Chapter 493: Starvation

"What?" Stella questioned as Kael stared at her, the slightest tinge of red reaching his cheeks. "What?" she said again, a little louder. That seemed to break Kael out of his stupor.

"Sorry—I didn't mean to stare," he looked down at the floor.

Stella had no idea what was happening, so she shrugged and focused on packing away her emergency pill-making setup. It wasn't anything like the one she had under Red Vine Peak, but it was good enough to cook up some profound-tier medicine. The healing balm she had quickly concocted from memory numbed her chest with a soothing coldness, saving her from wincing with every movement.

I miss Sol's healing already, she thought as the ingredients and apparatuses vanished one by one and were carefully organized inside her spatial rings.

"How did you get that injury?" Kael hesitantly asked.

Stella didn't even turn around as she answered him. "The moment I arrived here, I was shoulder-barged by a passing cultivator. They smashed through my protective layers and still left me this bruise without trying, so I suspect they were in the Monarch Realm."

Kael hissed through his teeth, as if he were imagining the pain.

"Say," Stella said, turning around to face him, "if you were to place a Monarch Realm cultivator on a scale, where would they rank in overall strength?"

Kael raised a brow. "What do you mean?"

"Like, what is the average cultivation of a sect Elder on this layer of creation, for example?"

"Um," Kael pondered for a moment. "Well, we don't really have a sect here in the Citadel. But if I had to guess, an Elder should be at least at the Monarch Realm. Though I would suspect most reside in the Sovereign of Realities Realm."

Stella kept a calm expression, but internally, she was bewildered. On the ninth layer of creation, there wasn't anyone in the Sovereign of Realities Realm—it was a literally impossible height to reach. Yet on the sixth layer, they were considered nothing more than Elders of sects? That's when she remembered that for every layer of creation, a new highest cultivation realm was added. Sovereign of Realities was the highest level one could reach on the eighth layer of creation, meaning there were two more above that here on the sixth layer.

Suddenly, Monarch Realm didn't seem very impressive, and she felt like a bug with her Star Core Realm cultivation. Honestly, she should be glad the passing cultivator hadn't been stronger and pulverized her into paste on the sidewalk.

Kael seemed to misinterpret her silence as he walked deeper into the room, chuckling. "I know, it must not be impressive where you're from."

It definitely was, but she was pretending to be someone important, so she kept that to herself.

"What cultivation level are you?" Stella asked, her eyes following him as he made his way around the small apartment and tidied up.

"Me? Star Core ninth stage," he sighed. "I know, it's pathetic."

Pathetic? Stella felt second-hand insulted, as they were at the same cultivation stage, and it was made all the worse because she had only reached this stage due to Ash's amazing resources. As Kael had already mentioned, he didn't even have access to pills—yet Star Core Realm was considered pathetic?

Maybe she should fear the Tessellate Council. She was also really glad she didn't kill that shopkeeper now, even if her Qi was untraceable.

"If it's pathetic, why haven't you reached higher?" Stella questioned, checking if it was simply an arrogant statement.

"How? Without a spatial stabilization array, ascending to Nascent Soul Realm in the Citadel is basically suicide," Kael said.

Good to know, Stella thought as she planned to ascend to the Nascent Soul Realm herself within the next few weeks. "Why is it suicidal without the array exactly?"

Kael gave her a dubious look and pointed at the ceiling. "You've seen the spatial storm overhead, right? Imagine that storm, but it's endlessly striking down and directly attacking your soul. It's why we are all trapped in here in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

Kael let out a long sigh and began to rant. "The Tessellate Council wants to raise powerful spatial cultivators, apparently in hopes that one will be powerful enough to connect the layers of creation. You know, because of the lack of an era of ascension, the branches of the family have been trapped across multiple layers."

Stella nodded as she began to connect the pieces. "Yeah, you mentioned something about that earlier."

"The only known way to get off this prison is to impress those bastards—only to become their slave. They will bind you in physical and spiritual chains to the family, and if you can't breach the gap between the layers of creation, then you will forever be used as a walking portal for the family's elites," Kael's face twisted in disgust. With a grunt, he pushed a relatively empty bookcase into its rightful place. "Sorry, I get heated whenever I think of them."

