Mrs. Mu is seriously strong. I have a feeling she wouldn’t lose against a supervisor in the seven mountain ranges. Of course, that still means the ruler can easily explode her head if she wanted to. I wonder if the ruler would be willing to capture Mrs. Mu and stick her in an interspatial pouch for me. Then, I’d have my very own talisman master. With Ilya as my array master, and Mrs. Mu as my talisman master, I’ll be the best formation master in existence!

Mm? Speaking of life pouches, I wonder if Mrs. Feathers’ Future Husband is doing alright. I haven’t checked up on him in a while. “Mrs. Feathers’ Future Husband, are you alright?” Mm? I opened the pouch, but he’s not responding. Should I stick my head inside to see what he’s doing? Nah. I’ll just pull him out with my hand. He’s a bird. What could he possibly be doing in there other than sleeping? For someone who’s supposed to be like a phoenix, he feels awfully cold. And limp. Is he dead!? “Mrs. Feathers’ Future Husband, are you alright!?”

Ah? I pulled him out by his leg, but he’s just … limp. His wings aren’t sticking to his sides. His head points towards the ground. His eyes are … moving? Right! They’re not moving much, but they’re flickering back and forth. Ilya told me people’s eyeballs move around in their sleep when they’re dreaming. Is Mrs. Feathers’ Future Husband asleep? How can he sleep when we’re traveling through such an exciting place! Alright, it’s honestly a little boring for me. If the ruler didn’t give me so many tasks to do, I wouldn’t even be here. Speaking of the tasks, Mrs. Mu caught some people from the Mourning Wood Sect that I have to Soul Scour. Maybe they’ll know why the ruler destroyed Atlantis.

“Is that a vermillion bird?” Mrs. Mu asked. A strange expression appeared on her face. “Why is it stoned?”

Mm? “Stoned? How’s that possible? He’s the only one inside my life pouch! Who’s throwing rocks at my pet?”

“Not that kind of stoned,” Mrs. Mu said. “Intoxicated. It looks like he took a dimensional drug.”

The worst part about traveling to a new place is learning all the new and unfamiliar terms. “And what’s a dimensional drug?”

Mrs. Mu raised an eyebrow at me. “You didn’t learn that term while Soul Scouring the people from the Eternal Shadow Sect?”

I’m not as good as the ruler when I Soul Scour people, okay? “When I Soul Scour people, I discover plenty of things I don’t understand. If I had to go through their minds to figure out the backgrounds of all those things, it’d take too long to Soul Scour anyone.” Right. When I Soul Scour people, I’m looking for something specific. And sometimes I accidentally burn things away and lose precious information. Then again, how precious could that information be if it was lost so easily? Mhm.

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“Alright, well, a dimensional drug is a drug that’ll transport your consciousness to a different plane of existence,” Mrs. Mu said. “The experience can be good or bad; it all depends on luck. You could arrive in a plane where you’ll learn a new technique, or you could end up throwing yourself into a world of fire and brimstone with all pain and zero gain. Only an insufficiently talented individual would gamble with their well-being like that.”

Okay. I know what a dimensional drug is now, but where did Mrs. Feathers’ Future Husband get one? This life pouch used to belong to Mrs. Feathers. Did she leave dimensional drugs in there? How come she never told me she had any? As a role model for Sophia, it wasn’t like I was going to use the drugs if Mrs. Feathers told me about them, but still! It would’ve been nice to know the option was there. Mm, well, I’ll put this drugged-up bird away and focus on the main task at hand: Soul Scouring! I’ve been doing a lot of that recently.

Alright, let’s take a look at these Mourning Wood Sect people that Mrs. Mu threw into the jet’s dungeon. They’re wearing black and green and red robes. Err, never mind, I think the red part of the robes are just patches of blood. Mm, other than the rips and tears Mrs. Mu left behind, the robes really don’t look that ugly. I’m not sure why she says they offend the eyes. I bet I can sell them to mortals for at least three bowls of acorn stew each. Right, I’ll just take these robes since Mrs. Mu’s eyes hurt when she sees them.

“Is this it? I protected my chastity for over fifteen-thousand years. I never thought it’d be taken away by a beast.”

…I think I know why Mrs. Mu thinks these guys are scumbags. All I’m doing is removing this person’s clothes. Why does he have to make it so weird? Mm, there’s only one thing to do. I’ll hit him over the head and knock him out, this damn weirdo.

Pang!

What was that? There was a bright light, and all the prisoners are bleeding from their heads. They’re also unconscious and lying on the ground. “Mrs. Mu?”

“I didn’t know you needed them to be unconscious,” Mrs. Mu said and nodded at me. “I knocked them all out for you.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess?” I wasn’t planning on knocking them all out, just the ones who were resisting. I did, however, plan on taking all their things. Not only am I helping out Ilya, but I’m helping Mrs. Mu’s green-and-black-sensitive eyes as well. For doing such a good deed, it’s only natural that I’m bound to be rewarded with this super-fancy green earring!

“A Mourning Wood Earring,” Mrs. Mu said. “At this rate, you’ll be able to create a whole set of jewelry.”

A whole set? An Eternal Shadow Ring. A Mourning Wood Earring. It’s a shame those Flowing Water Sect people escaped, or I probably could’ve gotten another piece of jewelry like a bracelet or a questionable piercing. Mm, the next time I see those water people, I’ll be sure to let none of them escape!