37: Chapter 37 Mirror Frost Crow Court

"Your resource list clashes with mine."

Ning Yanqiu stood outside the door, her black clothes pressed against her body by the night wind, two Frost Crows perched on her shoulders, one on each side, their feather tips gleaming with cold white.

She didn't beat around the bush; she didn't even offer a preamble, like placing a knife directly on the table.

Lu Jin glanced at her and stepped away from the doorway.

"Come in and talk."

Ning Yanqiu stepped into the room, and her mirror box landed on the tabletop, snapping open with a clack.

Three black-silver receipts slid out; the top one clearly read "Dual-Phase Workshop Fire," "Tier 2 Star-Pattern Brick," and "Top Evaluation Quota for Niche Routes."

The last line in red was particularly eye-catching.

[Released in the same batch, only one to be taken]

Lu Jin's fingertips paused on that line of text.

He needed the Dual-Phase Workshop Fire to stabilize the furnace, repair the carriages, and replenish the Breeding Cave.

The Tier 2 Star-Pattern Bricks went without saying; within this circle of resources in the Black Well, these were the only things that could truly push the Dead Ash Mine forward.

The top evaluation quota was even more indispensable—that item carried instructor privileges and priority for subsequent resources; it wasn't something just anyone could get a replacement for.

Ning Yanqiu looked at him, her voice steady.

"I won't block your window, I won't have people drive up the price, and I can't be bothered to find a sponsored class to trip you up.

Those methods are too dirty; winning that way is pointless."

"I want the items, and you want them too."

"We settle it in the arena."

Lu Jin raised his eyes: "You want to challenge me to a duel?"

"The Cold-Reflection Arena, tomorrow morning."

Ning Yanqiu pressed her palm onto the mirror box, her skin pale to the point of coldness.

"Standard academy combat, limited troop quota, limited temporary divine domain projection.

Capture the Cold-Reflection Seal, or break the opponent's battle line.

Whoever does it first takes the resources and gets the top evaluation."

She paused, her gaze becoming more direct.

"The train battle, the Broken Bridge Floating Platform battle—I saw them both.

You aren't just some Black Well trash who survived on luck.

I came to find you because you're worthy."

Grey Pupil stood in the corner of the room, his grey eyes fixed on the Master Crow on her shoulder, his sacrificial staff slowly raising, as if ready to pounce at any moment.

Lu Jin, however, didn't move; he only looked at those receipts.

After a long while, he withdrew his hand.

"Fine."

"See you tomorrow morning."

Ning Yanqiu nodded, very briskly, and turned to leave.

When she reached the door, she paused for half a beat and, with her back to Lu Jin, tossed out a sentence.

"I won't go easy on you."

"Good," Lu Jin said, his voice not heavy, "I wasn't planning on it either."

Once the door closed, the room fell quiet.

Grey Pupil stepped forward and asked in a low voice: "Fight her?"

"Fight."

"She is fast in the sky, and her eyes are sharp."

Lu Jin tucked the receipts into his chest, his divine sense already sinking into the Dead Ash Mine.

The night-time mine was cut open by those few sections of newly erected outer walls, finally taking on the rudimentary shape of a fortress.

By the Return Fire Well, the black fire pressed down heavily; in the fire room, the injured rats lay panting one by one; in the deepest part of the Breeding Cave, the White-Bellied Mother Rat crouched over the crystal core, the white lines beneath her belly rising and falling, as if something were slowly waking up inside.

There wasn't much good news, but the gaps were easy to see at a glance.

The walls had only just reached three sections when the Breeding Cave started demanding food.

The Black Shield Bone Carriage was only half repaired, and the Fire Oil columns were suppressing the cold, but against a route like Ning Yanqiu's—which specialized in devouring vision and high positions—they were still lacking something that could truly withstand her.

Lu Jin raised his hand and tossed the seven blue-grey residual cores, a piece of cracked rail spirit nail, and that fragment of mirror bone frozen by the Frost Crow—all brought back from the train and the Broken Bridge Floating Platform—into the sacrificial basin.

