Dragon Hermit

“I’m Xia Yan,” Xia Yan replied while cursing at the old man’s Daoist title internally, [Desireless? Knocking off that ‘-less’ at the end would be more apt.]

“Are you a student of Sihe University, little brother?” Desireless’ eyes lit up as he inquired.

“How do you know that, Daoist?” Xia Yan questioned back.

“I guessed it. After all, this place is quite close to Sihe University,” The old Daoist sized up Xia Yan and questioned again, “Little Xia, what’s your opinion on these two girls?”

“Yeah, handsome. Aren’t we sisters pretty?” The two beauties questioned with a giggle.

“Actually, I’m very curious about why you have invited a total stranger like me to join you, Daoist,” Xia Yan didn’t bother with them and instead questioned the old Daoist again.

“Because this poor Daoist and little brother are of the same ilk!” The old Daoist laughed out loud and pointed at Xia Yan before continuing, “This old Daoist has a very good sense of smell, so I was able to sniff out the exceptional odor emanating from little brother’s body!”

“Hoh? What kind of odor is it?” Xia Yan squinted his eyes and moved the woman’s arm away from his arm silently.

“It’s very similar to the odor of the dark energy twining around these two pretty ladies!” Desireless’ gaze turned incomparably sharp suddenly as he barked out, “Were you worried they weren’t dead yet and returned to check up on them?”

Saying so, the old Daoist pinched the napes of the two ladies, following which the two of them lost consciousness and collapsed. There was no one else present in the surroundings and it was deathly still as they had already reached a remote alley of Jiuyan Bridge.

The two ladies collapsed back towards the wall and leaned against it while Desireless and Xia Yan stood separated by a few meters. They were on their way to have a foursome, but in the blink of an eye, it had turned into a serious confrontation.

“Old Daoist, you’re claiming the dark energy on their bodies is my work?” Xia Yan asked coolly while giving a look towards the two ladies.

“The Yin energy on you is too dense and you just happened to appear nearby them. There’s no way this is a coincidence,” the old Daoist took out an egg-sized copper bell from somewhere and fiddled with it with a smirk on his face.

“Uhm… What if I told you it really was a coincidence?” Xia Yan had to admit that he too would have thought the same if he were in Desireless’ place. [However, is the Yin energy this old Daoist mentioned referring to the undead element?]

“Although this old Daoist has lived for 120 years, my eyes haven’t gone so bad yet!” The old Daoist sneered.

“You’re 120 years old? And you were hitting on two women?” Xia Yan was taken aback. [This old Daoist was even in the mood to have a threesome. If he’s really 120 years old, his member must have already become an antique! The idiom ‘old but vigorous’ is the perfect description for him!]

“Two women are nothing, I’ve even done it with five… Ahem. Enough of the drivel now. Who is your master? How dare he teach you the dark magic of turning living humans into cauldrons?” Desireless thundered.

“I don’t get what you are talking about!” Xia Yan’s brows locked up. He could figure out the meaning of cauldron and dark magic as they were mentioned in s, but he couldn’t make sense of how they were related to him.

“So dishonest!” The old Daoist grunted coldly, “I’ll capture and hand you over to the Cleaners. You’ll know the taste of regret then!”

The old Daoist raised the copper bell in his hand and shook it once while pointing its mouth towards Xia Yan. Although Xia Yan didn’t hear anything, a powerful strike landed on the magic tower in his mind in the next moment and made him feel a bit dizzy.

The magic tower contained his magic reserves and also represented his magic defense. The power of the copper bell was of the same nature as magic, so the magic tower was able to resist its blow.

“Daoist! You’ve really done it now!” Xia Yan was taken aback from the sudden assault and the tone of his voice changed as well. Xia Yan shook his head and the magic tower expelled the force that had invaded his mind silently. He then broke into a sprint while chanting the incantation for the Lingering Spirits spell.

On the other hand, Desireless was also taken aback by the development and bowed his head down subconsciously to look at the copper bell in his hand. [Just a single shake of the Soul Dissonance Bell is enough to knock out an elephant for an entire day and this kid was able to brush it off with a mere shake of his head? Just how strong is his consciousness?]

Xia Yan finished casting the spell while the old Daoist was daydreaming as the advantage of novice-grade spells were its extremely short incantation times.

And these novice-grade spells were the magic most used by mages as intermediate- and advanced-grade spells required the help of scrolls to cast them. Naturally, if one had a warrior acting as a tank to take the blows from the front, it was possible to spend time to chant the spells for the intermediate and advanced spells, but it was much riskier to do that.

Followed by a wave of his hand, a spirit swooshed towards Desireless, but Xia Yan didn’t dare to pause and began casting the Vampiric Curse spell immediately. He also took out the three Horcruxes around his neck and held them in his hand so that he could summon the skeleton soldier at any moment.

“What a formidable Yin energy!” Daoist Desireless cried out in alarm after seeing the spirit zoom towards him. He didn’t dare to tarry and switched the Soul Dissonance Bell to his left hand while a horsetail whisk appeared in his right hand. He waved the spirit away with the whisk and also shook the Soul Dissonance Bell at the same time.

“Damn it!” Xia Yan was almost halfway into casting the Vampiric Curse spell when the Soul Dissonance Bell’s power attacked the magic tower in his mind again and interrupted the spell. He thought the copper bell wasn’t really that impressive, but after this experience, he was certain that this item was the bane of mages.

A mage was required to focus his mental power to cast a spell, but this copper bell had the ability to disturb the mind greatly, which allowed it to interrupt spells. If it weren’t for the memories of the Lich that he had inherited and the strong control he had over his magic, Xia Yan would have undoubtedly suffered a backlash from the interruption of the spell.

“Don’t you dare dream of using magic in front of this old Daoist’s Soul Dissonance Bell!” Desireless stated proudly with a chuckle when he heard Xia Yan stop chanting the weird incantation. At the same time, he waved the horsetail whisk again and pushed back the spirit again, preventing it from nearing him.

“Does this damned thing also have the ability to influence the mind?” Desireless pondered after noticing the spirit was targeting his head and finally arrived at such a conclusion.

He held the copper bell and the horsetail whisk together in his right hand to free his left hand and fished out a scarlet calabash. Then, he opened the lid of the calabash with his finger and murmured an incantation in a low voice, following which a stream of azure energy emerged from the calabash’s mouth and twined around the spirit before pulling it inside the calabash.

The old Daoist then closed the lid and laughed proudly, “This thing is actually pretty . I’ll capture it for now and research it once I return!”

[Fudge!]

Xia Yan’s mood turned dour. [This Daoist is clearly wearing only a T-shirt and shorts, so where the hell is he taking out all these items from? This doesn’t make any sense! He’s taken out three treasures in just a short while, so there’s no fun in playing this game with him.]

Xia Yan never believed he had a bane, but now, he had no choice but to believe that the three treasures taken out by Daoist Desireless could restrain his undead element completely.

Even the spirit he had summoned had been thwarted by the horsetail whisk and even got captured into the scarlet calabash.

As for the copper bell, it was much more formidable as it could interrupt his spells. A mage was only half-a-mage without his spells.

[I should’ve prepared scrolls!]