Chapter 67: Another Reinvestment Error

Chapter 67: Chapter 67: Another Reinvestment Error

He was connected to both Mira and Evelyn, which meant there was little reason to suspect malicious intentions.

Samuel immediately made a decision.

"Grant," he said.

"Yes, sir?" Grant answered.

"Find this Mr. X," Samuel said.

Grant blinked.

"Me?" he asked.

"Who else?" Samuel gave him an irritated look. "You’re the only person in our division who has actually met him face to face. I want you to establish contact with him. If possible, convince him to join the Extraordinary Division."

Grant’s expression stiffened. That was certainly easier said than done.

Samuel did not give him time to complain.

"There’s another matter," he said. "You said that you and the others lost consciousness inside the palace and only regained consciousness after the secret realm closed. Think carefully. What were Mira and Evelyn’s conditions when you woke up?"

Grant fell silent and searched his memory. Then his eyes suddenly widened.

"Wait," he said. "I remember something. When I woke up, Evelyn’s expression looked almost identical to mine. She seemed completely confused. But Mira wasn’t immediately beside me, so I didn’t get a good look at her." Grant frowned.

"That means Mira could be the one who received the inheritance."

"Exactly," Samuel said, standing up.

"Then there’s no time to waste. I’ll contact Evelyn and arrange for us to meet Mira immediately. And you need to get in touch with Evelyn. Find out whether she also lost consciousness inside the palace."

Samuel was already moving toward the door. He could not help regretting his earlier decision.

He had assumed that Arcadia Academy would provide sufficient protection for Mira, so he had never pushed hard enough to recruit her into the Extraordinary Division.

Now he realized just how foolish that had been.

In only a matter of days, Mira had gone from the 1st star of the Foundation Establishment Realm to the 7th star.

She had also awakened the extraordinary frost Phoenix bloodline. And now there was a possibility that she had obtained an inheritance from the Hunting Ground Secret Realm. Someone like that absolutely could not be overlooked.

Samuel decided he would personally visit Arcadia Academy.

* * *

"Honey, I’m home!" Xavier’s voice echoed through their residence. "I brought you a surprise."

Mira had barely stepped inside when she smiled.

"What a coincidence," she said. "I brought you one too."

She was holding Snow in her arms. Meanwhile, Xavier casually produced a pill and held it out to her.

Mira looked at the pill, then at her husband.

"Honey, aren’t you curious why I returned from the secret realm so quickly?" she asked, also wondering why he didn’t ask about snow.

Xavier froze. His eyes shifted toward the television. He was about to pretend that he had heard about the secret realm’s closure from the news.

Then he remembered that the television was not even switched on.

Mira immediately noticed his hesitation, and a knowing smile appeared on her face.

"You were planning to keep this from me, weren’t you?" she said.

Xavier’s heart skipped. Had she figured everything out?

Mira folded her arms and looked entirely certain of herself.

"Mr. X told you what happened inside the secret realm, didn’t he?" she said.

Xavier stared at her. For a moment, he nearly laughed. Instead, he deliberately widened his eyes.

"You met Mr. X?" he asked.

"Of course," Mira said, nodding. "He’s helped me several times."

Then she narrowed her eyes. "Actually, there’s something I’ve been wondering. What exactly is your relationship with Mr. X?"

She had been curious about it for a while. Xavier had grown up as an orphan, and as far as she knew, he had no powerful family connections behind him.

So how had he managed to become acquainted with someone like Mr. X, a mysterious alchemy master capable of producing extraordinary pills?

Xavier’s mind raced. He still had not come up with a convincing explanation. So he simply lifted the pill in his hand.

"You haven’t seen the surprise I brought you yet," he said.

Mira rolled her eyes.

"Fine. If you don’t want to tell me, forget it," she said. "I’ll figure it out eventually."

Her attention finally shifted back to the pill. The moment she recognized what it was, her eyes widened.

"This is..." she breathed.

Xavier smiled.

"A 7th-grade pill," he said. "The Saint Purification Pill."

The moment Mira heard those words, her eyes widened in disbelief. She had long since become accustomed to Xavier casually handing her 3rd-, 4th-, and even 5th-grade pills as though they were ordinary snacks.

