Epagogia looked at the young man in front of her, around twenty years old by human standards.

It was hard to come by such wounds in the world at the moment. Some men who had beaten up the young man before her must have used their Qi without even knowing. Such a mess was truly difficult to understand when people were barely conscious about Qi or Mana.

Bad luck.

It was a simple explanation for complex problems such as the one in front of her.

And with such a talent… This hottie could have cultivated up to the Mantis realm without a Cultivation Technique by now. But, instead, it appears he’s still at the 4th stage of the Cockroach realm. But, if he gets the right Cultivation Technique, he could become quite useful.

Epagogia started clearing out the turbulent Qi in his Meridians while the man was trying to scream. This process was akin to having hot lava poured through your veins, a kind of pain very few could even imagine.

While putting the precise working of her own Qi through him, Epagogia checked on his Affinity, curious to know more.

He’s one of those freaks for all the crooked horns in existence.

She found out that the young man had a double Affinity for two very rare elements. Light and Darkness. Like Water and Fire, opposing affinities were very rare; the rarer the Affinity, the harder it was finding its opposite in someone with a double Affinity.

Jacob told me they had a guy with a Void Affinity. Well, Light and Darkness together isn’t rarer, but not much more common than that either. And we do have a Cultivation Technique for this guy, don’t we?

Epagogia was almost done after two minutes, pondering on what to do with the kid.

Jaji-boy will get angry with me, but that’s not a problem. A Cultivation Technique of the highest grade for someone with his Affinity is bare of any use to another Cultivator. Plus, I have a Martial Style and a few Martial Techniques and Spell to go along with all that. So, should I sow some Karma here? I like messing with pretty boys… so, why not?

“Don—”

…

An ear-splitting scream came from Flavius's mouth, who could finally move.

He fell off the bed, panting and swearing to high heaven.

Then, he noticed he could finally move. His body felt almost alien to him, and he flexed his digits right in front of his face, still in disbelief.

“Hey, pretty boy, a big ‘thank you’ is in order, isn’t it?”

Flavius was tall and slightly on the skinnier side of the spectrum but with broad shoulders and a chiseled jaw. Now that he wasn’t lying on the bed like a cripple anymore, he was even taller than the woman in front of him.

Flavius didn’t know about the true form of the woman, who was much taller than the fleshy camouflage she donned on these occasions.

“I—” Flavius was speechless. His brain literally shut down.

“Pledge your eternal loyalty and love to me? Sure, but I do have a boyfriend already, so I’ll see you only when he’s out working on some weird project of his, okay?”

Suddenly, Flavius was very aware that he had been lying in bed in his underwear and the thin fabric could barely conceal the energy finally returning to his body—every single part of his body.

He turned around and sat on the bed, putting a pillow on his legs.

“Thank you. I’m still feeling a bit weak, but thank you. There are no words to describe my gratitude,” Flavius remarked, “I will be forever in your debt. Forever, I swear.”

He had ignored Epagogia’s teasing just to give her his earnest thanks. One month had gone by for him while he had been caged, his body his own jailer. Now, he felt his strength slowly coming back to him.

“How are my muscles moving? Shouldn’t they be atrophied?” he asked the woman who had just cleared him and was now making him uncomfortable with her piercing stare.

“You have Qi in your body, that’s what kept it from shutting down. Even if it was barely working, it still nourished your muscles and bones. Otherwise, you would have probably died. And you were lucky to have such a great talent. You got injured almost at the start of this change, I guess, and without a high talent, you wouldn’t have had enough Qi to sustain your body and counter the effects of the foreign Qi.”

Flavius had heard the word Qi before, but he still found all the woman was saying far-fetched. He knew they were in the apocalypse, and Magic was now a thing, but he still had a hard time getting a grip on their current predicament.

“Oh, pretty boy, I have a proposal for you,” the woman smiled, “if you sign a Soul Contract with me to state your loyalty to me, I’ll give you enough resources to become one of the strongest warriors of humanity. Thoughts?”

The woman’s smile was intoxicating, so beautiful and alluring. She had never seen someone so natural at seducing people with simple words. From the inflection to the delivery, everything made Flavius’s heart tighter.

But he still shook his head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know you. You saved me, but I’m not going to sign whatever a ‘Soul Contract’ is since it sounds more like I would never get out of it, no matter how hard I try.”

“Pretty and full of ethics? Lucky little Devil, am I? Well, I don’t need a servant at the moment, and I’m sure we can get some deal later down the road. I’ll give you everything for free. But that’s only for our first deal, pretty boy.”

Without asking, the woman put her hand on his forehead, and a wealth of knowledge came pouring inside his head.