My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode-175

Chapter : 349

The private training hall, scarred and silent, had become their sanctuary, their laboratory. In the days following Fang Fairy's Transcendence, it was a space sealed off from the rest of the estate, a world unto itself where the normal rules of Riverio were suspended, replaced by the crackling, vibrant potential of their new, shared power. The AURA empire could run itself for a few days under Mei Jing's capable command. Lloyd’s priority now was not commerce, but calibration. He needed to understand the true extent of what they had become.

“Alright,” Lloyd began, pacing before the newly sentient, and still frankly quite distracting, Fang Fairy. She stood with a serene, watchful stillness, her silver-grey hair stirring in an unfelt breeze, her golden eyes tracking his every movement with an unnerving, analytical intelligence. “Let’s start with the basics. The ‘Spear of Justice’.” He couldn't help the wry smirk as he said the name he’d mentally assigned it. It sounded like something out of a child’s heroic tale, a far cry from the cold, clinical lethality he intended to wield.

“Aptly named, Master,” Fang Fairy commented, her voice the familiar, melodic rumble of a distant storm. “Its purpose is to deliver a singular, definitive judgment. It is an instrument of consequence.”

“Right. Consequence.” Lloyd stopped his pacing, focusing his mind. “Let’s break it down. You felt it before, when you manifested it. I felt it too, through the bond. But it was your creation. Now… the System, and my own instincts, tell me a Transcended ability is a co-creation. My will, your power. So, how does it work, precisely?”

Fang Fairy tilted her head, her golden eyes seeming to look inward for a moment, analyzing the flow of their shared energy. “It is… a focused resonance, Master. You provide the template, the intent. The shape, the target, the desired velocity and impact force. You are the architect, drawing the blueprint with your will.”

She extended a single, slender hand, palm up. The air above it began to shimmer, to crackle with nascent, azure energy. “I am the forge. I provide the raw material, the lightning. I draw upon the ambient Spirit Energy, and upon our shared core, and pour it into the mould you have created. The more precise your blueprint, the more focused your will… the sharper, the faster, the more devastating the resulting spear.”

Lloyd nodded, the engineer in him instantly grasping the concept. It was a two-part system. A guidance system and a power source. His mind was the fire control, her power was the ammunition. The synergy was perfect.

“And the drain?” he asked, the pragmatist always concerned with logistics. “The energy cost? On you, on me?”

“Significant, Master,” she confirmed, the crackling energy in her palm dissipating as she lowered her hand. “To create a spear of the intensity I manifested upon my arrival… it would consume perhaps a third of our combined current energy reserves in a single casting. We could manage three such strikes in rapid succession before requiring a significant period of recovery. However,” she added, a subtle, intelligent gleam in her eyes, “the intensity is variable. You can will a smaller, faster projectile—a ‘javelin’, perhaps—at a much lower cost. Or, a massive, slower, ‘lance’ designed to shatter fortifications, at a much greater one. The form is malleable, dictated by your intent. I merely provide the storm.”

The tactical possibilities were immense. Not just a single, all-or-nothing super-move, but a variable-yield weapon system, adaptable to the needs of the moment. It was more than he could have hoped for.

“Let’s test it,” Lloyd said, his voice tight with anticipation. He looked around the ruined training hall. The floor was already a mess of cracks and craters from his mother’s ‘lesson’. What was one more? He turned his attention to the far end of the hall, where a single, massive practice dummy still stood, miraculously unscathed. It wasn’t the standard straw-and-leather model. This was a Warlord-class dummy, a relic from his father’s own training days, constructed from solid ironwood, bound with thick steel bands, and weighing close to a ton. It was designed to withstand the full-force blows of an Ascended spirit. It was the perfect target.

“There,” Lloyd said, pointing. “The big, ugly one in the corner. Let’s start with a… medium-yield strike. Fast, penetrating. Aim for center mass.”

Fang Fairy nodded, her expression becoming serious, focused. She fell into a low, graceful stance, her hands held loosely at her sides, her silver-grey hair beginning to lift and stir as she drew upon her power. Lloyd closed his eyes, mirroring her focus, turning his own will inward.

