Chapter 196: The Light Elemental Spiritual Stove and The Little Pig
Holding Cai’er tightly, Long Haochen gritted his teeth remorsefully, uttering, “This is entirely my fault, I didn’t protect you well enough, and made you use the Spiritual Stove of Samsara.”
Cai’er revealed a faint smile, “Idiot, it’s alright as long as you are okay. After Haoyue and you fused, the aura you released was really peculiar, it even aroused my Dagger of Samsara. From the looks of it, my training isn’t quite complete.”
Leaning himself toward her, Long Haochen said in a low voice, “From now onwards and until you recover your sense of smell, I won’t permit you to participate in any battle. I want you to stay there and rest.”
Cai’er was startled, immediately blurting out, “How can this be okay? I want to stay by your side.”
Long Haochen shook his head, almost seeming somewhat domineering, “This is out of question, you can only stay here and rest. On this kind of battlefield, I don’t feel completely confident in being able to protect you. I don’t want to you to meet any kind of danger. Cai’er, we have already been together for so long, and I have never requested anything from you, but this time, I really want you to promise me. No matter what.”
Cai’er stayed silent for a long time. She was as always unable to act tough in front of Long Haochen, but more importantly, she could feel how deeply this affected him emotionally, so much that he was at that moment even trembling.
“Cai’er, you know, I am really afraid of losing you. I will protect you, but during the time you will not be by my side, I will take good care of myself and defend myself well. I will definitely come back safe and sound and won’t let you worry.”
Cai’er finally nodded softly, “Alright, I will listen to you.”
Long Haochen immediately rejoiced greatly, “Thank you, Cai’er.”
Nestling against his warm chest, Cai’er said in a soft voice, “I just want you to keep this firmly in mind, what I am the most afraid of is to lose you. In this world, you are the only one who ever made me feel warmth.”
Long Haochen gently kissed her forehead, and the two of them simultaneously closed their eyes. Their faces appeared quite flustered, but at that moment, they felt even more drawn to each other.
General headquarters of the Assassin Temple.
The Heroic Assassin Sheng Yue calmly sat on an entirely black chair with a high backrest. The temporary chief of the Exorcist Mountain Pass, who replaced Sheng Lingxin, was seated at his side. He was temporarily in charge of the defense of the Exorcist Mountain Pass until Sheng Lingxin recovered.
“Heroic Senior, these are the circumstances.”
Liao Tianfa had just reported everything about the mission the ten newly formed Demon Hunt Squads executed, including the retrieval of the little case.
“This thing is indeed quite precious! It is lucky that Long Haochen was willing to part with it.” On Sheng Yue’s old face appeared a rare smile. As he softly caressed the case, his eyes twinkled slightly, while he thought of something no one else could possibly guess.
Liao Tianfa continued, “From what Gao Yingjie said, Long Haochen didn’t even open this case, directly delivering it to us, afraid that this case could possibly contain important goods, closely related to the Exorcist Mountain Pass. These children are really quite something. If it was me, even I would not necessarily have handed it over. For obtaining it, they should have encountered formidable resistance, and I assume that it has been Gao Yingjie and the others who acted to handle the matter, killing the demon who guarded this thing. This is a spiritual stove, a defensive spiritual stove, so it was at least a demon of the seventh step. If not for the fact this thing carries the light attribute, I’m afraid it would have been even guarded more heavily.”
Sheng Yue faintly nodded, “Anyhow, these little youngsters really acted exemplarily. Our Assassin Temple cannot be stingy about it.”
As he said so, he clapped his hands, and a light sound rang out from the solid case.
A soft white radiance quietly soared up, and a little figurine emerged. Only a sixth of a meter tall, glowing with a pure and holy white light, the small body had a pair of little wings on its back. Although they were unfolded it wasn’t really able to fly. Its facial expression seemed drowsy. The little thing lightly flapped its wing in a struggling attempt to move on its own.
It was a Light Elemental Fairy. That’s right, the case Long Haochen retrieved actually contained a Light Elemental Fairy, an incomparably precious Elemental Spiritual Stove.
In general, demons were also able to absorb the treasures from Heavens known as spiritual stoves. Only spiritual stoves of the light element were an exception, because demons belonged by nature to the darkness attribute, which rejected the light attribute the most. Absorbing such a stove would affect them even more fiercely than the most potent poison.
If Long Haochen had known that this case contained a Light Elemental Spiritual Stove, I’m afraid even he would have faltered for a bit before making his decision.
