Chapter 519 - Changing Minds
"What do we do with these guys?"
The Lakure Race members were in the group. Some were unconscious, while others glared at them with hatred in their eyes. Unfortunately for them, they wouldn't pose any harm to Rean's group anymore.
Rean and Roan then healed themselves and helped do the same thing to Calina, Malaka, and Wano. As for Kentucky, he could more or less heal himself with his own Light Element.
"Kill us! One day, our race will enact revenge!"
Well, that's basically what the Lakure Race members all said. None of them seemed to be afraid of death at all. However, Rean looked at them, slightly puzzled.
"Kill you? Why? You guys are such nice training partners. I couldn't bear to do so."
Rean then arrived by the side of one of those cultivators of the Lakure Race and touched his shoulder.
'Life Style, Third Form, Purification!'
Roan's group didn't find anything strange. They knew very well what Rean was doing. He was healing the poison of the underground world from their enemies' bodies. Of course, he didn't heal their injuries since they would definitely attack him if he did that.
"What are you doing?! Are you trying to humiliate me?"
Rean laughed, not minding that at all.
"Hahaha! Of course not! You probably can't feel it now because your injuries are definitely aching in pain. However, you'll understand once you get them treated later. I told you, didn't I? We have no intention of killing you at all."
None of the Lakure Race members cared about that. For them, Rean was being an idiot to not kill them.
Rean only took a few minutes to completely eliminate the poison from the first guy. Well, they were several realms below Jana, so it was much easier to do that on them. After all, their cultivation didn't have the strength to inhibit Rean's elements. Not to mention that they were pretty weak at the moment.
Sometime later, Rean finished healing all their poisons.
"Alright, everyone! I finished healing the underground poison of your bodies. Now, let's-"
"Oh shit! Seems like we don't have much time anymore. Anyway, have a good day. There's no need to thank me either."
The Lakure Race members were taken aback. Heal their poison? Was that even possible? However, before they could say anything, Rean's group retreated in a flash.
A few minutes later, a cultivator came flying in their direction. Sure enough, it was one of the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators of the Lakure Race race. Earlier in the fight, one of the two Core and Soul Fusion Realm guys fled. Rean and Roan couldn't do much about it since they couldn't fly yet. However, their Core and Soul Fusion Realm enemy could. When he saw he didn't have a chance at winning, he immediately left to call reinforcements.
"What happened here?"
The Core and Soul Fusion Realm that fought Wano did his best to get up. He even coughed some blood when he did so.
*Cough, cough...*
"W-we were ambushed and defeated. We couldn't capture the white-haired boy as requested. So-sorry, Senior Pulo."
Pulo, the Nascent Soul Realm, narrowed his eyes.
"And how are you still alive?"
The guy shook his head.
"We don't know. That white-haired twin began to say that their group had no intention of killing anyone. He even said..."
Pulo narrowed his eyes.
"What did he say?"
The ones who couldn't escape looked at each other, not sure if what Rean said was true or not.
"He said that he healed all of our underground poison, so it shouldn't affect our bodies anymore. However, the pain of the injuries in our bodies are making it hard to determine if what he said was true or not."
Pulo was taken aback by that. Unlike these guys, Pulo was there when Rean began to heal Jana. That being said, he knew that Rean could really do that. Pulo spread his Spiritual Sense as far as he could, trying to find a trace of Rean's group. However, Rean was too far and was using his hiding skills. Pulo simply couldn't feel their presence at all. In the end, he gave up before he looked at the others.
"Let me help you all."
Pulo just so happened to be a Water Element cultivator. Naturally, he had a few Water Healing Skills of his own. As he healed the members of that defeated group, those members began to understand that there was no pain anymore.
Even with the injuries' pain gone, there was supposed to be the underground poison remaining. The longer you had lived in the sealed underground world, the more your body should have absorbed that. Let alone these members who were at least in the Core Formation Realm, who have lived several decades, if not over a hundred years, there already.
However, there was nothing else after their injuries were healed by Pulo. Nothing at all!
"This..."
"I haven't felt like this ever since I was a kid."
"Did he really heal our poison? Isn't this just some illusory skill?"
"Don't be ridiculous. We have a Core and Soul Fusion Realm cultivator between us. Do you think a Core Formation Realm's illusion would be strong enough to fool him?"
Pulo couldn't help but narrow his eyes. In fact, he already checked everyone's bodies with his Spiritual Sense. As a Nascent Soul Realm Middle Stage cultivator, he has obviously lived for much longer than any of these guys and girls. His understanding of the poison was far above theirs. Because of that, he was certain. The poison in their bodies was completely gone. In fact, he was feeling quite jealous.
'Just what are those twins trying to do? Not killing anyone? Healing them soon after? Do they think our race will hate them less just because of that?'
However, it was at this moment that he remembered what Rean mentioned during their encounter in the valley.
'What if the past... is not what we thought it was?'
However, he quickly shook his head and put those thoughts behind.
