When Xia Fei followed his heart and destroyed that compendium of forbidden techniques, albeit with some reluctance, the manual suddenly revealed its true face. No one would have expected that there was actually something else inside Delusion.
Xia Fei furrowed his brows and continued to read the words on the screen. ‘The paper used to record this text is called Limited Scroll, and it’s no longer known where such a miraculous item came from. I only coincidentally found this while taking care of the Thousand Manual Pavillion in the Assassin Sect. The Limited Scroll will automatically destroy itself once activated, so you must remember every word I recorded in it.
‘Ever since I began taking care of the four major Secret Archives of the Assassin Sect many years ago, I’ve kept researching the sect’s history. According to what I understand, there’s a dark age during our long history when the Assassin Sect had completely disregarded the conventional rules set by the Hitman Syndicate—burning, killing, and pillaging without any regard, staining their two hands with blood. Even today, there were still many within the syndicate who held a grudge against the Assassin Sect. Actually, they could not be blamed, and it’s the sins our ancestors left to us.
‘The combat strength that the Assassin Sect possessed in those days was great. Even our current number-one ultimate technique, Sly Thrust, was no more than an insignificant gimmick to them. Unfortunately, time passed, and plenty of these ultimate techniques have been lost in the sands of time; it’s the very common Sly Thrust which ended up becoming the sect’s treasure. This itself had to be the greatest regret of the Assassin Sect.”
“Before you left, I did gift you this manual dubbed as Delusion. All the forbidden techniques are just some harmful martial arts which hardly have any benefits, and while they will definitely increase the cultivation of the user when learned, they’ll also result in severe complications after, making the benefits unworthy of the losses.
‘The reason I did it in such a way is purely a cover up and also this master of yours wishing to test you. Since you’re smart enough to have not learned any of those forbidden techniques and also destroyed the manual as per my instruction, I’m now awarding you with the real Delusion technique.’
Xia Fei and Phantom were both extremely shocked once they read up to this point. Who knew what would be the consequences if Xia Fei had learned those harmful techniques? Moreover, essentially any single mistake made throughout the process could have very well lost Xia Fei the opportunity to obtain the true Delusion technique.
However, what Xia Fei could not make sense of was why Shadowless would go about in such a roundabout manner despite his clear intention of wanting to impart the technique.
‘Delusion is a high-grade Space-tier martial arts technique. Its power is staggering, and your master can’t bear to see such a technique become lost, so I’ve thought of finding at least a single inheritor for this manual.
‘However, the manual has a very high requirement for a cultivator; it must be someone who is both righteous and evil. Moonshadow of the Assassin Sect fulfills this requirement, but given how he and Silvershadow have been secretly contending with each other all these years, recently escalating in terms of intensity, I’m afraid that giving him the manual will upset the balance of the entire sect. The strengthening of one side will no doubt cause the other to become weaker, and I’m not willing to see such a situation occur.
‘Ever since I’ve felt that my time is approaching, I’ve always been hesitating. That’s until you showed up. Your personality, which melds both goodness and evil, shone brightly before my eyes—willing to go at any lengths just to achieve victory yet also with your principles and bottomline. If you’re a proper disciple of the Assassin Sect, I wouldn’t even hesitate to give this Delusion manual to you.
‘After mulling over this deep into the night, I decided to give you one final test to see if you’re able to cultivate this top-tier technique. The fact that you’re reading these parting words of mine now is proof that you’ve passed my test and is no doubt the ideal candidate to learn the Delusion technique.
‘Though we’re only master and student in name, I still have final instructions that I want to give you as your master: If in the future you are willing to pass down this Delusion manual to an appropriate disciple of the Assassin Sect, then do so, but if you don’t wish to, then let this technique disappear forever.
“Until recently, I’ve learned that the saying, ‘People will still think of what they leave behind even after they’re nothing but ashes’ is quite a joke. Everything has its destiny, and there’s no need for us mortals to interfere. This is your master saying farewell.’
What remained after was the entire content of the Delusion manual, which Xia Fei hurriedly took out a stationery to record everything.