Among all Elemental Spiritual Stoves, the most precious ones were of the light or the darkness attribute. The reason was that they weren’t only rare, but were furthermore of special importance to both the demon and the human side.
The Light Elemental Spiritual Stove did not rank especially high among other stoves, but as a matter of fact, it was much more powerful than a Saint Spiritual Stove. Its ranking was approximately in the top twenty, but it shared a special characteristic with the Saint Spiritual Stove, which was its gentle nature, completely opposite to a Darkness Elemental Spiritual Stove.
After launching, the Light Elemental Spiritual Stove’s attraction ability, unless it met any resistance from another spiritual stove, it would be quite challenging to resist. Furthermore, the Light Elemental Spiritual Stove had a very wide range of uses, all of them being related to the use of other abilities of the light attribute. The most suitable users were naturally priests, knights, and light-system mages. Among these professions, if someone saw a Light Elemental Spiritual Stove, they would certainly go out of their way to gain it for themselves,/ not spare any means/price to win it over.
Sheng Yue gazed at that little fairy, faintly smiling, and said, “Your suffering will soon come to an end, you just have to let me find a companion for you. Otherwise, seeing that you are in such a weak state, I’m afraid you would gradually disappear, if left alone.”
Raising his head to look at the distant sky, Sheng Yue’s gentle look was gradually replaced by coldness, “If I haven’t guessed wrong, these demons should have shipped this Light Elemental Spiritual Stove to their army camp with the intention of making a deal with us. The odds are that they wanted to exchange it for some feedstocks.”
The Alliance was extremely clear about the demon side’s lack of foodstuff, but for some unusual treasures, the Temple Alliance would occasionally conclude exchanges with them. It could at least be considered as each one taking what he needs. Both sides gained some benefit, and to them, this was the most important.
For instance, previously, the demon side had one of their low-ranked demon gods captured by the Temple Alliance, and ultimately exchanged its freedom for ten spiritual stoves.
A conflict of six thousand years created a completely irreconcilable relationship between humans and demons, but the whole process of the war was accompanied with several variables.
Liao Tianfa hesitated for a bit, before asking, “Heroic Senior, do you mean that you will hand this Light Elemental Spiritual Stove over to their team?”
Sheng Yue shook his head, and replied, “This is improbable. This stove is something our Assassin Temple cannot use, but this operation was launched by the ten Demon Hunt Squads all together. Furthermore, you too are well-informed about the value of this thing. If we only returned it to Long Haochen’s squad, in case the news were leaked, I’m afraid it would arouse public anger. This wouldn’t be a very satisfactory result, not only making our Assassin Temple’s generosity look biased, but furthermore giving rise to suspicion.”
Liao Tianfa couldn’t possibly not understand his meaning, “Then, what should we do about it?”
Sheng Yue extended a finger, stroking the top of the Light Elemental Fairy’s head, “Let’s just let this little guy choose for himself.”
As he said so, a sly look was exposed in his eyes. This was indeed killing two birds with one stone. Thinking up to this point, this heroic elder couldn’t help but feel somewhat proud of himself.
At the time Long Haochen’s group returned, it was already noon. Because of their excessive tiredness, none of them ate lunch. Just as night finally fell, one of these youths suddenly woke all the others with a miserable scream.
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Why!? Why are things like that?” Resounding through the whole room, this scream woke everyone with a start.
“What happened!? What happened!?” As he turned over, Sima Xian sat up, instantly grabbing the staff lying at the side of his bed.
On the other side, Wang Yuanyuan shot out of the bed, still clad in her undergarment.
The noise was coming from Chen Ying’er’s bed. Because she did the same as Cai’er, using a cloth curtain to surround her own bed, the others outside couldn’t see what happened.
The others naturally came back to their senses. And as another girl, Wang Yuanyuan took the initiative to pull the curtain to check Chen Ying’er’s situation, but seeing that everything looked alright, she couldn’t help but feel dumbfounded.
The others still couldn’t see what the matter was and were at a loss. At that moment, Long Haochen already led Cai’er down from the bed and was about to arrive at Wang Yuanyuan’s side. But because the one inside was a girl and he found it inappropriate to directly look inside, he hastily inquired from Wang Yuanyuan, “How is Ying’er doing?”
“Look at it by yourselves.” Just as Wang Yuanyuan pulled the curtains away, Long Haochen directly saw her complex expression, looking almost as if she wanted to laugh.
Wang Yuanyuan stepped aside, letting the others see the situation inside. All they saw was Chen Ying’er’s face, she seemed on the verge of crying but without any tears coming out, as she sat there, holding a little pig onto her bosom.
