Li Banfeng was awakened by the Judge’s Pen, which was still hovering in mid-air.
"Something you want to tell me?"
"Mm." The Judge’s Pen answered with a single word.
"Then go ahead and speak!"
The Judge’s Pen remained silent.
Li Banfeng stared at the Judge’s Pen for a moment and asked, "Do you think there are too many people?"
"Mm."
Living under the same roof, it seemed that the Judge’s Pen trusted only Li Banfeng.
Li Banfeng took the Judge’s Pen to the Fifth Room, with the Gloves quietly following behind.
The Phonograph was somewhat worried, but she could sense the gaze from the Portable Residence.
After entering the Fifth Room, Li Banfeng said to the Judge’s Pen, "To get up in the middle of the night like this, you really are thoughtful. Now speak."
The Judge’s Pen said, "I’ll take you to the Local Deity’s dwelling. Don’t tell anyone else."
Li Banfeng yawned and said, "Let’s go."
As they left the Portable Residence, the Judge’s Pen drew a circle and took Li Banfeng flying into the air.
Ever since he knew this brother, he had never seen him so eager.
The two flew southward from the Sand Goose House, crossing three streets to arrive inside a garden.
There were many gardens in the Ink Shop, but now was not a good time to be touring them.
With frigid cold freezing the ground and flowers withered, besides layers of bare trees, Li Banfeng could not see anything special.
The Judge’s Pen set Li Banfeng down under a willow tree and wrote the character "Erudite."
The bare willow tree suddenly sprouted buds, growing a large number of Ye Zi and releasing layers of willow catkins, which swirled around to form a barrier encircling the willow and Li Banfeng.
A chill wind blew, and the willow catkins slowly dispersed, revealing changes in the surrounding scenery.
The trees and paths that had been behind them were gone, replaced by a dense fog with no end in sight.
The willow tree where the Judge’s Pen had written the character served as a boundary. The dense fog stopped abruptly there. The scenery in front seemed unchanged, yet in the distance, the faint sound of a zither drifted over.
Following the sound of the zither, Li Banfeng looked up and saw a clearing ahead. In the clearing, there was a lake.
On the frozen lake surface stood a desk. A scroll, more than ten meters long, was unfolded on it. A man in a white robe sat behind the desk, holding a brush and writing on the scroll.
Li Banfeng walked toward the lake; the other man’s brush never stopped moving.
Li Banfeng halted his steps. A sense of danger washed over him. It wasn’t emanating from the person in white, and the direction of the threat was momentarily unclear.
Li Banfeng ducked behind a tree, and the Judge’s Pen whispered, "Something has come in."
"Where did it come in from? Did it follow us?"
"No, it’s been in here a long time." The Judge’s Pen was very familiar with this place and could sense that changes had occurred that shouldn’t have.
Li Banfeng focused on the direction of the danger, his gaze fixed on the lake surface.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! BANG!
A crack appeared on the frozen lake surface; something lay beneath it.
BANG! BANG!
More and more cracks developed, but the person in white remained undisturbed, continuing to write steadily on the scroll.
The scroll floated up, and characters rose one after another from it, moving swiftly over the lake surface.
The characters created by the Searching Ink Technique would fight indiscriminately, friend or foe, but these characters did not attack the person in white.
The characters produced by Word Worth a Thousand Gold were able to distinguish friend from foe, but their number was limited.
Among the Literature Cultivators Li Banfeng had encountered, Scholar Guo could use twelve ’Prohibition’ characters at a time, which was the most powerful example of Word Worth a Thousand Gold he had seen.
Yet now, the characters rising from the scroll numbered in the hundreds. Upon inspection, ’Battle’ characters were the most common, followed by ’Kill’ characters.
BANG! BANG! CRACK!
A fissure opened on the ice, and a Red Dragon rushed toward the person in white.
The characters moving over the ice surged towards the Red Dragon. The ’Battle’ characters, like warriors wielding Spears, hooked and thrust at the Red Dragon from high and low.
The ’Kill’ characters, as if wielding Long Spears, thrust fiercely at the Red Dragon.
Actually, it wasn’t a Long Spear; this weapon, resembling a Long Spear, was called a Polearm, which Li Banfeng had seen in the Weapons Atlas.
The Red Dragon leaped out of the lake but was repelled by the multitude of characters.
Once the Red Dragon withdrew back into the lake, all the characters immediately dispersed, continuing their patrol over the ice.
The efficient attack and defense maneuvers of several hundred characters, advancing and retreating, attacking and defending with such fluidity, truly made Li Banfeng feel the formidable combat prowess of a Literature Cultivator.
More cracks appeared on the ice. Some characters assembled near the cracks, ready for battle. Li Banfeng also watched the fissure, waiting for the Red Dragon to reemerge.
BOOM!
The Red Dragon did not show itself.
Instead, the entire ice surface collapsed.
Hundreds of characters dove underwater, creating waves upon waves.
The person in white, along with the desk, hovered in mid-air. The brush in his hand didn’t pause for a second. Characters continuously rose from the scroll, leaping into the water to fight the Evil Monster in the lake.
HUM!
A muffled roar came, the water churning as if boiling.
A toad, one-third the size of the lake surface, leaped out of the water, lunging at the person in white.
So the Red Dragon from before wasn’t actually a dragon; it was this toad’s tongue.
Thirty-two ’Wing’ characters transformed into a pair of wings, swiftly lifting the person in white dozens of meters into the air.
The toad kicked its legs and paddled its arms in the air, as if doing a breaststroke, in hot pursuit.
Just as the toad was about to catch up with the person in white, Li Banfeng suddenly emerged from the woods, appearing in the toad’s line of sight.
The toad tilted its head slightly to glance at Li Banfeng.
That glance was crucial. It meant the toad had acknowledged Li Banfeng’s presence, which was the prerequisite for using the Passing Glance technique.