He was well aware of the extraordinary strength in his body. Although the dark elf was much taller and stronger than him, her strength was still within the realm of mortals. The consequences of this strike would be disastrous. However, unexpectedly, at the moment of the sword collision, he felt a very strong force rebounding from the sword. His sword only pressed down an inch, and then it was like hitting a steel wall, unable to move forward any further. The female dark elf clenched her teeth, her snow-white cheeks flushed slightly, and her muscles tensed. After a brief stalemate, she took a step back diagonally and turned her wrist to let Li Yin's sword slide away from her side. "Very good." Her beautiful face blossomed with excitement and she praised generously. With previous experience, Li Yin did not stand there in a daze because of the other party's praise, but immediately launched a pursuit without hesitation. So strong! At the same time, he was secretly amazed in his heart. The power of the female dark elf was actually not much weaker than his, just slightly inferior! He himself possessed such incredible strength because he had transformed into a ghoul, and even into an advanced demon. But what about her? As far as Li Yin knew, the agility and perception of the elves were better than humans, but their strength was only about the same as humans. Where did the female dark elf in front of him get such incredible strength? Was it the blessing of the Spider Queen? No, it should be more than that. According to the information Li Yin had read, the blessing of the Spider Queen on female dark elves only made their physical fitness about one-third higher than that of men. However, the power displayed by Cassia has far exceeded this scope.
"What are you thinking about?" A clear voice came from close at hand. Li Yin suddenly came back to his senses and found that Cassia's sharp eyes were looking directly at him with sparkling eyes. At the same time, he felt a cold and slightly painful touch on his neck. He was suddenly startled and noticed that the cold sword in Cassia's hand was against his neck. Just a short negligence, and already... Li Yin took a breath. "Your strength," he forced himself to control his body from trembling because of the blade on his neck, but the rustling sound still betrayed him. After all, he was a mage who had never experienced the flash of swords. He paused, his eyes sincere, and continued, "Amazing." A hint of joyful smile appeared on Cassia's lips. "I am pleased with your compliment." She raised her sword and tapped Rein's cheek. "But don't let your mind wander during the competition, okay?" "I want to keep this head so that it can say more nice things in the future." Li Yin nodded. Cassia took two steps back, waiting for him to get back into position, then ordered, "Draw your sword!" The sword lights of the two intertwined again. This time, Li Yin found that Cassia had abandoned the hard-hitting style of fighting. Her figure spun and flew flexibly, avoiding the blade of her own sword. At the same time, the sword in her hand stabbed out from all unexpected angles, forcing herself to hastily return to defense. Soon, she no longer needed to dodge because Li Yin was already struggling to parry her attacks and was unable to attack her at all. The situation seemed to have returned to the time when he fought with the captain of the Mithril Hunters in the wilderness of the Underdark. But it was different from that time. There was not a single wound on Li Yin's body. Although it was very difficult, he was always able to block the attack of the female dark elf in time. Soon, Li Yin realized that it was not that the team leader was slightly better than Cassia, nor that his swordsmanship had improved by leaps and bounds, but that Cassia was completely in control of the process of their duel.
Chapter 4: Audience and Trial: Conversation with Swords () She was deliberately guiding herself, allowing herself to fully unleash her potential under the pressure of danger. At the same time, her superb swordsmanship allowed her to have absolute control over the process - she could make the danger urgent enough to stimulate Li Yin's potential without causing him any real harm. "Ah!" As soon as this thought came to his mind, Li Yin suddenly felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. His shoulder was cut by Cassia. At the same time, Cassia's sporadic laughter was heard amid the flashes of swords and sabers. It turns out that I was just being too sentimental... Li Yin complained angrily. Cassia might not have harbored as much malice toward him as the captain of the slave-hunting team, but her dark elf nature still allowed her to enjoy the pleasure of hurting others. Li Yin clenched his teeth and became doubly cautious. However, despite this, when Cassia pointed the tip of the sword at his chest, he still got two more wounds on his body, but fortunately they were very shallow. "Stop," Cassia shouted briefly. Then, she sheathed her sword, with a faint smile on her cheeks, and stared at Li Yin with interest. "Princess," he hesitated and asked, "Excuse me, did I pass the test?" Cassia did not answer, but just took a few deep breaths. After a series of fierce fights, she seemed to have consumed a lot of her energy. Beads of sweat oozed out of her smooth forehead, and a few strands of her neat silver hair were stuck to her forehead and cheeks by the sweat, making them look a little messy. Her originally snow-white cheeks also turned slightly red due to sweat, like peach blossoms covered with dew in early spring. Dark elves have lived underground for a long time, without direct sunlight. Over the generations, their skin color has become whiter than that of