The grey fire coiled, and three dark patterns quickly emerged on the furnace wall.

[Cold Feather Fire Insulation]

[Shattered Mirror Vision Disruption]

[Frost Surface Refraction]

Grey Pupil looked up at those three lines of text, his grey eyes shrinking slightly.

Lu Jin reached out, his fingertip falling on the first one.

Cold Feather Fire Insulation wasn't about adding more heat to the fire, but rather wrapping the Fire Oil Throwers and the bone carriage fire troughs in a thin layer of feather membrane.

When the cold air pressed down, it would first gnaw at this layer of feather membrane; the fire core wouldn't be suffocated immediately, and when it hit the ice surface and frost layer, the fire could still drill into the gaps.

His fingertip turned and fell on the second one.

Shattered Mirror Vision Disruption, refined into the hair tips, eye corners, and whisker edges of the Ambush Rats and Tunneling Rats; once hit by mirror light, a layer of fine, chaotic shadows would explode from their bodies.

When the opponent locked on from high altitude, they wouldn't see a single landing point, but three or five phantom images, with the real body only flashing in the middle for half a beat.

The last one, Frost Surface Refraction, could use frost to form a mirror, deflecting the incoming line of sight and cold light; it was strong for holding points, but too slow for seizing the tempo.

"Take the first two."

As Lu Jin's voice fell, the fire in the sacrificial basin surged.

The triple fire troughs behind the six Fire Oil Throwers lit up simultaneously, and a circle of grey-white feather patterns grew around the edges of the trough openings, as if putting a soft shell over the fire cores.

The twelve Ambush Rats and Tunneling Rats all shuddered at once, and tiny mirror fragments emerged from their eye corners and whisker roots.

At first glance, there was no change, but as soon as they flickered near the fire and light, their shadows would gain an extra half-layer of afterimages.

Grey Pupil looked down at the Fire Oil Throwers, then swept his gaze toward those Ambush Rats.

"Her Cold Feather fire suppression will hit the feather membrane first."

"When her mirror light shines down, she will see the false images first."

"Enough for one round."

Lu Jin grunted, said nothing more, and began to organize the team.

"Sixteen Tunneling Rats, take the dark channels, do not touch the deep layers."

"Twelve Ambush Rats, watch the breaks on both sides of the center seal."

"Eight Cart-pulling Rats, just focus on pulling the ropes and the carriages."

"Six Fire Oil Throwers, four follow the carriages, two carry the sacrificial basins."

"Grey Pupil, come with me to the front."

The divine oracles pressed down layer by layer, and those Red-Eyed Rats by the well all prostrated themselves.

The red in their eyes was heavier, but their formation was steadier than yesterday.

Grey Pupil paced back and forth in front of the new wall, organizing the battle lines, work lines, and sacrificial guard lines clearly.

The group of rats no longer just listened to commands; they had begun to understand that different teeth needed to bite different positions.

The fire in the Return Fire Well jumped lightly, and dozens of faith threads pierced into Lu Jin's Sea of Consciousness simultaneously.

Heavier, and also more agitated.

Lu Jin glanced at the prostrate Red-Eyed Rats, then looked toward the depths of the Breeding Cave.

The white lines beneath the White-Bellied Mother Rat's belly were brighter than they had been at night, and half a remnant map of the incubation pool was pressed against the crystal core, faintly appearing as if it were breathing.

This place needed resources, and it needed to win.

Early the next morning, the area outside the Cold-Reflection Arena was already full of people.

Most of the Black Well Class had come, and quite a few onlookers from the First and Second Order classes were standing there too.

Ning Yanqiu had been remembered from her first day at the academy, and Lu Jin went without saying; Unified Exam top scorer and the Black Well madman—with these two names colliding, no one wanted to miss it.

The arena was very clean, paved with white stone, with a Cold-Reflection Seal in the center, and three mirror pillars standing high up, their surfaces as smooth as ice.

