About a minute later, the rapidly spinning Trifoliate Magnet faded into specks of spiritual light, vanishing into thin air.
The little iron sword that had been stuck to its leaf with a “clang” dropped straight to the ground.
Lu Qiancha’s gaze immediately fell upon the last card.
The plant pattern on the card face was clearly some kind of advanced variant of the Magnet Mushroom, but it exuded a totally different, fierce aura.
Its main body wasn’t an ordinary mushroom stem, but was instead replaced by a cluster of gentle light.
Around this glowing orb, a small red and a small golden magnet eerily hovered, like two satellites orbiting a star. At the very top, there was a massive, deep-red U-shaped magnet.
Compared to the original Magnet Mushroom’s rather clumsy, silly U-shaped cap, this mushroom’s magnetic cap was sharp-edged and even faintly gleamed with a metallic luster, the overall shape radiating a menacing, hard-to-approach air.
Lu Qiancha looked at the small print below the card.
[Magnet King]
[Magnet Mushroom will not perish by bare hands: Actively attracts metal objects, keeping them floating around itself as weapons under its control.]
[The true Magnet Emperor: Can fiercely hurl the metal objects orbiting itself at extremely high speeds. Upon impact, the thrown metals will violently explode. The power and range of the explosion depends entirely on the material, grade, and spiritual energy of the metal in question.]
[Cooldown: One day]
[Description: “Those other magnet-heads always ask me why the lumps of iron I attract blow up. Hah, it’s simple, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, get it?” Magnet King, full of disdain.]
Lu Qiancha injected spiritual energy into the card.
Poof.
A vividly colored, oppressively shaped Magnet King appeared before her in an instant.
Its enormous deep-red magnet cap tilted slightly, as if gazing at Lu Qiancha with an appraising, even faintly provocative stare.
“Tsk…”
Just as Lu Qiancha was curiously examining this fierce mushroom, a familiar yet lazy and disdainful voice suddenly sounded in her mind: “Little one, how do you always manage to tinker up such strange, but perfectly-formed proto-law oddities?”
“Eh?” Lu Qiancha tilted her small head in surprise, her face showing a bit of clueless cuteness. “Canxin? You… you’re alive again?”
“Cough, cough, cough!”
The voice in her mind sounded like it had choked, immediately turning offended and angry: “This one… This one was only resting! What do you mean alive again?! Are you hoping for this one’s soul to scatter or what?”
“No.” Lu Qiancha pouted, unable to help but argue, “It’s just that you’ve been quiet for so long, I thought… thought you couldn’t get any blood so you… just starved to death.”
She mumbled her previous suspicion in a small voice.
“Hmph, ignorant.” Canxin’s voice was tinged with arrogance.
“This one was merely focused on repairing the sword’s body and refining its Dao resonance, too busy to chat with you. Mere blood nourishment—how could that decide this one’s life or death?”
“So that’s how it is…” Lu Qiancha nodded in apparent understanding, her little paw habitually starting to bring a finger to her mouth. Just then—
A faint red gleam flashed, and a figure appeared in front of Lu Qiancha out of nowhere.
It was a tall, black-haired, red-eyed woman, a dark fitted outfit accentuating her sharp lines.
Her features were striking but carried an icy air that discouraged strangers—none other than the human form of the Demon Sword, Canxin.
Right now, she was slapping away Lu Qiancha’s little paw before it could reach her mouth, her face full of disdain.
“So filthy—how old are you now, still sucking your fingers?” Canxin’s tone was full of disgust.
“Ugh…” Caught red-handed, Lu Qiancha lowered her head in embarrassment, her little ears drooping.
But she immediately thought of something and looked up, blue eyes fixed on Canxin’s solid figure as she eagerly asked, “Canxin, you can manifest a form now? Doesn’t that mean… you can move freely, go wherever you want?”
“Heh, what are you imagining?” Canxin rolled her eyes elegantly without a hint of politeness.
She stretched out her slender, fair, yet sharply-edged fingers and pinched Lu Qiancha’s soft cheeks, kneading them into a mess.
“This form of mine only exists as a spiritual projection tied to you. Besides you, my contractor, no one else can see it. And—”
She squeezed harder, mushing the little wolf pup’s face out of shape. “My power core is linked to your soul—I can’t stray far from you. You think I’d stick with you all day otherwise?”
“Ugh~mm! Stop… stop pinching!”
Lu Qiancha struggled out of Canxin’s demonic grasp, cheeks puffed up in protest, her soft voice full of accusation: “Who was it that made me end up like this in the first place? I haven’t even settled that score with you and you’re already disgusted by me!”
“Following you, I go hungry three out of every four meals. It’s a wonder I haven’t complained more.”
Canxin folded her arms, red eyes slanting over with a sharp look, sparing no mercy: “If you worked harder and slew more demons—or certain clueless cultivators—I wouldn’t have to exhaust so much energy repairing the sword myself.”
“Hmph, not talking to you anymore.” Knowing she couldn’t win against this old monster, Lu Qiancha turned her little head away, presenting the back of it to Canxin.
Canxin couldn’t be bothered to argue with her master, whose mind had regressed alongside her body.
She turned her attention to the red-and-gold mushroom emanating a unique aura, her long brows unconsciously furrowing.
Deep inside, she felt a strange, bone-deep sense of dread—a prey’s instinct upon sensing its natural enemy.
The kind of existential crisis brought by conceptual suppression; even as an ancient sword spirit, she felt an instinctive wariness.
“Qiancha,”
For once, Canxin used a more formal address, her tone grave. “This… this bizarre thing, where did it come from?”
She had lived endless years and seen almost everything, but this thing—its shape, its existence—utterly defied her knowledge. It just didn’t seem like a creation of this world.
“Look,” Lu Qiancha pointed to the still-sleeping Magnet Mushroom nearby (-_- Zzz).
“That sleeping one is the Magnet Mushroom. This fierce-looking, awake one—” she pointed to the red-and-gold mushroom before her, “is its upgraded form, the Magnet King.”
“Magnet… mushroom? Mushroom sprite?” Canxin’s brows drew even tighter. In her experience, mushroom spirits should all have big round caps and a thin stalk underneath, right?
What was with this U-shaped magnet as a head and floating magnets? Top-heavy, weird as could be.
These days… is the world’s spiritual energy so abundant that even strange iron lumps can gain sentience?!
“I guess… you could say that?” Lu Qiancha sounded uncertain too.
Truthfully, she herself couldn’t figure out whether these ‘plants’ popping out of the magic cube cards were living beings, energy constructs, or manifestations of some Law.
“This little thing—does it have Magnet Law flowing in it?”
Canxin stepped forward cautiously, curiosity in her eyes, and gently poked the Magnet King’s huge, deep-red U-shaped magnet cap with her fingertip.
Unexpectedly, it didn’t feel cold and hard like she’d imagined. Instead, it was soft and springy, with an amazing elasticity—when she pressed down, it bounced right back with a “Duang~”!
“Huh?” Canxin looked a bit surprised. “So that’s how it feels? I thought it’d be a chunk of solid iron—”
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