Soha began to roam the State of Zhiyuan. At least, he began to travel from one city to the other, and now he no longer had to fear the wanted posters or the authorities. There were five more days remaining till he had to once again head back to the Li Clan city for the antidote.
"Emma," he said while walking through a fish market. The people around would look at him, a hidden expression of disgust passing through many of their faces before they looked away. A child pointed his fingers at him, but his mother quickly slapped his hand away and bowed before scuttling away.
But at the same time, many would look at him curiously. The robes of a monk had a uniqueness to them; no matter what kind of appearance you have, you gain a sort of enlightened charm to yourself, as if appearances didn't matter to you. As if you had walked beyond the line of mortal thought and become enlightened.
Most people feel like that subconsciously at the very least, as far as Soha had noticed. After all, he wasn't looked at with the same eyes a normal disfigured person was looked at; there was a distinctive difference.
"[What?]" Emma questioned, curious. She could hear his thoughts only when he was talking to her, after all. She couldn't read his thoughts.
"If we calculate it like this…" He said, musing, "I should only need to eat less than 1000 hearts if I want to reach the 1st Class Martial Artist level. I have only around a year for me to reach beyond 1st Class and become a Martial Master."
"[Right?]"
"Even if I ate three hearts a day, I would take nearly a year and that, only to become a 1st Class Martial Artist… that wouldn't do. I have to become a 1st Class Martial Artist in around two or three months at the very least."
"[If you eat 11 Hearts a day, you will become a 1st Class Martial Artist in exactly 90 days,]" she did a quick calculation and added.
Soha grew anxious, "Need even faster growth. This won't do."
"[If you eat about 17 hearts a day… you can do it in just two months.]"
Soha bit his thumb as he walked by. "We would need even more hearts to become a Martial Master, right? Or is that level solely based on the pain I endure instead of hearts?"
"[Yes… becoming a Martial Master would depend a lot on you harming yourself in many ways. Soha, we still have time.]"
"But that is estimating Evelyn survives as long as we expected. What if some accident happens? We have to be as quick as possible."
"[Hmm…]" She hesitated, "[If you are planning for a month, you'd have to eat 33 hearts a day. That is just too much risk, and we might end up screwed over.]"
They walked in silence out of the fish market, then silently out of the city. In front of them, an old woman's pace quickened, but Soha just walked at his own pace, and that old woman could only move so fast.
The old woman's face was covered in cold sweat and fear. She knew the monk behind her had been walking behind her since the moment she left the city. He was tailing her. Now that she thought of it, even in the fish market, the disfigured monk was behind her.
Soha was calm and composed as he walked till the old woman stumbled in her attempt to speed up and fell down. Reaching beside her, Soha squatted and sighed, saying calmly, "In my old world, people usually thought of you grannies as people worthy of respect. Not that I am one to say this, but you are quite something."
The old woman shrieked, "Monk, Monk, I didn't do anything."
Soha chuckled. "Yeah, nothing other than burning children for your satisfaction. Especially burning young boys after making them do the nastiest things you could think of. But sure enough, you haven't gotten caught, even to this day. Age really makes some people wise."
She was really sneaky about hiding the bodies. First, she dug a deep hole and put the bodies in. Then she covered them up with dirt. After that, she put a dead animal on top and covered it up with more dirt. This way, it was harder for anyone to tell that there were people buried underneath.
Soha himself had just been walking around when he noticed a small hut and a well; he was taking some water up when he got the sliced-up palm of a boy from the well. It was a thing the old woman missed. The rest of it, he and Soha had figured out after walking around.
She was not perfect in her clean-ups.
Soon enough, Soha's hands were awash in blood; he simply tore away her chest, and her heart was stolen.
Eaten. It tasted old and rotten. But even that counted.
There was no particular reason he chose to kill the woman. He couldn't be said to be any better than her himself either for him to have done it out of the goodness of his heart.
In fact, if his mother, Susan, learned of what kind of things he had been doing, she would probably have a heart attack.
He just felt like killing the woman, and he killed her. Had it been too much of an effort, he would have just ignored her, but it was easy.
It also soothed the itch in his conscience, which was already nearly nonexistent.
A bunch of data entered his mind, transmitted by his trusted aid, Emma.
—
[Name: Soha Ravenhart]
[2nd Class Martial Artist (7 Hearts/989 Hearts)]
[Skills]
[Low-Level Martial Arts—Black Poison Palm Art]
—
Soha chuckled at the words. He no longer had to train after eating hearts due to his Innate Qi circulating and digesting the influx of energy on its own. Blood leaking from the side of his disfigured lips, he asked, "So I only need 986 hearts?"
"[Yes, with the sudden spike in Innate Qi, I just checked your whole body, and if you eat 989, you should have enough Innate Qi to make your body overflow with it.]" Her voice was proud, and Soha could tell why.
Using her own analysis to create a game-like interface to keep track of his growth… if that wasn't intuitive, what was?
"Pretty cool," he praised.
"[…]" A slight cough. Even she only felt good riddance at the death of such a woman.