Chương 29: Chapter 16 Part 3

Exactly twenty-four hours after Ming Xuan Ji returned to the Vael estate, she spent the time cultivating to calm herself, and as the sun began to dip below the towering spires of the Royal Capital. The sprawling noble compound had been completely transformed. Vice Guild Master Durgan had not wasted a single second of the time she had given him. True to his word, the veteran half-orc had commandeered the perimeter with ruthless, military efficiency.

The Marquess's standard knights, men used to standing ceremonially by wrought-iron gates in polished armor, had been unceremoniously pushed to the outer walls. In their place, a dozen elite, heavy-shield bearers from the Warrior Guild locked down the courtyard. Heavy dwarven steel barricades had been erected at the chokepoints. As Xuan Ji walked through the gates, she could feel the subtle, dangerous hum of overlapping Earth-aligned Qi traps that Durgan had personally carved into the cobblestones.

It was no longer a noble's home; it was a bunker. If the Blood God Cult wanted to breach the estate tonight, they would have to pay in rivers of blood. Xuan Ji bypassed the heavy guard patrols and moved swiftly through the grand corridors, heading directly for the guest wing. Axel was standing guard outside Evanthe's heavy oak door. The dark elf leaned against the wall, his hand resting casually near the hilt of his sword.

Despite his youthful appearance, his ash-grey skin and the cold, unblinking stillness of his posture betrayed the centuries of predatory instincts coiled beneath his leather armor. He offered Xuan Ji a swift, perfectly executed bow as she approached.

"The perimeter is secured, Lady Ming," Axel reported quietly, his sharp, pointed ears twitching slightly at the distant sound of the courtyard guards.

"Durgan is doing a final inspection of the warding runes. And the Apothecary is inside. He... well, he's a bit eccentric, but he's been examining her since noon." Xuan Ji didn't reply. She pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped into the bedroom. The air inside was freezing, entirely dominated by the residual energy of her Yin seal. Standing over Evanthe's bed was a man who looked entirely out of place in the lavish, silk-draped room.

High Apothecary Silas Vane was tall, painfully thin, and possessed a shock of chaotic, unkempt white hair. He wore a white alchemist coat. A complex, multi-lensed arcane magnifier was strapped over his right eye, whirring softly as he leaned over the unconscious girl. He didn't look up as Xuan Ji entered. He was too busy muttering to himself, his ink-stained fingers hovering just inches above the crystalline frost blooming on Evanthe's chest.

"Fascinating... utterly barbaric, but totally fascinating," Silas mumbled, his voice carrying the sharp, abrasive tone of a man who preferred equations to people.

"Applying a strong Yin to violently suppress an unrefined Yang cascade. It's like using a glacier to plug an erupting volcano. Who cast this seal?"

"I did," Xuan Ji said, stepping up to the opposite side of the bed. Silas Vane finally looked up, adjusting the arcane lenses over his eye to scrutinize her.

"You? By the gods, woman. You possess the spiritual density of a leviathan. This isn't a healing technique; it's a stasis lock. You're preserving her like a slab of meat in a butcher's icebox."

"Can you fix her, Apothecary?" Xuan Ji asked, ignoring the insult entirely.

"I do not care about your academic fascination. I gave Durgan twenty-four hours to bring you here. I need a diagnosis." Silas scoffed, straightening his posture.

"Fix her? You speak as if she has a simple sword wound. Look at her!" He gestured wildly to Evanthe's pale chest.

"This girl possesses a rare, legendary constitution even. It is an anomaly. Some butcher forced an awakening before her mortal frame was tempered to handle it. Her spiritual pathways, her meridians, are currently made of spun glass, and someone poured molten iron into them." The heavy oak door creaked open behind them, and Vice Guild Master Durgan ducked his massive frame into the room, his double-bladed battleaxe strapped to his back.

The half-orc stood silently by the wall, his rich brown skin catching the dim light of the room, listening intently to the medical assessment.

"I already know she is cracking from the inside out," Xuan Ji said, her voice dropping into a register of cold impatience.

"I need to know how to permanently repair the pathways. Mages use raw mana to stitch flesh; what is the equivalent for a fractured Dantian?" The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"There isn't an 'equivalent'!" Silas snapped, clearly offended by the comparison.

"Mages are idiots playing with external energy. Spiritual architecture is internal. If you try to push raw healing Qi into her right now, the pressure will instantly shatter whatever is left of her meridians. She needs a physical catalyst. A stabilizing agent that can absorb the infinite heat of her constitution while simultaneously acting as a scaffold to rebuild her spiritual veins." Xuan Ji crossed her arms.

