The Endless Promise

100. Final Rite

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After the brief meeting with Immortal Kai Zhen, Luoyin returned to his guests, drinking and chatting merrily with them.

But once the last of the guests left, the house was finally silent, and he shut himself in his room, and armed with a new determination to stay and protect Yue City at all costs, he worked tirelessly into the night, writing out recipes, and drawing an endless stack of diagrams.

The sun was already high in the sky when his friends arrived the next day.

"Zhang Yin!" Xu Min hailed, and Luoyin's face brightened at the sight of them.

"Xu Min!" He greeted, and then surprisingly patted Xu Lian on her head. "Lian Lian! how are you?"

'Lian Lian?!' They all thought.

Xu Lian gasped and suddenly clutched his arm. "Yin gege! Such an affectionate nickname! Are you finally acknowledging me?!"

"Ei? What do you mean? Haven't you always been my little sister?"

"Hao. Such a wonderful 'little sister'." A glib voice spoke behind him, and he stiffly turned his neck to see Weiyan approaching, a dark cloud of aura surrounding her.

"Y- Yanyan! Wasn't your aura white?! What is this darkness?!"

Xu Wen and Xu Lin suddenly appeared beside Xu Lian, saying in a chorus,

"Little Sister! Let go of that arm now!"

Xu Min leaned closer to Luoyin. "Even if she doesn't let go, won't you let go?!"

"Ahaha!" Luoyin snatched his arm away. "Let's go, let's go!"

Luoyin had 'lost' in a drinking game against Xu Min the previous night, and as punishment, he offered to treat them all to lunch and give them his new set of complex talismans.

And the day went well...

"These talismans here can cause brief darkness for all but the user! Effective in escaping unsuspecting enemies!"

He had made it as a formation to trick *ever-night plants into growing even in the sunlight, but the disciples needed all the protection they could get, so he converted it to a talisman.

(*Fantasy plants which grow in regions where it's always night.)

"... and these ones here are an improvement of the regular smoke talisman, but this smoke is a poison which can render careless enemies immobile for hours, depending on how much they inhale, or how quickly they can get their qi to counter it!

"It would work on lower immortals!"

"Ei?! It's that powerful?!" Xu Lin exclaimed.

"This ones will create a swift maze with the fastest growing grass ever, and the grass is impervious to most attacks." He left out the fact that this grass was an immortal grass which seed he had summoned right from his Four-Petal Garden! "It's the best way to split a horde of enemies apart and face them separately!

"These ones will send anyone who steps on them into a sealed alternate space for an hour..."

By the time lunch was done, they were all eyeing Luoyin in awe and admiration, and each of them had several stacks of the new talismans which would surely sell out faster than most pills if Luoyin ever decided to sell them!

A truly wonderful day indeed...

...but the knowledge that Xu Lian was Luoyin's little sister in his past life had led him to obliviously pat her head every so often, leading to a collection of dark clouds following them around town!