The abundance of corpses didn’t imply gains. The Church’s rooting experts hadn’t expected struggles, not of the fighting kind, so they had only brought their tokens and a few rank 2 Qi-Storage Pills inside the Cathedral.
Nevertheless, those few findings were useless to Liam. Qi-Storage Pills were more imdiate but personal versions of Qi Recovery elixirs. The purpose was the sa, but cultivators had to fill the forr with their unique energy, rendering them unusable for anyone else.
So, after going through everything, waiting exactly a couple of hours, and deflecting a few more instances of sexual harassnt, Liam arrived before the fuming swamp, a problem he hadn’t cared about when he was alone presenting itself.
The swamp had stopped expanding. Actually, it had started to recede, the Qi seemingly having learned to fight off that infection. However, the process was unbearably slow, and yellow fus still rose from that vast black patch, making it a death zone for anyone but Liam.
Most importantly, it was a death zone that Liam had no idea how to fix.
’Every alchemist worth their salt can undo their creations,’ Liam recalled. ’Master would have hit so hard.’
The Master’s Pride, and the rank 2 venom for that matter, still had no antidote. The Qilin’s Idea was an exception. Still, Liam had made that poison with the ability to cure it as one of its core aspects, and that solution even had nothing to do with the heavily watered-down substance his glans produced.
That had little to do with Liam’s skills. He had always lacked the resources to experint on counterparts for his venom, and ti had been an issue when he had gained access to them.
Yet, the current situation highlighted the failure as an alchemist. After all, Lancelot had to reach the coffin, too, and Liam had no idea what it took to activate it, aning his touchy friend couldn’t just stand there endlessly.
As for activating the coffin alone, the idea never crossed Liam’s mind. He didn’t want to be the only one advancing to the next layer. His teammate had even saved his life, so he couldn’t leave him behind.
"Brother, what’s the hold up?" Lancelot asked as he arrived at Liam’s side, remaining outside the swamp’s periter and its fus’ range.
Liam glanced at Lancelot. His presence had grown heavier during that break, signifying the refilling of his Qi reserves, but he still looked quite battered and tired.
In comparison, the healing pill had exhausted its effects. Liam’s insides had recovered, and the injuries on his hands and thighs had mostly faded, too. Only shallow burns still littered him, but they posed no hindrance, and his body could deal with them on its own.
"Are you sure you don’t want anything?" Liam questioned sothing he had already asked. "I am the team’s alchemist after all."
"Just throw sothing at if the situation needs it," Lancelot refused. "I’ll trust our brotherly bond over anything this inheritance might have."
Lancelot prioritized having fun even with the literal fate of his cultivation journey on the line, and Liam didn’t try to argue anymore, instead moving to sothing that might help.
"Say, Brother," Liam uttered. "How co your flas didn’t burn ?"
Customs wanted cultivators to avoid probing such private topics, but Liam half-believed Lancelot wouldn’t take it personally, and he could see a similarity between the venom his body produced and that living fire.
"I can’t do it all the ti," Lancelot admitted, "And the Qi consumption more than doubles. My cultivation truly needs to like soone to give life instead of burning it."
The answer didn’t help, but Liam tried to follow that reasoning anyway since he had nothing else to work with.
’Life and Passion can be seen as opposite,’ Liam considered. ’But maybe that’s just titles humans have given. The Ancestral Phoenix is one being. It doesn’t create different fires. It’s one fla that can do both.’
Even Anastasia had hinted at sothing along those lines, but Liam mostly applied the reasoning to Lancelot’s elent. Chances were his bloodline had sothing to do with that, aning it was the sa for Liam.
’But my venom is more physical,’ Liam thought. ’It has nothing to do with my core or Hatred. My cultivation even treats it as part of my body.’
Sothing lit up in Liam’s mind. Now that he thought about it, he noticed the one elent in the world his venom had never affected. He was immune to that substance, a feature he had found obvious and even a bit annoying, but that led to a deeper conclusion now.
’As magic as the cultivation world is,’ Liam realized, ’My venom is physical, aning my immunity should be as well.’
Liam looked down at his mostly healed hands. His body already did what he had failed to concoct, be it through mutations or sothing else. He didn’t know where it resided, but it had to be at the sa rank as his venom.
’I am a rooting expert,’ Liam thought, crossing the swamp’s boundary. ’aning, my body is a rank 2 material.’
As Liam had stated in the conversation with Julian, cultivators’ bodies made for poor alchemical ingredients due to the many different elents they contained.
Liam didn’t expect to find a solution to the Master’s Pride. That product was specific, requiring an equally specific antidote, but a temporary fix could already be at hand.
Liam grabbed his palm, his fingers pressing on it, eventually piercing his conditioned skin. He closed his hand, squeezing blood out of it, letting it fall to the infected floor.
The red drops did nothing to disperse the infection, but they had an effect. The black patches remained, but the yellow fus stopped rising from the affected spots.
Liam’s eyes lit up as countless ideas flooded his mind. It turned out he was the key ingredient for the antidotes he had failed to produce, and finding it unlocked countless possible recipes.
With that, Liam could not only fill the gap in his alchemical expertise. He could also improve his existing products and concoct much more, knowing he would have solutions literally at hand.
Of course, Liam quelled his eagerness to sit behind a cauldron because other priorities reclaid his attention. He squatted down, placing his hand on the floor to sar it with blood, creating a relatively safe area Lancelot could cross.
"Keep your head down and follow ," Liam ordered, already proceeding onward, stabbing his forearm to bleed more.
Lancelot didn’t even consider doubting Liam, so the two slowly crossed the path the latter cleared through the swamp, eventually reaching the central altar and jumping on it.
"Do you have any idea how to open it?" Liam asked, studying the coffin. The trials usually had instructions, and he didn’t know if the blackness caused by the Church’s inscriptions had covered them.
"We lift it?" Lancelot suggested, taking Liam by surprise.
Liam had been the one to think outside the box until now, but what he had seen the Church do to the altar had blinded him to the most basic approach available. There was a coffin, so he could just open it.
A nod brought Liam and Lancelot’s hands to the coffin’s lid. They didn’t need countdowns to synchronize themselves, and they both used all the strength they had, only to almost stumble forward at the complete lack of opposition.
The coffin’s top just opened and flew away, revealing a blinding white light that enveloped Liam and Lancelot, triggering a teleport.
The process seed longer than usual. The ti spent among emptiness was almost twice what had happened with the previous teleports, and another unusual scene followed once it ended.
Liam and Lancelot found themselves side by side inside the first truly dark area they had ever encountered inside the inheritance. It was vast, like a hall that had no ceiling, and flowers encircled them on all sides.
The only interruption to that garden was right behind the two. A perfect replica of the white coffin from the previous area lay on the ground, open to show a skeleton donning a still-intact, perfectly tidy white robe.
But light appeared, rising from the other side of the coffin, condensing into the inheritance’s spirit, his figure more detailed, even carrying a clear Qi signature.
"For two descendants of the Ancestral Beasts to be the ones to claim my inheritance," The spirit announced, the darkness echoing his voice. "How puny our sches must look in the eyes of the Heavens."
The statent clearly had to do with the dichotomy Liam had noticed between the Man and the ancestral bloodlines, but he mostly cared about the first part. He hadn’t told his team about his lineage, and things only worsened.
"Son of the Ancestral Snake," The spirit continued. "You wanted answers, and you shall receive them."
Liam’s greatest secret ca in the open just like that, and he didn’t even have ti to think about addressing the matter since Lancelot was already staring at him, his eyes and mouth wide, both smiling.
User Comments
0 comments from readers