Chapter 18

After school was over, he came back home and trained for the rest of the day, his Soul Force reaching 16 by the end of the day.

If he hadn't sent one of his Clones to study in the library then his Soul Force would be 18 instead of the current 16 but knowledge and information were important as well.

But once night fell, he left his house and travelled through the Mirror world until he came out through the reflection of a pond inside the Training Ground that was Created by the Legend Rank Demon Spiritualist Ye Mo and the School Principal who was a Black Gold Demon Spiritualist.

And now that he was here, he needed to search for the girl he was going to help.

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XIAO NING'ER POV

She sat in a clearing in the forest inside the Training ground and cultivated under the moonlight.

She had been coming here ever since the school started if only so that she could stay away from her family members that had gladly sold her to the Sacred Family after they made some very bad business decisions and fell under Sacred Family's influence.

She almost despaired as she thought about Shen Fei. The boy was a womanizer and so far she had heard nothing good about him. She didn't want to marry him but her family was forcing the issue and she really had no choice.

The only thing she could do was become a powerful Demon Spiritualist and gain enough influence to break her engagement or separate from her family and live on her own if that wasn't possible.

That was why even though ignored the pain and coldness she was feeling in her leg and ribs and continued to cultivate without any break.

Being strong meant everything to her. Because only with strength will she gain freedom.

Her concentration was suddenly broken when she felt something touch her shoulder.

She frowned and turned around to see that no one was there.

'It must have been my imagination.' She thought while shaking her head and was about to go back to cultivating when she heard the rustling of leaves from the other end of the clearing.

She took out her knife and instantly went on her guard.

"Who's there?" she asked "Show yourself!!"

The tall bush around the trees and moved aside and… a boy her age came out into the clearing.

A boy that she recognized.

"Classmate Itachi Uchiha. What are you doing here?" she asked, not dropping her guard for a second.

After all,t his was the boy who had effortlessly killed the Demon Beast in that class. And he had done that with his bare hands while she was not able to defeat her own even with a weapon.

True the boy had lost to Shen Yue during the sparring session in the school but she was convinced that Itachi had thrown away the match so that he won't gain She Yue's ire. A smart decision in her opinion because if his position she wouldn't want the attention of the Sacred Family either.

The boy looked completed unaffected by her fighting stance and gave her an amused smile. "You know of me?" he asked curiously.

"I do." She replied coldly and didn't say anymore.

She wanted to put all her focus on her cultivation so she had to sacrifice her social life for that. She didn't want to make any new friends so nowadays she always kept her conversations with her fellow classmates short and to the point.

"My my. So young yet so cold." Itachi said mockingly as he started to circle around her, making her feel like she was being circle by a predator.

"What do you want?" she said, keep her voice as cold as always and not allowing any of the nervousness she was feeling to shine through.

The boy was a killer.

She had seen his expression after he had killed the Demon Beast. While the other kids had been disgusted by that, the boy had in fact enjoyed the kill and looked like he wanted to go for more.

Such a person was worthy of her caution even if his soul force wasn't as strong as hers.

"What do I want? Now isn't that an interesting question." The boy grinned, showing her his teeth "Why there are many things I want. The most important of them being strength and knowledge. But right now, what I want is to know why you're in this forest so late at night. All alone. After all, you're a beautiful girl. Some people might have bad intentions toward you. I wonder what you would do if one of them tried to take advantage of you." He almost whispered the last words.

Her eyes narrowed at his words and she glared at him "I'll kill anyone that tries such a thing." She said, almost daring at him to step forward.

His eyes crinkled in amusement, as if he had heard the best joke in the world "Oh… Big words for a small girl."

Her fists clenched tightly around knife as she decided to teach the boy a lesson before he could waste any more of her time.

"I'll show you small." She said and jumped toward him, hoping to surprise him with her speed but instead of seeing shock in his expression, she only saw amusement.

And then the world suddenly shifted and a moment later she found herself facing the ground with the boy on top of her with her hand locked up behind her back.

She then felt him press his finger at certain points on her shoulders and moment later, she realized that she hands had stopped responding to her.

