Chapter 61: This Wasn’t Guiding
"Wait! We’ve not even started the mission and you’re already telling me to guide you? Hmph!"
Ethan immediately protested, his brows pulling together as he stared at Drey with open disbelief. They had barely arrived at the Rift, they had not even properly begun the mission, and this man was already treating him like some personal emergency button he could press whenever he pleased.
Drey’s expression darkened as he looked back at him. "You agreed to come here as my Guide."
"I agreed to participate in the mission. Before you claimed me as your personal guide! There’s a difference, you know."
"You’re my Guide for this mission."
"And who decided that?"
"You did when you agreed."
"I swear, talking to you is enough to make someone lose their mind."
The two immediately fell into another back-and-forth, until Zane finally interrupted them.
"Just do it, Ethan."
Ethan turned towards him incredulously. "Seriously?"
"We shouldn’t risk Drey going berserk because of the excess spiritual energy still left unregulated inside him."
Ethan looked between them, clearly unimpressed. "You’re taking his side now?"
"I’m not taking his side," Zane replied calmly. "I’m telling you to do it so we can start the mission without unnecessary trouble."
In truth, Zane did not care about Drey one bit.
If anything, having Ethan touch Drey was the last thing he wanted to see.
He would have much rather had Ethan guide him directly, especially after everything he had learned, but he was not foolish enough to gamble with Ethan’s safety simply because of his own personal issues.
He needed to know whether the reports about Ethan were actually true.
He needed to know whether Ethan had truly been the one who guided Drey. Although that had been confirmed he needed to witness it firsthand.
And until he knew that for certain, Zane was not going to let Ethan guide him.
What if everything that had happened with Drey had merely been a coincidence?
What if Ethan had somehow managed to guide Drey once but was incapable of handling Zane’s unstable and unusually large spiritual energy?
What if Zane allowed Ethan to guide him, only for his spiritual energy to overwhelm Ethan and seriously injure him?
They were many what if’s and although Zane’s expression remained calm, the thought alone irritated him.
He didn’t want something like that to happen.
So despite hating this route and despite how much he wanted Ethan to guide him directly, this was still the safer way to confirm everything.
Ethan clearly had no idea about any of that.
He simply rolled his eyes at Zane before turning back towards Drey. "Fine. Let’s just get this over with."
He walked over to Drey and reached for his hands, and the moment their palms connected, Ethan immediately began the guiding process.
He focused his consciousness and attempted to channel his spiritual energy into Drey, intending to calm the excess spiritual energy inside Drey.
But something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The moment their spiritual energy connected, Ethan expected to feel his own energy flowing into Drey.
Instead, he felt something being pulled towards him.
His brows furrowed.
For a moment, he thought he had simply made a mistake, so he concentrated harder and tried again.
Still nothing.
His spiritual energy wasn’t entering Drey rather something else was happening.
Around them, the spiritual energy within the Rift began to stir.
The air seemed to thicken as countless waves of spiritual energy gathered around their bodies, and Ethan could suddenly feel the presence of both the excessive spiritual energy and the corrupted spiritual energy that filled the Rift area.
His eyes widened slightly. Was... was Drey’s body was absorbing it?
It seemed so.
And when Ethan concentrated more, he confirmed it. Drey was truly absorbing surrounding energy.
But it wasn’t just the clean but unstable spiritual energy alone. Even the corrupted spiritual energy was being drawn towards him.
What the hell was happening?
He concentrated harder, and then he finally saw it.
Drey’s body was taking in the spiritual energy from the Rift. But it wasn’t simply absorbing it.
It was filtering it.
The corrupted spiritual energy entered Drey first, mixed with the excessive spiritual energy surrounding them, passed through his body, and somehow emerged on the other side purified.
And where was that purified energy going?
Straight into Ethan the realization hit Ethan hard causing his pupils to widen.
This wasn’t guiding.
At least, it wasn’t guiding in the way he had always understood it.
Drey’s body was acting like a vessel and a filter.
The Rift was supplying the spiritual energy, Drey’s body was taking in both the excess and corruption, filtering it, and the purified spiritual energy was then being transferred through their connection and into Ethan.
He didn’t know how what was happening was even possible. But it was going in his favor. His eyes widened further as he suddenly felt something happening inside his mental sea.
Spiritual energy was gathering there.
A lot of it.
His mental sea trembled gently as the purified energy poured into it, and Ethan could practically feel every bit of it settling inside him.
His heart began beating faster.
This was it.
This was exactly what he had been looking for.
According to Aster’s book, he needed a way to collect large amounts of spiritual energy if he wanted to speed up his cultivation, but directly absorbing the excessive energy inside a Rift would be dangerous for him. His body could only handle so much, and the corrupted energy mixed within it could easily overwhelm him.
But this...
This was different.
Drey was doing the filtering for him.
Ethan didn’t have to directly absorb the dangerous energy. He simply had to maintain the connection and the purified spiritual energy would naturally flow into his mental sea.
Ethan almost wanted to laugh.
This bastard was his key to ranking up.
If this continued, he could gather an enormous amount of spiritual energy without harming himself, and with Aster’s cultivation method helping him compress and refine it, his cultivation speed could increase dramatically. And then his rank would be able to increase.
Ethan’s lips almost curled upward as he felt another stream of purified spiritual energy enter his mental sea. Right then, Drey’s fingers suddenly tightened around his hands.
Ethan’s almost-smile disappeared. His expression changed as he looked towards Drey. His breathing had become heavier, his shoulders were tense, and the spiritual energy surrounding his body was beginning to surge instead of remaining stable.
Ethan’s heart skipped.
Then Drey’s eyes flashed an unmistakable, terrifying red causing Ethan’s entire body to go cold.
It seemed something had gone horribly wrong.