Chapter 211: Fetters
Girls were all very protective of their looks, so it was no wonder Cheryl had been so angry before, even losing her composure, which was rare.
“You were too reckless,” Chen Ran extended his hand. The power of the Hand of Silver gathered in his palm. His thumb gently rubbed Cheryl’s pure and beautiful cheek, repairing the ferocious wound. The terrifying wound finally healed gradually, returning to its former whiteness and elasticity.
“It’s a good thing I found you in time. Otherwise, you would have been disfigured.”
Cheryl just stood there, letting Chen Ran’s fingertips stroke her cheek. Feeling the itchy sensation on her face, she looked into Chen Ran’s eyes. The tenderness flashing in his eyes touched her heart inexplicably.
Chen Ran withdrew his hand. He had healed the bloodstains on Cheryl’s face, as well as the few wounds on her body. He made a gesture to Cheryl, indicating for her to follow him, without a trace of blame.
Cheryl bit her lip and quickly followed him in silence.
The two of them sat on the magic flying saucer together. Chen Ran controlled the steering wheel and tracked along the way at the fastest speed.
“Thank you,” Cheryl lowered her head. After brewing for a long time, she found that she could only say these two words. She was a little frustrated and answered honestly, “I thought I could help, but I almost dragged you down.”
“Everyone does stupid things sometimes,” Chen Ran answered with a smile. “No one expected this place to be so dangerous. When I first came, I was almost tricked by a tenth-tier Ghost King. Fortunately, I have many ways to escape, and I finally shook off that big guy. I thought I had found Lucy just now, but I didn’t expect it to be you.”
Cheryl’s expression was a little embarrassed. She habitually wanted to tuck her hair behind her ear, but awkwardly found that a section of her hair on one side had been cut off by the Ghost Demon Lord, leaving nothing in her hand. Fortunately, Chen Ran had been paying attention to the front and had not seen this embarrassing detail.
In this place full of powerful creatures, Cheryl, the star of the academy, felt her powerlessness for the first time. And the man beside her, who was not strong, gave her an indescribable sense of security.
“Can we find Lucy?” Cheryl was a little apprehensive. The situation here, let alone Lucy, even she, the top student in the academy, felt a little scared. Even though she had just broken through to the eighth tier of fire magic, and even with Chen Ran’s powerful support ability, she was still helpless against the tenth-tier creatures everywhere here. As one of her best friends, she didn’t want anything to happen to Lucy…
“We can only try our best to find her. There is no other way now.” Chen Ran’s face did not change at all. He carefully controlled the direction of the magic flying saucer, avoiding being discovered by high-level Netherworld creatures. At the same time, he said to Cheryl, “Since you are here too, the situation might be better. After all, I have no substantial combat power. I very likely need your help to hold them back. By the way, do you still have the ability to fight now?”
Cheryl nodded firmly and said, “As long as I can save Lucy, what does it matter if I risk my life? It’s just that I found that my skills in fire magic are too lacking, and I can’t fight as I imagined…” At this point, Cheryl blamed herself immensely.
“You are already excellent. At least, you have realized your weaknesses and are constantly improving. But even now, there is still no one around you who is better than you, is there?” Chen Ran turned his head and comforted the introspective girl.
“No, it’s not like that,” but at this time, Cheryl’s eyes couldn’t help but become moist, and her throat was a little choked. “I have always been self-righteous, thinking that I could surpass everything. Others always say how powerful my father is, and how superbly he uses wind magic, but I didn’t think so. I always felt that it was nothing, so I arrogantly chose to cultivate fire magic, which is the most difficult for girls to use well. But after learning all the fire magic skills that can be learned in the academy and even the Mage’s Guild, my progress in skills has reached a bottleneck. To improve further, I have to explore completely on my own. If I knew a little more, I wouldn’t have been as pathetic as just now, and even almost…”
“This is not your fault,” Chen Ran turned his head and looked at the girl who was blaming herself. He hadn’t expected this lovely girl to blame herself so much for the battle that almost cost her her life. He explained, “Everyone has their own ambitions, but no one can avoid times when they are powerless. I had them too, but I walked through them, faced myself, and came to where I am now. Never regret the path you chose in life. Perhaps one day, you will finally realize that it is precisely that foolish persistence that is the true meaning of your life.”
Chen Ran seemed to be talking about a very ordinary thing, but Cheryl felt the bitterness in his words. If she hadn’t truly experienced it, she wouldn’t be able to describe this feeling. Chen Ran’s words were not just the teachings of a tutor, but also words from the heart. A warmth gradually rose in her heart.
After confirming a safe direction, Chen Ran suddenly remembered something. Maintaining this forward trend, he took out eight or nine notebooks and secret manuals from his storage ring. They were the “secret manuals” he had robbed from the Demon Lord.
