Chapter 2691 - Order Fragment
Since the disease, or curse, or whatever it was wouldn't spread to him, Tianming decided to take a leap of faith into the vortex.
"Tiny Big Brother, no!" Beibei shrieked in shock, but it was too late.
"This is a land of curses...." Tianming was completely surrounded by the vortex as Beibei cried out in shock. He gently hushed her from within the black miasma, much to her relief.
Then she witnessed the black miasma around her mother's body swerve toward Tianming, who opened his arms wide to absorb it. The hexagonal holes in his Order Relic-shaped astrons opened up, sucking in all of the miasma. While his body was small, the Order Relic within him didn't seem to have a limit. When he sensed that the Order Relic was doing the work, he didn't bother to keep sucking it in. Even after much of the miasma entered him, there didn't seem to be a trace of corruption on him at all.
"What in the...." Beibei didn't know what she was even looking at. She blankly watched, and eventually noticed that her mother seemed to be regaining consciousness. "The luster seems to have returned to mom's skin.... Is she aging in reverse?"
The more she watched, the more shocked she grew. She went from disbelief to certainty that the miasma around her mother's body was shrinking in mass along with the vortex. Not to mention, her skin was getting firmer, as if her youth was being restored! It was a miracle that rocked the entire foundation of Beibei's world.
"Ah! Ah! Aaaah!" The fox girl yelled and jumped around with excitement. "Mom, don't move! Don't move!"
Auntie Hua was completely awake. She had never felt so comfortable for a long time. Her orderan cultivation was still there and she could feel all of her astrons being restored from their former corrupted state. It was something that was completely out of a dream. If the process continued, she would even be able to regain her youth and strength!
"Heavens, oh heavens!" Beibei's cheers got weirder and weirder. After fifteen minutes, the vortex on Auntie Hua's forehead completely disappeared, revealing the fair, smooth skin beneath. Coupled with her firm figure, she truly did look incredibly attractive.
From Tianming's vantage point on her forehead, he saw two grand mountains blocking his view. "Damn, that's stimulating!"
Not only had she recovered, Auntie Hua even seemed taller. She was now a giant of around four hundred meters in height! Everywhere the eye could see, she appeared snow white. If Tianming didn't bother keeping up any polite pretenses, he would have loved to stand there longer to witness the divine sight. When he thought about it, Beibei was also quite cute as well, so it stood to reason that her mother would also look just as nice, given that she wasn't that much older. If they didn't look good, they wouldn't have been the target of jealousy for so many in the village, either.
"Ahem...." He calmed himself down and inspected himself. He didn't feel anything weird after absorbing all that black miasma; the Order Relic seemed to be a completely different universe of its own.
Either way, the miasma on Auntie Hua was completely gone.
She stood up and looked like the most beautiful silverfox maiden any of them could aspire to be. Her silver hair was so long that it reached her legs and the foxy expression on her face, not to mention her movements, made her even more beguiling, a far cry from her former aged appearance. Even she seemed completely flabbergasted by the changes. She saw her reflection in the lake and was rendered speechless. She pinched her smooth skin nonstop and hugged her daughter tight, the two of them looking more like sisters. The entire time, they couldn't say a single word.
"Ah!" Beibei cried.
"Ah!" Auntie Hua joined her.
"Stop ahing," Tianming laughed. "Auntie Hua, congratulations. You're free from the fatigue. You'll remain just as beautiful from now on." His words finally cemented the fact that everything that had happened was all too real.
The silverfoxes embraced one another, tears of joy flowing for a long time. Then Auntie Hua deeply looked at Tianming before whispering something to Beibei. Then, their bodies shrank to Tianming's height! It was clear that they weren't used to being so small, but that allowed them to give him an actual hug.
"Oof!" He didn't manage to react before the two specters hugged the breath out of him. "Auntie Hua, Beibei, this is too much! Too much!"
"Now, I won't let this fly!" Xian Xian began scribbling on its bark within Tianming’s lifebound space, immortalizing the moment. The warm hug lasted for quite a while until they were too embarrassed to keep going.
"You saved me and my daughter. You're our benefactor, and I truly don't know how to thank you. Please tell us if you need something. We'll do absolutely anything for you," Auntie Hua said, tears of joy still flowing.
