rule 12

Chapter Going Shopping

After all the chaos Will started, the sect leader of the Brightrose Sect was conflicted. At first she was worried she'd picked up a little tyrant by mistake, one who executed people over slight missteps. But the turnaround into a lesson at the end? That was legendary. Incredible leadership potential. And then her bundle of leadership potential turned to the side and called someone a loser repeatedly until they got beat up. And then, just as she thought her little disciple would die here, said disciple somehow managed to take punch after punch to the face without flinching.

Overall, it had been a hell of a night. She was a bit disappointed about what happened to Chen Jun, since he was supposed to be a promising disciple, but that was mostly what other people thought of him as. In her eyes, he was a brat with a shit personality who relied on his above average talent and a ridiculous amount of resources. There was a reason she didn't pick him as her disciple.

Will was oblivious to the sect leader's thoughts, though. He was just wondering about what to do next. He was hoping it wouldn't have to be more antics, because he was pretty anticked out after all that. Luckily his wish was granted as the banquet was about over.

The sect leader passed Chen Jun off to some guard/cop looking people, then headed back to stand in front of her chair at the front of the room.

She introduced Will and Ranna as her new disciples, to which everyone clapped. She then gave some information for the new disciples about how things worked, which Will ignored since it didn't apply to him. Then she gave a "good luck" type message and sent everyone off.

Except for Will and Ranna of course. They were brought back to the sect leader's place.

"Since it's late, I'll leave the two of you to settle in and rest for tonight. We'll begin lessons tomorrow."

Ranna did her whole bowing schtick, and Will nodded. They both set off down the hall heading to their rooms. As they walked, Ranna started off with some small-talk.

"So… we're disciples now, huh?"

Will responded.

"Yep!"

Ranna was clearly unused to talking to people like Will. Well, everyone was unused to talking to people like Will, since people like Will weren't really a thing, but she was especially so.

They continued the rest of the way in silence, Will heading off into his room first since it was closer. Once inside, Will stretched and yawned.

He was reminded of his points after all that happened tonight. He had an astronomical amount, and it'd only grown higher with the events in the sect. Of course, he'd helped get the Sick Freak caught first and foremost, but now he'd also changed who the first place was on the trial scoreboards, cheesed the second trial in a way that definitely caused distress for the people running it, and got such a ridiculous score in the third one that people were probably thinking he was a monster.

He also muscled in on Ranna's sect leader disciple event by also becoming the sect leader's disciple, and then muscled in on her bullying scene, then unlackeyified a bully, then probably ruined a young master's reputation if not worse.

All in all, he'd done a lot.

He considered what to buy with it all. He could go to the Information Manual Exchange Marketplace, but even with all the points he had, he probably wouldn't be able to get anything better than the legendary martial arts he had now nor whatever he'd get from the leader of a sect. He went to the General Utility section to see if he could buy anything there.

As it turned out, he actually could buy some things there. He could upgrade the Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy Bar. In fact, it wouldn't even cost most of his points. He bought it immediately. Upgrading it again was ridiculously out of his price range.

He went over to the Homesickness Rectification section and grabbed his phone to test it. There was still that manga he had wanted to read more of, so he decided to try that. He opened up his browser and searched the name of it. He found that he was able to get to the site he used to read it on. Checking the Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy Bar, it seemed like it was doing fine so far. He laid down on the fancy bed as he read.

It had actually completed since the time he'd last read it, which wasn't that surprising since it had been a while and it was already like fifty chapters back then. It seemed like there were no funky time shenanigans to be seen with this situation. Which was honestly somewhat funky in and of itself, since it was a completely separate universe.

He was able to complete the whole thing before his Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy Bar ran out. It was a good manga, as he'd remembered. His enhanced brain let him read pretty quickly, so he'd only taken a couple hours to get through it.

Now that he thought of it, couldn't he have copied it into his document storage? And he also didn't really need to read the English translation anymore, did he?

In that case, there was that one manga that was dropped that he hadn't been able to read because of it that he really liked. He went and found the site he'd read the translated chapters on, copied the title in Japanese (the regular copy paste way, not the Document Manipulation way), then searched that.

