A flash. White light. Returning consciousness.
The pain never came.
Groggily, Xuan opened his eyes again, and he found himself staring at a ceiling with a warm blanket draped over him. Slowly, he turned his head to his right and saw Zhi Ruo collapsed by his bedside, sound asleep. On the nightstand beside her was a bowl of clear water with a wet towel lying inside it, and a container that must've been used to hold pills.
"… Hm. Thanks, senior sister."
Xuan tried moving his arms—they were fully repaired, his hands returned. There was no residue feeling of pain, and even the gaping hole in his chest had closed up. Not only that, but the poison in his body had seemingly been removed…
Xuan blinked at the message that appeared in front of him. These system notifications always seemed to appear right when he was thinking about the topic—not that he was complaining, though it was somewhat… odd.
'Still, to think Devouring Qi had this ability as well… perfect. Not only can it devour and cleanse any impurities in my body, it can also turn it into Qi to help me break through to the next level…'
"Mm…?"
Startled by Xuan's movement, Zhi Ruo's body shifted a bit, slowly raising her head with one eye half-opened.
"Junior brother…?"
"Ah. Did I wake you?"
"Hmph… what does it look like?"
"… Sorry about last night," Xuan replied in apology, looking away. "That was… outside of my calculations."
"It's fine, it's fine," Zhi Ruo said, waving the matter off with a warm smile. "We're family now, so it's only natural I'll take care of you."
… Family?
Xuan could argue with that, but he chose not to. Instead, he decided to ask something else.
"You're not going to question what happened?"
"Are you the type to answer if I were to ask?"
"No."
"Then there you have it."
Xuan, hearing this, let out a soft chuckle. "Heh… thanks."
"Now then… I know I said we're family and all now, but…" Zhi Ruo stood up from her seat, yawning cutely before winking at Xuan. "… That's not to say I won't expect a little token of appreciation for what I did for you, y'know?"
Xuan lifted an eyebrow. "What do you want, senior sister?"
"Heheh, I haven't decided yet. You can just owe me a favor for the time being—a pretty big one at that, considering my life-saving grace."
Xuan sighed. "Alright. But by the way…"
"Hm?" Zhi Ruo turned back around, confused.
Xuan smiled slightly. "… How did you feed me the healing pills?"
"Oh… that's, um…"
"Xuan boy!"
At that moment, an elderly man suddenly burst into the room, kicking open the door with his arms folded.
"I fed it to you with my mouth. Did you think Zhi Ruo would give away her first kiss like that? In your dreams!"
Xuan froze, his flesh turning to stone.
'You can't be serious.'
"What, is there a problem? It saved your life—you should be more grateful!"
"Ahem…" Xuan cleared his throat, snapping out of it. "… There is no problem at all. Now then, if you'll excuse me."
With that, he hopped off the bed and immediately left to head for the bathroom. His goal? To wash his mouth with anti-bacterial soap, of course. The type that kills 99.9% of germs.
Meanwhile, in the room he'd left behind, Zhi Ruo laughed softly.
"Was there really a need to lie to him like that, Grandmaster Dun?"
"Hmph, I was just testing to see if he has fully recovered. And judging by how quickly he fled to the bathroom, I can safely say he has. But still, I cannot believe you just gave away your first kiss like that… he wasn't even conscious!"
"Precisely," Zhi Ruo replied with a playful wink. "Since he wasn't conscious, it technically doesn't count as my first kiss. It was just a medical procedure, that's all. And besides… junior brother is actually quite handsome, y'know? Even if I were to give my first kiss to him, it wouldn't be that bad."
Grandmaster Dun sighed, shaking his head. "Really, I don't understand what his appeal is to you and why you care about him so much… you even used up the Heavenly Curing Pill, one of the only three Saint-Grade pills we have here, to heal him faster! I know I told you to fetch high-grade ones, but I wasn't referring to that!"
But Zhi Ruo only giggled. "He's a true dragon amongst men, Grandmaster Dun. You may not believe me now, but you'll find out sooner or later. Every investment we make in him now will be completely worth it in the end."
Grandmaster Dun snorted, raising an eyebrow. "Said 'investment' includes yourself?"
Zhi Ruo shrugged, the glanced out the window at the passerby below.
"Hehe~ who knows? Maybe, maybe not…"
*****
After thoroughly cleaning himself, both with a toothbrush and with a bath, Xuan headed back to his room. On the way, he thought about the memories he experienced, and the error message that had appeared on his System. Before long, he'd arrived at a plausible conclusion.
The Chaos Scripture was all about devouring—devouring other people's Qi, their items, and their memories. That was fine and all, but the problem was that it knew no limits, no constraint. That's why Xuan had absorbed the negative parts of Mamba's lingering spirit as well when trying to devour his Soul, and now ended up with a screaming vengeful ghost in the back of his head.
Xuan had a good idea of how to resolve this issue, but it wouldn't be easy. To begin with, the Body Tempering technique he cultivated wasn't whole—it was a mere half of the Heaven Devouring Body, with the other half being the Order Scripture. In other words, the reason he was experiencing this horrible backlash was due to the lack of the Order Scripture, which Xuan assumed to be responsible for the cleansing and purification of the souls he devoured—erasing their vengeful emotions while only keeping the necessary things.
In other words, before he was able to obtain the Order Scripture, Xuan would need to be very careful in choosing whose Souls he wanted to devour. Otherwise, he may risk a mental breakdown and his body exploding internally. That's happened to him once, and he did not want to relive the experience. For now, his capacity was about… four, five at most—and that's with his Soul Defense stat of 16 billion. Normal people would implode from just one.
