by Pegaz
“You could be surprised.” Owen shook his head a little. “There are also people Rank 5 or higher. The cap is a Rank 5 level 9. My master truly wanted you to join to dispel the rumours about you and your wife.”
“Rumours?” John looked at Owen straight in the eyes. “What rumours?”
Owen told John about the skeletons haunting the library, as well as what the sect master had announced. This all caused John to break into laughing fits after hearing this. Sarah, who was listening from the other room, also giggled a bit.
“Fine.” After laughing for a few minutes, John finally replied. “We’ll join the tournament since you can never have too much fighting experience. I haven’t fought against Sword Sect techniques yet either. As for the Rank 5 sword reward, I don’t need it but maybe it’ll make a nice display item for the living room.”
An idea struck John.
“Hey,” he started, “is it possible to place me and Sarah on opposite sides of the tournament blocks? We want to fight other people, not each other. If we have to fight each other, we want it to be the finals.”
Owen knitted his brows a little.
“Usually it is random…” He thumbed his chin. “Ah! They spread people classed as seeds though! They spread the people who are classed as seeds throughout the tournament groups so they meet later on in the tournament when it gets more interesting. We can set it up so that the both of you are seeds.”
“Great!” John clapped his hands. “Please do that.”
Owen gave John a list of the rules. The only serious rule was not to kill anyone during your match. The rest of the “rules” on the list were more like guidelines.
“Okay, then.” Owen stood up. “I have to sort out you two being seeds. I’ll come back a day before the start of the tournament to give you two your participation tokens.”
John put the list of the rules down on the sofa and stood up. He walked Owen out while chatting on the way. At the door, they shook hands when Owen was out of the house.
Closing the door, John turned around only to see Sarah sitting on the stairs to his left.
“What’s wrong?” John smiled. “Not still upset about the novice remark, are you? You need to stop hitting me. I’ve become your punching bag over the last few years.”
Sarah shook her head.
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
Chapter 24
New Technique
“Fine.” John looked at Sarah. “Let’s go into the living room and talk there. I got rid of most of the dust.”
They both walked into the living room and sat down on the same sofa, holding hands while relaxing. Sarah rested her head on John’s shoulder before taking a deep breath.
“I want to come clean,” she said slowly. “Now that we’re married.”
She took another deep breath as she was a little nervous, then began to explain.
“When we first met, I kind of acted all innocent,” Sarah spoke with an honest edge to her words. “But the truth is... during my past life, I used to do medical research on mice and got used to small animals dying on me in the hundreds per day.”
Though she never killed a human on purpose, she would encounter patients who died on her. Throughout her medical career, she’d witnessed thousands of deaths. Some of them were even due to the human drug trials she conducted. The reason she’d acted innocent was to get John’s help—at this part, John’s eyes widened.
“Before we met, I think I idolised you more than anything else.” Sarah lowered her eyes. “That’s why I made a move inside the cultivation cave. I honestly didn’t think I’d fall in love, though. I only wanted your help.”
When she was done speaking, the room grew silent. It wasn’t a bad silence though; it was a silence full of honesty and understanding. Finally, John broke the silence with a smile.
“Think I didn’t know how strong of a woman you actually are?” He reached over to Sarah’s face and brushed a lock of her hair to the side. “To become a doctor, you need to get used to the death of patients and even a dense person like me knows that. Since we’re coming clean… In that cultivation cave, did you really think you could knock me down if I didn’t let you?”
At this, Sarah’s face reddened.
“From the moment you asked for help until that kiss,” John continued, noticing the blush, “I was only kind to you because I was trying to figure out what kind of person you were. While we’re being brutally honest, I only kissed back because I was a single man who hadn’t been with anybody since Lisa. You really turned me on.”
Sarah’s eyes widened, her face a complete tomato. John had to hold back his laughter.
“Why do you think I gave you that forbidden technique not long after?” His voice carried his playful smile without fail. “I wanted to get you in bed. The technique for Life Power was just a bonus.”
John explained that back before the kiss, during the first animal testing at the black market, he noticed that Sarah didn’t flinch when their test subject died. She had an absolute poker face while it screamed out in pain, even though she claimed to have felt bad for the creature at the start.
If that wasn’t suspicious enough, John also recalled the time when they used the two thieves as target practice. Despite her show of anger, Sarah didn’t even blink when it came to shooting them. She didn’t ask to stop after only a few, either. Instead, she carried on with no problem.
“In your past life, you were a doctor,” John concluded. “Not an actor. You thought your sham was perfect, but I saw through it and said nothing. I just wanted to see what you were up to. I didn’t want to fall in love. Didn’t think you would fall for me, either.”
The room was once more filled with silence. Sarah didn’t know how to react; her cheeks were still rosy, but her eyes were lost in thought.
“Fine,” she said finally. “You didn’t fall for it, but I’m not upset about that. I’ll be more truthful from now on, but everybody has secrets, even married couples. Though I can promise I won’t betray you.”
Her hands wrapped around John’s and she squeezed tight.
