Chapter 4: A Rusty Sword with a Soul
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"Definitely stronger than before, but still just a pretty pillow with no substance."
That casual remark pulled Su Ling back from her daydream. She looked toward the source of the voice with clear displeasure, a dark-haired girl in a teal ruqun sat on the front bench, reading a book in her hands.
The girl had sharp brows and a face that was less "pretty" and more "striking," like a peerless sword with its edge fully bared. Yet her manner was nothing like what you'd expect, she carried herself with an almost extreme elegance. The way she turned pages was light and quiet, like a well-bred young lady deep in her studies.
What unsettled people, though, were those blood-red pupils. Even a simple glance from them carried a suffocating pressure, as if those crimson eyes had truly been forged from blood.
Her long black hair was tied back simply with a red ribbon, with a few playful strands at her temples tucked neatly behind her ears. She sat there in perfect stillness, beautiful like a painting come to life.
Even so, facing such a striking beauty, Su Ling didn't stay stunned for long, because this person had just called her a pretty pillow with no substance. If she'd heard that before the Silver Dragon Gene fusion, she might have let it slide. But the her right now had nothing to do with being weak!
"What gives you the right to call me that?" Su Ling's voice wasn't angry, just a little stubborn.
"Sudden power is nothing but a castle in the air. Do you have any combat experience? Do you know which techniques to use against which types of attacks? Even action games require you to learn enemy movesets before you can handle them, so what makes you think you can become a close-combat expert overnight in real life?"
The girl spoke at an unhurried pace, without stressing any particular point or raising her voice. She stated it all plainly, with almost no emotion whatsoever, and it was precisely that flat, emotionless delivery that dumped a bucket of ice water straight over Su Ling's head.
When someone suddenly gains power, the excitement has a way of making them overlook a lot of details, leaving them feeling invincible. And more often than not, that very excitement and overconfidence ends up becoming the blade that kills them.
What the other girl said was, honestly, spot on. Even the most scripted boss in a game, with its rigid attack patterns, isn't something you can clear on the first try. Someone who had never wielded a weapon in a real fight, who had zero combat experience, could she really become a close-combat master overnight?
Sure, 【Sword Mastery】 had given her a wealth of swordsmanship knowledge, but right now that was all still just theory. Knowing in your head what to do and having your body know how to react are two completely different things.
And there's an even bigger gap between reacting with your brain and reacting with your body directly. Same analogy with games, seeing a boss wind up an attack, then thinking about which button to press, versus seeing a boss wind up and your hands already responding on their own, the gap in efficiency is night and day.
The former might be slow, but the latter never is. And in a real fight, being slow even once could mean the difference between life and death.
Su Ling, now fully calm, felt the last trace of her stubbornness melt away completely. The other girl was right. She looked far more powerful than her old self, but all that had changed were her stats. At her core, she was still just a pretty pillow with no substance.
Not even against someone with higher stats, even against someone at roughly the same level, she probably wouldn't have any chance of winning.
"Calmed down?" The ruqun girl looked up at Su Ling and asked, her tone even.
Su Ling closed her eyes, let out a slow breath, and when she opened them again, the excitement and exhilaration from before were gone. "Yeah. Calmed down."
"Hey, Su Ling? Who are you talking to?" Before the ruqun girl could say anything else, Isha's voice suddenly cut in. She stared at the spot Su Ling had been looking at with clear unease, because in her eyes, there was nothing there at all.
Su Ling blinked, then pointed at the ruqun girl and asked, puzzled, "There's a person sitting right there, teal ruqun, black hair, red eyes, pretty good-looking too. Should be around your height?"
Hearing that description, Isha's expression grew even more serious, because it wasn't just that she couldn't see a person, there wasn't even a shadow there. The dust on the bench hadn't shifted an inch. There was absolutely no way anyone was sitting there.
Watching Isha's reaction, Su Ling scratched her head in mild frustration. She didn't know how to explain it, because she didn't know who the other girl was or why she was here, but she could clearly see her and have a perfectly normal conversation with her.
Just as Su Ling was puzzling over it, the ruqun girl spoke again. "My name is Lu. In terms you'd understand, I am the sword spirit of that rusty sword, and you are now my sword master, which is why you can see me and hear my voice. Others cannot."
Hearing that explanation, Su Ling immediately understood, and quickly explained it to Isha beside her. The moment Isha heard it, the seriousness and confusion on her face vanished completely, as if she had no doubt at all about Su Ling's words.
"So it's a sword spirit. That makes sense." She nodded as she said it, giving the impression that she'd already known all along that the rusty sword had a consciousness of its own.
"You're not going to question whether I'm lying?" Seeing Isha accept the explanation so instantly, Su Ling was actually a little curious.
Isha explained, "That sword does have a consciousness. She's the one who taught me everything I know about swordsmanship, though whenever I saw her, she was just a blob of blood-colored light."
