Lin Yang woke up with a start. Like he was having a dream about falling off a cliff. His heart was racing, and the pain in his chest was magnified almost tenfold. He almost automatically raised his hand to heal it, but then he heard the voices outside.

“Explain what happened here?” a voice he'd only heard on his first day in this world said.

The matriarch had arrived. And apparently Lin Yang was still in the dark ancestral hall main room. So after more than two weeks in the minor realm, only a couple of seconds had passed in the real world. Time flowed differently in both worlds.

Still, he was not ready for the conversations that were going to follow. He could hear the outer sect elder Hao Feng explaining his part of the story.

“This humble outer sect elder will ask the matriarch to see justice done! This boy is a member of my outer sect, yet he has no respect for me. He should be killed as par—”

“Don't you dare!” another familiar voice interrupted. Elder Bai Qingling had arrived. “Do you think the matriarch needs your suggestions to see justice done? Do you think you are more capable than her?”

Lin Yang didn't pay attention after that. Because he was busy checking his status screen in an attempt to travel to another realm immediately.

Number of times you've been to another realm: 1

The realm travel function is currently on cool down.

And just then, the door to the chamber was in the process of being pushed open. Lin Yang wanted to curse his luck, but he didn't have the time. 

His only escape route turned out to be unfeasible. Only one person was allowed into this hall, and that was the matriarch. Him being here, even though it was arguably not his fault, was reason enough for a harsh punishment.

But Lin Yang had learned a strange skill in the minor world he'd come from. He could heal the matriarch, albeit less efficiently since this was the main world. That just meant he would waste a lot more energy to heal her, right? But thinking of it, was the energy he used with this skill renewable?

He would have to explore this in the future, he supposed, but now was the moment of truth. He knelt down in front of the jade statuette his touch had caused to shatter. He pretended to pay respect to it.

Behind, he could hear the door to the chamber close with a click. A flickering candlelight illuminated the room after a few moments.

Then someone gasped behind him. 

“By the heavens, Xiao Lin, what have you done?” the matriarch’s concerned voice sounded out. “Even if I wanted to, I'd be unable to absolve you of fault. You just destroyed the founder's inheritance!”

But Lin Yang ignored her and continued kowtowing. So this jade statuette that looked like it belonged to a random old matriarch actually belonged to the founder of the Hehuan sect? 

The matriarch's soft foot falls still continued to close in on him. Then a feather light touch made contact with his back.

“Xiao Lin? What are you—”

“Shhh!” ordered Lin Yang without even turning to her.

He felt the matriarch's hand on his back freeze.

“Listen, I have to pay my respects to the founder for the gift she has given me,” Lin Yang said.

“What gift?” the matriarch asked with an audible start. “Did you learn the matriarch's inheritance? That might change things. But still, you are not the sect leader yet, and you've lost your cultivation. How is the sect leader’s inheritance going to…”

But that was when Lin Yang turned around, his palm to his partially exposed chest. The palm was shining, and the palm print on his chest started to disappear slowly.

“This is the palm of the enlightened,” Lin Yang explained. “In a vision, the founder told me that the future of the Hehuan sect was bleak. What, with the matriarch injured and me, the future of the sect crippled. My meridians have been healed, matriarch! I can cultivate again.”

The matriarch took a step back in astonishment. She looked at Lin Yang's palm longingly.

Even past a hundred and some change, the matriarch looked no more than thirty. She was a woman with a great figure, her hair bleached white, but not because of age. If anything the white looked stylish. Her eyes had a blue tint to them, and her white skin was as flawless as jade. 

But below that was a patchwork of broken pathways and ruptured organs. He could see how every second on her feet was basically making her condition minutely worse. It was somehow his fault she'd been forced to come here.

“Your energy centre is cracked. What is that? A foreign object in your dantian?”

“It's a core,” the matriarch said slowly, her voice a little hesitant.

“It has a lot of imperfections. It's probably the source of your injuries. Why didn't you try to remove it?”

Because in the lower realm, Lin Yang hadn't seen anyone with this kind of thing. He himself didn't have one, so he figured it was not a natural phenomenon.

“I needed this thing to push my cultivation to a higher realm,” she said. “In our world, where the energy is so abundant, we don't need a glorified battery, do we? But they do in other worlds. Of course, there can be other uses to a core. For example separating two incompatible cultivation energies. Removing it right now will only increase the pace of collapse of my circulation system. And after that, simply losing my cultivation will be the best I can hope for.”

