【Prompted by a certain reader, I’ve decided to revise the earlier skill setting for Soul of the Evil Dragon. Revised as follows:
Soul of the Evil Dragon: An exclusive and singular ability of the Evil Dragon. When activated, it burns the Evil Dragon’s life to build the strongest, most impregnable defense, completely blocking any attack from an enemy. Reduces HP by 10% per second while active; automatically cancels when HP drops to 10% or below, and may be interrupted at any time during its duration. HP cannot be restored by any means while it is active. Cannot be used when HP is below 10%. Usable three times per day, with no less than one hour between uses. Powered by the Evil Dragon’s own force; requires no other cost.】
【Reason for the revision: because the Holy Dragon’s Fang can restore full HP instantly three times a day, it would have pushed Soul of the Evil Dragon’s duration up to 40 seconds… 40 seconds of invincibility, an enemy who can’t be cut down — how much tension would that drain out of things? So…】
Light returned to the world around him. Ye Tianxie fixed his eyes on his surroundings and knew at once where he was… the rim of the Hidden Dragon Abyss, the place the blue-haired man had brought him to. One step backward and he’d fall right back down into it.
This was south of him, and according to Kong Xiu, the Holy Magus of the City of Stars, the monsters distributed across this region were all powerful creatures of level 60 and above — nothing he could stand against as he was now. After a moment’s hesitation, Ye Tianxie gave up any thought of exploring the area. Having confirmed there were no monsters nearby, he walked forward a few paces, sat down on a reasonably flat boulder, and stirred his will.
At once a beam of white light shot out of him and materialized in front of him — the little fox that had forcibly taken him as its master. The Mystic Spirit Snow Fox let out a low wuu on appearing, bounced around on the ground for a bit, then sprang up onto Ye Tianxie and nuzzled against him affectionately.
“Wooow! So cute — so tiny, so white, I love it!” Guoguo drifted excitedly back and forth above the head of the snow fox, which was about the same size as she was, cooing with delight. Little girls generally love things that are cute and pure, and the fox’s appearance satisfied that to an infinite degree: a snow-fluffed tail, snow-white fur without a single off-color hair, sharp ears standing straight up, and set into all that, eyes and a nose as black as night. It looked like something born in a realm of snow without a trace of impurity, and its appearance alone had a charm that could conquer anyone on sight.
“Master, master, can we give it a name?” Guoguo stood on Ye Tianxie’s shoulder, her big eyes blinking at the new companion she was so taken with.
Little Guoguo, who cared about nothing but appearances, hadn’t noticed the shock in Ye Tianxie’s eyes as he looked at the Mystic Spirit Snow Fox.
Mystic Spirit Snow Fox: Tier-3 pet. Level 0. Origins unknown. Sealed inside the Dragon God’s Stone by the Dragon God seventy million years ago; only just escaped. Delicate in build, gentle in temperament, extremely decorative. Will never initiate an attack on any living creature. Master: Xietian. Bound by a Soul Blood Pact; will never betray. Attributes — HP: 100. MP: 400. Physical attack: 10. Magic attack: 20. Evasion: 5. Accuracy: 5. Attack speed: 150. Movement speed: 180.
Innate — Mystic Spirit Body: A special, arcane constitution that defies explanation, capable of spontaneously canceling all damage from external sources. All physical and magical attacks received are reduced by 30%. Automatically restores 5% of HP and MP per second.
Skill — Mystic Spirit Self-Healing: Instantly restores its own HP to full and removes all abnormal states and stat-reduction effects on itself. Costs 100 MP. Cooldown 5 seconds.
Mystic Spirit Cure: Instantly heals itself and nearby companions for a certain amount of HP. Healing equal to magic attack × 3. Range: a circular area 5 meters around itself. Costs 200 MP. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Mystic Spirit Restoration: Instantly restores 30% of the HP of itself and all nearby companions, and removes all abnormal states and stat-reduction effects. Range: a 5-meter area around itself. Costs 300 MP. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Root Barrier: Insufficient ability. Cannot be unlocked.
Root Light: Insufficient ability. Cannot be unlocked.
Player pets ran from strongest to weakest as tier-1, tier-2, tier-3, tier-4, tier-5, Immortal Spirit tier, Heaven-Severing tier, Divine Mystery tier, and Holy Annihilation tier. Of these, a tier-1 pet was purely decorative, with essentially no attack power at all; tier-2 pets began to possess attack or support abilities; and the higher the tier, the stronger the pet’s overall capability. Even between two adjacent tiers, the difference in ability at the same level could be considerable.