"Name the catalyst." Silas ran a hand through his chaotic white hair, pacing a tight circle at the foot of the bed.

"It has to be the absolute zenith of extreme Yin. Normal reagents won't survive the heat. A Frost Lotus from the northern peaks would incinerate the moment it touched her bloodstream. The core of a Glacier Wyrm would be too violent; it would freeze her heart." He stopped pacing and looked at Xuan Ji, his expression turning uncharacteristically grim.

"There is only one material on this earth possessing the pure, primordial stabilizing energy required to perfectly balance a mythic Yang constitution," Silas said quietly.

"You need the Abyssal Frost Marrow." By the door, Durgan let out a sharp, harsh curse. The veteran half-orc dragged a massive, calloused hand down his face, the color draining slightly from his brown features. Xuan Ji turned her head.

"You know of it, Durgan."

"Every high-tier diver knows of its legend," Durgan growled, stepping forward, the floorboards groaning under his weight.

"It's not just a rare material, Lady Ming. It's a mythical drop. It only crystallizes in the absolute deepest, most lethal environment known to the Zareth Kingdom."

"Floor 20," Silas Vane confirmed, nodding grimly.

"The Twilight Zone of the Grand Abyss Dungeon. The Marrow is formed in the marrow cavities of an ancient, absolute-zero aberration monster. If you can procure it, I can synthesize a spiritual elixir that will cure this girl completely. But I am an apothecary, not a miracle worker. I cannot synthesize what I do not have." Silas adjusted his arcane lens, staring at the pulsing frost on Evanthe's chest.

"You have immense power, Lady Ming, but you are fighting nature. Twenty-nine days. By the dawn of the thirtieth day, sublimation will occur. The ice will crack, the fire will cascade, and the girl will burn." Twenty-nine days left. The timeline was set in stone.

"Floor 20," Xuan Ji repeated the number, her tactical mind instantly processing the requirements. She looked at Durgan.

"You said you have breached the fifteenth floor. Provide me with your guild maps." Durgan shook his head, a look of profound frustration crossing his weathered, tusked features.

"I can't. The Warrior Guild's official cartography ends at Floor 16. Anything past that is classified by the King's cartographers as an unexplored death zone. The environment itself is lethal. The ambient mana crushes human lungs, and the monsters down there require forty-man elite raid parties or a Sword Saint just to scratch." Durgan took a step closer, his voice pleading with the harsh reality of a veteran.

"Lady Ming, if you go down there blind, without a map and without a raid party, you won't even find the Marrow. You will spend your twenty-nine days wandering in circles in the dark until the extreme cold stops your heart."

"I am not going to wander," Xuan Ji said smoothly.

"If the Guild does not have the map, then who does?" Durgan fell silent. He looked at Axel, who was still standing guard by the open door. The dark elf nodded slowly.

"There is one man," Durgan finally admitted, his voice tight with reluctance.

"He operates completely outside of the King's law. He is technically banned from both the Adventurer and Warrior Guilds for illegally bypassing dungeon toll gates, but he survives by mapping the lower floors purely for the black market. His skill in exploration is genuine; he is probably the only one who can guide you through the maze of the dungeon."

"His name?" Xuan Ji demanded.

"Lynx," Durgan answered.

"He's a halfling rogue. But do not let his size fool you, Lady Ming. He looks like a street urchin, but the bastard is older than I am and twice as slippery. If anyone in this capital knows the bypasses and the direct routes to the Twilight Zone, it's him."

"Where is he?"

"He operates out of a lawless tavern in the lower ward called the Obsidian Coin," Durgan instructed. Xuan Ji reached into her void storage ring and retrieved a heavy pouch of refined gold, tossing it to the Apothecary. Silas caught it, his eyes widening at the sudden, immense weight.

"Stay here, Apothecary," Xuan Ji ordered.

"Monitor her condition. If the seal begins to fluctuate, inform Durgan immediately. Durgan, ""I hold the line," the Vice Guild Master interrupted, striking his massive fist against his dwarven-steel chest plate.

"My men have locked down the estate. The Earth arrays are fully charged. The Blood God Cult will not take her." Xuan Ji looked at the three men. A healer, a massive half-orc tank, and an ageless dark elf swordsman. They were competent. They were professionals. For the first time, she felt a microscopic fraction of the burden lift from her shoulders. She didn't have to worry about defending the rear; she only had to worry about the descent.

She turned on her heel, the black-and-crimson silk of her hanfu flaring out behind her as she strode toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Silas Vane called out, clutching the pouch of gold to his chest.

"To the Obsidian Coin," Ming Xuan Ji replied, her voice as cold as a winter storm.

"I am going to find this halfling. And then, I am going to shatter the Grand Abyss."