Stella appraised Kael for a moment as he cooled his expression. He seemed a little more mature and put together for his age than most, likely due to his rough upbringing as a Rift Born—whatever that meant. It seemed they shared that in common: a rough childhood that forced them to grow up quickly to survive the cruelty of the world, or die a dog's death.

"How old are you?" Stella asked.

Kael glanced at her. "Seventeen, why?"

"Mhm," Stella hummed as she appraised him. They were of similar age and cultivation level. Right now, she was wondering...

Who would win in a fight between them?

Kael tensed under her gaze and swiftly went back to busying himself.

Stella walked over and lay down on the couch, her head resting on the backrest as she lazily watched Kael go about his tasks.

"What age did you reach the Star Core Realm?"

"Six," he replied.

"Really? That's quite young," Stella couldn't help but remark. Of course, Ryker had managed a similar feat, but again, that was like comparing apples and oranges. Ryker was the seventh son of one of the wealthiest families, joined the Ashfallen Sect, and enjoyed the cultivation aids that Ash had to offer. Kael didn't even have access to pills or any cultivation manuals if his empty bookcase was anything to go by.

"Yeah, it sounds impressive, but the Rift Born that don't make it to the Star Core Realm fast enough die of starvation."

The bluntness of that statement caught Stella off guard.

"Starvation?"

That was a problem even mortals on the ninth layer of creation rarely had to worry about. Qi was abundant, blessing the land and flora, allowing for regular and plentiful harvests. Problems only arose when Ash teleported a hundred thousand more people into the area, or there was a storm rolling in cast by a Monarch Realm monster.

For the most part, the people ate well—Mortal and cultivators alike.

"Remember how I told you there are no pills because we have no way to grow them?" Kael asked, his hands crossed as he leaned on the bookcase.

"Yeah?"

"Well, it's the same with food. Most of the Citadel's food is brought in from the outside—and you best believe the Tessellate Council uses its monopoly over food to maintain control over the populace. That's why we have to rush to the Star Core Realm, no matter the cost. Even with the passive Qi generation from the Star Core providing my starving body with a hint of sustenance, I've barely managed to stay alive until this point." His gaze met hers, his expression darkening. "The Citadel takes the saying 'survival of the fittest' to the extreme. You not only have to be talented, but you also have to be talented in specifically spatially aligned affinities to make it through childhood. I got lucky—many others didn't."

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Stella stayed silent, sensing he was debating whether he should say more.

"It's why I begged you not to kill that shopkeeper. He's not the enemy here, the Tessellate Family is." He clenched his hands. "For all I know, he might have been a Rift Born like me and was finally making it, only to be struck down by an outsider."

Stella could only imagine the anger flowing through him.

"You're right, I'm glad I left him alive, and I'm sorry you had to go through that," she said genuinely, almost surprising herself.

Kael clenched his teeth and then relaxed—if only a little. "Yeah..." he said, slowly looking at her. There was a long pause before he asked the question on his mind. "I've always wondered, what's it like being a princess?"

Stella's mood soured.

"I didn't mean it like that," Kael quickly clarified. "I felt your bloodlust earlier—it was on another level. While not starvation, I'm sure being a princess comes with its own challenges for you to have sharpened your bloodlust to such an extent."

Stella retreated from the backrest and Kael's anticipating stare. Instead of providing an answer, she opted to look at the plain stone ceiling, which was cracked in many places.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," Kael said, and Stella heard him shuffling away through the room.

She opened her mouth a few times, but no words came out. Reflecting on it, her life had been hard, and she had every right to complain. However, Kael was right—although she didn't struggle with starvation, she had her own set of struggles and tribulations. Yet somehow, they seemed lesser. She took a moment to soul-search the reason why. Shifting through the memories, there was an ever-present person she could rely on.

Her emotional rock—or tree in this case.

Because of Ash, I always had someone to depend on. Someone to fight for. Now that I think back, that had made everything easier and the world seem less dark.

Glancing around this apartment, she guessed that Kael was the only resident. Perhaps if he had someone to depend on, his life would have felt easier.

