For several breaths, Mu Qingyao could not speak, her emerald eyes remaining fixed upon Mu Feng as though she feared that any sudden movement might shatter the words she had just heard.
Saved...?
Her father could be... saved?
After weeks of watching the black corpse poison slowly devour everything the Evergreen Sect’s best physicians placed against it, those words struck harder than any cultivation technique.
"Uncle Mu... please explain everything. What did you find? Who has it? How certain are you?" Mu Qingyao finally demanded, her voice trembling despite her attempt to control it.
Mu Feng immediately began recounting everything.
He spoke of Jian Rui and the other Outer Hall disciples returning with news of a strange foreign cultivator named Damian Baines.
He explained the man’s unusual cultivation state, the strange spiritual fluctuations surrounding his artifacts, his apparent ability to manipulate fire and ice through a method Mu Feng could not recognize, and even how the fellow had actually perceived Mu Feng’s Spirit Sense when casually probed.
Then came the merchandise.
Mana Crystals similar to unusually pure Low-Grade Spirit Stones, spell scrolls functioning like foreign talismans, weapons of little significance, and finally, the potions.
Mu Feng described Damian’s claims, his own disbelief, and how he had purchased one sample of each before immediately rushing toward the Hall of Verdant Rejuvenation.
When he reached Zhao Han, Mu Feng’s explanation became increasingly excited.
"The boy’s abdomen had been destroyed, parts of his organs were gone, his meridians were damaged, and even his foundation had suffered corrosion. He had several hours left at most! I gave him one bottle, Young Miss. One bottle! Within ten breaths, everything had regenerated. His organs, his flesh, his meridians, even the damage to his foundation! I personally checked him, and so did everyone present!" Mu Feng declared breathlessly.
Mu Qingyao’s eyes widened, and even this composed young woman could not hide her extreme reaction.
"Completely healed?" she asked in disbelief.
"Completely healed!" Mu Feng reiterated with an excited nod.
"And this Damian fellow called it a basic medicine?" she further inquired.
"Can you believe it? A basic potion, he said!" Mu Feng confirmed, almost shaking his fists at his mental image of Damian.
Mu Qingyao slowly turned toward the bed, where her father continued breathing rapidly while the emerald vitality fought desperately against the corpse fog consuming him.
Hope surged through her chest so violently that her fingers trembled... but only briefly.
The tremor stopped, her breathing stabilized, and within moments, Mu Qingyao’s expression became composed again.
Mu Feng stared at her in a daze, then shame struck him.
Look at himself!
He had sprinted through half the Evergreen Sect like a lunatic, announcing to multiple people that he had discovered something capable of changing the Sect’s fate.
How many disciples had watched him?
How many deacons had followed him?
How many servants had heard?
They were in the middle of a war!
Who knew how many Nightmare Corpse Sect eyes were hidden within Evergreen territory?
Mu Feng had been so excited by the possibility of saving his older brother that he completely abandoned the caution expected from a man who had survived decades of sect politics.
Yet Mu Qingyao, who had watched her father deteriorate day after day, regained her composure before him.
Mu Feng grimaced. "Young Miss... I have been careless."
"Yes, Uncle Mu, you have," Qingyao agreed immediately.
That somehow hurt worse, but Mu Feng dared not act tough, because it was better than being lied to.
She looked toward him seriously.
"Lead the way, Uncle Mu. We must meet this foreign cultivator and offer him the best hospitality and terms we reasonably can as quickly as possible. I do not think your four youngsters are enough to hold the fort down."
Mu Feng’s face changed greatly.
"Young Miss, I understand! But... would they dare?"
Mu Qingyao did not answer immediately, instead looking back toward her father.
"Ever since they dared assassinate Father inside our own Sect, I have come to understand that the limit of the Nightmare Corpse Sect’s daring is determined only by the limit of our paranoia," she replied quietly.
Mu Feng’s expression became ugly.
Indeed.
What the hell had he been thinking?!
"Guards!"
Within minutes, Mu Qingyao and Mu Feng left the Ancestral Hall accompanied by several Qi Condensation cultivators drawn from the reserve guard force.
