Camilla’s gaze flickered briefly to his neck. The scent still tempted her. The hunger remained.
But it no longer clawed at her instincts with the same overwhelming intensity as before.
She swallowed and then looked away. "You are truly the strangest human I have ever met."
Stan smiled. "I’ve been told."
Then his expression shifted slightly. "Since we’re being honest, I know I’m strange from your perspective. But I have an offer to make."
Camilla raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I promise you’ll benefit from it more than you benefited from the Spirit Pool."
For a moment, she simply stared at him. Then she laughed, and then a slow, amused smile spread across her face as she said softly,
"You human... quite the audacity you have."
"What?"
"You keep talking as though you gifted me something."
Stan sighed. "Here we go."
"You didn’t give me the Spirit Pool."
"Sure."
"I took what was mine."
"Sure."
"I’m the strongest person here."
"Yes you are."
Camilla lifted her chin slightly, rage slowly boiling within her that she even had to explain her logic. "As I said, I’m the strongest. As the strongest, everything in this glacier rightfully belonged to me."
"Sure."
Despite his sarcasm, she folded her arms with a look of complete satisfaction.
Stan shrugged. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
The vampire’s eye twitched upon hearing him.
Stan said casually to clarify things, "But let’s be realistic for a second."
Her expression flattened as she let Stan continue...
"You do have a spatial artifact."
Camilla nodded. "I do."
"But your ring can’t store condensed Qi."
The nod stopped.
"You can’t put the Spirit Pool inside it."
~Silence~
"You can’t transport over twenty thousand liters of liquid Qi."
~More silence~
"And unless your grand plan was to sit inside this glacier for months cultivating, you would’ve eventually needed another solution."
Camilla’s jaw tightened.
Stan pressed on. "Even if you decided to cultivate here, this cave is a terrible location."
Her eyes narrowed as he continued...
"The Spirit Pool’s existence isn’t exactly a secret."
’That much is pretty obvious.’ She thought as she inwardly nodded and listened to Stan continued...
"The werewolves would’ve found it eventually. Killing them only delayed the next problem."
"The beastkins, whom I know will come out of the realm, will eventually find it too."
A muscle twitched in her cheek as she listened and let him continue...
"And humanity will probably discover it sooner or later."
The silence that followed grew increasingly uncomfortable for her. Camilla gritted her teeth. Because she knew he was right...
But what Stan didn’t know was that the leader of the werewolf group had escaped. He thought she killed them all, but while she had slaughtered the others, the leader managed to escape her...
And the lure of a Spirit Pool was simply too great. That werewolf would return. Of that, she was certain. Nor would he be the only one. The beastkin clans would eventually arrive. Other vampires might appear. There’s a chance that True Humans would come to this place as well, and the New Age humans too...
What she was trying to consider wasn’t the strength of any of those groups. Heck, she knew the New Age humans were weak. But had she not met Stan and decided to cultivate here to consume all of the Spirit Pool in order to break through, she would’ve been disturbed by one of those groups eventually. The chance wasn’t low; in fact, the chance was one hundred percent.
Trying to absorb a Spirit Pool under those circumstances would be a nightmare. And worse; if she entered a deep cultivation state to consume the Qi quickly, being interrupted repeatedly could damage her cultivation foundation.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized how lucky she was to have met Stan, whose spatial artifact, unlike hers, could store actual cosmic energy Qi, which made no sense...
Normal spatial artifacts required Qi to function, which was why it made no sense for the pocket space of the artifact to be able to store Qi. Since the pocket space, instead of being able to give out and store back the stored Qi, would use the Qi as a battery, her own artifact, unlike Stan’s inventory, could only absorb Qi for its own use. It could not exactly give it back out...
This is the reason she said Stan was the strangest person she’d ever met. Even though he was only a weak human, he had things even the strongest cultivators of that realm didn’t possess...
Stan noticed her silence and smiled faintly. "See? You know I’m right. Without my help, it won’t be easy for you, since it’s very possible for the beastkins and True Humans to join hands to take you on after disrupting your cultivation..."
Camilla took a deep breath and said something Stan didn’t expect to hear; "Thank you."
Stan’s eyes widened in surprise.
Seeing his shocked gaze, she bit her lip and looked away. Feeling a bit embarrassed, she added in what she thought was a cold voice,
"Do not become accustomed to hearing that."
Stan, as daring as he was now that the system’s reassurance had been confirmed, added salt to the injury as he said with a smile,
"I’ll treasure the memory."
Camilla looked genuinely tempted to hit him. For a brief moment, the vampire seriously considered it.
Meanwhile, Stan decided to continue before she changed her mind. "About the offer."
Her attention returned to him. "You mentioned wanting to know what happened to the world we were teleported to."
"I did."
"You wanted information."
"Correct."
"I can provide that." Camilla’s expression became thoughtful as she added, "And in exchange?"
Stan had already considered this carefully. The system told him she could not betray him. It told him she could not harm him.
But that wasn’t enough. He didn’t want a restrained ally. He wanted a genuine one. Someone who chose to stand beside him. Someone whose loyalty existed because she trusted him, not because she was forced to.
And so he decided to be direct.
"I’ve made up my mind to visit the realm eventually."
That got her attention.
Her crimson eyes sharpened. "The pocket realm?"
"Yes."
"The realm where the vanished races currently reside."
"Yes."
Camilla studied him. "You are serious."
"I am serious about this..."
"The Realm is not a place a New Age human should enter casually."
Stan smiled. "I’ve noticed that most interesting places aren’t."
She ignored the joke. "Why?"
"Because sooner or later the races are coming back."