surface elves, a pure white with almost no impurities, like fine porcelain or snow-white marble sculptures, with a pure, fragile, and alienated beauty. Of course, this was the feeling that Li Yin gained from the dark elf woman in front of him. More often than not, the physiological non-living texture that the dark elves' skin gave them complemented the sense of terror they gave to other creatures. At this moment, the delicate red on Cassia's snow-white skin was like a flawless sculpture injected with vitality by the hands of gods. It was like witnessing the creation of gods in the beginning, giving people a shocking feeling of witnessing the birth of the original beauty of life. Li Yin suddenly felt his heartbeat increase and his breathing became rapid, as if he was having difficulty breathing due to the intense exercise. Strange, since he had already become a ghoul, he should have been tireless like an undead creature. His eyes moved down along the dark elf's snow-white, pointed jaw, and across her swan-like, graceful and slender neck. The shiny mithril chain mail was clearly rising and falling with her heavy breathing. The Dark Elves' chain mail manufacturing technology is unparalleled. It is said that the chain mail they make with mithril is not only extremely light, but also fits the body very well. Wearing it is like a second layer of skin, and does not hinder the wearer's movements at all. Now, looking at the exquisite, graceful and ever-changing curves of his "mistress" body set off by the shiny, tight-fitting chain mail, Li Yin was sure of this. His breathing became more rapid. Cassia tilted her head and looked at him in confusion. "Strange." Her sharp eyes had just noticed the other party's abnormality. "In the previous battle, I didn't see you seem to be struggling at all." "Why has it become like this now?" Li Yin was greatly embarrassed and shifted his gaze from Cassia's heaving chest to her face. However, reflected by her breathtakingly beautiful face, his heartbeat and breathing did not slow down at all, and even became more rapid. "Could it be that," Cassia frowned and gave her own inference, "this is also one of your abilities, to postpone the feeling of fatigue?" "I've only heard that orcs' rage has similar effects, but you are a human." More doubts rarely appeared in her bright eyes. "Maybe," Li Yin swallowed and forced a smile in panic, "My ancestors have a trace of orc blood."
As soon as these words were spoken, Li Yin immediately noticed that Cassia's brows, which had just relaxed, twitched slightly again. "I hope there isn't too much of that bloodline." She made no effort to conceal her disgust. Li Yin was stunned for a moment, then nodded and began to make up a story without thinking: "There have been no orcs in our family for three generations." ...It's not a lie, Li Yin secretly corrected himself in his heart, it's true, he is a pure human. The tireless ability comes from the ghoul, not the orc. With this in mind, he added cautiously, "That's just a guess. Maybe I don't even have a trace of orc blood. This ability, like the other special features of my body, comes from mutation." Cassia glanced at Li Yin strangely, as if blaming him for being careless and talking too much nonsense, but her brows gradually relaxed. "Your Highness," seeing that the atmosphere had eased, Li Yin brought up the old topic again, "May I ask about my test..." As he spoke, he lowered his head and looked at his toes, in order to avoid being affected by the other person's demeanor and affecting his inner balance and judgment again. At the same time, in the culture of the dark elves, there is a rule that the inferiors cannot look directly at the superiors without permission. Cassia still did not answer. She just folded her hands, and her white and slender palms made two symphonic "pa pa" sounds. "That's all for today." She looked past Li Yin and looked at the two dark elf warriors who had completed their punishment at the door and returned to their original positions to continue waiting. "Take him back." Li Yin frowned slightly, looked up in surprise, but happened to meet the other party's cunning and playful gaze. Li Yin pursed his lips, and finally uttered the two words that he was about to swallow with a puzzled tone: "Princess?" As expected, Cassia still did not answer, but the teasing look on her handsome face became even more intense. Li Yin pretended to be very confused and disappointed - in fact, he didn't have many such emotions. Before he opened his mouth, he already knew that this last attempt would be in vain. The reason why he still decided to open his mouth was because he knew that the woman in front of him was enjoying teasing him, so he just followed her wishes. The dark elf warrior's sharp footsteps were approaching rapidly behind him. Before they grabbed his hands and forced him to turn and leave, Li Yin concentrated and took one last look at Cassia. The psychic "charm" followed. This is the best time. The breath after the fierce battle was the time when the other party was most relaxed. And at the moment, she was feeling even happier because she had successfully played a trick on herself. This is the moment when her conscious defense is the weakest. Her heart will open to her like an unguarded door. Chapter 29 Detecting Thoughts The heavy wooden door closed behind Li Yin. From the time he turned and left until now, there has been no unusual movement behind him, no screams of surprise or anger from the female dark elf, which means that his charm should have been successful. Li Yin's uneasy heart finally settled down. When using mind control spells against the priestess of the Spider Queen, one must be extremely cautious and not be careless at all.
