For the longest of time, Bai Yunfei was gobsmacked. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Bai Yunfei simply could not believe his eyes for several seconds.

“Se—set equipment!” Bai Yunfei’s heart began to pound against his chest in joy, “A set of left and right. Set equipment….they’re strong!”

Taking several seconds to inhale and exhale, Bai Yunfei calmed himself down before taking a second look at the Crescent Moon Blades.

“Yet again another discovery, but what a find this is! No wonder those two were fighting so strangely! That one time I almost died was because of the set equipment’s effect!”

“Right now in this current state they’re considered a set of left and right, but how do I split them apart?” Bai Yunfei stared inquisitively at the soul item in his hand. Turning it around, Bai Yunfei tilted his head to look at the hilt of the blade. Following a stream of his soulforce, the blade then immediately split apart from one another.

“Ka-c.h.i.n.k!”

There was a metallic crack.

And then there was a single blade in both of Bai Yunfei’s hands.

“They split!” Bai Yunfei cracked a grin at the sight of these two weapons. Now he could take a better look at the two.

Weighing each sword in his hand, Bai Yunfei began to mutter to himself, “A set of soul items where the left and right pieces are connected. What happens if I….if I upgrade them?”

Curious on the results, Bai Yunfei made the swift decision to immediately upgrade these to +10.

“Wind blade….isn’t that pretty much the same thing as the Flame Winged Blade? How strong would it be then….” Looking at the improved weapon in his hand, Bai Yunfei started to think to himself. “But when the two blades are connected, they become a….an earth-tier item!” That’s already stronger than the +12 Fire-tipped Spear!”

“Not bad at all then! Too bad I’m not good at this type of weapon, I’d love to have use it!” Bai Yunfei sighed, “But still, using it every so often for a sneak attack should be a trump card still….”

He had no way of trying out the Crescent Moon Blades, so all he could really do was to ‘play’ around with them before putting them away again.

With nothing else to inspect and with it being the dead of the night, Bai Yunfei’s only option afterwards was to sit back on his bed and try his best to cultivate.

The next day, Bai Yunfei finished up his cultivation period and finished some breakfast before heading out for the mountains himself. Shao Ling had been refused to go with him.

It was in these forests that Bai Yunfei gained some valuable experience with the Crescent Moon Blades and the other newly acquired soul items. The Crescent Moon Blades’ +10 effect and additional effects were studied especially carefully.

Contrary to his initial thought, the Crescent Moon Blades weren’t as nearly hard as he’d thought they’d be. All he needed to do was to transmit some soulforce into it and he could manipulate their movements as freely as he’d like within a hundred meters of himself. It wasn’t a drastic consumption, but the further the blades traveled away from him, the more soulforce it took.

The weapons had the chance of summoning a wind blade of considerable strength. It didn’t have the explosive effect like the Fire-tipped Spear did, but it was still quite decent. The Fire-tipped Spear required a ‘stab’ in order to activate, the Crescent Moon Blades only required a swing to activate. Even if he missed, it’d still work! The swing of the actual blade and the wind blade could work in conjunction with one another. But the true extent of their power couldn’t exactly be determined without a test run in battle first.

After his experiment finished, Bai Yunfei began to work on improving his own fighting habits and skills such as the Wave Treading Steps, the Ninefold Fist Force, the throwing knives, and so forth. Whether it was finding a flaw in his defenses or just improving his skills in general, Bai Yunfei was trying his best so that he could grow strong enough to fight off anyone.

From morning to noon, Bai Yunfei didn’t bother to return to the village at all.

And so when he finally followed the river back to the village in a mid-thought walk, Bai Yunfei was surprised to see two sitting shoulder to shoulder underneath a large tree on the other side of the river.

It was Xiao Fang and Zhu Zi.

And from the looks of it, they were rather close to one another and spoke in quiet voices. From where Bai Yunfei was, he could see Zhu Zi’s left hand drift hesitantly back and forth towards Xiao Fang’s shoulder as if he was having misgivings on holding onto her.

It was apparent to see that they weren’t paying attention to their surroundings, so it was no wonder Bai Yunfei was able to go as far as he did without detection. It was only when the thickets rustled behind the two that they looked up and behind.

From Bai Yunfei’s own response, it looked as if he realized that he had disturbed their moment. Sheepishly, he spoke, “Oh….hehehe…what a coincidence. I didn’t think to come across you two here….”

“Lo—lord Bai, how did you come across here….?” Scrambling to her feet, Xiao Fang’s eyes flickered to Zhu Zi right next to her before blus.h.i.+ng.

“Ehhhhh….I was just taking a walk. Carry on, I’ll be on my way now.”

Turning around, Bai Yunfei was about to walk away when Zhu Zi cried out after him. “Bai Yunfei, hold on!”

“Eh? What’s up?” Bai Yunfei asked in confusion.

Hesitating at first, Zhu Zi turned to look at Xiao Fang, “Xiao Fang, could you go on back first? I want to talk with Bai Yunfei.”

Although she was confused as well, Xiao Fang didn’t question him and gave an obedient nod of her head. “Okay. It’s noon anyways, I needed to go on back to fix lunch anyways….”

The two watched Xiao Fang draw farther and farther away before Bai Yunfei looked to the still hesitant Zhu Zi. Smiling, he spoke, “Zhu Zi, what’d you want to say to me? From what I can see, you’ve made a huge step in your relations.h.i.+p with Xiao Fang! Don’t tell me you still think I’m an enemy?”

Zhu Zi was taken aback himself at first. Shaking his head as if to clear away the misunderstandings, he spoke apologetically. “Tha—no, I wanted apologize to you for before. I was being jealous and thought that you were….”

“Haha, don’t sweat the small stuff then. How’re your wounds?” Bai Yunfei laughed. He spent the last two days healing from his wounds so he had barely seen Shao Ling, let alone Zhu Zi who was in an even worse of a state. From the looks of things, Zhu Zi was obviously in a much better state than before.

Nodding, Zhu Zi replied, “I made a complete recovery yesterday night. I….I heard from Xiao Fang that it was because of you that I was able to recover so fast. I wanted to thank you and….and to give you this.”

A single sack was taken out from within Zhu Zi’s robes. From it, he took out a series of accessories—the ones Bai Yunfei had first given to him to help accelerate his wounds.

Seeing the reluctant look on Zhu Zi’s face, Bai Yunfei just had to smile. He could remember when Jing Mingfeng had been loaned the speed enhancing accessories, and how he was reluctant to give it back as well. But the smile receded soon enough, he simply couldn’t give Zhu Zi these items to own. It was only because Zhu Zi was in a bad enough state that the very best recovery items were used. He couldn’t gift these upgraded items away, no matter how decent of a fellow Zhu Zi was.

But there was still something else Zhu Zi looked like he wanted to say as he returned the accessories, prompting Bai Yunfei to ask, “What, is there something else?”

Bowing his head, Zhu Zi’s eyes gleamed with a slight indecisive light before quickly being overshadowed by a firm one. A moment later, Zhu Zi took out another bag from his robe and opened it to reveal a small white stone the size of a small fist.

Turning it over and giving to Bai Yunfei, Zhu Zi had a pained look on his face. “I give this to you. This is for saving Xiao Fang’s life!”