Jie made three cards of herself as Ithilix showed her how and kept one for herself. Perhaps it was vain, but she thought it was interesting to see herself in card form.

  Xue proved unwilling to make cards for them until they bribed him with food.

  He sat beside them chewing messily after making cards for them as Ithilix taught Jie how to play. Naturally, Ithilix destroyed her.

  “Don’t worry. This one has had more practice than you. This one is sure you will learn quickly, Princess,” Ithilix said.

  “Do you play often?” Jie asked.

  Ithilix shook her head. “This one rarely has time,” she said, “still… this one enjoyed playing with you.”

  They played one more game after that. It was a bit closer as Jie understood the rules now, but Ithilix still won. What’s worse, Ithilix used one of the cards Jie had just made to crush her.

  “It’s not fair if you have stronger cards than I do,” Jie grumbled.

  “It’s not this one’s fault you did not draw yourself,” Ithilix said with a smirk, “this one thinks you should keep Chen Yi’s cards. That way you have a deck to play with if you want to.”

  Jie nodded and stored the cards in her storage ring.

  After that, they went back to organizing the loot. Though Jie found herself tempted to play just one more game. Just so she could win at least once…

  Losing irritated her more than she liked to admit.

  They sifted through weapon refinement shards, all kinds of equipment, and some martial skill scrolls that were of little interest to either of them.

  Some of the items continued to make Jie feel as though they ought to belong to someone else. Like the ratty, worn, stuffed teddy bear in Chen Ai’s storage ring.

  Jie wondered if she could return it to whoever Chen Ai had stolen it from and used a scroll of wisdom on it.

  A worn stuffed teddy bear embroidered with the name ‘Chen Ai’.

  A sentimental gift made with care, the bear has been hugged tight for many years and may not survive much longer.

  Jie blinked with surprise and turned the bear over in her hands until she found the embroidery the scroll had mentioned. It looked at least as old and worn as the rest of the bear.

  It made Jie feel as though she were holding a tear in the fabric of reality as the idea of someone like Chen Ai having something so… normal… seemed unreal.

  There were other sentimental items too. Each of which seemed out of place to Jie. She supposed it shouldn’t have… they were still people after all.

  But, it still felt as though they ought to be carrying around spikes, fire, and skulls. Not… teddy bears, music boxes, cards, scented candles, and love notes.

  It just felt… wrong somehow.

  Chen Huo had far more resources and items than his siblings, particularly from the Crimson Valley. Among his possessions were several training manuals for sword fighting which Jie found herself reading while Ithilix continued identifying weapons.

  It made Jie feel slightly guilty, but they’d agreed to share the book and as Jie planned to leave soon… she wanted to be sure she’d at least read through it before her journey.

  That way she might be able to leave it to Ithilix and Pan Zhanshi. He seemed the most likely to benefit from it after all.

  Besides, Ithilix didn’t seem to mind.

  The manuals were interesting and left part of Jie wanting to use a sword to try out some of the techniques described. They were more about positioning and form than anything else and lacked any martial skills though. Still… she wondered if she might try using a sword more at some point…

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  Finally, they finished sifting through the Chen children’s rings and Jie took out Elder Kanev’s ring.

  As they emptied out the ring, Ithilix’s amber eyes went wide.

  The amount of money and resources it contained dwarfed even the Chen children’s rings. What’s more, his ring contained an incredible number of middle dantian resources as well as lower dantian ones.

  She couldn’t help wondering how much of it was from the Chen family. Perhaps for the task of killing her and her friends…

  “Princess, are you sure you wish to share with this one?” Ithilix asked as she stared at the mounds of resources.

  “Yes,” Jie said, “help me organize it. We’ll sell off what we don’t want. Same as before.”

  Ithilix nodded though her eyes remained wide as though she couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at or that a good percentage of it would be hers.

  Among the resources were new ones Jie had never heard of before. Flame’s spirit, waterfalls’s spirit, boulder’s spirit, iron’s spirit, and forest’s spirit pills. Each of which was best for cultivators that had an affinity for the respective element the pill was for.

  There were many other pills too… elemental moon pills, heavenly elements pills, and the far more powerful savior’s grace pills.

  Essences of blood, frost, ember, stone, and bark. All ranging between the second and fifth stars of the Elementalist rank.

