Walking into the slight opening that led them down to the maze was worrying enough, especially when the ‘walls’ of the root maze widened to the point where it was more like cavernous walking through hallways.

So when the system prompted William with a quest, the details it gave him did not help his nerves.

[Quest: Take the heart from Magmaheart Goliath Embryo]

[Details: Princess Jin wants to take the heart from the Magmaheart Goliath Embryo. Reach the womb safely and protect Princess Jin while she extracts the heart before time expires.]

[Reward | 3 Treasures suitable for early Spirit Severing Realm cultivators]

[Penalty | Decreased reputation with Princess Jin | Impurity increased to Stage 3]

[Accept]

[Yes | Continue to follow Princess Jin deeper into the root maze]

[No | Leave immediately]

“Princess Jin,” William grabbed her arm to stop her from waking, disregarding the usual propriety, “Tell me, do you know what this place really is?”

“This again?” Princess Jin narrowed her eyes, “I already told you that the times this can be encountered are rare. It’s a miracle I know anything about it at all.”

“This entire thing is basically a womb,” William blurted out, ripping the bandaid off as quickly as possible, “The treasure that you want to take is the heart of this thing.”

“… And how do you know this?” Princess Jin asked with disbelief.

“It was the lady that sent me here,” William said vaguely, “She mentioned that I might see something like this.”

“So you decided to hide this from me until now?” Princess Jin growled, “If this is true, why wait until we are inside before bringing it up?”

“I was unconscious,” William defended himself, “Then I woke up to that Pyralisk sniffing around. After that, you fell from the sky. Can you blame me for forgetting?”

“Yes!” Princess Jin sounded personally offended, “Ancestor Sophia gave you instruction, and you forgot!”

“Right, anyway, so what do you think?” William tried to move past the subject of Sophia, “Do you think we should keep going?”

Princess Jin looked around at the increasingly dark surroundings before sighing in frustration. “Again, this is something you seem to know better. Do you think we should continue or abort?”

William went over the pros and cons, mostly the cons, really, trying to decide if there were enough reasons to call for a retreat.

He might be crazy, but what bothered him about taking this quest the most was the loss of reputation with Princess Jin. He knew what was riding on that hope, and if such a thing came to pass, there would be little doubt that the Empire’s attention would be on him.

Of course, there was always the tiny chance that simply being in this secret realm meant drastic increases in cultivation. After all, Princess Jin herself had felt this effect.

If that was the case, William’s hope would strangely rest on Ren Bo. If he also raised his cultivation drastically, William’s gain would become nothing to be surprised about.

“We can continue on one condition,” William said sternly, “If we find beasts that I think you can’t handle, you have to listen to my orders.”

“… That’s it?” Princess Jin stared, “You made a big deal about something that I would have obviously done anyway?”

William’s serious face broke as red crept up his cheeks when Princess Jin looked exasperated at him.

“Well, excuse me for wanting to have some sort of plan before we walk into the unknown.”

Princess Jin giggled, surprising William at the sudden change in emotion, and said, “I forgot that you try to act like a little adult. But let’s agree to not waste time standing around in the future until our lives are in danger.”

“Done,” William nodded as they continued to walk into the depths, “So you don’t happen to have something that would let us see better, do you?”

He had assumed the entire secret realm’s strange lighting would apply here. Where every surface was well-lit as if there were invisible studio lights everywhere. While that was the case near the entrance to this root maze, it was quickly apparent that the surroundings were getting dimmer.

“I have this,” Princess Jin pulled a small lantern from her storage pouch, “It’s powered by Qi, so I would rather not use it until necessary.”

William nodded, agreeing silently. He could see that she was intending to take the task of being a light bearer on herself.

It was something that he noticed about Princess Jin the more he interacted with her. Prince Yuan, being the only imperial member he met before her, colored his impression of all the other imperial members.

William expected them to be the stereotypical arrogant, head too far up their own… anyway, he didn’t expect someone like Princess Jin.

For one so young, she was rather considerate with her actions, at least with what he had seen so far.

William didn’t have to push for her to take responsibility for much anything since she had her own plans and was willing to do more than her part. He glanced at her, noticing that she had narrowed her eyes at something protruding from the dirt between the root walls.

“Wait here, Wei Liang,” Princess Jin ordered.

Or maybe Princess Jin was willing to take on more responsibility because William’s current body was younger than her. It was still something that he often forgot.

However, this wasn’t something William would allow her to do.

“No,” William grabbed Princess Jin and pulled her back, ignoring her indigent squawk, “How about you stay here and avoid getting yourself in trouble.”

He ignored her angry muttering since she didn’t try to change his mind, likely because she just remembered that he was much stronger than her.

[Name: Jingmu Shadow | Level: 44]

The thing Princess Jin was staring at was a spirit beast, and it was one that was nearly as strong as her. William didn’t see the point of letting her fight with something almost on the same level as her.

Not when killing this Jingmu Shadow would be effortless for William.

The only hesitation he had was the sickly appearance of the spirit beast. Its form was a brownish-colored blob with streaks of black that seemed to go into its body. Sort of like a jelly, but one that had been thrown into filth.

William wasn’t keen on having his fist, or any part of his body, touch this thing. He winced when he saw the Jingmu Shadow flush a particularly nasty brown color, and then he froze in shock.

The Elemental Gauntlet.

William had moments where he wondered what happened to his mind, but now, he wondered if it was necessary to make an appointment to whatever qualified as a mind healer in his world.

Mei Lingxi, the woman who guided him around the Treasure Pavilion, had given him the Elemental Gauntlet before he left Xuanjing City. It had been stored inside that little chest in his spatial stone all this time.

William supposed the only excusable reason it had completely passed his mind was his inability to use it. That might still be the case, but at least he would have a layer between his fist and the Jingmu Shadow.

With Princess Jin only able to see his back, William used this chance to pull out the Elemental Gauntlet from his spatial stone.

“What’s wrong?”

“Decided to use a glove,” William replied to Princess Jin, “This thing looks dirty.”

He ignored the scoff from her and gently slid the glove on his right hand, blinking when it resized to fit him perfectly. He had forgotten that it did that.

[Equip detected]

[Calculating cost per use]

[ERROR | Spiritual Energy Insufficient]

William was slightly disappointed by that, but using its ability wasn’t his goal anyway. He clenched his fingers and almost thought it was a shame to dirty the shimmering silver.

He turned his attention back to the spirit beast and slowly walked to it. Just because it was weak didn’t mean it couldn’t catch him by surprise.

William tensed when it gurgled and shot off the dirt wall directly at him.

The body of the Jingmu Shadow was still jelly-like, but it had expanded to a size twice as tall as him. Facing him was a large black hole, which he assumed was a mouth. It was a misshaped mess open wide enough to swallow him whole.

William gave it an unimpressive stare, feeling like its speed was as slow as a crawl. He appeared at its side, avoiding the mouth, and slammed his right fist covered in roaring Qi into its body.

[+1 XP]

He blinked in shock when the Jingmu Shadow disappeared with a far too human-like shriek.

The concern William had about being covered in filth never materialized.