The Mystic Spirit Snow Fox was currently judged a tier-3 pet, an assessment presumably based on its overall attributes. But its innate ability, and the powerful skills it possessed, gave Ye Tianxie a genuine jolt… These were emphatically not things a tier-3 pet ought to have.
Seven million years of sealing and energy-devouring inside the Dragon God’s Stone had dropped the fox’s ability to an extremely low ebb — but the memories that belonged to it would not have vanished, its power would gradually revive, and the various abilities that had disappeared along with that power would slowly wake again as it recovered… And even the handful of skills it could deploy in its current state were excessively strong.
The ability to instantly restore its own HP to full — in a war of attrition, who could possibly be its match? Reading the description of Mystic Spirit Self-Healing, Ye Tianxie suddenly began to understand why the Dragon God of that age had only been able to seal it. Beasts at that tier counted their HP in the hundreds of millions; defeating one was necessarily a long, long process… and the Mystic Spirit Snow Fox needed only a trivial amount of MP to refill its life completely. Who could afford to play against an opponent like that?
More astonishing still, its Mystic Spirit Restoration healed by a percentage of the target’s HP. In all his history with virtual games, Ye Tianxie had never once encountered a healing skill of that nature — because the moment a skill like that existed, it would severely wreck game balance. If a Priest had a skill that healed by percentage of the target’s maximum HP, then a level 10 Priest could keep a level 100 teammate alive without breaking a sweat.
And a skill that should not exist had turned up on a level 0, tier-3 pet.
What caught his attention next was that although the fox’s skills were powerful, each one cost a great deal of MP — and its HP was only a hundred, while its MP was a full four times that. Its magic attack was likewise double its physical attack… Without question, the Mystic Spirit Snow Fox ran a purely magical build. And what caught his attention even more was that it had no offensive skills whatsoever. Every single one was a heal.
Had the Mystic Spirit Snow Fox once been a support beast, a healer?
Then why had a support beast made the mightiest Dragon God of that age so wary that he’d spend the whole of his power and his life to seal it away?
“Master, master! Say something! Can we give it a name?” Guoguo, tired of getting no response, tugged irritably at his hair and finally pulled him out of his daze. He considered a moment, scooped the little fox up, and tapped its head with a finger. “Let’s call it… Yaoyao.”
Excitement lit the fox’s eyes; it seemed thoroughly pleased with the new name.
“Yaoyao? Mm, good! That name’s as cute as Guoguo’s.” Guoguo floated down, put out one small hand, and stroked the fox’s head with a look of pure enjoyment, giggling. “Yaoyao, I’m Guoguo, the most obedient and most adorable little loli. From now on we’re best friends!”
Adorable… at a stretch. Obedient… that one doesn’t touch you at any point. Ye Tianxie complained inwardly.
Guoguo’s greeting was, as far as anyone else was concerned, just her talking to herself — because apart from Ye Tianxie, no one could perceive her existence at all. But then something happened that astonished them both. The quiet Yaoyao actually lifted its head at Guoguo’s greeting, raised one fluffy front paw, and touched it lightly against Guoguo’s little hand.
Guoguo yanked her hand back as though she’d been electrocuted, her eyes stretched enormously wide, staring at Yaoyao in shock. “It… it can see me. And it touched me… It touched me…”
Guoguo possessed a strange body that defied all ordinary logic: she could reach out and touch others, but no one could ever touch her. And the snow fox had just lifted a paw and made contact… That, and Guoguo’s reaction, gave Ye Tianxie a fresh shock about this fox of mysterious and formidable origins. Because it plainly meant that it could see Guoguo — and could even touch her body.
“So strange… nobody except master is supposed to be able to see me.” Guoguo muttered to herself, dazed. To her, this was truly something she could not begin to understand.
“Isn’t that better? Now you’ve got someone to talk to and keep you company.” Ye Tianxie forced down the deep questions in his mind and said it as casually as he could. There were an enormous number of strange things about this fox, and his mind was still echoing with the cry for help it had sent into his heart down in the Hidden Dragon Abyss… the pleading voice of a young girl.
But whatever the case — whatever its background, whatever its origins, whether it was good or evil, and however great it might one day grow — with the Soul Blood Pact in place, it would follow him its whole life and could never escape his control.
So even if he had questions, there was nothing he needed to worry about.
(End of Chapter 117)