There was no leisurely walking this time as flying artifacts emerged and hiltless swords rose into the air.
Mu Qingyao stepped upon a broad emerald leaf that expanded beneath her feet, while Mu Feng rode a narrow wooden shuttle surrounded by green spiritual light.
They shot toward the Outer Sect, Mu Feng’s stomach sinking throughout the journey.
’Please let nothing have happened...’
He could already imagine returning to find the guest chamber empty.
Or worse, finding a corpse.
If Damian Baines died inside Evergreen Sect territory immediately after presenting medicine capable of changing their strategic situation...
Mu Feng did not even want to imagine the consequences.
Meanwhile, inside the Hundred Trades and Guest Hall, Damian Baines was suffering from a completely different problem.
Boredom, very severe boredom.
Deacon Mu had disappeared some time ago, and nobody had explained when he would return.
So Damian had naturally resumed his most successful method of entertaining four cultivation teenagers, by stealing plots from Earth.
"...and just when everyone believed the young man had become useless forever, he discovered that the mysterious ring left behind by his mother contained the soul of an ancient expert," Damian narrated while sipping tea.
Bo Wen leaned so far forward that his elbows nearly entered the fruit plate.
"An ancient expert was inside the ring this entire time?!"
Damian nodded solemnly. "Indeed."
Jian Rui’s expression became grave.
"So the loss of his cultivation was actually related to this senior?"
"Partially," Damian answered coyly.
Lin Meiyu slapped her knee. "I knew that ring was suspicious!"
Shen Lian stared at her. "You said the fiancée secretly poisoned him."
"That was also possible!" Lin Meiyu’s face became red as she defended herself.
Damian suppressed his laughter and continued.
He had long since reached the portion involving the broken marriage engagement, the arrogant clan, the mysterious grandfather hiding inside the ring, and the humiliated protagonist swearing to return stronger.
The four disciples were completely entranced.
If someone entered the room and claimed Damian had hypnotized them, the evidence would have been convincing.
Each teenager was clearly imagining themselves in the story.
Bo Wen probably envisioned discovering an ancient spear master inside his weapon.
Lin Meiyu already hated the fictional fiancée.
Jian Rui seemed fascinated by the protagonist’s rise from disgrace.
Shen Lian mostly appeared invested in pointing out every stupid decision made by every character.
Damian had just reached the beginning of the comeback when someone knocked on the door.
Before anyone answered, it opened.
An ordinary-looking young woman entered carrying a wooden tray covered with fresh tea and pastries.
She wore the simple green-and-white clothing of a servant disciple. Her dark hair was tied neatly behind her head, and her features were pleasant without being particularly memorable.
The four Evergreen disciples immediately stood.
"Lady Ning," Jian Rui greeted while cupping his fists.
"Greetings, Lady Ning," the others followed.
The young woman appeared embarrassed.
"There is no need for this, Senior Brothers and Sisters. Ning’er is merely a servant disciple," she replied shyly while bowing.
Jian Rui shook his head.
"Lady Ning serves as the personal handmaiden of Deacon Mu’s daughter. Your position is naturally different from that of an ordinary servant disciple."
Lady Ning smiled helplessly.
"You flatter me."
She walked toward Damian with the tray held carefully before her, visible nervousness appearing as she approached the mysterious foreign expert.
"Honoured guest, Deacon Mu instructed that you be treated with the utmost hospitality. If Senior requires anything else, please allow Ning’er to arrange it," she offered respectfully.
Damian did not answer her.
Instead, his gaze shifted toward the four disciples, his earlier amusement vanishing.
"She’s here for me, so the four of you should leave now," Damian stated seriously.
Silence.
Bo Wen blinked, Lin Meiyu looked between Damian and Lady Ning, Shen Lian frowned, and even Lady Ning herself tilted her head with apparent confusion.
"Senior?" Jian Rui questioned.
Damian stared at the young man pointedly, and thankfully, Jian Rui was the quickest among them.
He looked at Damian, then Lady Ning, then remembered Damian’s behavior throughout their journey.
