Chapter 198 - A Promise Between Men (1)

Cassius was somewhat shocked.

By now, he had a pretty good understanding of most of the intricacies of his time-travel ability. When he returned to the real world after time-traveling, he would bring back the skills and advancements he gained. However, when traveling from the real world to the time-travel era, he could only bring his knowledge, experience, and martial arts realm, leaving everything else behind. The body he used was always the one belonging to the original antique owner, with only his soul and consciousness replacing the owner's. However, something unexpected seemed to have occurred.

During his third return to the real world, Cassius had already noticed his mutated vein. At the time, he hypothesized that the strong radiation from the meteorite beneath Black Rain Manor had caused his body to mutate. When he returned to reality, the harmful mutations had been filtered out, leaving only beneficial ones—like the enhanced vein in his right hand.

Based on Cassius's understanding, that was supposed to be a physical mutation with the vein becoming tougher and more elastic. When he was at his full strength, it allowed more blood to flow through his wrist, making his punches even stronger. Thus, the mutation shouldn't have carried over into the time-travel era—unless this was a mutation of the soul or a mental change. The physical alteration could be just a surface manifestation of something deeper!

The meteorite at the core of Black Rain Manor, which seemed to be its origins, seemed to possess an even more mysterious and unfathomable power...

Cassius gently clenched his fist, watching as the black vein wriggled beneath his skin like a worm. He felt unsettled, and as reluctant as he was, there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.

He probed around his body again, this time more deeply, and detected several obscure and chaotic energy coursing through his body. Some seemed to be remnants from the external attacks by powerful enemies, while others were likely side effects from forbidden techniques.

Regardless of where the different energies were coming from, they were constantly ravaging Li Wei's body, preventing his wounds and life force from healing. Cassius needed to deal with this issue first.

He adjusted his position slightly on the wooden bed, searching for a more comfortable spot before glancing at the status bar in the upper-right corner.

[Wind Elephant Fist: Elephant Herd 35% (Total Three Stages)] → [Wind Elephant Fist: Elephant Herd 76.6% (Total Three Stages)]

[Elephant Soul Incomplete: Bug Bite 36.5% (Total Three Stages)]

He wasn't surprised to see Elephant Soul unchanged. It remained at the second-level accelerated blood flow that Li Wei's body had only barely achieved. However, Cassius's mastery of the Wind Elephant Fist mastery was a result of his own blood, sweat, and tears.

This was the Covert Martial Arts... As well as the forbidden techniques that Li Wei had mastered.

[Sorcery Totem: Boiling Phoenix Blood]

The Ten Thousand Mountains's sorcery totem branded a phoenix totem tattoo on one's back and had the ability to activate the blood and muscle groups of the back for a short time, making the user's fists explode with ferocity.

[Demon Worm: Soul Night Ash]

The Demon's Horn region's Soul Bug or Night Ash Bug was a Demon Worm. It was a parasite inside the body, sustained by blood and mental energy. At critical moments, it could induce a state of cold rationality, shutting off physical sensations and enabling absolute rational combat.

[Battle Magic Ring: Avalon's Bloodthirsty Ripple]

Eternal Island's Ripple Ring could enable the wearer to unleash a battle ripple, amplifying destructive power and attack range. The ring was powered by the wearer's life energy; every time one used it, it required taking a life so that it could feed off its victim's blood.

There were more, but the other forbidden techniques had relatively minor effects. The aforementioned three were Li Wei's most frequently used and most effective, with "Sorcery Totem: Boiling Phoenix Blood" being his main combat ability.

The sorcery totem provided a significant boost in strength, and its side effects were milder compared to the other two. Each use would deplete vital energy, the blood vessels and muscles burning slightly, eventually causing the entire back to stiffen and lose all sensation.

The Demon Worm was the primary cause of Li Wei's extreme mental instability. Every time he entered the state of cold rationality, the Demon Worm would invade his brain. Afterward, he would experience swift and intense mental pain, lethargy, mania, and even some degree of schizophrenia.

Finally, there was the Ripple Magic Ring, which drained Li Wei's life energy and even his potential with each use.

If an ordinary person were to use all three of these forbidden techniques at once, they would likely die on the spot. They might not even survive to use the second technique. The only reason Li Wei had lasted that long was thanks to the foundation provided by the Wind Elephant Covert Martial Arts. The Covert Martial Arts refined the body's potential, pushing it beyond human limits. It elevated the essence of life to a more powerful level which gave Li Wei the foundation to use the forbidden techniques with horrible side effects. However, it was clear that he was close to his limit.