He was, of course, able to read it perfectly. He even got all the references that he wouldn't have understood normally. He also copied the whole thing into his Document Storage as he read. Just because he could.

By the time he was done, after another couple of hours, the Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy Bar was pretty much empty.

He was tired now, though, so he played down and went to sleep. Without taking off the makeup or fancy clothes.

—

Will woke up in the morning. Pretty late into the morning, but still the morning nonetheless. He hopped up out of bed and stretched. After a bit of groggily wandering around the room looking at things, he heard a knock on the door.

After opening it, he was greeted by one of the servants, who came to take him to see the sect leader. He followed after the servant, who took him to a new area this time. It was an open area with a giant rose in the center.

The rose was bigger than some trees, with a lightly glowing green stalk, and petals of white and red glowing brightly. It was a bright rose, indeed.

Standing next to it was the sect leader, who smiled as Will came in. As the servant left, another servant brought Ranna. She was back to wearing her usual get-up, and no longer had on the makeup from last night.

As she arrived, the sect leader began speaking.

"I hope you both had a good rest last night?"

They both nodded.

"In that case, let's begin. First off, I'll need to check your spiritual roots to find the most suitable method for each of you. We'll start with you, Ranna."

Will didn't show it on his face, but he was kind of panicking. His spiritual roots were not the kind of thing he really intended to show people and he didn't know what to do.

After she finished up with Ranna, which didn't take long at all, it was Will's turn. Will walked over like he was walking to his execution.

Which made him realize. It didn't actually matter, did it? The one who should be freaked out was the sect leader. And so, his panic abruptly switched to excitement.

The sect leader was quite looking forward to seeing what spiritual roots someone as promising as Will would have. The child was a mystery to her.

She'd even run a background check on both of her new disciples, but nothing turned up for Will, as if they hadn't existed in the area around the sect until the day of the admission test.

She placed a hand on Will's back and sent in her spiritual sense.

Then she pulled back in fright.

What the fuck was that!? How the hell was this kid alive!? What happened to them!?

Will was getting a kick out of this now that he'd stopped panicking. He turned around to the sect leader, looking as innocent as he could manage.

"What's wwong?"

The sect leader's face went paler than it already was. She tried to collect herself and respond politely.

"Will… um… are you feeling okay?"

Will cocked his head to the side innocently.

"Hm? I feel fine. Why?"

"O-oh… it's nothing much. Would you turn around again for me?"

Will did so obediently as the sect leader placed her hand on his back again.

She looked closer at the spiritual roots, trying to understand what was going on. Sure, they looked bad, but if the child could be so oblivious to it like that, then they must not be so simple. Perhaps there was something more to them.

She found that there was more to them. Only, that "more" just made it worse.

They seemed to be made up of spiritual energy, some kind of demonic lightning spiritual energy, qi, lifeforce that seemed to come from hundreds of different beasts, healing energy like from healing pills, something that felt worryingly similar to a storage ring, an energy that felt like death, impurities that would usually be found in the meridians…

The only part that felt like actual spiritual roots was pitifully small too. It was all a mess.

"How did this even happen?"

She muttered to herself.

Will turned around, still all smiles.

"Is anything wwong?"

The sect leader shook her head, regretfully.

"I'm sorry. I don't think you'll be able to cultivate."

That the kid shouldn't be able to live either went unsaid.

Will, of course, had a perfect response.

"Hm? But I alweady have cultivated."

The sect leader stood still, unmoving for five full seconds before she finished processing Will's words.

"May I… check your cultivation?"

Will didn't know if he should allow that, but… well, it would be funny to see her reaction.

"Okay."

The sect leader placed her hand on Will's back again and sent in her spiritual sense.

How were there nine dantians here? What the fuck? That… how?

She pushed it aside and checked the bottom one, the one usually used for cultivation. It was full of storm qi that felt incredibly aggressive and dangerous. She noticed then that the meridians were full of even more of that storm qi than the dantian. How was it staying in there? It should've broken out immediately and torn them to shreds.

She decided to check the other nine dantians. The next one up was empty, but the one after that had…

Was that a space ring? No, the mechanisms of a space ring? How? How does one do that? Where was the ring itself? She gave up and moved on.

