"Fang Yue! Hey! Hey! Keep your eyes open! Stay awake!" Tang Lin yelled in a panic as he ran up the stairs.
Her face was now deathly pale as her lips quivered from the pain. Unable to utter a sound, because of her damaged vocal cords, her mind fleeted in and out of consciousness.
Seeing the golden doors at the top of the staircase, Tang Lin hurriedly opened them before laying Fang Yue down gently.
'What should I do? What should I do?' he thought, his mind in disarray.
Holding her head up, Tang Lin was reminded of his mother's last moments.
'I thought things had changed since then. I thought I had become stronger. I thought this wouldn't happen anymore!' he contemplated in anguish, while gripping his chest with one hand.
'No. A way. There must be a way to save her. I might be able to deal with the poison myself using the crimson bloodline, but how do I transfer it to myself', Tang Lin pondered, calming himself down.
Looking around, he realised where he was. It was a treasure room filled with chests, pills, scrolls and many more. Maybe one of them could save Fang Yue, but he didn't know or have the time to find out. Especially with the fact that she could die at any given moment.
*Exhale*
"Huuuu…" he breathed out, mustering his resolve.
Fang Yue had already fallen unconscious at this point as he put his lips to her fair neck. The aggressive poison lashed out at him, corroding his mouth, but he kept sucking the poison out of her anyway.
***
An incense stick of time passed by.
He had successfully removed all of the poison out of Fang Yue as the colour of her skin started returning back to normal. Tang Lin wrapped the wound on her neck by ripping a piece of cloth from his sleeve.
Falling to the ground, veins bulged everywhere on his body as the bottom-half of his face was corroded away to the bone.
'Is this the end for me? I was foolish to think I could refine the poison myself. If only I could properly use the crimson bloodline', Tang Lin thought with regret.
At death's door, he heard a faint voice speak to him.
"Use…the poison…bead…" it said ethereally.
'Poison bead?' thought Tang Lin before moving his eyes around the room.
On his left side, a light was shining brightly from within a chest, stacked upon a mountain of gold.
'It can't be? I guess heaven will always leave behind a slither of hope', he thought as he clawed his way up.
Opening the jade box, he found a colourless bead kept safely inside.
'Is this the poison bead? But how do I use it?' he questioned.
'There's no time to waste, I'll just swallow it and hope it works', he thought as he grabbed the bead.
*Splatter*
The chimera's poison had reached his heart as he coughed out blood.
As the poison bead was swallowed into Tang Lin's body, a bright light shone out from the bead once again. Sensing poison, a whirlpool appeared within the poison bead. Rapidly, it devoured and extracted the chimera's poison. After it was finished, the poison bead took on a purple hue before it stopped shining. Part of the refined chimera poison nourished his body as his crimson principle qi took on a hint of purple. His body condition started to stabilise after that.
*Huff, huff*
'That was close. Too close…' thought Tang Lin.
'If that voice didn't guide me in time, I would've been doomed, but where did it come from in the first place?' he mulled.
After surviving these adversities, Tang Lin finally was able to appreciate where they were. As he had previously thought, it was a treasure room.
"The wealth and treasures here were probably meant for the one who kills the chimera as a bonus from the trial", muttered Tang Lin.
'Although I didn't kill the chimera, I did make it here in the end. So, doesn't that mean I can take all these treasures for myself. As the first person to make it here, the treasures accumulated are probably also from dead cultivators of the past. Well, I guess I won't keep being polite then', he thought as he rubbed his hands together greedily.
*Ching*
Diving into the mountains of treasure and gold, Tang Lin practically swam and looked through all of the treasures. Suddenly, something caught his eye. It was a beautiful, silver ring.
'I wonder if this would look good on Fang Yue', he thought as he tried putting it on.
"There's so much good stuff here, but it'll be hard to take all of it back with me. I wish I could somehow bring it all with me", he wished.
At that moment, the ring on his right index finger lit up. Sensing his intentions, a light covered a mountain of treasure in front of him before storing it all away.
"What!?! What happened to my treasure? Where did it go? Don't tell me that light from this ring has something to do with the disappearance of all that treasure", Tang Lin said, talking to himself.
Tapping the ring, his consciousness was pulled in as he appeared inside the ring as a spiritual entity. In front of him, the mountain of treasure that had disappeared was there.
'I've never even heard of this kind of thing before. This universe truly has many wonders. It seems this ring has its own separate space inside him for storage, but how do I get out of here?' Tang Lin thought.
Imagining himself leaving the ring by concentrating, Tang Lin returned to his senses in his physical body.
"I wonder if there's more of these rings. If so, I might just be able to transport all these treasures outside", he muttered.
***
An hour later.
Tang Lin managed to find five other rings and store all the treasures in the chamber. He also discovered a lot that belonged to Fang Yue's family that he had sorted out separately.
By the time he finished, Fang Yue had regained consciousness.
"Ugh, what happened? Tang Lin? Are you there?" she groaned as she sat up, while rubbing her forehead.
'Hm? What's this?' thought Fang Yue as she touched the cloth wrapped around her neck.
"I'm here, relax. We're safe for now", Tang Lin reassured as he walked towards her.
"Here", said Tang Lin; passing a silver ring to her.
"What's this?" she asked, confused.
'Is he proposing to me? T-this is too sudden', thought Fang Yue as her face flushed red.
"It contains all the treasures and personal items belonging to your Fang clan", he replied.
'Oh', she realised, feeling embarrassed from her previous thoughts.
"Thank you", she said gratefully.
Fang Yue could tell that there was a lot of treasure that Tang Lin had kept for himself, but she didn't say anything. She had already been a burden for him the whole time. In the end, he was still kind enough to share some of the rewards with her, which was already more than enough.
"So, what happened while I was unconscious?" asked Fang Yue.
"You were injured by the chimera's poison, but I managed to extract and deal with it", he replied.
"Then what happened to your face?" she continued to ask.
The corrosion from the chimera's poison had completely destroyed the lower-half of his face. Luckily, his robust and strong recovery capabilities provided by the crimson bloodline had healed the majority of the damage, but temporary scars were still being healed on his handsome face.
"Just some minor injuries, you don't need to worry about it so much", Tang Lin answered calmly.
Seeing as Tang Lin didn't want to continue talking, she decided to change the topic.
"Did you find a way out?" Fang Yue asked.
"Yes, I did. Over there, at the end of this chamber there is a teleportation circle created from rune inscriptions, I think? I'm pretty sure it will activate as soon as you step inside it", Tang Lin explained.
"Let's go then!" said Fang Yue excitedly.
Stepping into the teleportation circle, Fang Yue looked back at Tang Lin.
"What are you doing? Get in here before it activates", she urged with impatience.
"I'm sorry, but it seems that I still have some matters to take care of here. So you can head out first", said Tang Lin; waiting purposely for a moment before answering to let the runes activate.
"Tang Lin, you-..." said Fang Yue halfway as she tried to run out of the circle, but it was too late.
*Buzz*
Light shone as Fang Yue was transported outside.
***
On the other end of the transportation circle, light shone up.
*Buzz*
"...-can't be serious!" said Fang Yue as she finished her sentence.
She was not at the top of a huge mountain in the jungle of the trial. Although, she was so high up the mountain that cold wind blew and snow storms ran amok at the summit.
"Activate! Reactivate! Why won't you reactivate?!" Fang Yue yelled in frustration as she tried to go back, but it was futile, because it was a one-way teleportation circle.