The strange foreign Senior rarely spoke seriously without reason.
As such, the young man’s face changed violently.
"MOVE!"
Jian Rui grabbed Lin Meiyu by the back of her robe and hurled her through the doorway.
"What the—?!"
His foot struck Bo Wen’s backside a heartbeat later, launching the spear-wielder after her.
"Senior Brother?!"
Jian Rui ducked beneath Shen Lian’s confused protest, wrapped an arm around her waist and tackled both of them out of the room.
The next instant—
BOOM!
Malevolent black miasma erupted from Lady Ning, causing the previously warm guest chamber to become freezing cold as flowers in a nearby vase shrivelled almost instantly, while the tea on the table developed a thin layer of dark frost.
Lady Ning slowly raised her head, her shy expression vanishing.
Strangely, she looked more puzzled than angry.
"How could you tell? I have walked around this place like my own backyard for years, yet none of them were ever the wiser," she asked with genuine curiosity.
Damian’s face became cold.
How?
Her acting had been fine, her mannerisms were fine, and even her aura was almost perfectly concealed.
If Damian relied upon Spirit Sense or whatever cultivation detection methods Shengyuan used, perhaps he would have noticed absolutely nothing.
But Damian did not perceive supernatural energy the same way cultivators did.
<Arcane Knowledge> gave him Mana Sensitivity, so he sensed the world’s energy itself.
Lady Ning could deceive human perception by covering her aura with special techniques, suppressing her cultivation fluctuations and presenting a false layer of wood-element Qi.
She could fool the eyes of man, but she could not fool the eyes of the world.
Damian saw what the surrounding spiritual energy actually did when interacting with her.
Roughly ten percent of what existed inside that body behaved like Evergreen wood Qi.
The remaining ninety percent?
Pure, cold, and disgusting death Qi.
It was like a person becoming perfectly silent to fool someone relying entirely upon hearing.
That trick worked well on such a target, but if another creature sensed changes in airflow?
As long as the person still drew breath, they remained visible.
Lady Ning smiled faintly. "Well?"
Damian wrung his lips.
Why the hell would he explain his detection method to an assassin?
He raised one hand to act, but Lady Ning suddenly disappeared from his vision.
Damian’s pupils contracted in horror.
He did not see how, but one moment she stood several meters away, and the next, a hand shaped like a knife was already driving toward his throat.
BANG!
Orange-red light erupted around Damian, the blow striking his defensive barrier.
His protection compressed inward so violently that the glowing surface almost touched his skin.
Damian’s blood ran cold, feeling his Mental Energy plummeting.
More than ten points disappeared in barely a second as <Mage Armor> desperately reinforced the point of impact.
And the drain was increasing!
’HOLY SHIT!’
This was not a mere Body Tempering disciple like Jian Rui nor was this a CR 1 Fierce Beast.
This was a woman in Qi Condensation or above who could kill him before his eyes even registered the attack!
"Huh?"
Lady Ning stared at the barrier around Damian’s throat.
"A defensive barrier? Strange. Is this a spell or some kind of magical artifact?"
She sounded more academically interested than threatened, and Damian hated that.
His raised hand now pointed directly at her face, causing Lady Ning’s eyes to narrow.
She did not know what someone this physically weak intended to do, but assassins survived by respecting unknown methods.
Her legs tensed to retreat, but it was too late as Damian had long since made the prepared spell’s required gesture.
"Arde!"
BOOOOM!
<Burning Hands> erupted, a roaring cone of flame swallowing almost a quarter of the guest chamber.
Lady Ning moved fast enough to become a blur, but speed meant little when the attack expanded outward across an entire cone at near-point-blank range.
Fire consumed her and blasted her away, causing her to smash through the chamber wall, her body landing outside while completely ablaze.
"What the hell is this?! AARRRGHH!"
She rolled violently on the ground, trying to put out the flames consuming her flesh.
Her Death Qi immediately surged in response, but the fire intensified.
Damian’s eyes widened in shock as he could see the truth due to his mana sensitivity.