Drainage channels and maintenance breaks were open around the arena; the ground surface was cold and bright, but underneath, it was not just a solid block of dead stone.

As soon as Lu Jin stepped in, the first things he looked at were the gaps and the slopes.

Ning Yanqiu looked at the sky.

She stood on the opposite side, flipped her mirror box, and twenty-four Mirror Frost Crows soared into the sky.

The flock didn't fly chaotically; eight occupied the left pillar, eight the right, and eight took the high center position.

As the cold white mirror light stretched out, the entire arena seemed to have been peeled open from above, making even the shallowest breaks clearly visible.

"Lu Jin," Ning Yanqiu looked at him, her tone calm yet hard, "If you only know how to burrow into the ground, I'll win very quickly today."

Lu Jin raised his hand.

Two Black Shield Bone Carriages landed heavily, their wheels pressing over the white stone and dragging out two shallow tracks.

Sixteen Tunneling Rats scattered toward the edges of the drainage channels, twelve Ambush Rats crept along the carriage shadows and breaks, eight Cart-pulling Rats bit the ropes and circled the carriages, and six Fire Oil Throwers pressed into the middle-rear, with two carrying the sacrificial basins.

"Then you win one round and show me."

As the gong sounded, Ning Yanqiu moved first.

She swiped her fingertip across the edge of the mirror box, and the Frost Crows on the three mirror pillars flapped their wings simultaneously.

A large swath of fine, cold feathers swirled down from high altitude, not hitting people, but aiming specifically for the trough openings and the edges of the breaks.

The white stone clicked and frosted over; two Tunneling Rats that had just reached the dark channel opening slipped, and the next moment, six Frost Crows had already dived down along the mirror light.

Pfft!

One Tunneling Rat was pinned through the back, and the other rolled into a break just in time to dodge the second peck.

A low cry came from the spectator stand.

"She's sealing the ground route first."

"The Mirror Frost Crow Court is too smooth in this kind of arena."

Lu Jin, however, didn't look at the two injured rats; he pressed his palm forward.

"Fire Oil, burn the pillar bases."

Four Fire Oil Throwers knelt and swung their arms, the fire sacs dragging grey-red tail lines as they smashed toward the bases of the left and right mirror pillars.

Ning Yanqiu's eyes darkened, and the cold feathers continued to press down.

White steam exploded from the surface of the fire sacs first; the outer layer of grey-white feather membrane sizzled as it was gnawed by the cold air, but the next instant, the fire inside was still alive, slipping forward along the frost layer and the seams, forcibly burning a circle of black marks onto the pillar bases.

People on the stand immediately sat up straight.

"Ning Yanqiu's Cold Feathers didn't suppress and extinguish the fire?"

"That fire has been refined!"

Ning Yanqiu saw it too; she turned her right hand, and the flock of crows on the right pillar immediately raised higher, the mirror surface shining down at an angle.

She wanted to seize back the vision and flush out the Ambush Rats behind Lu Jin's carriages.

The moment the mirror light fell, the twelve Ambush Rats moved simultaneously.

They didn't pounce together, only flickering between the edges of light and shadow.

As the fine mirror fragments on their hair tips were illuminated, several staggered afterimages exploded onto the ground.

What was reflected in Ning Yanqiu's mirror box was no longer twelve rats, but over twenty grey shadows of varying speeds, with real bodies and false images tangled together; the landing points were all off by half a foot.

She pointed her finger, and three Frost Crows dived down, pinning the shadow closest to the front.

What they pinned, however, was a patch of empty white stone.

Lu Jin stood behind the left carriage and looked up at her: "You looked wrong."

Ning Yanqiu pressed her lips together lightly; far from being angry, her eyes became even brighter.

"Capable."

Before she finished speaking, the Master Crow had already risen a notch, and the entire flock of crows began to re-stratify.

The left pillar suppressed the vision, the right pillar sealed the dark channels, and the eight in the center position no longer watched the rats, but directly controlled the space above the center seal.

