While his statement towards Jia Ming was true, the same could not be said of his mental age. Sure, his body was really just aged 10, but mentally, he was more mature than anyone in possibly the entire realm.
Li Bai then decided to hide in his ring for the time being, so as to create the image of an unfathomable expert in the mind of Jia Ming.
Initially, this had worked.
Jia Ming's eyes were filled with disbelief, as she watched how this supposed child disappear right in front of her eyes.
With his abrupt disappearance, the possibility of her believing that his age was about a decade lower than hers was absurd! How could someone as young as that have the ability to fade without a trace?
Until she heard a clink.
It was the sound of the ring hitting the wooden floor. She quickly looked towards where she suspected the sound came from, and there she saw a familiar ring.
"Hmm?" Jia Ming picked it up. "Why did he leave this here? Unless..."
With a smirk, she tried to put the ring on her middle finger. However, a sharp pain struck the tip of her finger before it even made contact with it.
"Security measures, huh?" Jia Ming couldn't help but be disappointed. As long as she could remember, she never had a ring. Even though this one looked old and crude, she still desired to wear it, at least for one second.
Inside of the ring, Li Bai was alerted that someone had tried to put it on.
"Ah, she spotted it..." Li Bai smiled wryly, as he knew that his plan had failed. Now, all he could do was go out of the ring and reveal that he had been there the whole time.
Zeng! The ring shook while on Jia Ming's palm, startling her. It started to project something, which looked like a child.
"What is happening?" Jia Ming was confused by what was going on. However, she found the situation familiar.
"Ah! When he went out of the ring last time..." She recalled early morning, when she had been sleeping bare on her bed, and this ring had interrupted her sleep.
She quickly got rid of this unfavorable memory as soon as she recognized what was happening already.
"That is how quick I can go inside the ring." With a grand entrance, Li Bai spoke, as if he had intended all of this.
Jia Ming widened her eyes. Before, she had just woken up and was not able to concentrate just yet. Now that she had seen it clearly, this was amazing!
With her horizons now widened, Jia Ming showed a face full of glee. She had her doubts regarding this supposed child's identity, but one thing was for sure, he was a capable person. At the very least, he had strong backing.
Her eyes now glowing, Jia Ming spoke. "I want to have you as my master... please accept me as your disciple!"
Li Bai, not knowing how to respond, was suddenly presented with a grovel. 'This girl, she's really determined, isn't she?'
Whatever the reason, Li Bai did not care. What he was curious about was her potential.
When he had accepted Jin He as his disciple, aside from her persistence, she also had potential that was close to equaling that of his. As such, he decided to raise this girl to be his successor should his final day come. However, this was unlikely considering that his soul was one of, if not, the strongest, eliminating the possibility of it fading.
"Stand up." Li Bai commanded Jia Ming, to which she followed immediately. She acted like a pet that was anxious about its next order.
Li Bai then swung his arm, and out of his ring came a peculiar-looking crystal. It was see-through, but there were many wisps of light hovering around inside the crystal.
He handed it to Jia Ming and introduced the item to her. "This is an Energy Crystal. It can send energy inside, scan the capacity of your gems, and go back. This way, I can determine if you are worthy or not of my teachings."
Hearing Li Bai's inroduction of the item, Jia Ming looked at it with anxiousness in her eyes. Nonetheless, she needed to do this to pass Li Bai's test. "How do I use it?"
"You just need to send a little bit of Earth energy inside." Li Bai spoke with a tinge of "this is common sense".
"Umm... what's that?" However, contrary to what Li Bai expected Jia Ming's response to be, she had no idea what was an "Earth energy".
She tried to recall the terms from her recently recovered childhood memories, but to no avail. She had never heard of an "Earth energy".
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Sorry! I forgot to upload it after I finished...