At first, the spell was harming her at an ordinary rate, then Lady Ning mobilized her disguised wood-element Qi to suppress the flames.
The interaction became noticeably worse because wood fed fire, causing the flames to become 1.5x stronger.
Then she panicked and unleashed her true death Qi, which was a catastrophically bad decision since the flames reacted as though someone had poured fuel across her body.
If wood Qi increased the effectiveness by fifty percent, death Qi seemed to multiply it several times over!
"NO! GET IT OFF! GET—AAARGH!"
Her screams rapidly weakened as her skin blackened and flesh collapsed.
Within seconds, Lady Ning had become a charred corpse, then even that corpse cracked apart and disintegrated into blackened ash.
Damian stared in morbid fascination whereas the four disciples stared from outside the destroyed wall, terrified by Damian once again.
Nobody spoke.
"That... was fast," Damian muttered.
His magic had not suddenly become overwhelmingly powerful.
Rather, Lady Ning’s own energies had interacted disastrously with fire, especially the death Qi.
Interesting!
Extremely useful information for dealing with the Nightmare Corpse Sect... and also quite terrifying.
Before Damian could lament having been forced to expend all two of his precious Spell Slots against an assassin he had known for less than thirty seconds, a familiar blue light appeared before his eyes.
[Cross-Realm Combat Evaluation Complete.]
[Enemy Classification: Assassin-Type Cultivator.]
[Approximate Valorian Challenge Rating: CR 8.]
[Host Victory Confirmed.]
[Experience Awarded: 4.]
Damian’s eyebrows climbed.
Four?!
The System continued.
[+1 Experience: First victory against a combat archetype possessing a major Class advantage over Host.]
’Assassin versus Mage.’
That made sense.
A Mage needed distance, awareness and time to form spells whereas an assassin specialized in denying all three.
If Lady Ning had attacked before Damian noticed her, he would probably already be dead.
[+1 Experience: Solo victory against a CR 8-equivalent opponent.]
Damian swallowed.
CR 8.
He had just fought something approximately eight Challenge Ratings above ordinary human danger classification.
Calling that a "fight" felt generous.
He had survived one strike, then exploited an elemental interaction his enemy did not understand.
Still, victory was victory.
[+1 Experience: Defeated an enemy more than five Challenge Ratings above Host’s current Overall Level.]
Damian grimaced.
Well, that explained why the reward was so generous.
Level 1 Mage defeating CR 8 anything was apparently unusual enough to be separately recognized.
Finally...
[+1 Experience: Achieved three consecutive combat victories without sustaining bodily injury.]
Damian paused.
The rats, the Fierce Beast boars, and now Lady Ning.
His defenses had taken damage, his Mental Energy had been consumed, but his actual body remained untouched through all three battles.
The system apparently cared about clean victories.
Heh, Old Agnes would probably approve of such a thing.
His Character Sheet updated.
[Experience Points: 7/10.]
Damian’s eyes gleamed with desire.
Just three more!
Only three Experience Points remained before Level 2.
Then, a new feat and some new opportunities to...
WHOOSH!
WHOOSH!
WHOOSH!
Powerful spiritual fluctuations descended outside the ruined chamber as green-robed cultivators landed throughout the courtyard, several immediately drawing weapons as they surrounded the area.
Damian turned with alarm, until he saw Deacon Mu among them.
The middle-aged man’s face became deathly pale when he saw the destroyed wall, scorched chamber and pile of ash.
His expression practically screamed guilt, looking like he might fall to his knees and apologize on the spot.
Damian barely noticed him though, because standing at the head of the arriving cultivators was a woman.
Long jade-black hair streamed behind her from the rapid flight, held partly in place by elegant silver-leaf hairpins.
Emerald eyes swept across the destroyed chamber with immediate sharpness, while a pale-green cultivation robe wrapped around a graceful, distinctly feminine figure whose generous chest and softly curved hips remained difficult to overlook despite the elegant clothing.
She was extremely beautiful, shockingly refined, and undoubtedly dangerous.
Damian’s blue eyes locked onto her.
And for several seconds, the twenty-six-year-old man completely forgot to look anywhere else.
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