Chapter 257: What Kind of Student? This is an Immortal! Hurry and Serve Him!

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The interior of the bamboo house was almost identical to its exterior. Harry looked around but couldn't spot any decorations, perhaps because these things were seen as unnecessary burdens by the second uncle.

In the spacious hall, there was a raised platform in the center, covered with a bamboo mat. A square table was placed on it, and next to the table was the wine jar that had been taken earlier. A delicate fragrance of wine filled the hall.

The panda people loved to drink, and they also enjoyed brewing their own wine. However, in Panda Village, there were no stores selling alcohol. If you wanted to taste their wine, you had to rely on the panda people to gift it to you. For them, gifting wine was both a form of socializing and a way of showing approval.

Though the panda people were friendly and open to new experiences, it wasn't easy to truly integrate into their circle. They were warm but distant, and without Uncle Tian's introduction, Harry wouldn't have had the chance to interact with the second uncle, let alone come here to learn.

Harry already knew the second uncle's temperament was a bit odd, so after entering, he behaved with great respect, staying right behind Uncle Tian. But the second uncle clearly didn't view things in a conventional way. As soon as Harry entered, he bent down with a bamboo cup of wine in hand and carefully appraised Harry from head to toe.

"This kid's quite fierce," the second uncle raised an eyebrow and spoke with certainty. "I tell you, Tian Tian, this kid's probably got a lot of blood on his hands. Where'd you get this little monster from?"

"Ah?"

Tian Tian scratched his head, looking at his second uncle with a confused, clueless expression, not understanding what he meant.

"Drink, drink, drink! All you know is wine, you brat! I'm asking you a question!"

The second uncle, who had been preparing to throw the wine jar at him, suddenly stopped mid-motion. He glanced at the jar and then at his grinning nephew, and, to his surprise, was so exasperated that he burst into laughter.

"Your old man sure picked a good name for you, Tian Tian! Ha! Every day, you need a beating to feel good, huh!"

Putting the jar down, the second uncle got up. In that moment, a blur of black and white flashed by, and Tian Tian suddenly exploded with startling speed, heading straight for the back of the bamboo house.

"Second uncle! I've brought the person here! I'm just going to check out how your new batch of wine turned out! Don't worry, I'll definitely—ahhhhhh~~~"

"You think you can just go around setting traps in the house?!"

A limping figure hobbled into the hall, howling while clutching its leg. Despite being a father with a 25-year-old child, Tian Tian, at under sixty years old, was still considered a 'youngster' among the panda people. In earlier years, a panda person wasn't considered an adult until they hit fifty, so he had only just crossed that threshold.

"If a big rat comes running in, of course, I'll set up a trap."

"Anyway, I see you don't even know what's going on. Since the person is here, you can just go now."

With a cold sneer, the second uncle showed no sympathy. Every time his nephew came over, the wine cellar was always left in disarray, with several large wine jars disappearing—drunk or stolen.

"This is a trap for the wine rats. I won't open it for you. Don't think about it. Be honest and get out of here. I'm tired of beating you up after all these years."

"Is this how you treat your nephew? I'm a grown man! I'm not causing any trouble. I just want to take a look, not touch anything, and at most, I'll just smell it."

Frowning, Tian Tian moved toward the central platform, raised his trapped leg, and quickly grabbed a bamboo tube, inserting it into the wine jar. Within seconds, his throat moved rapidly, and nearly a third of the two-hundred-pound jar was emptied.

"I'm going to practice drunken boxing later. Second Uncle, open the jar for me. I'll finish this wine and leave."

"You bastard..."

The second uncle's fists tightened and then loosened, only to tighten again. The veins on his forehead bulged as he tried to hold back his anger. He truly had no words for this brat, but what could he do? This was his nephew, the same kid he'd raised since childhood. He could only grit his teeth and endure.

The enormous rat trap holding Tian Tian's foot snapped open, and Tian Tian, along with the wine jar, was quickly bound by the second uncle's mental tendrils. With a swift kick, Tian Tian was sent flying out the front door.

