Red Hare it was, then. Having someone was better than having no one.
As for Red Hare calling himself Lu Bu, there was no need to worry about that.
No matter how hard you tried to correct him, you would never succeed.
"This is..."
Zhang Jue was a little stunned as he looked at Red Hare.
Red Hare's attire was clearly from China, but since when had China had a species like this?
Helpless, Feng Xi could only explain Red Hare's identity to Zhang Jue.
"So he was from the same era as me."
Zhang Jue smiled. "What a shame. I never met that peerless warrior while I was alive."
"But I never imagined a horse could reach such heights."
"This is going to be a problem..."
After erasing the summoning circle, Feng Xi looked at Red Hare and thought of a problem.
How was Red Hare supposed to enter the city looking like that?
Wouldn't he get taken for a monster and captured?
"Senior Zhang Jue, do you have any ideas?"
With no other options, Feng Xi could only ask Zhang Jue for help.
"Hahaha, a little problem like this is no challenge for me."
Zhang Jue smiled, raised his hand, and summoned a talisman, which he stuck onto Red Hare. Red Hare immediately turned into a burly, rough-looking man.
Feng Xi exclaimed in wonder, "What kind of Taoist Arts is this? A transformation spell?"
"No, it's merely an illusion."
Zhang Jue explained, "That talisman deceives people's eyes, making them see him as a human. In reality, he's still the same centaur as before. Nothing has changed."
As he spoke, Zhang Jue stuck another talisman onto Feng Xi, and the burly man before his eyes instantly turned back into Red Hare.
"I see. Just what I'd expect from the General of Heaven."
Feng Xi couldn't help marveling. A Heroic Spirit's abilities really were not to be underestimated.
Zhang Jue had cast an illusion on Red Hare, and he hadn't noticed a thing.
"All right, lad, you still have plenty to learn."
Zhang Jue smiled. "Well? Do I need a disguise?"
"Ah, no. You just need a change of clothes."
Feng Xi led them to the edge of the forest and pointed at the brightly lit Fuyuki City. "Can you see clearly? Just dress like everyone else."
"Ah, so this is how people dress in this era."
With a thought, Zhang Jue changed his clothes into a black suit, with a yellow coat draped over it.
Chapter 16: The Eastern Magecraft System
(Red Hare)
"Has humanity already advanced this far?"
As Feng Xi showed him around Fuyuki City, Zhang Jue looked at all the different technological products and couldn't help feeling a little wistful.
A thousand years ago, all of this would have been utterly unimaginable.
In particular, nations were no longer ruled by emperors.
"What a shame this isn't the Central Plains. I'd very much like to see how things have developed there."
Feng Xi reassured him, "There'll be a chance."
Zhang Jue laughed. "Haha, is that so? I'll be waiting for that day."
"Neigh, neigh, this juice tastes wonderful."
Red Hare finished the carrot juice in his hand and gave a toothy grin.
It was hard to understand how his mouth could open so wide.
"The actual fighting won't start until tomorrow night, so let's get some proper rest today."
Feng Xi brought the two of them to a detached house, which he had gone to great lengths to rent.
There was no helping it. Red Hare was too big to fit through the hotel entrance, so he could only change accommodations at the last minute.
"Such a little box, yet it can show so many images."
Zhang Jue was intensely curious about electrical appliances, and with Feng Xi's instructions, he soon learned how to watch television.
"How amazing," Red Hare remarked as well.
It was late, and Feng Xi went to bed because he was sleepy, while Zhang Jue and Red Hare were still full of energy.
When he got up the next morning, he discovered that the two had actually watched television all night.
Although there was no signal at night, the house came with videotapes.
Feng Xi remembered that he hadn't taught them how to use the video player. How had they learned?
After breakfast, Feng Xi asked Zhang Jue to teach him Taoist Arts.
Zhang Jue held nothing back, directly teaching Feng Xi the Taoist Arts he had learned.
"You actually have an unaffiliated spiritual root!"
After examining Feng Xi's foundations, Zhang Jue couldn't help being a little surprised.
Affiliation meant a Magecraft attribute, while spiritual roots were what were known as Magic Circuits.
These were all ZG terms.
The five basic attributes commonly recognized by the Mage's Association were earth, water, fire, wind, and ether, while in China they were metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
Other attributes were called rare attributes because they were uncommon.
Many talented people possessed two or even more Magecraft attributes.
Rin Tohsaka, for instance, possessed all five attributes, while Sakura Tohsaka had the rare imaginary numbers attribute.
But Feng Xi's situation was entirely similar.
Just as Zhang Jue had said, Feng Xi had no Magecraft attribute.
In theory, someone without an attribute should not have been able to become a mage, but Feng Xi was different.
Although he had no attribute, he possessed Magic Circuits, and a great many of them: a full 108.
There were 36 main circuits and 72 auxiliary circuits.
Rin Tohsaka had only 70 Magic Circuits in total. Feng Xi's auxiliary circuits alone outnumbered hers.
What was more, Feng Xi had been born with them. He hadn't bought them from the system shop.
After hearing that Feng Xi had no trouble using Magecraft of different attributes, Zhang Jue came to understand his situation.
Having no attribute did not mean Feng Xi couldn't use elemental Magecraft. Quite the opposite: he could cast Magecraft of any attribute without impediment.
Although he lost out on attribute bonuses, he also had no conflicting attributes.
Every attribute had attributes that it repelled.
For example, if you had the fire attribute, you would repel the water attribute and be repelled by the wood attribute.
Thus, someone with the fire attribute could not use water-attribute Magecraft at all.
Although they could use wood-attribute Magecraft, its difficulty and cost were several times greater than for other people.
Of course, they naturally received bonuses when using fire- and metal-attribute Magecraft.
Feng Xi had no attribute, yet could use Magecraft of every attribute. That meant he had no repulsions.
Zhang Jue also found it difficult to define Feng Xi's condition.
After all, Zhang Jue was not an orthodox mage.
He didn't even have a Thought Key.
The Thought Key was the mark of an orthodox ZG mage and had existed for more than two thousand years.
Speaking of the Thought Key meant mentioning something else: the Thought Disk.
The so-called Thought Disk was a large-scale Mystic Code integrated into the planet, the foundation of Eastern Magecraft.
It had been created before the Shang dynasty through the combined efforts of a group of immortals of that time, and was now kept by the Eastern Magecraft organization, the Spiral Hall.
It was equivalent to a shared cloud drive on the modern internet, storing all the Magecraft and wisdom accumulated by ZG's mages over thousands of years.
Although there was only one, any ZG mage could use it. It was even open to some mages from other Eastern countries, as long as everyone helped maintain it.
The prerequisite for using the Thought Disk was a Thought Key.
With a Thought Key, Eastern mages could not only learn the Magecraft stored within, but also upload Magecraft they had developed themselves for safekeeping.