69 He Really Used Force! (1/2)
Bai Xi stared at the ring of light on Ye Qingxuan’s fingertip. Through the ring, she could see the youth’s black eyes. There was a faint smile in those eyes.
”It worked?” Charles murmured.
”You used three days to make a ring?” Bai Xi stuck a finger through the light and the ring shattered, breaking from the outside force. But when she pulled her finger back, the deformed shape bounced back like tallow, turning into a ring again. It was bright as before.
Charles nodded. ”The shape is a little weird, but it’s very stable. It must have taken a lot of hard work to reach this level.”
Properly saying the syllables should have created a smooth ring equal on all sides, but at least Ye Qingxuan was able to improve the quality of the aether structure, and it was no longer a mess like it had been before.
”It’s okay. You’ve worked hard to do this.” Bai Xi sighed. ”Remember to let us know before you lock yourself up. No one knew anything. Others might have thought you went to rob the church’s bank.”
”Don’t be so impatient.” Ye Qingxuan slowly raised his finger. ”This is just the beginning…” Saying that, he blew. Along his breath, a weak breeze went through the ring and ran into an invisible wall, turning back. The breeze seemed to have blew away the dust, revealing its true nature. There was a thin membrane pulled taught across the ring. It seemed like it would tear with the slightest touch.
But as Ye Qingxuan blew, it slowly inflated. As if blowing a giant soap bubble, Ye Qingxuan carefully and patiently increased the strength of his breath. A bubble slowly appeared from the ring of light on his fingertip. Finally, with a slight push, a perfect bubble popped out from the ring and floated up toward the ceiling.
Bai Xi watched, frozen.
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The breeze blew in from the window, and the delicate bubble slowly floated toward the girl. It reflected the sunlight and surrounding colors. The semi-transparent bubble emanated a magnificent glow, as if it were reflecting the image of another world.
Bai Xi could see Ye Qingxuan’s face through the thin membrane.
As if sensing the shock in her eyes, the youth smiled.
”What is this?” Bai Xi carefully reached out to hold it, but was scared she would accidentally pop it. When the bubble floated over, she retreated, afraid she would ruin that beautiful thing.
Charles reached out. The lightest touch caused ripples. It floated an inch above his finger, rotating lazily. This was another coherence technique, and it had been executed was amazingly.
Charles studied the bubble on his fingertip. Seeing something unexpected, his eyes lit up with a pleasant surprise. ”This is a variant of the Rune · Light. It’s the School of Illusion’s favorite effect—Bubble. You’re already able to use it in battle. If you can make this, then you should know the other twenty-three uses of Light, correct?”
”The others are pretty easy, but I had to try this many times.” Ye Qingxuan rubbed his belly and sighed. ”I had wanted to make Old Phil’s shape, but the precision it needed was too high. Halfway through, I ran out of energy and almost died. That was so scary…”
”You learned the note and all twenty-three uses over three days? But three days ago, you had no interaction with the aether at all. How did you do it?”
”A stupid method that everyone can think of.” Ye Qingxuan pointed at the papers on the table and chuckled. ”Practice.”
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”In the end, a musician controls the aether by chanting. The aether joins together and creates the structure of the rune. Different runes have different effects. The principle behind it is complex, but since the proper syllable can achieve the proper result, I just needed to pronounce the correct syllable,” Ye Qingxuan said.
”As you all saw, I don’t have the genius so-called ‘feeling.’ So when I chant, I can’t tweak the syllables according to the outside environment and the aether’s reaction, so that’s why the result was weak, right?”
”That’s right,” Charles nodded. ”How did you fix it?”
”It was easy.” Ye Qingxuan snapped his fingers. ”As long as I can anticipate outside disturbances beforehand, then there’s no problem.”
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In the silence, the youth spread out the papers with a smile and gazed at the scrawled handwriting. ”All I did was find the proper syllable from different records. The theories used now, and corrections to pronunciation all come from each individual’s ‘sense’ of the Originator. Then they adjust their Sound of Heart and perform the rune. But it was noted in ‘Ten Basic Problems in Casting,’ there’s a non-mainstream School of Behavior. They don’t believe in the existence of a soul, and only believe in action and reaction. It can be applied to Phantom Beasts, which are created from aether. So there should be a set mechanism to force a reaction from the aether too.”
There was a long silence following Ye Qingxuan’s words.
After a long time, Charles processed Ye Qingxuan’s words with difficulty. ”So you’re saying that you read everything that had anything to do with Light, chant records, the aether environment at the time, the timbre, frequency, pitch, pattern of change, and everything else?”
”That’s right,” Ye Qingxuan nodded.
”Everything?” Charles felt like he was hallucinating.
”Everything.” Ye Qingxuan nodded again.
His voice trembling, Charles asked, ”That’s what you did for three days?”
Ye Qingxuan thought for a moment and shook his head. ”It took one day to organize all the material, and half a day to find the pattern of change of notes. Memorizing it all took the shortest amount of time.”
He paused and added, ”There’s not much, give or take six-hundred variations. If you take out the two-hundred or so rare circumstances, it’s easy to remember the rest. The changes are complicated, but once you get the pattern, it’s not hard.”