Chapter 8

A soft touch glided across my thigh. Then another—delicate, almost reverent, like someone handling glass that might shatter at the slightest tremor.

My eyes shot open.

A canopy of softly glowing vines stretched overhead, casting faint green light through translucent leaves. Cool air kissed my damp skin.

Wait—skin?

My gaze dropped.

I was naked.

Naked?

Not even a thread of cloth clung to me. My body was exposed—raw—marred with traces of dried blood and bruises, but someone had cleaned most of the wounds.

A soft hum tickled my ear. I turned my head—too quickly—and groaned. Pain flared in my side.

"Shh… don't move," a soft female voice came from beside me. I blinked, staring at the woman sitting near my bed. She was naked too.

My stare made a subtle blush rise on her pale green skin.

Her slightly curved ears twitched along with her greenish slit pupils. My gaze lowered to her lips… then landed on the curves she was desperately trying to hide—without changing her expression.

"It's offensive to remove the clothes of a stranger without their consent. Don't you know?" I teased, pointing toward my naked body through narrowed eyes.

Her eyes widened in panic.

"It's not what you're thinking…"

"Oh? What did I think?" I acted innocent, blinking slowly. "Ohhh…"

"No—I mean, I was just tending to your injuries. If I hadn't rescued you, you'd have been caught by those bad guys…"

That made me pause.

Bad guys?

"You're brave—wandering into the 'Deserters' Ground' and even infiltrating the Wolf's Den," the woman complained, all while her palms spread a greenish liquid over my body.

I activated my soul sense, studying the liquid she was applying.

Life Gel? My breath caught.

I was shocked.

Life Gel—the sap of the World Tree, the guardian deity of the elves. An existence rumored to have come from outside the universe.

Every part of it was a treasure.

In my entire life, I'd only seen Life Gel once. It could mend any broken bone in the body. A single drop was enough to save a grown man's life.

She was pouring an entire bucket on me.

I tried to move, but her hands pressed me back down—right above my navel. Her cold touch made me shiver.

Too cold… for someone alive.

"I'm sorry—" she mistook my reaction for pain and hurriedly lifted her palm from my navel. Still, the chill of her touch lingered.

"I'm Rika," she said, looking at me expectantly.

"Li Yue," I replied.

After discovering what kind of medicine she was using, I grew wary. Why would she waste such a precious treasure on a stranger?

Did she understand its value?

Or did she have hidden intentions?

Sometimes I become overly paranoid. When that happened, even someone's breathing could trigger a violent reaction in me.

I grew more restless as I tried to scan her with my soul sense.

She had no dantian. No core.

Yet she was perfectly controlling the Void Qi in the air.

And in the place of her heart…

A small tree trunk.

My gaze slid down from there and froze.

Male genitals.

I blinked. Took a deeper look. Yin energy flowed steadily through her body—undeniably feminine. Which meant she wasn't male.

Yet she had male genitals.

Also, those breasts were far too full and soft to belong to a man.

"What are you?" I finally dropped all pretense and asked bluntly. 

Whatever the reason she saved me, my paranoia could wait. If she wanted to harm me, she'd already had her chances.

Which meant she either genuinely wanted to help…

Or her goal required me to be fully healed.

Short-term, I wasn't in danger.

"Me?" Rika looked at me in confusion. "I'm Rika."

"No… I'm asking, what are you?"

The blank look on her face made me sigh.

"Me—Li Yue. A human. You—Rika. What?" I said, watching her carefully.

She didn't show any hint of deceit.

"Rika is Rika. That's what I know."

She didn't seem to be lying.

I lay back in silence. The two of us stared at each other. Rika kept averting her eyes as the seconds ticked by and then I noticed the reason.

A suspicious red flush covered her cheeks… and her breathing had grown uneven.

I looked down.

'Tsk.'

Sure, they didn't allow Li Yue to cultivate. However, she was groomed to become a perfect furnace. They never neglected her physical growth.

So, as an eighteen-year-old, I had everything even a woman could be drawn to.

I hadn't looked at my reflection, but since the auction houses fought to get me, I was sure—I might be beautiful, at least by the standards of the mortal plane.

Not only that, my constitution was active. So Rika might be struggling a lot to do nothing to me.

"Y-you will be okay after a sleep. I-I will wait outside," Rika stammered.

Before I could say anything, she rushed out of the room. I watched her retreating figure with a faint smile. Then, the smile vanished as I took in my surroundings.

Above my head, green vines descended lazily from the ceiling, swaying slightly like they were breathing. 

To my right was a small, makeshift bathtub—clearly formed by someone hastily digging into the ground and shaping it with care.

My bloodstained clothes were tossed beside it. But something caught my attention.

There were no clothes of Rika's in sight.

"Don't tell me… she always walks around naked."

Not that it would be strange. Across the universe, not every creature shared the concept of modesty.

But among humanoids—even mindless ones like goblins—there was an instinct to at least cover their essentials.

Curious, I tried pushing out my soul sense to check the surrounding area.

But to my surprise, it didn't go far.

In fact, it never extended past the room.

'A restriction? One strong enough to block the senses of a Nascent Soul cultivator?'

My interest in Rika grew deeper. She was far more than she appeared.

I explored every corner of the room with my remaining energy until sleep claimed me again.

When I opened my eyes after the sleep, I could move my limbs without pain. The soreness was still there, but it was distant. 

A plate full of fresh fruits sat beside my bed.

My fingers hesitated.

Then, they reached for the one at the center.

My breath caught.

'Ysil…'

The fruit whispered its name through its scent, through the faint silver-gold glow it emitted from its core.

A fruit said to restore life force and awaken dormant bloodlines. A feat cultivators rarely achieved before the First Ascension.

In my past life, I had desperately searched for it. One of my greatest regrets had been not acquiring it before my ascension.

I had lost years of potential growth because I'd lacked what now rested casually on a plate beside me.

I brought it to my palm and held it there, rotating it slowly, studying the texture and weight.

My brows furrowed.

'It's… too warm.'

Ysil, after being plucked from the World Tree, always turned cold. And in doing so, it lost a fraction of its potency.

That's why the elves—guardians of the World Tree—always consumed it directly from the branch.

So then…

Why is this one still warm?

Why does it feel like I'm eating it straight from the tree itself?