Grinding EXP From Fireball Skill-Chapter 44: Memory Fragment

Li Wei stood in calf-deep snow, his gaze fixed solemnly on the Snow Bear Nightmare not far away.

The Snow Bear Nightmare’s shattered arm was gradually regenerating.

With a thought, a massive Fire Serpent shot out to engulf the Snow Bear Nightmare.

The Fire Serpent passed right through the Snow Bear Nightmare’s body like a phantom, unable to cause even a sliver of damage.

’Just as I thought. The power of the dream can’t harm the Nightmare.’

The Snow Bear Nightmare roared and charged at Li Wei, kicking up a blizzard of snow as it ran.

A small fireball in front of Li Wei rapidly grew larger.

WHOOSH!

The Fireball shot toward the Snow Bear Nightmare.

The Snow Bear Nightmare leaped, trying to dodge the Fireball and land right next to Li Wei.

With a flicker of his will, Li Wei detonated the Fireball instantly.

BOOM!

The triple-powered Fireball blew the mid-air Snow Bear Nightmare’s body to pieces.

The Snow Bear Nightmare, with only half its body remaining, fell to the ground.

A gray mist billowed out, and the Snow Bear Nightmare’s body began to rapidly recover.

Li Wei’s expression changed. ’The Nightmare is drawing on the power of the dream to heal its wounds.’

’If I can’t kill it in one blow, it’ll wear me down and kill me sooner or later.’

’If I could just cast the Fireball Skill consecutively, killing the Snow Bear Nightmare wouldn’t be difficult.’

’The problem is, I can’t.’

’There’s at least a three-second delay between each cast.’

’Three seconds is more than enough time for the Snow Bear Nightmare to heal most of its injuries.’

ROAR!

The Snow Bear Nightmare, its body only half-repaired, lunged at Li Wei.

Gray mist spewed from its lower half, propelling it directly through the air.

Li Wei steeled himself.

’I have no choice but to use that move!’

He turned and fled.

The Snow Bear Nightmare quickly caught up, its massive form crashing down from the sky.

Li Wei spun around, a Fireball in his palm swelling rapidly.

Self-detonating Fireball Technique!

As Li Wei recklessly poured his Mana into it, the technique reached an astonishing five times its normal power.

The price was that the Small Fireball Technique would spin out of control and detonate.

A thousand wounds for the enemy, a thousand for himself.

BOOM!

A raging fire erupted in the snowy night, engulfing the only two figures left in the blizzard.

THUD!

Li Wei was sent flying by the blast. His Invisible Armor shattered, and he landed face-down in the frigid snow. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

He felt the same icy chill that Gu Ze must have felt in his heart that night.

Li Wei trembled as he pushed himself up, looking toward where the Snow Bear Nightmare had been.

A gray orb of light floated in mid-air, trying to gather the scattered gray mist around it.

Seeing this, Li Wei didn’t hesitate. He immediately looked up and cast a Small Fireball Technique.

WHOOSH! BOOM!

The Fireball hit the gray orb of light, blasting it to smithereens.

The gray mist swirling on the ground around it finally settled, slowly dissipating into the dream.

’What is that?’

Li Wei saw that after the gray orb of light vanished, a shimmering fragment was left in its place.

He raised his hand and sent a Fireball at it, but the Fireball passed right through the shimmering fragment and flew off into the distance.

Seeing there was no danger, he walked over to investigate.

As he drew near, the shimmering fragment flew directly into his body.

Li Wei froze in place. It was one of Teacher Gu Ze’s Memory Fragments.

A Memory Fragment from the night of the nightmare.

In the memory, Gu Ze’s parents were killed by the Snow Bear. He was buried beneath their collapsed house, holding his little sister.

He didn’t know how long had passed before he woke up.

By then, he had been rescued, but his sister was nowhere to be found.

The young Gu Ze begged the traveling merchant who had saved him to take him back to find his sister. Unable to refuse his pleas, the merchant brought him back to the ruins.

Having lost all hope, the only thing left in Gu Ze’s heart was revenge.

He would kill that Snow Bear and avenge his parents and sister.

Later, the merchant brought Gu Ze to Maple City. There, Gu Ze was found to have an affinity for the Ice Element and became an Apprentice Mage at the Mage Tower.

