Chương 24: Leech

Cultivation world shard Lia was still resting in the shard world. The cracks of thunder shot out across the purple sky. Her dantian had started to heal and the flow of qi was pouring back in. Lia's recent battle showed her how lacking she was in combat techniques. She knew the Flowing Water art, which was a good overall technique but was more for ranged combat. It was like a mage's spell group from the old RPG games Tim would play. She had no movement techniques. If she did, maybe Ami wouldn't have had to die.

Lia felt a sob coming as Tim's mind struggled to deal with Lia's emotional brain. She looked down at her small, slender arms and saw the pink fresh skin where the burns were healing. She rotated her slender wrists and admired the long, dexterous fingers.

"I should really focus on speed and power in this body," she thought.

"I'm like a glass cannon. I can wield a huge amount of qi, but without the speed to dodge or the power to block, I really am useless." Lia began to strip again, taking out her last set of clothes. She needed to find a rift out of here, and she really didn't want to go to the abandoned fortress. It seemed that huge qi waves could open or close these rifts in space.

Lia had a flashback to Elder Cho talking about how these rifts only happened in places where great experts had died or where others had established separate realms. The stronger the cultivator, the larger the separate realm they could create. Only Nascent Soul level cultivators and higher could create them though. Lia was lost in these thoughts while undressing when she saw enough blood for a murder scene on her nightgown.

"Oh shit, was I stabbed?" she quickly looked over her body in stress until she noticed the source of the "stab wound."

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me," Tim muttered as he and Riku were walking to the dojo.

"What is it?" Riku asked, worried.

"It's Lia," Tim muttered.

"What happened?" Riku asked with concern.

"Nothing just some bullshut" Tim muttered Riku and Tim walked into the dojo where Himari and Yui were already training. Riku had forgotten to give Tim his hoodie back before entering the dojo, and she was still swimming in the oversized garment. Yui instantly had a sly, knowing smirk spreading across her face as she took in the sight of tiny Riku wearing Tim's clothes. Her eyes gleamed with mischief as she stopped her warm-up routine. Himari looked up from her stretching and grinned.

"I knew it! You guys are totally hooking up for sure." She pointed between them dramatically.

"Now the question is, who seduced who? I thought Tim would have been the predator, but after getting to know you better, Riku, I'm not so sure."

"It's not like that!" both Tim and Riku protested simultaneously, which only made them look more guilty.

"Uh-huh," Yui said, cracking her knuckles.

"That's what they all say. And here I thought our 'Meteor Shower Sect' was going to be all about martial arts training."

"We're just... it was raining," Riku stammered, pulling the hood up to hide her burning cheeks. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You walked in together were you at Tim's apartment?" Himari pressed with a wicked grin.

"Enforcement Elder Yui demands explanations!" Yui declared with mock authority, though her grin betrayed her amusement. Tim groaned.

"Can we please just train? Some of us have had a very complicated day."

"Oh, I bet you have," Himari giggled, while Yui began setting up even more torturous exercises than usual, clearly energized by the entertainment value of their obvious embarrassment. Meanwhile, feeling bloated and annoyed, Lia pulled out her staff and started walking around the fortress in a circle, looking for a rift.

"This is some grade-A bullshit," she muttered, allowing Tim's cursing to come across.

"I should have had Varek's body instead and be enjoying myself in this world. Now I'm wearing padding while my insides shed and dealing with bouncing tits. Really, this has to be the worst isekai ever." Lia walked over the battlefield, noticing ancient broken pieces of armor and skeletons.

"I wonder who these guys even were. How many thousands or hundreds of thoysands of years since this battle happened?" Lia wasn't lucky enough to find any more storage rings. Maybe the victors of this battle had grabbed as many as they could before they had to leave. As she circled the fortress, she noticed no rifts at all.

"Did that explosion close them all? Am I stuck here forever?" Lia started to feel panic as her mood became more fragile, struggling to control her emotions. Lia got closer and closer to the fortress. As she approached the drawbridge, she got an ominous feeling. The fortress was massive, but almost everything had turned to dust. Sitting on the throne was a mass of bones with a golden core resting in its center. It was completely drained of qi but looked amazing.

Lia leaned down to touch it, and as she did, a squiggly shadow that looked half-fleshy, half-shadow latched onto her arm. It was like a tiny leech. It sucked a small amount of qi that made it bloated, then it stayed still, latched to her arm. Lia was screaming, jumping around, smacking her arm over and over again. Every time she went to hit it, it would turn into shadow and she would only smack her own arm. The freak-out continued for another five minutes before Lia sat down, staring at it in shock.

Tim was doing jumping jacks with Riku, trying to keep calm as this was happening.

"Riku," Tim whispered.

"I need Varek to look something up." Riku raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," she said.

"What is a leech-like creature that latches onto you, drinks your qi, and turns into shadow when you try to hit it?" Riku's mouth dropped.

"Did you just get cultivation herpes?" she whispered.

"Seriously, Lia is freaking out."

"Okay, hold up," Riku said, getting Varek to search for it.

"Ah, it's behind a paywall," she whispered.

"What? Even the cultivation realm has a paywall?"

"Yeah, the Galactic Library Sect wants 50 spirit stones for the information."

"What the fuck," Tim whispered.

"That's insane."

"Yeah, I'm searching and can't find any other info."

"Okay, get it," Tim whispered.

"Ah, unless Lia is putting out, Varek is not going to waste 50 spirit stones." Riku stated.

"I will pay you back, and enough teasing," Tim replied. Riku got Varek to try to buy it, but his "bank" balance showed only 20. A memory came back of depositing spirit stones at the sect's bank. Varek headed over to the sect bank and deposited another 30. After buying it, a huge amount of info came up on the page.

"Whoa, this is an epic cultivation pet of the parasite type," Riku whispered.

"It says it sucks qi from its owner but will grow bigger with time. The fleshy shadow can blend in and become the user's shadow and act like a piece of armor too, surrounding the body when needed. The more qi you give it, the more attuned it will become to your will. It says they are extremely rare and not recommended unless you have an extreme amount of excess qi. Normal cultivators would find their cultivation crippled trying to keep feeding it.

Also, if you are feeding it, it grows faster, absorbing more and more qi. If you don't progress quickly enough, it will eventually turn you into a husk."

"Oh shit," Tim whispered back.

"How can I remove it?"

"Um, says you need a Nascent Soul shadow expert to remove it. How did you get it?"

"Um, I saw a golden orb and touched it."

"You're telling me you got it from golden... orbs?" Riku stifled laughter again.

"Yup, you definitely have to call it space herpes."