To be completely honest, I knew something like this would happen…
"Winner! Meng Hao!" spoke the referee, "And this concludes the competition. With the victor, as the competitors had agreed to be the Core Cultivator, and most eccentric and powerful of all current cultivators, Shen Bao. With Meng Hao and Zhengfei placing second and third respectfully. Please, come and claim your prizes."
The crowd clapped and cheered for the contestants as I was still trying to get my head over what just happened.
Meng Hao's fight was a close one, and he was on the verge of losing almost three times, yet he came back constantly with stronger and newer vigor until he defeated his opponent, if this is not main character syndrome then I don't know what is. It's pretty damn ridiculous. But, I'm glad I didn't even have to fight him.
Because, if we're speaking realistically, there is no way Meng Hao can manage to beat Y, nor any of my inscriptions, but since the Main Character aura around him is so thick, I wouldn't be surprised, that either Y will reveal some hidden faulty system within him and no longer work, or by some ungodly luck something will reveal the world's truths to Meng Hao and give him knowledge over inscription or some cheesy shit of this sort. Plot armor is too strong with that guy that trying to go against him is the same as signing your death warrant, and I'm better off showing a clear difference in strength between us, enough that he himself won't come challenging me and spare me the trouble I'll have to go through to repair anything that gets broken the moment it touches his Main Character aura.
With all that out of the way, I stood up and walked up to the booth, where the prizes were handed over to everyone, and I'm glad I did at that very moment.
Because as soon as I made it to the booth I realized that one of the people sitting in the VIP area, who had a low Qi signature and was hooded, had actually been infected with the Bone And Body Grinding Poison.
Unlike what happened to me, I'm able to somehow hide the fact that I'm inflicted with the Bone and Body Grinding Poison due to some reason, which happened right after I went into the Palace of the Deeps.
But this man, the aura, though heavily muffled, was still there, the aura of rot, death, and decay, a death that was creeping upon a man, grinding away at his very bones, slowly, and painfully every single moment of every single day.
The cultivators within the booths congratulated and cheered the contestants, mainly Meng Hao and Zhengfei, but in a silent agreement between them, they all nodded my way, acknowledged my presence, and some even congratulated me with a few words for the victory and hoped for a brighter future for me, but none of them dared and spent more than a few moments with me, as they all found excuses to leave soon enough.
The gifts were handed over, and I was the last to receive mine from the Soul Transformation Cultivator.
He was still unable to swallow the fact that I owned something that could end his life, which I had at my beck and call, and can summon at my tiniest whims. This was still a fact that he couldn't get through his head, and I could already read what's going on in his mind this instant.
Whatever treasure I just showed him, he wanted it, or at least, wanted me to no longer have it. And since he can't take it away from me, he'll probably manage to find someone who can.
The logic behind this man's thoughts was rigid and easy to read, but at the same time annoying, because if he tries to find someone to come for me or Y, this will only add more trouble to my already full plate.
'I'll need to handle this soon.' I thought as I shook the man's hand without even speaking.
He handed me a ring, where I did a quick sweep of divine sense.
'Nice, the law fruit is there.' I took it and placed it in my inventory and threw the ring back to Zhengfei.
Who caught it with surprise in his eyes.
He inspected the ring and said, "Shen Bao, the token for the weapon craft along with the pills are still here, you don't want them?" he asked.
"Oh, no, I have better pills and better weapons, you can use them to upgrade your strength." I shrugged and pulled my flying treasure, not willing to waste more time here. Because I now know who is the one responsible for the disappearances that happened.
As I was flying away, I secretly sent a divine message to Meng Hao, 'Meet me at the Moonlight Inn.'
Then disappeared out of the crowd and back into the inn I first lodged in.
The whole city looked a bit dreary since the tribulation wasn't too nice to it. But thankfully the inn was far away from the point of impact and didn't receive much damage so I was able to get in without much trouble.
Once I sat inside my room, I pulled out the Law Fruit and inspected it. It looked like a large peach, with golden skin.
And on this peach's skin were so many erratic writings that trying to understand them would make one lose their mind. The mere fact that looking at them got me dizzy meant that this thing was both strange and powerful beyond measure.
The idea behind learning Law by eating this fruit was slightly a strange concept to me. This was the same as writing all the notes from a chemistry class then after you eat the book, you'll have all the knowledge, I wish if life was easy, that'll make exams a piece of cake.
So, I was still feeling iffy about eating this, lest I lose out on a lot of knowledge. So, I'll do what I do best, and write all of these symbols and see if I can understand anything from them first. At least to have something to go back to, if I end up eating the fruit and nothing happens.
As I began writing on a piece of paper, I realized that the moment I wrote a single line, it would once again disappear like if it had never been written, which made me really mad.
Whatever it was that was stopping me from learning these laws was really annoying me.
I even tried the same method as earlier, of only writing the symbols and never finishing them, but they felt wrong, incomplete, and didn't feel like they had anything related to law, they just felt like random scribbles on paper that meant nothing, and even trying to link the words again, felt somewhat lacking. As if, if I didn't finish the symbol from the beginning, it will never amount to much later after I modify it.
It took me a long while to understand why this specific occurrence happened. This was like trying to build a skyscraper, but you don't start from the basement and you try to start from the middle. Nothing will ever work out. And unless the symbols were written in perfect succession, it won't amount to much. But writing them perfectly will cause them to disappear.
'Do I really have to eat this and give it a shot?' I questioned myself.
But then I was reminded of something, something that I saw in today's fight. Meng Hao's bell was a treasure that defied heavenly tribulation.
Then I pulled the ink bottle and feather Quill I got from the man wearing black robes.
The ink inside the bottle was as heavy as lead and trying to move the feather and mix the ink was almost impossible.
But after trying again and again, I finally understood that the ink would only become lighter if I used my own Qi to power up the Quill and Inkbottle.
Once I poured in my own Poison Qi, the feather turned as light as…well, a feather. And I was able to draw ink.
I wrote the first few symbols, and continued on, copying every symbol from the peach on the paper.
Slow and steady, until I finished the first line.
Then, a moment later, the words shone bright, and instead of dissipating, they turned to gold and remained on the paper.
"Holy shit, it worked!" I muttered.
Still, without notice or warning, lightning struck straight through the building I was in, and directly against the paper I just wrote, eradicating it from existence along with the table it was on.
I stood watching, in utter terror to what just happened.
This was divine tribulation lighting, just one bolt though, but it was fast enough that I didn't even have a chance to dodge.
If the paper was slightly closer to me, the lightning bolt would have ripped right through my head.
I looked up and saw a clear blue sky through the hole in the ceiling. And as I was gazing at the skies I mumbled…
"That wasn't nice…"