Liam slled the flask, savoring its fresh sll, before gulping down its contents. lissa soon did the sa, but he almost missed that due to the surprising effects spreading inside his body.
The elixir had a refreshing effect, quickly washing away Liam’s tiredness before filling his core with a strange vitality similar to when he consud poison.
Liam’s core imdiately started producing more Qi, and the process didn’t stop there. Even his circulation technique’s pace increased, refining more energy for his body.
’Whoa,’ Liam couldn’t help but exclaim in his mind at those tangible effects. The elixir boosted his recovery by almost half its original speed, confirming once again the value of alchemy.
Of course, the boost wasn’t miraculous. It didn’t imdiately get Liam ready to fight at full power. Still, it remained a welco advantage in that troubleso situation.
Liam guessed that the previous collapse had sent the packs into hiding, but that temporary safety dwindled with each passing second, especially with the four corpses spreading their bloody scent everywhere.
The sooner Liam moved, the higher his odds of avoiding a fight would be, which was a preferable outco now that the injured lissa had returned. Also, if the powerful snake or sothing as strong as it were to appear, a new collapse might unfold, and Liam didn’t know if he could survive it a second ti.
So, Liam only sat cross-legged for a few minutes before standing up, properly inspecting the chamber. He could sll from which tunnel the red trio had co from, but his attention also moved to the other holes, unsure about what to do.
’We could leave,’ Liam considered. ’lissa must know the way through that tunnel, and I can break the spikes before the hall, but ...’
The mission was theoretically over. The bright, yellowish mineral in the chamber had to be what Joel had been looking for, so Liam and lissa only needed to bring it back to the surface to accomplish their goal.
However, Liam hadn’t decided to face those dangers just to do his Senior Brother a favor. He had ventured down there to get rewards for himself, and that desire had only grown stronger after discovering the affiliation with the Divine Cult.
’Am I being greedy?’ Liam wondered. ’Should I be satisfied with Neil’s magical weapon?’
If Liam had to be honest, he was far from satisfied. He wanted to seize sothing directly from the Divine Cult as compensation for what he had suffered. It would only be fair, but also potentially deadly.
’I have two good Seismic Palms left in ,’ Liam calculated. ’Three soon, thanks to the elixir. I could probably get to four in half an hour, but that’s too much dwelling in one place.’
"Say," Liam called, since his calculations alone couldn’t show the best option. "Is the place where you found the Water Shield nearby?"
lissa had never dared to relax, both due to the place and Liam’s presence, so she was ready to nod at the question.
The news was more than welco, but Liam suddenly noticed sothing odd. He hadn’t thought much about it earlier, but it sounded like lissa knew exactly where they were, and not because she had just arrived at the place.
"You found this mine the last ti, too," Liam realized.
lissa’s expression grew even more emotionless, as if a detached resolve had invaded it, before performing a nod.
"And you didn’t bring anything back to Senior Brother Joel," Liam continued, only for lissa to shake her head in confirmation.
"You didn’t even tell him about its existence ...," Liam added, partially talking to himself, "Because you wanted to be sure to co here again."
lissa confird that reasoning with a serious nod, forcing Liam to consider the implications.
’But if she had told him ...,’ Liam thought before understanding dawned upon him. ’No. If Joel was certain the mineral was down here, he might have risked coming here himself.’
lissa was ready to face Liam’s judgntal eyes. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She had looked out for herself like every cultivator should, but Liam was bound to see her differently from a simple ally in need after catching a glimpse of her cynical shrewdness.
Yet, to lissa’s surprise, Liam couldn’t stop existing far outside the norms of her lived experience.
"Senior Sister sure is smart," Liam praised, feeling as if he had learned sothing new, only for his following words to go against that teaching, "But I don’t feel like tricking Senior Brother."
Before lissa could say or gesture anything, Liam went to a hole he had spotted earlier that featured a particularly bright corner. Cracks also ran through its insides, allowing Liam to grab their edges and pull with all the strength he could muster.
The corner initially didn’t budge, only to suddenly detach itself from the wall, together with a few pebbles. Liam ended up with a mostly yellowish chunk the size of his hand in his palm, which he secured in his pouch before moving to a different location.
The previous collapse had opened a copious number of cracks in the chamber, so Liam had no shortage of brittle surfaces he could break with his bare hands. At so point, he even seized his victims’ pouches, stopping when he filled three to the brim.
’This is the most I can carry before it becos a hindrance,’ Liam thought, weighing the three pouches with a hand before securing them on his back. ’How does one even eat tal anyway?’
That troubling thought didn’t stop Liam from returning to lissa, who had remained silent throughout the process, seemingly agreeing with Liam’s decision.
"We should move now," Liam declared, offering his hand to the injured girl.
lissa instinctively thought about ignoring Liam’s hand, but her ankle’s bandaged state told her that ship had sailed, and her detached behavior would only beco a burden in that situation.
However, as soon as Liam pulled lissa up, he also brought her arm over his shoulders before securing her waist in his grasp, which would have made her jump on the spot if she hadn’t tensed up first.
"Did I hurt you?" Liam asked, feeling lissa’s tension, only for her to point her wide eyes at him.
"What?" Liam wondered, genuinely confused.
And lissa truly didn’t know what to make of that. Liam was touching her again. He was even closer than before, far closer than any man had ever been to her, but he seed unable to see anything wrong with it.
It was almost as if Liam didn’t see lissa as a woman or had no interest in won in general, which should have felt refreshing to her, but she experienced so annoyance instead.
There was a big difference between being respectful and not caring at all. lissa seed invisible in Liam’s eyes, which irked her. Luckily, lissa could bla her conflicting reaction on the fact that she owed her life to him.
Yet, lissa’s heart sank again when she recalled how sweaty she was, and Liam was bound to have noticed it, so she quickly lowered her head in embarrassnt, focusing on the mission instead.
Liam’s actions were ant to help lissa walk, but she wasn’t a powerless woman. She summoned her Qi and waved her right hand, releasing transparent vapor that quickly enveloped the two.
And, as Liam’s surroundings grew slightly hazy, lissa forced herself to voice a short explanation. "In-nvisible."
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