The three women fell silent at Draven's words. Their encounter with the wolf pack had already shown them that the beasts in this secret realm were far more powerful than those outside. But they could not completely trust Draven, since he was still a stranger to them.
Seeing their hesitation, Draven explained briefly why their cultivation was restricted to the mortal realm and how his village was wiped out by divine beasts four years ago.
"I've said what I needed to. The rest is up to you." With that, he turned to leave for the Ghost Valley to collect his herbs, as the women still hadn't given him an answer.
"Wait." The young lady who was sitting weakly on the ground with a pale face, called out to him.
Draven stopped and looked back at her.
"How old are you?" she asked coldly.
Draven narrowed his eyes. "Very old."
"Are you afraid of death?" she continued.
"Young lady, mind your manners! He is our savior," the warrior woman interjected with a panicked look on her face.
The young lady ignored her, her gaze fixed on Draven.
After a moment of silence, he replied, "I don't know."
The answer seemed to throw her off balance. Gritting her teeth, she pressed on, "I can extend your life. Do you want this offer?"
"Young lady!" the warrior woman said sternly. The two mages beside her also frowned.
"Shut up! I am talking to him," the young lady snapped coldly, not looking away from Draven. She continued, "My bloodline spirit is the mythical Yin Yang Phoenix. Give me your Yang energy to complete its true form. Once that happens, our inner worlds will connect and our life forces will merge. Even when your natural lifespan ends, you will live as long as I do."
The three middle-aged women stared in stunned silence. Draven looked equally taken aback.
"Are you sure her mental health is alright?" he asked the warrior woman suspiciously.
Before she could answer, the young lady cut in angrily, "My mind is perfectly fine! Give me an answer. Is it yes, or—"
"No. It's a no," Draven stated flatly.
"Why?" she demanded through clenched teeth.
"If you were a beautiful old woman, I might have thought twice. But you're a young chick that hasn't even broken out of its shell. If I married you, my late grandfather would break out of his coffin to spit in my face," Draven said seriously.
The three women found themselves nodding in agreement.
"I never said anything about marriage! I only need your Yang energy, and in return, I extend your life. After that, we go our separate ways," he young lady argued.
The three women nodded again, the logic seeming sound to them now.
Draven's mouth twitched. "What you're saying is like a man claiming he's not the father after getting a woman pregnant. As for extending my life, if we can't break the seal of this pocket realm, I'll still live for another 240 years. You, on the other hand, won't last another 80."
"You...!" The young lady pointed a trembling finger at him. Clenching her fist, she shot to her feet and suddenly lunged at Draven, a knife appearing in her hand from nowhere.
The three women were so stunned by the sudden attack they failed to react in time.
Draven, however, remained calm. He caught her wrist, twisted it, and pinned her effortlessly to the ground. "Little girl, I have a bad temper. Don't test my patience."
Halfway through his sentence, a strange connection surged between him and the young lady. Shocked, he released her and leaped back. Instantly, his body temperature skyrocketed, and flames erupted over his skin. Oddly, his clothes remained unharmed.
A soft chuckle came from the young lady as she sat up. Cyan flames enveloped her body in turn, dropping the temperature around her drastically. "How is it? I used the residue of your spiritual energy from when you healed me as a link to send my bloodline spirit's Yang energy into your body. Now we have only one choice. Either you return the Yang energy to me so my bloodline spirit can be born, or the Yin and Yang energies will go out of control. I will freeze to death, and you will burn to death."
"There is a third way. Destroy the Yin source, and the Yang flames will vanish on their own," Draven said calmly. One of his rings shimmered and transformed into a sword, which he placed against her neck.
Terrified, the three women dropped to their knees, begging for mercy.
The young lady, however, merely smiled fearlessly. "Even if it's a bad choice, that choice should be mine. I refuse to be someone else's chess piece."
Draven frowned. Finally, with a sigh, he put the sword away. He placed his index finger on the spot between her eyebrows. All the flames covering his body receded, flowing down his arm and through his finger into her glabella. As his flames entered her, the cyan flames around her flickered and died, and she fell unconscious.
Draven looked inward, into his own inner world. Sure enough, its size had expanded significantly. At a distance, another inner world was now linked to his, like two adjacent rooms.
Within the young lady's inner world, he saw six magic cores, each a different color: cyan for water, orange-red for fire, silver for space, milky white for light, light green for wind, and brown for earth. But compared to Draven's own cores, hers were only a tenth the size.