Zhen Shi grinned as he finished refining his last pill. Just to finish the quest sooner he had made sure to refine only that grade 1 divine healing pill. But of course, he had used all the grade improvement skills along with
Despite his unreasonable worrying previously, how could Zhen Shi not be happy when he is literally only a couple of steps away from receiving the quest rewards! But he was beginning to be rather impatient. Fortunately, the notification rang.
Ding!
Congratulations to the user for completing the Grade 1 Pill refining quest!
Ding!
The user has gained one random refining ingredient: ephemeral ghost ashes.
Ding!
The user has gained a gift of experience. Will you accept it?
Zhen Shi was rather intrigued regarding this ephemeral ghost ashes... but since the system was asking so politely just to give him experience points, how could he say no?
System: "..."
Zhen Shi grinned excitedly with his previous worries thrown into the sea. Even though he knew that forcefully cultivating was not good for him, especially since he had the strange inability to cultivate manually, he was basically an addict to fast cultivation.
So he laughed gleefully and mentally thought, "Yes, System. A thousand times yes!"
Ding!
Granting experience...
Zhen Shi's grin dissipated as he felt no improvement on his cultivation base. Instead, he felt queasy and began to lose his bearings as the entire room began to revolve around him. His vision began to blur as he began to see strange colors and visions... a tree on a hill... a strange man...
SHIT! I know I'm an addict for this, but who knew you actually overdose on cultivation like a normal drug?
His next action was to blame the system for not warning him of a possible overdose leading to his untimely death. But he collapsed on to the floor and the life left his eyes before he could do so...
🐕🐕🐕🐕🐕
Zhen Shi's vision which was now veering off in a confusing dark space of colors and noises and non-sensical visions began to settle down albeit rather slowly. The colors kept shifting back and forth, the sounds were mind-boggling and the smells even worse. But his sight slowly began to grow clear along with the rest of his senses.
But Zhen Shi's mind was reeling and was being bombarded with heavy nausea. Even as things were returning to normal he felt like barfing blood.
But fortunately for him, his senses began to clear slowly. At the same time, the nausea gradually lessened and his mind calmed down. Now that he was not suffering horrendous pain he focused on his eye vision.
He was met with the vision of a book on an oak table placed within a strange room. For just a moment he felt as if the letters on it were beyond his level of comprehension... But the letters jumped about with his still stabilizing vision, ultimately revealing a completely readable book. Apparently he was currently being shown the First Chapter: The Essence of Alchemy.
Ahh! So the gift of experience was related to the profession. It appears that the system is giving me alchemy experience through a drug-induced haze... System are you a drug dealer as well?
System: "..."
Nevertheless, Zhen Shi was greatly intrigued and so began to read. As he read he felt his alchemy knowledge gradually deepening and could even vaguely glimpse a mystical but long and arduous path laden with forests and beasts. But he couldn't quite put his newfound knowledge into words... It was almost as if he was learning but not learning at the same time.
Having finished reading the first page, with great anticipations for his rapid improvement as a pill alchemist, Zhen Shi proceeded to move the next page. But he realized that he couldn't move the page. In fact, he couldn't even move his body...
Basically he couldn't move and his vision was stuck on one spot. There was no sound, just an uncomfortable pause. System am I lagging?
With the lack of a response or a change to his situation, he calmed down and decided to look around the room. But he couldn't even move his head!
So basically he had to look around the room while having his eyes focused on the first page of the Book. He could vaguely see a small room with rough wooden walls just barely lit by glowing orbs of light. There were various herbs and other ingredients hung up on the wall and in jars. But Zhen Shi was unable to identify any of them as he found that he was unable to access the appraisal skill
In the end, using his own memory he was able to identify just one from the plethora of ingredients available. Even that was due to the distinctive yellow cloudy leaves of the herb which was considered to be priceless and hadn't been seen for hundreds of millennia, Syphilim! Besides the herbs, some small tools could be seen on another much larger table to the side but Zhen Shi couldn't see much as it was out of his eyesight.
But suddenly he could smell again and his nose was hit with the confusing smell of all those different herbs. His sense of touch and hearing came next.
He could hear a lightly crackling fire and the sound of early morning birds from outside the hut. But nothing much else. He was also hit with a rather terrifying cold despite being wrapped in bundles of warm fur. He was seated on a chair but surprisingly his legs were not touching the floor.
But even with things returning to normal he found that he was unable to move around. But he was moving 'normally' while shivering within the bundles of fur. Completely at a loss on what to do Zhen Shi was about to blame a certain someone...
But suddenly a fairly high-pitched voice rang out. "Uhh... This is boring."
Zhen Shi was flabbergasted. Who is speaking? System have you finally gained sentience? But I agree, This IS boring!