She adjusted extremely quickly, not wasting even half a beat.

Lu Jin saw this, and his hand movements were even faster.

"Cart-pulling Rats, hook the center rope."

"Grey Pupil, seize the break under the pillar."

Grey Pupil flashed along the bone carriage, his whole body flipping into that half-collapsed maintenance break on the left.

The eight Cart-pulling Rats emerged from under the carriages, and the bone ropes were released one by one along the ground, winding toward the breaks on both sides of the central Cold-Reflection Seal.

Ning Yanqiu wouldn't give him time to slowly lay the path.

She tapped her foot, and her whole body fell from the high slope, her black clothes stretching into a cold line in the mirror light.

The mirror box snapped open, a dozen cold white mirror fragments swirling around her, and six main attack Frost Crows pressed straight toward the center seal, sticking to the mirror surface.

"If you want the center seal, get past me first."

She said this sentence not as a provocation, but more like a statement of fact.

Lu Jin raised his left hand, and the two Fire Oil Throwers carrying the sacrificial basins simultaneously swung them to the front.

The grey fire in the basins jumped, swallowing up all the cold feathers, frost residue, and stray mirror light on the ground, and immediately spewed out a cloud of grey mist carrying heat, rolling along the ground toward the center seal.

Ning Yanqiu stepped into the edge of the grey mist, and the cold light from her mirror box pressed down.

She wanted to pin the mist dead with low temperature and suppress the fire path at the same time.

But hidden beneath that mist was a line of fire supported by the Cold Feather Fire Insulation.

As cold and heat collided, white steam exploded with a boom.

Grey Pupil flipped out from the steam, his sacrificial staff sweeping diagonally, smashing straight toward the white stone where Ning Yanqiu landed.

Ning Yanqiu didn't retreat; her body slid along a side-opening shard of mirror, forcibly dodging the staff, and she backhanded her box down, the cold light slicing toward Grey Pupil's shoulder.

Sshhh!

A gash split open on Grey Pupil's shoulder; blood had just gushed out when half of it was frozen by the frost.

But he didn't take this hit for nothing.

The moment the sacrificial staff missed, the tail of the staff followed through, smashing into the wing bone of a center-position master control Frost Crow.

That Frost Crow exploded into a cluster of broken feathers on the spot, and the most stable surveillance network between the three mirror pillars finally had a gap.

Lu Jin was waiting for this gap.

"Pull the ropes, hit the right."

The eight Cart-pulling Rats exerted force suddenly, and the bone ropes long buried in the breaks on the right side of the center seal tightened simultaneously.

The Black Shield Bone Carriage on the right charged up the slope, the grey fire from the sacrificial basin pressed onto the carriage's front shield, and the wheels carried a line of fire, driving straight toward the base of the right pillar.

Ning Yanqiu's eyes sharpened.

"Right pillar, retract high!"

The crow flock on the right pillar had just wanted to rise when a ball of grey-red fire oil smashed onto the pillar base.

The fire was suppressed by the cold feathers, causing white steam to rise everywhere, but it refused to be extinguished, drilling downward along the ice cracks.

Grey Pupil, covered in blood, rushed up again, smashing his sacrificial staff diagonally against the pillar body.

Click!

The mirror pillar tilted by half an inch.

The high-altitude field of view was immediately missing a corner.

A large patch of shadow on the left side of the arena sank back down, and the two teams of Ambush Rats and Tunneling Rats that Lu Jin had buried disappeared instantly.

The spectator stand was in an uproar.

"He tilted her sky!"

"That Black Well style really bites down as soon as it catches a bone."

Ning Yanqiu stared at the tilted mirror pillar, her chest still rising and falling steadily.

She wasn't the least bit flustered; she raised her hand in a gesture, and the remaining flock of crows immediately gathered from high altitude.

The entire troop was no longer dispersed to suppress the arena, but instead, like a cold white short spear, stabbed straight down toward the center Cold-Reflection Seal.

