Chapter Ninety-Nine: You Must Be Accountable to Me

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The two inside were still at a loss for what was happening, while outside the slaughter had not stopped even for a moment. Constant streams of blood-qi rose from the crystal coffin and kept pouring into both of their bodies.

Mayi had already reached the Peak of the Ninth Rank. Suddenly, with blood-qi being forced into him—blood-qi from beings beyond common attainment, perhaps even from the Wanderer’s Realm—he was driven straight through to the Tenth Rank, and as the flow continued his power rose in a straight line, like a rocket.

“Why are you still standing there like that? Empty your mind, settle yourself, meditate carefully, and suppress your cultivation.” Mayi was still high on the thrill of his power surging upward, so Yueji could not stand it; she hurriedly called out.

“Ah, why suppress cultivation?”

“Of course you should,” Mayi asked, confused.

“Your power now is not something you gained by your own practice. If you do not suppress it, your strength may stop at the Wanderer’s Realm. That’s because your foundation is unstable.” Yueji said plainly.

“But all my power came from fortune and chance encounters.” Mayi replied. His cultivation had always come through what he consumed and through luck, so he had no idea there was another explanation.

Yueji looked at him in surprise. All of it was gained through fortune—he was not a man favored by impossible luck, yet his luck was still astonishing. Think about it: someone who cannot truly cultivate has already reached Ninth Rank. He was about to touch the Exceptional Realm, and all of it came from chance. He was, without doubt, a talent.

“Listen to me. Quickly, suppress your cultivation by meditating. Use all your ability to push it down and firm up your foundation. Once your foundation is solid, I won’t dare say you’ll be unbeatable in your rank; fighting above rank won’t be a problem either. Think of it this way: you were already at Entry-level Tenth, and yet you have compressed your strength down to Eighth. Your total energy has not changed, but your apparent level looks much lower.”

“So in truth my total power is no different from the Tenth, but after compression I seem downgraded. Even if my rank reads Eighth, I can still match a Tenth—so why compress at all? Why not stay Tenth?” Mayi asked, puzzled. This felt like nonsense.

This is why, in novels, some authors can describe fighting across ranks. You compress power that might otherwise climb high; you look weaker, but your total quantity can remain the same, so you can still break through ranks.

“I already told you,” Yueji continued. “It seems you are losing, but your base is being hammered into stone. Imagine the foundation packed solidly, each brick resting on it and held firm. Then your wall can rise higher. Others pack their foundations loosely—collapse is always possible, and what they build afterward is shaky. Tell me, whose wall will stand higher?”

“Oh, I understand now. I’ll suppress my strength at once.” Mayi suddenly seemed to get it. It was like the difference between someone who can build a tower a hundred meters high and still not fear an earthquake, and someone who cuts corners and may endanger even a few stories.

Following the meditation Yueji taught him, the many kinds of energy in Mayi’s body, under his command, kept tempering one another. The idea of steel hardened through a thousandfold forging was something he understood well enough.

Watch as Mayi’s cultivation, already at the peak of the Tenth, jolted and then began to sink: late Tenth, middle Tenth, early Tenth, peak Ninth, late Ninth…

Yueji had not expected him to be so relentless. Through one night, even with blood-qi continuously entering both bodies, Mayi forced his strength all the way back to late Sixth Rank. The blood-qi of that single night was enough to raise a beginner of First Entry to Ninth Rank, yet it only raised Mayi by one small realm. By dawn, he had only just reached the peak of Seventh, and even an advanced master like Yueji could feel explosive force seething from his body.

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“Hu.” Mayi let out a long breath of thick exhaled air, opened his eyes, and examined himself. He was only at the peak of Seventh now, but in both feeling and strength he seemed several times stronger. Mayi felt he could still go toe-to-toe with someone from the Exceptional Realm.

“How is it?”

“Thank you,” Mayi said with a smile. “I feel much stronger.” He raised his arm and showed Yueji. They were still inside the crystal coffin, and his sudden movement could easily have touched places one should not touch. Even Mayi, now a seasoned hand, felt himself redden; Yueji, of course, was far worse, nearly flushed to the point of embarrassment.

Yueji quickly took Mayi out of the coffin.

“Then stay in this coffin alone tonight. Even if my strength is within it, it is of no use there. In that case you should recover your former level very quickly.” Yueji said, still red-faced. She might have lived for ten thousand, even tens of thousands of years, but at heart she was still a young maiden.

