Chapter 28: The Divine Mirror Has No Stand
Xia Feng kicked Mu Qingtong's head away.
"What are you doing?"
The scene in the bedroom shattered like broken glass. Countless water mirrors surrounded him again, and the reflections in the mirrors all wore the same puzzled expression.
"Isn't this what you wanted?"
"You don't have to work hard to become stronger, you don't have to struggle to survive, you don't have to do anything for beauty, money, or spiritual entertainment. They'll all come to you automatically, and all you have to do is lie down."
"Look, what a happy life!"
"Don't you like it?"
"You really don't like it?"
They argued among themselves. Xia Feng rolled his eyes and raised his index finger. "First of all, this Mu Qingtong is so fake. There's no sense of immersion at all."
"Ah? Is it because of the wrong personality?" The reflection pondered thoughtfully. "This can be adjusted to ensure it's 99% accurate and the plot is reasonable!"
Xia Feng raised his middle finger. "Second, as long as there are rules, there's no unsolvable puzzle. The explosion in the TV series was eventually resolved within the rules. This crappy spiritual weapon space must also have its own rules for breaking it. These rules might be related to the spiritual weapon's ability, but I haven't figured it out yet."
"What are you talking about? Why can't we understand?"
"Yeah, I don't get it."
"Can't understand."
"It's over. Our original self has gone crazy and is spouting nonsense~"
"Nonsense~"
"Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense..."
Xia Feng ignored them and raised his third finger. "Third, although I'm a vulgar person, if you ask me whether I'd prefer 'illusory happiness' or 'real misfortune,' I'd honestly choose illusory happiness."
Xia Feng smiled. "But unfortunately, there's someone I care about in reality. Even though we're not bound by family or love, I can't just leave her alone like this."
Hearing this, the reflections suddenly fell silent. After a moment, they lowered their heads and whispered in unison, "Yes, Mushroom can't live without me."
"Mushroom can't live without me."
"Can't live without me..."
They began repeating again. Xia Feng blinked. "Yes, Mushroom can't live without us! So, how about you tell me how to break this and let me out?"
"Yes, I'll tell you how to break it!"
"Yes, let you out!"
"Yes, I have to let you out, otherwise Mushroom will be alone again."
They stood in the mirrors, looking around and discussing, quickly reaching a consensus. They looked at Xia Feng and said in unison, "Okay, we'll tell you how to break it."
"?!!" Xia Feng was slightly surprised. Are you really going to tell me?
"So..." Xia Feng looked expectant.
"The solution is..." They spoke in unison, with unprecedented seriousness, "Defeat your spiritual weapon incarnation!"
"Yeah, and then what?"
"And then? There's nothing else. That's the solution!"
Xia Feng: o_O
Alright, alright, you're messing with me, right? As expected of me, I'm so damn annoying! Xia Feng was so angry he even cursed himself.
"Very well, in that case!"
Xia Feng raised his sword, his chin lifted in anger, and he officially declared war. "I'm going to beat the crap out of you guys!!"
"Did you hear that? The main body is going to beat the crap out of himself~"
"I heard it, I heard it. As expected of our main body, he's so brave!"
"Well then, let's make him happy."
"Help him, help him, help him." As solemn low voices echoed between heaven and earth, Xia Fengs began stepping out of the water mirrors one after another. Tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—they densely formed a hollow circular array on the endless water surface. Their black pupils stared at Xia Feng in the center, raising their swords high and shaking the heavens and earth in unison: "Help him! Kill!!!"
Xia Feng: ⊙▂⊙
"No, bro, I was just kidding—"
Swish—swish—swish—swish. Xia Feng was stabbed all over by more than a dozen swords. He looked up at the sky in confusion, but before he could feel the pain, his vision went dark and then bright again.
He was reborn in the middle of the crowd on the other side.
"You guys are toxic!" Xia Feng cursed. How was he supposed to win this? There was no way!
The reflections all turned their heads, their eyes dim. "Die!!!"
"Oh my god!" Xia Feng immediately went into stealth, but the reflections didn't care at all and unleashed triple waves directly toward the center.
One hundred Xia Fengs, working in unison, created three hundred blood waves. Boom!!!
A massive blood-red mushroom cloud rose, shaking the space.
As the blood-red rain fell, the Xia Fengs looked around in confusion, searching for the original body.
"Where is he?"
"Yeah, where is he?"
"As expected of me, I actually thought of this."
Xia Feng, standing in the crowd, nodded and repeated, "As expected of me, I actually thought of this."
"Where is he? Where is he?"
