Everyone in the room froze. Every. Single. Person!

The vampire froze. The elf froze. Heck, even Pearl herself froze, feeling a mix of confusion, endearment and amusement as she saw the look of sheer anger and panic in River’s eyes! He seemed to really think the vampire was trying to seduce her!

Lex, on the other hand, successfully managed to keep himself from facepalming. It was fair to say that between the two of them, Pearl was the one with the knack for political mouvering, while River was the friendly charismatic one more suited to networking and making connections.

When united together, both of those things could yield incredible results. On their own, however, both of them were useless. What was the point of political knowhow if she didn’t actually have connections, and what was the point of those connections if River didn’t know how to use them?

He had the subtle urge to rewrite everyone’s memories and just fix the situation himself, but... he suppressed himself. The less he acted, the fewer traces he would leave behind. He’d just leave the kids to solve their own blunders.

Before any of them could react to River’s absurd, yet entirely possible claim, he quickly bowed to the elves.

"Senior, I am willing to hand over the technique of my family to you in exchange for protection for me and my partner!"

This time, both the elves had a subtle change in expression as they acted with tacit understanding, and looked towards the two vampires.

"Why are you still holding her hand?" one of the elves asked as he pulled Pearl away from the elf and moved her behind him.

"Hurry up and eat. This farce has gone on long enough - we still need to continue our journey. As for you, Sunborne child, do not speak of giving away your technique again. We, the elves, will not covet your techniques, even if they come from the Sunborne hero."

All the vassal races that followed the group began to silently eat the food Pearl had brought, while the elves themselves only ate the vegetables. The vampires only silently glared at River and Pearl, but did not act out.

Lex shook his head. Though the elves acted upright and noble, they had already been tempted by the offer of the techniques. They just couldn’t bring themselves to say so in public. They would leave behind some guards to protect River and Pearl, and come back to them later for a private exchange.

Forcefully taking the technique was forbidden, but if it was freely traded to them for something as simple as protection...

Lex sighed, then shook his head. It seemed his plan would be changing. Originally, he thought he’d stay here for a few decades and collect energy in the Guest House, but moving around was also fine, as long as they were moving towards a place dense in spiritual energy. Meanwhile, he could guide Pearl to set up a formation that would collect and condense the spiritual energy from the node into spirit liquid. That way, their time away from the Guest House would not be wasted.

At the same time, Lex could use this opportunity to learn more about the Land of a Hundred Rivers. What was up with this noble and vassal race business?

He’d always been inside the Midnight Inn, so any time he interacted with any race, he did so from a position of power. It was not easy to see through the secrets that were hidden out of sight.

He was also curious about where the hell did the vampire race come from, and why was it a noble race? He had started to get the feeling that whatever realm he was in was under the Humanoid Alliance’s control, but he’d never interacted with vampires before. How could they be considered a race when a vampire could be from any race? Or did the race before conversion not count?

After a long, awkward and silent breakfast, the group retreated to the carriages. The vampires glared at River and Pearl once, but returned without doing anything. Their mission was more important than their ego, and the elves were not as easy to deal with as many of the other races.

That night, River and Pearl remained indoors, discussing various topics within the basement. They were planning out their future and discussing their past. At the same time, Pearl was beginning to offer River some of the guidance she had received from her family.

After all, one could not just expect someone to suddenly become a great and accomplished person just because they had a magic necklace.

Meanwhile, outside their humble inn, all was silent, but a covert battle occurred, yet never reached the building itself.

The next morning, a fairy appeared at the door to deliver a letter to River - the descendant of the Sunborne family.

The letter was from the elves, informing them that they would personally look into the injustices against his family, and so would come to collect him on their way back from their journey.

That was, of course, a simple pretext, creating an opportunity for River to provide the cultivation technique to the elves in a discreet manner. As for when that would be, the letter did not say.

Since then, Cliff also started to appear more regularly. Although he did not outright say anything, River suspected that his performance during the vampire incident had either greatly impressed him, or greatly disappointed him.

It had to be either one of them, because he was now teaching both River and Pearl more things - either out of recognition of their talents, or because of how sorely lacking they were.

Since River had the foundation of a Spirit doctor, Cliff began teaching him how to use his paladin powers to heal.

Meanwhile, Pearl was being taught how to establish formations, as well as self defense. For reasons River did not understand, Cliff teaching River actually caused him to get a tremendous amount of feedback on his oath, increasing his powers by a lot!

Could his performance have been so great that it convinced Cliff to teach them, thereby improving Pearl’s life? Or had it been so bad that he was forced to teach them, which ended up working in their favor. Could it work like that?