Will was awoken by a knock on his door. It only took one knock to wake him up, since he always had to be kind of awake to deal with the constant flow of storm qi. Whenever he fixed that issue, the first thing he would do would probably be to actually sleep normally for once.

He headed over to the door, not needing to do anything to get ready since he just hopped into bed without changing last night. The one who knocked on the door was a servant, who brought him to the same giant rose as yesterday. The sect leader was under it today as well, and Ranna arrived after the servant that brought him left.

Once both him and Ranna were there, the sect leader began speaking.

“Good morning. I take it you both have read the manuals I gave you yesterday?”

They both nodded.

“Great! Then today I'll have you both attempt a cycle and I'll correct any mistakes I see you make.”

At this, Ranna looked towards Will, suppressing a shiver at the memory of the “improved” stretching from the night before. After a few moments she turned back to her own issues, bringing the manual out of her ring and sitting down in the lotus position.

Will, on the other hand, took out a yellow velociraptor with a tail shaped like a lightning bolt from his ring. This was another one of the beasts he picked up in the demonic lightning forest. It was about at the same level of strength as the deer. The sect leader spoke.

“Will, how many corpses do you have?”

That was at least four by now, all of them rare and incredibly dangerous, the ones from the banquet even more than this new one. Will checked his ring. After counting, he found he had about fifty three still left, including the velociraptor he'd just taken out.

“Fifty thwee.”

The sect leader took a step back. She has expected a lot, but a lot of incredibly powerful beast corpses for a toddler to have was like ten, not fifty three. Will ignored her and went to work on cultivating.

Only to be stopped as the sect leader spoke again.

“What are you doing? Where's your manual? You should read through it again before you start.”

Will had casually dropped it on the ground in his room when he got back, since he was beyond physical media by now, and hadn't bothered to pick it back up. The servant that came had actually mentioned that he should bring it as well, but he just nodded and didn't pick it up.

“Didn't bwing it. Don't need to. It's outdated, anyway.”

The sect leader looked at Will confused. Outdated? How? What even does that mean? And why was Will beginning the method if it was “outdated” enough to not bring it.

“Out… dated? What do you mean?”

Will nodded.

“I alweady impwoved the method.”

That was insane enough on its own, considering she'd literally given it out yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, but the implication that Will had memorized not only the original but also the “improved” version was pretty ridiculous as well. It was also pretty hard to doubt considering the person saying it.

“You memorized it, improved it, and memorized the improved version already?”

Will nodded. He hadn't really memorized any of it, though, really. He had embedded the original, and the improvements were just following the instructions of the original while making use of the SDSMG. The meaning his Automatic Universal Linguistic Knowledge Database Accessor had given him for it was in three levels of literalness. There was the literal word for word meaning (a bunch of indecipherable yapping), the instructions and actions the author had been saying to do when writing it, and the vague conceptual level. He was just doing movements that followed the vague conceptual meaning more closely than the original intended ones did.

Of course, he didn't tell the sect leader any of that.

“Alright, go ahead and show me your improved version.”

She decided to just see what happened. Either it would be bad and she'd tell Will to stop and make them do it properly, or it would be good and she'd just accept the insane reality she was living in.

Will did as asked, placing a hand on the velociraptor and starting. That part wasn't any different than in the original.

After the corpse 'pop'ped the sect leader was confused. That process was not supposed to be that fast. Also, the whole time, she felt it was too perfect. Not only was there not a single error, the whole thing was exactly right to a degree no person should be able to achieve. Lifeforce is supposed to be incredibly hard to manipulate even on the most basic of levels. It should take years of training to be able to manipulate it to the degree on display here. More years of training than years Will had been alive for sure.

Will was hit with the cramped stuffy feeling again, and began doing the stretches. The sect leader watched on. The movements were acceptable, not as perfect as the lifeforce manipulation, but acceptable nonetheless. For the first two seconds. Then came the arm raising part.

The sect leader rubbed her eyes. It looked almost like Will's arm was getting longer, and she knew that couldn't happen, so she rubbed her eyes in an attempt to fix it. It looked even longer now. Accepting that her eyes just couldn't be trusted right now, she vowed to get a better rest soon and just focused on her spiritual senses instead.

Then her mind went completely blank as she witnessed an actually freakishly long arm pointed into the air. It was as long as Will's whole body.

