Laurent's Insightful Blade

"When your Kiana was already on her way to deliver takeout, I was still waging a hard-fought battle against my warm bed."

Because of Kiana's arrival, Mo Yi had been busy all night. By the time he finished showering, it was nearly midnight, so for once, he did not log into Honor of Kings to queue with "World's Number One Princess."

After tidying up, he lay directly on the bed. The moment he closed his eyes, he entered the dream world with the help of the Little World Game.

For others, sleep was a time to rest. For Mo Yi, sleep was merely the beginning of entering another world.

Just as usual, after falling asleep, Mo Yi arrived in a pitch-black room and skillfully opened the Little World Game's interface.

Mo Yi could also select games he had experienced before and enter them again for a real-life version of the game.

Of course, Mo Yi did not have that much time to replay games he had already cleared. He directly opened the Honor of Kings option and began tonight's conquest.

"Behold the magical cat, and... the Grimoire! I'm just an independent cat—"

Along with a very adorable voice, a sapphire-blue cat appeared before Mo Yi's eyes. She looked extremely cute, the kind of irresistibly adorable cat that would make girls come over on their own to strike up a conversation and ask for photos if you took her out for a walk.

What was special was that she was not crouching on the ground, but perched atop a Grimoire floating in midair.

She was the new hero Mo Yi needed to conquer tonight—Magical Cat Yuumi!

Chapter 14: Laurent's Insightful Blade

Having played Honor of Kings for nine years and gone on a Date-A-Live with one or more heroes almost every night, Mo Yi was naturally highly experienced when it came to conquering new heroes.

Thinking back to when he had first started, when he was conquering Garen, Might of Demacia, and Rune Mage Ryze, he had clung to the idea of avoiding violence whenever possible. He stubbornly chatted with them every night, acting as a close confidante in an attempt to move them with warmth.

Well, since both Garen and Ryze were heroes of the Order-Good faction, his relentless persistence eventually moved them.

So he diligently studied magic under Ryze. After Ryze was satisfied, Mo Yi successfully gained his approval. Three years passed just like that before he barely qualified. In the words of the Bald Great Demon King, he had barely graduated elementary school and could begin middle-school-level courses.

Garen was even simpler. After several attempts, Mo Yi gained his approval. Garen acknowledged that Mo Yi, like him, was a man of justice. But—

That was right, there was a "but" afterward.

According to Garen, ideals alone were not enough without the strength to put them into action. To truly earn his approval, Mo Yi needed to demonstrate the corresponding strength in actual combat.

Then Mo Yi followed him and swung a Great Sword for countless nights, elevating a justice-leaping strike from the bushes to a near rule-level ultimate technique before finally gaining his approval.

The third hero he conquered was the last free weekly hero—the Frost Archer, Ashe.

Mo Yi's tried-and-true tactic of becoming familiar with someone was naturally useless against a Queen as emotionless as Ashe. No matter what he did, she simply ignored him.

Enraged with embarrassment, Mo Yi combined his own skills with the abilities he had learned from Garen and Ryze and challenged her.

Then she rubbed him into the floor for an entire night.

Even though the Little World Game had limited her strength to a level only slightly above Mo Yi's overall power, Ashe was a true battle-hardened warrior. She had shot dead more enemies than Mo Yi had ever met strangers. With such a vast difference in combat experience, how could an ordinary person from a peaceful era like Mo Yi possibly stand against her?

Even now, Mo Yi still did not know how many different ways Ashe, the Frost Archer, had creatively shot him to death in the game space.

With Garen and Ryze's guidance and advice, along with his gradually accumulating combat experience, Mo Yi finally crouched in some bushes on a stormy night. When Ashe passed by, he used a "Demacia's Power" leaping slash from the bushes to successfully defeat the utterly bewildered Ashe once, thereby earning her approval.

Conquered by Mo Yi's Great Sword, Ashe also took the initiative to teach him how to become a successful sharpshooter.

