Chapter 54: Pain

Shuten-Douji sat on a rock alone. Drinking from his cup he started to wonder why exactly. What reason was he here in the first place?

'Great, I forgot.'

He felt like this happened a lot. Like he was always forgetting things.

'I wonder why. I must have really bad memory.'

Sensing a great power at the peak of the mountain Shuten-Douji curiously followed the source, but found nothing there by the time he arrived. Evidence of a great battle lay strewn about, but no bodies.

Confused Shuten-Douji investigated but grew bored and eventually decided to go back to drinking.

It was there under a fruit tree Shuten-Douji sat, drinking while watching the view from the mountaintop. By the time he had already forgot the reason he came up the mountain he stood up to leave, breaking a few branches of the tree.

This was not something he paid mind to, until a fruit hit him on the head. It was a fig. Although Shuten-Douji couldn't recognize that.

He could tell it was edible, and upon consumption was delighted to feel it was full of Divinity.

After finishing the fruit he looked to see if the tree had any more, disappointed to see the answer was no he departed down the mountain with a clear head.

That fruit was made out of the essence of a single being. Xie Dongsheng, by his own Divine Ability.

Xie Dongsheng had always internally whined about how weak his Divine Active was, for something of A-Grade to be so weak felt like a joke. He wasn't the only one who noticed this, the HCF who could see his Contract and his own usage of it they had come up with an idea.

Xie Dongsheng's [DA] had an Hidden Clause. Hidden Clauses were rare, but they were generally easy to spot. If one's Divine Ability did not match up to its Grade by a noticeable amount it tended to hint something was hidden.

Speaking to your Divinity and gaining their favor could allow a Marked to be given hints or even outright explanations. In Xie Dongsheng's case he had a Partial Divinity named Skye who he had pissed off in their Contact.

She had asked if he was enjoying his [DA] and he had bluntly responded no. She was planning to have given him a hint on how to properly use it but the rudeness in his voice had made her change her mind.

Xie Dongsheng wasn't an idiot, he would have buttered up to her if he could. But in Contact a mortal's true desires and feelings could not be hidden from their Divinity.

This Implicit Clause was simple, if he used his seeds on a Marked they would turn into fig-tree. The tree would bear one fruit, and a random Divine Ability would be chosen from the Marked who essence was now in the fig and be transferred into the person who ate it.

There were stringent requirements of course. Only one fruit could ever be created no matter how many fig-trees were made. In essence a one-time use ability.

Now that one fruit was created out of Xie Dongsheng's corpse. The Divine Ability Shuten-Douji had gained was Xie Dongsheng's [DP] [Dryad's Blessing] (Grade D). It bestowed upon him the following qualities.

An immunity to poisons and an ability to hear nymphs talk.

Feng Biao was dreaming. He could tell he was dreaming but oddly he couldn't wake up. The weirdest thing was even in this state of low lucidity he could still see his Contract if he wanted to.

'Indra I'm not sure what I did to make you made, but I'm sorry.'

He didn't feel like anyone had heard him, but he continued anyways.

'Wang Hao, I don't think I'm dead yet. If I recover I'm gonna tell you I did well.'

Then he turned off the TV, and woke up.

Dazed and confused Feng Biao saw himself in a hospital gown and moaned. The moment he woke up pain greeted him.

Quickly checking his right hand he saw it was reattached. Which caused him to heave in a sigh of relief.

The next few days were relatively uneventful. He was healing with no complications. From the nurses he was told the FSA/HCF Sparring Event would begin in short order.

Hunter had left some flowers and chocolate for Feng Biao. Upon eating one he discovered it contained an extremely spicy filling. Far greater than Feng Biao felt was tolerable.

Cursing Hunter he discovered a note under the box.

"Get better, soon. We need to talk."

Thinking back on that incident Feng Biao realized something. Grabbing a piece of chocolate be examined it. Unlike the pudding Song Zhilan had let him eat it contained nothing special.

Although still unaware of the price Feng Biao was sure that pudding contained Divinity. This was just regular "chocolate" to his eye.

Once he started chewing he intentionally let the heat burn his mouth and began to try to use his Divinity to cancel the pain.

To his surprise, he couldn't.

'Why?'

It seemed Divinity lacked the ability to interfere with some types of pain, but it seemed oddly selective.

'It works if I shatter my internal organs but sputters out if I eat something spicy?'

Something was really odd about that. Checking on his PDS Feng Biao found few posts on the subject.

'Just videos of people eating spicy food and commenting they can't use their Divinity to stop the pain.'

Unable to connect any dots Feng Biao checked his messages. Hunter had still not replied, apparently would only speak to Feng Biao in person.

Feng Biao had tried to contact Chen Lan but was "unable to contact this person unless their family consents to the message."

Putting down his PDS he thought how strange this world was. He couldn't even think of messaging Song Zhilan while holding the PDS or as he had been told the authorities would be alerted.

The separation between Marked seemed absurd.

'Why do they isolate Primordial Marked so much?'

At that moment Feng Biao's PDS informed him he had finally gotten a response. It was from Liu Wei.