Chapter 98: Into Hell. Part-9.
With Xinran’s help, recharging the ring of containment took only half an hour, and even Zephyr was surprised by how pure Xinran’s mana was.
"As expected of a high-rank mage, not only your mana is hundreds of times purer than mine, even the quantity is massive..."
Even after pouring a tremendous amount of mana into the Obelisk to charge the ring, Xinran didn’t seem to be tired in the slightest.
Zephyr had a feeling that her mana pool was definitely extraordinary.
’It’s hard to believe that a single person is born with so many extraordinary qualities and talents...’
Xinran was good at almost everything, and even in terms of magic and elemental control, she was gifted with extraordinary talent.
Even Zephyr, who had a system as a powerful cheat code, felt a bit jealous of how gifted Xinran was.
"It’s nothing; I have wandered the sea of ash for almost fifty years and even before that, I had studied under the top experts of various fields for several decades..."
"It would be weird if I didn’t learn anything after such a long life..."
"For humans, a hundred years is a very long time, long enough for three to four generations of humans to pass... but for us vampires, time is pretty much non-existent..."
"Low rank vampires are weaker and die off quickly if proper blood food intake is not done regularly. Just walking into the sun directly can burn them away."
A smile appeared on Xinran’s pretty face as she continued speaking in a calm voice,
"But for a high-ranking vampire with a royal bloodline like me, 100 years is nothing. I can even walk directly under the sun without any side-effects, and I can remain alive even after not drinking any blood for so long..."
"But of course... Vampires are inherently dependent on blood to continue living, especially human blood from young people. Long-term deprivation can lead to loss of strength and instability of mental fortitude, like me..."
Zephyr nodded his head in acknowledgement of those words.
’Living more than 100 years?... Man, that’s gotta be lonely and cumbersome as f*ck...’
At the end of the day, Zephyr was a human, and his thought process was completely different from Xinran’s.
In his opinion, a hundred years were already very long; life was already filled with boredom, and if you lived for several centuries, you would go insane, as everything you liked would become boring and tedious for you.
’Well, not like I can judge her now... with this ’Indestructible Body’ talent, I can likely live for a very long time too, so in the end, I would be the same as her in the future...’
Even if the system itself did not show any lifespan-related attributes in the status panel, Zephyr could still instinctively feel how powerful his own life force was just with his mana alone.
His body almost caused a royal vampire princess like Xinran to go out of control after touching him a bit due to the potent life energy in his body; this was enough proof that he had a long life span.
’Moreover, the higher rank I become the more my life force increases... in other words, once I reach the same rank as Xinran, I might become capable of living for a thousand years!!’
A thousand years was no small time; humans went from looking up at the moon to walking on it in that time!
Entire civilizations can collapse and change in a thousand years of time!
A person with a thousand-year life span would get to see hundreds of nations being born and breaking apart during their lifetime!
’I should be able to travel the entirety of this mysterious world in a thousand years I think...’
Just when Zephyr was stuck in a daze, he suddenly noticed Xinran glaring at him, and her face became red like a tomato.
"Wha-wha-wha... yo-you... wha..."
A frown appeared on Zephyr’s face hearing that gibberish, and he suddenly noticed that in his dazed state, instead of handing the ring over to Xinran, he had randomly just put it on her finger without thinking!
’OH SH*T!!’
"Ahem... my bad, I was thinking about a plan to deal with the demonic vessel and didn’t pay attention properly."
For some reason, Xinran went silent after hearing those words, and the redness spread all the way to her neck.
That flustered and shy look on her almost caused Zephyr a heart attack, as the firepower was simply too explosive!
"Err.. if you are feeling angry, how about I make you something good to eat for dinner today?"
Hearing that question, Xinran replied in a mosquito-like low voice,
"Idiot... you don’t even know what you did... hmph!"
Even with his powerful hearing capacity, Zephyr still failed to hear what Xinran was muttering to herself, so he assumed she was angry and handed her a few sweets to eat and calm down.
...
Unexpectedly, it took Xinran a long time to calm down, and she even refused to talk for a long while.
In the end Zephyr had to apologize multiple times to finally get her to come out of her turtle shell made of bedsheets.
’Sigh, it’s really difficult to understand women... putting a ring on someone else’s finger is considered a ritual to get married back home but for that, both parties need to put rings on each other’s fingers...’
’The culture here must be different... putting a ring on someone’s finger might mean something else here... sigh, how can I be so careless to provoke this lioness out of nowhere like that... sigh...’
Zephyr felt extremely odd and weird that he had done something like that unconsciously.
With his powerful body control, it should have been impossible for his body to just move on its own without his perfect control.
’How weird... it’s almost as if... something possessed me and made me do that...’
Thinking this far, Zephyr decided to channel the power of the obelisk to enhance his own mental barriers so that no foreign power could influence him.
’Living in a miasma-dense environment is really difficult; it’s almost like walking on the edge of a cliff... one mistake and you are dead.’
After the small incident passed without any bloodshed, the two travelers got ready for their next journey, donned the armor of purification using their respective artifacts, and walked out of the temple.
The previous commotion caused by the ring allowed them both ample time to recover their mana back to full capacity and get enough rest to restore their mental fortitude completely.
"The plan is simple; we will first head toward the royal mausoleum and put the artifacts given by Layla at rest."
"Then I will use an artifact to search around for the location of the demonic vessel."
"You will follow me from behind while remaining hidden, once a battle breaks out, you will attack at the perfect moment to give me a chance to completely defeat the other party..."
Zephyr nodded his head at Xinran’s words, and the two of them flew straight towards the royal mausoleum without wasting a single second.
’Although this plan sounds simple, the risk involved in it is tremendous but unfortunately, we have no other choice but to use this method to deal with the vessel of corrosion...’
According to Xinran’s speculation, the demonic vessel was likely a member of the royal family, and since Xinran had sneaked into this city many times, the primary target for the vessel would be her.
Thus, it was better for her to split up from him and act as bait to lure the vessel to a place of their own choosing.
The vessel had control over almost all powerful miasmic creatures inside the city; fighting it at its home court would be disadvantageous for the two of them.
Thus, it was important to find its location using a powerful detection artifact and then lure it to a place with lower monster density.
For which, they would, of course, need to examine and evaluate the monster density of the various places of the royal capital and find a perfect spot.
If Zephyr was alone, this task alone would have taken him several months to complete, but thankfully Xinran was a princess who knew the layout of the area extremely well.
Although the information from her previous expeditions was now almost useless because of the sudden changes in the capital, it was still possible to find monster-less areas more easily.
"In fact, it would actually be perfect if we could lure the vessel to the temple of resilience, as that place is filled with dense light elementals, and the power of miasma is much weaker there."
"The vessel will also be weakened if it entered that area... unfortunately though, that thing will likely not be fooled so easily and will not enter the area around the temple..."
Zephyr also nodded his head at those words.
"Yes, miasma is not a fool after all; it’s powerful enough to make cunning decisions. We shouldn’t underestimate it."
Hearing those words, Xinran smiled and replied calmly,
"No matter how many problems that vessel might throw at us, we can overcome them if we keep our sanity intact, so make sure to guard against mental attacks continuously."
"Let’s go, it’s time for us to go straight into hell!"