Through his experiences conquering the three free weekly heroes, Mo Yi came to understand a principle.

When conquering a new hero, the first encounter had to start with charging straight at them. If he successfully defeated them, he would naturally gain their approval.

If he could not beat them, then he would use a gentler approach to move them.

If even that strategy failed, then he had to study hard, improve his own strength, observe them closely, and find their weaknesses. There would always be a night when he could hammer them down. This was the "Three-Step Strategy" Mo Yi had summarized.

After comprehending this Three-Step Strategy, Mo Yi's conquest speed naturally became faster and faster. At first, it had taken him more than three years to conquer the three free weekly heroes. Later, he could conquer more than ten in a single year. As of today, he only needed to conquer two more heroes to pass this nine-year trial game.

Of course, Mo Yi had not wasted these nine years. After conquering a hero, not only could he seek them out at any time to learn their knowledge and abilities, but he could also obtain their Character Card.

Equipping a Character Card allowed him to gain that character's corresponding abilities and powers, though how much power he could actually wield depended on Mo Yi's own strength.

If he wanted to unleash a Character Card's true power, he needed to enter Limit Release Mode. Its duration depended on his own endurance limit. Furthermore, once used, that Character Card would enter a fragmented state and could no longer be used until repaired, while Mo Yi's initial skill, "Limit Release Mode," would also enter a cooldown lasting one hundred days.

Looking at the adorable cat floating before him atop the Grimoire, Mo Yi put on what he believed was a very friendly smile and asked, "Lady Yuumi, may I directly gain your approval, meow?"

Though she was only a cat, she was a cat who knew magic. She had lived for countless times longer than Mo Yi's two lifetimes combined, so calling her "Lady" was absolutely no loss.

What if he made her happy and she directly approved of him? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

"Hmm... that won't do—"

The heroes who appeared here had long accepted the common knowledge provided by the Little World Game, as well as the reason they had appeared here.

Mo Yi: "..."

Seeing Yuumi hesitate for quite a while, Mo Yi had thought he had finally encountered something decisive—a White Give. He had not expected they still had to fight.

There was no problem that could not be solved with a fight. If there was, then it definitely meant he could not beat the other side.

"Then please teach me—"

Since she was unwilling to give it to him for free, any more words would only be wasted breath. Mo Yi pulled out a Rune Twinblade he had personally forged from his inventory and thrust it directly at the floating Yuumi, executing a Sky-Piercing Slash learned from Fiora, the Grand Duelist.

"Meow—"

Facing Mo Yi's Sky-Piercing Slash, Yuumi did not panic at all. She jumped straight off the Book of Thresholds, burst forth with extraordinary speed, and instantly became a blue blur. She first dodged Mo Yi's Sky-Piercing Slash, then began circling and leaping around him.

Mo Yi was not surprised that she possessed such speed. Given her small size and her feline race, agility was simply a natural racial talent.

"Slacking Missile!"

After circling several times, Yuumi stopped behind Mo Yi, in what should have been his blind spot. With a wave of her paw, she fired a fish-shaped magical projectile at his back.

Seeing Mo Yi ahead of her seemingly still unaware, Yuumi revealed a smug smile. However, she tightly covered her mouth with both paws, keeping herself from making a sound and letting Mo Yi discover her attack.

"Behind me—"

Over the past ten years, Mo Yi had not spent a single night idle. He had basically spent them either being hunted down or brutally beaten, and the instinct he had honed was no worse than that of the heroes. When Yuumi's not particularly fast Slacking Missile came within three meters of him, Mo Yi noticed something was wrong.

How could he possibly be struck so easily?

"Laurent's Insightful Blade—"

It was also Fiora, the Grand Duelist's signature swordsmanship. It allowed him to briefly enter the highest realm a swordsman could reach—the Void Realm—perceive the flaws in all things, strike those flaws, and sever the enemy's attack on the level of realms.

Of course, there were quite a few sword techniques with similar effects, such as Flash and Voidless.