Sol was woken gently from his slumber by a firm hand that grabbed his shoulder, only to be viciously assaulted by his senses—namely, pain.

  Even without moving so much as a single muscle, he could feel the soft burning sensation throughout. Then he moved his toe and immediately cursed at the stinging sensation, which firmly woke him up. Cursing, of course, created further movement and more pain.

  “Good morning.” A dark red-skinned demon with grey eyes and short black hair stared down at him. “My name is Rax’Illya of the Spear Saint Mountain. I believe you took it upon yourself to claim my home last night.” He stared at him expectantly, but Sol’s persistent silence made him move on. “I see it has taken quite the toll on you, and I am no savage. If you wish to simply leave… you have an hour.”

  Then he turned to sit at the nearby table in lotus position and seemingly started to cultivate.

  Sol shrugged mentally. He would have decided to leave either way—or at least, that had been the plan. Now he was not even sure if he could make it to the door. Thinking back to last night, he mentally sighed and thanked his focus skill for pulling him through once more. It pulsed softly in response.

  Then Sol focused inward. His Qi reserves were almost non-existent because his circulation technique had stayed active even during sleep, and his Qi channels felt rugged and tender, apparently still recovering from their overuse yesterday. It was honestly quite the wreck. He could feel how all the perfectly efficient circulation was slightly off everywhere in his damaged areas, resulting in more Qi being wasted. But there was nothing he could do about that. It would heal over time.

  Focusing his senses on his body, a much more serious picture presented itself. He was no longer bleeding, as he likely still had been when falling asleep, but the wounds had neither been cleaned nor sewn. They would open again if he moved the areas too much.

  His claws were still firmly stuck to his knuckles, indented in skin and encrusted in dried blood. Sol considered himself lucky that he had not subconsciously retracted them, as he often did. They would have torn the freshly closed wound immediately. The stab wound on his shoulder had not hit any major blood flow, so it had closed quickly, albeit it had soaked his clothes somewhat. At least his fist had had the awareness to bleed off the bed and onto the floor.

  He could also feel his muscles had torn—the degree of which varied, from minor in his back and chest to severe in his right leg. His right arm could not move at all; the muscles in his arm were completely wrecked. When Sol tried to activate his focus to see if he had any idea of how to deal with this, he only received a muted feeling of exhaustion.

  He was on his own. Speculation about the nature of the skill made the pain of his slow and considerately placed movements a bit less present in his mind. How could someone even create a technique that could replicate itself from a mere memory? Nyx had read about cultivators who left small gifts to their future reincarnations to bridge the necessary progress required to regain their memories, but those had often been physical objects rather than skills such as these.

  Either that, or the Grace of Undying could have gifted him more than just temporary protection from death? If the Demon Ancestor could grant a post-reincarnation power such as that, he would surely be able to transfer skills as well?

  Sol thought about the girl with the white mask. She had helped him realize the magnitude of influence the skill seemed to have on him. He wondered what she would think now that the skill had established a cultivation technique for him that seemed to work really well.

  Sol gritted his teeth as he finally got on his feet. The effort sent waves of pain throughout, but once he was firmly standing, he felt that it was possible to walk.

  Despite his bad condition, there was a quiet voice in the back of his mind that looked at the demon who had introduced himself as Rax’Illya and wanted to fight him. After all, he had entered Sol’s house. He had challenged him for the house, regardless of whether or not he had owned it yesterday. And the thin black metal rods that the demon had tied to his side looked interesting. How would he fight?

  Nyx took in the remainder of his Qi and briefly tried to imitate the violent surge that had injured him yesterday. He found it far easier than he could have imagined, but when his focus skill pulsated with concern, he closed his eyes to regain his original flow.

  When he opened them, he noticed Illya had risen to his feet. “You want to fight after all?” He drew three of his metal rods, about as thick as two fingers and as long as his forearm, and held them casually.

  He radiated a confidence that Nyx liked. Fighting him would be fun, but his injuries would make it difficult—not to mention that it would add to them as well. Nyx was about to turn around and leave when Rax’Illya spoke again, his voice filled with disdain. “Just another lucky brat that clings to the Vox family and curries their favour. You will realize one day what self-serving cowards they really are.”