“I want to open a medical practice again someday, but I know this is a cruel universe.” Her eyes grew misty. “What if you’re not here and I save somebody who might kill me the next day? I want to do no harm, but... maybe I can just do no harm to people who aren’t assholes...?”
“Well.” John laughed. “When we reach Rank 4, I’m hoping the Share skill will give us at least one more skill slot. I can give you the Immortal Eye—that way, you can refuse to help anybody who has over whatever amount of sin you set as the limit. I’ll also be training you. That way, you can defend yourself when I’m not around.”
“That would be helpful,” Sarah replied softly.
“And speaking of the Sinners System,” John continued, “I have to buy the last shop option to merge all the absorption and breathing techniques together, but I don’t know what will happen. This house has cultivation rooms underground, right? I remember seeing that in the description when we bought the place.”
“They do.” Sarah pointed towards the door leading to the hall. “Go through that door, turn right and there’s a small latch underneath the stairs. The cultivation rooms are down there.”
John kissed Sarah’s hand. Somewhat reluctantly, he released her hand and stood up from the couch. He took a few steps towards the door before turning back to his wife.
“I will go do the sinners option, then,” he announced with purpose. “If you hear a loud boom, then come rescue me. It’s my turn to act like a damsel in distress. I’m not wearing a dress, though.”
He could hear Sarah laughing behind him as he continued to the stairs, opened a latch, and crawled into the small opening.
Why the hell did they make it like this? Because of cultivating in a private place? Or something else?
John descended the cramped stairs. The size of the opening was smaller than his shoulders width, but he somehow made it by.
Ar
riving at the bottom, the space opened up. John looked around the place. There were eight rooms, four on each side and the doors were only five to six feet away from each other. They built the whole room using big grey bricks, like breeze blocks on Earth. They made even the doors of grey metal.
John opened the first door on the left. It made a loud rusty sound as it opened. The room was only eight feet long by three feet wide.
It’s big enough to lie down or meditate but not much else. I’m only here to buy the last thing in the shop without having to worry about blowing up a part of the house, anyway.
John opened the system up and checked his stats.
Skill Points: 0
Life Pool: 1
Toxin Pool: 19.7B
Sin: 100M
Immortality List:
Shrink Neurons - Idlers 227/227, Shrink - 8/9, Time - 5y 6mo 5d 18h 54m 16s
Opening the fourth tab at the top, he came into the Sinner’s Shop and looked at the only item left.
100M Sins - Merges all users knowledge of Absorption techniques and creates a new technique, the more you know then, the better the technique made.
He stared at it for a few seconds, confirmed the purchase, and watched it disappear.
All the information about different breathing and absorbing techniques in his memory disappeared. In their place, the memory of a technique he’d never seen before formed in his mind. John closed his eyes and read through the “memory” of the technique. It showed the correct breathing technique to use with the absorbing technique.
Looking at his Life Pool of 1 and the Toxin Pool to see the total amount of 19,714,460,892, he used the technique for a single minute. The breathing technique entailed of two short inhales, one short exhale, two short inhales, one long exhale, repeat. John made one part of his mind concentrate on breathing in that order and timing. Another part of his mind focused on keeping the Storage Space open, and a third part was using the absorbing technique.
A minute later, he stopped all three parts of his mind’s focus. Looking at the system again, he noted that Life Pool is still 1, but the Toxin Pool amount totalled 19,714,480,892.
20,000 Toxin Power in a minute, that’s 100,000 Life Power a minute? HOLY SHIT! That’s using three parts of the mind, too… If I used everything, then I could set it up as one part breathing, one part Storage Space, three parts absorbing and two parts merging them together. I’d get 300,000 Life Power a minute then!
Then again, the minimum Life Power you need to break into Rank 4 is one billion. Sarah and I have almost the minimum amount of Life Power to break into Rank 5, which is 100 billion.
No matter how fast we are, it will take years to get to Rank 4 Level 9, so we’re not in a dire need for Life Power right now. At the least, we won’t need to wait for Life Power to reach the minimum amount until much later, and at Rank 6 and 7, we won’t regress due to Life Power leaking either.
John made five parts of his mind carry on with cultivating, one part to handle the scan and the last part free. He walked to the door, shut it behind him, and climbed up the ladder.
When John walked into the living room, Sarah was still sitting on the sofa. John explained what happened and how much Life Power the new technique could absorb per minute. It stunned Sarah for a fair amount of time before she regained her composure. It was literally thousands of times better than the techniques they were using.
Chapter 25
It Worked?
When Sarah came out of it, she learned the breathing and absorbing technique from John. It took over an hour for Sarah to get it perfect. After teaching Sarah the technique, John was struck with a thought.
“Do those two fighting puppets need food or water?” he pondered aloud. “Or are they like machines where they power down and need to recharge somehow?”
Sarah looked at him like he was an idiot.
“They don’t need food, water, or recharging,” she explained. “They absorb Life Power which sustains them during normal days. If they’re in a fight, then they might need to rest and absorb more Life Power before returning to normal.”
