Another World Trip: Journey with My Cat and an Otaku Loli Goddess Chapter 367 - Boring As Shit

“Long Di! You…!?”

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

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“Long Di, stop teasing me,” Qin Ling asked in a subdued voice as she looked down with a reddened face.

Long Di almost couldn’t help it. He, like Pebbles, was a troll by trade and Qin Ling was the perfect prey.

“How do you feel?” Long Di asked Qin Ling.

“I-I don’t know.” Qin Ling was perplexed as she could feel her icy mien taking over slowly and she was scared of it. She could clearly remember how she treated Long Di when it was in full effect but she couldn't help it.

“Don’t worry. Let it take over, it’s fine. I’m here.”

When Qin Ling heard Long Di’s voice, her anxious heart calmed down, and she allowed the icy nature engendered by the Icy Heart Mantra to take hold once more.

Her face became inexpressive and cold. She was glacial in both bearing and temperament.

“Once again, how do you feel?” Long Di asked once more.

“Fine,” Qin Ling answered coldly. A lone brow slightly rose when she realised that she hadn’t cut Long Di off.

“What is this?” she asked, her voice cold and unfeeling.

Long Di nodded in satisfaction and went on to explain. “So I went ahead and set your cultivation technique in such a way that whilst it's being run, despite the Icy Heart Mantra being active, your emotions will be open to you, meaning you’ll feel them. Of course, its icy properties will allow this cold and detached part of you to remain at the forefront, but your emotions will be there in the background and can be at the fore if YOU allow them to be.”

Qin Ling evinced confusion at this, “I allow them to be? So what, I’ll be cold and unfeeling by default?”

Long Di shook his head and explained, “Your emotions will be there. If you’re cultivating, and you feel happy, then the happiness emotion in the background will allow you to feel it. Your coldness will just be as strong and you’ll be realising and viewing your own happiness through an objective lens. Like right now, you’re acting cold because you’re running the cultivation technique, but there could be another emotion alongside it, which you should realise. If you deactivate it, those emotions will be left by themselves and even more, you’ll act on them.”

Hearing this, she ceased cultivating, and her cauldrons receded.

“!”

Immediately, a colour of emotions appeared on her face.

A bright smile blossomed on her face before one of fright and panic quickly took hold.

She then blurted out, “Then that leaves the problem of my emotions being eaten away by the Icy Heart Mantra!”

“I thought of that,” Long Di leaned, completely relaxed, the exact opposite of her. “So before this, when your cultivation technique was running, I found that a combination of your meridians allowed a flare-up of your emotions when they’re stimulated. It was these meridians that your Icy Heart Mantra was targeting while it hacked away at your emotions. Still, I have to express my gratitude because it’s thanks to it that I found them so fast, or at all. I gave these meridians life and protection from the Mantra by having your spiritual qi be their sustenance and shield. After all, emotions don’t run dry, so this is the Icy Heart Mantra’s answer to that. By targeting what was responsible for your emotions, the source as it were, there was a real danger of them bottoming out. It’s been rectified for now, but you can’t allow your attainments in the Icy Heart Mantra to be greater than your attainments in the cultivation technique. If it does, it will break through the shield and your source of emotions will be in danger once more. Anyway, since the source is safe now, we’ll allow your Icy Heart Mantra to sup from a well that will never run dry. Because it can no longer diminish the space your emotions took up in your Dao Heart, it won’t be able to replace them with its faux residents. Owing to this, your Dao Heart will remain your own. Your cultivation technique is the key.”

Qin Ling sighed in relief when another question came up. “Then when it’s not in use?”

Long Di sighed and explained. “I can’t ever stop the Icy Heart Mantra from what it’s doing to you. I can only give it an endless feast and at times you’ll find it emotionally taxing. I can’t imagine being hollowed out whilst your cultivation technique refills you as it restrains you externally. Still, the lack of it being used actively, the cultivation technique that is, brings its own danger.”

Qin Ling braced herself. “Such as?”

“When not in use, the shield will come down and your source will be exposed–”

“Gasp!”

Dum!

Qin Ling’s eyes widened in shock and she immediately restarted her cultivation to erect the shield around the meridians that represented the source of her emotions.

It took a while for her to calm down, but her icy mien quickly took hold and though panic was still there and she felt it clear as day, there was an icy indifference there that allowed her steadiness.

“You should have let me finish,” Long Di said to her.

A blush covered her cheeks though her expression appeared indifferent. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. You need only cultivate like you are and your source will be protected once more. Not only that, just like emotion, given time it will recover. It’s not like the destruction is immediate. If it was, then none of this would have worked. I’m guessing the graduality of it is to ensure your safety.”

