Rex took the glass from her hand and sniffed the red wine inside, the dilute wine didn't had a strong fragrance but it had a certain charm that attracted him.
Rex took a small sip from it. the taste of wine was bitter-sweet, it was a little bitter at first but as it passed through his mouth and slid down his throat it left a sweet after taste. When the wine flowed down his throat it gave a warm feeling throughout its way, if earlier his throat felt like a dried field then now it was like a herbal garden.
Rex's cheeks became somewhat red.
[Harmful substance detected…]
'Stop don't do anything….' Rex forcibly stopped his body from rejecting and countering the wine.
[Got it]
Just when Rex was enjoying the warm sensation he was getting from the wine, he received another notification that slightly surprised him.
[Your STR has increased by 0.05% permanently]
[Your VIT has increased by 0.07% permanently]
'One sip had that much effect… are even the wines there had the same effect as medicine pills or something? Rich people sure have it easy, they can get everything using their family background. It's very unfair to honest guys like me that put so much hard work in cultivation, only reaching Core Forming peak stage from Soul Strengthening 1st stage even after cultivating day and night without using any cultivation pill for almost one year, sigh... As they say, Heavens are really unfair, ' Rex thought.
[Reverse Engineer talent is active….]
[Analyzing…..]
[It would take 14 seconds to fully reverse engineer the substance.]
[11]
[10]
Rex slowly drank the wine in the glass while enjoying its effect, Zakiya didn't disturb him either and focused on emptying her glass.
[01]
[00]
[Recipe of Unknown Wine acquired]
"Interesting, using ingredients like Blood Ginseng, Scarlet Blood Flower, Blood Jade Mushroom to make a wine which can achieve a somewhat similar effect to drinking blood on the people of blood race, it doesn't suppress their urges but fulfill it so they won't bloodlessly attack someone else while also able to enjoy the taste frequently," Rex said.
"Sigh... Your Silver Tongue is something that in itself achieves the effects on a level the same as a Divine Ability, you do know if some big alchemist from Higher Realm knew about it then they will curse me for taking you as a disciple before them," Zakiya said with a helpless look.
'Already calling me disciple, she is too confident in herself,' Rex thought.
When Rex analyzed the poison from her poisoned blood for the first time and Zakiya asked how he did it, then he told her that it was his talent that allowed him to figure out the ingredient of something after eating it. At that time Rex played this word game with her resulting in her misunderstanding his words.
When he said talent she took it as an innate talent, she had heard about sword talent, battle talent… but not specific talent abilities.
She believed that Rex uses the taste of the thing he eats to figure out its ingredients after a careful analysis so she gave this talent a name… Silver Tongue.
As for why Rex displayed the effects of this ability again, it was to show his value and… he felt like he wouldn't be able to sleep peacefully if didn't show off once or twice a day.
Thinking of something Zakiya suddenly spoke.
"Rex, you can have the wine in your glass for free but If you want the meditation technique, then I will only give it to you if you agree to duel with me tomorrow afternoon, I can't delay any further," Zakiya said straightforwardly.
Rex nodded, he had already done all he can and cannot grow stronger without breaking through again but if he did, then Zakiya would also use a higher cultivation base to fight him which will only make it worse.
Thinking that Zakiya had also overlooked the fact that he secretly gained her clan people's characteristics so it was natural that he agrees.
After finishing his wine, Rex headed back to the castle. He wanted to check his new abilities and form a quick plan to win tomorrow.
Frozen Flame City…
Rex quietly floated near the balcony of his room, he saw that Lerna was sitting on a big chair near the door of the balcony with a book in her hand like usual. Lerna was a quick learner after she learned how to read she discovered that she really likes reading, especially the books related to stories or novels, so after she ordere- asked Jiang Shuang to buy this kind of books she now had turned Rex's ex-room into a mini library filled with books that she reads all the time.
At present, she was wearing big glasses with a golden frame that made her look like a studious woman trying to cosplay as a teacher. The glasses were of no use to her she just saw pictures of a scholar wearing them in a book and demanded one for herself, it was a simple request so Rex made a bunch of them for her.
'Today I might succeed,' Rex thought when he saw how much Lerna was absorbed in her book.
'Instant Transmission + Accel'
Rex used instant Transmission to appears a few meters away from her then used Accel as he dashed towards her with his open arms but…
…Bounccee...
Just when he was less than one meter away from her, Rex felt like he bumped into an invisible wall made of wind and bounced back rolling on the floor, fortunately, the wall was bouncy and was capable of absorbing the impact, or else someone would have to repair the balcony again.
[34th Try: Failure]
'You were counting?' Rex lip's twitched.
[Yeah, I did and I also counted the total number of bones you broke in the process, one more thing the Regeneration skill has leveled up four times during your failed attempts.]
'You are the worst,' Rex lamented.
"This time, you were gone for long," Lerna said after closing the book.
"Eh.. did you miss me?" Rex asked with an expectant look.
