Another World Trip: Journey with My Cat and an Otaku Loli Goddess Chapter 366 - I Fixed The Icy Heart Mantra

[Tch! I should have known you would have called on me!]

Vrrrm!

****

The Destiny Scale materialised above us both shocking Qin Ling even more.

[What do you want from me?]

‘Still salty because of the whole SCHIACCT fiasco I see. Can you freeze her emotional state right now?’

[Do I look like a one-stop-repair-shop for all your miscellaneous problems and issues!?]

‘So what you’re saying is that you can’t help me?’

[I didn’t say that!]

Vrrm!

A gentle energy possessing the affinity of time bloomed from Steely before Qin Ling was wreathed in the same.

She had the same surprised look on her face despite me and Steely having a conversation for the better part of a minute.

[I’m unable to freeze her emotional state, but I do have some understanding regarding the Time Dao. I have temporarily frozen her in time. But you need to move fast if you want to do something.]

‘Thanks Steely.’

If there’s one thing you have to love in cultivation novels it’s that mysterious sentient object, herb, and/or spirit that somehow knows how to do some shit that you just know they never did for themselves.

[Why did you want to freeze her anyway?] Steely asked.

‘Well. I realised that once her emotional state was disrupted, the string of characters that probably represents this Icy Heart Mantra thing was interrupted as well. I want to keep it in that state for now so I can exploit its current unstabilised condition and have her cultivation technique shield her from its effects.’

[Ah! So the reason you told her to call you daddy in that way was to shock her.]

‘Correct. It was nine parts to shock her in breaking out of that icy mien to capture the moment when her emotions were at their strongest.’

[What’s the remaining one part?]

‘Maybe I wanted to wear that daddy hat for a while.’

[…]

‘Steely?’

[I don’t wish to discuss this further.]

‘Would you feel better if I told you that Pebbles came up with the idea?’

[That’s worse!]

‘Is it? Huh. If you say so. So what should I have her call me then?’

[You need to focus primarily on the string of characters that is wrapping around her Dao Heart.]

Steely didn’t even miss a beat in changing the subject. Far be it from me to spit on its efforts.

As a result, I focused on what it was referencing. ‘So that is her Dao Heart. Never thought I’d see it.’

[That’s because you’re not supposed to.] advised Steely. [These wenches from Ice Phoenix have gone too far with this insidious plot of theirs. The Dao Heart is supposed to remain intangible, however, the Ice Heart Mantra forcibly brings it to the forefront in a sense. It then affects it in such a way that it would have her obsess over the Ice Dao. Anything that does not represent the Icy Heart Mantra’s interpretation of the Ice Dao is of no worth to her. This is why she no longer wanted it from you. Because she believed that you created it, she no longer believes that you can create something that would allow her to pursue the Ice Dao and the Ice Dao alone. It also explains why she no longer cares about you when she is like this. You are not the Ice Dao, so you are of no worth to her.]

‘I guess that’s why her hair has more of its strands in that ice-like state.’

[Though it’s not accurate, you can roughly use it to track the percentage of the Cold Heart True Ice Physique’s second awakening coming.]

‘Got it.’

[Get to work Keyholder. I can’t keep this state for long.]

‘Say less.’

On that note, my spiritual force erupted once more and I went inside Qin Ling’s inner world.

Curiously, she had never stopped cultivating even when she asked me to remove my finger before. I had no idea what was happening there but I had no damns to give.

Of course, her cultivation state was frozen as well. I saw Qin Ling’s Dao Heart and whilst it was ethereal just like before, it was more crystal-like in appearance, like clear ice.

‘Must be the effects of the Icy Heart Mantra.’

Her normal heart was still red, thankfully, but almost purplish as if some energy was forcefully transforming it as well.

I refamiliarised myself with her cultivation technique and made up my mind to correct the mistake I made with missing those opened meridians.

One of the reasons I was able to create cultivation techniques so effectively was because I had googled what each and every main and minor meridian represented. There were hundreds of those suckers in the human body.

Anyway, that knowledge allowed me to construct a cultivation technique unique to a person. I wasn’t doing it to create a technique for the purpose of a technique. I was creating it in response to the person’s needs.

