Reaper of the Martial World

Book 5: Chapter 21: Age (3)

Dyon looked over in interest. Madeleine’s master was someone he very much didn’t like, for obvious reasons, but for Madeleine to mention her, it much be something important.

Even more surprisingly, it was Ri who continued the story.

“Remember when we realized how fluster Uncle Acacia was?”

Dyon’s eyes widened. “No way.”

Ri’s giggle turned into a fit of laughter that didn’t stop for minutes. In the end, she was holding onto her stomach, clearly wheezing.

“You should have seen them.

“Evelyn came here with Connery in hopes that would soften Madeleine’s position, but when they saw each other they went beet red.

“Ask Clara or Madeleine if you think I’m lying, but uncle quite literally spit out his wine.”

Dyon chuckled. What a twist of fate.

He had wondered why Uncle Acacia hadn’t come out to defend Ri when Evelyn attacked her, but now he knew why. He simply didn’t have the face to.

Thinking about it, Uncle Acacia probably sighed a huge breath of relief when Dyon appeared. At least then he wouldn’t have to do anything.

From the beginning, Dyon had always wondered just why the Elves believed the story of Ri being his daughter so easily. It turned out that Uncle Acacia really had had a human girlfriend in the past.

But, in true Evelyn fashion, she turned down all marriages for the sake of her research. Which was likely why she had been pushing for Madeleine to marry Lionel, to make up for her own mistakes. After all, marrying the Prince of the Elvin Kingdom would be quite a bump up in her current status.

“Then what’s going on between them now?” Dyon asked.

“Still nothing. Despite his reaction, Uncle wasn’t happy at all that she attacked us. Add that to the fact that Evelyn was a cold and secluded individual to begin with, and I doubt that relationship is going to go anywhere.” Ri explained.

“I see. That’s a shame. I wanted Uncle Acacia to blow some steam.”

“Uncle Acacia is a very nice man, don’t try and corrupt him,” Clara said, nibbling away at what looking like a croissant. It seemed she had asked the Belmonts to make some human world food.

Dyon laughed, but didn’t respond, quietly listening to the rest of the happenings.

“After we got settled into the castle, King Belmont was still very angry. In fact, I don’t think he’s gotten over it at all.

“He wanted to destroy all of the rebelling sects and even declare war on the other planets, but that was when we told him about the threat of the Uidah. As much as we hate them now, if we can’t use their man power to defend, we’d be in trouble.

“So, King Belmont handed over the Niveus God Sect to Little Delia, who’s grown up quite a lot from when last you saw her. Her and Eli are also a lot closer and seemingly less shy about their relationship.

“Patia-Neva and his wife have been on an extended vacation, although they do pop in from time to time. So, Delia has been very happy, even though there seems to be something wrong with Eli’s cultivation.”

Dyon frowned. “There’s something wrong?”

Madeleine shook her head. “Maybe wrong is the wrong way to put it. He’s just really… slow. It may just be that he doesn’t have much talent.”

The room went silent. Although no one said it out loud, everyone understood just what this meant.

There was a reason martial artists didn’t often marry early despite often being promised and betrothed early. It was because of the drastic differences in age expectancy between different levels of cultivation. Even the difference between a single meridian in the dao formation realm was thousands of years.

However, that didn’t meant that there wasn’t a problem at the lower levels as well.

Based on Eli’s place of birth, it wasn’t surprising if a person never reached the meridian formation stage in their entire lives. If Eli was measured up against those people, he was progressing just fine. In fact, if people of the martial world could live for 500 years like foundation experts could, they would be delirious with joy.

But… Delia was already in the essence gathering stage. Even if she never again improved, she would have 1 500 years of life without Eli at a minimum. This would only get worse when she became a saint.

Of course, there were medicines capable of lengthening life of mortal and lower martial experts by even thousands of years. And Dyon, seeing Eli as a friend, wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to spend whatever amount of transcendent stones was necessary. But… Even those things had a limit.

With Delia’s talent, there was no doubt that she’d become a dao formation expert, especially with the resources of the tower. Even with how over confident Dyon was about so many things, could he really find a plant or make a pill capable of extending life by hundreds of thousands of years?…

Some might say that the two could simply dual cultivate. If Delia was powerful, wouldn’t she be able to bring Eli along?

The problem with that idea was the very same problem Dyon had before he received a capable Primordial Yang.

If the male was weak, aside from the initial boost received in taking a strong woman’s virginity, there would be little other benefits. Their dual cultivating would follow a law of diminishing returns until Eli completely stopped improving. Without a primordial yang capable of properly refining a powerful primordial yin, dual cultivating with a powerful woman was simply a fool’s errand.

However, Dyon didn’t want to give up on his friend so easily.

Dyon shook his head. “There’s something special about Eli. I know it.”

At first, the girls thought Dyon was just saying this to remain in denial for a bit longer, but that was when Ri seemed to remember was Dyon did.

“You mean?”

Dyon nodded. “He can’t possibly be normal.”

Eli had spent years as a pill slave of the Cavositas. And yet, he was booted away because he seemed to never react to the pills given him. He was even immune to poison! How could he be normal?

The question was… Just what was he?