Chapter 19

I quickly armed myself as best as I could while Keqing went out to go check on the Xiantian Hellboar which was supposed to be around her level of cultivation. But even as I loaded up and prepped my RPG I heard a heart-rendingly loud thudding noise before an obscenely loud screech rang out.

'She already started dammit!' I thought cursing as I ran out of the Dome slowly due to the ground shaking as the Hellboar was shaking the whole damned mountain with its antics.

As I came out of the Dome in which all our machinery were within, the first thing I naturally saw was the Hellboar and I knew it was a demonbeast who had reached its maximum potential as a Xiantian beast. As instead of cultivating its root bloodline and either becoming a humanoid demon or divine beast it had instead cultivated its body and became utterly massive.

The Hellboar was just over ten meters tall, with glowing tribal tattoos covering its thick black fur-covered form. Its frontal tusks were serrated and glowing a bright golden and I could feel the value of said tusks in my bones due to my cultivation art.

But I saw what had made it squeal so loudly earlier as both of its eyes were blown out craters as Keqing had clearly used both of the bullets I made for her using the Soul Stealing Iron rounds to puncture through its Xiantian energy shield all tier three beings had.

"Jake wait." One of the guards stopped me as I came closer with the RPG being raised on my shoulder. "Let Lady Keqing bleed it out, there's no need to waste more high-quality spirit stones." He finished with a clearly pained look.

I blinked and then quickly said. "This doesn't use a spirit stone at all? I won't be in the way will I?" I asked kinda unsurely as I certainly didn't want to draw the berserk Xiantian creature's attention as Keqing was easily taking her time killing it through a thousand cuts.

The guard shook his head and said slowly. "No. All tier three beings can feel the impact on their energy barriers which is why assassinating them with mundane means are damn near impossible, just... Stick back please and don't cause trouble."

'Why does it feel like he is blaming me for this?' I thought before my lips twitched as I recalled that yes the Hellboar coming up here was very fucking much my own fault dammit.

But with a loud crunching noise Keqing teleported onto the back of the rampaging Hellbore and before it could react Keqing stabbed her lightning-coated sword into the boars head making it grunt and fall convulsing as her cultivation-boosted lightning fried the nervous system of the oversized boar.

And Keqing with the lightning sword buried within the boar just casually looked around and I could feel the weaker monsters and demons that were watching the Hellboar try its luck pull back seeing the Xiantian leveled being be bullied to death like that.

Finally, after a whole minute of frying the boars brains, she ripped her sword out of the skull of the boar and gracefully jumped down from the boar's skull with her casually whipping her sword around with it sparking with lightning again to burn away any debris off the blade.

"Get back inside, all of you." She ordered everyone without a change in expression and without a word I turned on my feet and went back inside as Keqing followed right behind me and I could feel her gaze boring into the back of my skull as she followed me silently back into my cabin while the guards were likewise silent.

Once we got into my metal cabin Keqing sat down and folded her arms over her chest and inclined her head towards the opposite seat as she took a breath to speak. "Jake, I am not patronizing you when I say this... But you don't understand how dangerous the world is." She said bluntly.

I silently nodded and she visibly took a long moment to continue. "Look Jake, I... I don't want to put you on a leash or anything, but when you decide to make a high-grade spiritual energy gathering array that can only be found in the depths of a Sect... On a damned whim and only using common materials?" Keqing finally waved her hands at me in utter disbelief and then covered her face with her hands to scream out her frustration making me sheepishly shift in place.

"I will run my inventions that change the area to you first alright," I said sheepishly admitting my wrong and hoping to get past this and Keqing finally uncovered her face as she spoke more naturally.

"Thank you! Now on a brighter note, the tusks of a Xiantian Hellbore are worth a great deal due to their ability to make powerful bows and pieces of armor... So we could sell them for probably five high quality spirit stones!" She said with some excitement and I threw in.

"So a three spirit stone profit?" I asked and her lips twitched as she somewhat pouted but nodded with her saying more seriously.

"Indeed... Granted however do you have a way for the spirit stone shell be reused? Even if not, most Xiantian life forms are worth at least ten high-quality spirit stones so if three or four bullets were used it would be a decent profit." Keqing mused and I had to ponder that thought.

Spirit stones were weird... It's like a spicy rock of radioactive material but instead of breaking down your DNA and creating mutations it instead strengthens said DNA and other aspects of life forms to a certain point though if the person or being absorbed past that point, they would get the spicy rock effect of playing around with radioactive materials and would be damaged.

I instead asked blankly. "Wait you guys cannot re-enrich the spirit stones?"

Keqing's utterly disgusted face of realization at my blank question was my answer and I couldn't help a demented giggle as I pointed at my cultivation chamber which used various forms of acid treatment and more importantly the uranyl complex that harvested the excess energy with the steam which would naturally be funneled back into the spirit stones through the acid etching process combined with potent magnetic radiation forcing the spiritual energy back into the spirit stones.

Not too un-similar to how a nuclear reactor works in essence... But instead of being baked with gamma radiation, I was instead baked with spiritual energy!

"Jake you! Ugh!" Keqing said in defeat throwing up her hands in defeat as I finally ended my giggles and asked the more pressing question.

"So... When will that other person be here that can help secure the area?" I asked curiously while wondering what Yelan was going to be like here in this Cultivation version of Genshin Impact.

My question made Keqing likewise straighten up as she shrugged and said evenly. "Oh, depending on if she already had a task she was working on. She will likely be here in less than twenty minutes after I sent that Jade Messanger Stick to her." 

But before I could ask if there was anything I needed to know about Yelan, Keqing flushed and poked her fingers together and asked quietly. "Uhm... Could I also use that booth to cultivate when Yelan seals up the area?"

And at that I couldn't help an awkward smile with her flush deepening as Keqing obviously thought that you needed to be naked like I was to use the booth... And to be honest I wasn't going to tell her otherwise!