"Ume, you already know a teleportation technique, so why don't you use it to teleport us to another city?" I asked, curious.

"Dummy, that skill can only let me teleport a short distance and only to a place that I've already visited," Ume replied, pouring her Soulforce into the stone.

The array's pattern glowed again with bright energy, and a cylindrical white light emerged from the array's boundary, touching the sky.

This time, the dizziness during teleportation was nowhere near as bad as the first—though it could also be that I was getting used to it.

As the energy barrier vanished, I found us in an open ground a mile away from an unfamiliar city.

"Tell me you didn't do anything to Su Yan!" Vyrion demanded the moment we arrived.

"Who the heck is Su Yan?" I asked, confused.

"Don't play dumb. You threatened us that you would do something wrong to her if we betrayed you!"

"Huh!? When did I say that?" I demanded, my one eye focusing on Ume, who might have misunderstood me.

"Ume, I didn't say anything like that," I clarified to her with puppy eyes as she silently stared at me.

"Don't worry. I know you would never say or do something like that," she replied with a gentle smile before turning to Vyrion.

"Why are you disgracing my betrothed?"

"G-Go-Goddess Gumiho, this idiot didn't put his words correctly, nya," Feralin replied, still nervous to speak in front of Ume. "He meant that Sir Morningstar threatened us using our fifth member if we betrayed him."

"Oh, you were talking about that member," I sighed. "I didn't touch her, as I don't even know where she lives."

"B-but you said you knew she was in Dreadspire," Vyrion stammered, stepping back.

"Oh, I only made a bluff," I laughed, moving toward the city as Vyrion's group gave me a dumbfounded look.

The knights and guards in Ashenfall were even fewer compared to Dreadspire. The buildings were also quite old and damaged, in urgent need of renovation.

Vyrion's group was enough to take care of the few Spirit Adept awakeners, while I moved straight to the cave where the gate for the Key Ranked 2 was situated.

The gate here was engraved with a wolf pattern, and unsurprisingly, it was a maddened wolf beast that I found inside.

As soon as the door opened, my heart began reverberating, spoiling my mood. To vent my frustration, I drew my sword and beheaded the wolf with Sword Aura the moment it attacked me.

"Alert! 20% Soulforce consumed!"

"This beast had a strange magic cast on it," Ume revealed, moving closer to the beheaded body.

She was about to slide her hand inside the beast's body and perform the same autopsy she had done on Drathion, but this time I immediately stopped her.

"Do you need its core?" I asked.

She nodded, so after asking her where its core was, I sliced open the wolf's body with my sword and pulled out a football-sized, black shining sphere from its stomach.

"Here, take it—and don't do these kinds of gross things with your beautiful hands," I hissed, handing her the core.

"I understand," she murmured and began scanning the core with her Soulforce.

"This wolf is also over a millennium old, and at its zenith, it was a High-Tier beast."

"High-Tier?" I gasped.

For the next few minutes, she kept up her relentless research on the core and finally revealed, crushing it into pieces,

"A powerful magic had been placed upon the beast, granting it immortality. Unless its attacker possessed the very same bloodline as the one who cast this spell, the creature would instantly regenerate endlessly—no matter how many times it was slain."

"S-so you mean the person who cast the magic on this beast had the same bloodline as me?" I asked, taken aback.

"Since the beast is dead, then it must be the skill of your ancestor."

"B-but Ume, I'm not even from this world, so how could I have any ancestor here?"

"Maybe just like you came to Vyoman, some ancestor of yours teleported to the world you came from and founded his lineage there," Ume explained, averting her eyes as if she were trying to hide something from me.

It was the most logical explanation for this bloodline mess, as well as the reason why Nyx couldn't kill these beasts. However, it also gave rise to countless new questions.

In the end, I shrugged and decided to focus on the task at hand.

None of the crystals here were High-Tier except the lotus-shaped crystal in this hall, which was a High-Tier Grade 3 crystal.

"Whoa, a High-Tier crystal!" Ume gasped, her eyes widening in shock.

It was unusual for her to react like this unless it was a new-flavored ice cream—or something truly extraordinary.

I pulled the essence out from the lotus crystal's center and handed the crystal to her.

"You may keep it if you like."

"No, I can't take this," Ume firmly denied. "You must not be aware of the value of this crystal. Only a handful of this crystal is enough to cause war between major sects or countries. Keep it. A High-Tier crystal of this size costs more than several major sects combined. The High-Tier crystal is a necessary ingredient for an Awakener to break through to the High-Tier realm—"

"Shhh!" I put my finger on her mouth and said, "Damn, baby, you talk so much. I don't give a crap how much this crystal costs. Even thousands of these crystals aren't worth the priceless smile on your face. And let me tell you one more thing that you keep forgetting…"

She was already burning red from the blush due to my sudden declaration, but things didn't stop there.

I pulled her closer to me by the waist, my other hand still resting on her resplendent lips as I continued,

"You are mine—so even if you consume this crystal, it will still belong to me."

Her nose touched mine, our breath synced, and her alluring scent flooded my lungs.

"If you still refuse this crystal, you'll be getting an affectionate lip kiss from me. Now decide for yourself."

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