  The words irked Sol. In his head, he replayed the memory of his fight with Rax’Rathos. He was confident and fearless—a tough fighter who gave it his all. Far more competent than anyone he had fought since, even if he included that martial artist who had taught him a lesson yesterday. And Nox’Rictus? The demon had not even cared that Sol had led him into the tentacles of that monster without forewarning him. He had been happy about it!

  Which was fine—they were rival clans, fighting each other constantly. If he thought less of them, that was his prerogative. But the way he eyed Sol with this arrogant superiority? That did not sit right with him. If he had spoken like this about the Eternal Blossom Family, he would have buried his fist in that smug face before he could even finish that sentence.

  “You want to see if I’m lucky? Let us find out.”

  Nyx dragged the unconscious Rax’Illya out of the small house by his throat. His left hand was the only reasonably intact body part he had left, and even pulling an unconscious body threatened to make him collapse in exhaustion.

  He found that a few familiar faces were already waiting for him. Immediately, the girl he had beaten yesterday and the initial homeowner stepped closer, their faces a mixture of concern, shock, and disdain. A sharp warning glare made them stop immediately as he let the unconscious body drop to the ground. They flinched back at his eye contact, their faces still bearing the aftermath of contact with his bone-knuckled fist.

  A thin black rod was driven through Sol’s shoulder and left thigh. His left eye was swollen shut, and a nasty bruise had started to form on his forehead. His muscles burned more than they had in the morning, his fist had torn open and was bleeding again, and he felt a familiar warm trickle running down his chest—unbeknownst to everyone present, the stab wound had reopened too.

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  He knew he looked like a wreck, the image amplified by the wooden chair that was affixed to his back.

  The thin black metal rods were material used in array building. They phased through solid objects to anchor them to something beyond. In Nyx’Sol’s case, it had been the wooden chair that he had tried to bash his opponent with from overhead. The resulting disruption of his body weight had almost lost him the fight afterwards.

  Luckily, he had not been pinned to the floor with the second rod, and two heavy strikes with the remaining metal rod against his head were all he had to endure before finally burying his bone knuckles into Rax’Illya’s temple, knocking him out.

  The angry looks of the two Spear Saint Mountain members made him flex his claws instinctively. They painfully tore themselves free of the remainder of the closed wound and played themselves over his fingertips. Gritting his teeth at the resulting bleeding, his face shut down any attempt at retribution in spite of sect rules.

  “You will regret challenging us like this!” the boy yelled impotently, which made Sol continue with a smile on his face and put a spring into his tired steps.

  He ignored the odd looks that other disciples sent his way as they passed him. His walk was slowed by pain, every step dampening his motivation for the journey further, and his instincts screamed at him to just sit down.

  By the time he arrived at the library, his headache was threatening to make him black out, and he simply approached the first senior Verdant Sect Member he could spot, vaguely asking for medical help.

  Apparently, only disciples who had been unconscious for a longer period or those in acute danger were picked up for medical care; the rest were left to figure things out on their own. The sect took a strict hands-off approach to the body cultivation realm.

  Luckily, he was told that senior disciples were allowed to help, and Sol was pointed toward an innocent-looking girl with light pink hair that showed a few strands of white. She essentially told Nyx to “screw off unless you have money to spend.” She did it in a very polite manner, her tone suggesting she was simply complimenting him, even as she was calling him stupid for not knowing the obvious. It was quite the skill.

  She waited for him to exchange the rest of his money for sect points, the only currency she was interested in. While she was very pretty, the way she had cupped her face in her hand and said, "Oh, but it is so inconvenient for me to walk all the way and exchange them myself… During work, no less! Be a darling and exchange them for me, will you? I am still a body cultivator. I have no use for spirit stones," had made Sol want to use the remaining strength he had to punch her in the face instead.

  The walk from her desk to the library shop was tricky, as he almost passed out a few times.

  After depositing all of the spirit stones he had received from his brother, Nox’Yanxiou, at the library deposit plate and buying a token that allowed for remote transfer of funds to others, Nyx had 1,416 points. How he got back to the girl, he could not remember—he simply found himself staring at her with double vision as he confirmed his liquidity to her.