That alone was astonishing to most people, but Mira had already learned that a mysterious master alchemist named Mr. X stood behind many of the resources Xavier possessed.

A 7th-grade elixir was an entirely different matter. Even a 5th-grade pill was considered extraordinarily valuable.

A 7th-grade pill, however, belonged to an entirely different level of rarity. The difference between the two was almost like comparing a tiny spark to the entire night sky.

In all of Valemont, 6th-grade pills were practically impossible to find on the open market, let alone 7th-grade ones.

Even Arcadia Academy, despite being one of the most influential institutions in the region, had not acquired a single 6th-grade elixir in the past decade, at least not through ordinary channels.

As for 7th-grade elixirs, their scarcity was even more ridiculous.

Throughout the entire kingdom, there were only a handful of alchemical grandmasters capable of producing them.

The materials required were incredibly rare, while the failure rate of refining such pills was notoriously high. According to the academy’s Encyclopedia of Elixirs, the total number of 7th-grade pills successfully produced across the kingdom each year was estimated to be fewer than a hundred.

That was why Mira could not help staring at the pill in Xavier’s hand.

"Honey," she finally found her voice. "Where did you get a Saint Purification Pill?"

She already knew he probably would not give her a straight answer.

She had asked him countless times where his seemingly endless supply of treasures came from, and he had never offered a satisfying explanation. Still, she could not resist asking again.

Xavier merely smiled.

"Why are you worrying about where it came from?" he said. "It’s not as if I stole it."

His answer was deliberately vague. Before Mira could question him further, he continued.

"The Saint Purification Pill can eliminate various harmful conditions from the body, including poison, curses, and other forms of corruption," he said, his expression becoming more serious.

"I think it might be able to help with the injury left behind after your Celestial Core was removed. You should take it."

Xavier already knew exactly what the pill could do because it had come directly from the system.

Mira’s abdominal injury had troubled him for a long time. Even after all the treatment she had received, the wound had never completely recovered.

He suspected that the injury was not simply physical. There was a possibility that the destruction of her Celestial Core had left behind some kind of curse or backlash.

Ordinary healing pills could treat the surface damage, but they could not necessarily eliminate the underlying problem.

Mira had already tried several purification pills of 5th grade and below. None had produced a meaningful result, perhaps because their grade simply was not high enough.

A 7th-grade Saint Purification Pill might finally be powerful enough to resolve it.

"Honey," Mira hesitated, staring at the pill.

She trusted Xavier completely. That was not the problem.

The problem was the value of what he was asking her to consume. A 7th-grade elixir was practically priceless, and if she consumed it, the entire pill would disappear after one use.

She could not help thinking that Xavier might have been better off keeping it, since he could have exchanged it for an enormous amount of cultivation resources.

Seeing her hesitation, Xavier immediately understood what she was thinking.

"Stop worrying about the price," he said. "Just take it."

Mira looked at him for several seconds before finally sighing.

"Fine," she said.

She placed the pill into her mouth and swallowed it.

Then, almost immediately, she lifted her clothing to examine the scar across her abdomen.

She didn’t feel shy anymore.

Although their relationship had not yet progressed to that final step, they were now comfortable around each other.

Mira waited quietly. Then her eyes suddenly widened.

"Xavier, look!" she cried, her voice filled with excitement. "The wound!"

Xavier immediately looked over. The change was obvious.

The terrible scar that had once stretched across almost her entire abdomen had faded dramatically.

What remained was nothing more than a thin, pale mark. If someone was not deliberately looking for it, they might not even notice it.

Xavier finally relaxed. As expected of a 7th-grade purification elixir. Its effectiveness was wonderful!

Then, without warning, a notification sounded inside his mind.

[Investment failed!]

[Warning! Items obtained through system rewards cannot be directly reinvested!]

Xavier froze. What?

His expression became strange. The Saint Purification Pill had indeed been obtained through a system reward, but that should not have mattered. It had originally been generated as a reward from his investment in Snow.

He had previously taken pills obtained from investing in Mira and invested those rewards into Snow without any problem.

So why had this investment failed? Was the system suddenly treating different investment targets differently? Or was there some hidden restriction he had not discovered yet?