"Are you okay?"
Rihanna blinked, coming back to the outside. She glanced at the two boys, but didn't mention anything about the discussion she just had with Little Purple. After all, they didn't even know who Little Purple was. And she didn't want to tell them about the Space inside her. She already had a weird cultivation technique. If she mentioned that there was space inside her, and a beast living somewhere within her body or mind which she had actually never seen....eh! Would they think she was a crazy demon?!
"Nothing. Just feeling a bit tired. It's been such a long day. And there's still another day tomorrow"
"True. Thankfully there are only two fights held every day. More than that, and my brain would burst! Every day I come back and note down all the details of the two fights in my Scroll. If I don't keep a record, I will forget half of what I have seen!"
Artreya yawned loudly, twisting his body in all directions on the couch. Then he jumped up to his feet.
"Well then, let's all go back to our rooms. Now you may have your room back to yourself, and we will no longer impose on your hospitality. I'll go straight to sleep. And then we'll meet tomorrow all bright and early!....Ow! What was that for?!"
Rihanna had taken a seed out from her storage space, and flicked it towards Artreya. The hard shell of the seed hit him on the forehead, making him jump in pain.
"Stop with your drama...don't you ever get tired! Well, I am getting tired just watching you! Go back to your room to sleep!"
Artreya pouted, to which both Rihanna and Ye Luo rolled their eyes. Imagine a 24 something man pouting his lips like a small girl! Ye Luo got up and pushed Artreya out of the room, then turned to glance at Xioaguli. Though the boy spent most of his time in this room, at night he would always go to sleep in Artreya's room. He got up reluctantly, placing Phantasm on the bed, next to Fluffy. Then followed after Ye Luo, softly closing the door to Rihanna's room.
Rihanna settled down on the bed, waiting for a while to make sure no one was coming back. She turned to Apu, who was still contemplating life while floating-sitting in the air.
'Apu....can you make sure to inform me if you sense anyone coming to the room when I am inside the space?'
Apu turned to her in a daze. Looking at his eyes, Rihanna couldn't help wondering if he had somehow taken some kind of a drug...he looked like a friend she had once seen.....a friend who used to smoke hash!!
Still in a daze, Apu nodded towards her. Rihanna was not very convinced by this nod, but she truly had no one else she could rely on.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and started focusing her Spiritual Consciousness inside her body, near her Dantian.
Very soon she saw a miniature of her original self near the energy core in her Dantian. Pausing for a bit, she directly entered the ever present vortex, or the path to the Seed Space.
The seed seemed to be flourishing more than ever. It had grown into a tiny sapling. Tiny blue-green leaves were waving in the light breeze inside the space. Rihanna glanced around and noticed that the space too had gone through some changes. Well, nothing strange had appeared, but the white mist had rolled back a bit, and the land inside seemed to be more than before.
Not that that was of much help to her. She had yet to find out rare plants and seeds which she could plant inside this space! Perhaps her trip to Void River might bring in some unexpected gains?!
"You have upgraded?"
"Yup."
"So....."
"Nope...you cannot bring in any beasts into this space. And you still can't come here in your physical body."
Rihanna felt her mouth twitching. This Ancestor Seed was as obnoxious as ever. All ths time she had not met it, had not mellowed it down one bit!
"So, why did you call me here?"
"Why don't you take a good look around and see if you can figure out the cause using your small brain?!"
Rihanna grit her teeth, wanting to flip it over with one smack! It was as arrogant and insulting as ever! It never once stopped making her feel that she was the master of this space in name only. The Real Boss was definitely someone else!
Pursing her lips to stop herself from spouting profanities, she turned to look around. The familiar silver and red energy streams of Ice and Fire were curling around the air. But strangely, the energy streams seemed to be gathering at a corner of the space. A dense reddish-silver cloud of energy coiled around in the corner, and streams of this dense energy was slowly moving downwards.
Rihanna walked over to the corner, trying to make out where all the energy was going to. The energy was quite thick in this corner, making it more difficult to see. Only when she was about two meters from that point did she make out something stuck inside the ground.
"What in the world is this weird thing?!"
It looked like the broken handle of a staff. A long, thick handle was wedged inside the ground, and dark green energy particles were circling within the wooden handle. Weirdest of all.....all the ice and fire energy was being slowly devoured by this broken handle!
"What in the world is going on? Why is this broken staff eating away all of my energy?!"
"Hmph! Your energy?! That is the energy which I spent days and months refining. It is the energy of this space. And now this stupid thing is depleting all the energy of this space! If this continues, then this space will become empty and everything will crash! Do you understand! This space will cease to exist!"
Rihanna stared wide eyed at the broken staff happily sucking away all the pure ice and fire energy of the space. Thinking for a bit, she decided to uproot the cause of all the mess. Perhaps if she removed the staff handle, then the energy would return to its normal flow?!
