Chapter 42: Hundred-year-old Apples of Divine Providence

"You’re good... did you really learn all this just from books?" Seraphine asked, her beautiful eyes resting on Kael.

She sat elegantly on a fallen log, as if that piece of damp wood were a throne.

Her dress had slipped up slightly, revealing patches of her thick, pale, luscious thighs just above where her black knee-high stockings ended.

Her soft skin spilled gently over the tight edge of the fabric, forming a fleshy, inviting curve that seemed to beg for a touch.

Her knees were drawn up, her feet resting on the same log, her face propped on her right hand as she watched with an air of feigned boredom. One finger tapped lazily against her cheek.

"Well, I’m a country bumpkin, aren’t I? Country bumpkins need to know how to do these things," Kael joked, not bothering to look up from his work.

Seraphine only snorted and looked away toward the treetops, where light filtered down in pale beams.

"Whatever. Just don’t you dare touch me with those blood-soaked hands!"

Kael laughed and shook his head. "I’ve really landed myself a very venomous concubine... ugh... what will become of me?"

Without waiting for her reply, he turned his attention back to the snake.

His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and a thin layer of Qi covered his hands, protecting his skin as he worked on the carcass. The sharp, metallic stink of beast blood hung thick in the humid air.

Carefully, he ripped out the eyes, then the teeth, each one tearing loose from the gums with a dull grind.

He collected the dark blood in vials, watching the liquid crawl thickly down the inside of the glass, and finally began removing the scales one by one. Each came away with a small, wet snap.

A beast of that size carried an enormous amount of resources, and Kael’s original space ring simply couldn’t hold it all.

Fortunately, upon entering the mind world, the disciples had also received temporary space rings to store everything they gathered in the secret realm.

That ring held about thirty cubic meters of space—more than enough for most disciples’ loot.

The only problem was that, unlike personal rings, the Elders would assess these. They would examine each disciple’s loot before returning everything.

There had been instances of Elders confiscating specific resources for the greater good of the Sect, but it wasn’t exactly common.

It didn’t take Kael long to finish processing the serpent’s carcass, leaving behind only the extremely toxic flesh.

He cleaned the blade he’d used for the task, polishing it with his own Qi until the metal gleamed again, then stored it—along with everything of value from the beast—inside the temporary spatial ring.

Then his eyes rose to the sky.

The sun had barely moved, even though several hours had already passed.

The island did not follow a normal day-and-night cycle.

The sun rose at dawn and took a full fourteen days to set.

When it finally did, the secret realm would be sealed off.

Kael’s gaze drifted back down to Seraphine. He raised his hands—still slick with blood—and slowly opened and closed his fingers, feeling his knuckles crack one after another.

"Ah... it took me an hour to clean this thing... my hands are a little numb," he said, and his eyes slid shamelessly down to Seraphine’s breasts.

"Luckily, I have the perfect stress-relief orbs right here."

He spread both hands, fingers curling toward her like claws.

"D-don’t you dare!" she screamed, her eyes widening, but Kael was already lunging.

Her relaxed posture made it impossible to react in time. By the time she realized it, he was already on top of her, the trunk groaning under their combined weight.

Fortunately, Kael didn’t like dirt either. The instant he leaped, he swept his hands and body clean with Qi, the blood lifting off his skin as a fine red mist that dissolved into the air.

Their bodies collided.

Kael’s face plunged straight into Seraphine’s cleavage. The soft, warm flesh molded around his cheeks, swallowing his nose and mouth in a moist, fragrant embrace, while his arms wrapped around her delicate frame and dragged her closer.

Her breasts gave way under the impact, the heavy mounds bulging outward before rolling back in to close around his face, dense and pliant as two overfilled pillows.

"Nghnn~~ damn it!" Seraphine cursed, looking down.

His head was completely buried between her enormous breasts; from that angle, only his messy hair was visible.

"Ah~~ what if someone sees us? Stop it!" she protested, but her hands, resting on his shoulders, couldn’t push him away.

They weren’t really trying, anyway. Her fingers merely opened and closed over the fabric of his clothes, without any strength at all.

"It’s all right, my senses are sharp," Kael replied in a muffled voice, the vibration of his words humming across her soft skin as he sent his Qi out into the surroundings in an invisible net.

Of course, he couldn’t stay there forever, even though that was exactly what he wanted.

After a few minutes like that, resting his eyes against that warm softness, feeling her heart hammer against his cheek and breathing in the sweet scent of her skin, he finally stood up.

"Rested, you pervert?" she asked, fixing her neckline with trembling fingers, cheeks burning. Her breasts shifted heavily beneath the fabric as she tugged it back into place, settling with a slow, weighty sway.

"Yes, my dear concubine." Kael offered her a hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Your daddy’s ready to move on. Come on, we can’t waste too much time."

"D-don’t... call yourself that, you idiot!" Seraphine muttered under her breath. But, strangely, her lips curved into a smile she tried to swallow, and she turned her face to the side.

Did she... actually like that?

She shook her head vigorously, banishing those impure thoughts before forcing herself to follow Kael, her thick thighs brushing together beneath her dress with every hurried step.

The journey continued uneventfully for many kilometers as they ran through the dense forest, their bodies reduced to shadows too fast for the eye to follow, flickering between the trees.

Only the rustle of leaves and the crackle of twigs beneath their feet marked their passage, the cold wind of their own speed whipping against their faces.

Soon, however, they had to stop once again.

Ahead of them stood a tree.

It was relatively small, perhaps three or four meters tall.

Its foliage was unremarkable—dry and drab, almost ugly against the vibrant green all around. It looked as if it might die at any moment.

What caught their attention, however, were the fruits.

"They’re hundred-year-old Apples of Divine Providence! They say these apples have the power to greatly improve a cultivator’s karma and luck!" Seraphine declared beside Kael, her eyes shining like a child’s at the sight of candy, her hands clasped against her chest.