Fusing Techniques

The saber-wielding warrior moved swiftly, so Li Hai didn't have to wait long before he had three new subordinates.

The first wielded a heavy urn-shaped hammer and was covered in gaping wounds, with hardly a patch of unbroken skin. The second carried a bow and arrows; his frame was slimmer, but relatively more intact. The last held a long halberd. She had a woman's face and a more petite build, standing only about 1.85 meters tall, but her body was the most intact of all.

In short, despite the vast number of Demon-Subduing Warriors scattered across this desolate plain, only these four had been successfully activated. All the others were scrap.

Li Hai thought their serial numbers were too awkward to call out, so he gave each of the four a new name.

The first, who carried a door-sized broadsword, was named Brother Blade. The second, who wielded a pair of heavy urn-shaped hammers, became Ah Chui. The third carried a bow and arrows and had a sinister, cold look about him, so Li Hai named him Arrow Boy. The last was the woman-faced warrior with a long halberd and a jade-like face full of murderous intent. He named her Fierce Lass.

"By the way, do you run on oil or electricity?"

Li Hai asked Brother Blade curiously. "You can't survive on noodles and rice, can you?"

"Reporting to the Master," Brother Blade replied. "We draw our power from yang energy."

"Oh!" Li Hai nodded in realization. "So, you run on sunshine."

"Reporting to the Master," Brother Blade answered again. "We can use any form of yang energy."

"Fine."

Li Hai glanced around. "Then, do you want to patch yourselves up?"

As he spoke, he pointed at the ruined Demon-Subduing Warriors scattered across the surrounding hills.

"The Master is wise."

Brother Blade nodded in agreement. "Though these warriors are now scrap, they are not entirely useless. By scavenging parts from one another, we can replace all our damaged components."

"Then go ahead and replace them," Li Hai instructed. "Once you're done, I'll release you from the grotto-heaven."

The warriors immediately dropped to one knee and replied, "We obey the Master's command."

With that, the four rose and strode off in different directions, searching the ruined warriors around them for suitable parts.

Li Hai, meanwhile, dispelled this phantom body with a thought and shifted nearly half his attention back to the real world.

He opened his eyes and looked at the gloomy, dilapidated training ground around him, but his thoughts had already turned to the newly acquired Stronger Fragment.

"So, which technique should I upgrade?"

If he chose Beast Intent Demon Claw or Iron Barrel Bell-Coiling Manual, Li Hai would most likely break through the shackles of the Steel Sinew Iron Bone Realm and reach a new level of martial arts.

If he chose High-Order Primordial Breath Yang Refining Method, he might advance to a level of spellcraft beyond Focusing Spirit and Wandering.

If he chose either of the Ghost Path arts, Evil Spirit Earth Yin Absorption Method or Red Dust Yin Gathering Method, he might transform into a powerful ghostly creature beyond the Fierce Soul rank.

In short, whichever path he took, Li Hai would gain a tremendous boost in combat power. But he only had one fragment.

"I'll go with the martial arts path."

After a few seconds of thought, Li Hai made the same decision as last time: upgrade a martial arts technique.

Compared with chanting spells and practicing sinister ghost arts, he still preferred trading blows up close. It was much more satisfying.

"Then, should I choose Beast Intent Demon Claw or Iron Barrel Bell-Coiling Manual?"

Li Hai found himself facing a choice once again.

The former would directly increase his offensive power, while the latter focused on defense. It would strengthen both his physical and mental defenses, indirectly increasing his overall strength.

"Right now, I'm not afraid of powerful enemies. I'm afraid of being surrounded or ambushed, so..."

After pondering for a while, he made up his mind. "I'll improve my defenses. That's the safer choice."

Having decided, Li Hai turned his gaze to his personal interface, ready to upgrade Iron Barrel Bell-Coiling Manual.

But just as he was about to use the fragment to begin the upgrade, that strange shiver surfaced in his heart once more.

"This is the precognitive ability triggered by the convergence of level-two Wildness and level-two Spiritual Inspiration. It's activated again..."

The shiver "told" Li Hai not to upgrade a technique, but to fuse techniques instead.

The techniques to fuse were Iron Barrel Bell-Coiling Manual and Beast Intent Demon Claw.

"But if the fusion fails and turns into some piece of garbage..."

Li Hai furrowed his thick brows. "Won't I end up losing on both fronts?"

Just then, the mysterious shiver surged through his heart again, spreading out in hazy ripples.

Through those faint ripples, Li Hai suddenly understood, as if inspiration had struck him:

"Huh? This precognitive power can even predict roughly when to fuse techniques for the highest chance of getting a good result. Amazing!"

After marveling at it, he stood still and focused, waiting for the moment when the chances of a successful fusion would be greatest.

Li Hai had no idea how long he would have to wait.

Half an hour? Two hours? Even a day or two?

He didn't care.

But after waiting around for two hours, Li Hai felt he needed something to do. Otherwise... this really was a little boring.

So he began studying the pair of steel whips he had scavenged from the depot here.

The pair of Bamboo-Joint Steel Whips didn't feel particularly heavy in his hands, weighing roughly two thousand jin—less than half as much as Zhu Bajie's Nine-Toothed Rake.

They were thicker at the back and tapered to sharp points at the front, with thirteen ridged joints. Each whip was three chi and nine cun long, with a six-cun handle and a three-chi-and-three-cun body.

When Li Hai had first gotten his hands on them, he had tried bending them with all his strength a couple of times.

They hadn't budged at all.

With Li Hai's current strength of seventy to eighty thousand jin, ordinary iron and steel objects couldn't withstand him messing around with them.

But the pair of whips hadn't deformed in the slightest under tens of thousands of jin of force. Instead, Li Hai's hands had been left aching from the shock.

That was enough to show that the whips were weapons worthy of being called divine, perhaps even a pair of divine weapons.

A divine weapon was bound to have extraordinary abilities.

What Li Hai wanted now was to find out what other remarkable powers the pair possessed besides being incredibly hard.

He spent more than half an hour studying them.

Just as Li Hai had thoroughly tested and understood the whips and was about to practice with them on the training ground, the mysterious shiver appeared in his heart once again.

Li Hai immediately understood.

"The moment for the best result has arrived!"

He set down the whips and instantly shifted his attention to his personal interface. Without hesitation, he spent the Stronger Fragment and began fusing techniques.

"Hm?! So technique fusion isn't limited to just two techniques. You can fuse a whole bunch!"

After learning this from the system, Li Hai exclaimed with delight, "Great. Then I'll fuse every single martial arts technique I have!"