[MHM SO YOU SAY while privately Cao Pi is mentally sizing this guy up as a potential...ally? What do you call people who can give as good as they get and match his level of sarcasm so delightfully?
Anyway, here in the present, he focuses on the tree as pointed out and slips the second blade out of its sheath at the same time. Whatever this ability is, he's used it a certain way so many times that it's basically instinct. Sweeping the blades out and around in a circular gesture, he manages to - somehow?? - conjure a floating batch of ice crystals above his head, brilliant and beautiful shards that don't look like much in the darkness. A point of the blade-tip toward the tree, and the shards follow his movement to fly straight at the target, hammering branches and piercing the trunk. Half the tree is demolished, the other half slowly freezes over for a brief moment, lingering longer perhaps because it's a little chilly in this September air.
That's it, though. That's all he's got, and Zihuan stands down, breathing softly. He won't be able to do it a second time until he regains some focus.]
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Anyway, here in the present, he focuses on the tree as pointed out and slips the second blade out of its sheath at the same time. Whatever this ability is, he's used it a certain way so many times that it's basically instinct. Sweeping the blades out and around in a circular gesture, he manages to - somehow?? - conjure a floating batch of ice crystals above his head, brilliant and beautiful shards that don't look like much in the darkness. A point of the blade-tip toward the tree, and the shards follow his movement to fly straight at the target, hammering branches and piercing the trunk. Half the tree is demolished, the other half slowly freezes over for a brief moment, lingering longer perhaps because it's a little chilly in this September air.
That's it, though. That's all he's got, and Zihuan stands down, breathing softly. He won't be able to do it a second time until he regains some focus.]
Well. It does seem to work as I remember it.