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\'The sword is closer to him; I must grab it somehow. Just in case he wants to kill me.\'

Chloe was having similar ideas to Dan\'s while pretending to be asleep. Chloe was the first one to make a move and she rolled toward the sword as if naturally amidst her sleep.

\'Is it really a normal roll in her sleep? She\'s getting closer to the sword. No, she must be doing it on purpose! Two can play this game.\'

Dan thought to himself nervously as he barely kept pretending to be asleep. He faked a snore and rolled toward the sword. He was now within touching distance from the hilt.

Chloe\'s heart almost missed a beat when she saw that. She started getting scared and considered just getting up and dashing to the sword.

"Dan, love, are you awake? I miss you."

She faked a sleepy voice, acting as if she had just woken up. Dan\'s hand froze above the hilt as he pretended to wake up from her voice.

"Hmm? Did you say something, dear?"

At that moment of hesitation, he saw Chloe leaps toward the sword, and he hurriedly sent his hand back to the hilt. His hand reached first, and Chloe\'s hand grasped his.

\'He really wants the sword! He wants to kill me for money!\'

\'She really aimed to take the sword and kill me with it for money!\'

The two thought simultaneously. Chloe had a slightly stronger body as she managed to get more resources to strengthen herself at the lower stage. She quickly held his other hand with hers.

"Chloe! I can\'t believe you want to kill me!"

Dan yelled as he struggled to free himself from her grasp.

"You\'re one to talk!"

Chloe bit the arm he held the sword with, catching him by surprise and eliciting a painful shout from his lips.

She used this chance to pull the sword from his grip. Dan quickly gathered himself and tried to tackle her and take back the sword.

Lost in the heat of the fight, she thrust the sword, piercing his chest. Her lust for blood was partly satiated when she suddenly realized what she has just done. She looked at her lover, seeing the sword plunged into his chest.

"Dan, NO!!"

She screamed in despair, but he only looked at her with hatred and disbelief.

"You… killed me."

He said his last words as his life faded slowly. Chloe opened her eyes in anger when she heard that.

"You can\'t blame me! You wanted to take the sword and kill me! I was only defending myself!"

She screamed at Dan who couldn\'t speak anymore. At that moment, the door was suddenly opened, and Ken entered alongside Maria.

"You! What have you done to us? It\'s all your fault!"

"I just made some desire to kill others leak into your minds. If you truly loved each other like you said and trusted each other completely, you wouldn\'t kill him."

"No! I had to take the sword to protect myself, it\'s not my fault!"

"Did you also have to stab his heart? Besides, if you\'re willing to give up your life for him, why can\'t you just let him have the sword?"

She turned silent as she didn\'t have a good answer. She just looked at him with fury and hatred in her eyes.

"Well, you can go now."

Ken waved his hand and Maria removed the girl\'s chains and gave her an empty storage ring. 

Chloe placed all the Qi Stones in her ring and went past Ken toward the door. At that moment, Maria\'s spear pierced the girl\'s chest from behind.

"Even after killing your fiancé, you\'re still in the mood to take the money and leave as if nothing happened. Here\'s your answer, that\'s why I\'m cruel; it\'s because all of us are."

Ken said as he burned the two dead bodies with his Alchemical Qi before leaving with Maria.

"I can\'t believe they killed each other for some money. They seemed like legitimate lovers."

Maria said with a hint of surprise in her voice. But she understood that Ken did something when she heard him speaking to Chloe earlier.

"It\'s time for us to separate. I will go back to the sect, you should go to the black market now."

Ken watched her leave on the tiger\'s back and turned around to return to the sect. He sighed at the thought of having to find another mount for the way back.

---------

A year passed since Ken parted from Maria for the first time. He was almost an adult now at 7 years old, but some people might say he was still a child. His body\'s growth speed slowed down to normal, and he seemed to be 11.

He already met with Maria again once and with Nick a few times to replenish their supply of antidote pills as well as their supply of tainted pills to sell to the top clans.

Supplying them each with an average of 10,000 pills per 3 months made him spend around 7 hours every day to fill the quota, and it didn\'t come without a price. Between all his activities, he barely had time to cultivate, and he still didn\'t break through the Low Core Formation Stage.

During this time, Maria used his pills to strengthen her foundation, renewing it to the point of a complete makeover. 

Now, her foundation was at least as good as a top 10 disciple from Ken\'s sect, meaning she had a chance at getting to the seventh stage if he keeps supporting her.

He wasn\'t bothered by her new strength and didn\'t feel threatened by it. Although improved, it was nowhere near his abilities, and she was poisoned anyway. He only strengthened her because he wanted a competent subordinate.

In their last meeting he gave her additional pills he managed to invent with his new knowledge and promised to give her enough pills to advance to the fifth stage in the next one.

As for Nick, he also strengthened him, but he only did it to motivate the man to work harder. Nick was only at the Low Core Formation Stage and would soon be irrelevant, so Ken planned to discard him once he can\'t use him anymore.

Over the past year, his uncle and aunt made sure to oppress him in any way they could; they even managed to hire him bodyguards with his monthly rewards as the first rank to cut his income completely, saying he needed protection from the Han Clan.

They hired two bodyguards at the Core Formation Stage for 500 Qi Stones per month each, completely consuming his monthly income. Fortunately, he made almost 2 million Qi Stones every three months on average from two sources – The Shang Clan and the Long Clan.

He gave them a 5% discount and in return, they paid half the price with high Qi Stones. Although he didn\'t need them in his current stage, he needed them for two reasons. 

The first one was that they were easier to store; one high Qi Stone was worth 1000 medium Qi Stones of the same size and Qi density.

The second reason was that higher-grade materials as sixth grade and seventh grade were mainly traded for high Qi Stones, as people at those stages could use them better.

He bought everything he needed by using a few proxies to hide his resources. The main ones were Michael, Annie, and Nick. 

He used all the Qi Stones he got by letting Michael sell his pills to purchase resources from the Alchemy Division and take advantage of the 20% discount it offered for all materials. He mainly purchased fifth-grade materials from there.

He spent a lot of time in the Alchemy Library. He finished reading all the books on the second floor meant for fourth-rank alchemists and the third floor meant for fifth-rank alchemists.

He could now create many different types of fifth-grade pills, and he practiced making them in his free time. He wanted to get access to the next floor as well, but it wasn\'t time to show he was a fifth-rank alchemist yet.

He used Annie to purchase expensive things from cultivators whenever he wanted resources such as stones with sword intent and similar materials, while Nick helped him purchase extra materials from the black market. It was more expensive, but the anonymity was worth it. 

As for his meetings with Annie, they were reduced to once a month under the pressure of her mother, but Annie didn\'t agree to cut ties with him completely. She improved a long way compared to before meeting him, and it wasn\'t something she\'d give up on.

The two kept growing closer to each other as they interacted more, and Annie would open up to him like she never did with anyone else. The Dark Princess seemed to be a regular passionate girl when she was around Ken.

He just had a sparring session with her a few days ago and made serious progress in his plan for her. Soon, she will complete her job and lose her value. When that happens, he will be able to finally discard her and free some time from his busy schedule. 

--------

A few days ago:

"Thank you."

Annie said as she took a pill from Ken and swallowed it. Her bruises were disappearing quickly, and her breath got even; she was always amazed by how effective Ken\'s pills were.

"It\'s all right, you don\'t have to thank me. I thought we were too close to need to say thanks. Besides, I have plenty of fourth-grade pills."