“Oh, okay!” John laughed. “We left them in the house for over five years and my mind was too busy concentrating on reading with the Scan to even think of them. If they needed food or water, then they’d be dead by now.”
“Well, these systems are made for Siders who go on to become cultivators, I think.” Sarah smiled. “Most of the skills lean towards cultivators. Though the original owners of the puppet and sinners system couldn’t become immortal so they couldn’t use it to the fullest while we can. We don’t know who made the systems, where they come from, or what happens at the end either.”
The vibe of the room turned into a mysterious, question-chalked one.
“I’ve had the system mock me before,” John mused. “So I believed there was somebody watching and could control the system for a while. That was only a feeling I had, though.”
With that, the conversation quieted and they talked for a little longer about trivial things.
Two days later, Owen came over with the two-seed tokens. He had to pull strings to get them into the tournament since the preliminaries had already finished almost a year past, but they were in!
He then explained the tournament groups. John was in Group J while Sarah was in Group A. Each group had one thousand twenty-four people in it. All fights were one-vs-one and only the last person standing in the block would advance to the final, the top ten. The top ten fight each other in a one-vs-one match also, and each person would fight the other nine people. Three points for a win and zero points for a loss. It was impossible to draw. A score of twenty-seven points was the maximum one could get, while zero was the minimum.
They thanked Owen and saw him off.
Sitting back on the sofa in the living room, John looked at his wife and suggested that they not use the teleport skill in the tournament. He didn’t want to show everyone their trump card.
Sarah only replied with, “I’m not that stupid.”
“You aren’t.” John laughed. “But there will be stupid people in the tournament. They will think they are already the champions and you’re a stepping stone for them. They will go on and on about their plans like those villains in movies. They will get us so riled up and we’ll want nothing more than to kill them as fast as possible using the teleport skill. But we can’t, no matter what.”
“I’ve never agreed with movies that have a villain like that.” Sarah could only smirk. “Why come up with a clever contraption to kill the hero? Shoot them and get on with the plan to take over the world.”
The two broke into light laughter and began chatting about movies that they remembered.
At some point, John looked at her with Immortal Eye.
Sarah Wells
Rank: 3
Level: 7
Sin: 0
“How close are you to reaching level 8?” He tilted his head at her.
“Hmm…” Sarah thought for a second. “Should be able to finish shrinking enough neurons by morning.”
“All right.” John stood up. “I’ll let you advance a level in peace. At this rate, you’ll get Rank 4 before me. The last skill needs over five years to complete.”
“Five years, huh?” Sarah stood up, too. “So the lower levels you get much faster, but at higher levels, you’re slower than me? I guess it’s balanced that way.”
“Yes.” John nodded. “But we’re both faster than everybody else. We’re not even thirty-seven years old yet and we’re close to Rank 4. The Sword Sect’s requirement to join is Rank 3 and under forty years of age. To become an inner disciple, they need to reach Rank 5 under one hundred, but we might get to Rank 5 under sixty at this rate. The gap will only continue to increase.”
With that, John bid Sarah a good night. Ready to go back to levelling, Sarah then went to the hatch under the stairs and climbed down.
John took a seat in a chair next to his table. He took out a jar of monster blood and a No
rmal blank rune. It was time to try drawing a new rune. So far, all his experiments had failed, so he had yet to purchase a high-ranking sword for it. When Sarah told him about molecules, he remembered that objects are only molecules compacted together. He didn’t know how molecules affected the strength of metal, ores, or anything else, but if he could make his swords edge the width of a molecule, wouldn’t it slice between them rather than destroying them?
His theory was that if it could slice between them, then it didn’t matter how strong the object was, it would still cut through it. No matter how he tried drawing, though, he couldn’t get it to work. He could see the molecules that the Toxin skills created and stored whenever he wished to, but the problem was he doesn’t know how to draw “shrink” on the rune without affecting the whole sword.
If there was more than one picture drawn on the same blank rune, it functioned like reading a book from left to right and top to bottom. At the top left of the blank rune, John drew two human shapes. One was big and one much smaller with an arrow at the top and bottom of the human. Both arrows pointed towards the human. He did this for “shrink.”
Next, he drew a sword at the top right of the blank rune, but made the edges of the sword clearer, even putting arrows pointing at the “edges” only. At the bottom left he only put a “2A” and at the bottom right he put the shape of a linear molecule structure. All four pictures together spelt “shrink edges 2A molecule.” When he finished, the rune didn’t break, which meant it wasn’t a complete failure. Whether it had the intended effect still needed to be tested.
John was ecstatic. He wanted to test it but he didn’t have any swords left. All the equipment he stole from Rogue sect had been sold or given away a while ago.
Sarah has two short swords but they have no open slots for runes. Even if they did, they could get destroyed or ruined if the experiment went awry. Guess I can go buy a cheap sword with one slot open. If this works, it could be the first ever in this universe.
Screw it. I can wait to get the swords. The tournament comes first and I need to stay here in case something happens while Sarah’s cultivating anyway.