Chapter 267

  Unforgiven (VIII)

  We settled down inside the clearing, as there was no way in hell we were leaving any time soon. Even if there weren't any more threats, we were tired, the kids were hurt (as was I, to be fair), and we just... well, needed a few days to be. No fighting, no threading through the darkness, no horrors.

  Just peace and calm.

  The girls have quickly taken to the young boy, and he has quickly taken to them, seemingly enjoying the shower of attention.

  He didn't really open up as far as I could tell, though I am really curious just how he ended up here of all places. Did he wander into the forest somehow, and the chimera chose to save him?

  Maybe?

  But I have a sneaking suspicion that's not it.

  Plus, today's finally the day where I'll convert his talents, which will elicit no small amount of scrutiny from two guys: the alchemist and the old guy. I don't really have a ready excuse, but we'll see how it goes...

  "Xing Feng," I called him out as we all sat down to eat a pot of stew.

  "Y-yes, Master?" He'd taken to calling me that, too, in the span of just fifteen hours or so, though he was probably just copying everyone else.

  "Do you want to become a cultivator like your big sisters?"

  "E-eh? Really? I can?" he exclaimed. "But... Grandpa said I don't have any talent for cultivation..." He'd mentioned the grandpa character a few times, and I imagine it's someone from outside the forest, though who... well, maybe one day he'll tell us.

  "If you really want to, Master may have a way..." I said, and immediately felt three pairs of eyes immediately hone in on me like freakin' missiles--Lao Shun, Long Tao, and Wan Lan.

  "Really?! Master has a way?" He looked at me with rather wide eyes, but nowhere near as wide as those three. If I say yes here, I can kiss any sense of normalcy goodbye, I fear.

  "Hm," I nodded in resignation. "Before he passed, my great-grandfather left my grandfather an heirloom, and before my grandfather passed, he left behind another heirloom on top of the first. And when my father passed, he left yet another heirloom, and that's how I have a way to help you."

  Nope.

  Nobody was buying this shit.

  Even Xi Zhao looked at me with a rather apologetic gaze, as though saying, 'Master, I do want to trust you, but that's the stupidest thing anyone has ever said'.

  "He he, little Feng, don't be so shocked!" Dai Xiu, ah, sweet, dearest Dai Xiu... only you still have full faith in me... "Master's ways are not of this world! He can do anything!"

  "Wow! T-then... I, I'd like to cultivate..."

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  "Very well; turn your back towards me and lift your shirt up."

  Everyone gathered in a circle around us, their eyes as wide as saucers, as I began; the first thing I did was imbue the Heaven-tier talent.

  As an item, it was a mote of light that appeared above my palm--bright, cyan-colored, with plumes of white dancing just beneath its glossy surface.

  I instinctively knew how to use it and, as such, gently pressed my palm into the boy's back, just below the nape--he shivered for a moment as the mote abruptly exploded into a cloth-like shower of light that wrapped his entire back in a glossy sheen before submerging under his skin.

  I stood up and backed away, with the others doing the same, as the boy began to rise from the ground, light shooting from him like fireworks.

  ... holy shit, am I glad to be doing this here!! If we'd done it on the outside, we'd be practically telling everyone within hundreds of miles that there was something special being done!

  Despite how blindingly bright and flamboyant the entire thing was, the light never broke through the clearing. Though there was no canopy of trees above, there was this invisible layer of... something that contained the entire 'show' within itself.

  And boy, was it ever a show.

  Colors beyond my ability to really understand them were spat out from his back repeatedly, bouncing around like spirits--or, well, they may really have been actual spirits. We all stared in awe at the entire thing, Long Tao included (I'm fairly certain he's been more shocked today than all the other times we spent together combined), as Xing Feng stopped rising at about fifteen feet off the ground, his limbs splayed.

  All lights abruptly converged into a singular array that spiraled around him and above his head, converging into a ball-sized orb before descending as a massive pillar shooting directly between his brows.

  His skin began to glow and looked as though it would shatter, veins visibly throbbing.

  At that point, I had to close my eyes, as I felt I'd go blind if I looked at it any longer.

  Sensing it calm down, I opened them back up and saw the young boy had already descended and was standing with a somewhat curious look in his eyes.

  "Is... this Qi...?" he asked with a soft voice, lifting up his hand and grabbing toward the spattering of Qi around him.

  Inspecting him again, it really did change--his talent went from being 'Mortal' to 'peak-Heaven'. Technically, he was now my second most talented kid.

  Lao Shun walked up and crouched next to the kid, grabbing his arm and inspecting his pulse; Xing Feng winced a bit but didn't pull back, letting him.

  A mere moment later, the old alchemist turned toward me and looked at me as though I were the monster of the monsters.

  "Your great-grandfather's means were truly... incomprehensible..." he said, playing along.

  "Oh," I said. "That wasn't my great grandfather--that was my grandfather."

  "... hmm?"

  "My great-grandfather left me something... else..."

  The 'Martial Body Implant' wasn't a physical item, not as far as I could tell--it was a 'will' of sorts, where I commanded it into somebody, and then... well, I have no clue, not really.

  "Xing Feng, sit down in a lotus position," I said as I walked up to the boy yet again, with others staring at me even more intensely.

  "Y-yes, Master!" the boy obeyed, sitting down.

  I pressed my hand into his chest this time around and simply 'willed' it.

  I felt my palm sear up like a hot plate as Qi rushed from the depths of my dantian--the purest Qi I could currently muster. Like a tidal wave, it beat against my palm for a few moments before the 'dam' opened and it flooded forward.

  [--Martial Body implementation commenced]

  The system informed me of something I'd already kind of figured was happening, and I was somewhat fearful that more info was coming... but there was none.

  I kept my palm on him and felt Qi swirl between us in ways that I have never seen or experienced before, before spattering throughout his body like tendrils carving their way into stone.

  His eyes began to shift, their hue turning more brilliant and colorful, as something red began to ooze around his neck. At first I feared it was blood and I was somehow killing him, but a closer look revealed it was more like ink rather than blood--and instead of flowing down, it flowed back up and started shaping itself into a tattoo.

  It was like a choker, rounding his entire neck, with a flat design and sharp angles, symmetrical across four faces--on either side, or toward the nape or the Adam's apple.

  And, just like that... it was over.

  As was I.

  Holy shit, I'm so fucking tired!

  ... night-night, I guess...