In the blink of an eye, twelve years passed.

That night became a nightmare that had haunted Gu Ze ever since.

The Nightmare was born by devouring Gu Ze’s nightmare.

The nightmare, which should have faded with time, was forced into a continuous loop under the Nightmare’s control.

Li Wei’s appearance broke the nightmare’s usual ending, preventing the Nightmare from absorbing the Power of Nightmare from this cycle. That was what provoked the Nightmare to manifest as the Snow Bear and attack him.

After absorbing Gu Ze’s Memory Fragment, Li Wei understood everything.

’So this Nightmare was the root of all the trouble.’

Li Wei had stumbled into the situation and, by accident, solved a problem that had plagued Gu Ze for over a decade.

After the Nightmare died, the snowy Dream World began to shake and collapse.

Cracks appeared at the edges of the dream, allowing gray mist to seep in as darkness began to consume everything.

Li Wei hurried back to the room.

Gu Ze’s nightmare was collapsing, the Dream World was being destroyed, and darkness billowed outside the door.

Li Wei closed the door and sat down at the table.

He began to go through the memories in his mind.

The Memory Fragment contained not only Gu Ze’s nightmare but also memories of his cultivation.

The Nightmare had tried to keep Gu Ze trapped in his nightmare forever, providing it with a steady supply of Power of Nightmare to absorb and grow.

To do this, it had sealed away and devoured all of Gu Ze’s memories from after that fateful night.

Even though most of the devoured memories were lost when the Nightmare died, the most ingrained ones remained.

After looking through them, Li Wei broke into a smile.

’Just as I thought. The completeness of a Magic Model in a dream is related to the dream host’s level of mastery.’

Li Wei found the memory of Gu Ze’s Ice Arrow Skill cultivation and, within it, the complete Magic Model for the Ice Arrow Skill.

A moment later, a new line of text appeared in the gray mist before his eyes.

[Ice Arrow Skill (Tier Zero Entry Level)] 0/1000

Li Wei assimilated Gu Ze’s cultivation experience.

Before the dream ended, his Ice Arrow Skill broke through to the Mastery Level.

[Ice Arrow Skill (Tier Zero Mastery)] 123/2000

Li Wei raised his hand to cast, and an Ice Crystal Arrow materialized in his palm.

Looking at the Ice Crystal Arrow in his hand, he shook his head in slight disappointment.

’This is far weaker than the Ice Arrow Skill that Teacher Gu Ze casts.’

When Gu Ze cast the Ice Arrow Skill, the Ice Crystal Arrow was a meter long, almost the size of a real arrow.

The Ice Crystal Arrow in Li Wei’s hand was no bigger than a chopstick.

’This is the effect of having low Ice Elemental Affinity.’

Elemental Affinity doesn’t just affect cultivation speed; it also affects the power of the magic.

With insufficient Ice Elemental Affinity, he couldn’t gather enough of the Ice Element when casting, which drastically reduced the magic’s power.

The way to compensate for this is to use Magic Materials for casting.

By directly drawing the Ice Element from the material to fuel the magic, one can bypass the effects of Elemental Affinity.

Casting the Ice Arrow Skill while holding an Ice Crystal Stone would allow him to unleash its full power.

Having finished studying the Ice Arrow Skill, Li Wei exited the Dream World.

He opened his eyes. It was 4:30 in the morning.

The moon was bright and the stars were few. Li Wei lay in bed, unable to sleep.

He had obtained the Ice Arrow Skill, but being unable to unleash its full power left him feeling dissatisfied.

’That’s right! Maybe I can ask Master Rota. He’s studied so many different schools of magic, he must have run into this problem before, right?’

At this thought, Li Wei suppressed his excitement, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.

The moment he closed his eyes, Rota’s memories and Gu Ze’s memories flooded his mind.

For a moment, he couldn’t even tell whose memories were whose.

Snapping back to reality, Li Wei opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

He raised his palm, looking at the lines on it, lost in thought.

He seemed to understand the price of using the Great Dream Traveling Skill.

The more memories he obtained, the more likely he was to get lost in the chaos of them, to lose his identity, to lose himself.

’What am I going to do about this?’