Ranna had wisely chosen to just read through the manual a bit more to work on memorizing it. She knew the sect leader wouldn't be able to multitask well when presented with whatever the hell Will was calling cultivation.

The sect leader, in the middle of her shock and confusion, then saw the other arm phasing through Will's chest. Then came Will sliding backwards while stepping forward. Then the unnatural completely round arm bending. And then all of those anomalies showing up in various other contexts throughout the rest of Will's stretching. At no point was the sect leader not stunned silent and completely confused.

Will finally finished off his impression of a doppelganger on psychedelics after a few minutes. He turned towards the sect leader with the smirk of someone who thought they were really cool.

“So? Whatcha think?”

Will sought further affirmation of how cool he was.

“A-are you… What are you? What was that?”

Will continued smirking.

“My upgwaded cultivation!”

He gave a response that answered literally nothing. The sect leader waited for more. She got nothing else for the five seconds she waited.

“A-alright, sure upgrade, yeah… so then what are you?”

“Human.”

She looked at Will with a doubtful expression.

“Then how did you… what happened to your body?”

Will deliberately dodged the question like a little brat.

“Cultivation.”

The sect leader shook her head.

“No… the… that… cultivation doesn't do that. How did you move like that?”

Will finally answered the question somewhat.

“Purpwe wubber wing that vibwates.”

The sect leader thought really hard about how that could have anything at all whatsoever to do with what they were talking about. She found nothing.

“Huh? What?”

Will patiently explained things to her.

“Had stuff in it and I sucked it out. I used the cultivation method on the stuff.”

That vaguely resembled what an explanation could sound like. The issue was that it didn't actually make any goddamn sense.

“Huh?”

Will looked at the sect leader like she was an idiot. He'd clearly explained it and she was still confused.

“The stuff wets me do all the things you saw.”

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It left a lot of questions, but the sect leader could at least understand it kind of.

“Alright then. I guess you're free to go then.”

Will shook his head.

“I'll stay.”

The sect leader shrugged and turned her attention to Ranna, who was still reading. Will brought out the corpse that looked like a person made of lightning from his ring. The sect leader eyed it suspiciously, as it was quite a bit more dangerous than even the beast corpses shown at the banquet. It was also pretty useless for Will's cultivation method.

Will placed his hand on the lightning guy, finding that it felt like lightning, though it didn't hurt him much. His hand also went through it, so he couldn't actually use it. He put it back in his ring.

Instead he pulled out a little yellow horse with two heads. It had been a bit stronger than the deer in the fight. He placed a palm on the side and began cultivating.

Ranna had finally begun her own cultivation, during which she was corrected many times by the sect leader. After Will had finished, she had finally gotten the hang of it. Will came over and poked her book, copied it, and embedded it, all under the curious gaze of the sect leader.

It was pretty simple. Intake spiritual energy, send it through meridians, put it in dantian, all talked about in gibberish just like his cultivation manual, though a bit less abstract than his. Will unembedded it since it was boring. He instead brought out a second tiny yellow horse with two heads and cultivated until she was done.

After he'd finished his “stretches”, Ranna was finally done with her own cultivation, having reached some checkpoint she was supposed to reach at a supposedly incredible speed. Will wasn't impressed, as he probably could've done it in under a minute from what he'd read from her manual.

It gave him a way bigger ego boost than he had any right to have.

They both headed off back to their rooms. Once Will was inside, he immediately activated stealth mode and left after Ranna had walked out of earshot. He headed over and started following after her.

After she entered her room to change, Will waited outside until she finished, then followed her outside. Her crossdressing was pretty convincing, though he could still tell who she was easily. The sect leader was already outside waiting for her, since she'd asked her for a ride after she finished cultivating.

Will suddenly realized something. If she went to the area on the treasure map using the sect leader's sword, he'd have no way to catch up.

He went back inside as quick as he could and unstealthed out of view. Then, he went outside.

“Hey, sect weader, I need to talk to you.”

The sect leader, already on the sword with Ranna, had him wait until she got back, since it would only take like a minute to do a round trip.

Perfect. As long as she came back to talk to him, he could get a ride from her himself.

As soon as she got back and put away her sword, Will asked for a ride.

