Chapter 4: Lend me your Mana

My legs turned to jelly, and I almost fell to the floor. I despised myself for being so useless that I couldn’t even hold myself up. I steadied myself on the table and the portable charger for my laptop fell out with a handful of other electronics.

"What's that?" Yan stared at the stuff on the ground and asked.

"That’s a XiaoMi power bank. Its compact aluminum shell is light and easy to carry. It has 10000 milliamps that can charge iPhone five times. It’s easy to use, and you can get it for just ninety-nine yuan! You won’t find a better deal for …Oh my god, what I am saying!"

Overwhelmed with fear, I’d gone into my product pitch.

"No, I mean that! Is that a Kindle!" Yan stared at the floor behind me. I looked around and saw my kindle sitting on the floor.

"Yes!"

"Does it have any novels by Louis Cha?" Yan's asked, voice trembling slightly.

"Yes, there are. I have The Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre, Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, and The Smiling Proud Wanderer…"

"How many times have you read them?" Yan's voice could no longer control himself.

"I don't remember. Probably lots of times."

"That's great! Use the power bank to charge it," Yan said excitedly, "We'll be saved!"

Although I didn't know what he wanted to do, I did as he said. Yan grabbed my hand and pressed it onto the Kindle.

“Say ‘Lend Me Your Mana’.”

I didn’t understand, but I did what he said.

"Lend Me Your Mana."

The moment I said the words, my entire body was frozen. I felt a strange tingle at my fingertips that ran up my arm and into my chest. My muscles trembled and felt warm.

Yan leaves over and whispered in my ear, telling me what I’d borrowed.

"Shit. Will that really work?" I glared at Yan. "But that doesn't make sense. Why —"

"Stop asking why?" Yan scolded. "Which is more important: your logic or your life?!"

"Oh…"

Looking around, I couldn’t see any weapons, so I picked up a fountain pen that had fallen out of my back. I went to the glimmering door of powder, turned the handle, and walked out.

"Hey!" I shouted.

The two men, who were pounding their fists against the wall with mad fervor, turned to look at me. When they saw I’d come out, they both grinned, getting ready to rush me.

The unearthly voice rang out again.

"Fresh body and fresh soul, capture him and bring him to me!"

Miss Lan, who had been lying motionless, returned to life. She stood up in a strange, disjointed way. She didn’t look the same way she had turning the day. Her face seemed as if it had collapsed inwards and her tongue stretched out, far too long. It seemed she no longer had the power to support her body.

I paid no attention to her, moving towards the two men. I’m not sure how to describe the way I moved. Running was too slow to describe it. The air rushing past felt amazing. It was as if I had taken a single step, and in a moment, I was standing next to the men. I pulled out my pen, took a jab at one of them, and returned to my original position.

I was back before the men could blink.

The man I’d stabbed didn’t seem to understand what had happened. He tried to open his eyes, but, instead, blood poured out. He started to scream.

"I can't see, I can't see!"

The other man didn’t understand either. In a single instant, his ally had gone blind. The blind man was screaming and started to attack randomly. He punched the other man, sending him flying.

The technique was from the Sunflower Grimoire in Loius Cha’s ‘The Smiling Proud Warrior’. I wondered what Yan had done that let me ‘borrow’ the martial arts technique from a novel. Somehow, not only had I learned to use the technique, I could do things beyond the capacity of a normal human.

The other man hadn't landed yet, and I was about to blind him in the same way, but he seemed to realize what I was doing. He threw a punch, then another, then two more. As he worked, wind began to surround his body. There was no angle I could attack from.

There was no time to wonder why he was so nimble. I heard him shout to his newly blinded ally.

"Brother, attack with me!"

When the blind man heard this, he joined in, fists turning into a blur. I smiled. Their movements were fast, but they couldn’t be faster than mine. I had to move back to avoid the pummeling wind. I kept trying to move forward, but every time moved, a barrage of hits came at me and forced me to retreat. I may have had technique, but this was still my body. I couldn’t take one of those hits.

They walked closer, forcing me back until I was almost to the wall. If I kept retreating, their punches would land on Liu Shuai.

We were screwed. I was fast, mind filled with techniques I’d borrowed from novels, but I didn’t have true strength. I was all style and no substance. I’d gotten a good hit, but speed wouldn’t get me out of this.

The wind was starting to brush my face. If I stepped forward, not only would I get hit, I’d probably die.

Damn.

What good did being fast do me? I sat in an office all day. I wasn’t strong. I didn’t have muscles. How was I supposed to beat these inhumanly strong men?

"In Louis Cha's novels,” I grumbled, “there are no martial arts you can do without having some muscle to hack them up!"

In that moment, a technique came to me, but it was risky. If I wasn’t careful, I’d be dead. I was having to dodge the first wave of hits now. It was time to fight!

I released the heat that had been building in my lower abdomen and let it flow through my whole body. When the blinded man struck out, I let his fist brush my hand. The energy of the lung flew through the hand’s Ren channel…

I had to be exact, close enough to touch him without taking a punch. Thankfully, I was inhumanly fast. I managed to touch him, but I wasn’t sure how to change energy. I touched his fist a dozen times, but I could feel my energy starting to flow into him. I was so weak, he couldn’t even feel it, but as I moved, I started to sap his strength.

He clearly hadn’t noticed a single thing.

“Brother,” he called, “this little bastard has nowhere left to run. Let’s finish him!”

I almost laughed at the man began to punch more furiously. This was exactly what I wanted him to do. If I had been siphoning off drops of power, not he’d opened a current that moved from his fist to my palm. I could take his punches now.

