Su Hao was a bit dazed.
Die Xiaodie was too.
Her eyes, originally shaped like "￥^￥," instantly turned into "@o@," and the whole butterfly felt off.
One person and two spirits looked around.
The dilapidated buildings emitted a faint glow, illuminating a few hundred meters around.
When he arrived, Su Hao hadn't looked closely, but now he saw that the safe zone, unaffected by water pressure, wasn't large. From one end to the other, it was only a hundred or two hundred meters.
Su Hao tried many methods, including digging soil, dismantling buildings, having Erha dismantle buildings, using the Spirit Orb to dismantle buildings, mental shock, running in circles, and so on, but he still couldn't enter that illusion.
He pondered, "Senior Brother Wu said that staying in the Mirage Ruins for a while would get you kicked out. This must be how it works—no signs at all. But clearly, others can stay in the ruins for five to seven days. Why is my time so short, only one day!"
Most of that time was spent with Die Xiaodie dismantling the gray mist while he and Erha Lin watched the show.
The actual time spent exploring was less than six hours.
That was too unreasonable!
It must be because the ruins are jealous of my handsome face!
"At least I brought out the Mirage Pearl, so it's not a total loss."
He looked down at the milky-white pearl, inside which faint streams of air could be seen drifting.
On the panel, no icons had appeared at first. How did the treasure even manifest?
The Mirage Ruins were incredibly mysterious.
But after seeing those sculptures and the mirage dragon phantom, Su Hao leaned more toward the idea that these traces of civilization were left by spirits.
He was about to have Die Xiaodie study the Mirage Pearl when suddenly, waves of repulsive force descended.
He felt himself being pushed outward.
The force slowly increased.
He knew that once kicked out, he wouldn't be able to step into the ruins' range for a long time.
But...
Did it have to be so fast!
Can't I even take a break here!
So annoying!
Su Hao didn't dare stay any longer. He found the control puppet, got on board, and under the cover of his psychic power, broke through the deep lake water, surging upward.
...
Wanmu Manor.
King Wu was holding large shears, trimming the garden's flowers and plants neatly.
Suddenly, he sensed something and looked up in a certain direction.
At the edge of the sky, a figure shot over.
In an instant, it appeared before him. As it landed, psychic power stirred up gusts of wind, messing up the garden's plants again.
King Wu frowned at the control puppet.
Then he saw Su Hao and paused, feeling something was off.
Hadn't he only been gone for a day?
King Wu sorted his thoughts.
That ruin allowed explorers to stay anywhere from half a day to a full day, up to six or seven days.
Generally, the longer you stayed, the more benefits you could gain.
To avoid being shocked again, King Wu had already raised his expectations infinitely.
He thought that even if Su Hao broke the record by staying nine, ten, or fifteen days, he wouldn't say "holy crap" anymore.
But he never expected Su Hao to be kicked out after just one day.
'Maybe it's the law of non-European balance. The junior brother was incredibly lucky during the training camp to discover the Radiant Land. This time, he's unlucky, having poor compatibility with the ruins, so he could only stay one day.'
King Wu felt a bit disappointed.
But then he thought the junior brother might be even more disappointed, so he organized his words to comfort him.
"Even if there's nothing gained..."
Before he could finish, he saw a map in Su Hao's hand.
He picked it up, and the first thing he saw was the big words at the top: "Mirage Dragon Ruins Map."
Below was a coordinate chart with some annotations.
He looked at it.
His gaze shifted from confusion to doubt, then to shock, and finally to a massive "holy crap" in just two or three seconds.
The map was rough, but King Wu had also explored the ruins. After a few glances and some recollection, he realized...
The buildings marked on it matched the size and location of what he had explored!
He flipped to the next page.
It was a Dragon Palace map, marking the locations of mirage dragon pillars.
Mirage dragon?
"Holy... I mean, what exactly did you see?"
There was nothing to hide about the exploration process.
Su Hao recounted everything.
The destructible illusions, a pearl, and... that Die Xiaodie had grown much, much, much stronger.
"That's about it, since I only had one day."
"Cough!"
King Wu almost choked, but he was the composed King Wu. After a few dozen seconds to recover, he set aside his overwhelming emotions and began to think. "...So, solidified psychic power has the ability to break illusions? If this discovery can be confirmed, you've made another great contribution! It could be useful in many places!"
He then looked at the control puppet.
From its sleeve flew five silver-white crystal spheres, each the size of a fist.
They were made of pure psychic power.
They gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight, like the most perfect gems.
They looked valuable... cough!
