Chapter 85: White Goes Into Seclusion to Cultivate
The basement was built from humanity’s most advanced special alloys. The walls were so sturdy that they could withstand multiple direct nuclear explosions and still remain standing.
Even for White, smashing this basement apart would probably be harder than destroying an entire mountain range.
Under the dim lights, so faint that a normal person wouldn’t be able to see anything, Peter and White walked quietly while avoiding every obstacle.
This place had been built by powerful hunters after all. Setting up a few challenges to keep intruders out would hardly be a difficult task.
After walking for a while, Peter pressed his face close to a wall. A beam of light flashed across his face, and then every anti-intruder system was disabled. The normal lighting system finally activated, revealing an incredibly reinforced hallway.
When they reached a metal door, Peter placed his hand on the control panel and entered something to unlock it.
Inside the room, lights of all kinds of colors mixed together. They were the glowing auras radiating from the spiritual herbs.
Rare items like spiritual herbs, yet this storage room held several hundred of them. Converted into money, they were worth several billion dollars.
With wealth like that, Peter still let White casually "eat" as much as she wanted. That made it pretty obvious why White wasn’t very clear about money. Living in an environment like this for so long, money was just a bunch of meaningless numbers to her.
White didn’t even know what paying taxes involved because she’d never had any income. And even if she did have income, nobody would bother collecting taxes from her.
"Use as much as you want. Even if you use all of it. As long as you can break through to the Qi Refinement realm in a short time, it’ll be completely worth it."
Peter being willing to spend billions of dollars so White could break through to the Qi Refinement realm might sound a little excessive, but it was exactly as he said. The number of S-rank hunters and above in the world was only a tiny fraction of the number of billionaires.
If White really could break through, then her overall strength probably wouldn’t be less than an SS-rank. If lifespan was included, then White was even more valuable than an SS-rank.
"Thanks. And remember to arrange someone to handle my work for the next few weeks."
White nodded and walked into the storage room with the cultivation technique.
"Yeah, yeah. It’s not like the world will end just because you’re gone for a few weeks."
Peter clicked his tongue and locked the door. The air inside was always sufficient, so there was no problem. Even if it wasn’t, a lack of air wasn’t enough to kill an S-rank hunter.
The surveillance camera system let Peter keep an eye on White’s situation even while working outside. If anything happened, he could show up in time to help. Although he didn’t really know what he could even help her with.
---
Inside the dungeon, Mark lay sprawled on the ground, cultivating for over an hour before becoming a little more clear-headed.
But becoming clear-headed didn’t mean he had enough strength to stand up. So he kept cultivating in that miserable position for another few hours.
"Damn, that hurts."
Mark’s hoarse, somewhat unfamiliar voice made him frown. He’d been lying on the ground for so long that he’d forgotten he’d been slapped so hard his teeth had fallen out, and his jaw had been knocked crooked.
Dragging himself over to the base of a tree, Mark took out some water and drank a mouthful. The feeling... somehow wasn’t even as comfortable as drinking normally. The moment he swallowed, Mark felt like throwing up, but in the end, he didn’t.
The food, medicine, and bandages in his backpack all came out for use. At this point, what the hell was the point of saving them? As long as he didn’t die, that was enough.
Eating and drinking was easy enough, but wrapping bandages was something Mark genuinely didn’t know how to do. So wherever he saw blood, he wrapped it. Wherever he felt pain, he wrapped that too.
It definitely felt better, but his appearance became even more miserable. At a glance, it looked like he’d been injured badly enough to be paralyzed.
"Let’s keep going."
Mark sat cross-legged as his eyes slowly closed. His heavy breathing gradually became steadier, and his tense nerves relaxed more and more.
Rushing wouldn’t get him anywhere. Only staying calm would let his spiritual power flow smoothly so his body could absorb it faster.
Cultivating with a proper posture and in much better physical condition made everything feel much easier for Mark. It was like playing a game on the hardest difficulty, only for it to suddenly drop back to normal.
[They’re both weaklings, but watching White smash mountains apart is way more entertaining. Mark’s just pure trash for getting beaten this badly by a stupid ape.]
The system started judging from the mountaintop. It didn’t say anything useful, just a bunch of pointless insults.
"You can try letting Mark use a portion of your power as you wish."
Nexus’s "harmless" suggestion almost gave the system a heart attack, even though it didn’t even have a heart.
[Are you trying to kill this great system? If I casually lend out my power like that, Michael will definitely erase me. You damn stupid master...]
The system wanted to curse Nexus to death so he’d never suggest such idiotic ideas again.
Nexus was used to getting cursed at by now, so he just let the system freely unleash its impressive vulgar vocabulary. His gaze shifted toward Mark as he calculated when he should ’gift’ him another skull ape.
While sitting cross-legged beneath the tree and cultivating in peace, Mark suddenly stopped when he felt a chill run down his spine.
"W-what... why do I feel like danger is getting closer?"
He turned to look around, but there wasn’t a monster or anything else that could move, making Mark wonder if his instincts had broken after taking so many shocks one after another.
Seeing no danger, Mark continued recovering his injuries because he knew that as long as Nexus and the system hadn’t appeared, this lesson wasn’t over yet.