Outworld Liberators-Chapter 214: Jenkii Pleads to Ancestor Radeon and Wins

Back then, Radeon had held to one simple principle. He would never use it to control people.

The reason was simple too. He had no wish to raise a force of small fries.

Heaven could be deciphered a thousand times and still keep a hidden tooth.

Like any sentience, it had its own streak of unpredictability.

The moment that flaw was found, a trusted ally could turn into a mortal foe, and that would do nothing but delay the true goal he had set before himself.

What Radeon wanted from the exchange of meridians was simpler, and colder.

Every meridian sample carried its own fragment of dao.

He could not make proper use of those fragments yet, but later was another matter.

In return, the recipient received a small share of dao from him as well.

Since Radeon was eldritch by nature, that touch let him sense where those disciples were, if only in a dim and instinctive way.

That was all he wanted from it. Not control. Only a mark, and the means to follow it.

Fay looked at the tentacles and remembered how he had made her from a tree.

For all she had learned since then, her wants were still few and painfully simple.

She wanted Radeon as her man. She wanted the family she still built in her dreams, a quiet life by the woods, with a child at her side and him beside her.

Yet now, seeing how he managed disciples left and right, she felt a hollow place open in her chest.

That dream still lay far from her. She glanced at Tabulae. Somehow, this girl had become her daughter too.

’Will he still have a space for me in his heart?’ she thought.

While that question still stung inside her, Radeon was already behind her.

"What is on your mind?" he whispered between her ears.

Fay jolted and turned to him. She said nothing. She knew too well she would not get the answer she truly wanted.

"I thought you wanted to become immortal," he asked through soundless qi.

Fay nodded. She wanted that too. She wanted to see the world.

"We may still see the world," Radeon said. "But family’s a long road from here. You only see them in dreams now, don’t you? The end’s coming."

"Maybe now. Maybe tomorrow. You could sleep and wake to nothing. Doesn’t matter. We still try."

Fay nodded again, but in her heart she cursed the cruelty of their fate.

Why, out of all ages, had they been born into this one?

As those thoughts passed between fear and longing, the Meridian Tree withdrew its roots.

It folded back into itself and returned to the shape of an upside down tree.

Its glow steadied, settling into stable wave patterns.

Ropefist had been given the complete method, enough to carry him all the way to the Mortal Apotheosis Stage.

Then he bowed to Radeon.

"My gratitude rises as high as heaven, Boss Radeon," Ropefist said, dropping into a prone kowtow and pressing himself to the floor in full prostration.

"Alright, everyone. That is how we can help you," Calyx said, stepping in to take over.

"These trees are rare relics from eras long lost. Only you are invited into this room, because you are the true victors of the tournament. The rest of the participants with you will never set foot here."

Then Calyx pointed at Ropefist.

"His meridians would never have awakened in this lifetime. The only reason he could rouse them at all was because we used the tree to jump start the process."

"That is why it is called the Cultivation Hope Tree."

At once, the disciples broke into cheers. Such a benefit had truly fallen into their hands.

Then Almsgiver raised a hand.

"Then what kind of cultivation methods will the others who entered with us receive?"

Calyx gave the curious fellow a small smile.

"They will still be given a hundred choices. Do not worry. Those manuals are excellent. The ones given here are simply more specific."

"Think of the manuals in the schools as hammers of different make. Useful, dependable, broad in use."

"The ones here are more like a brush, a glove, or a machete. Each one fits its wielder more closely. The manuals upstairs are more general, but not weaker."

"If you want to see them, I can call them over. You may even choose one of those instead, since the power is nearly the same in the end. What matters most is the one who cultivates."

At a gesture from Radeon, Calyx began calling the names.

"Fire Cultivation Generalized Manual. Water Cultivation Generalized Manual..."

The list of elements went on, one after another. The disciples examined them closely and found that the methods were, for the most part, much the same.

They could imbue weapons with qi, cast out sword light, and raise defensive barriers.

In the end, the disciples agreed that the students above were not being cheated.

Even so, none of them were truly at ease. A single misstep in cultivation, and the students soon to enter the school would catch up before long.

Once that thought took hold, their minds drifted to the competition looming in the days ahead.

Social and Gaming District.

A broad, heavily muscled woman stood before the transparent pillar, watching the diamond balls rattle downward through the glass.

She bit at her nails until the skin around them stung.

Five high grade spirit stones, gone.

That was the full sum she had burned through in the three hours since she began betting.

’Master is going to kill me,’ she thought. ’He already told me to spend the money wisely.’

Her eyes strained at the spinning holes below, but they moved too fast to follow.

When only three diamond balls remained, she bowed her head and began to pray with all the desperation in her chest.

"Ancestor Radeon, please, give this little girl some luck. I swear, wherever you are, when I reach your level, I will be your whore," she pleaded for all the hall to hear.

The last two balls dropped straight into zero, as if Radeon himself had taken offense.

Jenkii went pale.

"I am done. Finished. Please, Ancestor of Luck Radeon. I will be yours for life."

She dropped into a full prostration before the machine.

Then, as if some miracle had stirred at last, the whole pillar flared with green light.

"What. What is happening?" Jenkii blurted.

She circled the machine, staring hard at it, but it only spun and glowed.

An attendant who had been watching in silence pointed down toward her feet.

There, by her boots, lay a green piece of jade.

Then she doubled over. Then nearly folded in half.

She had been warned again and again to show the attendants proper respect, since each of them was a Nascent Soul senior, but she could not believe what she was seeing.

