Chapter 45: New System Feature
Kian shut the door to his room and upended the leather sack onto the bed without ceremony.
The low-grade stones spilled across the thin bed frame (which had yet to get a mattress) in a clattering slide, pale blue-white chips that glinted in the light filtering through the paper window.
He sorted them into neat rows with quick, practiced movements, counting under his breath until the number settled in his mind like a stone dropped into still water.
Twenty-five thousand, six hundred and seventy-nine.
The two mid-grade stones he’d found earlier he placed to the side, their deeper blue glow a standout attraction.
’Time to make fuse you,’ he thought.
His skill Twin Heart activated with a flex of will, a warmth blooming in his chest that spread down his arms and into his fingertips.
Tzz.
When he opened his hands there was one mid-grade stone nestled in the crease of his palm, dense and warm, vibrating faintly with doubled Qi.
Kian grinned.
One more. One more.
More.
The work became mechanical after the first dozen pairs.
He split the stones into two piles on the bed, working through them with the steady rhythm of a man who’d learned patience doing the same thing.
The sun tracked across the window, the light shifting from pale gold to amber, and the room filled with the soft chime of stone fusing to stone.
...
As Kian was doing the job there, Hua Feimei walked upto the girls and pulled the bedsheet from under them.
"Come on, get moving! Mia, you handle the kitchen. Clean everything up and make a list of the utensils and ingredients we need to buy!"
"Jia, you clean up the dust all around. This place is so dusty I can’t believe you guys are able to lay down."
Jiao Yin blinked, rubbing her back. "What about me?"
"You are not really healthy. Just watch us, do small chores if you find any."
Jia complained: "Why do I get the bigger job? Dusting the entire house alone? All by myself?"
"Of course, I am also doing that. What? You can’t dust a house with a Qi Builder’s help as well?"
Jia rubbed her nose. "Then fine."
Thus began the girls and their job.
Jia snatched a rag from the pile of supplies Mia had scrounged together and stomped toward the hallway, her complaints trailing behind her like a cape.
Feimei placed her hands on her waist and took a deep breath.
Three rooms. A kitchen. A bathroom. A living room. That’s six spaces to dust.
Feimei followed Jia without hurry, a small duster cloth in her hand, her red eyes scanning the doorframes as if sizing up an opponent.
The living room was the worst.
Jia stopped in the doorway and her jaw went slack. The floorboards wore a fur of gray dust so thick it swallowed the wood grain entirely, and the low table in the center had sprouted a garden of dead insects—moths, beetles, something with too many legs curled into a husk.
Ew.
Cobwebs sagged from every ceiling beam like old laundry, their strands clotted with dust and what looked suspiciously like mouse droppings.
The merchant had left behind a broken chair, a stack of mildewed scrolls, and a pot that smelled of something that had died and been forgotten.
"This is not a house."
Then, she grinned, beginning her clean up with a broom. First, she had to brush all the insects to the side, then collect them all without ever touching any of it.
Jiao Yin tied her sleeves back and said nothing.
She simply stepped past Jia, opened the windows to the courtyard, and the afternoon breeze surged in like a rescue party.
Dust swirled upward in a choking cloud, and the cobwebs trembled, then tore, then fell. Jia sneezed three times in rapid succession and launched herself at the nearest surface with her rag.
The battle began.
Mia discovered the kitchen was home to a civilization of leaves. A window was open near the ceiling and the tree outside had dumped all its leaves into the home.
She filled a basin at the pump in the small bathroom—a cramped room with a stone tub and a mirror flecked with age spots—and hauled it back to the kitchen counter, where she stared at the stovetop with a mix of horror and determination.
"How the hell do I even go about this..." she muttered.
Jiao Yin appeared to her rescue. "We can first broom all the leaves out to the garden. We will burn them. Once that’s done, we just have to dust everything and clean it."
The girl didn’t wait to explain and simply used a broom to push a big chunk of leaves to the side.
It was a satisfying scene to watch.
...
Since Kian had grown stronger, his pace of fusing stones had improved. But fusing the amount of stones he had in his hand was no easy matter. It was a very large job.
Kian knew that even to just fuse all of these stones into high grade, he would need hours upon hours of work. And that was assuming he could continue working without tiring himself.
But, it was still something Kian wanted to do. Once he transformed all of these spirit stones into his own strength, who in this city could trifle with him?
’It’s a hasslesome job, but I can do it with grit and perseverence!’
Just as Kian was about to continue though, a ding notification woke him up.
The translucent blue screen materialized before his eyes, text scrolling into place with that familiar chime that made his pulse quicken every single time.
[Quest Complete: Steal all four close people of Hua Shulong.]
[Hua Mia — Stolen. ✓]
[Hua Jia — Stolen. ✓]
[Hua Feimei — Stolen. ✓]
[Fang Ping — Stolen. ✓]
Did Feimei finally let go of her complex feelings?
That was a surprise to Kian. He had thought it would take a lot more time before she began to care about him more than she did about her cursed son.
Kian stared at the third name for a long breath. Hua Feimei. He filed the thought away for later and watched the next lines write themselves across his vision in glowing script.
[Fortune +200.]
[Special Reward unlocked: Absorb a unique aspect of the main target’s cultivation]
The messages were still not over.
[First Quest completed. A new Shop has been unlocked.]
Two hundred Fortune.
Kian exhaled slowly, the number settling into his chest like a warm ember. That was enough for two hundred Qi Sparks right now, or he could save it for something bigger later.
Assuming the shop could be useful for that.
He dismissed the screen with a wave and opened his status window, eyes dragging over the numbers until he found the Fortune total gleaming at the bottom.
Qi sparks could be improved with Spirit Stones, so if he could use Fortune for something better, he much rather preffered that!
The temptation to spend it immediately gnawed at him, a hungry little voice that whispered more power now, now, now. He licked his lips and calmed the urge.
Then, he opened the new shop.