He changed Tiwat

Han Fulai's act of hiding behind the Jade Shield and spewing "poison" at the enemy is undoubtedly a very unethical act for the Qiuqiu people who admire martial prowess, and is despised by them.

Of course, Han Fulai didn't understand what he was saying, and even if he did, it wouldn't affect his actions—after all, he was a 24-year-old young man who didn't care about martial ethics.

If he could understand Hilichurls, he would argue back vehemently: "It was you old Abyss Mages who tricked and ambushed us first!"

However, the slight corrosiveness of sodium acetate powder alone is clearly insufficient to defeat the Hilichurl thugs and the Abyssal Mage.

The "snow" that Han Fulai brought had the following effects: it made the Hilichurl thug's skin itchy; it mixed sodium acetate into the four water orbs around him, forming a turbid sodium acetate solution; and it covered the Abyss Mage's water elemental shield with a layer of white powder, like dust being sprinkled on a car windshield...

In short, it is not very lethal, but it is very insulting.

Clearly, Han Fulai's actions only fueled their ferocity. It's like an enemy wielding a knife and attacking you; your retaliation is spitting at the enemy—while this certainly disgusts them, it also makes them want to stab you a few more times.

"Kundala ye plata!" The abyssal mage commanded, gesturing wildly within the water elemental shield.

A more faithful, expressive, and elegant translation would be "beat him up."

As the Abyss Mage roared, Han Fulai's spear finally moved.

The power of the Salt God was concentrated on the tip of his spear, which swept around him.

His target was the four water orbs released by the Abyss Mage.

Generally speaking, the water spheres released by the Abyss Mage will envelop any enemy that touches them. If the external force is too strong, they will shatter and turn into countless water droplets.

However, Han Fulai was neither enveloped by the water spheres nor broke them. After the tip of his spear touched them, the four water spheres instantly changed from a turbid state back to a colorless and transparent state. With his force, they flew towards the Hill Crawler and the Abyss Mage respectively, seemingly slowly but actually quickly.

The Abyss Mage snorted, waved his staff, and pointed at the incoming water sphere.

Although it didn't know how Han Fulai managed to neither puncture the water spheres nor be sucked into them, this didn't affect its control over its own attacks. Since it had summoned the water spheres, it could naturally command them to disappear.

But its magic had no effect—the water spheres were no longer under its control.

Once these water spheres were mixed with sodium acetate to form a solution, they were already under the control of Han Fulai's Salt God power.

They are no longer simple water spheres—but rather “supersaturated sodium acetate solutions”!

The moment these water spheres made contact with the monsters, something strange happened—the water spheres exploded mercilessly on the monsters.

Then, ice crystals visibly formed on the monsters' bodies.

The Abyss Mage's water shield only lasted a few seconds before breaking—because Han Fulai threw two water balls at it.

“Celi…” The Abyss Mage’s last words were drowned out by the ice crystals.

In the blink of an eye, the Abyss Mage and the two Hilichurl thugs were turned into ice sculptures.

"Eh, what is this..." Ke Qing, who arrived late, blinked her big eyes, unable to comprehend the scene before her.

Shen He also stroked her chin, a look of doubt on her face. As far as she knew, Han Fulai didn't possess the Eye of the Ice. Freezing enemies into ice sculptures was something that could only be done using ice elemental power.

But for Han Fulai, this was just a chemistry experiment he had seen in middle school classrooms, a highlight moment for chemistry teachers to gain the admiring gazes of their students—the "water turning into ice" magic trick.

The principle is actually quite simple. Sodium acetate, scientifically known as sodium acetate trihydrate, contains a large amount of water in its crystals. When these crystals are placed in water and heated to the melting point of sodium acetate crystals, which is about 60 degrees Celsius, the crystals will melt while releasing bound water. The molten sodium acetate will then dissolve in the released water, forming a very concentrated solution.

