Cricket Bombs

The next morning, Ning'Er decided to skip classes and head to the Guild of Inscriptionists. Now that she had reached Gold Rank, she would be able to create Black Gold Rank inscriptions and she wanted to assess the high quality materials Wang Shu had purchased at the Hong Yue auction.

With the expedition to Ning You City Ruins approaching, it was essential that she possessed as much lifesaving equipment as possible. There were uncountable dangers in the forest as they moved further away from Glory City, not only from demon beasts and demon spirits, but even from opportunistic humans who wanted to rob unassuming adventurers.

At the same time, she was deeply aware that the Dark Guild was lurking in the shadows waiting for their opportunity to strike at any moment they saw a weakness. If they had picked up on her being responsible for the amazing inscriptions and equipment coming out of the Guild of Inscriptionists, or if they knew that she was holding on to the Nightmare Demon Pot that they had desired, it would have been easy to make her into a target.

Wang Shu looked more well-rested than he usually looked in her visits to the guild. The lower level talismans and equipment could be handled by the Senior Apprentices and Apprentices, as well as Ning'Er's clansmen in her hometown. This freed him up to focus on the higher level inscriptions but the scarcity of the high quality materials needed meant that he couldn't mass produce them.

He could barely contain his excitement when she told him she had some new inscriptions for him. In the past, she had suspected that he was at peak Gold Rank because of how smoothly he was able to pick up Gold Rank inscriptions but she had found out that his actual level was at 1 Star Black Gold Rank! If his passion had not been in inscriptions, he would have been a rather formidable expert indeed.

First, she guided him through two powerful Gold Rank talismans. At this level, it was possible to create external energy in its application, and both were offensive in nature. The first was called Silent Force which sent a sudden gust of wind quickly and quietly, to push an opponent away forcefully. The second was simply called Lightning Strike, shooting a deadly bolt of electricity up to a distance of around a hundred yards.

Next, she identified two main pieces of material Wang Shu had obtained at the auction. The first was a large block of Dragonsteel mined from the mountain of Urodela towards the northern border of the St. Ancestral Mountain Range. Legends rumoured that it used to be inhabited by a family of Red Emperor Dragons, creating a unique environment of hellish fire that tempered the metals found in that mountain for thousands of years.

The endless refinement resulted in a metal that, once processed by a master blacksmith, could be shaped into weapons of incomparable sharpness and hardness. Until today, boiling lava continued to flow in the depths of the mountain but because of the extreme dangers involved, there was still a lot of Dragonsteel left unmined.

After discussing with Wang Shu, they both decided that the best weapon to utilise this rare material was a sword because it had the largest blade area in relation to the whole weapon. With the amount of Dragonsteel there, around five swords could be created. Ning'Er took time to impart a powerful wind inscription, writing down precise instructions of Wang Shu to follow, and promised to stop by to help demonstrate the process for the first sword once the blacksmith had made it.

The end result would provide a sword with the fearsome ability to release deadly blades of wind in the midst of battle, that were unpredictable to defend against and as sharp as a physical sword cutting through flesh. In her past life, she had named this sword Wind Cutter and it had accompanied her through many adventures.

The second material was a full set of scales from an elusive demon beast called the Heavenly Armadillo. This beast primarily stayed underground and could dig faster and deeper than most other creatures with its powerful forearms. Even if you could locate it, its scales were renown to have extremely high defensive ability and were as physically tough as high tier armour. Even without inscriptions, a set of armour made from this material would already command a sky high price and with the amount Wang Shu had bought, two sets of armour could be built.

Ning'Er decided to use a variation of the inscriptions on her Cloak of Misdirection that she had adapted for armour. The user could trigger shifts in the air around the armour to bend light and create a blurring illusion which would confuse an opponent's eyes for a moment. Although it was just a moment, even a split second could decide the result of a battle, and any glancing blow would have no chance of breaking through the tough scales of the armour. She decided to name this Black Gold ranked armour Heaven's Shift.

Wang Shu was starting to get used to the miraculous inscriptions that Ning'Er shared with him, which he still assumed came from her mysterious master in the background but his eyes still shone with delight every time she revealed another one. Studying and pondering over the inscriptions had been extremely valuable to him as an inscriptionist, and he could feel the insights pushing him towards 2-Star Black Gold Rank. He had reached a bottleneck many years ago in terms of martial comprehension and insights, and had given up on increasing his cultivation levels but ever since meeting Ning'Er, he had slowly but surely, felt growth reignite in his soul through the knowledge he was gaining.

She asked for a private inscription room so that she could work on something she had been planning in her mind. Although there were multiple uses for the Primary Dark Jade she had bought at the auction, a burst of inspiration had come to her when she had tested out the destructive ball of black lightning that shot out of her Panterran form. What if this energy could be contained and released through an appropriate medium?

As she thought through this problem, she realised that the material and aura of Primary Dark Jade could be an ideal item to channel the volatile and devastating lightning force. With the amount of useable jade she had purchased, she could barely cut out five serviceable pieces for her experiment. If it worked, she would need to source for more of this material.