The flash receded, and that Limited Scroll disappeared. The study returned to normal. It was as if nothing had transpired aside from the mess of paper scraps that were still littering the floor.
Putting down the pen in his hand, Xia Fei lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair. He took a drag, letting the smoke fill the air.
“Grand elder Shadowless must’ve gone through an intense mental struggle before ultimately deciding to impart this technique on me using such a convoluted method. Though he didn’t say anything, the characters he wrote showed the internal turmoil he’s feeling then. It’s only when there were two sentences left did he finally let go of his burden and prepare to accept the call of death.” Phantom sighed.
Xia Fei nodded. “Perhaps that’s what everyone will experience before they die. From being unable to let go of living till finally accepting death’s inevitability.”
“A Space-tier secret manual… Earth, Heaven, Space, and Time. The Space tier is the second highest of all known techniques, and this one is even considered a high-grade Space tier. This gift from the grand elder isn’t anything simple,” Phantom said.
Xia Fei replied, “I still think that master Shadowless seemed to have a significant change in his mood while he was writing this passage, as if he had thought of something but didn’t end up mentioning.”
“Forget it. Since the man’s gone from this mortal plane, there’s no need for us, the living, to make guesses about what he’s really thinking. Let’s see just how wondrous this secret manual really is.”
……
An hour later, after Xia Fei finished reading the three-thousand-word Delusion manual many times, he could more or less get a sense of the technique.
Delusion was a kind of disorientation technique which would cause distress to the enemy’s vision and hearing, confining them into a shapeless cage to be annihilated in one fell swoop.
The technique was not only used in solo combat but was also useful when arranging troops. It was nothing like any martial arts technique but was a sort of a strange formation, instead.
Xia Fei was perplexed. Shadowless had clearly said that it was a martial arts technique and a high-grade Space tier at that. Why did it seem like a formation then?
Could his master Shadowless have made a mistake while copying the technique?
…
Xia Fei shook his head. Shadowless had spent half his life in the four major Secret Archives of the Assassin Sect; the man must have read countless martial arts techniques. Besides, he still had his mental faculty about him despite his age, so why would he have not noticed such an obvious problem?
Phantom was sceptical as well. Just like his master Moonshadow, while Phantom was an inept killer, he was very well read, especially in books about strange and rare medicinal concoctions, which he had read tens of thousands of times. He simply could not believe that the Delusion manual was a martial arts technique; it was clearly a sort of disorientating formation.
“Actually, this isn’t a bad formation—it’s an uneven arrangement that can provide opportunities to kill within the mundane. It will be fairly powerful when used,” Phantom mumbled.
Xia Fei shook his head. “While that may be true, it’s still far from being the high-grade Space tier secret manual that Shadowless made it out to be. I’m afraid that it won’t even be strange to find a similar disorientating formation being taught as part of any military schools’ curriculum.”
Phantom was speechless. It was true that the ancient humans had an immense push to study formations during the cold weapon era, but they were now in the space era, where armies would emphasize on their ships’ firepower when they confronted each other, and formations were merely supplementary.
Xia Fei was stroking his chin thoughtfully as he wondered. “Could this be a sort of test as well?”
…
Xia Fei was never one to give up, so of course he attempted to find the crux of the problem here.
…
The script used in the Delusion manual was a bit obscure, and the sentences themselves did not read well, as if the person who had written the manual was not well-versed enough in the language. There were plenty of problematic sentences, which meant that Xia Fei could only attempt to make sense of what was being written with his own inference.
There were plenty of scripts in the universe, and even the small Earth had over a hundred scripts. It was the same for language, too. This manual was written with one which was obscure, and the only reason he could understand what it meant was the translation chip embedded in his brain.
For three days straight, Xia Fei failed to uncover the mystery behind the words, and he could not help but feel somewhat frustrated because of it.
After dinner, Xia Fei brewed himself a cup of Biluochun tea, heading back to his room with it to give Avril a call. This had also become his daily routine. After all, he was about to enter the No Man’s Zone in a few days, and Xia Fei was not at all confident that the Black Bat radar would be capable of maintaining communication with the alliance, which was why he was taking this time to connect to the interplanetary internet and spend time conversing with her.