In her panic, she seized the attendant by the arm.

He did not move so much as an inch. Flushed and frantic, she thrust the green jade ticket up toward his face.

"Se-Senior, I am lacking in manners, but please. Please read this for me."

The attendant gave the jade a brief glance.

"Claim any Epic Weapon or Item."

Jenkii’s whole body shook. The joy hit her so hard she nearly collapsed, and in her excitement, she even wet herself a little.

"I. I. I won? Me, of all people? I won? Fucking yes!"

Jenkii roared and thumped a fist against her own chest.

The masks muffled sound and blurred identity, swallowing the worst of her outburst and hiding her face besides.

Even so, plenty of eyes turned her way. Anyone who had passed through the entrance knew what that green token meant.

It was one of the grand prizes. A weapon or item strong enough to serve its owner all the way to the peak of Spirit Transfiguration.

Jenkii all but sprinted for the Gaming Exchange.

A line had already formed there, but before joining it, she checked the board one last time, half afraid she had read the thing wrong in her excitement.

She had not. There it was among the portraits and rewards, the same green jade token she held in hand, with the counter for grand prizes set squarely in the middle.

She lifted her chin and strode toward it.

People glanced left and right as she passed the lesser exchange counters.

The attendant at the middle counter examined her token at once, then gave a small nod.

"Would you like something from our display, or would you prefer a custom weapon?"

Jenkii froze.

"You do custom weapons? How do I choose?"

By then she was nearly salivating beneath the mask.

Her miserly master, for all that he was sect master, had never given her a proper weapon.

He always said her body was weapon enough.

Once, laughing, he had even joked that perhaps her true strength lay in bearing children, given how large a woman she was.

Jenkii had never had a relationship worth naming, but that hardly mattered now.

What mattered was the weapon.

Then the attendant seemed to activate some artifact linked to the mask on her face.

"Miss Jenkii," he said. "If you are willing, we would also like to make a portrait of you once you are done here. An advertisement of sorts. We would pay you for it."

Jenkii stared at him.

"Pay me?" she asked, and her heart began to pound all over again.

Jenkii had grown up on stories where the ugly duckling bloomed at last into someone the world could not ignore.

Those girls were mocked, then envied. Passed over, then desired.

She had read those tales until the pages went soft in her hands, though never once had she believed the day would come when she herself might be admired.

"Why?" Jenkii asked, suddenly nervous. "Why would you pay me?"

The attendant answered in the same calm tone as before.

"Miss Jenkii, you may not know this, but you are extremely beautiful."

Beautiful. The word struck her harder than any blow.

No one had ever said it to her so plainly, and never without a curl of ridicule somewhere beneath it.

Back at the Infernal Warfiend Court, when people were asked what flower suited her best, they always gave the same answer.

Cauliflower.

They laughed every time. They did not know she had cried over that in private.

She was still a girl at the end of the day. Just one with more flesh on her bones than most.

"You really think I am beautiful?" Jenkii asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Miss Jenkii, yes," the attendant said.

There was no mockery in him. No hesitation either. That alone left her reeling.

After some more back and forth, she was guided behind the booth itself.

What followed felt less like a purchase and more like entering some lost art of the old world.

The attendants measured everything.

Her chest, her arms, her legs, her neck. Not a single part of her body was left unchecked.

They tested her bone density. They even drew blood.

Jenkii could only marvel at it.

The Necropolis truly held lost methods if even its smithing demanded such rigor.

When that was done, they presented her with a hundred design choices.

Her first instinct was simple. She liked battle axes. That was the weapon she had brought with her into the secret realm.

True, they were not as graceful as fans or as refined as bell chimes, but they got the work done, and she had never trusted a weapon that looked too delicate to split a skull.

Then her eyes caught on one design, and she jolted.

It was an axe with a folding blade. In one form it stood as a proper weapon.

In another, it closed into the shape of an umbrella.

Jenkii stared.

"Sir," she said, almost breathless. "Can. Can I get this axe using the green jade ticket I won?"

The grandmaster smith gave a nod. Stocks of the weapon already existed.

All they needed to do was make adjustments to suit her size and strength.

"What color and stones would you like?" the smith asked.

Jenkii blinked.

"I can choose the color too? There is such a thing?"

"Yes. Though since this is a weapon meant to carry you to the peak of Spirit Transfiguration, the available varieties are limited."

"Pink, red, purple, and a few others."

"Pink," Jenkii said at once. Then she faltered.

"I want it pink. Wait. Um. Can you draw on it too?"

"Yes. We can even place a portrait on it. But keep in mind that paint may wear off in battle."

A wraith attendant stepped forward and handed her a contract.

"We can also provide a free repainting subscription for the next hundred years. During that time, you may have the weapon repainted with any design you wish."

Jenkii gaped at the thing in her hands.

"A hundred years..."

She read through the contract with care. There was nothing twisted hidden in the wording.

No demand that she pose naked. No strange price tucked into fine print.

They only asked that she model the weapon in three kinds of clothing.

Her formal sect attire. Her daily sect attire. Her battle attire.

At that last part, Jenkii suddenly felt shy.

Her battle attire was little more than leather shorts and a leather bralette.

Practical, her master called it. Humiliating, she had often thought. Still, after a long moment, she signed.

What Jenkii did not know was that this too had been part of Radeon’s design.

He had his reasons for building the Radeon Terraces as he had.

Women were more drawn to shopping. Women bought luxury.