The next one up was also empty, but the one after that was…

Scary. Very scary. That was the most chaotic spiritual energy she'd seen in her entire life. And it was just raw spiritual energy. Raw spiritual energy on its own would've been bad enough, but this was even worse. And was that a physical object in there? How the hell? Not to mention the array carved into the side.

She moved on, now fearing what she'd find next. The next was a dud again, but after that was…

She wasn't really sure. It was some space-related energy for sure, but beyond that… she couldn't tell. She moved on, and after another empty one she reached the final dantian.

Well… it was something. It seemed to be the lifeforce of a whole ton of beasts, mixed together with some weird healing something? It felt kind of gross. She stepped back.

"What even are you?"

She felt bad after saying it, but she couldn't help herself. That wasn't right. None of that was right.

Sarah was laughing her ass off, while Will turned around, acting cute and innocent.

"Hm? What do you mean?"

The sect leader calmed down and tried to ignore the common sense nagging at her. The storm qi in the meridians would remove the possibility of most spiritual cultivation methods, as would the dantians' contents. So then body cultivation? Seemed like the best option.

"I guess body cultivation would be best for you."

She calmed her nerves even further and started speaking again.

"Then that'll be all for now. You can return to your rooms for the time being. Ask one of the servants if you need anything."

After that, a servant came and brought Will and Ranna back to their rooms. Once inside, Will started thinking.

He didn't really have anything to do now. He'd been expecting a bit more from that encounter. He didn't think it would end so quickly.

He was suddenly curious what happened to Chen Jun. He walked out of his room and asked a servant.

As it turned out, Chen Jun wasn't punished severely. Just under temporary house arrest. Which was a shame. Or was it?

If he wasn't punished severely, he could still cause issues, which meant more things for Will to do. Like a sort of recurring villain. But he couldn't do anything to Will if he didn't leave the sect leader's place.

As such, Will went to leave the sect leader's place. Standing out front of the building, he found an issue with that. This place was very, very high up. Which meant going out would require walking down a lot of stairs. Which Will refused to do.

But what else could he do?

He stood at the edge of the flat part the building was on. As he looked down, it really struck him how high up this place was. It was really steep too.

That gave him an idea. He turned around from the edge and headed closer to the house. Then, he tried to jump as far forward as possible. He found he could jump pretty far if he made good use of his footwork.

It seemed like his plan would work, then. He turned to the edge of the cliff, and set off at a run. The servants outside all looked with fear. That fear grew even larger when he jumped off the edge as far as he could.

Will started to regret his decision as soon as he started falling. Falling was not a comfortable feeling. It made his tummy feel bad. But he couldn't really back out, so he just dealt with it.

He was sure that he'd die on impact from this height. Especially so if he hit the ground headfirst. But only if he hit the ground. If he tumbled down the side, he'd just suffer a bunch of damage and die. His heart calmed down a lot more when he saw that he was directly over the ground at the foot of the mountain.

He was now upside-down, falling at terminal velocity towards the hard ground. It didn't feel as uncomfortable now. He had a little over two full minutes to get used to it, so by the end he didn't have any issue at all.

Will slammed into the ground headfirst, scaring the shit out of the few people nearby. As the dust cleared, they saw a small child, completely unharmed.

Though, Will actually wasn't completely unharmed. He got some dust in his eye. That was all, though.

He stood up and dusted himself off. His plan had worked perfectly. Now he just had to figure out what to do next.

He had a vague idea where things were because of his map, but that had been made from flying overhead, so he didn't really know what was what specifically. He decided to head to the place that looked most likely to be a shopping area.

It was a pretty long run away. Long enough that he had to play on his phone to not get bored, but he made it eventually. Looking around it seemed his guess was right.

There were a bunch of small stores and stands around, a cacophony of ware-hawking filling the street. More importantly, Will saw a big building labeled Spiritual Affairs Bureau. If his memory was correct, that would need to be his first destination.

He currently had no money at all. Not even mortal money. And so he entered the building and headed to the only empty counter. The counter was a bit higher than he would've liked, but he was still able to converse. The counter was manned by a grumpy looking old guy, who adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses as he looked at Will.

