Chapter 104: What One Strives to Do

The conditions for triggering a bond were things Yuxing had only just managed to piece together into a few rules.

First, the other party had to be someone who knew Yuxing.

Second, the other party had to have a concept of the "Yuxing" of the present. If they only knew the Yuxing of the past, it wouldn't count. There was no single correct answer to what that concept had to be, either—just as the Yuxing in Tregear's mind was bound to be different from the Yuxing in Uncle Oda's mind. To Tregear, Yuxing was the host chosen by Taiga, a human being. To Uncle Oda, he was probably the "Azerothian" Yuxing had made up on the spot. But that didn't matter. As long as the concept pointed to Yuxing, it worked.

Finally, there was completing the task.

It was a lot like an RPG. Sometimes the task was to satisfy the other party's needs, to help them solve a difficult problem—those were the hard ones. Yuxing had to recognize that a task had been given, identify the other party's needs, and then go fulfill them. Other tasks were simple. Just complete a conversation, and the "bond" was formed.

Some bonds came easily, some came painfully, and some came for no discernible reason at all. But once they made it onto the panel of Yuxing's Taiga Light Key, they were all equal—one point each, neither noble nor base.

They carried equal power.

Just like now. Though the road here had been winding, once Yuxing and Fuma had finally gotten connected, the "link" was established without any trouble—even if the two of them had been connected through Taiga.

Yuxing was Taiga's partner, and Fuma was Taiga's partner, so it only stood to reason that Yuxing and Fuma had become partners too.

Specks of starlight drifted up from the sapphire, condensing in Yuxing's hand into a key-shaped object similar to the Taiga Light Key. In truth, calling it a key was a bit of a stretch—its shape was more like a kunai, which fit Fuma's character to a tee.

This was the Light Key that stored Fuma's nebula particles. The blue orb at its center was dense with color, brimming with power, healthy and strong. By contrast, the orb on Taiga's Light Key that Yuxing held in his other hand was still a sickly, translucent white.

Good. He could finally leave the starting village now.

Yuxing gripped the Light Key with its cool surface, and a feeling he couldn't quite name welled up in his chest.

It was like after completing a long, drawn-out fetch quest, the village chief of the starting town finally handed you the wooden sword that proved you were ready to venture out and train in the world beyond. The invisible wall at the village gate dissolved, and you could go explore a brand-new map.

Now that he had the power to grow giant, at least he could get into the ring and wrestle with kaiju. Unlike before, when he didn't even have the right to step onto the field.

As for becoming a "tool"...

"Yuxing," deep down, had never accepted that way of putting it. The viewers who called him a "tool" seemed to think he was being "used" and that his "combat contribution" was too small.

But Yuxing didn't think his relationship with the three Giants of Light was one of user and used.

Take him and Taiga, for example. Taiga had saved little Yuxing back then, and little Yuxing had saved Taiga in return. Perhaps "mutually dependent" would be a more fitting description.

And as for him and the Tri-Squad—Yuxing had always carried a wish for a world of harmony. To see that wish come true, he had to pay a price. Yuxing wouldn't presume that the current order on Earth was good; order itself defied easy judgment of good or bad. But clearly, that order sheltered the vast majority of Earth's natives and off-world visitors alike, and everyone was busy living their lives under an unspoken mutual understanding.

But enemies had arisen who sought to shatter that order. They stoked conflict and incited chaos, all to satisfy their own selfish desires—

At times like that, Yuxing needed the Tri-Squad's power to fight those enemies. And Taiga and the others needed Yuxing's flesh-and-blood body to materialize from their nebula-particle state.

The price Yuxing paid was his body.

Yuxing truly hadn't personally taken to the field all that much. But the Taiga Spark was a device that fought by borrowing the body of a life-form whose quantum structure differed from that of the Giants of Light. A portion of the combat damage taken by Taiga and the others was fed back to Yuxing. And he had no recovery equipment like the Stone Wings—he could only grit his teeth and endure with his ordinary mortal frame. All Yuxing could do was treat his injuries promptly and reassure Taiga and the others not to worry about him. He knew well that fighting while holding back would only get you killed; going all out might at least buy a sliver of a chance to live.