Avril, who was obediently waiting in her bedroom like before, happily greeted him in some foreign language when she saw Xia Fei.
“What did you just say? Why don’t I understand it?” Xia Fei asked, confused.
Avril somewhat cheekily replied, “That’s Talund for good evening. It is a very old language and must be alien to your translation chip, so it’s unable to translate it in time.”
Xia Fei was stunned. “Could you repeat that again?”
“I said that it’s Talund, meaning good evening,” Avril said, clueless.
Xia Fei shook his head. “No, I meant what you said after.”
“That it must be alien to your translation chip?”
Xia Fei clapped once, realization dawning upon him as he stood up. He excitedly told her. “I GOT IT! So it’s an issue with the translation chip.”
Avril had no idea what Xia Fei was so excited about, so she softly said, “The translation chip also has grades, and the higher grade a translation chip is, the more languages it can understand. Human languages have always been very complex, and a translation chip won’t only need to have a high recognition capability, its computational speed and logic unit have to be outstanding as well.
“Most translation chips can very reliably perform language and script translation; even the cheap ones can do a fairly good job with most, but you’ll need a more powerful logic unit for the more complex languages and scripts due to how specialized they are, or else it can’t recognize what is being said or written.”
Hearing Avril’s explanation, Xia Fei became all the more confident that the reason he had been unable to understand Delusion was the low-quality translation chip inside his head.
He hurriedly wrote down a row of words and gave it to Avril to read.
“Do you recognize these words?”
Avril earnestly nodded, repeating it back to him in Venal.
Xia Fei was elated when he discovered that some of the connotations of the words were completely changed after Avril’s translation.
Phantom mouth hung open in shock as he rumbled, “No wonder! The chip in my brain is a very common model as well, so both of us have been unable to extract the real meaning from behind the text.”
Xia Fei knitted his eyebrows. “You’re a spirit; how would you have a brain?”
Phantom was silent for a while. “How would I know? While it’s true that I’m a spirit, my thoughts are still as before, and even my translation chip works like in the past.”
With that, Phantom shook his head and became flabbergasted. “That’s not right. My body’s gone, so the translation chip is gone as well. How could I still be able to feel it work?”
“Why is this the case? Why haven’t I realized this issue before?
“No, something’s not right. This is completely illogical.”
Xia Fei had not thought that a casual question of curiosity from him could cause Phantom to fall into an inextricable spiral of thoughts.
Pursing his lips, Xia Fei ignored the baffled Phantom. Since he finally uncovered the problem, the most important thing at hand was to solve the issue.
Avril was still curious on why Xia Fei had asked her such a thing, and Xia Fei very lightly brushed aside this, chatting with her for a bit, even throwing in a few interesting jokes and such, which made Avril laugh until her belly hurt.
Xia Fei had discovered that jokes were like weapons with one hundred percent efficacy when used on women; as long as they were happy, they would easily forget all their worries and were all the more willing to spend time with others. This was especially the case with Avril, who was a happy-go-lucky sort, which made her even more receptive to jokes
Disconnecting from the call, Xia Fei hurriedly went to the interplanetary internet and searched for further information regarding translation chips.
…
On a planet by the name of Ennara, right before the No Man’s Zone.
Though this place was not as bustling as Venal, it was one of the largest planets before entering the No Man’s Zone. Xia Fei booked a surgery there to swap his translation chip out for a newer and better model.
There was a hospital called Fraternity in the metropolis. Xia Fei arrived at the reception and told the nurse in charge of receiving patients his name. The woman smiled. “Good evening, Mr. Xia. Your appointment with neurosurgeon Qin Fang has already been prepared. You may take the elevator to level 16, the office of Doctor Qin.”
Xia Fei nodded. He passed through the reception area and stepped into an elevator.
As the doors closed, Xia Fei furrowed his brows. “Phantom, do you feel as if someone’s following me?”
