"Just to be clear, I sell my body, not my art," Chen Li warned Elysia again and again.
"I know, I know! So, can we start? I'm getting impatient," Elysia replied, practically buzzing with excitement.
"Fine. Come on, then. Ravage me as you please," Chen Li said, lying down on the camping blanket, spreading his limbs out, and closing his eyes.
"The way you phrase things is so strange. But speaking of which, why am I the one giving you a knee pillow, yet you're the one charging me for it?" Elysia couldn't help but fall into deep thought as she looked at Chen Li, whose head was now resting on her lap.
Oh well, never mind the details. Time to get sniffing.
"Li-bao, you smell so good."
"So you're not just physically humiliating me, but you're also going to stimulate me verbally and mentally? Elysia, you're so despicable."
"Is this some new kind of roleplaying game? I don't remember ordering this service," Elysia said, half-laughing, half-exasperated as she stroked Chen Li's hair.
Right now, she felt like she was petting a cat.
For some reason, she had an overwhelming urge to touch Chen Li, who had inexplicably started to emit a scent that made her want to swallow.
So, Elysia had paid with 10 of her crystal flowers in exchange for the right to touch him.
But she had to admit, seeing the look of feigned resistance on Chen Li's face was genuinely making her more excited.
This actually is pretty fun.
And Chen Li, lying on Elysia's lap, wasn't losing out either...
No, to be more accurate, even if Elysia had given him nothing, there was no way he could have lost out.
He had learned from the instruction manual that, besides bodily fluid exchange or directly eating a delicacy, one could also increase resistance by consuming a condensation of the target's power, though the increase was a bit low.
Even if a delicacy had its own natural fragrance, one could gain resistance just by inhaling the scent.
Like the fragrance of a flower.
Floral scents are composed of many low-molecular-weight volatile compounds, which are secondary metabolic products released by the flower.
In other words, the scent is a part of the flower.
So, theoretically, a person's natural scent is also a part of them... right?
---o---
"You cold, heartless woman," Chen Li said, looking at Elysia resentfully.
"Ahaha... Once you've petted enough, you don't want to pet anymore. Is there a problem with that?" Elysia laughed awkwardly.
"So now you're in Sage Mode and you're casting me aside like an old shoe, is that it? But it is getting late now. You all should probably get some rest," Chen Li said, looking up at the starry sky.
The "Delicious" effect didn't have a Sage Mode.
The real reason Elysia had entered "Sage Mode" was that Chen Li had turned off his "Herrscher Transformation."
"Should we head back to the Flame-Chasers' base to rest?" Elysia asked, standing up.
"No need. I just woke up not too long ago. I want to find something else to eat. The rich nightlife is just beginning." Chen Li stretched languidly.
Enjoying Elysia's knee pillow for so long was actually quite tiring.
"You're still not full?" Elysia couldn't help but ask, glancing at the small mountain of food scraps in front of Master Kalpas, who had been slaving away for three hours.
Chen Li had already eaten half of the Second Herrscher's companion beast.
Elysia had never seen anyone with such a massive appetite. She began to wonder if Chen Li would eat the Flame-Chasers into bankruptcy.
Elysia gave up thinking.
"Ever since I got this Curio, I'll never be full. But that also means I'll never get fat, no matter how much I eat. Aren't you jealous?" Chen Li asked, tossing the ball of light in his hand.
"So jealous."
"Want it?"
"I do, I do."
"Oh, then go to bed early. You can have anything you want in your dreams."
"Hmph!" Elysia's cheeks instantly puffed out into a pout.
"Speaking of which, what's my reputation like within the Flame-Chasers?" Chen Li suddenly asked.
"Reputation? What reputation? Only the people in the Engineering Department know that you, their department head, occasionally show up with a massive amount of weapons, greatly reducing their workload. Nobody else knows who you are," Elysia stated with brutal honesty.
"Damn it, a miscalculation!" Chen Li cursed inwardly.
He had thought that in the worst-case scenario, he would at least have a bad reputation. But that was fine; bad publicity was still publicity.
But what was more chilling than a bad reputation was no reputation at all.
Angry, trembling, cold. When will we Curio Forgers ever be able to stand up?
"A miscalculation of what?" Elysia asked, confused.
"Nothing. I'll send you guys back," Chen Li said, summoning a portal.
He estimated that this Herrscher of the Void portal should open somewhere near the Flame-Chasers' base.
But he didn't know the exact location.
"Oh, right. Kalpas, you go first," Chen Li said.
"Why?"
"Because I reckon you're the toughest. Even if you suddenly stumble into some indescribable place, you'll be able to make it out alive. Oh, right, take this. If you do end up somewhere unspeakable, remember to call me. I'll pull you out." Chen Li handed a Friends Circle token to Kalpas.
"..." Kalpas glanced down at the wok in his hand, then at Chen Li's face, which was slightly smaller than his wok, and felt the two were quite a match.