"Whatcha need, kid?"

Will smiled brightly.

"Money."

The old man snorted.

"Thought so. What's your name?"

"Will."

"How's that spelled?"

Will took out the ingot he used to kill a guy that one time, and used the Export function to carve his name onto it. Then he showed it to the old man.

"Like this."

After that, it didn't take long for him to get a bag of spirit stones, which he put in his ring.

Money obtained, Will headed off to check out the market.

There were a lot of different things to buy. Some people were selling furniture, some were selling beast corpses, some were selling beast cores, whatever those were, some were selling pills, some were selling weapons. Everyone was selling everything, pretty much.

Will headed to the beast core stand. He wanted to know what a beast core was. Once he arrived the man at the counter turned to him excitedly.

"Heya! Lookin' for a beast core, perchance?"

"What is a beast cowe?"

The man seemed to get this a lot, as he grabbed one of the little orbs from the shelves behind him and showed it to Will.

"This right here! They come from monstrous beasts, and can be used for all sorts of things!"

In that case, Will probably had some already. He thanked the man for the information, and headed off.

He wasn't really sure what he wanted to buy. He hadn't really thought that far.

He headed to an alchemy shop for now. Maybe he'd find something interesting there.

This one was an actual indoor shop. He looked around at the display cases at all the pills and read the descriptions on them.

There were a lot of different kinds. A lot of them didn't seem useful to him at all. Like most of the ones for cultivation.

But not all of them seemed useless. A few gave temporary power-ups in return for various downsides, which was pretty interesting. Especially the one that made the user more prone to qi deviation afterward. He picked up ten of them and a few healing pills and headed out.

Now that he'd bought pills, he didn't really want to buy anything else. Nothing seemed interesting. He decided to bring out one of his special moves instead.

That move being searching for weird stuff with the help of his hand-dandy map.

He wasn't really expecting to find anything much, but it was a way to pass the time. He headed out of the shopping street and into the wilderness-like area nearby.

His technique had been refined since the last time. For everything around, he would look at it on the map and in reality to compare and test for any anti-recognition nonsense. But that wasn't all.

He couldn't really explain what he'd done in human words, but he'd made it easier to see any non-euclidian geometry. He'd basically put a black sheet in an extra-dimensional layer, and when anything was funky, it would poke through and he'd see it from the other side.

He really was straying further and further away from a human understanding of dimensions. Or really an anything understanding of them. He wondered idly if the other people with a Quantum True Soul Duplication Phenomenon Metaphysical Black Hole Prevention Fate Collection Assistance Toolkit were like this as well. They probably were, at least most of them. The way it described all the features was just about begging people to do stuff like this.

His results were a lot of nothing, at least in the first hour. Well, not nothing. He found a cool rock. Not cool enough to take, but it was nice to look at.

It was only in the middle of the second hour that he actually found something. Though, it wasn't really what he was looking for, since it wasn't hidden with any formations or anything.

It seemed to be a pond or a spring or something. He wasn't an expert on water locations. Or whatever they were called.

The water seemed nice. It was a pretty blue color. There was also singing. Which was uncommon for small bodies of water. Or not. He wasn't an expert. Maybe that was normal. He doubted it, though.

He briefly considered running, as to avoid the classic "getting beaten up for stumbling upon a woman bathing outside" scene but he currently looked like a little girl, so he doubted that would happen here.

He couldn't see anyone currently since the place was mostly obscured by rocks and trees and stuff from his current position. He moved forward through them to get a full view of the whatever it was.

As expected. Naked woman bathing outside. Well, he'd expected that. The woman turned towards him with a death glare as soon as he came into view. Only for that death glare to fade right after.

"Huh? Who are you?"

"I'm Will. Who are you?"

"I'm Yan Qingxue. You say you're… 'Weer'?"

Will shook his head.

"No, I say I'm 'Will'."

After he got correcting her pronunciation out of the way, he tried to find her name on the scoreboards in his map. He managed to find her in thirteenth place on distance in the first trial, seventeenth place in the third trial, but the real big one was her place on second trial scoreboard that he'd been ignoring. She was first of all time, while he was right behind her at second.

