Zhi Guan noticed his expression and gave him an odd look but when Shen Lei didn’t say anything, he didn’t ask either. Anyway, he would bring it up if he wanted to. “Alright, then I’ll leave Fen’er with the two of you. If you do need help later on, you know where to find me.”
The other three nodded and Zhi Guan turned around and walked to his Master’s door, first knocking there before realizing that Elder Baili wasn’t in and going to Elder Xing’s courtyard.
Meanwhile, Yun Bei Fen turned to Shen Lei and Luo Lin, his eyes sparkling when he saw that his senior martial brother had clearly been able to reign in his newfound ability a bit better. “Then where should we start?”
He really couldn’t wait to get a grasp on his own ability as well. He had no idea what it might be and how it could work, but he wanted to be able to make at least a slight bit of progress. Then when Mei Chao Bing came back in the evening, he could proudly show it to him.
Shen Lei and Luo Lin exchanged a glance, not quite sure where to begin. Even though they were willing to help, it was clear that Luo Lin’s ability worked a lot different from those of the guardians they had seen so far and very likely also different from what Yun Bei Fen would need to do. But then, even though that was the case, they did need to try something.
Luo Lin thought for a moment and then waved for Yun Bei Fen to come inside. Anyway, first of all, they needed to make sure that nobody was spying on them. And even though there was no guarantee anywhere with how well-prepared the other side was, doing everything inside instead of in the courtyard was still a good first step.
The three of them sat down at the table, and Luo Lin brushed back his hair before reaching out to take Shen Lei’s hand. “Well, from what I understood so far, every ability seems to work a bit differently but they do have some things in common. For me, the way I got my ability seems to have some influence on how it works. Or maybe it’s less of an influence and just that both are related.”
Yun Bei Fen nodded but his expression was empty. He clearly had no idea what to do with that knowledge.
Shen Lei clicked his tongue, giving it a try himself. “What Ah Lin is trying to say is that since he got the ability when trying to save me, it seems that using his ability is related to me as well. It seems like he can’t use it without me there. Maybe it won’t even work on others. At the very least, that is our current assumption.”
Yun Bei Fen blinked his eyes in surprise, not having gathered that from what Shen Lei had previously said to his first senior martial brother. Then, he couldn’t help but become even more puzzled. “But I don’t know how I got my ability.”
To be honest, he was really confused about that part. For his third senior martial brother, there was a clear moment they could point to when he had gotten his ability. But for him, there was nothing like that. And the guardians had also said previously that you were born with your ability or at least you had the potential to have it at that time already. So how come his third senior martial brother had gotten his ability like that and how come he had never known he had an ability either? It seemed so strange.
The other two disciples could also see that Yun Bei Fen was having a lot of questions. To be honest, in a sense, they weren’t any different. After all, it wasn’t like they really knew how these abilities worked either.
Anyway, not even the guardians themselves seemed to have been very sure about all this. So how could they as people who had just gotten involved with this matter know more than those who had had years of preparation? No, it would be a wonder if they were able to answer any of this.
Luo Lin could only shake his head. “I don’t know. I guess for me, I also had my ability before this but I just wasn’t able to use it yet because nothing had happened that would allow me to. So far, it seems that I am only able to pick up abilities if I get into contact with them, after all.”
Yun Bei Fen nodded, feeling that this made a bit more sense. “Then, how do I use it? Do I also need somebody’s help?”
Luo Lin and Shen Lei exchanged a glance. To be honest, this likely wasn’t the case with Yun Bei Fen but they also couldn’t tell him how he would be able to use it instead.
“Well, for me, the ability seems to be tied to using my spiritual energy and also having a specific … feeling.”
Yun Bei Fen looked a bit dismayed when he heard that. He hated those vague descriptions like ‘having a feeling’. It was like that time when he had been small and his Master tried to teach him how to take in spiritual energy from his surroundings. He had also told him such things like to just sense it, to get a feeling for his surroundings, to open his mind. But he had never known what to do.
Now, he suddenly felt like it was the same again. Back then, he had needed seemingly forever to finally get the hang of it, and now, he was afraid it might be the same. Anyway, he had clearly never been the fastest. Just look at how he had finally developed his true spiritual sense only after years of cultivation and only with Mei Chao Bing’s help.
He couldn’t help but wonder what the guardians were on about when they said that he might be faster at picking things up. He didn’t feel like it. At the very least, he didn’t feel like it when he wasn’t given very explicit instructions. And when it came to this ability, then it seemed that nobody actually had those instructions. Looking at it this way, having an ability was actually quite vexing.
