150 Someone's Plan

Lambert looked at Theresa before him with a curious and slightly startled expression, as if he were meeting her for the very first time. His astonishment was so obvious that it made Theresa feel somewhat uncomfortable.

"Mr. Lambert, what are you looking at?" Theresa touched her cheek in puzzlement. "Is there something wrong with me?"

"Indeed, there is!" Lambert said with certainty. "To think you could achieve a breakthrough under such circumstances... Theresa, should I call your talent extraordinary, or your luck simply poor?"

Hearing this, Theresa caught his meaning immediately. Yet, she only smiled faintly and said nothing more.

Instead, Flora, who had followed Theresa out of the hot spring cave, asked in confusion, "Doesn't having a breakthrough mean making progress? Isn't that a good thing?"

"It's a good thing for others, but not necessarily for her," Lambert said with a slight shrug, looking unconcerned. "Never mind, once we get the Nightshade Grass, there will naturally be a way."

Hearing this, Flora quickly chased after Theresa to ask what their previous conversation had actually meant. Lambert stood near the entrance of the hot spring cave, watching the two girls walk away, laughing and bickering. For once, his habitually smiling face dropped its expression, and his gaze turned profound.

After easily brushing off the half-convinced Flora with vague answers, Theresa sat upright in the cave, which was warmed by geothermal heat. She closed her eyes, though she was not sleeping—she was familiarizing herself with her brand-new spiritual power.

Within her sea of consciousness, her spiritual power was like a web, layer upon layer, wrapping into a giant silkworm cocoon. Meanwhile, the remaining unabsorbed soul power floated around the "cocoon" like a dense fog. Where the two drew close, a strange silver energy would occasionally dart about, flashing into existence before vanishing instantly.

At a single thought from Theresa, countless thread-like strands of spiritual power were drawn out from the "cocoon," rapidly weaving and intersecting within her sea of consciousness to form web-like structures of various shapes. This configuration made her spiritual power exceptionally sensitive. With just a slight mental nudge, the spiritual network began to pulse rapidly at a specific rhythm. In an instant, every detail of the cave she was currently in projected into her mind—and within her sea of consciousness, a translucent, to-scale miniature model of the cave abruptly appeared.

Her ability for fine control had increased once again. Yet, at the same time, a sense of mental exhaustion was rapidly climbing. Within mere minutes, Theresa felt her vision darken and her head spin—her spiritual sense could no longer support such delicate control, much like a lame horse. While it might look normal during a stroll, the moment it broke into a run, disaster would undoubtedly strike.

She opened her eyes, and all before her was pitch black. Theresa stared blankly into the darkness for a long while before lazily closing her eyes and finally drifting into a sound sleep.

***

After setting off once more, just as Lambert had predicted, the pace of the entire team's advance returned to Theresa's hands. With a single word from her, no matter how many people were displeased, the group would halt to make camp and rest. Consequently, their journey became agonizingly slow—so slow that many teams who had set off after them had long since overtaken them.

"Theresa, don't you want to harvest the Nightshade Grass anymore?" During yet another rest stop, even Flora grew uncomfortable with their turtle-like pace and couldn't help running over to Theresa to murmur her complaints.

Theresa was drinking water when she heard this. She pursed her lips into a smile and replied, "Of course I do. If I didn't want the Nightshade Grass, why would I have dragged myself all the way to the Black Rock Mountains with so much trouble?"

"But at our current rate, I'm afraid the Nightshade Grass will have been completely picked clean by the time we get there," Flora guessed casually in bewilderment. "Could it be that you actually know of some special growth locations, which is why you're not in a hurry?"

"How could that be?" Theresa laughed in amusement. "Even if there are special locations, Habata would know much more about them than I do. How could I possibly know?"

"Then what on earth are you thinking?" Flora simply asked her question outright.

Theresa handed her water pouch to the little spirit beast and the little fox, letting the two little creatures fight over it, before hooking her arm through Flora's and whispering with a smile beside her ear, "Traveling at this slow pace isn't my idea—I'm merely following someone else's wishes."

Flora raised an eyebrow in confusion.

Using her finger as a pen, Theresa traced a few characters on Flora's palm.

Flora stared blankly for several seconds before understanding dawned on her. She gasped in sudden shock, almost blurting out a new question, but fortunately, Theresa was prepared and quickly covered her mouth, gesturing for silence.

The two girls maintained this posture, "conversing by hand" for a while, and were gradually developing a tacit understanding when the little spirit beast and the little fox suddenly darted back onto Theresa's shoulders, rudely shoving Flora's head aside.

The sudden change startled Theresa and annoyed Flora, but it wasn't long before both understood the intent behind the two little creatures' actions—

"Miss Borger, excuse the interruption."

Throughout the journey, the beastmen, who had maintained a mostly silent stance, had finally sent a representative to sound out Theresa...

This was a beastman of the Fox clan. While female Fox beastmen were often dazzlingly beautiful, male Fox beastmen did not inherit this fine genetic trait. Most of them looked thoroughly unremarkable; aside from their distinctive hair color and pupils, it was almost impossible to tell a male Fox beastman apart from a human by appearance alone.

However, anyone with even a slight understanding of the beastman tribes would never underestimate a Fox beastman—even if he were a child—because Fox beastmen, especially the males, were renowned for their astuteness and mastery of calculation. Relying on this innate trait, the Fox clan had become a major power within the alliance, and moreover, they were one of the rare major factions whose entire clan remained firmly united!

"Hello," Theresa greeted him with a smile. "How should I address you?"

"You may call me Li." The Fox beastman smiled back in response—a mere flicker of a smile brought life to his otherwise unremarkable features, making one sigh at the favor the heavens had bestowed upon the Fox people.

Li? Hearing such a name, Theresa rolled her eyes inwardly. Among the Fox clan, six out of ten children had nicknames related to "Li"—either bearing the sound or tied to its various derivative meanings. Now that this Fox beastman asked her to call him "Li" instead of giving his full name, it was essentially a display of utter insincerity.

"Very well, Li~" Theresa felt a trace of sarcastic amusement as she uttered the name. "Since you've condescended to come over, is there some urgent matter?"

Li naturally heard the mild sarcasm in Theresa's tone, but he didn't mind at all and stated his purpose with absolute directness: "I hope to reach an agreement with you... all regarding our future itinerary."

Theresa raised an eyebrow upon hearing this. "What kind of agreement is there to be made? Lambert told me everything depends on my physical needs. You know how it is—not long ago, I suffered a rather 'major illness!'"

The heavily emphasized words "major illness" caused a flash of awkwardness to cross Li's face. Nevertheless, he persisted, "Precisely out of consideration for everyone's health, as well as weather factors, I believe our future itinerary requires certain adjustments."

As Theresa listened to his explanation, her gaze drifted casually toward Lambert's location, and without any surprise, she caught a special, half-smiling expression directed right back at her...