Just now, facing the deliberate teasing of the female dark elf, he did not even use his ability of mind detection to find out the other party's true thoughts and get a specific answer as to whether he had passed the "test". Because that is a very risky move. Li Yin was extremely grateful for the existence of such a wonderful spell as "Charm". At first glance, this spell seems to lack power. It does not reach the level that people imagine a mind manipulator can make the target obey, but only makes the other party "become friendly." But it has one biggest advantage, which is excellent concealment. Because the interference with the opponent's mind is small, and it takes the form of induction rather than forced distortion, it is very difficult for the opponent to detect. Even if the charm fails, the opponent is likely to be unaware of the fact that his mind has been affected by external forces. This excellent concealment and the coordination of psychic power complement each other. When a wizard casts a charm, he still needs to chant and gesture as a guide, while psychic power only requires concentration. Even some of the movements, lights and shadows produced by the spell itself can be suppressed by further concentration, so that there is no trace at all. But it is different to detect thoughts. Detecting thoughts is a continuous process. In this process, the practitioner needs to go deeper and deeper into the mind of the target, and continue to explore, in order to retrieve and dig out valuable information from the target's complex and vast consciousness. Because this is a continuous and close mental contact, it is easy for the target to detect it. Of course, it also has its own advantages, that is, as long as the caster is strong enough, even if the other party is aware that they are being detected, the caster can choose to continue to force detection. However, in the current situation, this is obviously a useless advantage. Once his mental detection behavior is noticed by the dark elves, he will die on the spot. However... following the two dark elf warriors through layer after layer of corridors, passing through the adamantine gate, and using levitation to descend to the ground again, Li Yin suddenly had a wonderful idea in his mind: Although detecting the thoughts of the strong-willed priestess of the Spider Queen was a very risky behavior, detecting the two ordinary dark elf warriors next to them was not necessarily the case. Especially considering that his charm spell could actually work on the dark elf priestess, it greatly increased his confidence in his psychic abilities. Thinking of this, Li Yin glanced at the dark elf warriors on both sides and immediately concentrated his mind. "Just peek into the surface consciousness," Li Yin silently reminded himself to be careful. If you only spy on the most superficial consciousness, the risk of exposure will be greatly reduced. However, doing so often does not yield any valuable information, and you can only perceive some scattered fragments of consciousness or vague emotions. Of course, there are exceptions, that is, at the time of detection, a certain thought of the target is so strong that it completely emerges on the surface of consciousness. Fortunately, Li Yin had no intention of obtaining intelligence in this way at the time. He did this only to become more familiar with his abilities, so it was just a practice. In a flash, the degree of mental concentration had reached an appropriate range. Li Yin's mind moved, and his concentrated spirit was stimulated outward. The mental field of "detecting thoughts" immediately spread outward with him as the center. Let's first take a look at what the guy on the left is thinking - this dark elf warrior was the one who whipped him in the training room before, and then was ordered by Cassia to whip himself as punishment. Li Yin guessed that he must be furious at the moment, so his emotions and thoughts would be very strong, which would be very conducive to detection. "Damn human bastard!" As expected, almost the moment Li Yin focused his attention on this guy's consciousness, a violent and resentful thought immediately came to him. What followed was a torrent of obscenities: "lowly, stupid, damned, son of a bitch, rotten asshole..." In addition, there were some extremely brutal scenes with Li Yin as the victim and him as the perpetrator, which made Li Yin's heart tremble and he felt physically uncomfortable. Once again, he deeply realized what a cruel and evil race the dark elves were. He intuitively felt that this was pure mental pollution and instantly shifted his attention away from the guy's thoughts. In the moment before his attention shifted away, he keenly sensed that among the high-frequency and violent insults of the dark elves, in addition to his own, there was also a familiar name - Cassia. Thinking of how the dark elf named Dart had been respectful and submissive in front of Cassia, he couldn't help but find it quite interesting, and for a moment he even had the idea of shifting his attention back to him. However, he immediately rejected this idea. He had been exposed to enough things that were close to mental pollution. With a change of mind, he focused his attention on the dark elf on his right. "Hehe, Dart, that idiot, was so eager to show off in front of Princess Cassia, but ended up running into an iron wall!" "If you ask me, Princess Cassia's punishment is too light. He should be whipped forty or fifty times, until his skin is torn and his flesh is broken, or even directly become a disabled person. If Princess Cassia finds it troublesome... I don't mind serving her..." This... Li Yin secretly clicked his tongue. Along the way, the two dark elves chatted and laughed. Just now, the dark elf on the right even invited the dark elf named Dart to the tavern for a drink, saying that he wanted to help him get rid of the bad luck that this "dog human" had gotten and to relieve his mood. They looked like close friends. Li Yin once thought that they were two old comrades who had worked together for many years and were loyal to each other...
"It would be great if Dart, that idiot, died." The dark elf's excited thoughts were not over yet, "If he dies, there will be one less person to compete with me." "By the way, although he didn't die, this time, his impression on Princess Cassia should have dropped drastically. It's no different from being dead." "Princess Cassia, hehe, Princess Cassia..." An extremely joyful feeling came from the mind of this dark elf, and for a moment, even Li Yin, who was in contact with it, felt a little dizzy. Suddenly, this extremely happy thought suddenly changed, and an extremely violent thought mixed with strong anger, jealousy, and unwillingness was projected from the dark elf. "Princess Cassia, Princess Cassia...what does she mean?"