Karmic Debt

Seeing that both sides had made their attitudes and positions clear, the purpose of this meeting had been perfectly achieved. After bidding farewell, the deeply socially anxious Xiao turned to leave.

But before he could use Wind Wheel Dual Blades, the young man beside him spoke in a pleasant voice:

"Alright, the necessary social pleasantries are finally over. Now for some personal matters. Would the Great Sage be willing to stay a while longer?"

Xiao: "..." So the real conversation was only just beginning?

"Of course. 'Great Sage' is merely an empty title. Just call me Xiao."

"Then, Xiao, just call me Lin Feng. There's no need for formal titles. Hearing you call me 'Your Excellency' over and over earlier made me a little uncomfortable."

When speaking as a strange god to Liyue's representative, Lin Feng naturally could not be too casual. But now that the serious business was over, he could no longer suppress his laid-back nature.

Xiao: "..." Were all gods like this?

The difference between private interactions and formal meetings was so great that it reminded him of Rex Lapis when he took time off.

"Then, Lin Feng, why did you ask me to stay?"

Xiao was puzzled by Lin Feng's enthusiasm. Covered in Karmic Debt, he had mostly kept to himself even among the Adepti. Few people ever tried to stop him from leaving.

"Xiao, relax a little. You don't have to be so serious."

"I've never liked speaking in riddles, so I'll get straight to the point this time—simply put, I want to help you remove the Karmic Debt entangling your body."

Lin Feng did not intend to beat around the bush and spoke bluntly.

"..."

"..."

Lin Feng's words had been perfectly straightforward and left no room for misunderstanding, yet the scene fell silent for a short while.

"I appreciate your kindness, but this is the bitter fruit of my own actions. There is no reason to make others bear it."

"After a thousand years of entanglement, the remnants of the Adepti have already seeped into my bones. Even the profound arts of the Adepti are powerless to turn things around."

After a long silence, Xiao finally spoke.

"Hey, come on. You're such a big Adeptus already, so don't look like life's lost all meaning. How will you know if you don't try?"

"I have a friend who looked just as unconvinced at first. In the end, she cried her eyes out and kept burrowing into my arms. Just don't do that later."

Lin Feng moved closer to Xiao and casually draped an arm over his shoulder. But after trying it, he discovered a sad fact—because this body grew so slowly, he seemed to be only a little taller than Xiao.

Lin Feng: Damn it, what if I start crying first?

"...I do not wish to trouble you. Wasting time on me has no meaning."

"But if you insist, I am willing to try once more."

Xiao did not mind Lin Feng's hand on his shoulder. Remembering Rex Lapis's instructions, he decided to cooperate with this unfamiliar god—after all, no matter what happened, things could not get any worse.

"Good. Sit right here and don't move. If nothing goes wrong, it should be over soon."

Seeing Xiao agree, Lin Feng let out a sigh of relief.

He had truly been afraid that Xiao would refuse him. If that happened, his grand plan of farming the old man's gold coins might be delayed indefinitely.

Zhongli must have said quite a few good things about him.

Otherwise, in his previous life—

It would have been like an unlicensed quack crawling out of a sewer and telling a nation's top leader, "You're sick, but I can cure you!"

Getting thrown out would have been the best possible outcome.

Lin Feng's confidence came from the Stat Modifier on his body. Only through this accident did he realize that the thing seemed to be bound to his consciousness, while his body was merely a tool that supplied energy.

Brimming with confidence, Lin Feng opened Xiao's panel:

Individual Information: Yaksha—Xiao

Level: 96 - 10 (A battle-hardened Yaksha who had survived for thousands of years. With the aid of his race and martial arts, he dared to fight even Adepti. His strength was currently declining due to Karmic Debt, and he was no longer as powerful as he had once been.)

Attribute: Anemo

Traits: Yaksha Body max, Immortal Arts 9, Bane of All Evil 9, Wind Wheel Dual Blades 9, Aerial Freedom Technique 9, Martial Arts: Spear 9, Archon's Curse, Resentment Entanglement, Killing Intent Entanglement

Mood: Depressed

Favorability: 50 (You cherish Living Beings, respect Rex Lapis, and did not distance yourself because of the resentment entwined around him. Your various actions have left Xiao with a very favorable impression of you.)

Lin Feng was not surprised by Xiao's Combat Power. After all, he was an old relic who had lived for two thousand years. Combined with the Yaksha race's instinct for battle, Xiao had fought his way through the Archon War and likely would not have feared even some weaker Adepti.

—but that had been in the past. The current Xiao was practically stacked full of negative buffs. It was Lin Feng's first time seeing a level modifier in the negatives.

After estimating the energy reserves within his original body, Lin Feng felt reassured.

Although the projection was filled with an enormous amount of ley line energy, the power required by the Stat Modifier was stubbornly locked onto his own life force. It had no interest whatsoever in anything else, whether Elemental Power or divine power.

Even more remarkably, this lock ignored the limits of distance. The transmission of energy seemingly did not rely on any real-world channel at all; it simply clung stubbornly to his small body.

The reason Lin Feng dared to make such bold claims in a situation that even Rex Lapis could not handle was because of a function in the Stat Modifier that he had nearly forgotten—"Data Modification."

Because it consumed an enormous amount of energy and seemed capable only of deleting traits, Lin Feng, who had rarely suffered any negative statuses, had always considered it utterly useless.

But after seeing Xiao, Lin Feng realized that there really were people in this world who were not human and were also covered in negative statuses.

Because Xiao was simply too powerful, Lin Feng was unsure how many negative traits he could remove with the energy in his body. But when he selected any one of them, the Stat Modifier's feedback told him that it could be done. Thus, he began considering which one he should delete if he could choose only one out of three.

He opened the trait information:

Archon's Curse: The lingering remnants of dead Adepti have become a curse, seeping into the bones and eroding both body and mind.

Resentment Entanglement: The souls of the defeated become eternal hatred. Venomous whispers surround the ears without rest, day and night.

Killing Intent Entanglement: The Yaksha nature that had already been subdued is reignited by the remnants of Adepti, once again turning into killing intent toward all living beings. The more brutal the battle, the easier it becomes to lose one's clarity of mind.

Lin Feng: "..."

How miserable. With such a pile of negative buffs eroding his mind, it was only because Liyue's immortal arts emphasized cultivating the heart and clarifying one's nature, suppressing the delusions within, that he had endured. Anyone else might have long since fallen into evil.

After a simple analysis, the Archon's Curse was undoubtedly the core issue. It ravaged both mind and body from every direction, while the latter two primarily targeted his mental state. With Xiao's strength of will and Rex Lapis's medicine, merely suppressing them would not be too difficult.

The first one, then. Having made his decision, Lin Feng sat cross-legged on the ground and placed both hands on Xiao's shoulders.

"Data Modification—delete trait 'Archon's Curse.'"

Lin Feng silently recited the command. As a familiar wave of weakness washed over him, the ley line projection around Xiao dissipated, leaving behind a large pile of objects resembling purple books.