But even more than that was that her name was a really "ice princess" sounding name.

"Are you the one called 'Ice Pwincess'?"

The woman, Yan Qingxue, nodded.

"Yes, that is correct."

Will celebrated internally about how spot on his guess was. He decided to throw out a few more.

"The one fwom the pwestigious Yan Clan?"

She nodded.

Will rejoiced again. That one was a bit of a gamble, since it could've been either clan or family. He decided to try his luck again.

"Are you the one engaged to the young master of the Chen Cwan?"

Yan Qingxue's face contorted into a light grimace, but she nodded nonetheless.

"I suppose you aren't fond of him?"

She snorted, only for her to freeze when she realized what she'd done. She quickly schooled her facial expressions and responded.

"Why would you say that?"

Will didn't have any plan to humor her pretending. There was no point.

"Don't wowwy, he'll be dying soon anyway."

Yan Qingxue showed a look of shock and confusion. She straightened her expression and tried to act the part of a proper fiance.

"You dare to say to my face that you'll kill the man who is to be my husband?"

Will nodded, then paused and shook his head.

"Actuawwy, I just said he'll die, not that I'll kiww him. Awso, he won't be your husband. He'ww be dead."

Ranna might end up doing it instead. That actually reminded him of something. Why was there an ice princess bathing in the woods when the "heaven's chosen" was Ranna? The scene wouldn't work with a female protagonist.

After some thought, the answer he came to was crossdressing. Ranna would crossdress for some reason, and then stumble upon Yan Qingxue bathing. Sounded about right.

Yan Qingxue was flabbergasted at the audacity of this kid.

"Who are you to speak so flippantly, huh?"

Will puffed up his chest proudly.

"I'm the discipwe of the sect weader!"

Yan Qingxue looked like she just got flashbanged.

"Wh-huh? You?"

Will nodded.

"Yep! Weww, one of them, anyway."

Yan Qingxue bowed low, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was still completely naked.

"This disciple begs senior sister for forgiveness!"

Will wasn't really expecting a response like that. He didn't really want a response like that either. Well, whatever.

"I'ww forgive you. Anyway, how often do you come hewe?"

Yan Qingxue breathed a sigh of relief. She was really glad this kid didn't care, because she would be pretty annoyed if she got in trouble for defending the honor of the guy whose guts she hated.

"I come here once a week. Oh, but I could stop if you want me to!"

Will shook his head.

"Come again evewy day this week."

Yan Qingxue almost couldn't believe her ears. An excuse to come here even more? It sounded like a dream come true. But it also didn't make much sense.

"May I ask why, senior sister?"

Will shook his head.

"No."

Alright then. She dropped the matter there.

Will smiled. If she and Ranna were gonna bump into each other anyway, he might as well speed it up, right?

With his work done, he smiled brightly.

"Bye!"

And headed off to go back to his room and prepare for his plan. It was only when he'd exited the forest that he realized the issue with that.

He had no idea how to get back up there.

Chapter Horrifying Abomination Stretches

The sect leader had just gotten back from manual picking, only to be immediately told that her youngest disciple had jumped off the side of the cliff and killed herself immediately after she left. Was the shock from hearing that she'd have to do body cultivation really enough for her to commit suicide over? She knew that body cultivation was often thought of as a painful thing that makes those who practice it into buff guys, but it wasn't like she was going to give something like that to a little girl.

It was a pretty big issue, too. Having one of her two disciples commit suicide right after she took them in was really not good for her reputation.

She decided to just give Ranna the manual she'd picked for her and return the other one tomorrow.

—

Will was now trying to think of how to get back to the sect leader's place. The first option he came up with was to get someone to bring him there, and the second was to get someone contact the sect leader to bring him there herself.

He didn't really know who had a flying sword around here, so the second option seemed like the better one. He headed over to the spiritual affairs bureau to get an elder to help.

It didn't take long before he arrived. He hadn't gone that far in his search earlier. Once he got there, he opened the door and headed to the counter with the grumpy old man.

"Hm? I already gave you your money."

"That's not it. I need you to contact the sect weader."

"What for?"

"I need hew to come pick me up."

