Chapter 118: Black Bellies
SPLASH
Ning fell into the cold water down below and sunk inside for a while before he started floating upwards. He arrived at the surface and simply floated up there.
There were no waves, no fishes, no sound. He closed his eyes and felt the sun hit his face at an angle. Slowly, the cold water washed away all of his negative emotions until only Nothing remained.
The calmness of his heart was something he hadn't felt before. Finally, he started to really think about what had happened.
The system had temporarily left him for 1 year and 4 months... a total of 16 months.
"Is that 4 months per innocent person I killed?" he wondered. However, the answer wouldn't come for a long time. He floated there and thought of the other things that had taken place.
He tried to see if it worked, but as expected, he could no longer collect energy at all.
"System said that I can't use energy-related skills too right?" he thought and tried to check it by using a few. There was no more Air cutter coming out from in front of him. No more candle fire lighting up. No more body transfer or Parasite.
'Fortunately, most of the skills use mental energy,' he thought. He could still use the different skills he had bought and the information he had bought also all remained.
He put the spear inside his storage and felt himself getting a little lighter on the water. "Storage works too," he thought.
There was nothing else he could do, so he let the water slowly drift him away. He stayed on the water and let his mind blank out for nearly the whole day.
He felt like doing nothing and so he did nothing.
Finally, around late afternoon, he decided it was time to go back. His clothes were completely wet, however, the blood didn't wash away, so he simply took it off and threw it away.
He washed himself to get rid of the blood and finally swam back towards the cliff. The cliff was steep and there was no way to normally walk back. However, for Ning it was nothing.
He made his fingers into a claw and started clawing into the cliff to make footholds. 'I should learn how to fly next time,' he thought as he started climbing up.
Soon, he reached the top and used Yin To Heat technique to dry himself in the shades. He took out another set of robes and wore it before walking back to the city.
He didn't really register how many people he saw during his walk back. He showed his identification at the gate and walked in. It was late so he went directly to the sect.
However, before he reached his cottage, someone stopped him.
Ning looked up to see who it was, but he didn't recognize the person.
"Can I help you with something?" he asked in a calm manner.
"Your name is Ning, right?" the man asked.
"Yes. That is me," He said.
"Why weren't you at the Volunteer hall today?" the man asked.
Ning was trying to keep his anger at bay, but the man's questioning started to tick him off.
"It's a volunteering place. It's not our work, right? We can leave sometimes. I needed a day off, so I took it," Ning said.
"Okay, that doesn't matter right now. Come with me. We've been searching for you for a few hours already. The patients' situation might get worse if we delay any further," the man said and immediately started walking out.
Ning got a little curious now. "A patient?" he asked and started following.
"No, multiple ones. They kept coming one after another and the physicians didn't know what to do," the man said.
'Physicians couldn't solve a problem? Then why call me? They shouldn't know that I am talented than these physicians right?' he wondered.
"Why me?" he asked.
"Honestly, I have no idea. We were just told to search for you immediately, and so we did. We've already wasted so much time, let's hurry." The man was already sprinting and now he started running faster.
Ning started to finally understand the severity of the situation. But he still had one more question, so he asked, "Who told you to look for me?"
The name that came out of the man's mouth was probably the one he expected the least. "It was Elder Neal," the man said.
"Elder Neal? Why would he ask for me? Did he come across something he co—" Ning thought of a possibility and the fact that the man said there were multiple patients, he started to get scared.
His fear was already amplified by the system, and he thought that the fear he felt of those dead people was gone, but now, a new fear popped up.
He soon reached the guild and swiftly made his way to a giant room with a dozen or so people present, where half of them were the patients.
"Oh no," he was truly scared now.
Just as he had expected, the patients were all females with big bellies. However, they weren't pregnant, instead, they had blackish-blue bellies.
Just like that one woman for a couple of weeks back, these females had the same problem. But Ning remembered what would happen if he started to cure them.
The Unique Yin Qi they possessed was extremely harmful, and if he wasn't careful could destroy his body. He could tell that he was being unreasonable and that he had a cure for himself in the case that any of these things happened, but the amplified fear was not something he could easily suppress.
'Sh*t. Stupid system. Why did you have to go and amplify fear? Now even the tiniest hint of it messes with me.' He finally got a hold of his fear and looked ahead with determination.
He would help these people get cured even if that was the last thing he did, and given that he was immortal, he knew that would never be the last thing he did.