Chapter 44

Annallee and Elora had already fought monsters multiple times a week before listening to Yara’s story. Afterward, Annallee decided to enter a military academy and had spent the last three years undergoing comprehensive training. As for Elora, she joined a top-tier adventurer party named Silver Fox. Even though Elora was lacking in many ways, Silver Fox went through great lengths to groom Elora into a capable adventurer, all because she could heal.

Keith rarely saw his sisters ever since Annallee started living on campus and Elora moved out, though they still kept in touch over the magic network and met up once in a while when they could.

Elora’s schedule varied depending on Silver Fox’s activities, so Keith could only send a message and hope for the best. Thankfully, he didn’t need to wait too long. Elora sent a reply a few days later, agreeing to his request with plenty of emojis. Obviously, she was more than happy to inflict some pain.

Keith sent a follow-up message. “Where should we meet up?”

“Any random spot in the wild will do,” Elora answered.

Bewildered, Keith asked, “Wouldn’t my place work?”

Elora sent a laughing emoji followed by a scary sentence, “There will be too much blood.”

Keith broke out into a cold sweat and didn’t have the guts to continue the conversation. The next day, the siblings met at a designated location before riding flying mounts into the wilderness. Upon finding a secluded spot, Keith took a deep breath, took off his shirt, sat down, and bit onto a piece of thick rope.

After mentally preparing himself, Keith looked up and saw Elora holding a spiked club oozing deadly poison. When he saw a few drops of liquid fall off the club and instantly create holes in the ground accompanied by an ominous sizzling sound, he started getting nervous.

Elora chuckled when she saw Keith’s expression and explained, “I discovered that status effects like poison and bleeding cause healing over time when I use them, so I learned a bunch of skills that boost their potency. The only side effect is that a little too much blood comes out, hehe.”

“Um, how much is a little?” Keith shivered.

Elora stuck her tongue out. “Don’t worry – I’ll pull you out if you start to drown.”

Before Keith could process what he heard, Elora slammed her club into Keith’s back and raked it across his skin. Keith’s vision flashed white as the spikes lacerated his flesh and muscles, turning it into a garbled mess. Thanks to Elora’s skills, a massive amount of blood spewed out from Keith’s back and dyed the ground red.

“Agh!” Keith released a muffled scream as he bit down on the rope in his mouth. The pain was so intense it was the only thing he could think about. Keith’s mental fortitude was like a child trying to hold back a tsunami, and he could only endure for a few moments before collapsing unconscious.

“Tch,” Elora clicked her tongue in disappointment. “Nobody lasts more than a single blow.”

Even though Keith fell unconscious, Elora didn’t stop wailing on his back with her spiked club, dragging it this way and that. All the while, blood sprayed out of Keith’s back like a water geyser. Bizarrely, the quantity of blood soaking the ground was already beyond how much blood Keith’s body stored by at least ten times, and the disparity only grew as time passed. If a third party came across this scene, all they’d see would be a blood-soaked demon hacking away at a corpse.

Time passed.

Keith found himself facing the sky when he woke up. Startled, he sat up and subconsciously reached for his back when an intense metallic smell assaulted his nose. That was when he saw a giant pond of blood at the bottom of the hill he sat on. Keith couldn’t believe it. All that blood came from him?

“Finally awake?” Elora looked up from her magic tablet. She had been lying on the ground next to Keith, waiting for him to recover. After pummeling Keith’s back for a good hour, she carried him over to a nearby hill before using a Cleanliness Ring to remove the blood on their bodies.

Keith covered his nose and asked, “How long did I last?”

“You don’t remember?” Elora found it hilarious. “About three seconds.”

Keith could only recall that it was very painful, but not by how much. Sighing, he remarked, “Why does your innate gift have to magnify pain?”

Elora shrugged. “The System loves balance. The hit that knocked you out restored your Health by at least 200,000, if you include the damage over time effects. Say, I’m curious how much Health in total I healed you for, do you happen to know?”

Keith set it so that his Grimoire automatically collected any Health that went over his maximum. Earlier, Keith gave a vague explanation for why he needed Elora’s help, which was why she didn’t stop attacking when Keith fell unconscious. Now that Elora brought it up, Keith was curious how much his Grimoire collected. Pulling up his Grimoire’s interface, he went to the Energy tab and widened his eyes in shock when he saw the value.

340,145,000.

Stunned, Keith turned to his sister and exclaimed, “You healed almost 350 million Health!”

“Huh?” Elora thought she misheard. “I only worked for about an hour. How could it be so much?”

“Awesome, Sis. You might be one of the best healers in the Innate Dimension!” Keith was amazed, though he couldn’t help but think only a special type of person would want her to heal them.

Keith quickly opened the Rift Simulator minigame and saw he now had enough Health to last him several years with his current setup. Unfortunately, Keith couldn’t withdraw Health like he could Mana. The System didn’t even give him the option, and for a good reason. Keith would be immortal otherwise.

“I hope whatever I did was enough. Healing for so long without anything exciting happening got boring fast,” Elora commented.

Keith laughed. “Yes, more than enough. I won’t need your help again for a year at least. I owe you one.”

Elora stood up and wiped the grass off her pants. “Wanna grab dinner before we separate? I know a good burger joint.”

“Sounds good,” Keith said and jumped to his feet. He glanced at the massive pool of blood before stepping through the portal Elora summoned. After their meal, Keith returned home and looked over today’s gains from the Rift Simulator.

Without doing anything, Keith gained a sizable portion of experience towards his next level, along with plenty of gold and loot. It was very satisfying. Better yet, the Rift Simulator would continue to run overnight. The thought of gaining experience and loot while he slept left Keith very pleased with himself.

Honestly, the emergence of the Rift Simulator could easily give rise to a lazy mindset. After all, Keith could level to 500 passively without so much as leaving his home. He might've done just that if there wasn’t the threat of the Grandsky Realm looming in the background.

As things stood, Keith needed to treat the Rift Simulator as a bonus to progressing his strength and not the core reason. He still needed to put in the same work and effort he’d put in over the last few years.

Thinking of the past reminded Keith of Rhea. Lately, he’d been thinking about how much he truly progressed. And the best way to figure that out was to challenge her to a friendly duel. Three years ago, Rhea was an insurmountable wall. After three years of effort, had Keith managed to shorten the gap between them?

It was time to find out.