Cassius once again focused on the symbol of the Wind Elephant Tusk Pendant. The final stage of Li Wei's lingering attachment was becoming clear—kill all the Dead Blood involved in the clan's massacre!

There were two additional smaller attachments—retrieve the body of Instructor Lisa, and bury Shirley's ashes on the final battlefield. His eyes flickered as he touched the pendant around his neck. The base of the pendant held a small metal sphere, inside of which tiny grain-like particles that felt like dust lightly shook.

Cassius pressed his forehead, sweeping his tangled white hair behind it, and muttered to himself, "Aside from your women, I've wanted to fulfill your other attachments for a long time now." He took a deep breath. "Well, the rest is up to me now."

Time passed quickly and soon the next morning had arrived.

The night passed without incident. The sky was a pure, clear blue, with a few wisps of white clouds clustered around the floating sun, casting golden beams of light through the gaps. The sunlight fell upon the lush green mountains, making them look like a giant green carpet swaying in the wind. It was vibrantly effervescent. A winding sparkling river divided this green carpet in two and continued on until the mountains.

A few hundred meters away from the river, a golden-haired boy was struggling to lift a large wooden tub inside a small wooden cabin. The tub was dusty and about as tall as half an adult.

Using the edges to move it, Toma slowly dragged the tub outside the cabin. By the time the tub was set in place, Toma was already sweating profusely. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, glanced at Xiala who was boiling water nearby, and then at the increasingly bright sky. Finally, he turned and headed back inside the cabin.

A few minutes later, a shaky Cassius was helped out by Toma and Xiala. He coughed as he walked, blood dribbling out from the corner of his mouth. His brow furrowed deeply from the pain in his abdomen.

Not far away, the tub was already filled with warm medicinal water. The cabin had once been one of Li Wei's bases, and various healing and training herbs were always kept there.

With the help of the two children, Cassius managed to slide into the tub, which goes to show just how severe Li Wei's body's injuries were, like he had walked through the gates of hell and only just escaped by the skin of his teeth. However, this wasn't the first time; Li Wei had faced near-death situations many times before.

The medicinal water had a strong smell, but remarkable effects. Although Li Wei's injuries looked horrifying, they had mostly healed, largely thanks to the medicinal concoction. The medicine was something he had developed by combining the Wind Elephant Sect's healing methods with his own decade-long experience of wandering. It was effective for all kinds of injuries, both internal and external.

Of course, there was one small side effect: pain.

"

Ugh

..." Cassius, his entire body soaked in the black medicinal water, clenched his teeth tightly. His forehead was covered in sweat, and his face was pale as if he had lost a massive amount of blood.

Honestly, the sensation of this black medicinal water was even more intense than the training medicine used for Elephant Soul. The level of pain seemed to surpass the second stage of the Elephant Soul, Bug Bite, and was closer to the third stage, Burning Wind.

However, it was still far less painful than using the Heart Eye Secret Technique while soaking in the medicine. The healing was a slow process that required at least half an hour.

While soaking in the tub, Cassius began to sense the different foreign energy within his body. Once a practitioner of Covert Martial Arts reached the pugilist level and surpassed human limits, they could feel the changes in their body and control their blood flow and muscles.

There were five invading energies in total, all chaotic and intertwined. Three of them were from the dangerous forbidden techniques. As for the other two, one was a cold energy that flowed like water—likely left by a dark creature like the Dead Blood. The other was a hot stream of energy that came from the puncture wound in his abdomen, similar in nature to the Boiling Phoenix Blood Totem. It went without saying that a shaman had done this.

The already weakened Li Wei was no match for the two shamans, the spear severely wounding him. Of course, the two shamans didn't come out unscathed either, as Li Wei, in his state of cold rationality, managed to injure them. So he still had a little time left.

As he investigated his frail body, Cassius couldn't immediately think of a way to expel the invasive energies. The two caused by external injuries could be dealt with by slowly wearing them down with vital energy, but that required a healthy Covert Martial Arts practitioner's body.

As for the three internal energies, the sorcery totem had already fused with his back, and each burning sensation only deepened that fusion. The Demon Worm was parasitic, and it couldn't be forced out of his body. The battle ring was embedded on his finger, with bone-like spikes piercing into his flesh and bones. It was the easiest to get rid of—he only needed to cut off the finger it was attached to.

In any case, it was all rather troublesome.

Cassius's expression darkened slightly as he glanced to the side. In the fenced yard, the two children, around twelve or thirteen years old, were cooking with swift and practiced movements. Thinking back, when Li Wei first time-traveled, he had been about thirteen years old too...