Cooling these solutions to room temperature will not cause precipitation; instead, they will become supersaturated solutions. When Han Fulai touched the four water spheres with his black-tasseled spear, he used the power of the Salt God to accelerate this heating and cooling process, turning the four water spheres into transparent supersaturated sodium acetate solutions.

A supersaturated solution of sodium acetate is an unstable system, but it can still exist in solution form under normal conditions, provided that this unstable system is not disturbed. Once a supersaturated sodium acetate solution comes into contact with trace amounts of sodium acetate crystals, such as the powder on Hilichurls and Abyssal Mages, the excess solute in the solution will precipitate out and crystallize.

These crystals did not form due to low temperatures; quite the opposite, they formed during an exothermic process. The Abyss Mage's last words were "celi," which means "hot" in Hilichurl.

In fact, many "warm baby" devices in Chinese society are made with a supersaturated sodium acetate solution, utilizing the exothermic phenomenon during the crystallization process of sodium acetate for warmth.

So in reality, the Hilichurl thugs and Abyss mages weren't frozen to death, but rather—suffocated after being scalded.

Of course, Han Fulai wouldn't care whether his enemy died peacefully or not.

He is now feeling very gratified and proud of the successful practical application of the Salt God's power.

In Heuria's time, the power of the Salt God was considered by the demons to be the weakest power, but that was only because the demons did not know how terrifying the Salt God's power was.

There's a famous saying in Han Fulai's world: "There are no weak Pokémon, only incompetent trainers!"

How terrifying it was to grant a small-town test-taker, who had studied systematic chemistry, the power of the Salt God—the ignorant monsters of Teyvat learned of this fear for the first time.

But they never had the chance to speak again.

Han Fulai put his gun behind his back and sighed softly:

"There is no power that is weak, only a god that is ignorant."

Chapter 117 All Heavenly Secrets Are Calculated, Yet the Body Is Breached

Seeing that Shen He and Ke Qing had returned to his side and the current crisis had been resolved, Han Fulai removed the Jade Pendant Shield.

Although he has been enhanced by the remnants of the demon god, he can now maintain the Jade Shield for a relatively long time, but it still consumes energy.

More importantly, when he maintained the Jade Shield, he was cosplaying as the Rock King, so his speech had a strange sense of chuunibyou (adolescent delusions of grandeur) – for example, he just now had an arrogant and domineering attitude towards the ignorant demons, as if he were invincible. This was because he was just cosplaying the Rock King's "emperor mentality."

These words would be more in line with Zhongli's status, but for him, they sounded rather arrogant.

Generally speaking, Han Fulai is a rather humble and cautious person, but when cosplaying the Emperor, he always has a whole repertoire of mocking his opponents—it is likely that the demons defeated by Morax, such as the Sea God, held a grudge against Morax for thousands of years, which was largely due to Morax's mockery.

During the Demon God War, Zhongli probably said things like, "Little gods of the sea, you did your best," and "Oser, you weren't bad..."

Han Fulai vividly remembers the time when he asked Shen He to test the effect of the Jade Shield, and then, due to overconfidence, he provoked Shen He and ended up getting a good beating.

Speaking of which, when he fought Clement, he was also seriously making all sorts of sarcastic remarks. Han Fulai believed that this was all Zhongli's fault, because rationally speaking, Zhongli had the right to taunt his opponents throughout Teyvat during a fight.

So he has to avoid cosplaying Zhongli while chatting with people, lest he accidentally say something like, "Master Ke, Master He, do you dare to face me head-on?"

"Ahe, Lord Keqing, are you alright?" Han Fulai asked.

"No." Shen He shook his head.

Keqing frowned deeply, "There's no reason for these monsters to suddenly appear here..."

During the Lantern Festival, she and Han Fulai visited Xiao, so she naturally knew that this Great Sage Who Subdues Demons regularly exorcised demons near the Wangshu Inn. This place wasn't far from the Wangshu Inn, and Ke Qing also felt that Xiao had no reason to allow demons to attack humans right under his nose.