  And all new body conditioning pills. Like the other middle dantian resources, Jie doubted anyone below the middle dantian could consume them safely.

  Dancer’s grace, Diamond salmon’s endurance, dream octopus’s intelligence, horned lion’s strength, iron turtle’s resilience, and incubus’s blessing pills.

  The latter of which was designed to increase the sex appeal of male cultivators according to her scroll of wisdom. As such, she thought it best to either sell them or give them to Pan Zhanshi. Though he wouldn’t be able to consume them safely until he broke through to the middle dantian.

  Part of her was curious about what an incubus blessing pill would do to her if she took one.

  Would I grow a beard? She wondered.

  Still, curious though she was, it didn’t seem worth the risk of finding out.

  He had many other items including weapons, piles of gold, silver, and a collection of thirty spirit coins.

  Most interesting to Jie however, were two training manuals. One was called ‘Basic Elemental Earth Techniques’ and the other ‘Basic Elemental Water Techniques’.

  She still didn’t know what her affinities were, but she found herself leafing through the manuals while Ithilix identified items with brisk efficiency.

  Eventually, they divided everything up between the three of them with a fourth share for Pan Zhanshi. Jie added a memory stone containing some of her thoughts and ideas about cultivation as she’d promised Pan Tian to help him. She wasn’t sure if he’d ever look at them. Maybe he hated her too much for that.

  But, as he didn’t seem to want to speak with her… she didn’t know what else to do. And, at least this way, she could fulfill her promise.

  They stored most of the items in another ring which would be sent off to the Onyx Pavilion along with everything else they wanted to sell. It would be a simple matter to divide up the money once the items were sold.

  Jie kept the two elemental training manuals as she was the only one of them that had broken through, and she wanted to have them in case she had earth or water affinity. Even if she didn’t, she thought it was likely that there might be insights to be gained from studying other elemental techniques anyway.

  Ithilix didn’t object to Jie keeping the books and generally seemed to be in a state of stunned gratitude and guilt.

  Ithilix blamed herself for not being fast enough and Jie wished she knew what to say to get through to her. To make Ithilix understand that none of what had happened was her fault.

  Keeping them all safe had been Jie’s responsibility. It’d been her that had failed, not Ithilix. But for whatever reason, she just couldn’t get through to her as Ithilix stubbornly clung to the absurd idea that any of what happened was her fault when she’d done all that she could.

  It was late by the time they at last finished going through everything.

  “Ithilix, could you teach me more about traps and… things I need to know for traveling the world?” Jie asked.

  “This one would be delighted to instruct you,” Ithilix said, “when do you wish to train?”

  “Could we start now?” Jie asked.

  Ithilix looked a bit taken aback at that. “This one does not object. But… this one doesn’t understand the rush. We are no longer in the Crimson Valley,” she said.

  Jie hesitated, unsure how much to tell the hive girl.

  “I’m going somewhere. Soon. I think it’d be best if I knew as much as possible as fast as I can,” Jie said.

  Ithilix frowned slightly. “This one is happy to assist you… but such skills take years to train even to the basic levels this one has reached. This one would recommend delaying your travels for quite some time if possible, Princess,” she said.

  “I can’t delay,” Jie said.

  Ithilix nodded. “Then this one will do the best this one is able. Where are you going, Princess?” she asked.

  “I… can’t say,” Jie said.

  “This one would be better able to assist you if this one knew which environments you’re likely to encounter,” Ithilix pressed.

  “I can’t take the risk of anyone knowing where I’m going. What if the Chen family got to you?” Jie asked.

  Ithilix nodded solemnly. “This one agrees with the precaution though it’s most inconvenient. This one is curious… perhaps this one could go with you?” she asked.

  Jie shook her head. “It’s too dangerous,” she said.

  Ithilix looked a bit disappointed. “This one understands,” she said, “we shall do the best we can and hope it is enough.”

  “Thank you,” Jie said.

  Ithilix withdrew paper and an inkbrush from her storage ring.

  “We shall start with basic traps,” Ithilix said.

  Ithilix made notes and drew diagrams with her brush as she talked to Jie about basic trap designs, how to identify them, and common ways to disable them.

  Ithilix taught Jie long into the night with the promise that she would train Jie as much as she was able in the coming days for which Jie was grateful.

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