Maybe... he should make their union a reality?
Damn it! What do you mean, I'm 'the toughest'?!
"What's this?" A head suddenly poked out of the portal.
"Hm, Mobius?" Chen Li was taken aback for a moment when he saw the person on the other side.
Oh well, Mobius's lab it is.
Although, for an outlander like Kalpas, Mobius's lab was no less demonic than the yet-to-be-built Deep End.
But for Elysia, Mobius's lab was more familiar than her own home.
Scared? Not a chance!
The one who should be scared was Mobius.
Averaging out the situations for Elysia and Kalpas, it was as if Mobius's lab was just an ordinary place.
No big deal.
"Alright, go on through," Chen Li said, beginning to disperse the "crowd."
"Dr. Mobius, aren't you happy to see me?" Just as Chen Li predicted, the moment Elysia saw Mobius, she began to pester her.
Mobius played along perfectly, putting on a look of disgust.
"By the way, Mobius, are you poisonous?" Chen Li suddenly asked.
"You're the one who's poisonous."
"Er, what I mean is, do you have things that normal people wouldn't eat? Like, say, aphrodisiacs?"
"What are you planning?" Mobius asked, looking at Chen Li with suspicion.
Could it be that he found out about my plan to drug him and now he's trying to clean out my inventory?
"Don't worry about it. I'm the one with the money."
"Tsk, fine. Wait." Mobius pursed her lips but ultimately yielded to the tyrannical power of money.
No matter what Chen Li was thinking, Mobius would let him know the meaning of: You know nothing of a biologist's inventory!
---o---
"..." Chen Li looked at the large and small packages in front of him, then at the final glimpse of Mobius's retreating back before the portal closed...
He once again understood the saying: In the Flame-Chasers, you can provoke anyone, but you must never provoke Mobius!
"Holy crap, there are enough drugs here to knock out Kalpas dozens of times," Chen Li couldn't help but mutter.
He used Kalpas as an example because, as an outlander, Kalpas had a very high resistance to abnormal statuses.
Of course, that was limited to his body.
For some reason, Kalpas was exceptionally vulnerable to mental status effects.
And as for these drugs, Chen Li had naturally asked for them so he could eat them.
This was to increase his own poison resistance.
Anything he ate could serve as a nutrient to boost his resistances, but if someone injected a drug into his body through other means, that was a different story.
Chen Li had once seen an anime where the protagonist, facing a nun he absolutely could not defeat, chose an extremely despicable method of poisoning—hiding the poison in his crotch.
The moment he saw that scene, Chen Li decided he would never again say that all recent anime from Japan was just isekai trash.
There were still some works with truly unconventional thinking.
So, to prevent himself from suffering a major loss, increasing his poison resistance was an urgent priority!
At the same time, he was genuinely worried that Mobius might find some unknown way to knock him out, drag him back to her lab, and do whatever she wanted to him.
Mobius had a bottom line, but only a very thin one.
"Oh, right, Mobius, do you have any medicine for kidney deficiency?" Chen Li suddenly sent a message to Mobius through the Friends Circle.
He had just given Mobius her qualification.
"What for? Don't tell me you..."
"It's not for me. I have a patient," Chen Li quickly denied.
He would absolutely never admit to something that wasn't true.
What a joke. I'm super virile, okay?
"No. Unless..."
"Careful, or I'll cut your budget," Chen Li threatened.
"...How many doses do you need?"
"The more, the better."
---o---
"You have a kidney deficiency," Chen Li said, currently taking the pulse of an Outworlder dressed in Xianzhou attire.
"What kind of quack doctor are you? You piece of..." The Outworlder flew into a rage.
The Xianzhou referred to all species and life forms outside the three races of the Xianzhou Alliance (Xianzhou natives, Foxians, and Vidyadhara) as Outworlders.
"I can treat it."
"...My apologies, divine physician! I spoke a little loudly just now. I hope you don't mind." The Outworlder's expression changed in an instant. He grabbed Chen Li's hand, his demeanor exceptionally eager.
"Here. Take this back with you. Three times a day, one pill at a time," Chen Li said, handing the small pills provided by Mobius to the man.
"Alright, divine physician, how much do I owe you?"
"No charge. I treat the sick and save people purely for the fun of it," Chen Li said, shaking his head.
He was a man who had moved beyond such base interests...
Alright, the main reason was that if he didn't charge any money, the man couldn't come looking for trouble even if the medicine didn't work.
That was the most important point.
"Farewell, divine physician."
"Farewell," Chen Li said enthusiastically, pushing up the Disguise Glasses he was wearing.
Abundance Value +1
This proved the man really did have a kidney deficiency.
"Sigh, another day of saving the masses from suffering," Chen Li said, facing the early morning sunrise on the Xianzhou. He felt as if his entire body was radiating the golden light of merit.