Chapter 297 - Anomaly: A Huge Mystery
[Shadow Blink (First Order active skill) level 1: Previously a skill that allowed the user to become an unstoppable shadow capable of moving in a straight line at almost unsurpassable speeds, after evolving, this skill allows the user to blink between shadows of equal or larger size than yours within a range of 50 meters with total freedom. It consumes 30 Mana points per activation and has a cooldown time of 60 seconds.]
Bai Zemin's first reaction after seeing the description and details of the evolved's skill Unstoppable Front Charge was to be stunned before his body began to shake uncontrollably.
Powerful!
An incredibly excited look steadily grew on his face as he read the same message over and over again.
Regardless of whether it was range, mobility, utility; everything about the skill had improved to a whole new level! Even with a cooldown time of 60 seconds, which made it difficult to use the skill too many times in a combat, the Shadow Blink skill was undoubtedly powerful enough to be comparable even to Second Order skills!
As for the consumption of 30 Mana points, such a requirement was completely ignored by Bai Zemin. With his current Mana reserve, he would need to activate the skill more than ten times to consume all his Mana, which he honestly couldn't imagine since if he couldn't finish a fight quickly even after using Shadow Blink once to take the enemy by surprise, then it would be better to use it to flee or save his Mana to fight with deadly attacks.
Lilith was surprised to see the excited look on his face and couldn't help but wonder if the skill was so good that he reacted in such a way. Even in the darkness she could see his sparkling eyes, unable to hide his joy.
.One must know that even when Bai Zemin evolved Blood Manipulation to Second Order he wasn't as excited as he was now!
However, what Lilith didn't know was that Bai Zemin's excitement didn't just come from the fact that the evolution of the skill Unstoppable Front Charge was powerful... A big part of that excitement he felt was born from the fact that he actually gambled well and didn't make a misstep!
As a First Order existence, Bai Zemin just like any other human could only learn five external active skills; this meant that he had to be very careful when choosing which active skill scrolls he chose to learn. After all, once he learned a scroll, a skill immediately took up a slot in his soul which negated the possible entry of a more powerful future skill.
If the skill Unstoppable Front Charge evolved into a useless skill, then Bai Zemin would probably be left with that regret for his entire life. He might even end up dying in the future since a basically useless skill was no different from slowing his steps.
For example, if the skill Unstoppable Front Charge had evolved into a skill that allowed him to perform a forward dash for a distance of 100 meters or something similar, Bai Zemin definitely might have cried in sorrow since that would mean that the only thing the skill would do with each evolution would be to increase the distance of the dash.
Fortunately, his worries were not necessary and, in fact, his gamble turned out to be more than correct!
"How good is that skill to get you excited to such a degree?" Lilith asked. She finally couldn't bear the curiosity in her heart anymore.
Bai Zemin looked at her with a smile and extended his hand palm up, "Why don't you look it by yourself?"
Her red eyes looked at his hand for a moment before she smiled slightly and extended her comparatively smaller and clearly delicate woman's hand to take his.
When he felt Lilith's hand touch his, even through the leather gloves Bai Zemin could distinguish the warmth of her body. Even though they had already did this many times since they met, it was still hard for him to control himself completely; it was not for nothing that Lilith was a succubus after all... Her charm was simply too overwhelmingly high!
Shaking his head to clear unnecessary thoughts, Bai Zemin focused on the record of his newly evolved skill and soon Lilith could see the details of the new skill.
After reading it once, a glint of shock flashed in her beautiful ruby-like eyes and she muttered in disbelief: "This... First Order Shadow Blink...? How can this be possible?"
"Oh? Is something wrong?" Bai Zemin frowned slightly realizing that apparently nothing was as simple as evolving the skill and that was it.
Lilith still looked slightly dazed and it was only after he gently tightened his grip on her hand that she finally focused and looked at his face.
Even though the forest was completely dark as the moonlight could not break through the thick branches and large amounts of leaves of the huge trees towering high in the sky, Bai Zemin could still see the shock written all over her pretty face from an arm's length away.
Lilith took a deep breath and nodded: "That skill... I'm referring to Shadow Blink. That skill, I saw it before.... But the strange thing is that the human who used it back then said his skill was Third Order!"
"What?" Bai Zemin opened his eyes wide and muttered in shock.
Third Order? Nonsense!
He looked at his skill again to confirm that he wasn't seeing things... Indeed, no matter how many times he looked at it, the Order of the skill did not change in any way. It still clearly stated that Shadow Blink was a First Order skill.
"Even if you ask me..." Lilith shook her head. She was truly perplexed, "What is this all about?"
Bai Zemin forced a smile and pointed to himself as he said, "I hope that question isn't directed at me, Miss Higher Existence..."
