Cave Refuge-Chapter 138 - 137: Abnormality in the Air_1

It seemed that using simply the Art of Controlling Objects did not accomplish Dong Tianyu’s imagined idea of sword flight.

As soon as Dong Tianyu’s feet left the wooden sword, the sword instantly lifted off the ground, made a circle in the air, and then implanted itself directly onto the hard mountain face.

However, this seemingly cool action came at the cost of damaging the wooden sword.

While it appears undamaged on the outside, it is because the sword is currently protected by Spirit Power, and thus did not suffer any damage when it was plugged into the mountain.

But once Dong Tianyu released his control over the sword, as soon as the Spirit Power withdraws from the sword, it would just be a wooden sword. Although there may not be any damages immediately, if someone or something were to touch the sword, it would likely crumble quickly due to the fragility of its material.

This phenomenon is similar to the digital static balance that often occurs inside computer towers. These are situations where dust has built up significantly inside the tower due to lack of cleaning, but the computer still functions normally.

However, once you clean up the dust inside and tidy up the components, problems actually start to occur, and the cause may be hard to find. Yet, simply by cleaning and reassembling the components, the computer can function normally again.

This is what it means to have a static electric balance, so a computer tower should be cleaned regularly, otherwise, it should not be cleaned at all.

The wooden sword embedded in the mountain now is in such a situation. At the moment, its body has reached a delicate balance with the mountain. If no one touches it, the wooden sword would simply decay progressively over time.

However, if someone tried to pull it out from the mountainside, the intact wooden sword would crumble instantly.

This was like the Iron Ox of the Yellow River, which stood tall for thousands of years despite harsh weather, then turned into scraps after listening to the ’experts’ advice.

The famous Thunder Fire Refining Hall, too, had not been struck by lightning after centuries, and even formed an unrepeatable spectacle.

But under the suggestion of ’experts’ deeming it unsafe, a lightning rod was installed. Within a year, it was struck by lightning multiple times, resulting in the collapse of the grand hall. It was a pity that later generations could not rebuild it according to the original plan, causing the spectacle of the Thunder Fire Refining Hall to permanently disappear from people’s sight.

Then there’s the so-called dangerous bridge that didn’t fall despite four explosive measurements, while the new bridge collapsed within three years after construction.

Staring at the wooden sword with only the hilt visible, Dong Tianyu didn’t feel heartbroken. After all, there were tens of thousands of these wooden swords in the Shadow Space.

These wooden swords were handicrafts Dong Tianyu found in a container. Although he didn’t know whether they were prepared for export or imported from foreign countries, the container was filled with them and came in a rich variety of styles.

Feeling joyous, Dong Tianyu took out another wooden sword, let it drop naturally from the air, and then shouted: "Sword, come!"

In an instant, dozens of identical wooden swords appeared around the first one.

"Rise, swords!"

Following Dong Tianyu’s loud command, the wooden sword that had been falling straight down instantly turned over and hovered in mid-air.

"Thousand Arrows Piercing Heart!"

As soon as the words fell, the originally hovering wooden swords suddenly changed direction, then, like bullets, one after another, they struck towards the ground not far away.

’Bang~ bang~ bang~’

With the first wooden sword hitting the target, the dull sound continued to echo, kicking up a cloud of dust on the ground.

Even though the phrase "Thousand Arrows Piercing Heart" was used, in reality, only about a dozen wooden swords were hanging in the air.

Unlike the first sword that got stuck in the mountain, these wooden swords shattered into pieces upon striking the ground.

This was because Dong Tianyu did not expend spiritual power to protect the body of the sword, so the outcome of a collision between wood and rock was obvious.

’Huh!’

Immediately after showing off, Dong Tianyu detected something unusual. He didn’t notice it when he was only controlling one sword, but when he started controlling a dozen at the same time, he detected the anomaly.

After shouting "Sword, come!" earlier, the wooden sword seemed to have split into a dozen in an instant. In truth, Dong Tianyu had taken out a dozen identical wooden swords from the Shadow Space and directly controlled them using the Art of Controlling Objects, creating a visual effect of the wooden sword dividing.

He didn’t pay attention during his show-off earlier but noticed the anomaly when it ended.

It wasn’t obvious when he was controlling one sword, but when controlling over a dozen swords simultaneously, the sensation became much clearer.

However, this sensation was not normal. Although the Spirit Energy in the air was so thin that it was close to nonexistent, being close to nonexistent did not mean it was completely absent.

Dong Tianyu could actually sense Spirit Energy in the air. Despite the Spirit Energy in the air being so thin that it was negligible, it was still a breakthrough from having no Spirit Energy to having some.

This was abnormal. In his past life, Dong Tianyu only lived at the bottom of society, but such a transcendental matter would be hard to hide. If there were really transcendental beings, officials would even proactively promote it to strengthen the cohesion among survivors.

However, until Dong Tianyu’s death, he had never heard of mystical or martial arts practitioners.

Thinking back to the dinner when Robinson William confirmed the authenticity of the internal martial arts technique, Dong Tianyu speculated that it might be due to his low status in his past life, which was why he was unfamiliar with these matters.

But then again, Dong Tianyu had also practiced outside the cave before and had not detected any Spirit Energy in the air.

Could it be because the Spirit Energy contained in the air was too thin, so he did not detect it when he went out in the past?

Thinking about it, this was the only conjecture that made sense.

He casually took out a thermometer from the space, and saw the scale on it climbed rapidly, breaking through forty in the blink of an eye and heading towards fifty.

Never mind the fact that he was currently wearing a Magic Artifact that could regulate temperature, just based on Dong Tianyu’s Foundation Building Stage cultivation alone, he could withstand both extreme heat and cold.

For that very reason, Dong Tianyu would come out every day to wander around and practice spells on the platform outside the cave entrance.

After expending some survival points, Dong Tianyu learned several techniques from the model of the Hall of Longevity.

In addition to the Art of Controlling Objects, he also learned Finger Flame, Minor Rejuvenation, and Spring Rain Visualization, which he sought specifically to deal with the torrid heat.

Finger Flame was actually a spell similar to the Fireball Technique. The middle finger bent down, the thumb pressed against it to condense a tiny Spirit Power ball between the index finger and the ring finger.

When the middle finger pushes up against the thumb, the Spirit Power ball ejects in a straight line from between the index finger and the ring finger.

If only this was the case, this novel’s Finger Bullet Technique would be very similar to it, with the only difference being one fires stones, and the other fires Spirit Power balls.

The real reason it’s called Finger Flame is that when the middle finger returns to the center between the index and ring fingers, the just-ejected Spirit Power ball would be ignited mid-air, transforming into a fireball and moving forward.

Simply put, it was just the action of flicking a stone, with only three nodes of Spirit Power involved in its execution. Two of them were at the ring and index fingers used for gathering Spirit Power, and the other was at the middle finger, which was used to ignite the Spirit Power ball that was just ejected.