Chương 141: Current Body - Han Renyi

The first thing you have to do after you win a fight to the death is clean up. It's not the glamorous stuff they write about in cultivation novels, but it's one of the most important parts because if you leave evidence lying around, you are forced to deal with revenge plots and angry sect elders. And that was not something I had any interest in doing. I stared at the three bodies sprawled out on the ground. Their blood was pooling up on the stone; it looked dark and accusatory.

If I wanted to do something about this mess, I needed to do it now, before some random person stumbled across the scene. Even though we were in this run-down part of the city, three dead cultivators, well, three dead Rouqin wouldn't go unnoticed for long. Especially since they worked for someone who was important enough to send real assassins after the young master whose body I was currently in.

"The ground here is mostly packed earth," I observed, kneeling down so I could press my palm flat against the dirt. Despite it having years of foot traffic and being neglected, I could still feel all the dormant potential inside it. Life always managed to find a way to survive even in the most unlikely places you could think of.

"That should make this a lot easier." I reached out with my spiritual sense and connected to the scattered weeds and the stubborn grass that managed to push their way through the cracks in the stone pathway. They were hardy little things since they adapted to surviving using minimal resources inside this qi-starved world. Or I guess I should probably say rouqi-starved instead, the new terminology was going to take me a while to get fully used to.

The local plants responded to my call sluggishly, it was nothing like the eager symphony of growth I was used to commanding. Their roots began shifting around and expanding deep beneath the surface.

"That is interesting," Azure commented.

"The local flora seems to retain some basic compatibility with your techniques even though there is a difference in the energy systems." I gave a nod while I kept directing the underground network of roots around.

"It feels like we are speaking the same language except with different accents. They understand what I want them to do, and their execution is a lot slower and less precise." Still though, making slow progress was infinitely better than making no progress at all. I carefully guided the roots to wrap themselves around the corpses, weaving them together to form cocoons that would mask any residual spiritual traces they left behind, and then I began sinking them deeper into the earth.

"It would have been easier if we had fire techniques to use," Azure noted right when I finished concealing the last body.

"We could have reduced them into ash."

"That's true," I agreed while I brushed the loose dirt off my hands.

"Except I'm a wood cultivator and I don't use fire at all. We have to work with what we have." I took a small pause while staring down at my blood-stained robes.

"Although right now, what we have is a lot of evidence we need to get rid of." And speaking about evidence, Yggy was still out with its vine form wrapped up protectively around my wrist. The little plant saved my life, it saved both of our lives, but having a supernatural plant out probably wasn't the greatest idea right now.

"It is time to go back home, little friend," I told it softly while reaching out to pat the vine. Yggy rustled its leaves around in what might have been a protest and it tightened its grip on me slightly.

"You don't need to worry because I'm fine now. Well, mostly fine." Yggy considered that for a second, and then it rubbed itself against my hand one last time before it dissipated away, letting its essence return back into my inner world. I could feel it settling back into its usual spot where it was probably already planning how it was going to protect me from the next batch of assassins.

"Master," Azure called out to me, "while the immediate threat has been neutralized, we should consider that these men's disappearance will be noticed quickly. Their employer—""Elder Zhou," I finished the sentence for him as I remembered those little fragments of worry and hatred I picked up from the young master's consciousness.

"Yeah, I can imagine a Tier 2 cultivator, a Tier 2 Rouqin, won't be too happy about losing his enforcers." While I did defeat the Tier 1 Rouqin thanks to my runes and Yggy's timely assistance, trying to go up against someone at Tier 2 was going to be a different matter entirely.

"I hope he isn't too difficult to deal with…"

"Judging from what we overheard," Azure said.

"There doesn't seem to be any Rouqin at the Tier 3 stage or above in this world."

"Yeah, except we both know how this usually ends up. There is some ancient monster hiding inside a cave somewhere, maintaining their cultivation base through whatever means necessary." I paused while I considered it.

"Although in a world that is dying, trying to maintain a high-level cultivation base must be challenging."

"So, what are we doing now?" Azure asked.

"Now?" I looked around the dark alleyway. The blood was going to be a lot harder for me to clean up, but the morning dew should dilute it down, and the rain should wash away pretty much the remaining traces.

"Now we need to find somewhere quiet so we can figure out what we are dealing with here. I would rather avoid getting into another fight until I understand what this body can do exactly." This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. There were a lot of questions I had running through my mind. How did rouqi compare to qi when it came to practical applications? What was this body's limits?

And most importantly, how was I supposed to handle having a roommate in this body? I made my way through the awakening city, making sure I kept to the back alleys and the dark shadows. The old warehouse district gradually gave way to some kind of park or garden area; it likely belonged to one of the wealthier families when this city was more prosperous. Now it was overgrown and neglected, making it ideal for someone who needed to do some undisturbed cultivation.

I found a secluded spot surrounded by thick bushes and old trees. The dense vegetation would hide me from any casual observation, and more importantly, it would warn me through our natural connection if anybody decided to approach us. Being a plant cultivator came with its own unique perks. I settled into a cross-legged position and took a deep breath. It was time for me to find out what I was working with here.