"It wasn't much, honest," Tianming said in a hurry.
"Tiny Big Brother, that was miraculous! Mom said that nobody’s ever managed to recover from xeno fatigue. You must be an ancient god that heaven sent to save us! It's a miracle!" Beibei's eyes were filled with worship.
"Is nobody else able to do this?" Tianming asked.
"That's right. Nobody in recorded history!" Auntie Hua took a deep breath and continued, "That's why you'll be a savior to our people if you're able to do that again and again. As far as I know, some people of high status in Creektown have gotten xeno fatigue. Their families did everything they could to extend their lives. If they know you exist, they'll do anything to beg you to help them."
"Is that so?" Tianming's eyes glowed. If there were enough people with xeno fatigue in the Xenoabyss, he would have a lot of leverage over them. All kinds of thoughts flashed through his head. "If there are so many elite cultivators in this world, they must have all kinds of cultivation resources that can help me break through even faster. Wouldn't it be all too easy for me to get it if I'm their savior?" Not only would he be able to resume his journey to find Sixth and the others, he would also get stronger in the meantime!
"Then, Benefactor, do you want to check out Creektown? We're still out in the wilderness and there might be desolation beasts prowling around. It won't be good if we encounter them." Auntie Hua looked at the surroundings with worry.
"Is there no other place we can go apart from Creektown?" Tianming asked.
"That's right."
"Don't the people there hate outlanders too?"
"Not necessarily. There were powerful outworlder visitors in the past who stayed in Creektown. The locals don't seem to mind. While they aren’t too friendly to outworlders in general, usually they're only that way to those weaker than them and they cower in the face of strength." Auntie Hua's luscious lips seemed tempting indeed. The Xenoabyss had its fair share of beautiful things.
"Then, Creektown it is!" It would be much easier for him to get information there, as well, like the location of the Ancient Oldgod Domain.
......
A month later, Tianming looked in the distance from atop a mountain peak and saw a gigantic city. "This... this is Creektown?"
He was stupefied by the sheer size of the place! It looked as large as the entire Flameyellow Continent. The gigantic river next to the town was actually called a creek by Beibei and the locals.
As an outworlder, Tianming didn't dare to appear in public, so he hid himself in Auntie Hua's clothes. Being surrounded by her fragrance, he tried his best to keep his heart rate steady and not blush. However, that didn't stop Xian Xian from working on even more masterpieces within his lifebound space.
Creektown's population was quite large, and there were many specters who weren't silverfoxes as well. Powerful cultivators were all over the place, with quite a few cosmic cartographers. It was comparable to cities in sixth-level nova source worlds where top elites gathered. Tianming peeked through Auntie Hua’s clothing at the outside world and heard quite a lot of chatter.
"Did you hear? The Qi Family’s offering up an order fragment for auction!"
"An order fragment? Looks like they are really desperate. They must really need the funds to get things back in order."
"If they're willing to sell it, they must have other tricks up their sleeves. The order fragment is something everyone wants, so it'll fetch a good price. Don't outworlders always come to us for order fragments as well?"
"Outworlders, huh. Enough about them. They just keep causing trouble. They're all thieves that come and go like ghosts! They squirm into any tiny hole they see!"
Ying Huo immediately mocked Tianming. "Hey, that's you!"
"I'm not a thief."
"Oh, I'm talking about the next hole you're going to squirm into."
"Curse you! I'm hiding in Auntie Hua's clothes with pure intentions." He calmed himself and asked, "Auntie Hua, what's an order fragment?"
"It's a divine treasure of the Xenoabyss. Normally, they fall from the Sea of Order. They can be used to boost the growth of a cultivator's order and help with breakthroughs, even for astral gods. They're in super high demand—even lower quality ones fetch high prices," she patiently explained in a gentle tone.
"Wow.... If the Sea of Order is a collection of the universe's abstract laws, then a fragment from it must be like a drug you can snort to level up, huh?"
Auntie Hua and Beibei couldn't help but chuckle. Beibei said, "Tiny Big Brother, you have a funny way of putting things."
"As expected of someone who squirms into every hole he sees," Ying Huo said.