As he pondered, his gaze suddenly froze. The profile of one of his clones in the front to the side caught his eyes—a face... with no features!
"What the hell? A no-face person?"
Could this be the embodiment of the Spiritual Artifact? Xia Feng hesitated, feeling something was amiss. He had just thought about the Spiritual Artifact's embodiment hiding among the clones, and now it had appeared?
"Where is he, where is he, where is he, where is he..."
The crowd pushed and shoved as Xia Feng and the others aimlessly searched for the anomaly, but they seemed to completely ignore the no-face person not far away.
The no-face person also acted as if nothing were amiss, somewhere emitting a voice that kept repeating the search for Xia Feng.
After some thought, Xia Feng decided to give it a try even though this person seemed off. It couldn't hurt to try—after all, he couldn't die.
During his contemplation, he weaved through the crowd, casually making his way toward the front.
"Where is the real body?"
Muttering to himself, Xia Feng approached the no-face person from behind. Without hesitation or wasted words, he plunged his knife into the no-face person's back, piercing the heart!
Suddenly, the crowd stopped moving, turned their heads in unison, and looked at him eerily: "Found you!"
A trap, huh.... As Xia Feng frowned, the faceless figure in front of him took on a face identical to his. Then, with a snap, the body disintegrated into a stream of water that returned to the surface.
Looking up in confusion, Xia Feng saw another no-face person standing behind the crowd, expressionlessly staring at him.
Hmm, truly devoid of expression.
"Catch him, but don't kill him this time," the no-face person spoke.
A swarm of people rushed over to hold him down, but Xia Feng did not resist; instead, he simply surrendered.
"Are you the embodiment of the Spiritual Artifact? Are you controlling these clones?" Xia Feng asked suspiciously.
"We've said it already, we are you, and you are us," the distant no-face person said earnestly. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ NoveI[F]ire.net
At the same time, the clone on the right that was holding Xia Feng's arm had its face slowly disappear as it looked down at him: "So, you can't defeat us. Just give up."
The clone on his left also became a no-face person, speaking with a slightly more excited tone: "We can create a perfect, happy, conflict-free paradise for you—and for us!"
"Isn't that great?" asked the distant no-face person seriously.
Xia Feng scanned the group, locking eyes with these strange beings.
After a moment of silent thought, his puzzled gaze gradually cleared up, brightening, "I seem to, understand."
"Understood? Does that mean you agree with our view and are ready to stay here?"
"No, no, no." Xia Feng shook his head and murmured thoughtfully, "If the trial and the Spiritual Artifact's abilities are related, then you are the manifestation of the Spiritual Artifact's power, or rather, the so-called embodiment of the Spiritual Artifact. Other Spiritual Artifacts might require physically defeating the embodiment to pass, but...
But I clearly can't do that. So the key to breaking through isn't brute strength, nor skill, nor rhetoric—it must be thought!
As long as I embrace or realize a certain idea, I'll be able to awaken the Spiritual Artifact!"
The more he thought about it, the brighter Xia Feng's eyes shone, "So, the purpose of your appearance is simple: not to create an insurmountable predicament for me, but to help me grasp some concept!
So... yes! That's why you keep emphasizing that you are me, and I am you—that isn't to trick me; it's to blatantly tell me."
Xia Feng paused, then narrowed his eyes, "This, this is the key to breaking through!"
The multitude of Xia Fengs blinked, showing no surprise, simply nodding seriously: "Hmm, so you agree with the idea that 'we are you, you are us'? That's wonderful, let's merge!"
They opened their arms in unison, their eerie gazes washing over Xia Feng.
Facing the oppressive sea of bodies, Xia Feng remained calm, motionless, with only a thought flashing through his mind—stop.
Silence enveloped the world.
A hundred thousand Xia Fengs abruptly stopped in their tracks.
At Xia Feng's soft command, they moved uniformly, drawing knives across their throats in one swift motion!
Swoosh—In an instant, scores of Xia Fengs disintegrated into streams that fell back into the water, leaving only two figures in the world—Xia Feng and one no-face person.
The no-face person, dressed in the same white martial arts robe, stood motionless ten meters away.
Xia Feng stepped forward with his knife: "It seems you're the embodiment of the Spiritual Artifact that has cloned countless copies of me. So is my Spiritual Energy related to cloning?"
