Chapter 12: An Intimate Night

That slippery, slick, mysteriously pleasant sensation…

Even though I hadn’t consciously experienced it before, I instantly guessed what it was.

“Cluru!!!”

Don’t scare me like that!

“Splash—”

First came the tentacles, then Cluru’s whole soft, slimy body slid into the tub.

“H-Hey, You! Just wait a sec! Wait till I’m done bathing!”

Humans have a natural sense of shame when they’re stark naked.

Especially now that I’ve turned into a little girl.

And on the other side of the tub was something far more terrifying than the Big Bad Wolf— one of those bizarre creatures that dominate appearances in adult manga, with a natural racial advantage over beautiful girls!

Panicked, I instinctively covered my tiny chest and squeezed my legs tightly together.

Cowering in a corner of the tub, I stared in horror at the sudden intruder— Cluru.

Wait… Cluru seems a little off right now.

She had her eyes half-lidded in a lazy daze, like she was stuck in a dreamlike trance.

Totally different from the timid, skittish version of her outside.

One of her tentacles lifted, curling around my neck before gently lifting my chin.

Cluru moved closer.

There was a faint hypnotic gleam in her half-lidded eyes.

Her face—far more seductive than any enchantress from this other world wore an expression of hunger, of craving, as if staring at a gourmet delicacy.

“Can’t wait any longer, can you… my little one…”

Wha—who’re you calling little one?! Let go!! I’m warning you! Don’t you dare push it!!

I tried to protest.

But of course, it just had to be now that the medicated bath started taking effect.

The energy from the infused body-tempering potion surged into me, flooding my meridians.

My body went rigid like I’d been zapped by an electric eel, then immediately went limp again.

“Mmh—ahh—”

This is bad… really bad!

Cluru was getting closer, her strange half-sleeping state giving off serious danger vibes.

And her tentacles were snaking all around my body, tightening.

“You’ve been bedridden for so long… your back, occiput, shoulders, elbows, tailbone, heels… they all need a thorough cleaning… and massage…”

Cluru murmured softly.

Massage?

Huh?

Mm…

That slick yet firm pressure, the way it hit every part just right…

No matter how skilled a masseuse, they couldn’t possibly match this kind of technique.

Only someone with Cluru’s absurd natural talent could manage something so impossible.

I hate to admit it, but… it feels really good…

“Hehehehe…” Cluru muttered in a teasing, languid voice, “You dirty little magical girl, fell into my hands… you’ll never escape now… I’ll scrub you squeaky clean… soft and tender… even your teeth will be spotless… your tongue squeaky fresh…”

Pfft—

What kind of ridiculous tone and roleplay is this?

Suddenly, I think I understood.

Could this be… how Cluru cared for me during all those seventeen years?

She did it so consistently that even in a half-conscious state, her muscle memory could carry it out perfectly.

She must’ve forgotten I was awake now, and thought we were still back in that basement. 

So, instinctively, she came to bathe and massage me.

Now that I think about it… no wonder my skin had zero bedsores…

Normally, people bedridden that long suffer terrible pressure ulcers. 

They’re painful and even life-threatening.

But my skin was smooth and flawless, not a mark in sight.

If it weren’t for the most meticulous care imaginable… How else could that be possible?

I suddenly found myself curious—

Just what kind of image did Cluru hold of me in her mind? 

In all those seventeen years she spent in the basement, dreaming?

The girl breathing softly so close to me clearly had no idea what she was doing, yet seemed to enjoy it, a faint smile curling on her lips.

“Well, I was planning to do this in two parts… but if you insist on doing it all at once…”

Struggling under Cluru’s wrapping pressure, I raised my tiny foot.

With a gentle flick of my toe, I tipped the remaining half-bowl of potion concentrate into the tub.

The pinkish mist spread quickly through the water.

The body-tempering solution— a foundational potion used by cultivators in this other world. 

Every cultivator must use it before beginning their path.

It purges the gunk clogging the meridians. 

Without that, spiritual energy can’t flow through the body.

It’d be like trying to pour water into a block of lead—no way in.

Ordinary tempering solutions clean out 30% to 60% of the meridians. 

But me? Heh… I was a god-tier alchemist back in the other world. 

A 100% cleanse? That’s just basic stuff.

I could feel my body becoming lighter and cleaner.

My skin, already fair and delicate, now glowed with flawless clarity… and that’s just the minor benefit.

I closed my eyes, lashes trembling slightly.

Carefully sensing the air around me.

“After body tempering, I should be able to sense the spiritual energy in the world… let’s see how Earth measures up… huh?”

If nothing goes wrong, something’s bound to go wrong.

I had prepared myself mentally most cultivation novels say Earth’s in a post-spiritual era, severely lacking in energy.

Still, I wasn’t ready for this level of shock.