"It was nothing more than a deal I made with the first-generation Isha. Now that you've become my sword master, that deal has come to an end."
As if she'd known in advance what Su Ling was going to ask, Lu turned a page and added offhandedly, and then something in the book seemed to catch her interest, the faintest trace of a smile tugged at the corner of that otherwise unreadable face.
"What kind of deal?" Su Ling's curiosity still wasn't satisfied. She quickly asked the question in her mind.
That method of communication was just a guess on her part. After all, Lu could only be seen and heard by her. If she had to speak out loud every time she wanted to talk, that would be both undignified and a great way to get mistaken for someone losing their mind.
And her guess turned out to be right. She could communicate with Lu through a kind of telepathic link. Lu, hearing the question, didn't hide anything and answered directly.
"She helped me stay in this world undisturbed. I helped her cultivate her 'descendants,' things like teaching them swordsmanship."
"So your swordsmanship is really that good?" Su Ling instinctively followed up.
"Probably?" It was rare for Lu to hesitate at a question like that. She tilted her head and seemed to fall into thought, as if genuinely trying to figure out what tier her own level fell into.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Trying to count how many people could beat me."
"Oh? And the result?"
"Probably no more than 5, but that's with my full power. When it comes to pure swordsmanship alone, it's actually hard to say."
Hearing that answer, Su Ling's eyes lit up. Lu's strength was beyond anything she had imagined, which meant that she, as Lu's sword master, could one day stand above all others, given enough time, right?
Her heart was racing, her hands were trembling with excitement, and seeing Su Ling about to sink back into her fantasy world once again, Lu spoke up again with the same dry, flat tone, and yet another bucket of cold water doused Su Ling's budding excitement before it could fully bloom.
"Me being strong doesn't mean you're strong. Don't get ahead of yourself."
Su Ling stiffened for a moment, then couldn't help but purse her lips. She didn't know much about Lu's personality yet, but her ability to shut down enthusiasm was absolutely top-tier, and she had experienced it firsthand, twice now.
"Oh right, Su Ling, don't you want to change into a new outfit?"
Isha's out-of-nowhere question made Su Ling hit pause on her bickering with Lu. She tugged at her shirt, hiked up her pants a bit, thought it over, and gave a small nod. "Just need new pants."
The long sleeves of her top weren't really an issue even after she'd gotten smaller, they were just a bit more loose than usual. But the pants were a whole other story. Su Ling had a feeling that she'd take at most 3 steps before they slid straight to the floor.
A slender hand settled on her shoulder. Su Ling didn't pay it much mind at first, but once she felt the grip behind it, a sense of dread crept up on her, and the bad news was, she couldn't seem to shake that hand off no matter how she tried.
Even now, fused with the Silver Dragon Gene, she still wasn't a match for Isha. The other girl's physical stats were even above her own.
She turned to look at Isha, whose face wore that lit-up, eager smile, like a little girl who'd just spotted her favorite toy.
Oh no!!
Su Ling wailed internally, though she kept a smile plastered on her face on the outside, a smile that was painfully forced no matter how you looked at it. "Actually, now that I think about it, maybe it doesn't really matter that much. How about we just forget it?"
"No way!" Isha flatly refused. Having lived alone her whole life, she'd never dressed someone else before, let alone such an adorable and beautiful girl.
Pretty people look good in anything, as they say, and right now Su Ling was basically a perfect clothes hanger. Isha was dying to see how good she'd look in a skirt, so there was absolutely no way she was letting her get away.
Besides, Su Ling had agreed to it herself in the first place. Want to back out now? Not a chance.
Lu ignored Su Ling's desperate silent plea for rescue. Leaving aside the fact that Su Ling had agreed to it on her own, even if Lu wanted to help, she was powerless to do so, she was a sword spirit, and under normal circumstances she had no way of interfering with the physical world.
And honestly, compared to saving Su Ling, she was far more interested in the book in her hands right now. It wasn't like Su Ling was going to die, it was just a change of clothes. Even if she escaped today, she couldn't escape forever, so she might as well start getting used to it now.
With the look of someone who had accepted their fate, Su Ling was dragged and pulled by Isha up to the second-floor room. It was Isha's own bedroom, and all the clothes she'd worn since childhood were neatly folded and hung inside the wardrobe.
What truly crushed Su Ling's last hope, though, was this: there was not a single pair of pants in that wardrobe. Nothing but skirts of every kind and style. And even long skirts were few and far between. While she didn't have much resistance to the fact that she'd turned into a girl, she was absolutely not mentally prepared for wearing skirts.
But judging by how things were going, prepared or not, she was going to have to push through it. Either way, it was something she'd have to get used to sooner or later. As the saying goes, there's no day better than today, Su Ling bit the bullet. Fine. If she had to wear it, she'd wear it.