After spending some time together, Lex felt like he had developed a bit of friendship with the group of three. But with the addition of Sohee, Kenta's new wife, the group became extremely awkward and silent.
Any time Kenta would try to talk to Sohee, or even talk at all, she would say something that would shut him up. She would say things like, 'if I had to be replaced by someone, I at least hoped it was someone competent,' or 'I'm glad to see that even after getting married you can be such good friends with the princess you were caught flirting with'. Honestly, Lex had no idea how he could remedy the situation.
Although he tried a few times to smooth things over, it seemed like Sohee was just in a very bad mood right now - not that Lex could blame her.
Ultimately, Lex could not take the awkward silence anymore. He told the group that their stay was sponsored by him, to make up for the fact that… he had kidnapped them all. He also let Kenta know that he would help him talk to someone from the Inn, and if he could impress them then maybe he had a chance of opening a restaurant there.
Then he informed them that he had some work to do, and he disappeared as quickly as possible!
"Mary, inform Velma about the 'unique' situation with Kenta, Asami and his wife. I'm sure she will be extremely intrigued. At the same time, have her judge if Kenta is a good cook. If he really can cook well, there's no harm in having him as a cook. It's always better to find people who have a passion for such things."
He had two days before he needed to return to Tilaiya. He did not expect Hix to find Barley any time soon, but checking in once in a while was not a bad idea. In the meantime, he would continue his cultivation sessions.
The more of the blade of grass he ate, the more he built an affinity for it. That meant he could eat more of the grass while having to endure less pain afterwards. Moreover, although for now the change was very subtle, he could tell he was healing much faster than before.
The best part was, Lex no longer needed to blindly guess why this was happening. With Pel around, he could ask him questions and receive adequate answers. Although the ring had a majority of its memories still sealed, what it recalled was enough for Lex for now.
"How come I'm healing quicker after gaining an affinity for the healing law? Am I developing some kind of new bloodline? Or am I mutating into another species?" Lex asked Pel during his next cultivation session.
"Neither, although becoming a new species is somewhat closer to the answer than your other guesses. In cultivation, up until the Nascent realm, with each new realm your strength grows a definite amount. That means, irrespective of your own personal skills or attributes, the new realm itself gives you new and greater strength. However, that changes once you step into the immortal realms.
"From the immortal realms onwards, a majority of a cultivator's powers comes from their tenets or laws, and tenets basically rely on laws anyway so they don't really count. That's an oversimplification of the situation, but you can take it as such. Anyway, in that realm cultivators actively use those laws to bring about various effects. Your body, by gaining an affinity for those laws, is not biologically becoming better able to heal. Instead, it uses those laws passively, to a very minute extent, and somewhat allows you to touch upon those laws before you actually reach a sufficient realm to do so.
"In simple terms, you have a cheat. For example, you look at things in the form of a video game. Imagine you are at level one, but gain a weapon that's level 10. You can't really use it, because you're too weak, but sometimes just holding it is enough to gain benefits from its passive effects."
Upon hearing all that, Lex became stunned.
"Don't tell me that in your previous life you were a gamer?" he exclaimed. Why was a former dragon turned spirit realm giving him examples from video games?
"In my previous life I lived for millions of years. In my previous life I had indulged in pretty much every kind of entertainment and time pass that was ever invented."
Lex was stunned, but upon consideration, figured that it only made sense. Moreover, with that much time on his hands, he bet Pel grinded all games until he got 100% achievements. Suddenly, Lex gained massive respect for the dragon.
He was still going to use its living corpse as a cultivation mat, but that did not change the fact that he now felt massive respect for it.
Like that, he spent the next two days either cultivating atop the dragon to raise his cultivation, or raising his affinity with the laws of regrowth by eating the blade.
Once enough time had passed, and he was about to return to Tilaiya, Lex paused to see how his recovery was going. It was difficult to tell, but he swore he could see a faint layer of skin forming below the scab that had covered his entire body.
But, once that was done, Lex could no longer ignore the one painful thing he had been trying to avoid. He finally checked in on Kenta, his wife and the rest, and was immediately stumped. Why was the situation so different?
Velma, Sohee and Asami were riding a rollercoaster and laughing as they giggled to one another, while Kenta was buying groceries at the Guild room. Aoi was in the greenhouse talking to Zen, the small patch of grass that had gained sentience and become an immortal all at once, despite having an extremely frail body.
Aoi and Kenta were acting within his expectations, but since when had Sohee, Velma and Asami become such good friends?