The old man felt like it was a bit disrespectful to use the sect leader as a chauffeur, but if it was just relaying a message then it wasn't really his problem.

"Alright, just sit tight for a bit and I'll let her know."

Will nodded and played on his phone for a bit.

"Alright, she's on her way. You can head on outside now."

Will smiled and thanked the grumpy old man before heading outside to wait for his ride.

As the sect leader arrived at the place her dead disciple had supposedly asked for her, she was once again shocked that her disciple was actually there. She landed softly in front of Will, staring him up and down trying to figure out… well, anything.

"How are you alive?"

Will had all but forgotten the stunt he pulled earlier. As far as he was concerned, if he didn't deeply consider the absurdity of it, it was just a normal method of travel. As such, he was just confused at her question.

"Huh? Why wouldn't I be awive?"

"I was told you killed yourself!"

Will still had yet to put two and two together between his cliff jumping and what the sect leader was saying.

"Why would I do that?"

The sect leader felt like she was going insane.

"How would I know!?"

"Can we go home now?"

The sect leader brought out her flying sword and hopped on, motioning Will to get on. Once he did, she set off back to her place.

"How did you survive a fall like that?"

It finally clicked for Will what she was talking about.

"Oooh, that's what you meant! I just didn't wanna take the staiws."

The sect leader felt like she was getting a headache.

"That doesn't explain how, Will!"

Well, the how was a secret. If everyone knew he was immune to instant death, they'd just make sure to kill him almost instantly.

"It's fine. I wasn't in dangew."

The sect leader decided to stop pressing it, detecting that Will would just continue to dodge the question like that if she continued.

After that, they arrived at the sect leader's place, and Will hopped off to head to his room.

"Wait. Take this with you."

She held the manual she grabbed out to Will, who took it, copied it, and embedded it immediately. Will went through it in his head as he headed to his room.

It was titled "Harmony With Nature". The name didn't sound like a body cultivation manual, but upon reading further, it was clear it was one.

It was like the classic "eat monstrous beasts and then work out over it" kind of thing, only less "gym bro" and more "hermit in the woods".

He got to his room and looked through it more.

Every part other than the title and description was basically nonsense. It read like those adult books full of euphemisms he got from the Sick Freak.

But like those adult books, his Automatic Universal Linguistic Knowledge Database Accessor made the real meaning as clear as day. Which gave him a clue as to why it was written in nonsense code, since a lot of the translation wasn't really possible to put into words. The gist of it could be, though.

To start, the practitioner would place a hand on the corpse of a beast. Then they would feel the lifeforce of both themself and the beast corpse. Then they would make the lifeforce of themself and the beast corpse. Then came the confusing part where they had to make their lifeforce and the beast corpse's lifeforce become one, but in a way where the beast life force didn't alter their lifeforce.

The corpse would also disappear somewhere in the process, which was weird. Will didn't really understand how that was possible. Apparently the muscles and stuff in the beast's body would replace the muscles in the practitioner's body wherever they were stronger.

That also meant the original matter would be expelled as good ol' black goop impurities. He was curious to see if the black gas would be able to handle that.

Anyway, after all that there was a bunch of yoga-like stuff to make the beast lifeforce their own and let it empower the body, as well as make the new matter acclimate to the body.

All in all, Will was satisfied with his first real cultivation method.

As such, it was time to start using it. He brought out the deer Li Yingran had used to make venison and placed a hand on it. Then he started following the instructions.

The first part went just about perfectly. Will had more control over lifeforce than pretty much anyone else, so it was easy as can be. He felt the deer disappear with a 'pop', followed by his body feeling all cramped in a way that was pretty gross.

He then started doing the stretches and movements outlined in the manual. It took a good half hour for the cluttered body feeling to go away. After having the black gas clean up the impurities, he checked his condition.

He was certainly stronger. He felt like he had truly broken into supernatural territory. Finally.

But he put that aside for now. He hadn't noticed it just from the instructions, but after doing it himself, he felt like he could use this to finally make use of the self-directed spatial manipulation stuff he got from the vibrating ring.

Before he could start though, Sarah made her presence known.

<>

Will was impressed with how she managed to be completely genuine while also being sarcastic. But he put it aside, he had weird not-real-cultivation to do.