Looking at her hand, she inspected her spatial rings. Within them were apparently enough spirit stones, pills, and other things to topple the enclosed economy of the Citadel. A small smile appeared on her lips. Maybe she could repay Kael for helping her by showing him the high life.

But first, she would make sure to reach the Nascent Soul Realm.

She sat up. "I want to set up a spatial stabilization array. Where could I do it?"

Kael perked up at the change in subject. "Huh? You know how to make one?"

"No, but I'll figure it out," Stella said with utmost confidence.

"Right, okay," he said, not questioning her further. He looked around the small room, his brows furrowing in contemplation. "Not here, that's for sure. I don't think the building is big enough to support such an array. Besides, you would want to set up on a higher level."

"Higher level?"

"Right now, we are in the lower levels of the Citadel, as far from the spatial storms' influence as possible. It means life down here is a little more tolerable for weaker cultivators like me, but there's also less Qi to cultivate with and fewer opportunities," he said, shrugging. "At least the rent is cheap."

Wait, the Qi down here is less dense? She had already been so impressed with the Qi density that she dared not think of what the quality of the Qi was like on the higher levels of the city. Now she was interested.

"Mhm, well, I plan to be in town for a while," she tapped her chin. "Do you think there are any houses for sale on the upper levels?"

She had never cared much for accommodation, but it was clear that if she wanted to do things away from prying eyes, she was going to need an estate of her own, one with plenty of space and maybe a garden so she could plant one of Ash's offspring.

Kael narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you scheming?"

"Did you forget? I'm a princess," she said, standing and gesturing lightly to the room around her. "You can't expect someone like me to sleep on a couch in a dingy apartment like this."

She left out the part that she often slept outside on a bench and was more than happy to lounge around on the floor. If anything, this apartment was better than what she had back home.

Kael frowned. "It's not dingy, and that couch is perfectly comfortable."

It was pretty comfortable compared to a bench...

"Fine, but this place is rather small. Do you really want me cramping your style by lounging around here?" Stella questioned. "I might be here for a whole year."

Kael contemplated her argument, and his cheeks tinged red again for some unknown reason. "I don't think you're cramping my style at all..."

Stella looked him up and down. He was a head taller than her, which was rare, as she usually rivaled most people in height. Perhaps it was because she was a descendant of the World Tree that she was tall for a girl? That aside, he had bad posture, his hair was a mess, and his unkempt stubble was doing him no favors.

"You're right," she said, which seemed to surprise and excite Kael for some reason. "You're the one who will be cramping my style," Stella clarified, and he instantly deflated.

"Who was I kidding?" he muttered under his breath.

Stella walked over and planted a truffle in his hand—a skin improvement truffle to be exact.

He glanced up, his keen gray eyes peering through his messy black hair. "Why are you handing me food?"

"It's not food, you idiot. It's a... present, from me to you."

He gave her a dubious look. "I know I'm thin, but I make enough as a courier to afford food. It's been years since I last starved."

"Just eat it, will you?" Stella said impatiently.

"Fine, I guess—"

"Wait," Stella said. Digging into her spatial ring, she found some random male clothes. Since she had stolen many of these rings from cultivators she had killed in the past, many of their old items remained inside. As she passed the clothes to Kael, he grew even more confused.

"And this is for?"

"Clothes, trust me, you will need them. Though I suppose you could eat the truffle while naked, but I'm sure the clothes you have under that bad-fitting cloak of yours are well-worn out anyway."

"Huh?" Kael said, looking at her as if she had lost the plot. "What are you on about?"

"Just think of the truffle as a skin care routine. You see my skin? It's because I eat these."

"Why do I need to do skin care?"

"Because I can't go house shopping while accompanied by a ruffian."

They won't take us seriously with you looking like a thief, she thought, but kept that to herself.

"Ruffian?" he grumbled.

"Stop sulking and get on with it. I'll wait out here," Stella said, pushing him toward what she assumed was his bedroom. He seemed like he wanted to ask more questions, but she slammed the door shut before he could.

Sighing to herself, she shook her head and sat back down on the couch.