Lerna shook her head and said.
"Aru asked me this question too many times, so next time tell me the details of the trip in advance before leaving," Lerna said with an expressionless face.
Rex felt like he was one of those hot-blooded girls coming home late at night after the midnight parties and getting warned by their parents.
But he felt somewhat better after hearing it, his relationship with Lerna has become better, in the start she didn't like it when Little Aru spent more time with her but now she wouldn't mind even if Rex spent all his time with Aru… she even urges him from time to time to do that, this way she could fulfill Little Aru's wish to spend time with him and could also get free times to read the book without worrying about him.
Rex nodded then jumped on the bed, Aru wasn't in the room but he didn't ask where he was, because with Lerna's nature she wouldn't sit that quietly before making sure he was safe.
And indeed Lerna had left her mark on Aru so she knows his live location all the time as long as he is in her range and if something unexpected happens she could go save him in a matter of few seconds, this was the strength of a Calamity Lord. She could just walk through most of the Misty Maze Forest without any problem that is if she doesn't meet someone like Zakiya.
Every Calamity Lord has their specific territory, they purposely leave the traces of their aura at the border of their territory which can be sensed by other Calamity Lord's, it was to tell that this area is mine, if you cross the line then only one would leave this place alive.
And the area around Frozen Flame has Lerna's aura that's why no other Calamity Lord is residing near her area, Monster Venerable can also faintly sense that aura so they would, of course, won't even think about coming near her.
Seeing that Rex has nothing else to talk about, Lerna again opened the book and started reading it.
While lying on the bed Rex touched his abdomen, he could sense that his dantian had changed, he didn't have the twin dantian with two sections like before but only one dantian with both types of Qi resting there in harmony.
'What happened to my twin dantians,' Rex asked.
[They weren't two dantians in the first place but just one that was separated by a thin layer of flesh, according to our previous plan I was going to slowly transform that layer of flesh into a thick boundary with every evolution, converting it into a more stable state to go on twin dantian route, but after we got Tai Chi Forbidden Yoga Art I realized there was no need to do that anymore.
It had the information on how to carry two opposite force together in complete harmony, although the information was about carrying gentle and hard force together but after analysis, I found that the principles can be applied to Yin and Yang Qi too, but that was of course not enough as the balance can break once the quantity of one type of Qi decreases that's when the passive mode of the Black & White Forbidden Lineage Art comes into play]
Rex could feel that both the Yin Qi and Yang Qi in his dantian which always remained in fog form spreading over all the corners of his dantian now had unexpectedly turned into thread-like form, he could sense countless thin golden and black threads intertwining together in his dantiant they were slowly rotating around the center point of the dantian, all the threads had strange equilibrium that prevented them from countering each other.
'If I use one type of Qi too much during the battle then won't the balance break?' Rex asked after some thinking his spiritual root can refine more Qi and keep the balance but if the amount at which he used up one type of Qi was far more than the rate at which his spirit root refines the Qi then things might get ugly for him.
After all, if he only intends to show one type of Qi in a battle and uses too much of that type then he couldn't ask his enemy that… Mister, can you please wait for a minute so that I can sit there and cultivate to restore my used up Qi quickly?
[That's what I was going to talk about next, the passive mode of your cultivation technique, your body's sensitivity have still not come back to normal after evolution yet so you haven't noticed it but your meridians are still revolving QI in your whole body, the speed is slower but it's continuous]
When Rose said it, Rex focused and he noticed that both his spirit root and meridians were still active… in simple words although slowly but he was cultivating at the moment without knowing it.
'Dafukk it is,' Rex almost cursed loudly.
[It's the passive mode of Black & White Forbidden Lineage Art, your body is using the opposite forces in your dantiant to its advantage, it's using those forces to continuously channel Qi in your body, making you cultivate even in your sleep or at the time of the battle. Let's come back to the topic, because of your meridians continuously carrying Qi all time, when you use too much Qi of one type they could instantly fill its space in your dantian…
If a situation arrives where you used up even the potential Qi in your meridians, then to maintain the balance we can just empty a small part of the other type of Qi into the meridians or release it in the atmosphere to keep the balance.]
The technique had both advantages and disadvantages, but if checked that what it had more then they will obviously be advantages.
'I see…' Rex said after calculating the pros and cons of the technique.
If someone hears that Rex has a technique that allows him to cultivate even when sleeping and he is still a little dissatisfied then might want to fight him to death.
'By the way, Rose, be sure only use the passive mode to refine Qi and don't impact the bottleneck, when we breakthrough using Exp our cultivation base becomes more solid and the Qi becomes purer compared to when using Qi from the atmosphere,' Rex said.
[I know, that's why I am already doing it, we are just refining your already refined Qi, it isn't much beneficial considering the quality of your Qi but it's better not to stop it, and this way, your body would get more used to Yin-Yang Qi overtime.]
Rex agreed then opened the interface to check the notifications he got after completing his evolution.