He had no idea what the world outside of China was even like, much less was he aware of such distant and strange things as the Soul Record or its skills. Even if Lilith asked him there was no way he would know something she didn't!
They were both silent, each with different thoughts but at the same time on the same theme.
After several minutes of silence, Bai Zemin reasoned, "Could it be that this person you speak of lied to you?"
This was the only reasonable thought he could find regarding this. From his point of view, it simply didn't seem to be plausible this whole thing regarding the same skill but with completely different stages.
Moreover, it was not just one stage, but was two stages!
The difference between First Order and Third Order was colossal; so much so that the difference between First Order Blood Manipulation and Second Order Blood Manipulation alone caused the power Bai Zemin controlled over the blood element to increase to a whole new level never seen before!
From this one could imagine how big the difference was.
"No, that's impossible." Lilith shook her head without hesitation. She looked at Bai Zemin and her red eyes glowed faintly in the darkness, "Bai Zemin, you may not know how special it is that you can resist my charm even if I am suppressing it as much as possible to not affect your mind... But do you think everyone can do that?"
Bai Zemin's eyes widened slightly and he whispered, "That person..."
"That's right. That person I'm telling you about was a human being, a man." Lilith nodded and said coldly, "That man was head over heels for me. It is simply impossible for him to lie to me about anything and the mere thought of doing so would never be born inside him."
The fact that a man would fall in love for Lilith did not surprise Bai Zemin at all. Considering her beauty alone she was beautiful enough for even kings and gods to want to have her. This was something he was sure of.
What surprised him a little was that she was speaking in the past tense; which meant that the man was most likely already dead. As to how that person died or the reason, Bai Zemin had his own guesses but it was also none of his business.
After a moment of silence, he asked, "Did you check that person's records just to be sure?"
"... You still underestimate my charm, boy. Forget it, it doesn't matter. I guess you'll understand better someday" Lilith shook her head and chuckled. Her face went slightly cold and she said indifferently, "As for your question, no. To check someone's records I need the full approval of that existence and come into direct contact. Do you think I will allow anyone to casually touch me? If anyone ever tries it I will definitely freeze them to death before destroying them into molecular fragments until there is no trace of their existence."
Hearing the coldness in her voice, Bai Zemin's heart shuddered. Such a bone-chilling level of indifference was something that could rarely be seen in a person. Bai Zemin had never seen such a depth of indifference and coldness even in Shangguan Bing Xue.
This made it clear that Lilith really valued herself greatly... But at the same time, it caused a huge doubt to grow in Bai Zemin's heart.
Since she would definitely not allow other existences to touch her casually, then why did she not hesitate to have physical contact with him...? Could it be that she wanted to build a trusting relationship because in the future she would be needing his help? But that didn't seem to be plausible. After all, Lilith had gone as far as lying in the same bed with him in extremely revealing clothes, and even did not show the slightest disguise or murderous intent when he spanked her twice a couple of nights ago.
Bai Zemin had many doubts and questions, but somehow he knew that none of them would be answered even if he said them out loud.
"I can't think of anything else." He shook his head and sighed wearily, "The only workable option I can find is that this person lied to you. But seeing how sure you are, it seems that's not the case."
Lilith was silent as she stared at the tops of the huge trees, more specifically, her gaze seemed to be able to look beyond, straight up into the cloud-covered sky. After a moment, she finally spoke somewhat hesitantly, "I have two theories at the moment... But to be honest with you, I'm not quite sure about this and it's highly probable that I'm wrong."
Bai Zemin said nothing and waited patiently.
"The first theory is that maybe that person got his skill directly from a scroll." Lilith calmly explained as she continued to look off into the distance, "Although I never heard of anything similar, there is a possibility that weaker Unranked skills can evolve into skills that are usually only found in higher Orders. Do you understand what I mean?"
Bai Zemin pondered for a few seconds before answering in a serious manner, "Basically, a Fourth Order skill that comes directly from a scroll can also be obtained by evolving a much weaker skill from a scroll that people would usually ignore and definitely not learn as this would mean wasting a slot for external active skills."
"That's right." Lilith nodded. "Although I've never heard of anything similar, I think that maybe, just maybe, when an existence evolves a weak skill there's a chance that the weak skill will become into a powerful skill... So powerful that even in a lower Order it can compare to its counterpart with a higher Order, which means with a higher evolutive path."
"If it really is like that then I think it's completely natural that you've never heard of anything similar." Bai Zemin shook his head and smiled bitterly.
Who in their right mind would do something as stupid as learning a seemingly useless skill and then consuming huge amounts of resources to evolve it to the next Order? Probably no one. Even a madman wouldn't be stupid enough to do something like that.
Therefore, it was completely understandable that in case Lilith's theory was valid she had never heard anything like this.
* * * * * * *
Thanks a lot to all those who use their Golden Tickets to vote for BW <3