Chapter 284: Secret Arts

Thanks to the comprehensive ability of his spiritual threads, many of the skills Nolan had mastered seemed less necessary. He decided to fuse these underutilized abilities into the "Lumine's Sword Intent," keeping the essence and focusing on a single skill.

This would also save him some Adventure EXP, which made it absolutely worthwhile.

The first skill he considered for fusion was the Wind Pressure Sword, which he had learned from Jean.

Since acquiring the Lumine's Sword Intent, he had hardly used this skill. By merging it, the Lumine's Sword Intent could then also inherit the characteristics of the Wind Pressure Sword.

Wind Pressure Sword · Secret Art Lv.2 (0/2000) + Lumine's Sword Intent · Secret Art Lv.10 (Sword Foundation) → Lumine's Sword Intent · Secret Art Lv.10 (Sword Foundation 1/10)

With the successful fusion of the Wind Pressure Sword, Nolan could clearly feel a transformation in his Lumine's Sword Intent.

Now, it could gather enemies using sword intent, and merging a skill of the same level also significantly increased the base power of the sword intent.

After merging the Wind Pressure Sword, Nolan moved on to merge his archery skills, Arrow of World's Descent and Divine Generation Archery Technique.

His archery had fallen behind, mainly due to inferior weapons and a shorter range compared to his spiritual threads.

Moreover, upgrading the Divine Generation Archery Technique would consume too many Adventure EXP, making fusion a more practical option.

The traits of these skills wouldn't disappear; they would simply manifest through his sword intent instead.

Following the same process, the fusion of both skills was quickly completed.

The Sword Intent that had now merged with the Arrow of World's Descent would make his attacks silent and invisible, with the ability to traverse through space, greatly extending its attack range.

The benefits of the Divine Generation Archery Technique were also preserved. It allowed the golden sword energy unleashed by the Lumine's Sword Intent to split: one into three, and three into nine. As it grew stronger, the potential for one strike to become a thousand was within reach.

Additionally, the sword energy now had a homing feature.

Lumine's Sword Intent · Secret Art Lv.10 (Sword Foundation 7/10)

Perhaps because the Divine Generation Archery Technique was already an arcane-level skill, fusing it into the Lumine's Sword Intent directly advanced the Sword Foundation by five fusion levels, equivalent to five secret-art-level skills.

Now that the Sword Foundation had reached seven, he only needed to fuse three more secret-art-level skills to upgrade it to the arcane level.

This wasn't difficult, as he had enough skills to complete the advancement.

Next, Nolan chose to fuse the Focus Technique, allowing the Lumine's Sword Intent to immediately enter the "spirit descent" state upon activation. There would be no need to separately activate the Focus Technique.

Furthermore, using the Lumine's Sword Intent would automatically put him in the focused state, enabling him to remain calm and composed in battle, unaffected by external distractions.

Lumine's Sword Intent · Secret Art Lv.10 (Sword Foundation 8/10)

For the remaining two, Nolan decided to merge his elemental skills—Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst—into the sword intent.

This would allow the Lumine's Sword Intent to create a protective sword intent barrier with counterattacking abilities and summon a healing sword intent field beneath his feet.

As for why he didn't choose to merge Concealment Form and Anemo Manipulation, it was primarily due to inconvenience.

While the Lumine's Sword Intent could perfectly retain the traits of the fused skills, they still required him to activate the skill by summoning Lumine's golden projection to utilize them.

This posed a problem when Nolan wanted to use stealth or wind element attacks.

There was no way he would need to summon the projection first, as that would be too flashy and add unnecessary steps—clearly over-complicating things.

Moreover, for the Lumine's Sword Intent, fusing those two skills made more sense.

Lumine's Sword Intent · Secret Art Lv.10 (Sword Foundation 10/10)

["Lumine's Sword Intent" Has Met The Conditions And Advanced To An Ultimate(Arcane) Level Skill—Sword God of Lumine, Awakening Its Ultimate Trait: Sharp Intent.]

Since Lumine's Sword Intent had been at max level before advancing, it remained at max level even after the upgrade.