I carefully directed my own energy through Qin Ling’s meridians. This was a painfully slow process since if I went too fast I could end up damaging the channels of her meridians. I was sensing which of the hundreds of meridians were the best to use and in what order in conjunction with the opened main meridians.

The Dao Heart caught my eye while I was doing this. I split my consciousness and had that portion work on deriving the best combination for Qin Ling. There were quite literally hundreds of thousands of combinations to work through, possibly more.

Man, am I lucky that cultivators have that random superpower of math at their disposal.

Anyway, I saw something else in the Dao Heart when I neared it. It was a collective clump of coloured balls of light.

The string of characters actually entered the Dao Heart and was in the midst of cutting out this clump while replacing it with something of its own design.

‘Those must be Qin Ling’s emotions I guess?’

[Yes it is.]

‘Steely!?’

[Calm yourself Keyholder.]

‘Meh…’

My consciousness needed way more than that to be surprised. I just wanted to know why its Divine Intent was talking to me right now.

[As I was saying,] Steely continued. [The Dao Heart contains far more than mere emotions but it is mainly what the Icy Heart Mantra is designed to target which is why you are seeing them. You need to make sure that the Icy Heart Mantra doesn’t get its hands on those clumps of light since if it does, it will freeze them thus destroying them in the process.]

‘Got it.’

In truth, I already made up my mind to do this. Even without Steely’s advice, I kinda figured that things were roughly the same as it said.

I moved to grab the clumps of light but I just passed through it. ‘The heck!?’

[The Dao Heart and the things within are illusory and are not things easily interfered with.]

‘Wait, this is my consciousness. So aren’t I already illus–’

[So to act on this–]

‘Oh, being ignored okay.’

[TO ACT ON IT!] Steely’s Divine Intent boomed like I was the rude one in this conversation. [You need to use something else.]

As soon as he said this, the clump of lights faded and brightened.

‘What did you do!?’

[I-It wasn’t me! I promise!]

I then looked down and saw that my energy was still drawing out the best map for Qin Ling’s cultivation technique through her meridians.

‘Hold up.’

I immediately re-emerged with the consciousness responsible for the cultivation technique. Is this what Naruto feels like when he dispels the Shadow Clone Jutsu?

‘I see…’

[What is it?]

‘Remember when you said that cultivation techniques are able to affect someone’s mentality?’

Steely’s voice trembled. [You mean…]

‘Yeah. Of the many derivative paths taken just now in creating the optimal cultivation technique, I realised some meridians were being frozen and shut down. I think those are the ones responsible for the emotions’ emergence. Heck, they may be responsible for emotions in general.’

[How do you plan to–]

‘Just watch over me.’

The next few hours were spent deciphering the string of characters that wrapped both the real heart and the Dao Heart. I would immediately descend and rework which meridians were utilised to see how the string of characters reacted AND how the emotions reacted as well.

A few days passed just like this and I felt my spiritual force reaching its limits. This was surprising since I knew that my spiritual force was at the Martial Grandmaster level.

However, after thinking about it for a while it did make sense. I was creating a cultivation technique and its level wasn’t low all things considered. So the drain on my spiritual force wasn’t too strange.

[K-Keyholder are you not finished?]

‘Oh, I solved the issue regarding the emotions a few days ago. I was just incorporating the nature of her physique into the cultivation technique. It’s still embryonic though. I wanted it to evolve along with her physique and all that.’

[Wha—then why am I still freezing her!?]

‘I liked your company. We should talk more.’

[Screw you!]

‘Have you been speaking to Yaomu Shou?’

[Don’t talk to me!]

As soon as it said this, it retreated into my mind sea and refused to say anything more. If Salty was a person…

“D-Does it have to be Daddy!?”

Qin Ling’s voice blurted out, and she looked at me with the same amount of surprise and shock as at the beginning of all this.

Suddenly, her expression changed, and she felt the changes in her body.

“Long Di! You…!?”

“Looking good Qin Ling. So I fixed the Icy Heart Mantra. Daddy’s worthy of the name now isn’t it?”