He brought the little rounded-edged cube of weird jelly-like energy out of his dantian. Then, he connected with it with his lifeforce like he did with the deer's lifeforce.

After some time, the lifeforce was one with his lifeforce just like deer's was, and all that was left was stretching to really mix it in. He began with the first stretch, raising his right arm in the air.

Then he felt something. His lifeforce and the self space jelly were one, so he knew. There was a more efficient way of doing this.

His arm slowly extended, as he made use of the "being in multiple places at once" aspect of the self-directed spatial manipulation gelatin (which he was what he decided its official name was now) to make all the parts of his arm, well, be in multiple places at once.

After that movement he had to bring the other arm across his chest to touch his back next to the his right shoulder. He made use of the "multiple things in the same place at once" aspect of the SDSMG (which he was abbreviating it to now) to phase his arm through his chest to touch his back directly.

Then he had to take a step forward with his left foot. He made use of the "dragging through space" aspect of the SDSMG to slide himself back so that foot landed in the same spot.

Next, his right arm had to curve back down to his side. He made use of the "spatial warping" aspect of the SDSMG to have it be an actual round curve, in a way that looked somewhat like someone used the inflate tool in an image editing software on it.

And for every with every breath, he used the "connect the inside to the outside" aspect of the SDSMG.

Overall, he looked pretty gross the whole time.

But it worked way better. And I'm just a few minutes, he was completely fused with the SDSMG.

<>

She honestly sounded a bit scared.

<>

Acronyms made in English really just turned into gibberish in a language with an entirely different phonetic system.

<>

Will didn't feel like explaining all that.

<>

<>

She seemed to be trying to delude herself. Will ignored her.

He space dragged himself forward. Then he tried to space drag himself up.

He could do it, but he could only hold himself there for a few minutes before he got too tired. It seemed like using the SDSMG used his own stamina.

That was pretty intriguing. The ring seemed to work infinitely, while he had to exert stamina. Was it the materials? Or perhaps an effect of fusing it with his lifeforce. Maybe it was about the conscious control as opposed to the if then style of the ring's usage of it?

Well, who could say? He had something else to do right now. He was going to get a stealth technique.

If he was going to hurry along Ranna and Yan Qingxue's meeting, he couldn't be seen, because if he could be seen, then he wouldn't get to watch the show.

He opened up the Information Manual Exchange Marketplace and pressed the search bar. He searched for something within his price range, that could hide him even in broad daylight, that didn't need anything he couldn't do or didn't have.

He was left with only a few options. After reviewing them all, the one that interested him the most was "External Spiritual Energy Manipulation Pattern For Stealth".

The name wasn't flashy, but what was in it (which he found out right away because he spent almost all of his money on it immediately after seeing it) was pretty incredible. The user of the technique would move spiritual energy on a thin line that squiggled around a bunch in a kind of pill-like shape (capsule pill, not cultivator pill) around them. The pattern was incredibly complicated so most people stood no hope of learning it, even if they managed to get the ability to control spiritual energy externally to that degree.

Of course, with Will's lifeforce enhanced brain, he could just have it running in the background without a problem.

Though, it did also have another downside, since if the spiritual energy got disrupted even slightly, the whole thing would break. And the spiritual energy could get disrupted by just being near people. The disruption could be countered with better control, but beyond a certain point, Will just didn't have that kind of control or mental ability.

Of course, with his enhanced spiritual roots and enhanced brain, he'd fare better than most, even among those who could actually use it. Still, if he got too close to anyone the whole thing would break.

Nonetheless, he didn't regret his purchase. In fact, he decided to test it out to make sure he didn't.

He activated the stealth technique? Pattern? Stealth pattern. Whatever it was, he activated it. Or started it. Or something.

Point was, he was stealthy now.

He opened the door and crept outside. The servant nearby looked at the door, confused where the one who opened it was.

He hadn't really planned what to do next to test it. Maybe go to Ranna's room and test it there?

He went back into his room, closed the door, and opened it again unstealthed. Then, he headed to a servant and asked them to show him where Ranna's room was.

