Chapter 788 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 55

Chapter 788 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 55

An unlimited exploration pass—this was practically a reward tailor-made for her!

The ability to freely enter and exit various high-star mirror spaces held irreplaceable value for collecting advanced card-crafting materials and improving her strength.

“It seems… I absolutely must claim that national championship.” This thought solidified into unshakable resolve within Mo Lan’s heart.

Yan Shuang keenly caught the flash of anticipation in her eyes and understood immediately, continuing her analysis:

“Your psychic power has already reached One-Star Eighth Stage, which theoretically allows you to carry four one-star skills.

With the Lesser Mirror Image you’ve already mastered, plus the planned White Light Flash, combined with your combat blade techniques that have already taken initial shape, you’ll be more than capable of handling the vast majority of one-star mirror beasts.

If you supplement that with continued physical training to further strengthen your physique, refine your martial techniques, and find a sharper weapon, you’ll even have the power to fight two-star mirror beasts.”

At this point, Yan Shuang paused briefly. “Therefore, my recommendation is this: after you extract the White Light Flash skill, stop extracting new beast core skills while you’re still at the one-star stage.”

Seeing the confusion flash through Mo Lan’s eyes, Yan Shuang slowed her pace and explained in simpler terms:

“Every skill imprinted into the mental sea, regardless of its tier, permanently occupies a portion of your psychic power…”

Mo Lan nodded. She already knew this much.

“…The effects of one-star skills, frankly speaking, are limited in power. Comparing a one-star Flame Ray to a two-star Fireball, the latter is clearly far more concentrated and formidable.

Moreover, many powerful martial techniques, when cultivated to advanced levels, can produce instantaneous explosive force or exquisite variations that rival or even surpass low-star skills.

With a fixed total of psychic power, if you fill up too much of it with numerous one-star skills early on, then when you advance to two-star, you’ll have relatively less psychic power available for carrying and casting stronger two-star skills.

But if you can resist the early temptation and conserve your precious psychic power, continuously cultivating and growing it, then when you break through to two-star, you’ll have far more psychic power available for casting two-star skills.

With equivalent psychic power consumption, you’ll be able to cast more times, and your combat endurance will naturally far exceed others at the same level.”

Her tone grew slightly grave. “This path is destined to be more difficult. Before reaching two-star, you’ll appear skill-deficient. When facing opponents with multiple skills, you’ll need to rely more heavily on the finesse of your martial techniques, your grasp of the battle situation, and those limited one or two skills to maneuver—leaving far less room for error.”

Yet her gaze was filled with affirmation for Mo Lan. “But for you, this may be the optimal path for building a deep foundation before unleashing your full potential.

The talent you’ve demonstrated in martial techniques and physical training is something I’ve rarely seen in my entire life. That alone is enough to serve as your most solid foundation in the early stages.

And your rate of psychic power growth is abnormal compared to ordinary people, which means your so-called ‘period of weakness’ will be far shorter than anyone else’s.”

She even cited some examples. “Among those at Mirror Ruins University whose talents in martial techniques, physical training, and psychic power are all monstrously exceptional—geniuses with extraordinary combat prowess—some even choose not to extract any beast core skills before three-star. They fight purely through perfected martial techniques and overwhelmingly powerful physiques. Once they finally begin extracting skills, they start at three-star, and their strength undergoes an instant qualitative leap.”

Finally, she returned the choice to Mo Lan, her tone reverting to its usual cool detachment. “Of course, I haven’t walked this path myself. This is merely advice based on my experience.

Whether you choose a steady, gradual transition in the early stages, or this more challenging path with greater potential—the final decision rests in your hands.

But… if I were given the chance to start over…” She paused, and when she spoke again, her tone carried a certainty distilled from having weathered countless storms:

“I would absolutely have exercised restraint during the lower stages, resisting the greed for more skills, and extracted fewer of them.”

That final remark didn’t sound like a teacher’s suggestion to a student. It was more like a powerful figure’s candid admission of a small past regret—advice given across time, both to herself and to the student before her who held such promise.

“I understand!” Mo Lan grasped the meaning behind Teacher Yan Shuang’s words.

In truth, hadn’t she herself felt that the psychic power consumed by imprinting beast core skills was too wasteful? That was precisely why she had never used the Three Thousand Mirror Ruins Mirror Explorers’ method of extracting beast core skills.

Using the Valen mage method to analyze beast core skills and construct spell structures was more troublesome, but it freed up her psychic power.

In a sense, the underlying logic was exactly the same.

“Alright, do you have anything else you’d like to ask? If not, let’s continue practicing martial techniques!” Yan Shuang said. “If you’re going to extract fewer low-star skills, your martial prowess must be strong enough to compensate!”

“I do!” Mo Lan spoke up quickly. “Teacher, I wanted to ask—how does one obtain a small mirror space of their own? If you had your own mirror space to rest in while exploring other mirror spaces, things would be much easier and smoother, wouldn’t they?”

Yan Shuang regarded her in silence for several seconds, her gaze seeming to pierce straight through to one’s innermost thoughts.

Just as Mo Lan feared her true intentions had been exposed, Yan Shuang finally spoke, her tone as calm as ever:

“It requires not only astonishing luck, but also correspondingly absolute and overwhelming psychic power, along with Mirror Explorer aptitude to match.

If your psychic power isn’t strong enough, even if you’re fortunate enough to stumble upon an ownerless mirror space core, you won’t be able to firmly imprint your own spiritual brand upon its volatile spatial rules to complete the claiming process.

Mirror Explorer aptitude determines the ‘efficiency’ with which you can harness spatial rules. The higher your aptitude, the less psychic power is needed to claim and maintain a mirror space, and the greater your affinity with spatial rules. This lets you achieve twice the results with half the effort during the claiming process, and you’re more likely to earn the instinctive favor of the ‘spatial consciousness,’ greatly reducing the psychic power expended.

But even with a perfect score in Mirror Explorer aptitude, you would need to reach at least six-star level psychic power just to barely qualify for attempting to claim a small, stable mirror space.

As for the teleportation entrances to ownerless mirror spaces… they can appear anywhere with ‘mirror’ properties. Whether you encounter one depends entirely on fate.

If you truly harbor such aspirations, then the only thing you can do right now is train diligently and continuously improve your strength.

That way, perhaps one day in the future, when opportunity truly presents itself before you, you’ll have sufficient strength to seize it—rather than watching helplessly as it slips away.”

These words served as both an answer to Mo Lan’s question and a subtle admonition and guide.

“Now,” Yan Shuang produced a wooden training blade, “let’s see how much sweat you’re willing to shed on these martial techniques for that perhaps impossibly distant dream of becoming a Mirror Lord. If you can’t even master your martial techniques, everything else is just empty talk.”