“Hey, can you give me a wide to whewe Ranna went in secwet?”

She didn't really understand why Will would want that, but the alternative was probably Will jumping off the cliff again, so she decided to just give in. She brought out her sword from her ring again.

“Sure, hop on.”

Will hopped on, he had the sect leader bring him to a spot in the forest, and activated stealth once she left. Then, he quietly made his way over to the place where Yan Qingxue would be bathing, climbing onto an elevated rock where he would be able to get a good view.

Yan Qingxue was there, singing away, oblivious to Will's presence. The excuse of “the sect leader's disciple asked me to go somewhere” worked wonderfully on her family. She didn't know why the sect leader's disciple asked her to come here, but she didn't really care.

Will waited, listening to her singing as he did. She was a really good singer, obviously, since she was a stereotypically attractive woman who sang at a spring in the woods.

After a few minutes, Ranna finally arrived at the scene. She had put the map away as well. She'd probably thought she'd found it when she heard the singing, and wouldn't need the map anymore since she could follow the sound the rest of the way. Will cheered inwardly.

The map he gave out could greatly impact how the meeting would go, so much so that he wouldn't have given it out if it wasn't necessary. He wanted the show to be as authentic as possible, at least where inauthenticness wouldn't make it more entertaining.

Yan Qingxue noticed Ranna's arrival immediately. Her reaction was almost like when Will came in reverse. First she started out just a bit on guard, thinking it would probably be Will again. Then she saw a man with yellow hair, and her anger soared.

The lake froze over in an instant. Truly an ice princess classic. She stepped out of the frozen water, and flung herself towards Ranna, colliding with her and knocking her to the ground.

They started rolling around side to side as Yan Qingxue tried to murder her and Ranna tried to not get murdered. Yan Qingxue started shouting.

“Die, you scum!”

Followed up by a few other various phrases of similar meaning.

Ranna, after a few moments, when she finally got an opening to speak, started yelling “Wait!” a lot.

Their tussle continued for a lot longer than it should have between someone who could instantly freeze a whole lake and someone who'd only been cultivating for less than a day. Then Yan Qingxue used the word “man” in one of her sentences.

“You perverted disgusting man!”

Ranna immediately yelled out a response.

“I'm a woman!”

Yan Qingxue paused, her rage temporarily replaced with disgust. To think that he'd try to claim he was a woman to get away with it. How scummy could a man be?

Ranna was able to infer from the expression that the woman didn't believe her.

“I really am! I'm crossdressing so Chen Jun's people don't find me!”

The mention of her bastard of a fiance instantly caught Yan Qingxue's attention.

“Why would Chen Jun send people after you?”

Ranna calmed down a little, relieved to finally be able to have a conversation instead of a fight to the death.

“Because he's jealous that I'm the sect leader's disciple instead of him. Oh, and because of what my junior sister did at the banquet a couple days ago.”

Yan Qingxue was about to call bullshit after the first sentence, since she already knew the sect leader's disciple was Will, but after the mention of a junior sister, she had nothing to refute. That also completely sounded like how her fiance would act. But that second sentence also left her with a question.

“What happened at the banquet?”

Ranna's face showed a complicated expression.

“Well… a lot. But mostly, she insulted Chen Jun to his face repeatedly until he tried to kill her and got knocked out by the sect leader and taken away.”

Yan Qingxue was confused. That… didn't sound like him at all. Chen Jun was the type to take disrespect with a smile and get revenge in secret. For him to downright attack someone, and a toddler at that, was unthinkable.

Of course, the “insulting Chen Jun to his face” she was thinking of was not giving in to his demands, not showing him “proper respect”, slipping in a passive aggressive jab, and things like that. As opposed to what actually happened, a multiple minute long rant about how much of a loser he was all given as annoyingly as Will could manage, there was a pretty huge difference.

“He wouldn't do something like that.”

Ranna looked at her confused. He certainly did do that. She watched him do it.

“He did, though. What are you trying to defend him for?”

Ranna's words reminded Yan Qingxue of her duties as his fiance, to defend his honor. Though she wouldn't defend him like she did with Will, since she knew in advance now that she was talking to the sect leader's disciple, she still had to put on a show and pretend she cared.

“I'm his fiance. Of course I would defend him.”

