"Take it, Mom. There's no point in refusing it unless you want to die," Ken pushed the pill back into Mei's palm.
"Take it, Dear." Haoran also encouraged her. Even if his son had to pay something, they could work together to help him out. He could not refuse the opportunity to heal his wife when it was laid right in front of his eyes. His eager eyes made it seem like he was going to shove it down his wife's throat if she tried to refuse again.
"I will. Thank you, Ken." Mei smiled and took the pill. Ken placed his hand on her stomach to accompany the Qi from the pill just in case it needed his intervention, and besides, he wanted to see how the pill would work its miracle. Meanwhile, Haoran could only watch nervously as he knew nothing about Alchemy.
The Qi from the pill streamed into Mei's body, slowly spreading inside it. It worked like magic; unlike pills of the sixth grade and lower which usually just spread without a special purpose, the Core Restoration pill seemed to have awareness. It collected chaotic energy from all around Mei's body and gathered it in her lower stomach.
Ken followed the Qi's path with his senses, watching in wonder as a whirl was created and everything entered the rapid swirl as it slowly condensed itself into a core.
Just when the core started condensing, Mei began to feel a weird warm sensation pervade her stomach from her son's hand. She looked at him with a questioning gaze but did not get any response, seeing only his concentrated gaze.
Ken picked that moment to insert some Godly Qi into his mother's soon-to-be core. The special energy worked like a marvelous glue that brought everything together, even better than it was before.
'I wonder what the meaning of this Godly Qi is. Why is it so… perfect?' Ken pondered.
'No, it's not perfect. There's one thing that it's not good for. I can't strike with it for some reason.'
No matter how much he tried, he could not execute any of his sword or bloodlust techniques while fueling them with the Godly Qi. At first, he thought it was just a higher form of Qi, like Immortal Qi, but if it could not be used for techniques, Ken was sure it must have a meaning behind it and something it's oriented to do.
Ken noticed that Mei's core started sucking Qi from the air around them and instantly threw a scroll with a triple Qi Gathering formation. He did not want to make his mother eat a Qi absorption pill in her current condition, believing it'd be impossible for her to absorb it given the unnatural state of her body.
A few Qi stones appeared out of his storage ring, but they were special. They were all high Qi stones, and they contained purer and denser Qi. The high Qi stones fueled the scroll, providing Mei with a lot of pure Qi to absorb until her core would be satisfied.
Perhaps because of the effect of the Godly Qi, she absorbed more and more Qi, forcing Ken to cough out more of his high Qi stones reserves to make sure she had enough for the process. After an hour, she finally finished the procedure, her body drenched in sweat to the point that her clothes stuck to her body and strands of hair were glued to her face.
Ken, always lacking awareness, used instinctively the water technique he used to wash himself to clean Mei. Neither of his parents reacted, letting him take care of her.
"You look beautiful now, Mom." Ken smiled at her as he saw her body much fuller than before, her skin regained most of its moisture and luster, and her hair was thick and nourished again. The effects of Qi on the body were tremendous, and cultivators depended on it for everything.
"Thank you, Kenny." She smiled and tried stretching her body in bed, enjoying the sensation of a fourth-stage body again.
"You will have to wait until I become a seventh-rank alchemist to reconstruct your nascent soul."
"You've done more than enough, I'm satisfied even if I die in the fourth stage," Mei reassured him while Haoran strode to her side and held her hand for support.
"Thank you, Ken. We are lucky to have a son as amazing as you," Haoran added and smiled happily as he watched his wife finally get up on her feet.
"You can thank yourselves for being good parents," Ken said somewhat too honestly, making his parents laugh at the weird remark.
"I also brought some pills and training manuals for you. You guys can use them to train for now," Ken brought out a few books from his storage ring and a large box filled with pills of different types. Haoran had to train his nascent soul and break through to the sixth stage while Mei had to cultivate her core back to the peak of the fourth stage.
"We will. I won't lose to my son when he is so young; I was considered a genius and diligent youth myself in my twenties," Haoran bragged a little.
"Oh, were you at the fourth stage when you were 10 years old?" Ken asked with a hint of a grin on his lips.
"Ah, no," his father replied awkwardly. Nobody was at the fourth stage when they were 10, it was a weird question that meant nothing about his talent, yet he could not say it in front of a living proof.
"Then you already lost."
"Haha, cheeky, don't bully your father anymore," Mei laughed and hugged her son. She had waited for his hug for 4 years, and she missed her son greatly.
"It's his fault for trying to show off," Ken smiled and hugged her back.
The three sat down and had a meal together as they talked, updating each other on what they had gone through since the time they were separated. Ken told them about how Annie poisoned Krone and Norman, hinting it was under his influence without saying it explicitly. By doing so, he wanted to let them choose whether to picture him as an angelic child or a dangerous cultivator, whichever made them happier.
"It's good that you were ruthless enough to kill them. I'm surprised since we did not ever show violence around you, let alone killing, but it was a good call, nonetheless. While I don't want you to resort to killing over any dispute, you must not hesitate to utilize any means you have when your own life is under threat."
Haoran did not choose to close his eyes to the truth and even praised his son for the deed. Mei was slightly conflicted, but she also agreed with her husband. Those two people deserved to die, she just was not sure how to feel about the fact her 6-year-old son did it. If he was older she'd be good with it, after all, she also killed her fair share of people, but still hated that Ken had to be cruel to survive.
"Furthermore, I killed Grandfather before coming here. He was a manipulative bastard, and it was within his power to stop Norman and Krone. They dared do what they did only because they had his support."
"Father…" Haoran said somewhat in sadness, but he quickly gathered himself, "It's okay, Ken. You dealt with everything on your own under constant stress. Since it was your decision, we can't criticize it when we could not help our child."
"Dad, Mom, why did you have to run away from the sect in the first place? It doesn't seem like the elite clans mix with one another."
Ken asked a question that had been bugging his mind for a while now. When Mei first told him they had to elope because Haoran had someone he needed to marry, he didn't find anything weird about it.
But after spending a few years in the sect he knew that not only elite families had no problems getting married to capable commoners, but that was also their goal. They all competed, and the sect was too small for elite families like the Han clan and Sue clan to merge.
His parents exchanged looks before coming to a silent agreement to tell him about their past in more detail.
"I've been a core disciple under Grand Elder Giles, a seventh-rank alchemist. He dislikes elite clans with passion like most of the elders in the Alchemy division, so there was no surprise when he got angry the moment he found out about my relationship with Dad."
Ken remembered the name as the elder who first declined his request for a tutor and wondered if it had anything to do with it.
"Once he heard about us, he immediately revoked my status as a core disciple, making me lose my value immediately. No other elder would take me under his wing or it'd be a direct insult to a grand elder, something they wouldn't do for a young commoner even if they did not fear him."
"So the Sue clan did not want their son to marry you anymore?"
"Yes. I was only a fourth-rank alchemist at the time and it'd be very hard for me to become a sixth-rank alchemist without a direct teacher, let alone a seventh-rank one, especially when the Alchemy division dislikes me personally and would do anything to make me fail."
"And then?" Ken asked, waiting patiently.
"And then Dominic Sue ordered Haoran to leave me behind and go after a girl from the Aspis clan instead who already liked him. It was Dominic's goal at the time to form connections with the Alchemy division and let the clan enter the Alchemy business and find new sources of revenue. Otherwise, the clan members could marry even useless partners just for domestic control like Dominic himself."
Ken nodded as he got the gist of the situation and moved on to the next topic he wanted to ask his parents about.
"What about Aaron?"
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