Status Update - Current Body: Name: Han Renyi Level: Tier 1 Rouqin Core Essence: Soul Essence: 30/105 Spiritual Essence: 20/63 Physical Essence: 16/33"That is interesting," I muttered, studying the numbers. My soul essence was already recovering now that I had a vessel to use, which was expected. The stuff that caught my attention were the spiritual and physical essence readings.

When I possessed Tomas back in the Two Suns world, his body had been devoid of any spiritual essence; it was just an empty vessel waiting to be filled. This body had a respectable amount of spiritual power inside it, even if it wasn't matching my own reserves. And the more important thing was that I could feel it increasing.

"The World Tree Sutra appears to be converting the local rouqi into qi," Azure explained.

"The energies here are similar enough that the conversion is possible, although it isn't efficient." I gave a nod, feeling the familiar warmth of the Genesis Seed working inside me.

"So, we can recover our spiritual essence here? That's unexpected."

"Yes, although there are some limitations to it," Azure cautioned.

"The rouqi is weaker than qi, so it requires you to absorb a larger quantity to produce useful amounts. Also, the ambient energy here is..." he took a long pause, searching for the right word, "sparse." I nodded, remembering what I overheard at the tavern earlier today. That random man's description of rouqi being thick as soup during his grandfather's time, and how it was reduced to feeling as if trying to breathe through a wet cloth now... it wasn't some poetic exaggeration. This world was dying.

"I have calculated the recovery rate," Azure continued.

"With the current environmental levels where they are, it will take you around a week to restore your spiritual essence reserves."

"An entire week?" I whistled.

"That's inconvenient. So, if we don't have any pills or treasures or even formations to speed things up, we can only use our full power once before we need to wait for a seven-day recovery period?"

"That is correct. Although you always have the option of partial usage alongside a slower recovery." I gave a shrug, trying my hardest to stay positive about the situation.

"That is better than having no qi. In the meantime, we can experiment with rouqi. We might even learn something useful from it."

"Speaking of learning opportunities," Azure said.

"Have you noticed anything interesting about the physical essence readings?" I turned my attention back to those numbers. Sixteen wasn't terrible when you considered the circumstances. The interesting thing was seeing how that compared to the cultivation levels I was familiar with.

"This body's natural physical strength is equivalent to what I would expect to see from a third-stage Qi Condensation cultivator," I mused.

"Which is impressive for someone who only broke through into Tier 1. So, either everybody living in this world is naturally built like a brick wall, or..."

"Or young master Han's family invested significant resources into improving his physical constitution," Azure finished for me.

"Given everything we have seen regarding their financial situation, that seems to be a substantial sacrifice for them to make." I nodded, my fingers brushing against the fine fabric making up the robes I was wearing. They were obviously very well-made originally, but they were showing signs of wear and tear now. They were handed down or repurposed from someone else instead of being bought new.

It was a family spending everything they had so they could give their only heir the greatest possible foundation, even as their fortune kept declining.

"At least we can repay some of that investment," I said after a moment passed.

"Once my soul essence fully recovers, we can convert some of it into physical essence by using the Tri-Essence Harmony technique. By the time young master Han gets his own body back, he will have the physical capabilities of a sixth-stage cultivator to work with."

"Speaking of this body," Azure said, "you should have another look at its meridians." I turned my attention inward, doing a careful examination on how the rouqi was moving through this vessel. The energy channels in there were strange. They were different from the meridians I was used to seeing, although they still felt somewhat familiar. They felt rougher and less refined, similar to comparing a muddy dirt path to a paved road.

Both of them would get you where you needed to go, but one of them was more developed than the other.

"The internal structure here is fascinating," Azure commented.

"Unlike Wei Ye's artificial channels, these appear to be natural formations. But they are less complex than what we see in our world." I froze.

"Wait, are you saying this body is artificial too?"

"That is not the case," Azure replied.

"It is more... Consider Wei Ye as a first-generation prototype specifically designed and constructed from scratch. Young master Han's distant ancestor might have been similar to that, but after countless generations of natural reproduction..."

"All the artificial aspects became naturalized," I finished, sensing what he was getting at.

"Similar to Wei Lin being fully human despite his own father being a construct." A sudden thought struck me.

"But that means..." I sat up straighter as the different puzzle pieces started falling into their places. The mysterious Celestial Sovereign who had created this world. The disappearance that seemed to mark the beginning of its decline. And this strange energy that was almost like qi yet different...

"Azure," I said, "what if this place isn't some random world? What if it is someone's inner world?"

"The evidence supports that theory," Azure agreed.

"The Genesis Seed's fruit sending us into different inner worlds would explain a lot of what we've observed so far. Such as the degradation of the energy quality, and the decay of the environment..."

"Because the cultivator who created it is dead now," I continued.

"Their inner world is collapsing on itself without their power sustaining it anymore. The golden fruit we ate earlier was already starting to rot, so that must have been a warning sign about this world's condition."

"Which raises another question," Azure began, "where is the inner world spirit hiding? Every inner world has one; it is a fundamental part of their structure." I had been wondering the same thing, before I could reply, a voice spoke inside my mind. It sounded younger, uncertain, and distinct from both Azure and my own thoughts.

"Hello? Can you... can you hear me?" It seemed young master Han had recovered enough to have a conversation. This was going to be interesting.