She took an hour to meditate and circulating the Lightning Dragon Technique, and once she sensed that she was in her optimum state, she began to inscribe intricate runes into a piece of jade that would allow it to absorb and activate the explosive energy of the Panterran. The rich aura of the Primary Dark Jade would act as a natural battery to amplify the radius of the explosion and to power it to sustain significantly longer. In order to ensure that others couldn't use their soul force to trigger the explosion, she placed a trigger inscription that was attuned only to her aura and even placed a delay mechanism to activate with either a three second, ten second or thirty second lead time.

Once she had completed the inscriptions required, she transformed into her Panterran form and carefully charged the piece of jade with a controlled blast of black lightning from her mouth. Then, before she set about creating the other four pieces, she went to the adjacent testing room, which was built with reinforced materials and able to withstand powerful explosions from within. She wanted to make sure it worked before using the other pieces she had.

She deftly activated the ten second mechanism and threw it into the room, closing the door and watching from outside through a thick panel of glass. She held her breath as she wondered how her experiment would turn out. She had to lift her hands to shield her eyes from the piercing black light that erupted in the next room, and she could make out the faint screeching sound through the insulated glass, as though thousands of crickets were chirping at the same time. She couldn't even imagine how loud it would be if she were inside the testing room.

As she watched the scene unfold in the next room, she realised that the results were far greater than she had anticipated. The aura contained within the Primary Dark Jade had caused the ball of energy released to cover a radius of around ten yards and lasted for a full twelve seconds! She could sense that no one below Black Gold rank would have a chance of surviving getting caught in the range of that black lightning, and suspected that even Black Gold ranked experts would be seriously injured! She also realised that as her own cultivation rank increased, the power that she could charge the jade would increase correspondingly. She would have to test how much power the jade could safely contain as her strength grew.

After the sphere of dark energy dissipated after using up all the available energy, she was intrigued to find that small traces of black lightning still remained in tiny scorched holes in the ground, writhing around like living worms and trying to bury itself deeper into any surface it encountered. She shuddered as she imagined this happening within an opponent's body. On top of defending against further attacks, the person would need to channel soul force to try to purge out this form of lightning poison. It was similar to what her grandfather faced on a daily basis but barely a fraction of the toxicity of whatever plagued his body.

She was ecstatic at the effectiveness of this new weapon. Even though she only had four uses left, the destructive capabilities were undeniable and gave her an incredibly reassuring trump card for her to use in emergencies. Remembering the unique sound that it made, she decided to name it the Cricket Bomb, which probably did not do justice to the terrifying effects of this weapon.

By the time she had created the other four bombs, she exited the guild to find that it had already grown dark. Her friends must have been wondering where she was but she knew they'd have continued their training in group formations since it wasn't unusual that she'd have found something else important to do. Her actions and behaviour had been incomprehensible to them over the recent months but they had come to trust that she had a good reason behind everything she did.

As she made her way home, she was hit with a sudden sense of danger. She couldn't perceive any movement or sounds around her but she couldn't shake off the sense that there was someone...or something stalking her. A vine suddenly whipped out from the shadows of a tree and whipped against her. She had managed to lift her arms to block but the force flung her backwards to land painfully on her back.

She quickly spun into a crouching position and without any warning threw the two Jade Shadows into where she perceived the enemy to be. She was shocked to hear two thunks as though the throwing knives had pierced into wood. She then took out the Unity Sword and began defending against numerous vines that whipped at her in varying angles and rhythms, causing her to not be able to go into an offensive mode. What kind of enemy was this? Why did it feel like some sort of plant was attacking her instead of a human or beast?

As she defended against vines and branches whipping at her with incredible force, she felt a warning flash across her consciousness as her movements started to become heavier. Realising with panic that the air was drugged with some sort of numbing plant spores, she decisively activated a Silent Force talisman, which sent a mighty gust of wind to push any poisonous elements away from her although whoever was attacking her barely took a step back from the force. She quickly jumped backwards to create more space before merging with her demon spirit and shot out a ball of black lightning towards her adversary in one smooth motion.

There was an unearthly squeal of pain as whoever she was facing felt the effects of the destructive ball of energy. Instead of fighting back, her foe decided to flee quickly into the trees. She considered for a moment whether to pursue but realised that she was not in great condition to continue the battle.

Firstly, she didn't even know who...or what she was facing. Secondly, she had exhausted most of her soul force creating the Cricket Bombs, and she had already been pushing her limits by forcing through a merging with her demon spirit and even releasing her ranged attack. Thirdly, the sneak attack with the spores had numbed her body and reaction time, and she needed to take some time to purge out the effects from her bloodstream soon. She had decided not to use any of her precious bombs yet because she had not felt a serious sense of threat on her life during the confrontation.

Sitting in a tree in the far distance, with a grimace of pain, a boy forcefully sliced some branches and vines attached to his body that still had small snakes of black lightning writhing within. He then withdrew the branches back into his body and unmerged with his demon spirit.

Letting out a soft, grim chuckle, he spoke in a low threatening tone towards the direction her had just come from, "Consider that a friendly greeting." He turned and disappeared into the night.