Divine Flame Crystal

Chapter 672 Be Gentle, It Hurts

"If I really die, will you cry?" Xingluo's tone was flat, but with a barely perceptible hint of temptation.

Pandora froze, then raised her eyes to meet his. In the firelight, her pupils reflected Xingluo's tired yet sharp expression.

"It doesn't matter whether you cry or not." She chuckled softly, but her fingertips tightened, "But I want to make sure... at least this time you didn't abandon me and go away by yourself."

Xingluo's Adam's apple twitched slightly, as if he wanted to argue, but he didn't say anything. He simply raised his hand and brushed away a strand of hair that fell on her cheek. His movements were restrained, yet they carried an unconscious intimacy.

Pandora was stunned for a moment, breathing lightly: "You?"

Xingluo's eyes darkened and he whispered, "Don't get me wrong."

"I'm happy to be mistaken." She smiled instead, with tears and fire in her eyes.

The dwarves and Isabel all turned their heads away, pretending to be busy. In the workshop, only the two of them were breathing and their heartbeats intertwined.

Xingluo's voice was very soft, as if he had made up his mind: "After this war of gods...if I am still alive, let's find a place to rest well."

Pandora's eyes trembled slightly, but she didn't ask any more questions. She just slowly helped him straighten up. The distance between them was still very close, close enough for her to feel the rise and fall of his chest, and close enough for Xingluo to smell the unique fragrance of her blood.

At this moment, no one said it out loud, but the ambiguity was already flowing in the air.

At this moment, Luo Luo exhaled inopportunely: "It feels like there are three thorns stuck in my throat, and I pull them out one by one. Thank you."

Isabel curled her lips and said, "Accounting."

"Hey, big sister, could you please stop keeping accounts?"

"I'll pay you back with interest on the battlefield."

"make a deal."

After Xingluo recovered for a moment, he changed to a thin-mouthed rune pen and made a series of very short strokes with his wrist.

"What?" Erwin leaned closer. "Are you writing the 'distribution table' for the grid?"

"The old grid was destroyed by the mirror domain, and all the data paths are reversed." Xingluo spoke at a steady pace, "I split it into three parts: 'load file', 'calculation', and 'seal'. They only communicate with each other through the 'buffer bridge'. Whoever explodes will not drag down the other two." Xingluo said a lot of words that others did not understand. It was obviously the special vocabulary of the alchemist.

Luo Luo blinked: "The plug-in has been updated and divided into modules?"

"Stop using that language."

"Okay, okay, academic restoration."

Xingluo's pen flickered, and thirty-six small grids lit up at the bottom of the page, like thirty-six small chambers. He used the dwarven "Spell Wire" to tie them together one by one, and then borrowed a "Void Nail" from Barlock and nailed it at the junction of the three areas, thus stabilizing the "bridge."

"Materials." Xingluo stretched out his hand.

The people of the Shadow Organization had already brought out their "treasured items": crystallized shadow skin, void fragments, abyss bone meal, time salt, and star fragments - all of which were good materials that could repair the structure of the artifact.

"The outer grille is made of crystallized shadow skin as its base," Xingluo whispered, "It can withstand light. The inner layer is made of abyssal bone meal as reinforcement to resist corrosion. A layer of time salt is sprinkled on the bridge to prevent earthquakes."

The dwarves followed suit, lifting, passing, and welding. Barlock hammered relentlessly, tapping the empty spaces with a gentle "dong dong" sound. Each time, the "gap" between the materials seemed to be tightened by invisible hands, more effective than a vacuum compressor.

"Two more 'buffer bags'." Xingluo raised her eyes. "Luoluo, every time you do a big calculation from now on, pour the overflow into the buffer bags first. If it explodes, it will stay in the bags. You can just replace them when the time comes. You don't have to go through the trouble like this time."

Luo Luo gave a thumbs up: "I understand. Limit the flow."

"Correct."

"This step is the hardest." Xingluo looked at Luoluo, "I want to go into your 'room'."

"Come in." Luo Luo pinched the hem of her skirt and forced a smile, "My door is always open for you."

The illusion was complete. The boundless sea of ​​books rose once more, but this time, many of the pages were covered in gray moss, and in the corners were layers of fine dust—the wind from the war between gods, the debris from the rebound of the mirror realm, and the fragments of collapsed data.

"Be gentle, it hurts a little." Luo Luo pointed to a corner of the roof that had collapsed, "That's the... trace of the previous one."

Xingluo stopped, didn't ask. He just raised his hand and "froze" the dust, and the dust stopped falling. He used his fingertips to "skim" the dust off the beam, and with each skim, the pages of the book in reality became lighter.