While the Qi down here wasn't the best the Citadel had to offer, it was still so thick that the air was rippling from random spatial fluctuations. Even this shabby place had dimming glyphs built into the walls to prevent these spatial ripples from tearing the house apart.

Closing her eyes, Stella started cultivating.

***

Kael stared at himself in the polished metal mirror.

Taking Stella's advice, he had stripped down before eating the truffle and was glad he did. The room now had a terrible stench, likely due to the impurities staining the bed. What horrified Kael only slightly more than what he was seeing in the mirror was knowing those impurities had once been inside him. Now that they were out, he was like a different person.

His skin was luminous and smooth like polished marble, his hair looked silky, his eyes sharpened, and his jawline was more defined than he thought possible. The better skin he could understand, as well as his hair. But the changed jaw structure? His weight increasing to an acceptable level? The abs he now had that hadn't existed before. The fact that she had referred to the truffle as simple "skin care" elevated her further in his mind.

Forget being a princess. Was she the daughter of a god?

"Just who have you gotten yourself involved with?" he muttered, shaking his head. Quickly getting dressed in the clothes he had been provided, he noticed they were form-fitting like Stella's, but he wasn't embarrassed like before. He almost wanted people to see his figure now.

Opening the door to the living room, he glanced at the couch. Stella sat upon it, cultivating. She was cross-legged with perfect posture as her blonde hair and earrings floated weightlessly. An unspeakable aura, like that of a true master, radiated from her, and he simply stood there in awe.

When he cultivated, he struggled to get the chaotic spatial Qi around him under control. But Stella? She did it as easily as breathing. Suddenly, her domain over the surrounding Qi relaxed, and it fled from her in a desperate surge, making him almost stumble back.

Stella's eyes fluttered open, and she looked at him intently for a long while.

"Oh," she eventually said.

Kael gave an awkward smile. "Quite the change, right? Is it supposed to do this much?"

"Honestly, I thought it would do more," Stella said, shrugging and looking away with disappointment.

Kael was baffled. Had she seen the state of his room? The changes to his body? What did she mean by expecting more?

He felt oddly insulted.

"Ah," she snapped her fingers, arriving at some realization.

Kael felt scared.

"Your physical features improved, but the aura around you remains much the same. Too mundane, and that's the problem." Her spatial ring flashed, and a dozen pills and two more truffles appeared. "Come back to me once you've taken all of these and improved your cultivation to the absolute peak of the Star Core Realm."

He accepted the floating mass of truffles and pills with trembling hands. If one truffle had done this much, he was actually terrified of what taking all of these would turn him into.

"What are you going to do in the meantime?" he asked with a shaking voice. "It might take me months or years to eat all of these and reach that stage."

Stella scoffed. "If it takes you that long after eating all of those, I'll eat a shoe." She then smiled at him. "Don't worry about me, I'm just going to rebuild my foundation with the dense Qi here in preparation for my pending ascension. Oh, wait."

Kael tensed. "What is it?"

"One of those truffles... it releases your heart demons. Like, they will literally crawl out of your throat and try to eat you. Be careful with that one. Usually, I have my friend Diana around to devour them, but she's off exploring like I am."

"Sorry, come again?" Kael said, but Stella had closed her eyes, and he felt the Qi in the room once again still and start to gather toward their mistress—the crazed blonde-haired princess who had made his couch her home despite her previous protests.

Retreating to his room, he put the haul of truffles and pills on his desk, and his eyes watered from the stench.

"You can run away from her, you know?" he said to himself in the mirror. A small chuckle escaped his lips. "Who am I kidding? Run away from her? I can foresee a future where the Tessellate Council is fleeing for their lives, and I don't want to be joining them."

He looked down at the 'presents' he had received and shuddered. "You got this, Kael," he said to himself. His voice dropped to an uncertain whisper. "Right...?"

He picked up one of the two truffles and hoped it wasn't the heart demon-summoning one, as he had quite a few.

"What plant could even grow something like this?" he wondered, inspecting it. "I hope I never meet such a horrifying thing."

With that, he chowed it down.

An unsettling feeling stirred deep in his chest, and he paled. Frozen in fear as something began to claw its way out.

He had eaten the heart demon truffle.