Liu Xing wanted to believe the sculptor was exaggerating, but he knew that obsession could sometimes become unhealthy. He recalled the story of Van Gogh, who had cut off his own ear in a desperate attempt to understand pain.

"Hmm, let's just ignore this page," he muttered to himself. While that paragraph likely held a deeper meaning, Liu Xing's immediate desire was to learn this free technique. Flipping the page, he saw a bizarre pattern spread across two pages. It resembled a painting of a single, narrow eye. Above the eye, he saw a sentence.

"To learn this technique, you need to accept this contract."

Upon seeing this, Liu Xing stopped running and examined the page more closely.

"Contract?" he muttered.

He had never encountered a technique that required a contract before. Techniques typically involved specific qi cycling patterns, focused intent, visualization, and other elements to activate them. Contracts were unfamiliar in his experience, though he considered it possible that magical contracts existed to ensure agreements were upheld.

Deciding to rest by the roadside, Liu Xing turned to the third and fourth pages. The third page showed a rather long cycling pattern, but his attention was immediately drawn to the next page. An illustration of a round gray shield with a green gem in the center, it was depicted with such detail that it appeared as if a real shield had been pressed into the page.

The subsequent two pages presented another cycling pattern alongside an illustration of a turtle. This turtle had a smiling face, green eyes, and several gems embedded in its gray shell, while the final two pages of the book showed a cycling pattern and an illustration of a girl. She gazed upwards, her face etched with a frown, as if witnessing something unpleasant in the sky. Her robe was elaborate, featuring a wave pattern. Though the illustration was grayscale Liu Xing imagined her wearing a blue cultivator's robe if it were colored.

Curiously, there was no explicit explanation of the technique's effects after activation. However, given the title, it seemed logical that it would summon the statues depicted in the illustrations: a shield, a turtle, and a girl.

After memorizing the qi cycling pattern, he tried the technique, but nothing happened. It was as if he had made a mistake. He tried several more times, double-checking the pattern, before realizing that something felt incomplete. The technique felt... empty.

Returning to the second page, to the eye pattern spanning two pages, Liu Xing understood. The technique would remain dormant unless he accepted the contract.

"Should I accept the contract or not?" Liu Xing muttered to himself.

A contract was binding, after all, and the specifics of this one remained unknown. What if accepting it forced him into unwanted actions, like some absurd demand for daily sacrifices?

He pinched his chin in thought. He needed to become stronger, and if this contract offered a path to power, he would consider it. There was inherent risk, but Liu Xing knew that progress sometimes demanded embracing risk.

"Alright, let's do it." Liu Xing pondered how to accept the contract. For a moment, he considered smearing a drop of blood onto the center of the eye, but instead decided to send qi into the book. As his qi touched the page, the book greedily absorbed it, and the eye pattern began to shift. It fractured into thousands of tiny dots, each swirling across the page for a moment before reforming into the eye illustration. This time, however, the eye was complete, a fully rendered, realistic drawing. An eyebrow now arched above the eye, and Liu Xing found it strangely familiar.

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After a few moments of observation, recognition dawned on him. It was his own eye.

As the realization struck, he felt a mental connection to the book, akin to the link he shared with his gun.

"Alright, it seems the process is complete."

Flipping the page, Liu Xing found the cycling pattern for summoning the round shield. He proceeded to perform the pattern, eager to test the shield first. Because this technique wasn't lightning-based, many of the cycling patterns were unfamiliar. However, he had already memorized the pattern for the girl statue, and he noted some similarities between the two. Standing, he cycled his qi according to the pattern, willing the technique to activate as he completed it.

Suddenly, a round shield materialized directly in front of him. Appearing in mid-air, it immediately fell to the ground. Liu Xing examined the gray shield resting on the ground. It was quite large, over half a meter in diameter, with a prominent green gem set in its center. Touching the shield, he felt a surface as smooth as the finest polished stone.

Liu Xing turned the shield over and located the handle. Grasping it, he lifted the shield, adjusted his grip, and struck a pose, simulating defense against an attack.

"Hmm, there must be more to this shield," he thought.

He attempted to channel qi into the shield, but it bounced off as if the shield were simply a rock. He then tried to dismiss the shield, and succeeded, the process mirroring how he dismissed his gun.

Next, Liu Xing opened the next page and memorized the cycle pattern for the turtle statue. The statue appeared a few meters away. It was large, about the size of a polar bear, and its smile was friendly. He then tried to summon the girl statue, intending to place her on top of the giant turtle. But to his surprise, when the statue of the girl appeared, the turtle disappeared. Observing this, he dismissed the girl statue and pinched his chin. It seemed that he could only summon one statue at a time.

"Alright, one more experiment, then I'll stop and focus on gathering treasures." Before learning this Statue Summoning Technique, Liu Xing had encountered several shield techniques designed for aerial maneuverability. Now possessing a physical shield, he wondered if he could utilize it as a stepping stone.

Liu Xing summoned his gun in his left hand and then summoned the shield in front of him. He caught the shield before it hit the ground and held it. Next, he channeled qi into his gun, creating six bullets, then reabsorbing the qi, and directing it at the shield. Previously, qi had bounced off the shield, but this pure qi was eagerly absorbed. Soon, the green gem in the center of the shield glowed brightly, and Liu Xing felt a mental connection to the shield, as if it possessed a rudimentary consciousness.

He slowly released his grip on the shield, and to his astonishment, it floated in the air, vibrating gently like a delighted child greeting its parent. A grin spread across Liu Xing's face, his heart racing with excitement. He willed the shield to move, and like an obedient puppy, it drifted away, light as a bubble on the breeze.

Liu Xing jumped and landed on top of the floating shield. It dipped momentarily under his weight, but then stabilized, remaining suspended in the air.

Realizing his accomplishment, Liu Xing chuckled aloud. "I'm flying!"

Various methods of flight existed, including riding swords. Some cultivators utilized shields, and it seemed he, too, would become a shield rider.

He willed the shield to move, and it obeyed. However, its movement was too slow. Liu Xing felt as if he were riding an elevator, not a flying shield. He willed it to accelerate, but it began to vibrate more intensely, as if protesting that it was already at its maximum speed. Understanding that this shield was not built for rapid flight, moving instead with the pace of a crawling turtle, Liu Xing sighed.

Still, disappointment was minimal. His initial goal was a technique akin to Air Steps, and while different, this shield would likely serve as a tool for aerial maneuvering.

"But how do I actually do it?" he wondered.

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