Chapter 39

With the help of his healing medicines, it took Zairen only another half an hour of meditation before he was started to feel more or less normal again. The excruciating soreness and pain that he had experienced when he first woke up seemed to have completely disappeared!

Truly, it was a miracle that he was able to recover so fast, knowing how much pain he had been in when he first woke up.

In fact, it was almost… unnatural.

He didn’t know how, but for some reason, he felt that his body had almost evolved in some way. This confused him quite a bit. He was a medical doctor and was quite familiar with his own body. But now, it seemed almost foreign to him, as if it had made some profound change.

However, it wasn’t a bad thing by any means. He could sense that his overall vitality had greatly improved and that his recovery power was much greater. Furthermore, his spirit energy capacity had nearly doubled!

He would have to test the changes later.

“Phew…” He opened his eyes, feeling refreshed. As he did, he spread his arms over his head and stretched. Although he wasn’t in perfect condition, considering how badly he was immobilized before, he felt that he had recovered incredibly well. Almost freakishly well!

‘Wait a second…’ All the sudden, he thought of something. ‘How long I have been unconscious for? Would Alivia and Grandpa wonder where I am and worry about me?’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I forgot since I was so distracted before, but I should really check up on what’s going on in the outside world.’

Thinking that, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He then focused his mind and channeled his spirit energy through the space to take a look at the outside world, outside of the interdimensional space of the ring.

“Wha…?” A moment later, his eyes widened. What was happening?

In the outside world, the ring was on Alivia’s finger, who together with the governor, Grandpa Dinran, and Finn were in the middle of the woods surrounded by tens of ominous masked fighters, similar to the ones who had previously attacked Finn.

“So you finally noticed,” Madam Sue’s voice rang out.

“Huh?” Zairen was startled. He turned around to see that Madam Sue was standing right behind him, a knowing smile on her face.

“You… You knew that they were in danger?!” He couldn’t help but blurt out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Whoa! Strong words there, boy,” Madam Sue chided. Bop! She stepped forward and knocked Zairen’s head, causing him to cower and rub his head. “Think about it. Even if I told you earlier, what could you have done? You couldn’t even move.”

“That’s… that’s true…” Zairen couldn’t help but admit. “Even so… if I never gained consciousness, you would have just let my family and friends die?”

“So?” Madam Sue shrugged and gave a sinister smile. “I don’t even know them. Why would I care?”

“Y-you…!” Zairen almost burst out once again, but seeing the look in Madam Sue’s eyes, immediately cowered submissively once again. “Fine… I understand.”

However, glancing up at her, he still cursed under his breath. So it turned out, her looks were so beautiful because her personality was so rotten! What kind of sinister person would say something like that?

However, a moment later, his face returned to normal and he again looked up meekly. “Madam Sue… if you don’t mind me asking… how long have I been out, anyway?”

“Hm… about three days?” Madam Sue casually stated.

“Three days?!” Zairen couldn’t help but exclaim. “Th-that long??”

“Well, the same time didn’t pass in the real world,” Madam Sue responded with a sly smile. “The time in this interdimensional space goes about fifty percent longer. So about two days have passed in the real world.”

“Oh…” Zairen couldn’t help but gape. An interdimensional space that affected the flow of time? What kind of a concept was that?

“Oh wow, looks like they’ve started fighting,” Madam Sue raised her eyebrow amusedly. “The governor’s really in a bind this time.”

“Hm?” Zairen peered out to the outside world, and sure enough, the three gold-masked fighters had started fighting the governor. Not taking any chances, the three of them had teamed up on the governor at once, causing the governor to be constantly on defense. His back was against Alivia, Finn, and Grandpa Dinran, protecting them and making sure none of the men could get to them to try to take them hostage.

The rest of the masked figures stood at the ready ominously on the sidelines, making sure nobody could make a run for it and escape. Likely, they knew that if they tried to join the fight against the governor, they wouldn’t be much help. They were all several levels below the gold masked experts in fighting prowess - they wouldn’t able to keep up. If anything, they would disrupt the coordination the gold masked fighters had. It would be better to form a perimeter so that the governor wouldn’t be able to make a run for it.

One of the gold-masked fighters had metal arm guards and a gauntlet and persistently struck out toward the governor with powerful strikes. One of them stayed in the back, periodically launching spirit energy projectiles at the governor. The final one held a large hammer glowing with dark grey spirit energy and frequently swept out with it, although it had so far failed to hit its mark even once.

He was impressed by the governor. ‘No wonder I was so heavily injured by him… he can take on all three of those powerful people at once!’

Now that Zairen observed closely, in his perspective, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. He was amazed. Madam Sue wasn’t lying - time really was going slower in the real world!

“Huh?” He suddenly noticed something - a familiar silver-masked figure had entered the forest vicinity.

Unnoticed by the governor, this silver-masked fighter strode into the circle of masked fighters. He wore a mask that was broken in three places.

