Luna woke up two hours later, just as Cain had expected her to. She rarely napped for more than two hours at a time, and in a human body, she shouldn't have needed much more in the middle of the day. The only reason her Lamia form needed so much sleep was that it was growing so fast, and Human bodies didn't get a mass growth spurt every time they had a snack.
"Oh, I am so keeping this one. Penny makes an incredible pillow. She's much softer than you are, and not as warm." Luna informed Cain happily as she woke up and realized that she was holding a stranger.
"You should try the others before you decide, they are just as soft, and different sizes, so one might fit you better," Penny told her very seriously.
"Then we can try that out later. Unless they're already planning to hold each other." Luna agreed, making the girls all give her a strange look.
"Luna never sleeps alone, it's not in her nature. She is a very cuddly sort of person." Cain told them with a laugh.
"There are worse fates I suppose. It's normal for travelers to share beds, to keep costs down and because of the limited space inside the Inns, so having a little Luna hold you isn't that out of the ordinary." The blonde human told the group.
"We should go down and meet the Immortal Sect Master though. He has been downstairs waiting for a rather long time, and I don't want to seem rude." Cain sighed, standing up and putting the desk away.
"I don't think he expected the book that fast. I've never seen someone transcribe a tome that quickly before, usually they spend days carefully doing the transliteration of the runes and diagrams so that there are no mistakes." Penny informed him.
"Oh, yeah, the diagrams are a pain, but I am fluent in these runes, so that part is easy. I have fast hands, and a pen that doesn't smudge, so I can move through the pages in a hurry." Cain said, showing her the neatly written pages near the front of the book.
It didn't actually matter what pen he used, the Inscription Desk prevented the runes from smudging and increased the speed of transcription, writing entire lines in a second, which the others had passed off as Cain simply writing quickly.
Cain took a good look through the pills in his new inventory space and decided to give some of them a try. The lowest quality ones were blue quality magical pills, while there were also a lot of Epic Grade and Legendary pills in the collection.
The girls seemed to have been deprived of the resources their technique took, so Cain offered them all a single magical pill, having no real idea what they did. The System identified them as [Elite Quality Advancement Pills], which should be right for the two who were at level 100.
"Here, take these as you study, and they should help you along. How is the reading coming?" Cain asked, handing over the pills to three happy fighters.
"This is an incredible skill, and it can be used in so many ways," Penny told him happily.
Of course, it could. [Divine Strike] only added holy damage to your attacks. It could be used in conjunction with almost any type of attack skill.
"I'm glad you like it. If that one doesn't work out for you, I will try to come up with something better. From what I could see it was the best one that he had stored in his ring."
Cain double-checked the items that he was given, and in the secondary bag inside the ring, where the referee had stored the man's clothes, jewels, and other miscellaneous items, Cain found a rather grisly but interesting item.
[Spirit Core] Removed from the body of a Spirit Rank Cultivator who died with his core intact. Allows use of Qi at a Spirit Rank efficiency.
[Cannot be Used, Higher Quality Core Equipped]
Cain was almost certain that this was not intended to be an equipable item, but a trophy or a source of energy, since it seemed to be loaded full of this world's strange power. That did make him wonder if Luna, who didn't have a core equipped to use this world's energy could make use of it.
He couldn't very well ask right now when there were prying eyes nearby who would freak out at that sort of spectacle, but once they had some privacy, Cain would ask her to try equipping it and see what happened.
That might be the great shortcut to leveling up in this world. Bring in someone with a System, murder a cultivator, and equip his core. Instant Awakened Cultivator. At least in theory.
Cain gave everyone a while to finish the bit of the book that they were working on, and then picked the book up and closed it.
"Study later, we should head downstairs now." He informed them, pocketing the book back into the storage ring he kept in his inventory.
"We've got all night, and we can teach Miss Luna to Meditate instead of sleeping so that she can advance more quickly. It must be your interference that leveled her up so quickly, but it is best if she starts Cultivating under her own power." Penny insisted.
