Inside Spring-Autumn's residence.
Three people were enjoying a meal. Spring-Autumn, Rainmist, and… Sirius. They were enjoying a serving of Lizard Shaman meat. As for how they ended up in this situation...
---
In a grassy field, there was a still pond. The sun was high in the sky. A man was observing the pond with a group of men in white coats behind him. The pond started to ripple and two figures jumped out of it.
It was Spring-Autumn and Rainmist.
"..."
"..."
Sirius felt like he almost got a heart attack. He was making observations about the pond with his group of men and thought they made a new discovery. Sirius faked a cough and asked, "What's down there?"
Spring-Autumn was quite shocked himself that there was a group of men putting strange devices into the pond. He was in a good mood so he answered, "An underground world!"
"Chief! These people are suspicious!" A man whispered to Sirius.
"We probably look more suspicious…" Sirius sighed. "Can you tell us what you found down there? We can trade information,"
"Oh? What can you give us?" Spring-Autumn was quite interested. After all, the man in front of him held the title of [Genius of a Generation].
"Why don't you bring us to a more negotiable place?" Sirius suggested. Spring-Autumn was not the only one who was interested. Sirius was even more interested in Spring-Autumn than the latter was in him.
He considered the option of kidnapping Spring-Autumn to experiment on him but he was not so dumb to do such a thing. It would not be a simple task to do things to another titleholder. He himself knew how difficult it was to attain his current title. On top of that, he could sense how strong Spring-Autumn was.
--
Back to the present.
"The underground area was most likely a failed to form dungeon?" Spring-Autumn repeated what Sirius told him. He recalled back to the gigantic corpse that formed the [Essence Water].
"Correct." Sirius nodded. "I had my men check the energy level within and compare it to other dungeons and they were very similar,"
"Hmm," Spring-Autumn hummed and pretended like he was smart in front of the scientist before saying, "I think I know what you are talking about,"
"Please elaborate," Sirius said excitedly.
"At the very bottom, there's a huge skeleton of a monster. I think it died because its entire body couldn't fit through the portal when it was coming over,"
"There must be something special around it because the corpse has already decomposed?" Sirius analyzed and said.
"Ah, yes. There was a pool of [Essence Water],"
"[Essence Water]? Oh the thing that makes you stronger?"
"You know about it?" Spring-Autumn was shocked at the extent of Sirius's knowledge. He was only able to discover the [Essence Water] by chance by going to the deepest level of the underground world.
"You must've taken a good dip in it, no? You are looking quite healthy. Why don't you let me perform some tests on you?" Sirius hopped on the chance and excitedly said.
Spring-Autumn was sure that the green-haired man in front of him was a pervert judging from his reaction. "So what do you have for me? I've given you the information that you want."
Sirius reached his hands into his pocket and said, "Don't worry, I'm a man of my words,"
[Great Human Method]
A book was placed onto the table.
"What useless thing is this?" Spring-Autumn picked it up and said.
"Now, now, don't jump to some silly conclusion. This is the training method I was talking about," Sirius replied with a cramped smile. Internally, he was thinking, "Why is it so hard to trick him into becoming a test subject for this method?"
Rainmist noticed how the tone of the conversation had changed so she picked up the empty plates and dismissed herself into the kitchen.
"Give it a look," Sirius said.
He leaned back into the chair and swirled around his glass of wine.
Spring-Autumn gave a good look at the book. It was very thin and there were illustrations of how to direct mana.
"This is very interesting," Spring-Autumn gave his honest thought.
"Of course," Sirius was very proud of his work. He took a sip of his wine and said, "This is good wine,"
"Is it? I picked it up from some dusty place," Spring-Autumn said as he continued to read through the pamphlet.
"..."
After giving the book a thorough readthrough, Spring-Autumn placed it back down on the table. "It's very useful. Unfortunately, I can't use it as mana is not my main source of energy,"
Spring-Autumn spoke the truth. He could use the surrounding mana for auxiliary tasks but most of his power came from his control over time which used purely ability power. This also leads to more problems which were that Spring-Autumn did not know what his "ability" was which in turn leads to the mystery of him not knowing about his power source.
Sirius was startled at this revelation. "Is it qi then? I can't sense any qi from you though…"
"So there's mana and there's also qi that people can use?" Spring-Autumn felt like he was learning more and more from interacting with the man in front of him who he considered to be a pervert.
"Mana is a new source of energy that is in the air but qi has always existed. It's the energy that comes from within oneself. Generated from one's body, it's entirety is self-generated. It's what martial artists use," Sirius explained. "It doesn't seem like you are aware of what energy you are wielding yourself. Maybe you are actually immortal?"
Sirius stood up and lowered his face to meet Spring-Autumn's. Meanwhile, Spring-Autumn entirely forgot that he told Sirius that he was immortal for fun a couple of days ago.
"Oh, yes. Of course, I'm immortal," Spring-Autumn was a man who always stuck to his words.
Sirius laughed at the silliness of it but he did not mind. "I have taken too much of your time. I will take my leave now,"
"I'll see you off," Spring-Autumn stood up.
At the door, Spring-Autumn handed the book back to Sirius. Sirius did not take it back. Instead, he said, "You can keep it. I believe we'll meet again,"
And just like that, Sirius left with the wind. Spring-Autumn would remember the man's white lab coat and electric green hair.