"I'm waiting for you at the barbecue stall outside—"

The shout from outside was cut off by the closing of the door, leaving only the second uncle and Harry in the empty hall.

"I shouldn't have agreed to this 'adulthood' age thing," the second uncle muttered. "Dealing with this damn kid is enough to make anyone lose their temper."

"Alright, now it's just the two of us."

The second uncle tapped the table and gestured to Harry. "Come, sit down."

His gaze held an amused gleam. Like the old man at the Swordsmith Hall, the second uncle had also noticed something different about Harry when they first met. Perhaps once one's power reached a certain level, things that ordinary people couldn't perceive became detectable.

Looks like asking those guys for help isn't a good idea after all... this is the second time already, Harry thought to himself. If he didn't conceal or restrain himself, who knew if people obsessed with 'acting on behalf of heaven' would start showing up? Once involved in something like that, trouble would be endless.

The table, suited for the panda people's height, was a bit too high for Harry. But as he climbed onto it, the bamboo mat lifted slightly, making the seating position just right for him.

"Tian Tian's a bit of an idiot, but his eyes are sharp. Since he wants to recommend me a student, I guess you must have some talent, or he wouldn't have said anything."

"But wanting to be my student isn't so easy."

"I don't care what you did before—whether you ran a slaughterhouse or kidnapped people for their kidneys. As long as you got permission to come here, I'll assume you've only killed for a good cause. But you'd better learn to control the murderous aura around you; it's enough to make a person dizzy."

Panda Village was extremely closed off. Though people visited every year, only those who passed the village's strict screening process could get close. With the panda's national treasure status and the otherwise unremarkable but actually wealth-filled magical bamboo forest, they had to be cautious about outsiders. The magic concentration here was even higher than that of the Forbidden Forest. Though the area was small, many of the local specialties were rare, and couldn't be found elsewhere.

"Come on, show me. I want to see what level of student Tian Tian's recommending me."

Harry silently nodded, then extended his hands. Almost simultaneously, ten black energy orbs the size of ping pong balls appeared at his fingertips. "Before dinner, Uncle Tian taught me for a while. I hadn't learned this before."

However, Harry didn't get a chance to wait for the second uncle's response. The panda person was staring intently at the energy orbs, his brows furrowed. His gaze was shifting rapidly, and it seemed as if countless thoughts were racing through his mind.

"Shit!"

"Am I meeting an immortal today?!"

The second uncle's eyes widened in disbelief. His hands pressed down on the table as he leaned in, inspecting Harry closely, as if he were some rare beast.

"This surprise is a bit too much, huh? Kid, are you sure about this? I'm guessing it's true, right?"

"An immortal..." The second uncle's fingers were moving so quickly they left behind afterimages. "I've only ever read about immortals like this in books, but now I'm seeing one in person!"

"Don't hold back, I'm not going to eat you." The second uncle was practically jumping with excitement, eager to confirm his guess.

Then he saw Harry nodding. "If 'immortal' means a 'Waking Sorcerer,' then I guess I'm one."

"Yes, yes, that's it!"

"Ha ha!" The second uncle slapped his thigh, a wide grin spreading across his face. "I knew it! How could someone capable of coming to our village be anything bad?!"

"Kid, you've got a bright future ahead of you, a very bright future."

The second uncle was so happy he nearly started patting his belly. His face was practically blooming with joy. Although he didn't fully understand what was going on, he knew this wasn't a bad thing.

But after locking eyes with the second uncle's burning gaze, Harry couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. A chill ran down his back, and an uneasy sense lingered.

"So, you're saying... I can learn from you?"

"What are you learning for? I can't be your teacher. Don't say that, don't say that." The second uncle waved his hand, giving Harry a negative answer despite Harry's surprised expression.