——

In the other world, after tempering, I could see the spiritual energy.

Like little fluffy white cotton balls floating through the air—one every few meters.

Cultivating was like Pac-Man, gobbling up those fluff balls one by one.

But here…

I couldn’t see any of them.

The moment I activated spiritual vision, all I saw was a blinding white haze. 

I thought I’d gone blind!

What the heck is this?!

It doesn’t make sense.

If there’s no spiritual energy, then that Beidou Flame Talisman wouldn’t have worked earlier.

Wait a minute…

My eyes widened as I recalled a line from an old school poem:

“The beauties of the palace, three thousand strong… could even grind an iron rod into a needle.”—wait no, not that one.

“You can’t see Mount Lu for what it is… only because you’re standing inside it.”

No way…

Is this Earth’s server-exclusive cultivation bonus?

As someone who crossed over without any power, without access to spiritual hot zones or energy springs, scraping by as a grassroots cultivator… I think I’m about to cry from happiness.

“So dense… so good…”

Even if I did nothing, the energy would seep into me on its own.

I could level up in my sleep.

What spiritual lands, what mystical springs—none of them are even worthy of carrying Earth’s shoes!

“Mm—”

Cluru was absorbing the potion too, refining her body in the process.

Though she had no idea what was happening, she just felt lighter, as if a burden had been lifted.

The subtle sensations from body tempering only made her mind fuzzier, further detaching her from reality.

Who knows what she was dreaming about?

She gently rested her chin on my shoulder.

And wrapped her arms around my waist.

“Guh—”

She was squeezing a little too tightly, making it hard for me to breathe.

The moonlight was calm and serene, casting a soft glow across Cluru’s pale shoulders and back.

I wanted to wake her, but then I heard her whisper softly—so faintly it was almost lost to the night.

“Before you fell into a coma… What kind of person were you?”

“…”

So, you’re curious about me too.

I wasn’t sure whether she asked that consciously or not.

But it calmed me down, slowly pulling me into quiet reflection.

Before the coma… me?

Human memory has a funny way of clinging to the worst parts. 

The embarrassing, the painful— those moments replay in the dead of night and keep you from sleeping.

Maybe that’s why, even after seventeen years, I remember my life before crossing over so clearly.

“Me, huh… heh…”

Leaning back against the tub, I thought for a moment.

“Just… ordinary. Really, painfully ordinary.”

I let out a bitter laugh and looked at the moon through the window.

Then, without caring if Cluru could hear or not, I just started talking. Letting it all out.

“Back in school, my grades weren’t great, but not terrible either. Sometimes I’d surprise myself and land near the top of the class. If a teacher praised me in one subject, I’d suddenly start working like mad and climb to first place.”

“My parents were never satisfied. They wanted a prodigy who could help them climb the social ladder. Or at the very least, a ‘retirement investment’ who’d give them a cushy life.”

“My relationship with relatives? Terrible. They looked down on me, and I looked down on them too. But come holidays, we’d all fake smiles and pretend to be close.”

“Sometimes I’d fantasize about becoming someone important. Someone who’d make my parents proud. Someone who’d slap the smug grins off those who once looked down on me.”

“But slowly, I realized… school was just a training camp for factory cogs. With my background, no matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t compete with people who had three generations of wealth behind them. And with compounding advantages, the gap only grows…”

“There were nights I’d lie awake, imagining the future—graduating, earning scraps, saving every penny and still unable to afford even a bathroom in a second-tier city by the time I was thirty-five. Then getting laid off, forced to deliver food till I was sixty, and finally becoming a security guard until my body gave out… dying alone…”

“So, when that car came barreling toward me… I was almost… relieved.”

If everything had ended there, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad.

But instead of a period, it was the brutal start of something else entirely.

Seventeen years ago, I opened my eyes to the blood-soaked, dog-eat-dog world of cultivation.

Maybe it was sheer refusal to accept that fate, but at that moment, I set myself a goal—

Clear the otherworld, and go back.

Return to triumph.

“Like I was dreaming for a long, long time and in that dream, I learned so much.” 

I smiled faintly. 

“I thought once I woke up, I could start over. That I’d finally have everything I once longed for—respect, love, a life worth living, not just surviving.”

But reality always has other plans. 

Turns out… I’m not even me anymore.

The sudden change threw everything off. 

I needed time to adjust, to find a new path forward.

“…”

Cluru’s eyelashes trembled faintly.

Her eyes remained closed, and she seemed deeply asleep.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but…

Her tentacles tightened slightly.

The pressure made my body ache a little but oddly, it also brought a strange sense of security. 

Like being back in the womb.

I rested my head against the edge of the tub, eyes still on the moon.

“At least all those hopeless worries are in the past now~”

The world’s different. 

Way more interesting than before.

And I’m no longer powerless.

As for tomorrow? I’m looking forward to it.