In a dark space, resembling eternal emptiness, Jiang Liushi was slowly struggling to shake off his drowsiness and wake up. It felt like he was waking up from a long nightmare.
‘Where is this? Am I still alive?’ wondered Jiang Liushi.
Jiang Liushi could feel nothing else other than a splitting headache, even his limbs seemed unresponsive. At that moment, he felt as his body was gone. What he could see in front of him was an unlimited expanse of darkness.
“Zhuying! Xiyu! Yuxin!” Jiang Liushi tried his best to shout their names, but he failed—no sound could come out of his throat!
‘Where is this?’ Jiang Liushi felt confused and nervous.
Suddenly, Jiang Liushi saw a faint light burst out, lightening the endless dark space. After a closer look, he discovered that the light was coming from his body!
‘Starseed!?’
Jiang Liushi realized that Starseed was beating in his body just like his heart! It beat again and again, and with every beat, it seemed to devour the power in the surrounding space. Jiang Liushi understood what was taking place—he had successfully linked his consciousness with Starseed!
Starseed sounded in Jiang Liushi’s mind. [Metal Essence absorption progress: 0,03%]
Jiang Liushi, through the dim light the exuding from Starseed, looked at the dark space again and confirmed his conjecture—they were inside the Metal Essence!
Then he slowly recalled the moment of the impact. He had been over-drafting his life force, as well as his female companions’ power before Starseed burst like a bright star in his brain. Then a sphere of light enveloped them and allowed them to break through the Metal Essence’s nearly indestructible exterior.
In actual fact, the metallic ball may seem solid while its texture indestructible, but if its enchantments were destroyed, the Metal Essence would look no different than mercury. The sphere containing it was a space barrier that separated it from the real world.
Fortunately, the energy Starseed was absorbing was also helping Jiang Liushi to slowly recover. As Jiang Liushi was starting to get clearheaded, he realized that he was naked, which could be attributed to Starseed too. As they were dashing inside, Starseed’s energy could only protect their lives, and thus anything external was reduced to dust—even the tour bus was gone.
However, Jiang Liushi had a hunch that Starseed could reconstruct the MCV, as its essence lay with it. What was gone were the metals that had been used to construct the MCV. Also, the Black Hole’s energy was undoubtedly preserved as Jiang Liushi had already sensed its existence. Actually, it had condensed into the size of a fist and quietly suspended not far from him. Actually, the Black Rubik’s Cube was also in the internal space. They were the only inanimate existences that had entered.
‘Where are Ran Xiyu and the others?’ Jiang Liushi had yet to find them, so he felt quite anxious.
Thus, he relied on Starseed’s energy and started searching in the internal space, which proved to be way more extensive than what it looked from outside. After 15 minutes, Jiang Liushu found his little sister, Jiang Zhuying.
“Zhuying!”
Upon finding his sister, Jiang Liushi felt excited. Soon, his excitement was replaced by embarrassment and awkwardness because… her clothes were also gone. Therefore, Jiang Liushi had to look away and try to conceal his ‘little brother’. Fortunately, Jiang Zhuying’s long hair was covering certain parts, so the situation turned less awkward.
“Zhuying, wake up! Wake up!” While averting his gaze, Jiang Liushi shook his sisters’ hands and transferred some of Satrseed’s energy to her.
After a few minutes, Jiang Zhuying came to her senses and let out a cough. “Brother? What’s wrong with me? We— Ah! What happened to my clothes!?” Jiang Zhuying was shocked. How could she not be? The two siblings were somewhere unknown and stark naked.
“I’ll give the details later. We should first go and find the others,” said Jiang Liushi, embarrassed.
‘Where can we find clothes?’ Jiang Liushi wracked his brain but to no avail. All their possessions had been destroyed along with the tour, while none of them had the special ability of conjuring.
‘Could we use possibly use Zhuying’s electric ability to create clothes? Nah, impossible, only in fantasy novels…’ Jiang Liushi scratched that thought immediately, feeling sad at the same time.
After searching some more, they found Ling. Naturally, Jiang Liushi averted his gaze as she was also naked. Although she had a hot figure, Jiang Liushi didn’t share a close relationship with her, and it would be impolite to stare. Ling’s temperament was cold, and she didn’t speak much. Thus, Jiang Liushi and Ling rarely interacted when compared to the other girls.
Jiang Liushi turned his back and touched Ling’s hand to transfer her some of Starseed’s energy. Soon, Ling woke up. Unexpectedly, after finding out she was naked, Ling remained calm and just used her hands to cover her female parts.
“Brother Jiang, where are we?” asked Ling.
“Uh…” Jiang Liushi didn’t know how to answer as Ling’s weird posture had left him stumped.
“Well, we should be in the Metal Essence’s interior. Thankfully, we are still alive. Let’s look for Xiyu and the others quickly,” said Jiang Liushi. In his mind, Ling and Jiang Zhuying should feel the most embarrassed amongst the group.
Fortunately, they found Ran Xiyu, Xiang Xuehai, Li Yuxinm Ying, as well as Luoluo near each other and woke them up swiftly. Surprisingly, Ying’s clothes were intact!
Jiang Zhuying asked in astonishment, “Sister Ying, why? Why do you still have clothes?”
Ying looked confused and was unable to give an answer. Luckily, Jang Liushi came to her rescue by coughing and interrupting his sister’s questioning.
Jiang Liushi pondered for some time before realization hit him. In actuality, Ying was an energy lifeform bound to his Starseed—even her clothes were energy-based! That’s the reason they were preserved inside the Metal Essence.
Having been enlightened, Jiang Liushi started thinking about creating energy-based clothes with the help of Starseed. However, his thinking process came to an abrupt stop as he noticed his sister hiding behind Ying and… removing the latter’s clothes!
“Sister Ying, look at me. I need some clothes. Otherwise, I can’t face my brother.”
Before Ying could even answer, the clothes on the upper part of her body were removed swiftly…
“How about your skirt? Lend it to me, it suits me better,” said Jiang Zhuying, before removing Ying’s skirt too.
Luckily, Ying was an energy lifeform, whose master was Jiang Liushi, so she wasn’t embarrassed in the least.
