Chapter 160: Elegiac Song

"Here, take these!"

Luo Yong didn't waste any breath, shoving a handful of golden light spheres right into the other's hands. Then, he immediately resumed the binding process. Pang Ding, naturally not standing on ceremony, stepped aside and began his own binding as well.

"Huh?"

After binding a few magical items that held little practical use for him, Pang Ding suddenly let out an exclamation of surprise. A look of delight crossed his face, and then his body gave a shudder...

Instantly, he began to grow taller at a visible rate. His physique morphed until he reached a height of about 1.9 meters, standing half a head taller than Luo Yong. Furthermore, his frame became robust and sturdy, looking fiercely formidable.

Most importantly, however, his facial features transformed into those of a handsome young man. Compared to his previous short, round, ball-like appearance, it was a thousand times better!

"I never expected that in this lifetime, I would actually get to change back..."

Pang Ding pulled a mirror out from goodness knows where and began admiring his reflection in it.

"Metamorphosis?"

Seeing this scene unfold, Luo Yong was momentarily speechless. He hadn't expected Pang Ding's true appearance to be quite so striking. Although it fell just a fraction short of his own, compared to everyone else, it was already exceptionally good.

Yet, despite performing bindings for ages, this was the only useful metamorphosis spell he had produced. All the other items were things like pots, pans, and cauldrons that orbited around him, glowing in the gloomy environment and illuminating Pang Ding entirely.

"Just what kind of junk are you summoning..." Luo Yong felt utterly speechless. It was a complete waste of those golden light spheres.

"Hmph!"

Pang Ding felt somewhat aggrieved. He looked at the magitech battle puppets Luo Yong had summoned, and then looked at himself... Either culinary lions, or these pieces of tableware.

"Ahem! Goddess of Fortune above, your pious believer Pang Ding has been blessed to return to his original appearance today! Please grant me a truly useful item!"

Pang Ding bowed toward the stone wall in front of him with a solemn expression, then proceeded to bind the very last golden light sphere remaining in his hand.

Swish!

A dazzling flash of light swept past, and a beautiful figure appeared beside Pang Ding, wearing a pristine... apron and a white cap. It turned out to be a magical cook.

"Oh... my god..."

Pang Ding stared at this magical creation, stunned into silence for a long moment. "Be... linda... No! You're not the real Belinda! Damn it! Change back right now, I don't need another woman around, even if she just looks the same!"

"..."

The magical cook looked equally bewildered. She waved the frying pan in her hand, as if intending to strike something, or perhaps simply feeling at a loss. Then, light and shadow flickered, and she gradually morphed into a mercenary whose face was obscured, a mercenary cloak inexplicably appearing on her body as if her form had genuinely changed.

"Impressive!" Luo Yong seized the opportunity to give a thumbs-up.

"Need you to tell me?" Pang Ding roared in exasperation, glared at Luo Yong, and demanded, "Did you do this on purpose?! Why are all the items you summon so powerful, while mine are just—"

"Probably comes down to character," Luo Yong said, narrowing his eyes. What does it have to do with me? "As the saying goes, appearance stems from the heart. What you want, what you usually dwell on in your thoughts—it gets sensed during the summoning process, so corresponding items are summoned. That's entirely logical."

"I'll be damned..." Pang Ding's breath hitched, feeling powerless to refute this. He glared resentfully at Luo Yong, said no more, and once again busied himself with the mirror.

"Say, what kind of energy impact does the energy bedrock actually need to experience in order to manifest anomalies?" Luo Yong asked as they moved forward.

"No idea." Pang Ding held up the mirror, seemingly intoxicated by the rediscovery of his past appearance, and kept staring endlessly. "From now on, I won't have to hide wherever I go, and the Heroes' Association won't be able to do a thing to me!"

"Impressive..." Luo Yong offered a perfunctory nod, thinking to himself that all he needed to do was change his class. Although altering his physical build was difficult, his aura and presence became completely different—the kind where close teammates wouldn't even recognize him.

As Luo Yong pressed forward along the path, after a little less than half a day, they finally reached the end of the route. A powerful monster guarded the place, yet under a barrage of intense firepower, it didn't even last half a minute. It let out a few reluctant roars and simply collapsed neatly, without a shred of nonsense.

"This monster must be level 20, and you didn't even have to strike personally." Pang Ding couldn't help feeling somewhat envious of Luo Yong's army-style monster-grinding method.

"I'm doing this to look for the energy bedrock. Otherwise, why would it take so long?" Luo Yong replied, stepping forward to inspect the items dropped by the monster.

"Ooh, a Blue-quality [Mercenary] spear, a Gold-quality shield..."

"And a skill scroll."

[Mercenary] was a set, exclusive equipment. It suited Luo Yong perfectly right now. The shield was useless for the moment, so he stored it away; it might come in handy later. As for the skill scroll—

"Wrath of the Earth! Indestructible Stone Wall!"

