Krysta
“So, it seems you figured it out.” Ms. Li, still in the form of Starflower, smiled. “Should we get down to business then?”
“Business?”
“You want to save your mother, correct?” Ms. Li’s smile turned serious as Krysta’s emotions became rather complicated. “You’re no longer young, so I’m assuming you understand the unfavorable situation she’s in, still technically being my husband’s master.”
The casual mention of Ms. Li and Aalam already being married was certainly intentional, the woman likely able to read Krysta’s aura with ease, despite Krysta’s inability to read the woman at all, but Krysta didn’t really mind.
She’d gotten over her crush on Aalam a long time ago, already expecting him to eventually marry the woman in front of her, and she was genuinely happy for him. Though she didn’t care much about Ms. Li, the woman was a good match for her friend, making up for most of his weaknesses, so Krysta’s main regret was how she hadn’t been able to be there for their wedding.
“You think you can help?” Krysta decided to ignore how the woman was obviously studying her, as it was a requirement for keeping her old friends safe, and instead just responded to Ms. Li’s words.
“Yes.” Ms. Li’s expression changed back to a smile. “If you give us copies of all her contracts, there is a good chance we could do something.”
“And I should trust you?”
“My husband’s personality hasn’t changed much in the last several thousand years, and he is sharing my senses.”
As Ms. Li almost certainly expected, this made Krysta feel better. Ms. Li might have ulterior motives, but Aalam would not. Krysta knew him well enough for that, and she highly doubted he would change.
“I have that list, but not on me.”
“Do you remember it fully?”
The question was a little insulting, the Spirit of a C rank making forgetting anything a cultivator wanted to remember practically impossible, but there was probably something else behind the question, so Krysta nodded.
“Then would you mind if I read your memories?”
Krysta looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. Memory manipulation skills were ridiculously rare and complicated as they involved sending foreign power into the soul of another, but, from Krysta’s experience during E rank, the woman in front of her was an expert in charm skills, which did the same, so it wasn’t too surprising.
More important, however, if the woman could read Krysta’s memories, given she was Aalam’s shadow and Aalam would always have the highest grade skills possible for his rank, it was likely Ms. Li would be able to alter her memories as well.
So, Krysta just decided to ask. “If I gave you access, could you alter my memories?”
“Yes.”
The answer was direct and straightforward, not quite what Krysta had been expecting, but, if Ms. Li could be believed, Aalam was watching. And the two of them in the room were not enemies, so there was no real reason to lie.
“Are you manipulating my emotions?”
“Not since the auction ended.”
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This meant, if Ms. Li was to be believed, the woman’s charm skill was a whole lot more subtle than it had been in the past, and also powerful enough to bypass the protection of everwood—or, more likely, able to affect someone directly from an interaction with their aura, like when it was projected out to use a spatial sensing skill. Whatever the case, it was both impressive and scary, but, again, it wasn’t something the woman had to reveal.
“Are you planning to ask me if you can alter my memories when this conversation is over?”
“Yes.”
Krysta took a deep breath. “And you think I would agree?”
“Do you think there’s a better option to keep you, your mother, and everyone on my side safe?”
And there it was. Already, Krysta knew the identities Ms. Li and Isaiah had been using for at least several hundred years, and this was allowing her thoughts to make quite a few other discoveries. For one, Yorick almost certainly wasn’t going to survive the day, being the man primarily responsible for putting Isaiah’s brother in such a bad state. Two, Ms. Li, with her charm abilities, was almost certainly the one responsible for all the uniqueness-boosting resources in the auction, i.e. all the resources Aalam’s force would want, landing in the hands of three extremely unsavory individuals, B ranks Krysta would not at all be sad to see killed. Finally, and most important, Krysta was pretty much certain about at least one uniqueness Ms. Li had awakened to, knowledge of which would completely change how the forces hunting down her friends and threatening her mom would operate.
“Do you think your husband will be strong enough to succeed, even with what he’s up against?”
“Yes.”
The confidence in Ms. Li’s voice was what convinced Krysta. She didn’t know Ms. Li well, and she couldn’t be certain the woman wasn’t lying to her, but Krysta had a sense of what Aalam had been planning for himself and, if he had succeeded, which he almost certainly had given the abilities his wife had shown, he would be powerful. More important, however, he and Ms. Li were her mom’s only chance and the longer she took to decide the more likely things were to go wrong.
“Okay. Go ahead.”
Ms. Li rose to her feet, moved over to Krysta, and placed her left hand on Krysta’s head, Krysta letting down all her defenses. Then the next thing Krysta knew she and Starflower were sitting across from each other, about done with their conversation.
She’d come to the auction to save Isaiah’s brother, but she’d accidentally been in the seller’s box, something Yorick had excitedly told her when the bloodtree first appeared on stage, so she hadn’t been able to do anything and he’d been sold to a force she couldn’t rescue him from. Then, after successfully hiding her sadness, she’d been about to leave the box at the end of the auction when Ms. Starflower had come to see her and given her an absolutely magnificent sword as a gift, the head of the Sandstorm Conglomerate likely wanting to buy a future favor.
“Tell your boss I absolutely love his gift.” Krysta rose from her seat and bowed to the woman, who bowed deeper in turn, their status not equal. Then Krysta moved to the auction house’s teleportation platform and teleported back to the Forest Cauldron, going almost immediately to see her mother.
“So, you went to the auction and didn’t buy anything?” When Krysta arrived at her mother’s lab in the roots of the Forest Cauldron’s life tree, she found her mother sitting in front of her ‘cauldron’, a complicated array made up of the life tree’s roots, working on a set of high rank pills, slowly transforming their properties with the life tree’s energy. And, as her mother said the words, she reached out and patted Krysta’s back a few times, fully aware of why Krysta had gone there in the first place.
“Yeah. The one item I was interested in was sold by the person who’d invited me, so I couldn’t participate.”
Krysta’s mother, Joma La’Vordi, the Alchemist of the Deep Woods, raised one of her green eyebrows at this, but didn’t say anything.
“I did at least manage to get a gift from the head of the Sandstorm Conglomerate, though.” Krysta summoned out the sword and passed it to her mother, whose eyes began to grow wide. “But it requires a blood oath, so I’m a bit wary, even if the oath target is long dead.”
“Wow.” Krysta’s mother had a look on her face which Krysta recognized as deep interest, the sword likely having been made with some technique her mother had never seen, and Krysta was pretty sure Joma would be asking to borrow the blade for a long time. “I don’t see any problem with you blood bonding this weapon. From the weapon’s soul fluctuations, the oath target is definitely dead, and that can’t be cheated. But could you let me borrow it until the C rank Universal Tournament? There are some alchemical techniques here I’ve never seen before.”
“Sure, Mom.”
Krysta took back the blade and used it to slice through her arm, the weapon feeding off her blood while the wound healed. Then she read the words a System prompt gave her. “Imperial strong, emperor’s might. I here do swear I will always fight. When protecting the empire, I will be bold. Forever and always, this blade I will hold.”
Then, as the blood bond was fully initiated, Krysta stopped holding the blade and passed it to her mother, the oath complete and utter rubbish.