Ling Uyong walked over to Huang Ying and the others with slow steps, her feet occasionally dragging slightly and further adding to her tired look. She stopped two steps away from Huang Ying's group and politely greeted the others with a slight nod of her head, her gaze quickly landing on Huang Ying.
"Take it, check it for yourself."
She handed Huang Ying the metal box, which was so heavy that it caused his arms to sing slightly when he grabbed hold of it. If he were to guess he would say that this box, which was actually about one and a half meters wide, weighed about 70 kilos. It was very heavy for a single weapon, but it was still quite a bit lighter than Ling Uyong's version, he remembered that her weapon weighed almost as much as a boulder, it had probably already passed 300 kilos in weight. He placed the box on the ground and untied the two leather strips that kept the box closed, opening it and revealing the weapon inside.
Lying on a coarse cloth within the box were two swords that both had a polished blade that was about 50 centimeters long and a dark blue handle that was about 70 centimeters long. The handles ended in a neatly cut stump that was covered in very faint grooves that looked like they would fit together once the handles of the two blades were put together.
Huang Ying traced the edge of the blades with his finger, a few drops of blood quickly oozing out from the wound that appeared almost instantly. Ling Uyong crouched down by the box and pointed at the grooves carved into the base of the handles, giving a short explanation while also moving aside the coarse cloth and revealing a few papers as well as a leather harness hidden beneath it.
"These grooves are the array used to attach the two blades into the full spear, you just have to insert a tiny trace of Qi and it will allow you to attach and detach them as you please. You can change and extend the array slightly to give the weapon more effects, but I'll leave it up to you to discover what sort of effects will suit your battle style better. These papers are the most important part, they're the blueprints of the weapon. These blueprints here are the only copy I have ever made so you have to make sure that you don't lose them or ruin them, you'll need them if you ever want to forge your own weapon or if you want to have a blacksmith take care of your weapon."
Huang Ying looked at the papers she pulled out and handed him, the ink in some places wasn't even fully dried yet, she had clearly been drawing them up very recently. It was also now he learned that it was Ling Uyong herself that came up with this weapon, a fact that increased the amount of respect he felt for her, it was no easy feat to come up with a new type of weapon. Ling Uyong straightened up her tired body and gave it a few stretches, the corners of her lips moving up slightly as she moved her gaze between the group gathered around Huang Ying.
"You should test it out, see how it feels in your hands."
Huang Ying nodded without raising his head, grabbing onto the two blades and placing them together, inserting a small amount of Qi. A soft clicking sound came from the weapon as the two halves became attached to each other, Huang Ying giving it a few strong pulls to make sure that it was properly attached. He then stood up and swept his gaze across Song Yi, Chen Hong, and Langye, his eyes gleaming slightly. The three realized what he wanted, exchanging a few glances before Langye raised her arms in surrender.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"Fine fine, I'll do it, but only a short one, I'm too tired to last for much longer."
Langye stepped onto the closest stone stage, Huang Ying following right behind her while the three others gathered around the stage to jeer on them. Huang Ying grasped the heavy dual-bladed spear and took on a standard stance, sliding his left leg slightly forward to stabilize his body. Langye swiped one of the six milky beads on her belt, a large two-handed axe appearing in her grasp. Seeing that she had such a treasure, an interspatial storage item, Huang Ying guessed that he had underestimated her status in the world outside the academy.
Huang Ying's eyes narrowed slightly as he sized up Langye, a glimmer of excitement flashing in his eyes as he decided to make the first move. He dashed forward and drew back his right arm slightly, stomping the ground two steps in front of Langye and swinging out his weapon in a wide swipe.
Langye raised her axe and blocked the frontmost blade of the weapon, a few sparks flying away from the collision. Huang Ying immediately activated the array within the weapon, splitting it in two at the middle. The lower part of the weapon continued its swing while the frontmost part of the weapon started to spin in the other direction thanks to the remaining momentum of the swing. Huang Ying's right hand moved slightly, spinning the lower part of the weapon so that the blade faced Langye as it continued its slash. His left hand also shot forward to grab onto the detached front part of the weapon, but his expression twitched slightly as he did so.
"Oh, fuck!"
He had misjudged the speed at which the upper part of the weapon would spin towards him, resulting in his hand shooting forward a touch too slow. Instead of grabbing onto the handle of the weapon, he clenched his fist around the sharp edge of the blade, cutting a deep wound into his own hand and effectively self-destructing after a single attack.
The unexpected situation left everyone somewhat shocked, no one able to react right away while Huang Ying was waving his hand around, spraying some blood around the stage. But after a few short seconds, the shock wore off and the others managed to react, Song Yi bursting out laughing so hard that she had to clutch her stomach and almost collapsed to the ground.
Chen Hong managed to repress his laughter, but the violent distortions of his expression showed that it was really just barely. Ling Uyong let out a sigh and rubbed her forehead, a faint smirk visible at the corners of her mouth. The only one who actually seemed worried about Huang Ying was Langye, who put away her weapon and stepped forward to check up on Huang Ying.
"Senior Brother Ying, are you okay?"
Huang Ying waved his left hand around a bit more, his lips curved up somewhat as even he couldn't resist chuckling at himself. He raised his right arm to show Langye that he was fine, picking up the two pieces of his weapon and placing them back into the box once he was done waving his left hand around.
"Alright, let's never talk about that ever again, we'll pretend that never happened."
Song Yi only started laughing harder when she heard how Huang Ying wanted to just gloss over it, even Chen Hong became unable to repress his laughter further at this point. Huang Ying glared viciously at the two people, one of which was already rolling on the ground and was in tears, flipping them off while dramatically puffing out his cheeks.
"Alright then, fuck the lot of you. Just you wait until I get used to the weapon, I'll give the both of you such a vicious beating that you won't be able to sit properly for a month, maybe even longer."
Huang Ying closed the metal box after he finished speaking, hefting it over his shoulder while grabbing onto the leather straps tied to it. He politely bade Ling Uyong and Langye farewell and headed back to his cabin while still pretending to be pouting, none of them noticing that the wound on his left hand had already stopped bleeding and started to heal.