"A mold?" Bianka blinked in confusion.
She was visibly struggling to digest this new concept.
"Um... what exactly is a mold...?" Raising her hand timidly, Bianka asked Shu with a hint of embarrassment.
Shu: "..."
Ah... right. Bianka probably hasn't ever interacted with something like that. Molds seemed like a common everyday item, but when you actually thought about their overlap with a normal person's daily life... it really wasn't that high, was it?
How many people in this world had only ever touched a play-doh mold in their entire lives?
Hesitating for only a second, Shu clapped his hands with a deadpan expression. A lump of dough and a mooncake press instantly materialized in front of him.
Right there, hovering above the ocean, Shu rapidly demonstrated how to make a mooncake.
Watching the soft, formless white dough get pressed by the mold and instantly transform into a perfectly shaped mooncake with intricate patterns, Bianka had an epiphany. She stared at it in awe, then nodded vigorously at Shu.
"I understand! So a mold is just deciding on the desired shape beforehand, and then forcing the chosen material into that exact shape, right?!"
Shu casually tossed the solid dough-mooncake and the mold into the ocean. "Yes, exactly.
"[Wish] is exactly like that mold. In essence, it is the future and the possibilities that others imagine," Shu said, dusting the phantom flour off his hands and returning to lecture mode.
"These imaginations could be small desires—like wanting to do something but lacking the courage, or wanting a minor object but being unable to obtain it. Furthermore, these can be divided into desires that are realistically achievable, and those that are inherently impossible..."
Bianka's eyes were starting to swirl with spirals.
Shu's voice trailed off. He stared speechlessly at Bianka, whose face practically screamed, 'I am trying so hard to understand.' After a moment of internal debate, he finally gave up on the meticulous script he had prepared.
In truth, Shu had genuinely prepared for this class. Everything he had planned to say today was the result of him refining and summarizing his thoughts late into the night.
But there was no helping it. Bianka clearly wasn't receptive to this method.
A practical Kaslana simply cannot endure the suffering of theoretical academics.
Whatever! We'll just improvise! Shu waved his hand, completely changing the subject.
"Bianka, what do you want to eat for lunch today?"
"Huh?" Even Bianka couldn't process the whiplash of the topic change. She didn't understand, but she respected the question. After thinking for a moment, she gave her honest answer. "Uh... meat?"
"Do you want to eat meat right now, or are you planning to eat it for lunch?" Shu pressed.
"Uh..." Bianka frowned, thinking hard. "Probably... right now?"
She blushed slightly, looking a bit embarrassed.
It was true that she wanted to eat meat right now. After all, someone of her status would undeniably have plenty of meat provided for lunch and dinner—she didn't even need to think about that.
Shu nodded in validation. He pointed at her and asked, "So you want to eat meat right now. But can you actually get any meat right now?"
Bianka immediately shook her head.
She had come out here specifically for training. Aside from the clothes on her back, she hadn't brought anything with her. How could she possibly have a piece of meat on her?
"Exactly. You can't eat it. Right now, you can only imagine yourself eating meat. You imagine the taste, you imagine what kind of meat it is—barbecue, braised... Wipe your drool."
Bianka frantically wiped the corner of her mouth, slurping back a little bit of saliva. She thought deeply about his words for a moment, and then a spark of inspiration hit her.
"So... that kind of fantasy is [Wish]? To a normal person, it's just an expectation, something they can only think about in their head. But for us, it's a reality that can actually be achieved?"
Smack! Shu clapped his hands in pleasant surprise.
This analogy actually worked. Just a few simple sentences using food, and Bianka had grasped the fundamental essence of [Wish].
"Exactly. And this kind of fantasy can be extended to every aspect of reality.
"For example, in daily life, I might want a bottle of water. When traveling, I might want a pair of wings. In combat, I might need a sharp sword or a spear capable of piercing the enemy's defenses..."
"Wait, why specifically a sword that pierces their defenses?" Bianka's "food IQ" was undeniably high, but her combat IQ was genuinely top-tier.
The moment the prerequisite of "piercing defenses" was mentioned, Bianka sensed something was off.
"And that is the unique aspect of [Wish]," Shu said, incredibly relieved that the topic was finally back on track. "The world within a person's imagination is highly exaggerated.
"In reality, for an ordinary sword to cleave through a solid block of dense metal alloy is practically impossible.
"But now, imagine there is such a block of metal right in front of you. How would you cut it open?"
Shu waved his hand, and a cubic meter of solid metal alloy materialized in the air between them.
"I..." Bianka stared intently at the manifested metal block, lowering her head in deep thought.
She could obviously blow the alloy block to pieces with a single punch. But Shu's specific requirement was to cut it open. Simply punching it clearly wouldn't do.
So... a hand chop?
"Logically speaking, we have two methods. The first is to obtain a sword that is genuinely capable of slicing through iron as if it were mud... Wait, what are you doing?"
Shu was mid-lecture when he looked up, only to see Bianka forming her hand into a rigid blade and viciously chopping down onto the metal block.
KRAAANG—
The ear-piercing shriek of contorting metal caused Shu's face to contort in sympathy.
The metal block didn't split perfectly in two as Bianka had intended. Instead, the sheer kinetic force of her hand chop smashed a massive, deformed dent into it.
Ah. Failed.
Bianka guiltily retracted her hand, flashing Shu an embarrassed smile.
Shu deadpanned. He raised his hand, and the severely dented metal block instantly reverted to a perfect, undamaged cube.
"Let's just skip straight to the second method... Bianka, can you currently think of any ability you possess that could cleanly slice this block open?"
Bianka hid her hands behind her back and seriously shook her head.
"I can't think of any method I have to slice it open like a sword would... Maybe I could learn Senior Fu Hua's Edge of Taixuan?"
That was the only solution she could come up with.
The Eminence technique of the Edge of Taixuan could indeed accomplish this. Its core principle was transforming all things in the world into a blade to strike the enemy.
For example, the most classic application of the Edge of Taixuan was essentially turning the very sky itself into a sword and dropping it directly onto someone's head.
Shu had been on the receiving end of two such strikes.
If Bianka mastered the Edge of Taixuan and reached the level of Eminence, cleanly severing this metal block with her bare hands wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility.
Shu validated her thought process.
"You're right. Using the Edge of Taixuan to cleave through this block would be incredibly simple. If you learned it, this wouldn't be a problem at all."
"Then I'll go find Senior Fu Hua and ask her to teach me right now!" Bianka immediately turned, ready to bolt back to base, but Shu hurriedly stopped her.
"Perhaps, you don't actually need to learn it."