This result directly unlocked the ultimate ability. The special feature of the Sword Foundation had proven powerful, saving Nolan a significant amount of Adventure EXP.

Curious, Nolan glanced at the description of the ultimate trait:

[Sharp Intent: The Attacks of the Sword God of Lumine Are Unstoppable; They Can Cut Through All Things, Including Gods And The Laws of the World!]

Nolan gasped. This trait meant that nothing in the world could defend against his attacks!

Perhaps even against Celestia, he could leave a sword mark... although attempting that might get him killed by a sneeze.

Cough, cough. He shook off the dangerous thought.

He wasn't alone like when he first arrived in this world. There were plenty of girls who wanted to be with him now!

Looking at his simplified character panel, Nolan noticed that the only skill not maxed out was "Martial Arts." Unfortunately, he didn't have enough Adventure EXP to max it, which triggered his slight obsession with completion.

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Name: Nolan Walker

Level: Lv.80 (0/80,000)

Race: Human

Title: Honorary Knight

Innate Talent: Entangling Affection

Skills:

- Sword God of Lumine · Arcane Level Technique (Sharp Intent)

- Form Concealment · Secret Art Technique Lv.10 (Domain)

- Anemo Manipulation Lv.10 (Max Level)

- Close Combat/Martial Arts Lv.2 (0/200)

Specialties:

- Descender

- Maiden Savior

- Monster Slayer

- Abundant Life

- The Gospel of the Sky

- North Wind

- Spiritual Threads

- Harmony

- Millennium Body

- Blue Vortex

- Battery Body

- Elemental Immunity

Adventure EXP: 2573

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In terms of both level and skills, Nolan had now reached the top tier.

Based on his intuition, facing an adepti like Mooncarver head-on might be feasible, though defeating them... well, that was unlikely.

After enhancing his strength, Sucrose finally finished her work.

"Phew, all done. We can head back now," she said, exhaling softly.

"Great! But before we leave, how about a goodbye kiss?" Nolan leaned in toward Sucrose with a smile.

Sucrose's pale face turned slightly red as she glanced at him, realizing how late it had become while he kept her company during her work.

Gathering her courage, she pressed her lips lightly against his.

Just as she tried to pull away quickly, she realized her waist was held in place, her body unable to move.

She instinctively wanted to say something, but the moment she opened her mouth, Nolan seized the opportunity.

The two shared a deep kiss for quite some time before separating, during which Nolan used his "Harmony" specialty, boosting Sucrose from level 25 to level 32 in an instant.

It was quite a leap.

The effect of Harmony was proportional to Nolan's strength—the stronger he became, the stronger its effect.

For those of lower levels, the boost was especially noticeable. Sucrose, who had been focused solely on bio-alchemy, hadn't increased her level at all since they last met.

"How... how did you do that?" Sucrose stammered, her initial resistance giving way to surprise as she felt herself growing stronger.

"Heh, I'm really strong now. Sharing my energy with you to make you stronger isn't hard at all," Nolan explained.

"Besides, becoming stronger will make your bio-alchemy research easier, right? And don't worry—it won't affect me in any way."

As Nolan explained the Harmony ability, Sucrose's face turned even redder. In the end, she was so embarrassed she buried her face in his chest, refusing to let him see her expression.

[Sucrose Has Developed Good Feelings Towards You, Obtained 260 Affection Points. Current Affection Level: Lv.9 (616/900).]

The next day, while Lumine and the others continued enjoying their rest in Mondstadt, Nolan spent the day with Sucrose in the lab, assisting with experiments.

He hoped to max out her affection level soon.

Unfortunately, he couldn't create an opportunity to raise her affection that day.

On the third day, it seemed like the Rite of Parting in Liyue was about to begin, so Nolan temporarily set aside his matters in Mondstadt and accompanied everyone to Liyue for the event.

Note: Sword God of Lumine is similar to the Divine General Jing Yuan from Honkai: Star Rail, with the same golden color, but it looks like Lumine's form—super cool!!!

Let me know if you have a cool name for this skill 😉

(End of Chapter)

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