But those were just solidified psychic power orbs, not the same as the secret technique "Spirit Orb." Su Hao didn't know if they could dismantle towers in illusions.
A moment later, the two arrived at a training room in the manor.
"Your Dream Butterfly's psychic power is already incredibly strong. If not for its form limitations, it might already be at the transcendent level. But now, with some effort, it might still break through its limits."
The Dream Butterfly's racial limit was roughly the elite level.
Under his perfect nurturing.
But Su Hao had already planned that what needed to be done now was to get familiar with the surging power.
Die Xiaodie fluttered in the training room.
It split into multiple mirror images, each making different movements.
Meanwhile,
Su Hao operated the room's equipment. One by one, cannon muzzles emerged from the walls—Senior Brother Wu's manor training room was well-equipped.
Energy gathered at the muzzles.
"Hmm... the minimum attack is at the entry level."
A ball of energy at entry-level primary intensity shot out, hitting a mirror-image Die Xiaodie that didn't dodge.
It exploded with a bang.
That mirror image shattered like broken glass, disappearing with a clatter.
"Its defensive capability is too weak."
He wasn't satisfied.
But King Wu marveled, "Is that the power from the mirage dragon? The spirit encyclopedia doesn't have a spirit called 'Mirage Dragon,' but the Alliance has found sculptures similar to mirage dragons in other regions... If they really exist, they might be like in myths and legends."
He turned to Su Hao. "Don't be too demanding. Illusory clones consume very little spiritual power. Even if upgraded to have some physical substance, the consumption isn't high—that's their biggest advantage."
Su Hao understood.
Compared to feather clones, mirror images could be split into over a dozen at once and still have offensive power.
He still needed to think about how to develop the corresponding tactics.
Just then,
He heard Die Xiaodie chirp.
Then he saw a wisp of gray mist fly out of the Mirage Pearl it was holding, merging into one of the mirror images.
It didn't seem to change much.
But...
"Gunuo~!"
"You mean keep attacking?"
Unexpectedly, Die Xiaodie got serious, and the clone was destroyed without hesitation.
Su Hao locked onto that clone, pressed the button, and fired.
In an instant—
A white, transparent energy ball shot out, hitting the mirror image.
Boom~!
The energy exploded, sending the clone flying backward into the wall. It looked battered and miserable.
But Su Hao was thrilled.
"That Mirage Pearl can strengthen illusions, making them more impactful on reality."
Su Hao fired again.
The energy ball directly blew up the clone, which had little health left.
Amid the shattered mirror shards, he saw a wisp of gray mist fly out, returning to the Mirage Pearl in front of Die Xiaodie.
...
Several dozen minutes later.
Die Xiaodie's mirror images had been blown up dozens of times.
"I see. The Mirage Pearl contains 100 wisps of mirage mist. Each use consumes some, but as long as it's nurtured back inside the pearl, the consumed mist can recover."
It was a very valuable piece of equipment.
Die Xiaodie packed it in a small pouch, threaded it on a chain, and hung it on itself.
But with that, it had too many accessories.
Spirit Orb, Mirage Pearl, wood-element crystal, marrow jade—and it was just a tiny spirit, as small as a cloth doll.
It couldn't bear to let go of any of them.
It had to evolve.
Only by growing up could it hang more accessories, gunuo~!
Just then, King Wu praised.
"Your Dream Butterfly has incredible learning ability. It has great potential. As long as it can evolve, its future achievements will be extraordinary."
He hesitated before asking, "Do you have any ideas about its evolution conditions?"
"A little," Su Hao said. "Back when I was writing the thesis on Dream Butterfly evolution, I was already thinking about what its next evolutionary form would be."
He paused, a look of 'recollection' on his face.
'Recalling' the countless setbacks, the endless research, the repeated experiments.
How difficult it had all been.
"But after over a year of research, I've come up with some ideas. Now that Die Xiaodie has hit a bottleneck, I plan to arrange its evolution soon."
"Do you have confidence? What are the odds?" King Wu asked.
He wasn't asking about the success rate of evolution.
But the probability of triggering it.
Only by consuming attribute essences in the right environment could a cocoon of light form, marking the start of evolution. Whether the evolution could be completed was another matter.
"As long as evolution is triggered, it means your direction is correct. The rest is just repeated attempts and research—just a matter of time."
Facing Senior Brother Wu's question,
Su Hao naturally couldn't claim a 100% success rate. He thought for a moment, considering himself just a novice among advanced spirit nurturers, nothing special.
So...
He tried to give a number. "Fifty percent."