‘Wait a second… that person...’ He pondered for a moment and then snapped his fingers. ‘Right, that mask. He’s the person who tried to capture Finn back then, and I cracked his mask. He was pretty strong… He’s here to fight the governor as well?’

‘Seems like the governor is in trouble,’ Zairen furrowed his brows. It was true: even just against the 3 gold-masked fighters, the governor seemed to be getting sluggish, and was slowly getting beaten down. It seemed that although he was still holding his own, with the addition of the silver-masked assassin entering the fight, he probably wouldn’t last much longer.

‘He needs my help. I need to go out and join the fight!’ Zairen hurriedly stood up, pushing his legs off of the ground.

Whoosh! He rose to the sky!

‘Huh?’ Feeling wind blow against his face, Zairen looked down in surprise.

He resisted gasping out loud - he was ten feet in the air!

‘What?!’ He mouth gaped. ‘What’s happening?’

Thud. Landing on the ground with a moment later, Zairen stared incredulously down at his legs. ‘What the hell…? Did I just imagine that?’

How could he have jumped so high?

After a few moments of confusion, he decided to test it once again. Quickly bending down, he jumped into the air.

Fuoosh!! Before he knew it, he was soaring twenty feet in the air!

‘Wh-what the hell? Why am I jumping so high?’ Zairen was completely confused as he uncontrollably hurtled through the space.

‘Whoa…!’ Before he knew it, he had lost control of his body and had flipped forward.

Bam! Bam! He flew down and landed violently straight on his front, bouncing once before coming to a stop.

“AH! AHhhh...” Zairen was about to yell out in pain, but then he suddenly paused for a moment. His eyes narrowed, and he formed a confused expression. ‘Wait a second. That… that didn’t hurt at all…’

Did his body get more durable?

“Ke… ke…” At that moment, the sound of repressed giggling sounded out from behind him, which eventually devolved into straight-up laughter. “Hahahaha!!!”

He turned around and saw Madam Sue watching over him, doubling over with laughter.

“Wh-why you…!” Zairen couldn’t help but become a bit annoyed. “What are you laughing about?!” Trying to save face, he took a deep breath and used his arms to lift himself off of the floor.

Yet, before he knew it, he had pushed himself backward and did a flip, landing on his face again. Bang!

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Madam Sue couldn’t help it and began hortling with laughter, her chest uncontrollably lifting up and down. “HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

“You…! You…” Zairen lifted his head up, his face bright red. He began to angrily stammer. “What the… what the hell did you do to me?!”

It was as if Madam Sue didn’t hear, and she kept on guffawing. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“Why you…” Zairen was absolutely humiliated. He didn’t know what was going on, but every one of his movements was incredibly exaggerated! It was completely out of control!

“Phew…” Zairen took a few deep breaths. After his heart rate finally started to lower, he placed his hands on the ground, and taking extreme care to not launch himself into the air, very slowly raised himself to a sitting position. Then, as if in slow motion, took an even longer time to slowly stand up.

‘Ok, good!’ Successful at his task, Zairen breathed a sigh of relief, and then slowly turned toward Madam Sue, who was still chortling heartily. “What happened to me?! What did you do to my body?!”

He took a step forward, and suddenly, BAM! He blasted himself forward and slammed himself into the ground, face first.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Madam Sue let out another freshly intense series of uncontrollable laughs. Bending down and clutching her stomach, she began laughing so hard that tears started to come out of her eyes. “...Too funny… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

Upon hearing Madam Sue’s continuing laughter, Zairen closed his eyes and merely laid there, not bothering to move. He was completely and utterly humiliated, so much that he didn’t want to move and embarrass himself anymore.

However, a few moments later, he suddenly balled his fists. ‘Wait a second… I can’t just lay here wasting time.’

He had to join the governor in fighting against those masked fighters, and quick! Who knew how long the governor would last?

He took a deep breath and calmed himself down. Still laying there and not daring to make any moves, he asked: “Madam Sue, can I ask what happened to my body?”

Seeing how serious Zairen was, Madam Sue stifled her laughter a bit. “Hahaha… I actually didn’t do anything. I mean, looking at you, it would appear your body is too powerful for you to control right now… This can happen often when someone makes a breakthrough. It can take days for someone to stabilize themselves and get used to it. Hahaha! Too funny!”

“...what? Days?!” Zairen exclaimed. “I don’t have time for that. I have to go help my family now!”

“Well then,” Madam Sue snickered. “Looks like your family’s doomed then!”

“...you…!” Zairen angrily clenched his fists. This Madam Sue had the rare ability to make his usual calm completely disappear.

‘Fuck! For my body to be so uncontrollably strong, I must have made a huge breakthrough. Normally this would be good… but now, since I’m on a time constraint, it could make me lose my new family!’

He bit his lip. ‘While the governor is holding them off, I need to take this precious little time to get at least somewhat familiar with my body… will I be able to make it in time?’