The servant led him there, no questions asked. Once there, he thanked the servant and headed back. It was a bit suspicious for sure, but suddenly turning invisible in plain view was a whole lot more suspicious.

On his way back, he saw a side path with no one around. He immediately headed down it, and once he was out of sight, he entered stealth mode.

After that, he just walked back to Ranna's room. Once there, he faced the conundrum he had been putting off dealing with. The door.

He tried just grabbing the handle and opening it quietly. It opened quietly, and he immediately closed it quietly before Ranna noticed.

Ranna's room was the same as his. She was currently laying on the fancy bed, laying on her side facing away from the door. She seemed to be focused on something. After walking around to the other side of the room, the "something" was revealed to be a manual.

He almost let slip a mocking laugh. How pathetic, needing to read manuals and decipher them. He realized he could probably never decipher nor remember any manuals ever without the Quantum True Soul Duplication Phenomenon Metaphysical Black Hole Prevention Fate Collection Assistance Toolkit, and got a bit depressed.

He shook it off, he had stuff to do…

Actually, what was he even doing here? He just came here on a whim without really thinking about it.

Ranna turned over to face the other way, still reading. He undid his stealth.

"Hi, Ranna!"

Ranna almost fell out of bed in fright. She only calmed down slightly when she realized it was Will. She also didn't speak.

Will spoke instead.

"Are you reading the manual you got?"

She nodded hesitantly.

Will was still upset over his incompetence in manual reading, so he decided to be mean to make himself feel better.

"I alweady finished it and started pwacticing. Oh, wait, I also impwoved it."

Ranna seemed to latch onto the last part.

"Improved it?"

Will nodded.

"Wike this!"

He started doing his disgusting abomination stretches, with all the arm no-clipping, weird unexplained movement, gross warping, and creepy lengthening.

Ranna just watched the whole show in undisguised horror.

Sarah, having successfully convinced herself that this wasn't an affront to all creation, was now laughing her no-longer-existent ass off. At least he assumed it was no-longer-existent. He didn't actually know what happened to her body.

After a few minutes, he stopped his tomfoolery and spoke.

"What do you think?"

"Wh-what are you?"

"Person."

Ranna's face showed a look that implied she doubted that heavily.

Will ignored it and moved on.

"Do you ever cwossdwess?"

Ranna was clearly not expecting that, which wasn't a surprise because who the fuck would expect that?

"Huh?"

"Cwossdwess."

Ranna took a moment to wrap her brain around the question.

"I-I have in the past, yes."

Will nodded.

"Coow. You should do it again tomowwow."

"Wha-why?"

Will came up with a brilliant scheme. He made a treasure map. He labeled the spiritual affairs bureau, the pill pagoda (which happened to be nearby), and then marked the spring where Yan Qingxue bathed at with a big 'x'. Then he spent a couple points to export it and held it out.

"I found this tweasure map, but we're both pwobabwy gonna be hunted by his lackeys if we go out. I'm too conspicuous because of my age, but you can disguise yourself by cwossdwessing."

Ranna carefully considered the words he lied his ass off lying about. It actually made sense, somewhat. And as a good senior sister, it was her job to help her junior sister out. She grabbed the map from Will's hands.

"Alright. You can count on me."

Will was giddy. His plan had gone truly splendidly.

"Make sure you ask master to bwing you down the mountain."

"Alright."

She didn't even question it. It wasn't like she wanted to walk down those stairs.

"Thank you!"

Will beamed a smile almost bright enough to overwrite how horrifying he looked during the stretches earlier.

He headed out before Ranna could ask any questions. After he entered his room, he brought out another deer from his ring, then placed his hand on it and began using the Harmony With Nature cultivation method.

This time when the corpse 'pop'ped and he felt stuffy again, he started doing his weird gross version of the stretches. After a few minutes when the crampedness went away, the results were even better than the first time.

No black goop was expelled this time. Instead, the new matter simply overlayed on top of the old. Better yet, the movements had somehow made it so this was just their natural state, so he didn't even need to expend any stamina to keep it like this. He really had improved the cultivation method.

Didn't that basically make him a genius?

He ignored all evidence to the contrary, and tucked himself into bed to go to sleep.