As he repeated, he followed the crowd, secretly formulating a plan.
After several attempts, he roughly understood that this outrageous test of his spiritual weapon couldn't be solved by brute force.
After all, he couldn't defeat one clone, let alone countless clones.
He was completely outmatched.
So, what to do?
According to Black Crow, defeating the spiritual weapon's incarnation would mean passing the test, but now he didn't even know where the incarnation was.
Could it really be these countless reflections?
If these reflections were the spiritual weapon's incarnations, then this test would be unsolvable, and he'd have no chance of passing.
"As long as it's a test, no matter how difficult, there's always a glimmer of hope," Xia Feng pondered, secretly observing his surroundings. "Could the spiritual weapon's incarnation be hidden among these clones?"
As he thought this, his eyes suddenly froze. The profile of a clone in front of him came into view—a face without any features!
"What the hell? A faceless man?"
Could this be the spiritual weapon's incarnation? Xia Feng hesitated, feeling something was off. He had just thought of the spiritual weapon's incarnation hiding among the clones, and now this appeared?
"Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?"
The crowd moved, and Xia Feng and the others looked around aimlessly for anything unusual, but they seemed to completely ignore the faceless man not far away.
The faceless man acted as if nothing had happened, searching for Xia Feng while repeating the same sounds.
Xia Feng thought about it. Although this man looked strange, it wouldn't hurt to try. He wouldn't die anyway.
While thinking, he followed the crowd and slowly squeezed to the front as if nothing had happened.
"Where is he?"
"Where is the original?"
Xia Feng muttered as he came behind the faceless man. Without hesitation or any warning, he stabbed the faceless man in the back, piercing his heart!
Swoosh—
The crowd suddenly stopped moving and turned their heads, their eyes dim. "We found you!"
A trap? Xia Feng frowned as the faceless man in front of him revealed a face identical to his own. Then, his body disintegrated into a stream of water and returned to the surface.
Xia Feng looked up in confusion, only to see another faceless man standing behind the crowd, staring at him expressionlessly.
Well, truly expressionless.
"Capture him, but don't kill him this time," the faceless man said.
A large group of people rushed forward and grabbed his limbs. Xia Feng didn't resist and surrendered.
"Are you the spiritual weapon's incarnation? Do you control these clones?" Xia Feng wondered.
"We've said it before, we are you, and you are us," the faceless man in the distance spoke with a sincere tone.
At the same time, the face of the clone holding Xia Feng's right arm slowly disappeared. He looked down at Xia Feng and said, "So, you can't defeat us at all. Give up."
The clone on the left also turned into a faceless man and said in a slightly excited tone, "We can create a perfect, happy, and conflict-free paradise for you and for us!"
"Isn't that good?" the faceless man in the distance said seriously.
Xia Feng glanced around and looked seriously at this group of strange beings.
After a moment of silent contemplation, his doubtful eyes gradually became clear and shone. "I think I understand."
"Understood? Do you mean you agree with our point of view and are willing to stay here?"
"No, no, no." Xia Feng shook his head and murmured thoughtfully. "If the test is related to the spiritual weapon's power, then you are the manifestation of that power, or in other words, the so-called spiritual weapon incarnation. Other spiritual weapons might require defeating the incarnation head-on to pass the test, but in my situation, that's impossible. Therefore, the key to breaking the deadlock isn't brute force, skill, or rhetoric. There's only one thing left—thought!
As long as I accept or realize a certain thought, I can awaken the spiritual weapon!"
The more Xia Feng thought about it, the brighter his eyes became. "Then, the purpose of your appearance is simple. It's not to create an unsolvable situation for me, but to help me understand a certain idea!
So. Right! So you keep emphasizing that you are me, and I am you—this isn't a joke, but a clear statement to me."
Xia Feng paused, raised his head, and narrowed his eyes slightly. "This is the key to breaking the deadlock!"
Xia Feng blinked but didn't show any surprise. Instead, he nodded seriously. "Yeah, that means you agree with the idea that 'we are you, and you are us'? That's great, let's merge!"
They all opened their arms and looked at Xia Feng with deep gazes.
Looking at the depressing sea of people, Xia Feng remained calm and didn't move, but a thought flashed through his mind—stop.
The world fell silent.
One hundred thousand Xia Fengs froze in place.
"Kill yourselves."
Following Xia Feng's calm command, they all raised their swords and slit their own throats—in unison!
Swish—in an instant, the densely packed hundreds of thousands of Xia Fengs collapsed into streams of water and fell to the ground. Only two figures remained between heaven and earth—Xia Feng and a faceless man.
