Chapter 153
The Spirit Realm. Some meadow. Yuki-Roku-Wan-Yo.
A week. For a whole week, I've been doing God-knows-what, pretending to be busy with something important. If I weren't sure someone's watching me, I'd have abandoned this whole charade long ago.
It's been a month and a half since I activated my sixth chakra. The first thirty days were spent entirely on understanding my newfound abilities. Almost every day, I discovered something new within myself. My resistance to poisons reached a whole new level, so even Celine and Dria's creations—those plant-loving maniacs who grow monstrous plants capable of producing magical toxins—no longer scare me.
The life energy crystals I grow are no longer tiny. My full reserve can produce a stone the size of a blue jay's egg—about the average size of all crystals in the "Valley of Two Worlds."
The changes only grew over time, as if my body itself limited my enhancements to prevent harm. A day after opening the chakra, my senses started acting strangely. Only later did I realize it was a sort of "calibration" of my new abilities. Now, I'm like a living sensor... To test my limits, I played a game with Jun's pet: who could find an object or person faster. In the end, the pet won, but I simply lacked experience—my nose receptors were overwhelmed by thousands of different scents. Beyond the upgrades, my body just felt cleansed. I think these impurities really mess with our lives.
And here I am, instead of doing something useful, scrubbing the soles of my boots in some random place. There's a good reason for this, and his name is Koh. By now, he should be recovered enough to start hunting me again. I didn't want to wait for his surprise attack, so two weeks ago, I began deliberately luring him out. I even joined an inspection committee overseeing railway construction. But it seems killing just one of my bodies no longer interests him. Too bad, because on the edge of my sensitivity, I could feel his malicious attention, thanks to my improved intuition. Strangely, he's fixated on my Roku body again...
A plan quickly formed in my mind, one with a decent chance of attracting the Face Stealer. Over time, this idea seemed more worthwhile. Even if Koh attacked me in the human world, I couldn't kill him in one strike. And once he sensed danger, he'd flee to the Spirit Realm, where I'd likely never find him. In the Spirit Realm, though, he can't escape me. His energy would be amplified, and in the human world, he'd face certain death. For the plan, I needed Van Shi Tong's magical scrolls—simple props to trick the spirit into thinking preparations were underway. And one "accidentally" overheard conversation...
*
Earth King's Palace. Ba Sing Se. Roku. A week ago.
The secret underground tunnels beneath the Palace, centuries old, held countless secrets. There was a small prison for thirty to forty people, decent barracks, and even a hidden room for top-secret negotiations.
That's where Lao and I were talking. The first fifteen minutes were about matters of state importance—things we could've discussed over tea in his office. But we needed to kill time until a special guest arrived... Ah, here he is.