Xia Feng rested the knife on the no-face person's neck, slicing through. The no-face person also turned into a stream of water and fell to the ground without resistance.
It seemed his trial with the Spiritual Artifact was quite simple, no, extremely simple—as long as he accepted that these foolish clones were himself, and firmly believed he could control them, then...
I can actually control them now! Uh, Xia Feng felt something was off; such a simple test can't possibly mean that the Spiritual Artifact is of low Level, right?
As the faceless creatures dissolved into water, a boundless surface began to churn, converging at the speed of light around Xia Feng as the focal point. He looked down, his breath quickened in puzzlement.
He could sense it; the Spiritual Artifact was about to appear!
"C-Level! C-Level!" Xia Feng clasped his hands together in sincere prayer, "Bless me, Mu Shen! Give me a C... no, a B-Level! I'm not greedy for Alpha, just a B-Level—"
"B-Level..." Xia Feng murmured, squinting one eye open, Ding~~ water converged into an oval-shaped Ancient Bronze Mirror, bobbing up and down in front of him.
At the same time, information flooded into his consciousness.
[Spiritual Unsealing successful——]
[Spiritual Artifact: Divine Mirror Platform]
[A bronze mirror can rectify one's dress; a person can serve as a mirror to understand right and wrong; history can be the mirror to understand the rise and fall.]
[Spiritual Unsealing·Using Bronze as the Mirror: Clone|Optimize|Keep the true and discard the false]
[Using Bronze as the Mirror-Clone: Perfectly clones the target's clothing, hair, accessories, makeup, appearance, voice, Spiritual Artifact. No time limit.
Cloning trigger: Touch the target's Spiritual Artifact, receive an attack from the target's Spiritual Artifact
Current cloning slot: 1 (When exceeding the number of cloning slots, the new target will override the old one)
Current restriction: Ineffective against the same Level (alpha)]
[Using Bronze as the Mirror-Optimize (Awakening pending)]
[Using Bronze as the Mirror-Keep the true and discard the false (Awakening pending)]
Staring at the information of the Spiritual Artifact's function, Xia Feng's heart nearly leaped out, he gasped, "Holy shit! What the hell is this?!"
Cloning someone else's Spiritual Artifact? This thing looks seriously fierce!
And it seems like the number of cloning slots can increase?! No idea what the cap is.
This Spiritual Artifact must be considered a BUG-level existence, right?!
"Hmm... But, there's one very serious issue." Xia Feng was a bit puzzled; what in the world is this Alpha Level?
Neither textbooks nor Black Crow ever mentioned that there's an Alpha Level among the Spiritual Artifact rankings?
"Words that start with an A..." Xia Feng pondered, "Could it mean A-Level?"
"Whatever, I'll deal with it later. Time to ask that old lady!"
After sending Xia Feng into the Spiritual Artifact space, Black Crow closed her eyes once more, slowly drifting back to sleep.
Generally speaking, the longer it takes to clear the test, the higher the Level of the Spiritual Artifact.
Since the average human clearing time is six months, according to her estimation, Xia Feng wasn't likely to emerge anytime soon.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, her deep, star-like vertical pupils shocked, glancing down beneath the tree. There, the black-haired man's vacant black eyes slowly came alive, blinking, he lifted his head and grinned, "Ha~ Black Crow, that's it? I thought it was going to be much tougher~"
Black Crow was silent for a moment, but eventually, she couldn't help letting out a mocking low chuckle, "Little brat, what are you so happy about? The shorter the clearing time, the lower your Level. Less than three minutes, which means you only spent thirty minutes in there to pass the test?"
"With such a short time, tsk tsk, it can only be an N-Level Spiritual Artifact."
"N-Level Spiritual Artifact?" Xia Feng was stunned, Alpha means N-Level Spiritual Artifact?
N-Level is this strong? Xia Feng suddenly realized the terrifying nature of this world. It seemed that Spiritual Artifacts were even more crucial to a Spirit Master than he had imagined!
"How about that? Little brat, I guessed correctly, didn't I?"
Hearing the old lady's mocking tone, Xia Feng nodded but then felt something was off and asked, puzzled, "Then why don't they just call N-Level Spiritual Artifacts by an 'a... al' something word instead of renaming it to N-Level?"
Seeing Xia Feng nod, Black Crow was about to continue mocking but was then stumped by Xia Feng's question.
"What do you mean?" Her heart skipped a beat.