Finally, the man started to look confused. Logically speaking, he had practiced enough to strike any way her wished. He could use this technique for hours without starting to get tired. Why was he getting tired after such a short time? Perhaps it was the stress the injury to his eyes had done to his mind.

I wasn’t paying attention to his thoughts. I was starting to become powerful.

Inside, I let myself gloat a bit, but I continued to be as cautious as I could. I was worried the other man would somehow see what I was doing, so I targeted the man I already blinded. Luckily, he’d been focused on my strange way of moving and had been trying to follow me.

I smiled, power flowing through both my hands. I reached one hand towards each man. I didn’t touch them directly, absorbing power from the wind. After dozens of punches, I could handle more direct hits and gathered more of their power.

The men’s shock continued to build as they realized something was really wrong. They couldn’t stop. If they left an opening, my speed could let me get inside their guard. They no longer talked, putting all their energy into keeping up attacks. A single word might disrupt their entire flow of energy and damage them for life.

Miss Lan had begun to look more like herself. She stood to the side, but she could see them losing the upper hand, and focused on egging them on while she continued to recover.

I no longer had to put effort into my movements, but I was gaining more strength every time they struck. I could clearly feel that what I absorbed was not the inner strength that they usually preserved, but I was gradually destroying their dantian's energy reserve tank and absorb more and more to expand my own tank. It was only then that I understood the question which had puzzled me for a long time: If one was to absorb normal inner strength, then the other party could recover himself by taking rest, but if one destroyed his dantian and energy reserve tank in his body, then no matter how long the other party rested, he would never recover.

After every hit, their faces became paler. Seeing that the time was right, I grabbed their fists. They couldn’t hurt me anymore. They were suddenly stunned, as if a rabbit had been grabbed by the neck by a hunter. Their faces were filled with fear and they wanted to escape. However, the more they struggled, the more strength they used, and the faster they lost their inner strength. Eventually, without any strength left, the two of them kneeled down on the ground.

Miss Lan noticed that something was wrong, and she slashed at my arm. I felt a cold wind was attacking my arms, so I shook my arms and the cold wind started to move towards the two men, instantly cutting off their arms. It was only then did I see that Miss Lan had a transparent crystal dagger in her hand. At a casual glance, it was almost invisible. Fortunately, I had just dodged it, and used the Stellar Transposition and switch the blade to the the two men's arms instead of mine. Immediately, fresh blood flowed from their wounds.

"This little thing's kung fu is really odd!"

Miss Lan didn't hurry to heal her comrades, but extended one of her hands to point at me. I suddenly realized that I couldn't move anymore, and at this moment, the woman's hand was grabbing the air, and the two men's blood flowed even faster as their bodies were trembling ferociously.

Both men curled up, as though their entire bodies’ blood and energy were forced out. Blood was floating in the air, and forming into an extremely long blood pillar under Miss Lan’s hand. Suddenly, as her hand shook, the blood pillar struck the golden wall. When the blood pillar touched the wall, the wall seemed to shrink in fear, and gradually caved in and got to Yan's side. At that time, Yan was unable to move but watched those sunken points reached his side. However there was a gap of gold powder between the sunken points and Yan. The golden powder could not be broken.

All of a sudden, Miss Lan bit her tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood on the blood pillar. The blood pillar brushed forth as if it had eaten a great tonic. It broke through the golden powder. At the same time, the blood pillar was like a hand and lift up Yan’s clothes and took the bottle with Zhou Yuan’s soul inside it. Meanwhile, as I couldn’t move, it pulled me and Zhou Yuan’s body to the side of Miss Lan.

At this time, Miss Lan's face was in a deformed state again, that probably because her energy was almost used up. Zhou Yuan fainted when he took a closer look. That face smiled fiendishly and said, "Today, we have suffered a great loss, and we lost two warriors. But if we get you two, it won't be called a loss anymore!"

At this time, a voice came from the sky.

"Lan, come back now. Grand Mother wants to use them!"

"Yes!"

Miss Lan grabbed us and was about to leave.

Suddenly, a voice called out, "Leave them!" I turned around and saw a golden light emitting from Yan's body. Miss Lan had grabbed our hands and the blood pillar was emitting green smoke as if it was burnt.

"Aha!" Miss Lan shouted, and the voice in the air also shouted, "Are you crazy? You used your Yin and Yang Transporting Body to break the Immortal Tying Seal! Now that you will not be able to go for both Yin world and Yang world! "

With a loud crash, we fainted.

I don't know how long it passed. When I woke up, the sun was already up outside. I realized that we were still in our original room and nothing had been destroyed. Liu Shuai, Zhou Yuan lied on the floor as if what happened was a dream.

Heh heh, perhaps it was really just a dream. This dream was truly strange.

I laughed in self-mockery, and turned around to wash my face in the washroom.

I bent over to wash my face, and when I raised my head to look in the mirror, I found someone behind me. The pale Yan! Who was smiling at me!

"Aha!" I couldn't help but shout. When I looked back, no one was there, and when I looked in the mirror, Yan was still there!

"Stop shouting, if I hadn't broken the seal at the last moment, you would already be dead." Yan said to me while smiling bitterly, "Unfortunately, I am now an unregistered man. I cannot either go to the mortal world, or go back to the Underworld, but only stay in this mirror. And …" He took out a bottle from his clothes, "Your friend's soul is also here with me. He won't come out as well."

"Doesn't that mean …?" I said powerlessly, "Zhou Yuan still has forty-nine days to live?"

"That's right!" He waved in the mirror. "Right now, he still hasn't lost all of his humanity, but after a long time, he will become a zombie. At that time, he will either eat someone's soul or die."

I fell limply to the floor and turned to look at Zhou Yuan. He’d just woken up.

He was looking at me and laughing.

However, that was not his smile.