Chapter 239: Self-Created Technique! Ripples of Light (II)
“If we match with each other, making use of defensive abilities with area effects, we should only consume about a tenth of our individual resources every time. At the edge of the cavern, the level of trouble isn’t high, but I discovered a crevice deep inside. It was so deep that I could not see its bottom, and is precisely the place from where the hissing sounds came. None of us know what there is inside, but I could sense spiritual energy fluctuations filled with evil intent down below. It is highly possible that a magical beast or an unknown danger resides in it. Since everyone saw my self-preserving ability, you should understand why, but I am planning to make this exploration by myself. This time, I will properly make use of the gem to record everything.”
“How about letting me come along?” Cai’er asked Long Haochen.
Long Haochen shook his head, “I’d better go alone. With Haoyue being here, I will be able to teleport back at any time.”
Cai’er nodded silently. In reality, with Long Haochen’s current strength, as long as he didn’t end up being ambushed and defeated instantly by a powerful enemy, there was no need to worry for his safety.
But could it be so easy to defeat him instantly? In fact, one shouldn’t forget that he had the Spirit Sharing Shackles, connecting him spiritually with his six other teammates. Even a powerhouse of the eighth step would not necessarily manage this.
Since even Cai’er agreed, the others had no reason to disapprove. That Long Haochen expressed he would use the Recording Gem to record his exploration was already proof that he didn’t have any selfish motives. Even if he discovered some great treasures, this would be recorded down by the Recording Gem. The blood contract coming with instant teleportation as a benefit was simply perfect for this kind of exploration mission. This was also one of the reason why, even though Long Haochen knew that this mission would be relatively difficult to complete, he still decided to accept it.
After a moment of resting and reorganizing, Long Haochen entered the Desolate Hissing Cavern a second time.
Due to the experience he had from his previous exploration, he walked the route easily, up to the location of the crevice. However, at this point, he didn’t keep moving forward with undue haste, but halted at the place he sat previously.
At the time the hissing sounds started for the fourth time, Long Haochen revealed a smile of satisfaction. As he spread his Holy Mantle a second time, a fantastic scene happened.
At the surface, there seemed to be no change on Long Haochen’s Holy Mantle, but upon looking carefully, one would notice that the gold colored mantle had a hazier appearance.
The use of vibrations, was the explanation of this phenomenon. The Holy Mantle was vibrating at the same frequency as the hissing sound waves. This was the result of the insight Long Haochen had, which he called Ripples of Light.
The burst of insight he had previously was precisely related to the trajectory and the patterns the hissing sound waves’ vibrations followed, as well as the energy contained in the sound waves themselves. At this moment, he used the same kind of operating method and copied its trajectory with his own spiritual energy.
He still found it hard to comprehend, but Holy Mantle’s duration increased by twofold, before ending up smashed to pieces by the sound waves.
Revealing a hard to conceal joy, Long Haochen used Holy Mantle for a second time. The previous time he came here, he gained some understanding, but this time, he planned on testing and training.
By the means of his understanding and perception far exceeding ordinary people, at the time he completed five Holy Mantles, it already reached a level of perfection close to the sound waves’. Just as it blended completely with the waves, not only did it completely block the sound from entering, it also isolated him completely from the attacks coming along.
The Holy Spirit Sword appeared once again in Long Haochen’s right hand, instantly filled with spiritual energy, and releasing a dazzling golden brilliance. This portion of golden light shared the Ripples of Light’s fast frequency. Long Haochen came to understand clearly that using spiritual energy in combination with Ripples of Light would come with twice the energy consumption he ordinarily would have, but the Holy Mantles’ defensive power didn’t only increase by two folds: it had even reached a level close to that of Light Elemental Shields.
When Holy Mantle was released together with Ripples of Light, the most important advantages were the surprising nature of the results and its spiritual energy cost-efficiency ratio.
Although the consumption of spiritual energy would be doubled in this case, it became comparable with spells of the fifth step. More importantly, it still had the same very short recast time of a Holy Mantle.
Waving the Holy Spirit Sword calmly, Long Haochen immediately felt that supplementary series of buzzing sounds were being released from his sword. It wasn’t a loud sound, but carried the same frequency as the hissing sounds outside.
With the Holy Mantle’s defense, the hissing sounds already had no effect at all. Taking a step forward, he approached the stone wall, directly using the Holy Spirit Sword in his hand to pierce it.
A scene that even astonished Long Haochen happened.
The Holy Spirit Sword, a mere magical weapon, unexpectedly managed to pierce the stone walls like it was butter, and without too much friction.
Long Haochen had a clear understanding of his own strength as well as his Holy Spirit Sword’s capabilities, and for this precise reason, he was even more shaken by the feat he had just accomplished. He had clearly felt that under the high frequency vibrations of spiritual energy carried by his Holy Spirit Sword, the stone walls had just been dissolved. It gave him a strange feeling, and could be described as saying that with the existence of Ripples of Light, the formidable power of a single Holy Spirit Sword was at least increased by tenfold compared to before. And this was without making use of his terrifying state of Sacrifice.
