A dense, green light of Wood Type Spiritual Energy materialized from the air, converging on Yin Yi.
Yin Yi slowly fluttered the leaves at the ends of its branches. Bathed in the hazy green light, it comfortably stretched its body.
About a dozen seconds later, the light gradually faded.
Yin Yi's appearance had changed again, just a little.
First, its height. It had grown from 50 centimeters to a little over 60.
The change in height wasn't the most important part. What was most striking was the color of its body. It had shifted from its original dark green to a vibrant, tender green, like a gemstone. It gave off the visual impression of being both lustrous and hard.
"Bubo~"
Having grown stronger, Yin Yi's intelligence had also increased a little. It now knew, like a small child, to repeatedly rub its leaves against Han Ning's palm, seeking his attention.
"Yin Yi..."
Looking at the innocent and curious Yin Yi, which seemed fascinated by everything around it, Han Ning's perpetually tense expression softened, and he couldn't help but break into a faint smile.
It was the first time he had genuinely smiled in seven days.
It was no exaggeration to say that in his most desperate hour, Yin Yi had brought him the hope to live—a ray of sunlight piercing through the dark haze.
"Yin Yi, how about we play a game of catch?" Han Ning said, finding a basketball that had been carelessly tossed into a corner and bouncing it a few times.
"Bubo?" Yin Yi froze, seeming a bit dazed to hear that Han Ning wanted to play with it.
'It was as if its brain's CPU was frantically trying to parse the meaning of his words.'
'What's a ball?'
"It's okay if you don't know. You'll figure it out once we play."
"I'll throw first. You get ready to catch."
With a word of warning, Han Ning tossed the basketball forward.
"Bubo..."
Yin Yi's leaves swayed gently as if sensing the ball's trajectory. Then, just before the basketball hit the floor, it hurriedly moved its root-like "legs," lifted its side branches, and gave the ball a light swat to the right.
BANG!!
A sharp POP echoed through the quiet dorm room. The brown basketball had actually been popped by Yin Yi's single "punch."
"Bubo?" Yin Yi picked up the limp husk of the basketball from the floor, sending a wave of confusion into Han Ning's Spiritual World.
"..."
'Right, I forgot to tell Yin Yi to go easy...'
"Yin Yi, be a little gentler next time. Like this." Han Ning turned, went to the bathroom, and came back with an unopened roll of toilet paper, tossing it lightly in his hand.
"Bubo?!" Yin Yi shook its body vigorously, as if promising it would be very careful this time.
"Okay, let's start!"
Han Ning tossed the roll of toilet paper to Yin Yi.
BOOP~
Yin Yi rubbed its little hands together, reined in its strength, and cautiously tapped the roll.
The roll spun around and flew toward Han Ning.
Han Ning bumped the roll back with his elbow.
"Bugoo... Bugoo..."
Yin Yi immediately took a liking to this game, tirelessly tapping the roll back and forth with Han Ning.
After playing for a while, Han Ning put down the roll of toilet paper. "Let's take a little break," he said to Yin Yi.
"Bubo!"
Yin Yi reached out a small hand and pointed at the roll.
Han Ning got the hint and tossed the roll to it, letting it play by itself.
He, in turn, began to check the changes to Yin Yi after allocating the points.
Race: Silver Lotus Wood
Gender: /
Talent: F
Level: Entry Level II (1/200)
Elemental Affinity (Wood): 1.1
Talent: None
Acquired Soul Techniques: Purification II (1/100), Silver Thorn II (5/200)
Body —— + (Available Attribute Points: 0)
Power: 0.5
Body: 0.43
Agility: 0.32
Spiritual Energy —— + (Available Attribute Points: 0)
Spiritual Energy: 3.6 (Max: 5)
'Its Level and Soul Techniques have both gone up by one, and all its other Attributes, aside from Spiritual Energy, have increased slightly...'
Han Ning observed Yin Yi's status panel, and a theory began to form in his mind.
'So... when a Soul Beast's power advances, it boosts its other Attributes as well.'
He also discovered that as the Level of Yin Yi's Purification Soul Technique increased, its range for absorbing the surrounding white mist had grown significantly.
It had gone from one or two cubic meters at most to being able to clear the mist from the entire dorm room.
Yin Yi was like a powerful air purifier, absorbing the toxic mist and releasing fresh oxygen for humans to breathe.
'What does "(Max: 5)" mean?'
Han Ning noticed the text at the end of the Spiritual Energy line and focused his mind on it.
A line of text appeared before his eyes.
[Life amplification is a holistic process. Other Attributes must be strengthened to a certain degree to trigger a leap in life force. Furthermore, please note that no more than 3 Attribute Points may be allocated to the current creature at one time, otherwise there is a risk of its vital data collapsing.]
Reading the risk warning, Han Ning suddenly understood.
'So I can't add too many points to Yin Yi at once? Otherwise, it might just explode from the overload, like in those novels?'
After analyzing the panel, Han Ning was eager to test just how powerful Yin Yi's stronger Silver Thorn had become.
He opened the dorm room window and looked outside.
It was still morning, the time of day when the light was strongest. A diffuse glow filtered down from the sky, doing its best to pierce the mist.
After searching for some time, he finally spotted a wandering Demon Eye Frog about seventy or eighty meters from the dorm building.
Although this distance was within the range of his Compound Bow, the arrow's power would be significantly reduced at over 50 meters. It was unlikely to do any real damage if it hit the Demon Eye Frog.
'Perfect. I can use it to test the power of Silver Thorn.'
He turned and picked up Yin Yi, who was still tirelessly playing with the roll of toilet paper. Pointing at the Demon Eye Frog wandering over 70 meters away, he said, "Yin Yi, can you try to take that down with a Silver Thorn?"
In a surprisingly humanlike gesture, Yin Yi tilted the flower on its crown, pondered for a few seconds, then shook its branches as if to say it could try.
'Even now, Han Ning couldn't figure out how Yin Yi, a plant-type Soul Beast, could possibly perceive a creature from so far away.'
'Does it use air currents? Or maybe it emits some kind of special wave, like a bat?'
To Han Ning's astonishment, the thorns beneath Yin Yi's flower began to flicker with a bright green light.
Immediately after, a thorn twice as thick and long as before shot out. It streaked through the hazy white mist, landing inaccurately about one or two meters in front of the Demon Eye Frog.
BOOM~
A small crater was instantly blasted into the concrete ground, letting out a muffled CRACK like an exploding firecracker.
"CROAK?!"
The wandering Demon Eye Frog was startled. Dozens of sand grains from the blast were now embedded in its skin. It staggered and then hopped further away.
The attack didn't just startle the Demon Eye Frog; it also alerted the other students in the dorm building.
In an instant, more than a dozen pairs of curious eyes appeared in the windows on the side facing the Demon Eye Frog.
"Bubo??"
Sensing that its attack had missed the Demon Eye Frog, Yin Yi hopped in frustration, and the thorns on its body lit up once more.
This time, it wasn't one thorn, but two!
The two thorns shot out almost simultaneously, one high and one low, boxing in the Demon Eye Frog and cutting off its path of retreat.
The next second, there was a muffled THUD.
One moment, the Demon Eye Frog was alive and hopping; the next, it was blasted into a shower of gore by the Silver Thorn.