Judging purely by the description, it sounded flashy and profoundly mysterious. Luo Yong directly used the skill scroll, learning the ability. Then, he summoned a stone wall.

The wall looked immensely heavy, standing a丈 (three meters) tall, nine meters wide, and about a meter and a half thick. Like a solid partition, it blocked everything behind it. However, it wasn't a standard cubic shape; rather, it possessed a curved, irregular form.

"Pretty formidable." Luo Yong walked a circle around the stone wall, then gently poked it a few times with his spear, producing crisp clinking sounds that demonstrated extreme hardness.

"Indeed formidable!" Pang Ding suddenly hurried over, carefully examining the stone wall and pointing to the faint lines tracing its surface. "Look at that, it's the shape of a cat!"

"Is that so? What does that prove?" Luo Yong asked.

"Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a powerful feline mage who excelled in both melee combat and heavy spending, named... ahem, well, it doesn't matter. Anyway, he created a defensive spell that involved summoning a stone wall just like this, hailed as indestructible and impenetrable!" Pang Ding said solemnly.

"I'd say it's just so thick-skinned that nothing can pierce it!" Luo Yong rolled his eyes, thinking that these wealthy scions from major clans had nothing better to do than rattle off obscure historical anecdotes just to sound learned. In reality, it was just a way to show off.

As for the wall before them, let alone Pang Ding, Luo Yong himself felt confident he could shatter it quickly!

"You can try. If you can't break it, that proves I wasn't making things up," Pang Ding said, lifting his chin and looking sideways at Luo Yong. "If you can break it... that just means you didn't use the spell properly and failed to reach that legendary level!"

"So either way, it has nothing to do with you, right?" Luo Yong cast a deadpan glance at him, wearing an expression that said *your logic is flawless*. Then, he thrust his spear straight at the stone wall.

Swish, swish, swish!
Clink, clink, clink!
Crack—
Boom!

Luo Yong used his own spear to stab his own shield, and facts proved that the spear was sharper after all.

"One breath, two breaths... three breaths!" Pang Ding counted the time from the side, finding Luo Yong's spear-thrusting technique acceptable.

"Being able to hold out for three breaths is already pretty good," Luo Yong nodded. Though brief, that duration was more than enough to catch one's breath, open a portal, or flash away to another location.

"Truly, multiple skills are never a burden!"

Luo Yong sighed, searched around, and casually poked at the surroundings with his spear—

"What the hell are you still poking for, won't you ever quit? If it's not here, let's go to the next place! The dungeon is huge, and we don't have time for you to waste. Poke, poke, poke, all you know how to do is poke!" Pang Ding expressed his dissatisfaction with Luo Yong's endless wall-poking habit.

Crack!

The stone wall in front of them suddenly fractured, rubble tumbling down with a rattling sound and kicking up a light cloud of dust. A hidden tunnel was revealed ahead, from which a decaying scent drifted out.

"Well I'll be, you can actually do that?" Pang Ding hurried over, peered inside, but saw only pitch-black darkness where nothing could be distinguished.

Whoosh!

A fireball shot outward, illuminating the path ahead. In the fleeting light, the two saw what appeared to be an ancient teleportation array at the end of the secret passage, requiring activation and leading to an unknown destination.

"Hey, hey, hey? Where are you going?" Pang Ding grabbed Luo Yong, who was about to leave, and asked, "Don't you want to go over and take a look?"

"Nope."

Luo Yong calmly shook his head, his objective crystal clear: "I'm going to blow up the rest of the dungeon, see if there's any energy bedrock here, and then go look elsewhere... There are so many things to find!"

"This..." Pang Ding was taken aback, though he couldn't help but admire Luo Yong's resolve. He had no choice but to respect it.

"However, what if the place this teleportation array leads to has the exact thing you're looking for?"

"You just said *what if*," Luo Yong noted.

"Think about it: where would the kind of items you're looking for be found in ordinary places? You only have a *one-in-ten-thousand* chance of finding them elsewhere, and the best way is to go to those *one-in-ten-thousand* places! Understand?" Pang Ding argued.

"Makes sense." Luo Yong was instantly persuaded. He turned around, walked toward the secret passage, inspected it briefly, and activated the teleportation array.

Swish!

Light and shadow shifted.

Luo Yong abruptly found himself standing within a valley, bordered by dense woods, a winding stream, and the sound of singing. Someone unknown was singing here, their voice mournful and sorrowful, stirring an uncontrollable urge in anyone who heard it to shed tears along with the melody.

It was as if some energy could penetrate straight into one's heart, and the emotion carried within that song possessed the power to shake the human soul.

"Wuwuwu..."

Listening to the singing, Pang Ding's psychological defenses instantly crumbled, and he walked out of the teleportation array weeping.

"Who is this... coming to mess with Lord Pang for no reason, making it impossible not to cry... When I find out who it is, I'm going to poke them to death..."