Lin Yang frowned. “I see,” he said. Then he thought about it a few seconds. “Luckily, you have me now.”

While he didn't know the minutiae of how his ability worked, he knew it could heal something as simple as collapsing meridians. With the loss of efficiency, he'd probably be unable to heal the matriarch in less than a few days, but that was okay. He didn't plan to heal her that fast anyway.

While the matriarch was his martial grandmaster, the two of them had never had any direct interactions over the three years Lin Yang had been at the Hehuan sect. She was functionally a stranger to him.

He couldn't trust her with his life. The best he could do was place himself under her protection, as a strategic resource she couldn't afford to lose yet. That way he could survive a few more weeks, and look for an opportunity to escape.

He took a step forward. The matriarch looked at his approaching palm with visible trepidation. Then his hand landed on the cold exposed skin of her belly. He let his energy filter in.

It took only a few moments for the matriarch to jerk a little in surprise. She purred like a cat. And then started to moan softly, her breath starting to come out in fast pants.

“Um…should I stop?” Lin Yang couldn't help but ask.

“No! No, please go on. It hurts a little, but it feels so good...”

“...” Lin Yang couldn't help but look around the room to ensure they had no audience. “Okay.”

Three seconds later, the matriarch stepped back and let out a wet cough. She oat a few mouthfuls of blood.

“Are you okay?” Lin Yang asked.

She coughed one more time. Lin Yang frowned and concentrated on his eyes. He could see that the area around the matriarch's artificial core was already getting better. And one of the cracks on the core was already getting better. So his ability could fix the faulty core as well? He could probably fully heal her injury.

“I'm fine,” the matriarch said. “Please continue.”

But how could Lin Yang simply continue at this stage. He pretended his back was a little sore, and mads his breathing ragged. He lifted his hand, making sure to vibrate it very minutely as if he was trying to dance.

He released a bit of healing energy, but then almost fell forward. The matriarch reacted fast and caught him. He felt her concern as she studied him.

So concerned she didn't even care she was holding him on her ample chest.

“You are too weak to handle this art, aren't you?”

Lin Yang nodded his head slowly. It wasn't a lie if she came to her own conclusions.

“I'm so sorry. I just thought… I guess I was intoxicated with the feeling of getting better after such a long time. What should we do now?”

Was the matriarch of a sect seriously asking him that? But then again, maybe this wasn't so bad. 

Before he left, the outer sect was a dangerous place for him and a few new friends he'd made. With the matriarch as his shield, he could probably protect them. 

But he had to remember elder Bai Qingling's words. This was a volatile time for the Hehuan sect. Outright starting a battle against elder Hao Feng would not end well. Not least because the grand elder would think the matriarch was trying to attack her people.

“You could take me in as your personal servant,” Lin Yang said. “Well, me and a few friends from the outer sect.”

The matriarch froze and frowned at that. “You already have friends in the outer sect? You weren't that social before.”

The response had Lin Yang frowning. How closely had she been monitoring the original even without interacting with him?

“I can't directly promote your friends to the inner sect. I hope you understand this.”

“But them being your personal servants would mean elder Hao Feng doesn't act rashly against them,” Lin Yang reasoned.

The matriarch arched her brows in concern. “Do you have some kind of feud with the outer sect elder? No wonder he would presume to question my handling of issues. But this is a problem. He is under the protection of—"

“Yeah, I know he is under the protection of the grand elder.”

“It might be hard to get you out of here without any punishment.”

Lin Yang couldn't truly empathize with her dilemma. He'd never been in charge of anything. He was tempted to tell her to simply use her authority and brush aside the demands for fairness, but he decided not to push her yet.

There was something interesting here. She might be a hundred years old or more, but this strong woman had a hint of innocence about her. Maybe he could influence her, and get power in the Hehuan sect that way. 

But he'd need to go about it slowly.

“Do you have any ideas?” he asked, referring to how they could leave the ancestral hall.

“I'll carry you out. Just pretend you're blacked out.”

Once again, Lin Yang found himself in the arms of a woman. She carried him and opened the door. The morning sun and outdoor air hit Lin Yang like a long separated friend. 

“Matriarch, the boy has to—” elder Hao Feng tried to demand.

“You would throw accusations when the defendant is in this state? Why should I trust you?” the matriarch asked.

“Because he is a simple outer sect disciple and this man is the elder of the outer sect,” another familiar voice said. Su Liang of the Outer sect had arrived.