The reply came almost immediately, "I'm just going to play with Hecabe."
Zhen Shi was now completely confused. What? Who is Hecabe?
But his confusion was immediately solved, as his head automatically lowered focusing on a slightly warmer part of the furs wrapped around his lap. Apparently... it was a puppy which had basically blended amidst the wide varieties of fur like a wild animal in its natural habitat.
His small hairless hands proceeded to furiously rub the head of Hecabe the puppy who in turn looked at him with its puppy dog eyes while furiously wagging its tail.
Zhen Shi would have facepalmed if he could've. It appeared that the system was completely fine and he was just dreaming of the life of some other person. As concluded by the short legs, high pitched voice and small arms either he was in the body of a child or a female dwarf... with the latter highly unlikely due to the normal size of the furniture.
Zhen Shi watched on with faint interest as this kid played around with Hecabe for an entire HOUR. SHIT! I take it back. THIS is boring! Please kid just read the damn book... or at least turn the page.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
In fact, he had tried to skip or fast forward this 'gift of experience' but the system was completely unresponsive. So, in the end, he had decided to silently wait while continuing to read the first unopened page over and over again, until the entire thing was over. Since Zhen Shi had a vague feeling that what he had learned might not be easy to remember, even with the status effect, maybe it wasn't a bad idea to be stuck watching a kid petting a dog... repeatedly.... with nothing else happening.
But to his surprise, after another hour of just rubbing the puppy's head, his lap became unusually warm and strangely wet. And his hands proceeded to lift up the puppy causing the heaps of fur to slide on to the floor, revealing a rather large wet spot on his trousers.
The puppy actually peed on me? Shit, this is the worst drug-induced dream ever. System I want a refund!
The child proceeded to lift up the dog and shout out in a rather cute voice, "Mummy! Hekabe peed again!" Zhen Shi mentally grimaced as that voice and those words came out of his vocal cords...
A hurried shout came from afar, "Little Hex, Mummy's coming soon!"
Zhen Shi was horrified, Is this kid's name Hex or is he an actual Hex?
But he didn't get to find out as the room started rotating around him again. But before Zhen Shi could complain he was thrown away from this dream... and into a mass of confusing senses.
🐕🐕🐕🐕🐕
Zhen Shi hurriedly stood up from the floor with a start while muttering, "I can't believe that the so-called 'gift of experience' is a drug-induced dream," and shaking his head to somehow reduce the continuous banging inside his head.
Luckily for him, the headache receded rather fast. And with the sound of birds backing up the boom box still playing instrumental Chinese music, he looked around the pavilion to realize that it was already morning!
It appeared he had basically dreamed through the rest of the night and now it was only a few moments away from sunrise. But despite the horrendous memories, he had been able to memorize the first page of that divine alchemy book.
He stretched his muscles while walking over to the Boombox which he quickly switched off and put away into the system inventory. He heaved a sigh as he relished the early morning environment. Despite the mind-boggling dream he had had, his mind was surprisingly calm and free from the worries of the night before.
Feeling that the pavilion itself was a bit stuffy even with the open central garden Zhen Shi walked over to the main entrance door and opened it to get a view of the surroundings... But what awaited him was a huge mob!
What the actual mob?
There were maids, servants, guards, sales-clerks, and even managers of the Market Hall with most dressed in usual uniform and some even in their night robes. Most of them had their eyes closed as if they were enjoying the beauty of nature together...
But they all hurriedly turned towards him with annoyed looks on their faces as he had opened the door rather noisily.
Zhen Shi hurriedly closed the door while panicking and thinking, What the hell was that! It obviously can't be possible that there is some sort of strange hobby where you enjoy the beauty of nature from the front yard of other people's houses, right?
So then did I do some strange things while I was in that drug-induced dream?
Zhen Shi decided to just find out. Since the people weren't shouting and chanting his name with pitchforks and fire he couldn't have done anything too bad...
And so he opened the door.
The mob outside was ready this time as they all asked in different ways, "Master are you responsible for the music that was playing?"
As these words reached his ears Zhen Shi heaved a sigh of relief and relaxed.
Aiya! So it was only a case of sound pollution... In that case, I can just turn down the volume from now on.
So he smiled happily while answering, "I apologize for the disturbance everyone. Yes, it was indeed my fault."
But a maid close by frowned followed by the entire mob. This maid asked, "Master why must you apologize? We all loved your music!"
Her words were followed by a cacophony of follow-ups from the entire mob,
"Yes! Master musician, I love your music!"
"Are you the god of music descended from the heavens?"
"Now that I look closely this young master looks truly different from us untalented people!"
"Young master I had a horrible backache. But after listening to your music I feel like I've gained wings!"
