"Enough!" Xanda shouted. He cleared his throat and got serious.
"Like I said, you will be babysitting a noble. He might be twenty years old, but he can't be trusted to be alone at all."
"Which is why you got this rare opportunity."
Finn pursed his lips but kept his silence.
Xanda began explaining the details of the job and the identity of the noble Finn would have under his care from now on.
"The young noble is Sia from the Sia family. The Sia family is a noble family of warriors and are known for their loyalty to the royal court. As you can imagine, the other nobles don't particularly like the Sia family since they are loyal to the royals."
"As for the kid, Sia, is the youngest son of the family head, but he doesn't have the heart to cultivate." Xanda sighed heavily.
"It's truly a pity. He has better talent compared to his older brothers, but it's simply wasted. He is kind of the opposite of you. He has the talent but no passion."
"You have passion but garbage talent."
"Truly terrible. I told you it was the worst talent I have ever seen in my life."
"You don't have to repeat it." Finn's lips twitched.
He knew his talent was bad, but hearing it repeated so frequently was demoralizing.
"Anyways, being passionate doesn't sound so bad. What's the problem that he needs to have a babysitter? " Finn asked as he didn't understand why an adult needed a babysitter.
Xanda cleared his throat before getting to the point.
"The problem is what he is passionate about."
"He likes collecting gossip, drama, any information about anyone and everyone. I don't need to explain to you why that might be a problem to you, right?"
Finn shook his head, "I got it. I can imagine all the rumors inside the circles of the noble families. If that guy collected evidence confirming any of it is true, the other noble family would want him dead."
Xanda gave Finn a thumbs up.
"Exactly!"
"The incident that made the Sia family resolve to get Sia a babysitter was when he found information that his sister had gotten pregnant from a commoner."
"Let's just say that his sister is no longer pregnant and her lover... no longer exists in the immortal realm." Xanda nervously gulped.
When Xanda thought about the very public execution that the Sia family performed back then, he broke out in cold sweat.
Finn's face darkened as he felt nervous. The guy who got someone killed was the person he needed to watch. What if something happened under his watch?
Noticing the uncomfortable silence, Xanda slapped his leg before screaming from the pain.
"Damn it! Why do I keep forgetting about my injuries? Damn!" Xanda cursed under his breath before regaining his composure.
"Anyways, you don't have anything to worry about. The job is easy as long as you aren't a dumbass."
"Side note, all the money you will get will directly come to me. I'll give back your portion of the money at the end of the day."
Taking a deep breath, Xanda endured the lingering pickling pain coming from the depths of his bones. After informing Finn about everything he needed to know, Xanda rolled towards his room.
Finn snapped out his daze and asked a question that had been bothering him.
"Wait,"
"What?" Xanda stopped in his tracks with his eyebrow raised.
"Where can I take a shower or bath around here? I haven't taken a shower since I got here." Finn asked as he pointed his armpit.
"The western bathroom has a place to take a bath. But don't bother going, the water is shut off." Xanda informed with a slight nod as if it was obvious.
"I'll take you to your babysitting job tomorrow morning."
Finn watched Xanda roll away before clenching his fist. The bit of safety he felt from his first day of cultivating was put out.
An affair that was commonplace on Earth was a death sentence here. It could be imagined how trigger happy this world was.
He might get killed for sneezing in the wrong direction.
"Only by becoming an immortal will I be safe enough." Finn muttered and felt his resolve to continue his cultivation as soon as possible.
He turned towards the sky that had begun to grow dark. The moon should cross over the horizon soon enough, and once it reaches its peak, his cultivation would begin.
"The second part of Yin and Yang Rising is to face the moon. Hopefully, it's not as painful as the sun." Finn hoped.
A few hours later.
"Ah! I was wrong. It's just as painful!"
Finn's cries of pain didn't leave his body. He sat peacefully in the Forbidden Martial School courtyard.
The scene would have been bathed in complete darkness if it wasn't for the full moon raining light down.
The freezing cold air outside was nothing compared to the Yin Qi stuck inside Finn's lungs. It sat there unmoving. It froze everything in its path.
His nose, throat, esophagus, and lungs instantly became blocks of ice.
The extremely low temperature devoured the heat in Finn's body, rapidly turning him into an ice statue. His thoughts were even frozen.
The thoughts he had were filled with pain on par with being burned alive.
"Purple heart, save me!"
Finn turned to his only hope of survival against the peak strength Yin Qi he had absorbed due to his own ignorance.
It was common sense not to absorb Yin Qi from the moon at its peak. Especially absorbing the Yin Qi from a full Moon was simply a death sentence on par with peak strength Yang Qi from a noon sun.
The power of Yin Qi lied in its ability to freeze and impurity. It froze and corrupted everything it touched.
As Finn froze to death, he felt himself becoming heavier as impurities from the outside world froze the moment it touched his skin.
Becoming a part of him.
Dust, air, water droplets, leaves flying through the wind, and even unlucky insects that had gotten too close became a part of the ice statue he was becoming.
Badum...badum...badum...badum badum!
Sensing the danger, Finn was in the purple heart and took action. Its increasingly powerful heartbeat suppressed the Yin Qi just enough to let Finn take control of it.
Without hesitation, Finn quickly moved the Yin Qi through his spirit meridians according to the Yin and Yang Rising art.
The first hour, Finn struggled to complete a single cycle. He had nearly gone down the incorrect path on multiple occasions.
After several cycles and cutting down his time to 15 minutes, the last bit of Yin Qi was consumed.
"Ah," Finn snapped his eyes open as the silver light flashed across.
Breathing a sigh of relief from surviving another death sentence, Finn took in gulps of fresh air to enjoy his time alive. Even the chilling air felt like a warm breeze to him at this point.
"I feel so heavy." Finn muttered slowly. He was freezing.
He stood up and watched in amazement as the frost that had formed on his UltraMax jacket cracked and fell off like snow.
Finn grabbed a leaf that had become frozen to his cheek and pulled it off. Since he was so cold, the pain was numb; it only felt like a pinch.
"This is cool in its own right. I feel heavier but definitely more stable and tougher." Finn thought to himself happy by his discovery.
His near death cultivation had shown its effectiveness.
With five Yang Qi and five cycles of Yin Qi, he had completed what others would take days to accomplish.
He could firmly be said to have entered the early stage of the External Refinement realm. Although he still didn't know much about cultivation or martial arts, he could guess that being able to complete a round of Yin and Yang Rising meant he had begun his martial arts journey.
"One small step for me, one giant leap on my way back to Earth." Finn chuckled to himself before he shivered.
Finn stared at the setting moon and trembled. The thought of what he went through was more chilling than the cold.
If he hadn't had the purple heart, he would have been dead. Either burned to ash or became a frozen statue.
The immortal realm was dangerous, and he had only begun to see the tip of its surface.