41 To the Victor Go the Spoils

Xuan woke up to the familiar ceiling of his room at Open Sky Alchemist Guild. Strangely, despite his conversation with Pan Gu being in a dream, he still remembered every detail of it.

'That damn woman… saving something that important for the last moment…' He thought in his head. 'Though, she's probably listening in to my mind right now, so it wouldn't be very wise to keep insulting her…'

Outside, a lightning bolt struck the ground in front of the alchemist guild building, and a sudden thunderstorm began forming over Cloud Catcher City.

'… Yeah.'

He looked around. There were no other people in the room. He could detect several presences downstairs—powerful ones—but they didn't seem hostile. Probably here to send condolences over Grandmaster Zong's death or something. Since he had some alone time, might as well use it.

"Now then, let's see…"

The first thing he did was check his System—sure enough, there was now a new tab in the navigation bar at the top, labeled with a wisp-like shape that stood for Souls. Through here, he could check the memories of and delete old Souls he devoured, making it an essential feature to use in the near future.

Next, he looked at his Map, where Pan Gu had placed an irremovable waypoint on. Even after several minutes of panning around and zooming in and out, however, Xuan was unable to find the mark. Slightly confused, he tilted his head.

'Strange…'

After some thought, though, he figured it out—the mark was in the map of a realm or small world he had yet to discover or unlock. After all, Xianxia Continent was just the mainland in Lower Asphodel. There were various other realms that the mark could be in, but given Pan Gu's way of speaking when talking about it earlier, Xuan could assume it was in Elysium—a place where even Origin Emperors were considered weak.

'Hm… but to think immortality becomes boring…'

Xuan leaned back on his bed and pondered about this for a second, trying to think from Pan Gu's perspective. Eventually, though, he gave up and sighed.

'As expected… I can't understand it. True immortality is the peak of cultivation, the Martial Dao. If living forever is not a good thing, then why do so many poor souls seek to reach it?'

Putting those philosophical ideas aside for now, Xuan checked on his inventory and retrieved the two spoils of war he'd obtained from slaying Zhou He. It was a shame he wasn't able to obtain the defensive artifact that'd been tossed away by the patriarch, but these two should do for now—and he was bound to find something better in the Zhou family treasury.

"𝑀𝑦 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡... 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑. 𝑈𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙, 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑣𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑒."

—Nosferu, The Vampire Blacksmith

'Ooh… this is not bad. I think its base stats are stronger than Black Mamba, as a Saint-Grade weapon,' Xuan thought. 'Mm, yes. I'll give Black Mamba to that huntress later… which, speaking of, I still don't know the name of, huh? Well, anyway… next.'

'Oh. So that's why the techniques and map were both in there…'

This Space Ring was encrypted with a similar Sanguine Guile array as the other one, and so Xuan easily cracked it with the same method. Inside were a variety of items—five of both Health Restoration Pills and Qi Restoration Pills, all veined, and a total of 3 million Spirit Crystals.

In other words, Xuan was now good on money for the time being.

Other than those commonly-seen items, there were also a few private belongings—for instance, Zhou He's patriarch stamp—which, according to the Divine Asura Eye, granted access to the family's treasury—and what looked like a document marking him as an elder of Stealing Heart Sect.

The contents of the Space Ring weren't anything impressive, but that made sense. Unless one was traveling, there was no reason to bring along any treasures or precious items. Since Zhou He's home was right here in Cloud Catcher City, all of his true treasures would be stored in his family treasury—the safest place there was…

… And also the place that Xuan was about to head to, as a final stop before leaving Cloud Catcher City for good.

*****

After checking his Director for the new Breakthrough Quest he'd received, Xuan was relieved to find that the requirements had not changed from his previous life:

Win a good duel, against a worthy opponent.

Apparently, the reasoning behind this was that fighting got the body moving, and when one becomes enraptured in the heat of battle, their Qi begins to flow along with their limbs. Xuan found this explanation incredibly unrealistic and unscientific, but his opinions weren't going to change jack shit. All he knew was that even the fight just now against Zhou He was not considered 'worthy' in his eyes. That was just a one-sided beating for both parties, depending on which half of the fight was looked at.