King Wu: "... (Holy crap)"
...
Over the next few days,
Die Xiaodie trained in the move "Mirage" and the recently learned ability "Reality Shift."
"Reality Shift" wasn't a move but a special ability.
Su Hao initially didn't understand how a special ability could be "learned," but after some thought, he figured it must be related to the mirage mist Die Xiaodie had absorbed.
Before evolving, Die Xiaodie needed to be fully prepared and truly master the gains from the ruins.
Su Hao was also preparing.
He published a new paper to build some buzz.
"Strictly speaking, the Fairy Butterfly was the first evolutionary form I independently researched and discovered. The Dream Butterfly form and the Night Spirit form were both attributed to luck."
Su Hao wasn't afraid others might get inspired by his paper.
In the Dragon Kingdom, and even worldwide, aside from his own Die Xiaodie, he believed no other Dream Butterfly could meet the evolution conditions.
That was how confident he was!
Besides preparing the paper—the one already published and another to be released after Die Xiaodie's evolution—Su Hao began ordering the materials needed for Xiaodie's evolution.
A total of thirty-two types.
Including 15 wood-element essences and 15 illusion-element essences.
Many rare materials, like Dream Crystals and Dream Flowers, were extremely hard to find elsewhere.
"If I were just an ordinary high school student, even with ten million, it would be tough to gather all the materials. But now, I'm a Whale Island University student with plenty of credits."
It was simple.
A few hundred credits thrown down, and he could get whatever he wanted.
...
Date: April 8th.
An auspicious day.
Hour: Si (9-11 AM): Auspicious.
Plan: Die Xiaodie's evolution.
At 8 AM, Su Hao arrived at Whale Island University's Mirror Forest to set up the venue.
Looking around, the entire forest was made of mirrors, a basic area for training psychic power at the university.
Usually, there were plenty of people here.
But today, the southern section of Mirror Forest, within a one-kilometer radius, was booked by Su Hao, who truly didn't lack credits.
He booked it for the entire morning.
It wasn't that he didn't want to book longer or splurge to buy... rent the entire Mirror Forest, but the school wouldn't allow it.
Still, there were people here.
Su Hao scanned the area.
There was Senior Brother Wu and Master Yao.
There were Liu Ren, Gu Lingyao, and Li Songting, three fellow townsfolk.
"How did King Bu, Mentor Ma, and Mentor Sun all show up? Who's the big mouth!"
No doubt, it wasn't Senior Brother Wu.
It was Big Mouth Liu!
Big Mouth Liu told Li Songting, Li Songting knew, and his teacher, King Bu, naturally...
But compared to Die Xiaodie's first evolution, which had an entire class as spectators, Su Hao felt this was manageable.
At that moment,
Many spirits were around.
Since Su Hao had booked the place and there was no entry fee, Lava Dragon Turtle, Tidecaller Spring Spirit, and the others had all come.
Die Xiaodie waved at them, greeting, "Gunuo~ gunuonuo~"
"The spirit's in great shape. It's not nervous at all," Master Yao said.
King Wu nodded slightly. "I was a bit worried, since this is just a trial evolution. But now I see, the junior brother doesn't need my concern. Even if it fails, I'm sure he can figure out the path to success."
Inside Mirror Forest,
The various rare materials had been arranged in their proper positions.
Several dozen meters away, a few cameras were set up, aimed at the center of the venue.
Time ticked by, finally reaching 9 o'clock.
"Let's begin," Su Hao said.
Die Xiaodie flew up from his head, landing in front of a pile of bottles and jars.
"Go, Butterfly God!" Liu Ren shouted from there.
The spirits also cheered.
"Ooooh!" "Fwee~!" "Shiloo~!" "Ummu~!" "Yah yah~!"
Die Xiaodie waved.
Under its psychic power, 15 emerald-green wood-element essences and 15 hazy pink illusion-element essences floated up, moving to its mouth.
One, two, three...
The attribute essences turned into the purest energy the moment they entered, surging through every part of its body.
In an instant,
The emerald-green patterns on Die Xiaodie's wings burst into brilliant light.
The whole butterfly became dazzling and radiant.
Without delay, it flew to the center of the evolution site and began the ritual.
All eyes were on it.
Some were tense, some expectant.
Under the light, Die Xiaodie's body was surrounded by threads—one, two, countless—that twisted and intertwined, weaving into a massive cocoon of light that enveloped it.
"The evolution ritual has been triggered. The first step is a success!"
"Now, it all depends on whether the final evolution can be completed!"