When the jade box was opened, a cold wave of aura came out. The temperature in the storeroom dropped rapidly, causing Han Shuo to shiver again involuntarily. He quickly shifted his concentration to the item inside the green jade box.
It was a green ball. Its surface was like an emerald, blinking with a fleeting green light. Inside was a red dot, like a drop of churning blood, oscillating randomly within the ball.
His mind suddenly ached, and all Han Shuo could feel was his mental power draining rapidly towards the ball. It felt a bit like when he used necromancy magic. With the injection of Han Shuo's mental energy, the surface of the ball glowed even more green, and the blood-red dot in the centre suddenly emitted a small string of red light.
Pain! A sharply honed dagger rattled Han Shuo's brain. With the loss of his mental strength, Han Shuo's mind hurt like hell. In all his years of life, he had never endured such cruel agony.
In the midst of this extreme pain, Han Shuo should have passed out instantly, but the eerie thing was that Han Shuo's mind was clearer than it's ever been. In fact, Han Shuo felt that because his mind was more awake than ever, it was making the agony worse and infinitely greater.
With both hands clutching his head, Han Shuo was like a wild animal being slowly sliced by a thousand, a million knives. He let out a rasping, low roar that didn't sound like it could have come from a human being. Han Shuo's mental power continued to slowly flow towards the round ball, along with the continuation of the inhuman pain.
At this moment, the tendons on Han Shuo's forehead, neck, and exposed arms were protruding like several worms crawling inside his body. His body had begun to fill out a bit and his muscles were now tense with explosive power.
As Han Shuo felt that his mental strength was about to be completely drained, the magical yuan within his body flowed from his neck to his brain. As the magical yuan entered his brain, which was already splitting open from the pain, the soul-searing agony seemed to increase tenfold in intensity.
The mental strength that had vanished into the orb at such a rapid pace came crashing back like a huge wave rolling onto the shore, drowning Han Shuo in an instant. He finally could not stand it any longer and passed out.
He felt the fatigue of a ten thousand kilometre march as he slowly woke up, but his brain was abnormally awake. As his eyes regained their focus, he looked around and saw that even the grain in the wooden door in front of him seemed quite clear.
He let out a small "eh?" as the changes within him stopped him in his tracks. The last time he had felt like this was when he had gained mental strength after a series of coincidences. He had also felt that his senses were heightened then, and hurried to focus his mental power again when he realised that this feeling had returned in force.
His face immediately lit up with exuberant joy, as he thought, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger! Even this much danger wasn't enough to kill me, and now I've mysteriously benefited from this disaster. He could feel that his mental strength had increased by leaps and bounds, much stronger than the amount of mental strength he'd struggled to increase over the past two months.
These mysterious things had actually happened, shocking Han Shuo beyond belief as his gaze once again fell on the dark green orb. The faint green glow on its surface seemed to have faded somewhat, but the red drop inside was even more vivid.
He frowned as he stepped back a few centimetres and studied the green orb more closely. He suddenly had the feeling that this ball was very similar to something else. After a few moments of thought, he jumped in fright and made a sudden inspection of the ball. It was very similar to an eyeball, and the more he looked at it, the more it seemed to be one.
The red dot inside the green ball seemed to be an eye that was sizing Han Shuo up, giving him an extremely creepy feeling. He shuddered quite violently as he closed the jade box, every hair on his neck standing on end. A sharp click sounded as the jade box closed again and the key that had been stuck in the recess automatically popped out.
Han Shuo shook his head as he banished the association between the orb and the eyeball from his mind. The more he thought about it, the more he thought there was something strange about this ball. If it wasn't for the magical yuan circulating in his brain today, his mental strength would surely have been drained by the ball and he would have collapsed under the inhuman pain. He would have been truly driven mad and become an idiot.
However, when the magic yuan had found its way into his brain, the depleted mental strength had returned like a river flowing upstream, and had even been greatly improved and increased. This made Han Shuo feel that the ball was even more eerie and unpredictable. He could vaguely sense that this ball was no ordinary object, otherwise the Duke would not have killed Dylan for the jade box.
As for the green ball inside the jade box, Han Shuo could not fathom its purpose, but since the ball had almost turned him into a real idiot, his heart still jumped with fear when he thought about it. He put the jade box back under the bed, planning to experiment with the item inside as soon as he found out what it was.
The next day.
Han Shuo woke up feeling that his body was in much better shape than the day before. He caught a glimpse of Carey and Borg from a distance as he was washing up, the two of them cleaning the statues on their way to class. They seemed to have woken up much earlier than usual, yawning constantly, even at this time of day.
