It turned out nothing like I had imagined.The reactive shield enhanced the striking properties of the Monkey and the Iron Head, but it also had a drawback — a negative effect on the recoil of the technique. After executing it, I would freeze for half a second longer.Layered shields, on the other hand, could potentially cut recoil by a quarter of a second — an eternity in battle.Black Dragon’s Blood was out, along with the Fire Ginseng Root, Black Pine Resin, and Valkast Ash.The new shortlist: Living Glass, Sea Serpent Scale, Central Plate from the Carapace of a Giant Black Turtle, and Crystallised Black Lotus.The last one was the cheapest, since it came from our own Black Lotus — the school’s symbol. Crystallised Black Lotus didn’t just layer a cultivator’s shield, it fragmented it into thousands of interconnected segments. Each layer was micron-thin, stacked one atop another, so the shield looked unchanged to the eye. But after a breakthrough with this material, the shield didn’t always collapse after being pierced. If the hole was small, it could ‘heal’ itself by regenerating the damaged segments.Of course, I fell in love with the idea immediately. It cost only 1,800 points. Novak could easily get me one for units, but Kate had spoken about having back-up options, so I prepared them too. At the same time, I came to better understand how the materials worked.The same Crystallised Black Lotus not only altered the shield, it also influenced the Point root. For cultivators of that qi, it layered their attack as well. I’d never looked into it before, but it turned out they too used a kind of force field, wrapping it around their weapon. The Lotus created several such fields, nested inside one another. On one hand, this reduced their penetrating power against a plain shield, but on the other, it improved their ability to pierce formations and segmented shields.A dilemma…It would be quite funny if (...)