To the eastern parts of the Capital stood a magnificent manor. Two giant stone lions adorned the light red-colored gates to the mansion, adding to the already great aura to the place.

Zheng Manor.

This place was the residence to one of the Five Great Houses, the house of Zheng, and by extension, Zheng Kai.

Bai Yunfei sat in the guest rooms of the west side of the manor. Seated next to the table there, Bai Yunfei held a fist-sized rock in his hand.

He had been in this manor for an hour already when Zheng Kai had the servants and maids prepare a guest room for Bai Yunfei before leaving in a hurry. Bai Yunfei knew that was probably due to him having to report to his seniors and report what happened today.

Bai Yunfei hadn’t any interest in seeing what Zheng Kai had to do, so he decided to rest in his room and look through the s.p.a.ce rings of the people he killed today. The first thing he looked at was the strange stones Xiao Qi found and brought to him.

The stats of this ‘stone’ made Bai Yunfei’s eyes s.h.i.+ne with excitement.

“An illusion type equipment!!” He surmised. A stone with stats like that would never fail to excite him.

Back in the illusionary barrier, Bai Yunfei had found it weird that there was an illusion in place, but no caster there. To him, that meant there was some sort of soul armament that was capable of erecting an illusion and thus why he sent Xiao Qi to investigate the root of the illusions. Through their soul bond, Xiao Qi wasn’t affected by the illusions either and so finding the stones hadn’t been too hard of a task for the bird.

When Bai Yunfei didn’t sense any type of effect from it, Bai Yunfei decided to send his soulforce into it and see what would happen.

The previously jet-black stones started to then s.h.i.+ne with a prismatic light the moment his soulforce touched it. It wasn’t a strong light, but it was hypnotic and even Bai Yunfei felt slightly mesmerized by the light.

Much to Bai Yunfei’s surprise, the light hadn’t been too large, spreading to about ten meters in radius around him at most. At his command, the light stopped growing, and with another thought, the environment around him started to look fake.

“This counts as activating its effect?” Bai Yunfei muttered, “It feels a little weak for having an illusion, but there’s no actual illusion in place. What happens if I continue?”

Curious, Bai Yunfei gathered even more soulforce into the stone to try and ‘manipulate’ the scenery around him.

At his command, the area around him started to twist a little bit. The table was the first to disappear before the rest of the room followed. Like ripples of water, the area around him churned a bit before slowly returning back to normal as the area around him changed.

The floors beneath him were riddled with potholes and the wall to his left was dilapidated. The ceiling window had long since been removed by someone, though Bai Yunfei knew not who took it. The night sky was s.h.i.+ning overhead, and in front of him was a flimsy bed with one corner of the bed being shorter than the others, necessitating the need of a brick to uphold it.

Bai Yunfei’s body s.h.i.+vered slightly at the sight, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with remembrance at the sight, tears forming underneath them….

This sight in front of him was….the place he once called ‘home’ for nine lonely years!!

The place where so many memories were had, the place he hadn’t thought about for a very long time!

It had been a warm and lively place when he was young many years ago with his mother and grandfather. But for nine years after them….only he was left living in that house. On the bed, Bai Yunfei watched as a frail body laid on there, s.h.i.+vering and crying under the flimsy sheets to grasp at the cloud-shaped pendant around the neck.

He closed his eyes, wiping away at the tears pooled around them and sucking in a deep breath. The area around him altered again, and two seconds later, Bai Yunfei was back in the guest room in Zheng Manor without anyone being any the wiser.

Bai Yunfei opened his eyes again. Shaking his left hand, he took out a white cloud-shaped pendant from his ring and gingerly stroked the edges of it, a look of fond nostalgia on his face.

This was the last remnant of his mother. In his fear of it being damaged in battle, Bai Yunfei had it held for safekeeping in his s.p.a.ce ring rather than having it around his neck.

“Mother….” Bai Yunfei lamented, “Can you see me now? Yunfei has grown up. I am free like a cloud in the sky to travel wherever….”

All of a sudden, Bai Yunfei felt homesick.

Talus City hadn’t been his ‘home’ in many years. With no one there to tend to his mother and grandfather’s graves, would they both be filled with gra.s.s and other weeds by now?

He really wished to go back and visit their graves. He wanted to greet them and share the stories of how he was doing….

    ……

“Chirp chirp….”

From next to him, the hesitant but comforting chirp of Xiao Qi crooned to him. The bird was rubbing its head next to Bai Yunfei’s face affectionately from its perch on his shoulder. Its eyes were filled with sadness, though its heart was sending him comforting messages.

“Haha, I’m fine, just thinking of some memories from long ago….”

Bai Yunfei stroked the feathers of Xiao Qi, his heart feeling warm at Xiao Qi’s touch.

Putting the cloud pendant away again, Bai Yunfei sucked in a deep breath again. Chasing away the mournful memories of the past, Bai Yunfei looked back to the stone in his other hand.

“Is this its effects? Even I felt confused by my own illusions….” Bai Yunfei jeered self-deprecatingly. The illusion he fabricated for himself had been done unknowingly. Perhaps it had taken shape of what his mind was reflecting at the moment to create the illusion.

With that said, the illusion was pretty strong if it could evoke a memory like that. That was also due to the small radius it was in, and if it was larger, the mirage wouldn’t have been so strong.

Now armed with this knowledge, Bai Yunfei fabricated another illusion, this time slowly changing the details of the mirage to see the extent of it. The illusion maintained itself after he stopped feeding soulforce into it as well, though he didn’t bother seeing how long it could last.

He nodded satisfactorily. “Since this is a stone that can cast illusions, I’ll call it….the ‘Illusion Stone’.”