Carey and Borg smiled eagerly and greeted Han Shuo from afar, reminding him to speak to Master Fanny as soon as possible.
After finishing his breakfast and listening to another lecture from Master Gene on the fundamentals of magic while he swept the corridor to the necromancy classrooms, Han Shuo headed straight for the training grounds.
"Bryan, Fitch is in the training field asking Master Fanny some questions about magical knowledge. Please talk to her soon, or both of us are really screwed!" Han Shuo met Carey and Borg at the door, the two had just finished cleaning the training fields and pleaded with Han Shuo as soon as they saw him.
Han Shuo nodded as he said lazily, "All right, all right, I'll go find Master Fanny now."
Fitch had some bad blood with Gene, not to mention that Fitch was already a journeyman mage. Therefore, of course, he had no need to listen to Gene's basic knowledge lessons anymore.
Fitch looked at Fanny from the side, completely mesmerised. Love, lust and the light of greed mixed and sparkled in his eyes. His eyes continued to roam over Fanny's beautiful body and he didn't even notice Han Shuo's arrival.
"Fitch, look at this. Even with my eyes covered, I can still command dark creatures to find the right target based on previous memories." Fanny's eyes were covered as a few zombies bypassed several obstacles and used the clubs in their hands to land hard blows on wooden targets as she spoke.
Concentrating on the lesson, Fanny of course had no idea that Fitch was not paying any attention to her words. Fitch's attention was entirely focused on her beautiful curves.
When Han Shuo saw that Fitch completely ignored Fanny's explanation, and that his gaze was constantly combing over her body, he silently thought, "No wonder this kid has failed to advance to the Adept class even after several attempts.
Judging from the situation, Fitch must have used the extra lessons as an excuse to spend some time alone with Fanny. Fanny's covered eyes must have something to do with Fitch's instruction on how to use his heart to command dark creature attacks.
Han Shuo noticed quite a few obstacles in the area as he walked over, carefully avoiding all of them as he moved towards Fitch and Fanny.
Just as he was about to reach Fanny and Fitch, Fitch suddenly awoke from his idiotic stupor and turned his head slightly. When he saw that it was Han Shuo, a hint of unconcealed disgust appeared in Fitch's eyes.
Fitch responded with a movement of his staff and two lines of incantation in a low voice. Some of the obstacles on the ground suddenly seemed to come alive as some withered, broken, white bones rushed towards Han Shuo's bottom. Some ropes also tied themselves to the bones and came flying with them, trying to entangle Han Shuo like a snake.
Han Shuo's body was a little weaker than normal after last night's events. His panicked dance of evasion was a bit messy, and he was eventually tripped by a rope that suddenly appeared and stumbled towards Fitch and Fanny.
At this moment, Fanny was still concentrating her mental strength on directing the dark creature's attacks, her mouth constantly summarising her actions. Although her ears caught a few sounds, she paid no attention to them.
Seeing that he was about to fall on Fitch and Fanny, Han Shuo's hand still reached out wildly for something to stabilise himself, even though his heart was calm, but at that moment, a trace of a cold smile tugged at Fitch's lips. He raised his staff slightly and aimed it at the falling Han Shuo, who was obviously up to no good.
Now panicking internally as well, Han Shuo twisted his body violently to the left in mid-air, trying to avoid Fitch's attack. As his body began to fall towards Fanny, the results of Han Shuo's magic training came to fruition as his body miraculously stopped after sucking in his waist and pushing out with his stomach.
But Han Shuo didn't manage to retract his haphazardly flailing right arm in time and it landed on Fanny's cheeky, well-rounded butt. The ecstasy of the smooth, tender, well-filled curve immediately travelled from the point of contact between Han Shuo and Fanny back to his brain.
In a strange coincidence, Han Shuo actually gave a light pinch before realising what he was doing and pulling back violently. He had just understood the insanity of his actions and was extremely frightened, thinking that there was no way Fanny would forgive him. Why had he pinched her cheek when it felt so wonderful!
As he practically flew into retreat, Han Shuo looked at Fitch, who was glaring back at Han Shuo with fire-breathing eyes and a body shaking with rage. It was as if Han Shuo had done something terrible, like murdering Fitch's entire family. Fanny also screamed in shock and immediately tore off the black cloth covering her eyes.
Fanny will never forgive me now. Shit. Shit. Han Shuo thought.
Pa pa! Two slaps. Fitch had been staring furiously at Han Shuo as two red palm prints appeared on his face. Fanny was enraged and stared at Fitch with killing intent, her high breasts heaving as she raged, "Damn Fitch, how dare you take advantage of me and violate me!"