It wasn't his interference, but she was close, and it would do Luna a lot of good to do things for herself in this world. It would teach her responsibility and work ethic.
"You ladies head down and grab us a table, I will get Luna ready and follow a few minutes behind you," Cain instructed them, and the three left without complaint, too used to being forced to obey their former Master to even try resisting now that they were free to do it.
"Here is an item, that should let you use this world's energy. Why don't you equip this and we will see what happens. If there are any issues, you can unequip it and we will find a better way." Cain told Luna once they were alone.
Cain polished off the small round object before handing it to Luna, who still scrunched her nose at the smell. She reached into her inventory, pulled out a bit of Dwarven Whiskey, and then poured it over the orb before smiling happily, satisfied that it was clean.
"I didn't want to smell like some stinky guy," Luna informed Cain, then equipped the item.
"Oh, it's an inside thing, but it seems to be working, my Mana is recovering properly now," Luna told Cain happily.
"What message did it give you?" Cain asked, wondering if she had to refine hers like he did the Dragon Core.
"It said. [Integration 1 Percent Complete] 100 Million experience to finish." Luna replied, then frowned at something on her interface.
"That's too much. It's like fifty levels worth of experience." She complained, then sighed and straightened her clothes.
Cain looked at his own integration, to see how it was coming along. [Integration 5 Percent Complete.]
That was surprisingly high, given how much he had to gather, so he checked his logs a bit further back.
[Challenge Quest Accepted: Defend Luna's Honor] Reward 5B experience.
That explained the progression, it was almost all a quest reward because someone tried to steal Luna from him.
That meant that their way forward wasn't to kill everything that they see, the way they usually gained levels, but to complete the world quests and stack up the big experience numbers.
That was both much easier and much more annoying.
But since the Core could be equipped by Luna, even if she had to integrate it into her body the same way that Cain did with the Dragon Core, they were off to a good start, and Luna could start defending herself to some degree. She was a Spirit Awakened Puppet Master after all, with a fair number of combat skills in her repertoire.
Luna followed Cain downstairs, opting to walk for a change instead of being carried. These new legs were a wonderful thing, and the body was much bigger than her old one, though still child-sized by human standards. It was enough to let her keep up at most movement speeds with the adults though, and she was large enough that she didn't have to worry about being stepped on, which was a huge relief.
"Sect Master, it is good to see that I caught you before you left for the day. I have the book you requested, a tome of [Emergency Resurrection]." Cain informed the old man.
"So quickly? I am impressed by your skills, do you perhaps already read the runic language?" The old man asked.
"It was considered essential by the Librarians of our homeworld, so I learned to read and write it quite well. It is the diagrams and such that slow the process down the most since they have to be so meticulously sketched to avoid teaching the user an incorrect technique." Cain explained.
The old man opened the book, flipping through pages every few seconds, with a smile that was growing larger and larger.
"Oh, I do believe that this technique is worthy of the Sect Library's reserved section, truly a wonderful technique. I even have some affinity for it, I can sense it just from a read-through, which makes it even more valuable to us. What would you like in exchange?" The Sect Master asked.
"I only ask for goodwill. We will be traveling a lot to seek out experiences that will help us advance, so avoiding hostility along the way will make our lives much easier." Cain explained.
"It's a high price for just a bit of goodwill, but I can agree to that, and I have the first bit of advice for you. If you're heading into the mountains, everyone will tell you to avoid Dragon's Peak.
It is full of dangers and a very easy to upset Dragon, but it also has an opportunity. The Dragon is halfway into the Divine Rank from the Demigod Rank and likes to issue quests to visitors that it deems worthy. It has the gift of foresight, so the quests are always good for your advancement.
If you think you can impress the old beast, feel free to go visit, just don't attack anything on the way up the slopes."
"Intriguing. I think I will take you up on that one, a quest from a Draconic Demigod sounds like just the thing to make our time in this world more interesting." Cain agreed, while the three women turned pale at his confident assertion.
Both Cain and the old man made it seem so sane and normal, but who had anything that could impress a Dragon, much less one that was already a Demigod?