Yuxing maintained that he still contributed to the fight. At the very least, the wounds on his body weren't fakes.

He was ready.

Fuma's phantasmal form gradually dissolved into starlight and drifted toward Yuxing, still chattering enthusiastically: "With the Light Key, we can fight together now... Huh?"

The voice was cut off mid-sentence.

Yuxing looked down and saw that Fuma—already reduced to a small blue figure of light—had tumbled headfirst onto the tabletop. The fading special effect had vanished too.

Fuma scrambled to his feet in a sorry state, looking dazed.

"What's wrong, Fuma?"

An uneasy premonition rose unbidden in Yuxing's chest.

"..."

Fuma didn't answer. His body faded again, and his little glowing blue particles took a step back in a surprisingly human way—like he was winding up. Then, with a sudden burst of speed, he tried to fly at Yuxing again. This time, though, he went hurtling backward even faster.

"Fuma?!"

Yuxing quickly reached out to catch him, but the little blue figure was only a projection, passing straight through his palm and nearly flying off the table.

"Are you okay?!"

Yuxing watched Fuma, who looked like he'd been knocked silly, with deep concern.

"Weird..."

Fuma got up and rubbed the back of his head. It wasn't that he'd bumped it—he was genuinely baffled. He looked Yuxing up and down. "I can't merge with your body. I got bounced out. Is it because Taiga is already inside you?"

"Impossible!"

The unexpected turn of events caught Yuxing completely off guard. He'd read the script, and the script said it was possible! He'd spent more than twenty episodes in the original series covered in big sweaty men every single day—was that all a lie?

With absolute conviction, Yuxing rejected Fuma's guess, trying to push back: "There's no rule saying a life-form can only 'form a contract' with one Light Key, is there?"

But Fuma had already given up on the idea. From his perspective, he didn't see it as a bug; he simply assumed the Taiga Spark system did have such a rule. Yuxing's insistence came across as having no leg to stand on: "But there's also no rule saying a life-form can form contracts with multiple Light Keys, right? And there's no precedent—"

To be precise, when Brother Taro had handed them the Taiga Spark, he hadn't said anything except how to use it.

But... I am the "precedent"!

Yuxing was frustrated. Yuxing couldn't say it out loud.

He'd gotten Fuma's Light Key in hand, and yet he couldn't use it?! He couldn't?!

And Fuma could see Yuxing's shock and disappointment, though he had no idea what Yuxing was shocked about or what he was disappointed about. All he could do was offer comfort: "Sorry. If that's the case, I might not be able to be of much help. Don't be upset, Yuxing..."

"I'm fine, sorry," Yuxing said, forcing a smile and pulling himself together. "What I mean is, Fuma, you've already helped me."

After all, he was in enemy territory. Yuxing had no time to wallow. He quickly adjusted his mindset, telling himself: at least the bond value went up by one, and his physical capabilities could be enhanced again, and his perception would sharpen several times over. It wasn't a loss.

But when Yuxing touched Taiga's Light Key to open the panel, intending to allocate the newly earned bond point, he was greeted with another delightful surprise—

The first surprise: the value under the "Door" skill was still 10/10. Yuxing had clearly used the "Door" once to teleport, yet it hadn't gone down to 9/10. That forced Yuxing to abandon his earlier guess. Ten wasn't a use count, then—it was something else?

He had to admit, anything from the Science and Technology Bureau was top-tier quality. Nearly ten minutes had passed, and the side effect of the "Door" still hadn't manifested, hadn't come looking for trouble. Which confirmed that the restraint device was indeed effective.

The second surprise: the second skill slot had unlocked. At the same time, a third and fourth skill had appeared in the candidate skill interface, with the third one already unlocked and only the fourth still grayed out and locked.

At this point, the interface displayed four skill slots in total, two of which had been unlocked. And this change had occurred after Yuxing connected with Fuma.

So Yuxing immediately formed a guess—

Four slots... they wouldn't happen to mean Taiga, Fuma, Titas, and Yuxing, would they?

In that case, when the four of them were reunited, that would probably be when every slot unlocked.

That was also what Yuxing had been giving his all to accomplish all along.