Which was easier thought than done. Try as she might, she could even budge the handle from the ground. Not even her enhanced strength helped. It seemed to be stuck hard and deep inside the ground.
"Hey....isn't this space under your control?! How come this handle managed to find its way inside here? And why can't you just make the ground softer, so I can pull out this thing?"
"If I could do it, would there be a need to call you?! It's all your fault! You let this stupid green energy enter your body. It was fine as long as it was outside. But then it suddenly decided to enter my space without my permission. It directly barged in through the vortex, then went around this whole space a couple of times. And in the end it started pouring inside the ground at that place. I couldn't even stop it with all my strength. And by the time I thought of calling you, it had already changed into this form. What am I supposed to do? It is eating away all my years of hard work!"
Rihanna thought about it, then tried using her spiritual consciousness to bring the green energy under her control. Once the energy sensed her spiritual energy trying to bind it, it paused for a while, as if trying to sense what she was trying to do. And then it started sucking in the energy even faster than before!
She was left feeling speechless...At first she had thought that this green energy might be a blessing. Why was it feeling like a curse now?! Taking a deep breath, she wondered if she could possibly reason with this energy. After all, as Little Purple had said, this green energy had already developed a consciousness.
'Hey.....Ummm.....Green energy? Energy consciousness? Spirit consciousness of green energy? Can you hear me?'
The green energy stopped sucking the ice and fire energy for a moment, and the green particles floating inside the broken handle paused in their movement. Rihanna felt as if all the particles were staring at her saying 'What? Speak up!'
'Ummm.....so I wanted to ask just how much ice and fire energy will you be absorbing? You know.....it takes a really long time to purify so much of raw energy. Not to mention, even this raw energy is not available everywhere....very hard to find. And both me and the space need this energy. So.....have you finished absorbing? Or maybe you could wait till we have some more energy before you start absorbing again?'
The green particles remained suspended for a long time, as if contemplating her words. And then started sucking again, completely ignoring her words!
"Aish! This stupid green consciousness is going to bleed me dry! You.....stupid woman with no brains.....get rid of it right now! Throw it out of your body!"
"I can't.....I don't know how to get it out of my body. It doesn't want to listen to me. Seems like only the person who put it in can control it."
"So what is the problem? Go and find him and get him to take out this stupid stream of energy. If it doesn't listen to you.....why would you want to keep it?! What if it starts acting against you? Do you want to die in the hands of a stream of conscious energy because you cannot control it?!"
As they were busy discussing, they failed to notice the green particles which had paused inside the broken handle once more. Hearing them wanting to go back to the person who had put the energy inside her in the first place, and then ask him to take the energy back, the particles vibrated inside the handle. It looked like they were scared of the man!
Suddenly something changed in the air around them. Feeling confused, both Rihanna and the Sapling turned to look around, and found that the handle had stopped sucking in the ice and fire energy within the space.
"Huh?! Why did it suddenly stop?.......Oh! You are scared that I will take you back to your Master and tell him to take you back!"
"Ah! No wonder! This one likes to bully the weak, but is scared of the strong. Go, go....take it back to its Master and throw it back to him! If it doesn't listen to you, it is not worth keeping. Too risky!"
The green particle slowly moved downwards, settling down at the lowest part of the broken handle. Rihanna wondered why it looked like a naughty child who was caught doing mischief, and was now pouting after being reprimanded!
But the more important thing was that she now seemed to be stuck with this strange broken handle. It was planted so firmly into the ground, that no amount of pushing, pulling could even budge it. She had no idea what it was, or where the green energy had brought it from....or what she was supposed to do with it!
Tsk! Perhaps she would need to find out a way to contact the Ice Emperor. Maybe he could unravel the mystery behind this broken handle.
'Girl...there is some movement from her side.'
Rihanna blinked, thinking for a while before realizing that by 'her', Little Purple was referring to Su Maihiya.
'What is it?'
'She has sent out a Spirit Message using a Flying Snake. And you are the main topic within the contents of the message. Looks like she is informing some people about your current location.'
'So she is finally taking action. Looks like she plans to attack as soon as we leave Falanderie City. Is there no way to find out who she has sent the message to?'
'Hmmm....I have attached a wisp of my consciousness to the letter. Once the letter reaches the target, the wisp will attach itself to him. I will be then able to sense him out if he comes anywhere nearby.'
'But what if he doesn't come himself? He can always just send some mercenary to come get me.'
'He might.....but have a feeling he will be coming himself this time. Firstly, he wouldn't want too many people to know about your special body constitution. That would not benefit him. Secondly, his people have failed too many times. This time he would not take the risk. Also, knowing you managed to get into the Core City all on your own will also get him pretty interested.'
'You mean she has contacted the Leader of the Sect where she is currently a disciple. Hmmm....then it makes sense that he will come himself. Looks like this journey from Falanderie City to Abarone-Tengai is going to be very interesting.'