  Saving him from the binding rods that pinned the wooden chair to his back cost him 100 points, and the girl charged him 400 points each for two mid-grade recovery pills that she recommended.

  After asking her about the differences between mid- and low-grade recovery pills and how they worked, she went into a detailed explanation that made it clear she knew what she was talking about.

  Apparently, the cost-benefit ratio—in her mind—was way higher for mid-grade recovery pills, as the market for low-grade ones was far too saturated, resulting in lower prices. This saturation made it unlikely that competent alchemists worked on them.

  So, in terms of quality, the product had degraded to such a degree that it was better to invest in a mid-grade pill rather than risk shoddy quality for a lower price.

  If his head had not been pounding aggressively as he bled into his clothes, Sol would have found that type of information quite interesting. In his current state, he would be happy if he retained anything at all. Then she charged him another fifty points for the pleasure of explaining it to him, and he quickly stored away his belongings and left, lest the girl charge him even more just for talking to her.

  Four hundred sixty-six points remained, and Sol had no idea how long he would have to work to make up for almost a thousand sect contribution points.

  Sinking against a library shelf in a quiet corner of the library, he popped one of the pills and tried his best not to move anymore. He was quite exhausted, and the pill added to that. Observing internally, the pill did not contain any Qi, but instead provided a substance that absorbed his energy and directed it to heal the nearby area. After it was eaten, his bloodstream carried the substance into every corner of his body, where it greedily sucked in Qi to repair and mend.

  It took several hours for his body to accumulate enough energy to feed the pill’s healing efforts, and it remained active well after. Sol drifted in and out of consciousness during that time and found himself a lot more refreshed afterward. As the girl had said, he would be recovering for at least a day or two.

  Nyx stealthily changed into his second set of clothes, hoping no girl would randomly walk into this corner of the library, and felt like a remade man. Well, almost. A long bath would do wonders to alleviate his exhaustion.

  Sol then visited the library store and bought two sets of Verdant Reflection Sect uniforms for ten points each, becoming more and more convinced that the girl had ripped him off. Granted, the uniforms seemed cheap and were probably subsidized by the sect itself, but if Sol assumed he would eat in the library every day, he could likely live off 100 points for a month. And they were supposed to fight for houses for food, so the library was likely expensive to encourage that behavior?

  Still exhausted and without a Qi pool to use for cultivation, Sol retrieved his book on military procurement and started skimming through it for hints about summoning. Rax’Rathos could break through at any moment, and he had no doubt about that elder dragging him off to a summoning, prepared or not.

  It was relaxing to read for an hour or two, enjoying the toasty warmth of the library chairs and their soft comfort. However, he did not gain much information on summonings from his book, aside from the fact that the author described being contracted to multiple generations of the same house or clan. Sometimes he was contracted by the family head for years at a time; other times, he was called on briefly for the span of a few months or even weeks. There was even a rare incident where a branch family member revolted against the house and summoned him to assist.

  Apparently, it was quite relevant if the knowledge of how to summon a particular demon was passed on in that world. Sol made a mental note of that. This could both be a boon and a curse. It could either turn out to be a method of gaining a soul through little work for a family that relied on your wisdom or a hostile world that summoned him as a soldier or disposable pawn repeatedly.

  Frowning, he made a mental note to research that further and returned his book to the shelf so it would not drain his already dwindling sect point account any further. Then he browsed the shelves some more, covertly looking for the girl with the white mask, even going so far as to ask a particularly bored senior if he had seen someone matching her description.

  Unsuccessful, he left the library. On the way out, he came across the job postings board: [For Skin Tempering Recruits]. A huge wooden panel contained hundreds of job offers, most of them posted by the sect itself as well as senior disciples.

  It did not take him long to find the best-paid job on the entire board, thanks to some sort of array or ward that highlighted relevant information in yellow light. Since it filtered based on his thoughts, it barely took a minute.

  Below the job posting, six paper seals were attached to the board, seemingly notifying whoever had posted the offer that someone was interested and where they were.

  Nyx bit his lower lip. Yeah, the pink-haired girl had fleeced him quite a bit—almost 500 hours' worth of work, by the looks of it.