"Lu Jin, don't hide anymore."

"Come to the front."

She landed beside the seal platform, shards of mirror protecting her body, the Master Crow chirping low; she and the flock of crows seemed to be pressed onto a single line, frighteningly sharp.

Lu Jin also walked out from behind the bone carriage.

"Good."

The two collided head-on for the first time.

Ning Yanqiu's flock of crows arrived first, cold feathers slicing down from the sky, pinning and killing two Ambush Rats on the left side of the seal platform.

Lu Jin's Fire Oil column backhanded the second round of fire sacs, the grey-red fire lines surging up along the white stone slope, wrapping the three flanking Frost Crows on her right into the fire.

Grey Pupil, carrying his injury, forced his way into the center path, smashing his sacrificial staff against the mirror, the Cart-pulling Rats biting the ropes to pull her legs, and the Tunneling Rats pouncing from the breaks at the landing points of her mirror shards.

Ning Yanqiu slapped away an Ambush Rat that pounced to her leg with her box, kicked the jaw of a Cart-pulling Rat to pieces with her other foot, but her eyes never wavered.

Every time one of her crows died, the next one immediately filled the position; every time a beam of mirror light was blurred by fire, the Master Crow immediately raised it to shine again.

Lu Jin looked at the mirror box in her hand, his eyes becoming increasingly heavy.

The most terrifying thing about this woman was never how fast a single crow was, but that her vision was alive.

The entire battlefield—which part was bright, which part was dark, which path was real, which path was fake—she could reassemble it all within half a beat.

This kind of vision—he had lacked it for too long.

Ning Yanqiu was looking at him too.

She saw that Lu Jin wasn't just blindly retreating into the underground.

His Tunneling Rats only occupied the breaks without being greedy for depth; every pounce of the Ambush Rats was coordinated with pulling ropes and fire lines; the bone carriages weren't just simply pushing people, but cutting the terrain, creating blind spots, and delivering the sacrificial basins.

This was the first time she had encountered someone who could turn the ground into a moving net.

Just as both of them were closing in on the Cold-Reflection Seal, only one final move away from deciding the winner, a black-silver light suddenly pressed down from the sky above the arena.

"Enough."

The voice wasn't heavy, but it was like a piece of iron being thrust directly into the arena.

The next instant, Grey Pupil's sacrificial staff was forcibly vibrated away, and the cold light on the edge of Ning Yanqiu's box dissipated simultaneously.

The remaining Frost Crows hovered in unison, the rat pack was pressed back onto the ground, and no one could take another half-step forward.

On the high platform, a black-silver instructor stepped down.

He stood beside the Cold-Reflection Seal, his gaze sweeping first over the tilted mirror pillar, the scorched pillar base, the rat corpses, and broken feathers on the ground, before finally landing on Lu Jin and Ning Yanqiu.

"Well fought."

"If you keep fighting, the Cold-Reflection Arena will have to pay for half of it."

Ning Yanqiu pressed her brows together.

"Instructor Gu, this match hasn't been decided yet."

Lu Jin didn't speak; he only withdrew his hand from the edge of the sacrificial basin.

Instructor Gu looked at the two of them, his tone flat.

"I've seen the resource list, and I've seen the top evaluation list."

"I've changed my mind."

He raised his hand and waved it, and the black door at the back of the arena, which had always been locked, opened with a boom.

Behind the door was not white stone, not mirror pillars, but an old warehouse passage sinking downward.

The smell of rust, dust, and old metal all surged up together, and the depths were as dark as a larger well.

Instructor Wu Heng stood at the edge of the high platform, his black iron prosthetic finger tapping lightly on the railing, his eyes rarely showing a hint of amusement.

Instructor Gu looked at the two in the arena, his voice falling clearly into everyone's ears.

"This duel, from now on, is changed to a co-op battle in the same arena."

"Target location: the Academy Abandoned Warehouse."

"Lu Jin, Ning Yanqiu."

"The two of you, go in together."