Chapter 94 - Confrontation
After the princess left, Hao Xuan spent an hour or so chatting with everyone. While waiting for him to get patched up, they were cultivating themselves. Almost all of them were several stages stronger and some had even broken through to the next realm.
That night they had a feast. Hash and Mady went out themselves and hunted a three-legged Jade Antelope. It was about eight meters big and was famous around these parts for its speed. But because it was so fast, there were rarely any in the market. Their meat was considered a delicacy and cultivators of one realm higher had to go out and set traps themselves to capture or kill one.
The sun finally set and the party started. They made a massive bonfire and even invited some of the spider folk like 112 who had been keeping them company.
Hao Xuan didn't sit with them all night and left after a couple of hours. He got his rings back from Kuo and tried to change into his normal clothes, but they were all several sizes smaller.
"Damn it, gotta buy new...well, everything," he mumbled while standing butt naked in front of his bed.
Zhurong was so happy that he didn't leave Hao Xuan's side for even a second. Even now he was soundly sleeping on his shoulder.
Hao Xuan shook his head looking at the little furball who was drooling and purring in his sleep.
He wore the same kimono the princess had given him earlier that day since there was nothing else that would fit.
After that, he sat on the bed in a meditative pose and tried to recall everything that had happened.
The memories came flooding back instantly. He remembered his 'previous' life and everything that happened after. He remembered Meng and what he said.
For the six weeks that he was in the cocoon, his mind didn't stop for a minute.
He spent every single second in his mind palace cultivating. The mind palace wasn't a specific place, but the area inside the body where a person's soul and consciousness would reside. The mind palace could take on any form and was usually constructed subconsciously when the cultivator became strong enough to peer into his mind at will.
Hao Xuan's Mind palace was not an actual palace but a six-sided domed structure *[Pic for reference at the end]. There was water on three sides and a forest on the other. There were three doors on the forest's side, two of which were closed. The one on the right was open whereas the one on the left and middle were both tightly shut. The left one even had some chains on it.
In the middle of the structure was a platform with three books on top. These were the techniques and manuals he had learned in the past.
He sat on the chair in front of the platform and read each of them once again. It seemed like he was waiting for something.
*Sigh*
"Might as well get this over with then," he said after 30 minutes or so and walked up to the door in the middle. He gently put his hand on the handle and it opened on its own. There was only a bright light with nothing else visible. It looked like a portal to another dimension. He took a deep breath and walked through.
As soon as he entered, everything went white. He had to close his eyes because it was too bright and when he opened them, he was in an old room that looked like something out of an old English novel.
There was a fireplace in the middle of the room with two single sofas facing it. There was a window to the right from which snow could be seen falling but nothing else.
The fireplace had a nice little fire going on which gave the entire room an extremely comfortable feeling.
"Took you a while to visit," suddenly came a voice from the left sofa. Hao Xuan could see the person's legs but nothing else. His heartbeat increased as he went up to the other sofa and sat down.
"I didn't know what to say. This is all very.....strange," Hao Xuan looked at the figure on the sofa who had a book covering his face.
"Oh? So what made you change your mind?" the figure asked.
"I thought we could come up with a compromise. Otherwise, it would be chaos and that would affect all of us," Hao Xuan said after a few seconds.
"Hmm, I'm listening," the figure put down the book and Hao Xuan could finally see his face. It was a middle-aged British man with short black hair combed to the side. He had sunglasses on and a smoke pipe in his mouth and was wearing a four-piece suit that was completely black in color.
Hao Xuan frowned looking at his get-up. "I thought you were supposed to look like me since you're my personality. What's with the suit and....everything?"
The man smiled at him in return, "Isn't it nice? Just because I'm your personality doesn't mean I have to look like you. We have complete freedom to choose our own avatars," he said calmly and emptied the pipe in the ashtray to his left.
"Strange choice," Hao Xuan commented looking at him up and down.
"Well, that's what makes us different. Even though we are essentially the same person, but our tastes and interests are completely different."
"I guess...."
"So, what did you want to talk about?" he asked getting comfortable on the sofa.
Hao Xuan thought about it for a few seconds and asked, "What should I call you? Since you're so different, you should have a different name, no?"
"Hahahaha, good idea, no GREAT idea!" the man laughed uproaringly. "How about Mr. Hyde then? Since I'm your 'other' personality and it goes along pretty well with the theme of the room too," he said gesturing towards the surroundings.
"Fine, Hyde it is," Hao Xuan didn't mind and simply agreed.
"Now, ask away," he took a puff and said.
"The other door, did you lock it?"
"Yes and No."
Hao Xuan frowned, "What do you mean? Don't pull this mysterious shit with me," he said with an annoyed expression.
"Oh, I forgot you hate that. Alright. Yes in the sense that I chained the door closed, No in the sense that he allowed it to be chained. Otherwise, I couldn't have done it. But now he can't get out even if he wanted to and needs one of us to open it."
"Why would he do that? Weren't we all supposed to fight for supremacy or something?"
"We were, but he's too lazy. He just doesn't give enough of a shit to participate. So it's just you and me," he grinned at Hao Xuan.
"Whatever, that makes things easier then. How do you want to do this?" Hao Xuan didn't want to beat around the bush. This was one thing he wanted to take care of before doing anything else as it was a ticking time-bomb in his own head.
"Hmm, how about you give up and let me absorb you?" Mr. Hyde asked after thinking about it for a few seconds.
Hao Xuan's brow jumped in anger, "As if! How about you give up?! I'll even let you have one wish."
"Hmm, how about...."
They talked back and forth for several hours until the moon and the sun changed places and someone knocked on the door.
"Captain, are you up?" Mia's voice came from the other side, waking Hao Xuan up.
"We'll continue this later," he mumbled to himself and got up to open the door.
"What?" he was annoyed after talking to Mr. Hyde all night so when he opened the door, naturally he was still in a bad mood and unintentionally asked in a rude tone.
"U-Um, Lieutenant said we are ready to move out. He ordered some replacement clothes for you as well," she was taken aback by Hao Xuan's tone and stuttered. After handing him a large bag, she quickly turned around to leave but then stopped.
Hao Xuan was about to close the door when he saw her still standing there so he asked, "Anything else?"
She turned her head and peeked inside the room and then continued on her way, "N-No sir."
Unknown to Hao Xuan, while he was in the cocoon it was Mia that had taken care of Zhurong. She bathed him and went out to hunt fresh beasts for him every single day. She basically treated him like a king but when he came back, Zhurong didn't even spare her a single look.
Today she specifically asked Kuo if she could take the clothes up to Hao Xuan herself. Her plan was to ask Hao Xuan if she could play with Zhurong for a bit but after seeing his bad mood, all the courage she had gathered disappeared in an instant and she left with a dejected expression on her beautiful face.
Hao Xuan obviously didn't know any of this and didn't pay much attention to her strange behavior. He took a shower and changed into the new clothes which were a perfect fit.
"Gotta give it to Kuo, he doesn't do things half-assed," he mumbled looking into the mirror.
Even though he had been in the Beast world for close to a year now, he didn't know too much about the day-to-day workings. Everything he knew was what was told to him by the military.
"So much to do, so little time," he said inwardly after remembering everything that he had to do.
First, of course, was to find out how the Khan family was doing. Then break into the next realm and start training his weapons. There was also the training of his Immortal Devouring Demon Physique which he had just started on.
During the six week period, he spent a lot of time going through Meng's experiences and explanations and had gotten a good grasp on the concept of 'force'.. He was ready to use pure unadulterated 'force' to break through to the Origin realm whenever the opportunity presented itself.