Ranna looked shocked. It had never occurred to her that Chen Jun might have a fiance. Especially since the only time she saw him he was flirting with someone who was not said fiance.

“I guess that makes sense. But he really did attack her at the banquet.”

Yan Qingxue was torn between Ranna's words and what she knew of Chen Jun's personality.

“What did she do to insult him?”

Ranna shook her head.

“She didn't do something to insult him, she just insulted him. Over and over again. Then when he hit her, she started insulting him again. And then when he started punching her in the face, she did it even more.”

Ah. That made a lot more sense. Yan Qingxue finally believed it. It was a bit weird how Will survived that, but a toddler that could become the sect leader's disciple obviously wouldn't be ordinary.

Nonetheless, it seemed her life would be bleaker than she thought. She was engaged to a toddler-puncher now. No wonder Will was talking about his death yesterday.

That thought reminded her. Will had said that he would die, and said they might not be the one to do it. Did that mean this person beneath her would be?

“Are you going to kill him?”

Ranna was taken aback by the accusation.

“N-n-no! Of course not!”

Whether she wanted to or not, she wasn't going to admit to something like that in front of his fiance. That would just be stupid.

Yan Qingxue immediately realized as well. Only an idiot would admit to a plan to kill someone in front of their fiance.

She debated it with herself for a moment. She really wanted him dead. That he was known for trying to beat up a toddler wasn't even the reason. It was that her life would be a living hell if she married him.

Chen Jun was a deeply shady individual. He was already a sleazeball scumbag openly. But the rumors about him were worse. Like how a lot of the women he brought home with him were never seen again. That one was particularly worrying.

She sighed deeply.

“You can tell me honestly. I want him dead too.”

Ranna wasn't really that surprised. She was more surprised when she thought the woman didn't want him dead. But also, she hadn't really been planning to kill him.

She'd somewhat planned to at first, but after what she'd seen her junior sister do, she doubted he'd be alive by the time she was strong enough to do so.

“I… I don't know. I don't think I'll be able to.”

She regretted her words immediately when she saw the disappointment on the woman's face. She immediately tried to cheer her up.

“Don't worry. He'll probably be dying soon, anyway.”

Yan Qingxue paused for a moment. Then she started laughing.

“Your junior sister said almost the exact same thing.”

Ranna looked at her curiously.

“Wait, my junior sister did? When?”

“She came here just yesterday.”

But if she'd come here yesterday, then why give her a map and tell her to come here? Wait, better yet, there was supposed to be treasure here, yet this was a spring with a woman bathing. And she'd been told to crossdress when she went. And Will knew that this was here because they'd been here yesterday.

So why? What was the point of all this?

Will was pretty upset that he'd been caught. The scene had lost its magic now. And he'd gotten found out. He decided to come out and “explain himself” (make up bullshit) before Ranna started thinking he was trying to get her killed for peeping.

He jumped off the rock he was on, deactivating his stealth midway and landing on the ice that the lake had become. Everyone turned to look at him as he arrived.

“Hi!”

“Will?”

Ranna was surprised, while Yan Qingxue was even more surprised. She had detected no sign of Will until just now. As far as she could tell, Will just appeared a few feet above the ice and fell. It was very strange.

Will looked at the two. It looked pretty bad without context. Yan Qingxue, still naked, with a “man” (Ranna) underneath her. He decided to use this fact for his own entertainment. He made an expression as if he'd walked in on something embarrassing.

“Umm… were you two…”

He trailed off, then switched to an expression of understanding, while Yan Qingxue immediately hopped up off of Ranna to a standing position, Ranna standing up as well right after. Will looked at Yan Qingxue hesitantly.

“Senior sistew-in-waw?”

Yan Qingxue blushed lightly at Will's “unintentional” teasing.

“Forget what you just saw. Erase it from your memory immediately.”

Will of course wouldn't do that. In fact, he was not doing that so much that he had recorded the entire scene with the Copy function. He quickly went through and picked the best frame he'd gotten. It was after he'd jumped down, a moment when their surprise looked slightly more guilty than the others, both looking into “the camera” (Will). He copied that frame into a second document for safe-keeping, then exported it onto the ice next to him.

“You mean this?”

Will pointed at the carving. It was detailed and intricate, more so than should even be possible to make on ice, such that it was blatantly clear what it was a picture of.

