen Liu fired off this time had a very different flavor and feel to it this time around, namely because it was encased in several circular blades of energy that spun like saws from the depths of hell.
Once the energy ball made contact, it suddenly turned into an energy silhouette version of Razor Maiden, and proceeded to attack the dummy with the force of a thirteen slash combination strike that knocked it up into the air multiple times before a final slash sent it into the ground.
Both Zhen Liu and the Razor Maiden stared with their jaws dropped at the results. Neither had expected whatever the hell just happened, especially with a move called [Imperial Crusher].
Anton on the other hand looked enthused.
“Haha! Excellent! [Chaos] can’t be ordered or controlled, but it can be guided and influenced!”
“Huh?”
“By cycling your aether through your kaijin, you can change the nature of [Chaos], and thus, your attacks,” Anton explained, “This will be key to mastering the [Chaos Body Forge]!”
“Huh…so is there more?,” Zhen Liu asked as he stared at the club and at Anton. This was the first in a while someone managed to actually provide some usable guidance for him, and not be him haphazardly testing stuff, he was gonna milk it for all it’s worth.
“There is, but I can’t tell you anymore right now,” Anton said as he lifted a bony hand towards Zhen Liu’s face. In the latter’s eyes, he could see the former starting to become see-through.
“Well that can’t be healthy.”
“I’m only allowed to be out and about like this for a short stay each day,” Anton explained, “Power of the Archive, as it were!”
The room began to shake ominously, as if agreeing with Anton’s statement.
‘Oh great, magic sentient home base,’ Zhen Liu mentally commented.
“So apologies Little Liu, but you’ll have to come back tomorrow if you want more lessons from yours truly,” Anton said as he stomped on the ground once, causing the room to reset into the meeting room set up earlier. This also had the effect of placing Zhen Liu and Razor Maiden closer by the door.
Zhen Liu was about to counter that statement of returning tomorrow, seeing as this place was at least three days trip back and forth from his home, but Anton interrupted him.
“And before you complain about distance, don’t worry. Those little flighty bastards outside have their methods. Now get outta here, your kaijin got a surprise in store for y’all.”
Before anything else could be said, Zhen Liu and Razor Maiden both felt the floor angle in such a way to throw them both out of the room and into a heap.
“Oof!”
On the plus side, Zhen Liu didn’t get stabbed by Razor Maiden’s everything when they got thrown out.
“You know, it’s starting to become a habit…cliche? That I end up flat on my ass somehow sans fighting.”
“Oh my, maestro! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, Hurricroak I’m…hold up…”
Zhen Liu lifted his head up from his position on the ground to stare at Hurricroak in the face, only to see someone who was distinctively not Hurricroak, using her voice.
This fact did not fully process for about ten seconds in Zhen Liu’s head.
“Frog woman no longer frog?” Razor Maiden asked in confusion. Her brain was still fresh off fairy tales, so her imagination immediately thought about blue fairies from heaven.
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Anton leaned back into his seat as he lightly swirled around the wine bottle in his hand, hoping to aerate it a bit. As he sat, energy from the library began to flow into his skeletal body, making it appear more solid than it did moments before.
“So the new lord is an otherworlder huh?,” Anton mused as he kept aerating his wine, “Wonder if he came from the same world as that old preacher or elsewhere…”
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Zhen Liu was about to tell Hurricroak that he was fine and was about to ask how her day in the library was going, but was very confused as to why the person using Hurricroak’s voice was clearly a human being.
Hurricroak had somehow transformed from a blue toned frog woman with decorative looking frog eyes on her head, to a bronze skinned, neon blue bobcut having, idol looking woman in a frankly anachronistic outfit that would look more at home in a cyberpunk setting.
Zhen Liu stared, mouth agape at the sight before his mind had finally registered what the hell was going on, confirmed that the woman before him was actually Hurricroak based on the connection he had with her, and reacted appropriately.
“HOW AND WHY ARE YOU SUDDENLY HUMAN?!,” Zhen Liu shouted as he shot up to a standing position. To be fair, he was expecting the kaijin to be able to turn at some point, what with their track record of turning into a small figures and digital icons, but he wasn’t expecting this to happen now.
“Oh this?,” Hurricroak said with a smile as she showed off her outfit by twirling around, “would you believe me if I said I found a prince to kiss and break the spell?”
“Hurricroak…”
“I’m kidding, maestro! You need to learn to take a joke,” Hurricroak said as she ruffled Zhen Liu’s hair. The hand felt surprisingly fleshy and not at all frog-like, but there was something…off about the feel.
“You can thank your darling darling for this, she’s the one who found the room.”
“Room?”
“So while you were up here with Logos, here’s what happened….”
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At some point, a little after Zhen Liu had summoned Razor Maiden to help him out with his training session with Anton the skeleton, Logos had found the other kaijin and Jin Fang sitting on the floor at various parts of the library, enamored with the reading material they had each selected.
=You know it’s bad etiquette to read on the floor, right?=
Without saying a word, and somehow without them noticing, Logos individually picked up each of them and moved them to a set of table and chairs in order to keep the books off the floor and make sure the readers maintain good posture.
It took a few minutes before Jin Fang was the first to notice that her location had been moved. The others were still focused on reading, possibly reminiscing.
“Ah, what? Oh come on, I sat there on purpose so I didn’t have to go back and forth. Now I have to go find that section again, just great…,” Jin Fang grumbled as she got out of her seat, scrolls in tow.
The archives back at the Zhen Clan estate were fine, but it didn’t contain enough arts that were compatible with Jin Fang’s formula and most of the more powerful arts were blood relatives accessible only. This giant library was a goldmine, and she was gonna take it.
“Alright, so this place was designed with the aether wheel in mind so I just have to…huh?”
On her way to the section containing all of the Aeroqi arts, Jin Fang paused as the sight of a particular door caught her attention, or more specifically, an image that embellished the door.
“That image…that’s the thing that comes out of Zhen Liu when does his kaijin thing! Wonder what this room is then…”
Curiosity getting the better of her, Jin Fang headed straight for the door and proceeded to see what was behind it.