But Jiang Xue suddenly spoke up: "This statement is strange. Since it is a non-human monster, how can we use human reasoning to speculate about it?"

Han Fulai was taken aback. Not only had Jiang Xue been very perceptive in discovering these monsters early on, but she also seemed to take it very lightly in her words.

Now that the demon has been dealt with, the most important thing now is to find out Jiang Xue's background.

"May I ask how you know when these guys will appear?" Han Fulai asked in a serious tone.

Although theoretically, if Jiang Xue wanted to harm him, she could have cooperated with the monster to do so just now, the possibility that she was involved in this attack cannot be ruled out.

"Monsters are not human, so we can't use human reasoning to understand them. We can use the reasoning of monsters instead. I am very familiar with monsters and their reasoning, so I can understand them."

Jiang Xue took off her straw hat, revealing a somewhat haggard face.

Han Fulai then realized that the angler named Jiang Xue was actually only around thirty years old, but his full beard made him look much older than his actual age, and there was an inescapable weariness and dejection in his eyes.

Moreover, his claim of being "familiar with monsters and able to guess their thoughts" is even more puzzling.

Keqing has had adventures and has had a lot of contact with monsters, while Shenhe, as a disciple of the immortals, often subdues demons and monsters. They are certainly familiar with monsters, but they dare not say that they can fathom the thoughts of monsters.

As a Genshin Impact player and transmigrator, Han Fulai knew a lot of information that people on the Teyvat continent didn't know, but even so, he didn't dare to boast that he could guess what the monsters were thinking.

Who exactly is this Jiang Xue?

Just as Han Fulai was filled with doubt, Jiang Xue let out a heavy sigh.

"Sigh... here we go again."

As if in response to his words, a huge flying machine suddenly appeared from the void above their heads.

It has a helicopter-like structure with four mechanical arms, a round, cockpit-like head on its chest, and legs made of fan-like blades, resembling the tail of a helicopter.

Han Fulai's pupils contracted.

If the appearance of Abyss Mages and Hilichurls could be considered a natural migration of monsters and thus understandable, then there is absolutely no reason for this thing to appear here—because the one flying in the sky is what players commonly call "Flying Little Treasure" or "Ruins Hunter".

Even in games, such flying killing weapons developed by the Kanria civilization are quite rare.

Moreover, it appeared out of the void right before everyone's eyes, clearly indicating that it had been summoned by someone!

The key question is—who summoned it? Could it be that Jiang Xue's ability to sense the monsters and the "Ruins Hunters" is because he orchestrated everything?

Or perhaps, this guy is a fortune teller?

Before he could figure it out, the "Ruins Hunter" had already made his move.

The "Relic Hunter" lit up its eye and accelerated as it swooped down toward the group. One of its four arms spun rapidly, like an oil well drill bit. Han Fulai had no doubt that its attack was powerful enough to split mountains and shatter rocks.

This is the "Overload Transmission - Charge Slash" of the "Ruins Hunter".

Because everyone was gathered together talking, and the "Ruins Hunter" appeared so suddenly, it had already launched an attack by the time they noticed it.

Generally speaking, the best way to deal with this move is to dodge. But unfortunately, Jiang Xue, an "ordinary citizen" who needs protection, is also present—at least that's how Ke Qing sees it.

Therefore, Keqing's first reaction was to pull Jiang Xue away to avoid her.

But when she reached out her hand, she was surprised to find that Jiang Xue had disappeared at some point, leaving only a swaying sampan on the river.

The one in danger now is Ke Qing.

The bigger problem is that Han Fulai's Jade Shield has entered a cooling-off period.

In the game, Zhongli's Jade Shield is known to be very powerful, one of the reasons being that the duration of the Jade Shield is longer than the skill's cooldown time.