Ranna and Yan Qingxue both looked at the carving in horror. How did that even get there? And who put it there? And when?

Yan Qingxue nodded furiously.

“Yes. That.”

She used her ice powers to smooth out the ice where the carving was.

“Now never think of it again.”

Will suppressed his giggle, bringing out a piece of paper with the image on it from behind his back. In an instant, it was in Yan Qingxue's hands, and in another it was ripped into a hundred pieces.

Will brought out another one, which met the same fate. Yan Qingxue held out her hand.

“All of them. Give me all of them.”

Will couldn't do that, since he actually had none and was making them on the spot. He had both none and infinite depending on interpretation. Either way, he did the next best thing.

He whispered a goodbye in his heart to the cabinet he found his first storage rings in, as he used it to make a huge stack of papers, each with the incriminating image on them.

Yan Qingxue looked at the pile before her hesitantly. What the fuck? How?

Will answered her unspoken question as he dropped the innocent act.

“I can make as many as I want.”

Yan Qingxue looked at Will fearfully. This was incredibly incriminating evidence. If it got out, she'd be in huge trouble. Though a part of her hoped it did, and that it got her out of her engagement, chances are it would just make things even worse.

While she was distressing, Will had a great idea. He used a little editing magic. He had a 3D scan of Ranna that he'd taken on a whim at one point, he had a 3D map of the area, and he had the scene from multiple angles. Thus, it was easy work to swap out crossdressing Ranna with regular Ranna, since, well, they were both Ranna.

He exported a few copies of his new edited version as well, showing them off.

“I have these, too.”

Ranna looked at the new picture in confusion. Where did that one come from? How was there one of her not in disguise as well? That didn't even make sense anymore.

Yan Qingxue looked at the new image confused, then looked at Ranna, then looked at the picture. She could see the resemblance. Was that what she usually looked like? When she wasn't crossdressing? It seemed likely considering her expression.

Will decided to get to a point. Sure, he had blackmail material, but what for? It felt kind of boring to just end it here. Then, he came up with another brilliant idea.

“Hey, Yan Qingxue.”

Yan Qingxue jumped slightly, startled, as Ranna made note of her name.

“Yes?”

“Instead of this water awea in the woods where you'll get peeped on, why not come to the sect weader's pwace with us?”

Yan Qingxue was really tempted, but… she couldn't. She just couldn't. She couldn't go to the sect leader's house after what her fiance had just done to her disciple. Not to mention all the political reasons.

“I-… I can't.”

Will gave her the classic “are you an idiot?” look. He pointed at the stack of papers, then wiggled around the smaller stack in his hand.

“Come with us.”

Well, between being at the sect leader's place and that, the sect leader's place was definitely the better option.

“A-alright, I'll go.”

Will shined a bright smile. He'd done a good deed. Sure, this was mostly for his own entertainment, but he also had empathy for this ice princess's situation. He certainly wouldn't like marrying a loser like Chen Jun.

In fact, he'd decided to make killing Chen Jun his new goal. Since it seemed like Ranna didn't want to, he'd just let Ranna hang out with Yan Qingxue while he did all the work. And since he'd do the work, he could also get all the loot.

He'd probably have a lot more fun with it anyway. If Ranna went, it would probably be all dramatic and gritty. She wouldn't be having fun. And he had a lot of really fun ideas cooking.

“Gweat! Then wet's go!”

“Right now?”

Will's “are you an idiot?” look returned.

“Yeah.”

Will turned to Ranna.

“Come on, Ranna. Wet's call master to pick us up.”

Ranna just decided to go along with it. She was only down here for the treasure, and it seemed that there was none.

Wait, that reminded her.

“Hey, Will.”

“Hm?”

“Why did you make me come here with a fake treasure map?”

Will gave her a sly smile.

“It wasn't fake.”

Ranna looked confused.

“There's no treasure here.”

Will shook his head.

“Thewe is tweasure, hewe.”

Ranna looked confused and skeptical now.

“Where?”

“You alweady found it.”

The skepticalness gave way to even more confusion. She tried to think of anything that could've been the treasure, finding nothing.

“What is it, then?”

Will smiled.

“Love!”

Both women looked at him, confused. Will shook his head.

“You'll get it eventuawwy.”

And with that, they were off.