"Forget about your back. That divine music helped me to reach the next level of cultivation!"
"I agree. I was suffering from a heart demon, but now, the demon has become a baby angel!"
"Divine musician you're also very handsome. Will you marry me?"
"You don't even need to marry me. Just give me a baby to play me music at least as half as good as you!"
"I don't even need the baby. Just play once more!"
"I agree. Encore!"
"Encore!!!"
Zhen Shi grinned uncomfortably... Shit, I didn't even do anything and was fainted for almost all of last night.
Is this what piracy feels like?
🏰🏰🏰🏰🏰
The rain that had surprisingly begun to fall within the night had stopped only hours later. But now the night before was a part of the past, as the sun was beginning to rise painting the sky with shades of orange and yellow. The rising sun seemed to grant hope to the world that seemed to have become revitalized by the rain before.
But that was not how Isolde would see the world just about now. As the sunlight lit up her wall-less room and granted her light, she paid no attention to the beauty of it. Her entire focus was on completing the healing process while heaving light gasps of breath. Her body was emitting that golden healing light, on to the barely breathing body of Butler Alec who continued to fail to see her suffering through his closed eyes. His body was mostly clear of blood as it had been washed away by the rain of the night before. After all, the room had no walls...
However, while the rain had arrived like a blessing and washed away the blood it had in no way helped the smell. It had been around half a day since their death and the corpses of the three dead had already begun to rot giving off an awful smell. Even flies had begun to be attracted...
Isolde's ripped dress was stuck to her body wet with rainwater and the skirt was light red with streaks of washed away blood. The healing light emanating from her palms was only a moment away from disappearing as it flickered weakly; the complete opposite of the rising sun. To Isolde, the smell was the least of her problems.
As the night had stretched on with only the moon and the stars to give her light she had been extremely nervous. Despite her intention to save Alec, it was rather normal for a girl especially a noble to be worried about leading an entire night with only three corpses by her side.
But to make the entire matter worse it had begun to rain! Under the sudden appearance of rain clouds, she had lost her only source of light. As her body was fraught with the onslaught of raindrops, in that deep dark night, with only herself to look for help and even nature aiming to stop her, in the end, she had had to bite her pleas for help and just DO, with no space for worrying.
Her eyes were laden with drowsiness and exhaustion but within lay, a sliver of grit and determination forged through that night of loneliness and suffering, simply refusing to be quelled. It wouldn't be wrong to say that in the same way that the night rain had baptized the world, she too had been baptized. But for better or worse... only time would tell.
Suddenly a light scream came from the doorway just outside her room. Although a scream, it was the blessing that Isolde had been hoping for!
Isolde's room was facing the training grounds and the edges of the Berthelien forest outback. So despite the lack of walls, it was normal for onlookers to have not realized that anything was out of the ordinary from far away. And even if Isolde had shouted out for help, the mansion grounds stretched for many acres there were no people nearby to help. And as the night grew worse if her luck had been truly bad she might've even called over demon beasts... or making matters worse, possible bandits. Thus Isolde's only real hope would have to be those who would return on the next day.
Although all of the mansion staff and the guards had been asked to leave the day before, which had led to no one realizing the battle had that had taken place, it was normal for them to return the next day.
A light figure rushed into her room. This was the maid that had run into Zhen Shi...
Isolde had no energy to speak, after all, she had been utilizing a divine blessing all night. Even if she was dubbed the 'healing goddess' she was only a mere mortal. She sensed the maid's arrival but was unable to turn her head. Her only thought was to hold on until Grandpa Alec's safety was assured...
This maid eyed the two corpses and the headless corpse along with the decapitated head nearby. She even got as far as looking at the fainted Alec laying still like a corpse. But maybe this sight along with the smell of rotting flesh was too much, as she collapsed fainting moments after...
But to Isolde's fortune, the maids scream had been heard loud and clear, as many more servants rushed in, proceeding to notify their arrival with screams of their own.
Servants were at best qi refining stage cultivators or at best mortals with little to no experience in seeing corpses, fortunate enough to be born within the protective walls of a kingdom.
But one maid rather young almost the same age as Isolde, with a bun of brown hair and lively eyes rushed in not sparing a glance to the corpses. She immediately made some calculative conclusions and rushed to Isolde's side. Noticing the glint in her eyes the maid proceeded to check Alec's status. Immediately, she smiled at Isolde and whispered, "He's fine. My lady, you've done well. He will live!" These words were the blessing she had been hoping for. With a light smile on her lips, she collapsed on to the floor as exhaustion took away her consciousness.
But that maid immediately caught her and prevented her from falling on to the floor. She raised her head at the servants who continued to remain dumbstruck and shouted with a frown, "Don't just stand there then. Go and get help! Call a physician or a healer!"