“Is that also why I’m able to fully express myself when the cultivation technique isn’t being used? Because the emotions being eaten away by the Ice Heart Mantra can’t devour them all at once? The process is too slow for the effects to show in the short term?”

“That’s right,” Long Di nodded.

“Then when I’m not cultivating, to not appear as if I’m being influenced by my emo–”

“You’ll have to act,” Long Di told her. “You’ll need to pretend that you’re obsessed with the ice dao. You’ll need to trick everyone that you’re still as unfeeling as they’d have you be.”

She thought about it for a while, before asking, “Will I have to trick my mas–”

“Qin Ling this might be something that goes even deeper than you think.” Long Di said seriously. “I’m sorry but your master will be a part of this list until you have the full story.”

Qin Ling said nothing for a while but she soon nodded to indicate she understood.

“Good girl. Now I have no idea how your physique itself will affect your temperament but its awakening might bring further changes and the cultivation technique is designed to reflect that, so be careful. Your emotions are safe from being severed, though they will be devoured continuously. I left the complete map for it in your mind sea, so be sure to study it and follow it to the T.”

Hearing this, she ran the cultivation technique as best as she could so that it became second nature to her.

He observed her clumsy movements as she tried to get used to the new paths laid out for her. “I will be making periodical changes as time goes by. How long do you have to travel with me?”

“I have a little over a month.”

Long Di descended into thought at this point.

“Okay, we can make it work. There are some minor meridians I need to incorporate so the yin aspect is fully realised. I also have to make sure that the part that includes your physique remains flexible so it can adapt to whatever awakening it’ll go through. Remember, don’t stop cultivating so long that your source is irreparably damaged. You’ll have a decent amount of time to enjoy the colours of your feelings without restraint, but they will require your protection all the same.”

“I will,” she nodded, before she recalled her cauldrons.

“And don’t forget, when you stop the cultivation technique, you will be you in every sense of the word. You will have to pretend to be cold. So be careful how you carry yourself to keep up the illusion.”

She blasted him with a dazzling smile before reassuring him he didn’t have to worry.

“Good,” Long Di nodded in turn. “Let’s get out of here.”

With a wave of his hand, Long Di dispelled the lightning dome when a shout of surprise assaulted both him and Qin Ling.

“Finally! We have a problem!” Wei Yun rushed towards Qin Ling just to make sure everything was okay.

“What’s wrong,” Long Di asked.

He could see the grave expressions on Heavenly Sun Noble and Violet Flame Noble’s faces, the same went for everyone actually.

It was obvious at a glance that something big had happened.

Qin Ling looked through the trees that flanked her and Long Di and noticed that they stopped.

“You stopped the carriage?”

“I had to.” Wei Yun stated. She had a tablet that could control the carriage should Qin Ling be incapacitated.

“Why?” Qin Ling asked.

“It’s better if we show you,” Wei Yun advised.

She carefully scrutinised Qin Ling, looking for any changes to the latter’s mannerisms. However, nothing could be made out.

She then looked at Long Di, but getting anything out of him was even harder. As a result, she could only give up for now.

Wei Yun then led everyone off the carriage. As soon as the door opened, Long Di saw as a mist of frost rushed from the carriage.

This was peculiar as they didn’t even feel it was that cold.

“Is this for aesthetic purposes?”

Qin Ling realised what he was asking and answered. “We have to act the part.”

Wei Yun’s head snapped in Qin Ling’s direction. Was that a joke!? Did the Divine Daughter just make a joke!?

Divine Daughters don’t make jokes!

She then looked at Long Di with the same level of surprise.

‘Did he truly do it!?’

As soon as Long Di and Qin Ling exited the carriage, the icy exterior that Qin Ling tried to keep up crumbled and a lone brow of Long Di’s rose to the very Heavens.

“What in the hell happened here?”

Before the group was a city, one where nothing could be dead bodies were strewn about.

This harrowing sight went as far as the city extended. Not a lone soul was left alive in this place.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true, loud noises came from one of the houses and it instantly put everyone on guard.”

Suddenly, without warning, a black figure wearing nothing but a loincloth stumbled out of a house with a plate of food.

When Violet Flame Noble saw who, or more specifically, what it was, an expression of shock took over.

“You–”

“Yo boring brother! Let me travel with you. I won’t forge shit but I will spice up your life! Just gonna add this in there as a disclaimer, this place was already like this when I got here. And no, you don’t have to tell me, boring as shit!”