"All of you. I finished healing you already, so go back to your patrol. Try to not get ambushed this time, will you? If anything, try to get one of the Nascent Soul Realm's help. We are also verifying the valley's surroundings. As long as you hold them long enough for one of us to arrive, we can capture them as per Senior Xila and Jana's orders."
"Yes, Senior Pulo!"
Later on, the members of their group that managed to flee returned. When they heard that no one died and their companions had their poison removed, they felt like crying. Some even cursed the fact that they were stronger or luckier and managed to escape. If they had been defeated without being able to escape, wouldn't they be the ones with their poison removed? That's something that every Lakure Race member dreamed about.
That same day, Rean's group had ambushed three more groups. After several difficult battles and multiple injuries, they won in the end. Of course, not everything went according to their plan. There had been times that they were forced to kill to not be killed. Still, compared to before, the death toll was several times smaller.
Just like Rean had done in the first group, he healed his group with Roan before shifting his attention to the Lakure Race members cursing him on the ground. After healing all their poisons, their group left.
As for the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators who were moving around, they never arrived in time. It was as if Rean's group could always tell that they were coming, so Rean's group was long gone when they appeared.
This kind of event kept happening once every three or four weeks. The Nascent Soul Realm cultivators couldn't help but feel annoyed. After all, they never arrived in time. Just how the hell did Rean's group know that they weren't close to them?
In the end, time began to pass as more and more of these events happened. In the blink of an eye, two more years went by. Malaka reached the Middle Stage of the Core Formation Realm during this time. Wano also broke through the Late Stage of the Core and Soul Fusion Realm.
Naturally, no more breakthroughs happened after that. After all, the higher one's cultivation was, the longer it took. Calina, who was the first to have a breakthrough in this natural formation, was the closest one to breakthrough again. Still, her breakthrough happened three years ago. It was far from enough to reach the Peak of the Core Formation Realm. According to her calculations, she would need at least two more years to gather enough energy, taking a total of five.
Rean and Roan were no different. They had the red crystals and the perks from the Soul Gem System. However, their foundation's Spiritual Energy Pool had always been much bigger than those at their level. Because of that, they were already happy that they could at least keep the same speed as Calina and the others while they should have been slower instead.
Of course, it was now more difficult to get the red crystals. After all, there were a lot more cultivators on the way. Well, they weren't really discouraged because of that.
However, the actual changes were on the Lakure Race's side. A certain rumor began to spread between the cultivators at the Core and Soul Fusion Realm and below.
"Did you hear? If you get defeated by the Fat Bird Group, your underground poison will be removed."
"But is that true? What if they kill you instead?"
"I heard that there had been a few deaths. However, the white-haired guy always apologized after that and healed everyone's poison even if that happened."
"I heard that as well. I have a friend who was ambushed by them. He told me that one of his group members was killed because the Fat Bird Group had no other choice. Otherwise, one of their members would have died instead."
"So if we don't pose any threat to them, no one will be killed, and the underground poison will be healed?"
"In that case, we might as well not fight at all and simply ask them to heal us?"
"Are you kidding? They're humans! So what if they can heal your poison and have no intention of killing us? Can you forgive them for what they have done to our race?"
"Regarding that, I heard other rumors as well. It's said that what we think we know about the past might not really be what had happened. That... That it was not entirely the human race's fault that we got sealed in the end."
"What?! Bullshit! If you say that again, I'll break your head!"
"Calm down, calm down! I'm just saying what I heard, okay? I'm not saying that it's true or not. What's the point of releasing your anger at me?"
"You two can stop it already. I know a lot more about the Fat Bird Group because my group was one of their targets recently."
"What?! Brother! Did your poison get healed?"
"No."
"See? It's all a lie!"
The man then shook his head as he replied.
"It's not a lie. The reason they didn't heal us is that... that they knew we were holding back to get defeated faster."
"What?! Your piece of shit! You lost to them on purpose!"
"Shut up! I've lived for way longer than you with the poison in my body, okay? Anyway, we did lose to them on purpose. However, the Fat Bird Group hated that."
"What do you mean?"
"Believe it or not, they said this: We are here to train, and the payment for the training you help us with is the curing of your poison. If you lose on purpose, what kind of training would that be? No one will be healed."
"After that, they left without healing even one of us."
"What?! Training? They're using us for training? How dare they?!"
"But... The payment for the training is to have your poison removed. I think... I think I would prefer to have it healed."
These kinds of rumors about Rean's group refraining from killing, healing the race's poison, and the humans not being totally at fault kept spreading like wildfire. Slowly but surely, Rean's group was changing the Lakure Race members' opinions about the human cultivators from the bottom of the hierarchy.
However, there were also those who were not happy with that. Xila was obviously one of them.
"What the hell are you doing?! How long will you take to capture that group?!"
He could see the changes happening to the Lakure Race in the valley, but there were just way too many of them. Besides, he couldn't simply start killing anyone who talked about it.
"Sorry, Senior Xila. However, we simply can't understand how the twins always know where the Nascent Soul Realm cultivators are located. We tried several things, but they're always a step ahead."
Xila's expression became even darker.
'I need to do something about it.'