Chapter : 350

He reached for their bond, no longer just a river of energy, but a vast, shared space in his mind. And there, he began to build the blueprint. He pictured the spear. Not as a simple pointed stick, but as an engineer would design a projectile. He envisioned its length, its diameter, its aerodynamic profile. He willed it to be dense, to be focused, its tip honed to a monomolecular point for maximum penetration. He visualized its trajectory, a straight, unwavering line from their position to the heart of the ironwood dummy. He poured his intent, his will to strike, to pierce, to obliterate, into the mental mould.

He felt Fang Fairy respond instantly. The moment his mental blueprint was complete, he felt the raging torrent of her power surge through their bond, a flood of pure, untamed lightning, pouring into the shape he had created.

The air between them crackled, split. With a sound not of a thousand birds this time, but of the very fabric of space being torn, the Spear of Justice manifested.

It hovered in the air for a fraction of a second, a breathtaking, terrifying thing of beauty. It was a shaft of pure, solidified lightning, about six feet long, its surface a churning, incandescent vortex of blue and white energy, its tip a point of such brilliant, painful intensity it was hard to look at directly. It hummed with a low, resonant, aural thrum, a sound that vibrated deep in Lloyd’s bones, the sound of a contained thunderstorm begging for release.

“Now,” Lloyd breathed, opening his eyes and fixing his gaze on the target, his will a focused, unwavering line. “Fire.”

With a single, shared thought, the spear launched.

It did not fly. It did not arc. It simply… ceased to be where it was, and appeared where it was going. It crossed the length of the training hall in an instant, a silent, blinding streak of azure light, leaving a shimmering, superheated trail in the air behind it.

The impact was not an explosion. It was an erasure.

There was a sound, a single, sharp CRACK-BOOM that was less a noise and more a physical blow, a concussive shockwave that slammed into Lloyd, making his teeth rattle and the air rush from his lungs. The Warlord-class training dummy, the ton of steel-banded ironwood designed to withstand siege weaponry, did not splinter. It did not break. It simply… vanished. Vaporized. Obliterated from existence.

In its place, a new, even larger, crater smoked in the stone floor, its edges glowing with a molten, cherry-red heat. The stone wall behind it was scorched black, a deep, circular impact pattern burned into its surface, cracks spiderwebbing outwards, reaching almost to the ceiling. The air was thick with the scent of vaporized wood, molten steel, and the sharp, clean, terrifying smell of lightning.

Lloyd stared at the smoking crater, his ears ringing, his heart hammering in his chest. He felt the drain, the sudden, dizzying emptiness in his Spirit Core, a testament to the immense power they had just unleashed. Fang Fairy, beside him, was panting softly, the ethereal light of her form dimmed slightly, but her golden eyes were blazing with a fierce, triumphant satisfaction.

The silence that followed was profound, absolute. The Spear of Justice wasn't just a weapon. It was a statement. An argument-ender. A problem-solver of the highest, most definitive, order.

“Well,” Lloyd said finally, his voice slightly hoarse, a slow, slightly manic grin spreading across his face. “That… was adequate.” He looked at Fang Fairy, who met his grin with a small, serene, and utterly terrifying smile of her own. The ghosts from his past, the enemies lurking in the shadows… they had no idea what was coming for them. The drab duckling had just acquired a lightning cannon. And he was just learning how to aim.

The smoking crater in the training hall served as a stark, satisfying reminder of his new capabilities. The Spear of Justice was a definitive, if resource-intensive, solution to a certain class of problem. But Lloyd knew, with the weary pragmatism of a man who had fought wars on multiple fronts, that not all problems could be solved with a lightning cannon. Some required a more subtle approach. Some required… art.

The AURA advertising campaign had been a resounding success, transforming his soap from a mere product into a cultural phenomenon. The first painting, the ‘AURA Girl’, was now a landmark in the capital, a pilgrimage site for the hopeful and the envious. But a single victory did not win a war. To maintain momentum, to solidify their market dominance, to expand into new territories, they needed a second wave. A new story.