Chapter Thirty-Six: An Attempt to Break Through the World

The little devil slowly stepped out from the mirror, his eyes narrowing into a mischievous smile as he looked at Lu Mingfei. With his hands behind his back, he said, “Brother, I’ll give you a crucial piece of information for free—something extremely useful to you.”

“What is it?” Lu Mingfei asked.

“At Kassel College, a group of power-hungry madmen have reconstructed a technique the pure-blooded dragons once called the Path to Apotheosis, and named it Bloodrage. The essence of Bloodrage is to enhance the dominance of dragon genes by weakening human will, thereby increasing the purity of one’s bloodline.”

A playful smile crept across Lu Mingze’s face as he continued, “Gaining strength this way comes with tremendous backlash. One consequence is the loss of bloodline stability, which can result in the inability to close your golden pupils.”

“You mean, I should pretend the Bloodrage effect happened to me by accident?” Lu Mingfei instantly understood. If he wished to keep his dragon blood active, he’d need to keep his golden pupils ignited. Though he could close them, doing so would slow his growth and reduce his preparation time before crossing over. The less time he spent preparing, the greater the risk for Furina.

After all, she had already been the target of an assassination. Who could say whether there wouldn’t be a second attempt, or others with murderous intent? If they succeeded…

Time could not be wasted!

“Thank you,” Lu Mingfei said simply. He watched Lu Mingze’s figure retreat into the mirror, growing smaller and smaller until he vanished from sight.

He glanced at the time.

It was still ticking by—Lu Mingze had left.

Perhaps, because Lu Mingze had patched things up, the people at Kassel College weren’t in a hurry to find him. This suggested that Lu Mingze’s influence in the human world was substantial—enough, perhaps, to affect even the College.

I might be a dragon, and since he calls me brother, maybe he’s a dragon too—a monster.

After a brief moment of thought, Lu Mingfei left, gathered his things, and set out quickly to buy a new pair of black contact lenses. With them in place, he made his way to the spatial node near his aunt’s house.

Since Furina’s attack, Lu Mingfei’s spiritual power—honed through extreme dragonification—had grown again. He wanted to test whether he could now sense the world’s barriers and open a passage to another world. If not, how much further would he need to go, and how much more time would it take?

…

Near his aunt’s house

Lu Mingfei stood at the spatial node, extending his right hand toward the void. Eyes closed, he focused all his senses on the shifting boundaries of the world, feeling for the distance between Teyvat’s coordinates and this reality.

Far. Still impossibly far away…

There’s no way I could cross into Teyvat directly—not yet, the gap is too vast.

But…

There seemed to be another world, much closer to his own, and in the same direction as Teyvat. If he could reach that world, he’d be a step closer to Furina.

“Let’s try,” he murmured.

Lu Mingfei exhaled slowly, pouring all his spiritual power into disturbing the fragile spatial node.

Yet even this “fragility” was relative; the weakest node in the world was still part of its barrier, not a transparent sheet of paper. Despite his full effort, he produced only the faintest ripple in the space.

He had to focus—to concentrate his authority at a single point.

The thought was simple; the execution, impossibly difficult. Even pouring all his might into it, the world’s barrier remained unshakably solid.

“Break the boundary,” he intoned, strengthening his words with the power of incantation, amplifying his influence over the spatial node. The rippling space began to ring with a clear, sharp sound.

Crack!

A minuscule sound—a space the size of a grain of rice shattered. A pitch-black pinhole appeared, and Lu Mingfei’s face finally lit up with excitement.

It was tiny, but he had done it. It was a good beginning. He now possessed the possibility of crossing worlds.

Furina, wait for me!

“He actually… broke open space?” Lu Mingze stared blankly at the elated Lu Mingfei, a chilling dread bursting through his mind. He couldn’t help but wonder—

What would a paranoid schizophrenic do with the power to tear open reality? What might he unleash?

Was his brother truly about to charge into the other side of a spatial rift? Who knew what lay beyond? Even if you could open such a breach, you should never enter carelessly.

If his brother tried something so reckless…

He dared not imagine the consequences.

“Not enough. This is nowhere near enough.” Lu Mingfei watched as the world’s barrier swiftly healed itself, marveling at its resilience. Even at its weakest, it was nearly impossible to break through. The gap he’d made was so small a person could never pass.

To expand a crack the size of a grain of rice into something large enough for a human, the strength of his spatial power would need to multiply many times over.

Can I really grow that much stronger? Will training alone ever bring me to that level? He doubted it.

If he used dragonification to enhance his strength, his authority would surely grow as well. But by how many times would he need to increase his power to open a human-sized passage? Would raw strength alone suffice?

Lu Mingfei began to have doubts.

Perhaps, with time and steady accumulation, his power would eventually suffice. But he didn’t want to wait so long; he wanted to cross over as soon as possible and reach Teyvat. If Furina perished because of his delay, the pain would be unbearable.

Wait—perhaps he should keep monitoring. The distances between worlds weren’t fixed. Just as, once, he and Furina had been only a truck’s length apart—their worlds so close, only to drift apart again.

Now, the new world connected to his own might not always be this close. When the gap shrank to its minimum, he might not need so much power to cross.

But the opposite could also be true—the worlds might only grow further apart.

No matter what, he was determined to keep observing from this spot, relentlessly, until he found a way to the new world.

“Brother, you’re not going to do something foolish, are you?” Lu Mingze suddenly appeared, looking like a pitiable child as he clung to Lu Mingfei’s sleeve, head bowed, his voice trembling.

Seeing this, Lu Mingfei smiled. Turning, he patted Lu Mingze’s small head and said, “You know, I’m someone who goes a little mad from time to time.”