Phantom shook his head. “Not at all. I’ve been looking behind you all this time… Perhaps you’re just being too wary. Not many know that we’ve left the Venal Star Region, not to mention that we’re already near in the alliance’s outer regions. Who would care to follow you this far?”
…
Xia Fei nodded. His Impaler was very fast, and each warp it did was forty percent further than the average warship, covering close to seventy thousand lightyears in one go. A common warship would have a really tough time just keeping up with him even if they had a way of locating him. After all, Impaler was an elite heavy-assault cruiser with a cruise and warp speed the usual warships could not keep up with.
The kindly nurse led Xia Fei into Qin Fang’s office. According to the information he got from the interplanetary internet, the neurosurgeon Qin Fang was quite well known in the area, a holder of the special-class attending physician license issued by the Alliance, which meant that his skills were worth trusting.
Implanting a translation chip was definitely no child’s play; connecting a single biochip to the complex yet fragile human brain was an extremely dangerous task, which was why Xia Fei had been willing to pay the exorbitant cost of ten thousand star coins an hour for the best local doctor to complete this procedure.
The information on Doctor Qin was pretty much accurate aside from the fact that he looked a little darker in person than the photo online. Video systems would often go through several scans and processes, which was why humans often looked a bit more handsome in pictures than in person.
The nurse poured two cups of coffee as Xia Fei sat right across Qin Fang.
“Mr. Xia, please allow me to check the working conditions of your current translation chip.” Qin Fang very courteously requested.
Xia Fei nodded and followed the man to a depth scanner; Qin Fang adjusted the device accordingly and a dark-red laser shot forth, quickly establishing connection with Xia Fei’s translation chip, concurrently displaying the chip inside his head.
Xia Fei only knew that there was a biochip in his head, and this was actually the first time he could see it.
All he saw was a chip the size of a soybean sealed within a thin layer of alloy to prevent it from suffering any signal interference and liquid corrosion. Nothing special was added to it.
Qin Fang very carefully examined the chip and invited Xia Fei back to the seat before he smiled. “Mr. Xia, I’ll be frank. Though this translation chip is an older model and of average performance, it’s still working fine. Are you sure that you want to swap it out?”
Xia Fei nodded firmly. “I’m certain.”
Qin Fang replied, “Okay, then. It is but a small surgery to have it swapped out, and the entire process is very safe. There’s practically no danger, so may I ask what model would you like to swap it for?”
“The FXX-5,” Xia Fei answered. He had already chosen a model online before, confirming that the hospital had the chip in its inventory, only making his appointment after.
Qin Fang was startled, barely able to contain his emotions as he asked, “Mr. Xia, are you sure that you want the FXX-5 translation chip? That chip itself cost sixty million star coins; do you perhaps wish to reconsider?”
Xia Fei shook his head nonchalantly. “Nope, I’ve already decided on it.”
Qin Fang flushed red. “Mr. Xia, I must say that you indeed have an eye for quality. The FXX-5 translation chip is the most specialized translation chip in the entire alliance, said to have been designed for the use of language experts. You’ll no longer have any difficulties recognizing the language or script of human or other races as long as you have it installed.
“I’m not bragging, but we are the only location in the entire Ennara that has such an expensive specialized—no wait, more like a master-grade translation chip. I’m sure you won’t have any regrets after.”
Qin Fang kept going for quite some time, which caused Phantom to wonder. “Why is this guy so excited? Could this be a criminal-run shop front?”
Xia Fei chuckled. “No, of course not. Just that FXX-5 translation chip is truly so expensive there’s no way for it to be bought by just anyone in such a desolate star region. I checked the records, and this hospital purchased that chip decades ago, yet they haven’t managed to sell it all these years. They’re of course delighted after I mentioned that I’m going to take it off their hands.”
“So that’s the case.” Phantom nodded. “I couldn’t tell from how stingy you usually were that you’d also be willing to invest in such things.”
Xia Fei sighed. “No one will enjoy having their brain cut open just to swap out their chip every other day. Might as well make a one-time investment and get the very best that is on offer.”
Instantly, Xia Fei turned to the window looking outside, muttering to himself, ‘Why do I feel as if someone’s been watching me?’