Zhongli's own original shield obviously doesn't have a cooldown issue, just like Xiao can also continuously use "Wind Wheel Stands Alone" to carry Han Fulai around everywhere.

However, for Han Fulai to use the Jade Shield, he needs a process of adjusting his mindset and mobilizing his immortal power; it is not something he can control at will.

At the critical moment, Shen He made a move.

"Ice Body Born of Intent! Manifest!"

A spirit appeared, its hands raised to create a thick ice shield, which it used to meet the onrushing "Relic Hunter".

The ice shield collided with the "Ruin Hunter's" "Charge Slash," producing a loud bang.

The "Relic Hunter" was knocked away, and the ice shield was shattered into pieces.

But the "Relic Hunter's" attack did not end. It quickly adjusted its posture, and its four arms moved in unison to launch "Swift Transmission - Combination Iron Edge".

The three arms swung their weapons in unison, like three giant blades descending from the sky and striking the three people.

All three reacted quickly, and after the ice shield bought them time, they immediately retreated, avoiding the three slashes.

But Han Fulai knew that the "Relic Hunter" had two more wide-range slashes to follow.

The "Relic Hunter" mechanical body twisted and spun at high speed, unleashing a wide-range spinning slash! Not only that, but immediately after the spinning slash ended, it added a vertical slash like "splitting a mountain," targeting Han Fulai!

Chapter 118 A Drenched and Painful Slash Amidst the Subdued Storm

Keqing and Shenhe reacted quickly, either leaping or using Thunder Wedges to escape the range of the "Ruins Hunter's" spinning slash.

Han Fulai didn't react as quickly—in terms of combat experience, he was far inferior to Shen He and Ke Qing, and he had not undergone proper martial arts training, so he didn't have the kind of dodging ability that could be developed into muscle memory.

Ultimately, he's a melee mage!

For mages, martial arts are merely for physical fitness; melee combat skills are just for show. Someone like Xingqiu, who actually turned a mere showy display into true martial arts prowess, is an exceptional case among exceptional cases.

When a mage is attacked, they either teleport or activate a shield.

So Han Fulai opened the shield, not the Jade Shield, but the Salt Shield.

The ice shield that Shen He had just used had given him enough time to adjust the power of the demon god's remnants, and he used the black-tasseled spear in his hand as a framework to condense a "spear shield".

He propped himself up with his spear, from which extended a white shield—a sturdy shield made of marble.

Ordinary marble could not withstand the slashes of the "Relic Hunter", but the marble shield made by Han Fulai contained the magical power of the Salt God!

The power of the killing machine, the might to split mountains and shatter rocks, could only manage to create a crack when it met this shield.

Shen He and Ke Qing are not the type to just take a beating without fighting back—especially they can't stand by and watch Han Fulai get beaten.

The two women simultaneously let out a sharp cry, and two figures, one in white and one in purple, leaped into the air, launching a combined attack on the "Ruins Hunter" from two different directions.

Amidst the clang of metal, the Calamity-Suppressing Spear and the Dragon's Roar from its Sheath collided with the two arms of the "Ruins Hunter".

The three clashed briefly in mid-air before separating. Ke Qing and Shen He exchanged a glance, already preparing for their next attack.

But this "Relic Hunter" was much more intelligent than they had imagined—or rather, the person operating this "Relic Hunter" was very clever.

Having missed its target, the "Ruins Hunter" gave the three on the ground no chance to retaliate and immediately fled into the distance.

It accelerated its ascent, and in the blink of an eye, it had already risen vertically dozens of meters into the air.

This distance exceeds the range that Keqing's Thunder Wedge can attack, and if Shenhe does not unleash the power of the Sea God's remnants within her body, her icy power will also be unable to reach far.

Clearly, the "Ruins Hunter" had figured out the attack range of the three targets on the ground, since both spears and longswords were melee weapons.

The biggest advantage of the "Ruins Hunter" lies in this: it can attack at both close and long range, and its ranged attack capability is extremely strong!