Second Time

Chapter 78 - After the Party

Shao Yue sat in the central pavilion, massaging her temples. Zhu Jiao stood in front of her, listing off all of the gifts that had been presented.

"There's a total of 320 Beast Cores, all grade six or higher."

"Give Liezhu the earth attributed ones and send me the rest."

"There's around a thousand kilograms of precious herbs."

"Give anything grade five mid-rank or below to Mingzhi, I'll sort through the rest later."

"There's 116 weapons, 82 of which are swords."

"Give the Core disciples first pick, then put the rest in the contribution hall."

"The teas, wines, fruits, and other foodstuffs have been entrusted to Fei."

"Sounds good."

They continued in that way for nearly an hour. At the end of it, Shao Yue left the pavilion, found Shenyu, and joined the flood dragon in floating through the river. Neither of them spoke, they merely drifted along and relaxed.

Xu Mingzhi noticed them. "Ah, there you are, Shao Yue."

"I'm not Shao Yue. I'm a lotus petal."

Hu'er's illusion techniques kicked in, transforming Shao Yue into a lotus petal.

Shenyu's eyes lit up. "Hey, me too!"

The illusion spread to cover Shenyu. Two lotus petals drifted through the moat, quite out of place.

Xu Mingzhi had no idea how to respond to that. She sought out Cai Fei for advice.

"She's just feeling a bit melancholy," Cai Fei explained. "She used to be very close friends with the Martial Emperor. Seeing him again was probably painful. She'll be back to normal tomorrow."

"Oh, I never considered that! There are people she knows that don't know her..."

Cai Fei nodded.

With Cai Fei's explanation, everyone agreed to not bother Shao Yue for the day.

A few hours later, Shao Yue left the moat and went back to the pavilion. She silently hugged Cai Fei, nuzzling the smaller woman intimately. Cai Fei simply smiled and cuddled with Shao Yue, happy to help.

After cuddling Cai Fei until sunrise, Shao Yue returned to her usual self and spent a fair bit of time processing all of the remaining gifts. Some she kept, some she gave to the disciples, and some she sent down to the inner sect to be used as rewards. She didn't pay any attention to who had sent the gifts.

Shao Yue went to check on Xiao Shi'er. "How's the technique?"

"I won't know for sure until I cultivate it, but it seems complete," the young girl replied. "And it's really profound!"

"That's good to hear." Shao Yue took several blood-red crystals from her storage ring and gave them to Xiao Shi'er. "These blood stones were part of the gifts. You can use them to cultivate."

Blood stones were similar to spirit stones, but as the name implied, contained blood instead of spiritual energy. Judging by the size and clarity of the stones, each one contained the blood of thousands of people. They would be able to sustain Xiao Shi'er's cultivation for quite a while.

"Thank you, Master!"

"With that cultivation art, it should be easy for you to reach the peak of Spiritual Manifestation. Then, your Sword Body will make the breakthrough to the Heavenly Realm quite smooth."

Xiao Shi'er's red eyes sparkled with excitement. "I'm looking forward to it!"

Shao Yue didn't have any good Blood Dao techniques. Xiao Shi'er had to get by with the one she already knew, and had pushed it to the very limit, unable to go past the Spiritual Manifestation Seventh Stage.