This amplification already outstripped everything Long Haochen knew of by far. If he used Sacrifice, Ripples of Light’s amplification would not be anything like this, but enough to break past a difference of offensive power of a whole step without problem.
Just think! Would a Holy Sword of the sixth step and a Holy Sword of the fifth step be the same? Under normal circumstances, abilities at the sixth step would consume three to five times more spiritual energy than at the fifth step. But Ripples of Light only required Long Haochen to consume twice more spiritual energy! Furthermore, it was a fifth step ability that could have the power of a sixth step ability, in addition to a surprise aspect, and the preparation time of an ability of the fifth step and nothing more.
This was Long Haochen’s first self-created technique, and without the slightest doubt, it had a great help in unleashing his potential.
The Light Elemental Fairy Yating flew out from Long Haochen’s chest, looking at him with a smile and letting out a bizarre noise from her mouth. In her capacity as Long Haochen’s contracted fairy, she could also learn any of the abilities Long Haochen could use. And clearly, she also felt the great utility of this ability named Ripples of Light.
Releasing a Spiritual Gathering Halo to help Long Haochen recover from his consumption of spiritual energy, Yating danced in the air, circling around Long Haochen: having such a master caused her to feel extremely fortunate. To Elemental Fairies, the greatest desire wasn’t to evolve, but to increase their strength continuously. After getting a human master, their evolution would be intimately related to the increase in their master’s strength. If Yating’s cultivation could one day reach a certain level, letting her evolve to the level of Fairy Queen, she would even be able to produce her own physical body. At that time, the lineage of the higher-ranked fairies, which had gone extinct close to ten thousand years ago, would be reborn.
In fact, although in the whole continent, Elemental Fairies were rare and few, they still existed. However, since ten thousand years ago, none had ever been able to evolve to the level of higher ranked fairy.
And Yating currently placed these hopes on Long Haochen, clearly believing in this possibility.
The violent hissing sounds weakened with Long Haochen’s influence, before disappearing again. With his understanding of the Ripples of Light, Long Haochen gained a huge boost in his self-confidence. He retreated back to the entrance of the cave, opening the Recording Gem and entering again in the cave, without stopping this time, but directly jumping in the crevice, while releasing Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light from his body.
Long Haochen had already chosen since a long time which place he would jump to. Going down, he turned to the direction of a rock wall at a distance of ten meters. Then, gathering his spiritual energy to make his body as light as possible, Long Haochen landed lightly on rock edges, on his tiptoes. After getting rid of the impulse force, he aimed a Light Thorn downward, so as to illuminate the path, and followed it.
Yating circled in the air at Long Haochen’s side, helping him by illuminating the surroundings as she kept chanting the incantation for the Spiritual Gathering Halo, helping Long Haochen to recover his spiritual energy.
What amazed Long Haochen was that inside of this Desolate Hissing Cavern, Yating was actually valiant. With his physique of Scion of Light plus the two precious evolution she had, her appearance became a lot less pitiful. Doing all of this at once would normally have been impossible to her, but fortunately, his consumption wasn’t so great and furthermore, nurtured by the Saint Spiritual Stove’s effects, she managed to make progress by making use of his own spiritual energy.
Long Haochen was very careful on the route downwards. Not only paying attention to possible other individuals, he also looked carefully at the surroundings.
The more they went down, the more intense this evil spiritual energy aura was growing. In this evil intent existed also a deathly stillness. It was different from Cai’er’s killing intent as it seemed to be a pure deathly aura that spread to him, and the fierce aspect of this spiritual energy was something Long Haochen had never felt before.
This crevice was incredibly deep, and with Long Haochen’s slow advancing speed, no less than half an hour passed. At the time of the next round of hissing sounds, he still couldn’t see an end to this abyss.
Surrounded in pitch-black, Long Haochen, who had total light attribute, began to feel extremely unwell from the dense deathly aura. If not for the Light Elemental Fairy Yating’s illumination in addition to his occasional Light Thorn, the surroundings would be nothing more than a pitch-black scene.
In the middle of falling down, Long Haochen saw even more Grand Fiends’ corpses, hanging on some rocks. Very clearly, these Grand Fiends had died from the influence of the hissing sounds during their exploration.
Even Long Haochen, who was at the fifth step and had gained the understanding of the Ripples of Light, was feeling strained, let alone these Grand Fiends of the fifth step. Even the team of Grand Fiends they had gotten rid of before would probably not have made it so far.
His spiritual energy’s recovery speed was already far from being able to catch up with his consumption, and in the middle of these hissing sounds, Long Haochen had no choice but to look for a rock edge, the smoother possible, to sit and rest.