Chapter 168: Distant Explosions
As soon as Benton left Jin LiJuan, he realized his mistake. He had told her to feed rank one cores to the wolf cub, but she didn’t have any rank one cores. Further, she and her group were days away from the village. Either she’d have to wait to begin following the regimen he desired, or he needed to deliver the cores.
Obviously, he chose the latter of the two options.
He’d given all his rank one, two, and three cores to the Alchemy Pavilion to use in Body Cultivation baths, so he needed to find ten more for Jin LiJuan. Luckily, there was a house set up in the village for the express purpose of processing beasts, and there were likely a thousand or more cores there.
One Quickstep took him to a spot outside the wall, and a second brought him to the house. A few words to the person in charge got him a bag filled with ten rank one cores he needed.
It was pretty late into the evening by the time he got back to Jin LiJuan, where he found her in a camp eating dinner. Needless to say, she was surprised to see him but understood instantly after he handed her the bag.
“Gratitude, Master.”
When he’d talked to her earlier, he’d been focused on learning how the bonding had occurred and what needed to happen next. The situation had to be challenging for the little girl, considering how she felt about spirit beasts.
“How are you feeling about what happened?” he said.
“I don’t know, Master. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Her little fists clenched. “I hate it, Master. I’m trying not to, but I do hate it so much.”
“You know that you’re tied to it, right? If either of you perish, the backlash for the other will be severe. As you are now… Let’s just say that I would not have advised you to bond a beast if you had asked.”
“I wouldn’t have done it if I would have known, Master.”
“I believe you, Li’er.”