"I'll just explain a little bit to you. What is 'mental energy'? Mental energy is like a chunk of magical power—it can explode, it can change shape, but essentially, it's no different from a brick. You use this to hit people, but a brick needs to be swung by hand, while mental energy can fly out and curve around to hit you on the head."

"At first glance, what seems like a mental beast..."

The second uncle raised his hand, and a huge figure glowing with white light appeared behind him. Countless tentacles, endless and countless in number, formed an unnameable giant. The grotesque shape was hard to look at without causing dizziness, as though looking at it too long could drive someone mad.

"But fundamentally, this thing is no different from a sculpted flower—a moving brick. The reason it's difficult is because our energy… I'm not talking about you, but for normal practitioners, their energy lasts only for a few seconds before it dissipates, gone in an instant!"

In the time it took to say this, the massive, unnameable tentacle figure disappeared as if it had melted, dissipating into the air, becoming part of the natural magic, returning to its original state.

"The problem is, if you want to use a mental beast to fight, you won't get ten seconds to slowly form it. The shorter time you spend, the longer you'll have to control it."

"Now you should understand. Since you're an immortal, you don't need to learn this like others. Of course, I'm not saying you shouldn't learn anything at all. What I mean is, all those fancy techniques are unnecessary. You only need to understand a few core concepts of mental energy, and then you can tailor mental energy techniques to suit your personal needs."

"Immortal energy won't dissipate with time. Although after transforming into mental energy, it will eventually fade due to the consumption required to maintain its elemental form, the time is long enough that you'd have to count it by months. As for mental beasts, you can shape them however you want. If you like something cool, just make it that way, and the core of a mental beast is… a virtual consciousness. Once you install it, the beast will track and chase others, biting them and self-destructing to kill them."

"You're a foreigner, right? You foreigners don't use magic wands, but transformation magic, right? Yes, transformation magic! There's even a living form of transformation. A master of transformation can turn fake dolls into real people, so real that they feel like real humans, soft, warm, and you can even talk to them. You wouldn't notice unless you paid attention."

"If you learn advanced elemental transformation later, turning mental energy into high-energy particles, you can play around with this kind of magic."

"Let's change locations."

The second uncle snapped his fingers, and they disappeared from the bamboo house, appearing outside on an open plot of land. Looking up, they could see the vast expanse of stars above, with the full moon hanging high, casting a beautiful night scene.

"If you directly compress and shoot this stuff out, it's like a light cannon version of mental energy, it can't curve, but the speed is so fast no one can react, unless they're far away. The speed is around 4,000 to 5,000 meters per second. Anyone within sight can be hit."

"If you shoot at the stars, I don't know if they'll be hit or not."

The second uncle raised his hand, mimicking the action of firing a gun. A beam of light shot out with a 'whoosh', splitting the dark night into two. The air was ionized, and the fresh scent woke up Harry's senses.

"Same idea—use more energy, and the destructive power of the mental energy increases. Just now I shot a small beam, but if you want, you can make it as thick as a water barrel. Remember, mental energy is like using magical power to smash things, but you've got to have the skill to do it."

"If you encounter a shield, and you try to break through it with mental energy, you're an idiot. Mental energy looks fancy and has many uses, but it has clear weaknesses. Any defense spell can block it. So usually, I recommend using it in close combat or at extremely long range. In close combat, mental energy is great for surprise attacks—very convenient. Personally, I like using tentacles. Any idiot who dares to get close to me is in for a whipping. I'll tie them up and give them a good thrashing."

"Now, I'll explain the three core concepts of mental energy's three branches. Once you understand these, you don't need a teacher anymore. I can't teach you anything. You're way ahead of the game. You can get books about it in the bookstore. Don't think it's anything special. I know a lot of powerful techniques, but those are for normal people, not for someone like you."

"Coming to me to learn is the opposite—I actually need you to help me with a few things."

The eager look in the second uncle's eyes made Harry's scalp tingle.

"Why don't you tell me first?" Harry cautiously replied, feeling a bit uneasy.

(End of chapter)