So far, he had given away two secret manuals, one lightning manual to Colin and one spirit summoning manual to Dongfang. These things were useless in his bag, and he didn’t know if there was anything that could help this girl now.
“Look for yourself and see if there’s anything you can use. These things are not very useful to me. If there’s anything you can use, take it yourself.”
Chen Ran didn’t pay attention to the expression on Cheryl’s face. His attention was more on not attracting the nearby Netherworld creatures. The guys with long-range attacks here were really not small. One careless mistake would be the end. Besides, he was carrying another person now. Although Cheryl was powerful, she didn’t have Chen Ran’s current unsolvable escape means of Magic Shield + Instantaneous Movement.
Cheryl flipped through the pile of secret manuals Chen Ran had taken out from his storage ring. After flipping through a few casually, her face was filled with shock. She hadn’t expected that there would be so many super skills here that would make people obsessed.
She flipped through them quickly and finally found a book on the application of fire magic skills in this pile of secret manuals.
Taking advantage of the free time, Cheryl flipped through a few pages. Her eyes flickered, and she soon became obsessed.
Chen Ran turned his head and noticed Cheryl’s expression. The corner of his mouth moved, forming a smiling arc. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“This is it,” Cheryl closed the secret manual and hugged it to her chest with a look of joy, like a child getting her favorite toy. She said excitedly, “This is a booklet recorded by a fire magus of at least the fifteenth tier who has been to the demon world. It records a brand-new fire magic system, a super magic martial art created based on the fire phoenix. It has very high requirements. At least one needs to have the Flame Rune, and preferably be a woman. And the requirements above seem to be completely tailor-made for the current me.”
“Oh?” Chen Ran put the other useless small books into his storage ring, while feeling lucky that there was really something Cheryl could use.
Mages were generally known for their powerful fixed-point output, while magic martial arts were the sublimation of this fighting style, adapted to combat in various situations, but they also required excellent talent to use well.
Regarding the use of magic martial arts, the Holy Church had done the best so far. Because of the existence of magic martial arts, batches of discipline priests with perverted individual strength had been created. The little girl Nicole, who had dealt with the Dark Holy Court in Diya City together with him, was a master of magic martial arts. Her gorgeous fighting style elevated combat to the realm of art. Mages who practiced magic martial arts would not be at a disadvantage whether facing the melee attacks of warriors or rogues.
Elemental magic was unified under the management of the Magic Association, which mostly advocated the positioning of traditional mages. The types were mixed, and thoughts were imprisoned. Those talented mages rarely paid attention to the development of magic martial arts, so that the magic martial arts skills of the elemental system were scarce, mostly clown-like juggling. Perhaps only those legendary mages who went to the demon world would realize the shortcomings in some places and begin to study the application of magic martial arts.
For example, in Cheryl’s previous battle, under the same seventh tier, if Nicole faced those guys, she could at least remain uninjured and undefeated, while Cheryl almost lost her life. This was not to say that Cheryl’s talent was worse than Nicole’s, but that the skills used by the two were not on the same level at all.
“Is this really for me?” Cheryl couldn’t believe that Chen Ran would give such a precious thing to her. The value of this booklet was far beyond what money could measure.
“Take it if you want it,” Chen Ran didn’t feel any pity at all. As the saying goes, too many lice don’t itch, and too many treasures make one numb. For an old ancient book that he usually thought was too dirty even to wipe his butt with, he didn’t feel any pity at all for giving it away. He asked carefully, “Is this thing useful?”
“Mmm, it points out a new direction for my future path,” Cheryl said with a look of joy, her beautiful eyes lingering on it, carefully flipping through the contents. “This set of magic martial arts requires a very high foundation. At least the intensity of eighth-tier fire magic is required. I barely meet this requirement now. It might be a bit forced to use it, but if I have the special status you gave me, the magic martial arts on this will bring me extraordinary super power. If I can become familiar with the skills on it, I can even instantly kill the guy who almost killed me before.”
“So strong?” Chen Ran, who was on his way, couldn’t help but be surprised after hearing Cheryl’s confident description, but he was also happy for the girl’s recovered mood.
He inadvertently saw Cheryl’s clear and pure eyes, bright as gemstones, beautiful as autumn water, and with a little girl’s cuteness.
Chen Ran never denied that Cheryl was a rare beauty, but he had always maintained a proper attitude. But at this moment, he couldn’t help but admire Cheryl’s beauty.
Because of this momentary distraction, the flying saucer, which was moving at high speed, did not turn in time at an important intersection. Chen Ran instantly felt a cold gaze locking onto him. With a shudder, he quickly controlled the direction of the flying saucer and fled to a safe place…