“Mm. Fine. I don’t know why you suddenly revived, but this feels like a blessing—that heaven was merciful and woke you early.” Mayi nodded. Growing powerful had been his dream. Now the effects of all the medicines in his body had been fully refined, and though no blood-qi was supplementing him now, Mayi still felt his power growing slowly. More importantly, a whole night of refining had finally returned him from a bulky build to his old figure.

“Mm.” Yueji gave a soft sound and then fell silent. Yesterday they had chatted with great ease; today an odd stillness had suddenly come.

Mayi was intoxicated by his newfound strength, while Yueji was all shame.

The four stone statues still stood around the platform, as they had yesterday, as if they had never moved.

“What is this sword called?” After his daze passed, Mayi noticed Yueji standing at a distance, visibly uncomfortable, and sensing the awkward mood, he started a new topic.

“Oh—this sword is called Purple Inscription. It was forged for me by the tribal chieftain back then and later became my destined weapon. Ordinary people cannot touch it; they would be hurt by its sword-qi.” Yueji answered. She moved to the altar table to check her belongings and found that nothing was missing. Even the seals in her heaven-and-earth satchel were intact. Only her intimate clothing was slightly disturbed, as if someone had touched them.

“Sword-qi? Can the sword emit sword-qi by itself?” Mayi asked curiously, coming over and taking it up to examine.

“Ah, you think you can hold Purple Inscription?” Yueji’s lovely face turned even redder in astonishment.

“It’s just a hand, isn’t it? I already took it yesterday too. I was going to try whether it was sharp, and it still gave me a small cut.” Mayi said with a sigh.

“Wait.” Yueji hurriedly took her longsword from Mayi’s hand. At once, her inner power surged into Purple Inscription, and the copper-green rust all dissolved into flying ash, revealing the sword’s original form. Except for the blade itself, both blade and hilt were now their natural violet-bronze color, and strange inscriptions were carved along the steel.

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“Wow. This sword looks brand-new again. Show it to me.” Yesterday, when this sword had frightened Yueji badly, he had forgotten all about it today.

“Be careful.” Yueji, nervous and uneasy, set the longsword on the table. She recognized it as her own Purple Inscription, her life-bond weapon, a sword nourished by her inner force for three thousand years.

“It is different now, isn’t it?” Mayi picked up Purple Inscription and swung it in the air a few times. He was rough and broad in style, and such a noble weapon truly did not suit him. Watching his awkward movements, he looked laughably clumsy—almost like a monkey in borrowed robes.

Yueji, standing beside him, grew flustered. She had recovered a good deal already, but now her face reddened again and even her breath became quick and shallow. She stared at Mayi with odd eyes, like someone confronted by a fool, unable to find words. If he had brought her back from death, perhaps it was because of him—was this fellow truly heaven’s arrangement?

Mayi still preferred broad, forceful techniques. A refined weapon like this did not suit a blunt fellow like him, so after a shake of his head he put the sword down.

Once his strength was already strong, Yueji regained herself quickly. Seeing Mayi set the sword down, she blinked once, then suddenly decided to tease him.

“Did you touch my heaven-and-earth satchel?”

“Ah, this… what exactly is a heaven-and-earth satchel?” Seeing the small bag in Yueji’s hand, Mayi wore a guilty expression, then asked out of curiosity, nearly breaking her cool look. “I saw one like it before and opened it just to look. I had no intention of touching those things, but there was nothing else I could touch.”

Yueji’s face had gone cold as she sent a vast pressure at him. “If you don’t even know what a heaven-and-earth satchel is… A heaven-and-earth satchel condenses an entire world into a portable object for storing things—it is this small sachet. Did you touch my intimate garments?”

“I—no. I was just curious. I saw such a thing and opened it to look. I didn’t mean to touch anything else. I didn’t know what else I could touch.” Mayi felt miserable at once. He had never imagined Yueji was not an ordinary person—she was already one who could cross the starry heavens, a master of the Boundary-Breaking Realm.

“Humph. You tainted my purity. Handle it as you think best.” As she said it, Yueji felt her own face burning as if she might be set on fire by it.

“Mm?” Mayi was stunned. He was to be blamed for touching some undergarments? He had no idea that even if he had not touched Yueji’s clothing, she would still find grounds to make him answer for it. Her Purple Inscription was not a sword anyone could lift. This, after all, meant Yueji was meant to follow Mayi. Without a proper reason, how could she stay by her destined man and share a life to the end?