After all, it was like having multiple people share the same body. If Xuan wanted to remain the true owner, the dominant soul, then he'd need to be able to take attacks from all angles and directions. As such, four to five was his maximum capacity. This wasn't like a normal battle where he could simply slay his enemies—it was more a battle of endurance and pressure-handling than anything else. The vengeful spirits inside his body would constantly gnaw away at his soul, and the best he could do—no matter his Soul strength—was suppress them, never fully eradicate them.
It was a bit of a shame, but until he found some way to get rid of the old Souls he devoured, he couldn't absorb any new Souls after hitting the maximum. That was a pain, but there was nothing he could do about it. His main priority still had no changed—locating the Order Scripture and obtaining it—but now, the objective was more urgent than ever. He needed to get stronger, fast, so that he could venture out into the dangerous parts of the world to seek for the Chaos Scripture's other half.
As Xuan returned to his room, he discovered that Grandmaster Dun had already left. Zhi Ruo, however, was still there, arms folded and leaning against the wall as if waiting for him to come back.
"… Did you need something, senior sister?" Xuan asked, to which Zhi Ruo turned to him and smiled.
"Oh, nothing. I was just wondering… are you in need of Spirit Crystals, by any chance?"
"Spirit Crystals? Not particularly," Xuan replied. "After all, Grandmaster Zong gave me 100,000 in a Space Ring."
"Heheh, well, there's an auction coming up later today, you see. 100,000 won't be enough, will it?"
"An auction…?"
Xuan frowned. How had he missed this on his System's Director? It should've displayed under the Auction subcategory in the Quests list…
Zhi Ruo only giggled, seeing Xuan's confusion.
"It's a private auction, you see. Only the top organizations and families in Cloud Catcher City can enter. Happens once a year. The general public don't even know about it."
'Ah… so that's why it didn't show up on the Director… no wonder.'
"Open Sky Alchemist Guild counts as a top organization?"
"Indeed. Each organization or family is given two invites annually, and this year, we received two slots as usual. So… do you want to come with me?"
Xuan raised an eyebrow. "What about Grandmaster Dun or Grandmaster Zong?"
"In the past, Master brought me to it every year," Zhi Ruo explained. "But he said that since I have a junior brother now, I might as well take you along instead. I'm old enough now to handle myself anyway."
Xuan nodded in understanding. "And how many Spirit Crystals will I need, exactly?"
"Hm… about a few million, at the very least."
"Great. Now then, how do you propose I make a few million Spirit Crystals in a few hours?"
"You don't have to worry about that," Zhi Ruo replied with a smile. "All you have to do for me is one thing, and I'll buy anything you want at the auction."
"… What is it?"
At this, she laughed.
"What else? Refining pills, of course."
*****
After explaining what she wanted Xuan to do, Zhi Ruo showed him all the equipment inside his room—several pill furnaces (even though he didn't need them; just for appearance's sake), all sorts of herbs, and alchemy guides written by some of the most famous grandmasters in the world.
The task was simple—refining the pills that Zhi Ruo wanted to see refined. Apparently, she wanted to observe how Xuan could command World Qi, and this was the best method to do that. Xuan could've refused, but the private auction was likely to contain some good treasures—and besides, it's not like Zhi Ruo would be able to identify his powers as the Chaos Scripture anyway.
In fact, the very existence of it was just a myth to commonfolk, and its actual powers were even more secretive. No one knew what it truly did, with the exception of Xuan who experienced it for himself.
As such, he saw no reason to refuse Zhi Ruo's request. All it took was a few hours of work, and by the time Xuan was finished, he didn't even feel tired thanks to his Soul Strength of over sixteen billion. He was still fully prepared for tonight's hunting party.
'Still… it's strange,' he thought as he handed his refined pills over to Zhi Ruo. 'With a Soul Defense stat of 16 billion, nothing should be able to hurt me in my head. How did Mamba's vengeful spirit still manage to agonize me so much…?'
After Zhi Ruo stored all the pills that Xuan refined into small bottles, each labeled carefully, they prepared to set off together for the private auction. According to her, she wanted to keep Xuan's pills for 'research and development', but as far as Xuan knew, there were no microscopes or pipettes in this world. He wondered how she was planning on 'researching and developing' the pills he refined without any of the advanced scientific equipment from Earth, but that wasn't his problem.
With his end of the deal fulfilled, it was time for Zhi Ruo to deliver on hers. She handed him a jade slip imbued with Qi, to which Xuan raised an eyebrow.
"This is…?"
"Our ticket into the auction," Zhi Ruo explained with a wink. "To avoid the public eye, it's being held in a Soul dimension, you see."
"Ah…" Xuan rubbed his chin in understanding.
Soul dimensions—he'd gone through a number of those in his past life. They were essentially special small worlds that could only be accessed through one's soul avatar, unable to be accessed with their physical forms. Of course, this meant only Soul techniques could be used in battle, and only those with an artifact that allowed them to enter would be able to.
These worlds weren't physically discoverable no matter what kind of detection techniques one had and could be easily destroyed without a trace, making them perfect for hosting events that people didn't want others to know about. Soul dimensions could only be created with the conjoined effort of several array-making masters and an abundance of World Qi, but given that Cloud Catcher City was a decently sized place, it'd make sense they'd be able to have something like this.
"Are you ready? The auction is about to begin," Zhi Ruo said, tilting sideways curiously.
Xuan gave a nod. "Let's go."