This little pig was purely white, its soft meat appearing as sparkling as a litchi, looking quite plump. It looked approximately a third of a meter tall, and its snow-white skin was in addition twinkling brilliantly.
“Ying’er, what happened to you? Is that your summon?” Long Haochen asked, confused, his complexion looking already much better after a few hours of rest. Although, he wasn’t in any condition to go to battle, he wasn’t affected to the extent that he wouldn’t be able to walk.
Chen Ying’er suddenly burst out in tears, violently throwing herself on her bed, still holding the same little pig and overflowing with tears. From her looks, she was suffering an indescribable pain.
Lin Xin extended his head towards her, asking with a baffled look, “How can it be that you’re crying with such grievance? This little pig looks quite cute… Want to have some roasted pork for dinner?” As he said so, a little flame was released from his finger.
A plump pig-head peeked out from Chen Ying’er’s embrace, fiercely staring at Lin Xin and blowing energetically towards him.
“Puhu.” With this sound, the flame on his finger suddenly disappeared.
“Aï, this little pig is quite interesting! Ying’er, this can’t be your contracted summon, right?” Lin Xin laughed heartily as he asked so.
As he laughed so casually, Chen Ying’er only cried even louder.
Seeing this, Lin Xin couldn’t keep laughing. The others’ faces also changed immediately, and Wang Yuanyuan asked with some hesitation, “Ying’er, this can’t really be…”
Chen Ying’er suddenly returned to a sitting position, looking at the others with her wet eyes puffy from crying, “I… I don’t know how this could happen! Just then, at the time we took care of the carriages, I launched my Creature Summoning Gate, and summoned this pig. At that time, you were battling the Bloodthirsty Beta, and as I saw that it didn’t have any fighting capability, I just carried it in my arms. After the battle concluded, I thought of it as a cute animal and brought it back, but at that time, because you were in quite a bad shape, you probably didn’t pay attention to it.”
“I was originally thinking that since this pig looked so cute, it would naturally disappear with the termination of the magic. The summoned beast coming out from my Creature Summoning Gate can after all only remain for three hours. But… But it has already been more than four hours, and it hasn’t disappeared at all. Seeing that it was still there at the moment I woke up, I was really frightened. I made haste to inspect my own soul contracts, and to my surprise…” At this point, everyone already guessed what happened.
To everyone’s surprise, Chen Ying’er actually concluded a contract with such a harmless livestock, a pig, letting it become her contracted summon in the process.
Seeing the soft and wobbly appearance of the little white pig before her eyes, Chen Ying’er couldn’t help but sob even more.
To a summoner, his contracted summon was more important than anything else because the contracted summon would follow the summoner forever, growing together with him. And the stronger the contracted beast naturally was, the greater its strength would be after the growth.
A low level summoner would rely on his various summons, but a real summoner powerhouse would mainly rely on his own contracted beast! A more powerful contracted beast, even exceeding the summoner’s original level, would be bound to reach the realm of the tenth step once the summoner reached the ninth step. This made this vocation to be not inferior in any way to the others once reaching the level of powerhouse of the ninth step.
Chen Ying’er’s talent in the field of summoning was incomparable to ordinary people, but, in regard to her contracted beast, the same rules still applied to her. At this moment, she had in spite of everything only a mere little pig as her contracted beast, leaving her unable to endure it! And even more importantly, she immediately thought of Yang Wenzhao’s dazzling unicorn.
Chen Ying’er was full of regrets, Why didn’t I listen to the heroic elder Sheng Yue last time, and accepted to take that Demonic Eye Ruler? It’s true that it’s quite an ugly thing, but it has formidable strength! Now that I took such a little pig as my contracted beast, of what use can I possibly be for the team? I was originally useless on the battlefield, but now, I can only be excluded from the team.
“Don’t cry… What use is there to cry?” An ice-cold voice suddenly rang out, giving off the soothing feeling of cool water, immediately stopping Chen Ying’er’s shivering state.
The others turned their heads in surprise; the one who spoke these words was actually Cai’er.
Ever since the 1st soldier grade Demon Hunt Squad formed, Cai’er almost exclusively talked to Long Haochen. All she did was to follow him in silence, still her power and her importance to the team were undeniable. Even with today’s fusion between Long Haochen and Haoyue into a Radiant Knight, she was incontestably the first powerhouse of the team, with the highest attack power.
“You cannot use your eyes to estimate a treasure’s value, but you may use your heart for it. Don’t be fooled by your eyes. Would an ordinary small pig take the initiative to conclude a soul contract with you as summoner without bad conscience?”