The faceless man, wearing the same white martial arts robe, stood ten meters away, motionless.
Xia Feng approached slowly, sword in hand. "It seems you've copied countless incarnations of my spiritual weapon, so my psychic power is related to copying?"
Xia Feng placed the sword on the faceless man's neck and slashed. The faceless man also turned into water and fell to the ground without any resistance.
It seemed that his spiritual weapon test was quite simple—no, extremely simple. As long as he recognized these silly clones as himself and firmly believed he could control them, then he could actually control them! Hmm, Xia Feng felt something was off. For such a simple test, the spiritual weapon level couldn't be very low, right?
As the faceless man turned into water, the endless water surface began to surge, shrinking and converging at the speed of light with Xia Feng at the center. Xia Feng lowered his head in confusion, his breathing slightly faster.
He could sense that a spiritual weapon was about to appear!
"C-grade! C-grade!" Xia Feng clasped his hands together and prayed sincerely. "God bless me! Give me a C, or a B-grade! I'm not greedy for an A, just a B—"
"Grade B." Xia Feng murmured, narrowing one eye. Ding~~ The water flow gathered into an oval-shaped ancient bronze mirror, floating up and down in front of him.
At the same time, information flooded his mind.
[Psychic power successfully unlocked——]
[Spiritual Weapon: Divine Mirror Without Stand]
["Using copper as a mirror, one can adjust one's attire; using people as a mirror, one can understand gains and losses; using the past as a mirror, one can understand the rise and fall of all things."]
[Level: Alpha (?)]
[Spiritual Solution: Using Copper as a Mirror: Copying | Optimizing | Eliminating the False and Retaining the True]
[Using Copper as a Mirror - Copy: Perfectly copy the target's clothing, hair, accessories, makeup, appearance, voice, and spiritual weapon. No time limit.
Copy opportunity: touch the target's spiritual weapon, be attacked by the target's spiritual weapon
Current replication slot: 1 (when the replication slot number is exceeded, the new target overwrites the old target)
Current restriction: Invalid for the same level (alpha)]
[Using Copper as a Mirror - Optimization (to be awakened)]
[Using Copper as a Mirror - Eliminating the False and Retaining the True (to be awakened)]
"This hiss——"
Looking at the information about the spiritual weapon's effects, Xia Feng's heart almost jumped out of his chest, and he took a deep breath. "Oh my god! What the hell is this?!"
Copying someone else's spiritual weapon? This thing looks incredibly powerful!
And it seems the number of replication slots can be increased?! I don't know the upper limit.
But, anyway!
This spiritual weapon is definitely a BUG-level existence, right? !
"Well, but there's a very serious problem." Xia Feng was a bit confused. What the hell is alpha level?
Neither the textbook nor Black Crow mentioned an alpha level in the spiritual weapon grades?
"A word that starts with A," Xia Feng pondered. "Could it mean A-level?"
"Forget it, forget about it for now. I'll go out and ask that old lady!"
...
After sending Xia Feng into the spiritual weapon space, Black Crow closed her eyes again and slowly fell into a deep sleep.
Generally speaking, the longer it takes to clear the test, the higher the level of the spiritual weapon.
The average time for humans to clear the test is six months, so based on her estimation, Xia Feng wouldn't be able to get out anytime soon.
"Buzz——"
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, and she looked down at the tree with her deep, star-like pupils in astonishment. There, she saw the black-haired man's hollow black pupils gradually become lively. He blinked, raised his head, and grinned. "Ha~ stinky crow, is that it? I thought it'd be so difficult~"
"."
Black Crow was silent for a moment, then couldn't help but laugh mockingly. "Little brat, what are you so happy about? The shorter the time it takes to clear the test, the lower your level. It was less than three minutes, which means you only spent thirty minutes in there and cleared it?"
"Such a short time, tsk tsk, it can only be an N-level spiritual weapon."
"N-level spiritual weapon?" Xia Feng was stunned. So alpha means N-level spiritual weapon?
Is N-level this strong? Xia Feng suddenly felt the horror of this world. It seems the importance of spiritual weapons to spiritual masters is much higher than he thought!
"What do you think? Little brat, did I guess right?"
Hearing the old lady's mocking tone, Xia Feng nodded but felt something was off and asked in confusion, "Then why can't N-level spiritual weapons be directly called alpha or something? Why must they be renamed N-level?"
Seeing Xia Feng nod, Black Crow was about to continue mocking him but was stunned by his question.
"What do you mean?" Her heart skipped a beat.
(End of Chapter)