She felt a moment of fear as she realized just what position she was in and the true difference in their powers.

If the boy wanted, then he could do whatever he wants with her now and she won't be able to do anything to stop him.

Only now did she realize her folly in coming to this forest to cultivate all alone.

Only now did she realize how weak and helpless she truly was.

And she hated it.

"My my. To attack me like that all of a sudden. How rude of you." He said, his voice tinged with amusement "And here I was thinking about even helping you with your problems."

She froze "What problems?"

"Oh. You know. I'm talking about the dark purple bruise that I saw on your just this day during the spars." He said in the same tone that one uses when talking about weather "Tell me Xiao Ning'er" he whispered in her ears in a silky and seductive voice that sent a warm heat down her cheeks "When night falls, don't both of your legs feel as if they're being burned by fire?"

The thoughts grounded to a halt at that.

"Ho… how do you know?" she asked, cursing herself for how nervous and weak she sounded.

"Let's just say that I've my ways. But trust me when I say that I've seen something like this once before." He said, easing the pressure off of her and allowing her to stand.

She dusted her dress and glared at him but before she could say anything he continued "The disease you have. It causes your legs to feel like they're on fire while the rest of your body feels extremely cold. Every night at midnight, it would feel as it it was hailing on your body. It must be terribly painful. It certainly was for the last girl who was afflicted with the Arctic Disease. She was not even able to train her soul force."

"What happened to that girl?" she asked, feeling weak.

"That girl… she pushed herself despite the disease. But the more she trained, the worse her condition became. And once she reached Bronze Rank, the disease took hold of her. She was sick for two years, unable to do anything. Unable to use her soul force. Unable to train. Her skills atrophied and her cultivation dropped. When two years later she healed, she trained once again. This time she went too far and the disease claimed her."

She felt lightheaded upon hearing that.

"Judging by how much the disease has progressed you are at the critical stage where cultivating even more destroy everything you've built so far."

The lightheaded feeling increased and the world swam around her. The next moment, she stumbled and fell to the ground. Or would have fallen if Itachi wasn't there to catch her in time.

She took a few deep breaths and calmed herself down before she pushed him away from herself.

"So I was correct. It is the Arctic disease isn't it. Man, this would all be terribly embarrassing if it wasn't." He chuckled to himself.

"Do… do you know how to heal the disease?" she asked weakly, clutching at the last thread of hope that would keep her from drowning.

Itachi stopped joking around and gave her a sympathetic look "I once knew a person who was capable of using a technique that allowed him to heal a similar case of Arctic Disease. But that person is no longer in this world and I don't know which technique he used to her the disease."

"That technique. What was it's name?" she asked.

"Daoyin Technique." Itachi said "And don't bother searching for it in the hospitals in the Glory City. I know for a fact that none of the doctors or Alchemists would have even heard of this technique let alone know about it. In fact, I can guarantee you that none of them will even know which disease is inflicting you in the first place."

"So there is no hope?" she asked, her voice breaking from the stress and hopelessness of her situation. Was this what her future would be like?

She had worked so hard, suffered so much pain and had gone through so much to reach this place. And now… she had reached a dead end.

How was this fair in any way?

She felt tears stream down her cheeks and felt Itachi's hands cup her cheeks and wipe her tears away. Normally she would protested to this but right now she was in too much despair to care.

"There is a way to heal you. In fact, there might be two ways that I can use that might be able to heal you."

She looked at him then. And really looked at him. His expression was sincere and it didn't seem like he was lying. But she didn't want to feel hopeful again only for him to crush her hopes by telling her how hopeless everything was.

He must have seen something in her eyes because he continued "The first method is that we scour all the books in the School and public library and see if there is any mention of Daoyin Technique and see if I can learn that technique from that book."

She almost closed her eyes in sadness "There's too many books." And there were. The School library alone had over a hundred thousand books. The Public library had tripe that amount of books. And half of them were in scavenged books from the ancient times in multiple different languages that she didn't even knew how to read.

And even if they read all the books(which would take decades), there wasn't any guarantee that they would find the Daoyin Technique.