"Do you often work like this?" Luo Luo leaned against the door and looked at him. "Aren't you afraid of being exhausted?"

“Repairing something is sometimes more laborious than killing someone.”

"Then why did you study alchemy?"

“Because no one fixed it for me.”

Xingluo didn't say it because he was greedy for money. He could save a lot of money if he repaired it himself, and he could also make money by helping others repair it.

Luo Luo pursed her lips and said softly, "Yeah."

Deep within the nest of consciousness lay a mass of gray moss, like a dead, stubborn disease. Xingluo reached out to peel it, but his hand bounced back—it was left behind by the Order of Light, ownerless but disgusting.

Isabel's voice came from outside the illusion: "Get out of the way."

Black-gold light poured down from the "roof," and the power of the fallen gods was like a gust of wind, sweeping away the ownerless fragments of order. Pandora then affixed a thin blood seal around the hole, like a warm eaves on a new wall.

"Thank you." Luo Luo whispered behind the door.

"Accounting." Isabel said the same two words again.

"...How terrifying. Pandora, look at your fellow women."

Pandora laughed: "She's just afraid that you'll use her as a tool."

Luo Luo poked Xing Luo's back and said, "Did you hear that? People like you are the easiest to go bad."

"I'm repairing you." Xingluo didn't look back, "Talk less, breathe more."

"As you command. I will try my best to match the master's frequency."

In reality, Erwin raised his hand, and the Starlight Tower descended with a steady stream of starlight. "Use the lowest frequency, don't burn her," Starfall warned. The starlight didn't burn her, but rather spread a cool, thin layer of gauze, replacing the sticky "glue" of the past.

The dwarf pushed the spine clamp inward a notch and tightened it. When the temperature was right, Xingluo pressed the button on the chest furnace—and the spine of Xingyuanlu clicked, like joints returning to their sockets.

"There's only one 'hinge' missing." Xingluo pulled out the last silver nail he had refined himself. It was extremely thin, with a tiny time and space mark engraved on the nail cap. He gently pressed the nail against the corner of the book -

"Slow down." Barlock grabbed his wrist and said, "Hit me."

Xingluo raised an eyebrow: "You?"

"You hammer like a nail, and I hammer like a 'nail.'" Barrock bared his white teeth. "What you want is for the world to admit that this page is 'closed.'"

Xingluo didn't insist and handed it over to the other party. Barlock raised his hammer and "bang".

There was no sound, but the hinge seemed to be remembered by the world. Luo Luo's figure suddenly cleared in the illusion, her white dress restored to its original state, and her eyes shone like two pieces of freshly polished obsidian.

She blinked and smiled: "I'm back, it's not stuck anymore."

"Don't be too excited." Xingluo pressed three small symbols: "Load, Calculate, Seal." The three grids lit up one by one. He raised his eyes and said, "The test begins. Erwin, give me a little sample of divine magic."

The Starlight Tower summoned a faint sample of holy light, which fell like a thread onto the pages of the "Star Abyss Record." The "Sealed Chamber" gently swallowed, and the thread vanished, leaving a faint curve on the interface—the data was smooth, without jitter.

"Next, return to the Mirror Domain." Xingluo looked at Faliyah, "Give the wing blade some wind that won't cut flesh."

The silver wings flapped, and the wind created extremely fine lines on the pages of the book - the "calculation chamber" made a very small "hum", and then rewrote the curve into a new path, and the circuit stabilized.

"Finally, load the save." Xingluo closed the book and opened it again. The page automatically flipped back to the previous page, all the curves intact.

"Passed." Erwin breathed a sigh of relief. "She didn't lose anything."

"Add a 'stress test'." Luo Luo interrupted, "Let me do a real 'mirror domain fitting'. Don't worry, I'll be careful."

Xingluo stared at her: "No fuss."

Luo Luo made a face: "Develop slowly, don't waste time, I understand."

In the illusion, mirrors rose layer by layer, like rooms made of light. She used the newly restored "calculation chamber" to build the framework of the mirror domain, and then used the "sealing chamber" to probe the seams of the framework. After several attempts, the structure did not collapse, the data did not explode, only the "buffer bladder" bulged, exhaled two puffs of hot air, and then immediately deflated.

"Alright." Xingluo finally put down his hand. "Next, I'll give you a layer of protection. If you encounter the Order of Light again, they'll bite the protection I wrote first."

Luo Luo shrugged, "Thank you."

“I’m just perfecting my design.”

"roll."