For normal cultivators, a good duel against a worthy opponent was easy—just randomly go out on the street and pick a fight. But for someone as powerful as Xuan… finding an opponent he deemed 'worthy' from the bottom of his heart would be…

'… Oh, wait. There's that guy, isn't there?'

After some rapid operations on the System, Xuan took a look at the current cultivation leaderboard standings, and filtered for players. Right now, there were two people at the top, sharing the same cultivation level: Xuan himself, and cultivator Nine Heavens. With a smile, the former changed to the Social tab, and pulled up the direct messages between the two of them.

[Zero: Nine Heavens, I have a proposal.]

Almost immediately, there came a reply.

[Nine Heavens: Well, well, well. If it isn't Zero. What do you want, bastard?]

[Zero: A fight, against a worthy opponent.]

[Nine Heavens: Oh…? Does that mean you consider me worthy?]

[Zero: No, but you are the best option. Besides—you are also at the same bottleneck, are you not? I just checked the cultivation leaderboards.]

[Nine Heavens: Where are you right now?]

[Zero: Cloud Catcher City.]

[Nine Heavens: Still? Seriously? :skull:]

[Zero: I was part of the last batch to migrate into this world, genius.]

[Nine Heavens: I'm a ways off from that place, but… let me think about it.]

Zero, sighing, closed up the DMs and his System altogether. There were a few other Quests in the Director that caught his eye, but he had no time to check on them right now. After all, he could detect the presence of someone—Zhi Ruo—coming up the stairs, and sure enough, after a few seconds, the doors to his room opened.

"… Oh, junior brother. You're awake."

Blinking a few times in surprise, she hurried over and helped Xuan off his bed.

"Are you alright? When that white-haired girl came to us asking for help, we hurried to the place she spoke of, but… we only found you fainted there, unconscious, with Zhou He's dead body lying beside you. What happened…?"

"Oh… about that," Xuan muttered. "I killed Zhou He, but overused my Qi and ended up fainting as a result."

At this, Zhi Ruo's eyes widened. "You… killed Zhou He? But he was an Origin Monarch! Even if you've broken through to the Core Formation stage now, how did you… wait, are you about to break through again? That's impossible! Ngh, none of this is making any sense…"

Xuan only smiled and rubbed her head slightly. "I just have very good luck, that's all. Don't worry too much about it."

"Truly… you do seem to be blessed by the heavens," Zhi Ruo said with a sigh. "My choice to go with you when you leave this city was the right one after all. Maybe some of your luck will rub off on me? Heh."

Xuan smiled slightly. It was good to see that she was back to normal—she had a strong heart.

"By the way… speaking of that white-haired girl, where is she?" Xuan asked, glancing around. "I can't detect her presence anywhere."

"Oh, she went to the forest to 'complete some Commission Quests'," Zhi Ruo replied with a shrug, quoting the huntress's exact words. "I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but she seemed pretty confident she could do it, so I didn't stop her."

"Hm… I see."

'Well, at least she remembers some of the knowledge I've taught her. I was going to praise her for doing a good job in following through with my plan during the fight against Zhou He, but if she's not here, then forget it. She doesn't seem the type to be easily manipulated with a few sweet words anyway.'

"Oh, that's right!" Zhi Ruo suddenly stopped in her tracks, hitting her own hand. "There's a person downstairs who wants to speak with you. It seemed urgent, and… well, she said that if she couldn't see you today, she won't leave."

Xuan lifted an eyebrow. "Who are we talking about here, exactly?"

"I'm not sure, but she claims to be from Glacial Heights Pavilion and is quite mature but beautiful," she replied, sighing dejectedly. "Shouldn't you know better than I do? Have you been fooling around with girls outside recently, hm?"

Saying this, Zhi Ruo lifted an eyebrow interrogatively, to which Xuan turned away.

"I am not sure what you mean, senior sister. I truly have no idea who this woman could be, but… maybe after I see her, I'll understand."

"… Right."

Zhi Ruo smiled mischievously, not seeming to be convinced, and together, the two headed downstairs.

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