"What is the second option?" she asked, having lost all hope by this point.

Itachi had a look of hesitation on his face and she clutched his shirt with both her hands with tears streaming down her cheeks "Tell me" she begged "What is the second option?"

He gave her a stern look and removed her hands from his shirt before he took a step back and gave her a scrutinizing look.

"The second technique… it is not something that I'm willing to share with you even if it will undoubtedly heal you." He saw her expression change and quickly explained "Not because I'm greedy or the Technique is something dark would require the soul of innocents to work. No, nothing like that. But that technique will require a large sacrifice from you. And I'm not sure if you'll be willing to pay it."

She chuckled weakly at his words.

"Sacrifice. You just told me that if I continued to cultivate like this then I'll meet a painful death. Any kind of sacrifice that I make at this point would at least keep me alive."

He stared at her for a long moment before he sighed "Let me think on this for a while."

She nodded, ignoring the twinge of pain in her body as the night fell and her disease started to act up more and more.

Itachi started walking to and fro with a thinking expression. She gave him his time, wondering what this 'sacrifice' would be. Why was he so reluctant to use this technique on her.

After walking around for a while, Itachi finally stopped in front of her and said with a stern face "Very well. I've decided that I'll heal you. But, I'll not do it for free."

She nodded, already having expected this "Okay. My family might have fallen in hard times but we're still quite rich by a commoner's standards. What do you want? Money? Cultivation Pills? Cultivation techniques?"

Itachi shook his head and chuckled at her words. "No. I do not require any of those things. In fact," he flicked his spatial ring in front of her and then eyes almost popped out of her skull in shock as she saw him bring out a large pile of Demon Spirit coins in front of her.

There… there must have been tens if not hundreds of millions of Demon coins in there.

And then with a wave of his hand, all that wealth was back in his spatial ring.

She gaped at him and he smiled back at her. "As you can see. Money is not exactly a problem for me. Neither is Alchemy Pills. And I frankly doubt that your family holds any Cultivation technique that would interest me. So no. There is nothing of worth that your family can provide me that I already do not have."

She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

That much money… She doubted that even her family held as much as wealth as Itachi held in his spatial ring.

How was this even possible? Wasn't he just someone from a commoner background. Or like Ziyun, maybe he had a secret identity as well. An identity that no one knows about.

But that was absurd. Even if he was City Lord's own child, the City Lord would never give him so much wealth so that he could show it off to others.

His mysterious identity intrigued her. But right now she was more focused on what he'll ask for in exchange for healing her.

"What else can I give you then?" she asked weakly.

"Well… I suppose you could always give me your love." He whispered softly to her ears and for a moment she thought that she misheard him.

"My love?"

"Yes." He nodded with a serious look "Your love. You give it to me and I'll heal you."

"But… I'm already engaged to Shen Fei of the Sacred Family." She protested, even if she never had any intention of marrying that guy and would have rather killed herself then agreeing to this marriage.

"Engagements can be broken. People can be killed. Families can be destroyed." Itachi said nonchalantly, as if he was once again talking about the weather and not about destroying one of the three major families in Glory City.

"I… I cannot just give you my love. It's not something that can be given away." She said.

"I know." He nodded "But you can try. And that is all I'll ever ask of you."

She stared at him in incomprehension.

Her life for her love. She wondered if anyone else has ever done a trade like this.

She licked her dry lips.

"I… I need to think about this." She looked down at the ground, unwilling to meet his eyes in case he got disappointed and and decided to not heal her at all.

Instead, he lifted her chin by his finger so that she was staring at him again and he nodded.

"Good. I would have been disappointed if you had agreed quickly yo this." He said "The disease might have reached a critical stage but you still have some time. I'll see about searching the libraries for the Daoyin technique in the meanwhile even if it's unlikely that I'll find it. Come talk to me when you've made a decision. You know where to find me."

She nodded and he took her right and bow before placing a chaste kiss on her knuckles before he turned around and started walking away.

By the time she came out of her stupor, he had already left the clearing and she was all alone once again.