Chapter 267 – Unforgiven (VIII)

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.