William released his control over his Qi and let it flow naturally, feeling the past thirty or so minutes to be well spent.

Activating his new martial skill wasn’t quite at the level of his older skills yet. He didn’t expect it to be, but it was ever so minutely closer after the short time he spent spreading his Qi evenly throughout his body.

It was a different beast in terms of difficulty when compared to what was required to activate his more straightforward martial skills. Those only needed him to concentrate his Qi in one part of his body, with difficulty going up slightly when he needed to shift that concentration of Qi to different parts of his body for attacks with a combination of the basic martial skills.

While those were almost instantaneous for William, spreading his Qi evenly took a literal second. An eternity during a life-threatening fight, and something he knew was necessary to cut down.

However, that would have to be accomplished when time was not limited.

Spiritual Energy: 301/440 (20% per Hour)

He was no longer beholden to the overuse penalty. However, he was still held to one activation of the Fury of the Five Heavenly Dragons. It would be ideal to have it available for two uses in dire emergencies, but he wouldn’t be able to recover the necessary Qi for well over an hour.

William would have preferred to wait, but something pushed him to avoid more delays. It was similar to the feeling he had before he blocked an attack from the QiMoth Wisp without ever seeing it. He was inclined to follow that feeling.

Princess Jin seemed to be just about done with healing her arm, so this happened to be perfect timing. He stood up, eyeing the still-swaying roots, and thought of the best way to get past them without letting one touch him.

He could obviously use his newly created martial skill, but that would be more than a little drastic. Not to mention, it would also leave him without many options if the situation afterward turned dire. Of course, there was the option of leaving it to the princess and hoping her claim of being able to handle this would be true, but he didn’t want to put his hopes on that.

As much as the kid tried to be helpful, she was of little assistance with much of anything other than being a compass powered by her broken Luck attribute.

William winced at his uncharitable thoughts, finding it to be too harsh. If this trip into the tree’s center panned out, her presence would have paid off in spades. He would have likely never entered the root maze in the first place, and if, for some reason, he had done so, he would have probably gotten himself killed by the corrupted beasts. After all, no Princess Jin meant that there was no miracle jade ball to save his life.

“Done!”

He glanced at the princess’s happy look with a deadpan as she hopped onto her feet. “Great.” William motioned at the obstacles in their way, “Now to get past this.”

Princess Jin didn’t seem disheartened by his disregard for her claim to take them past the hair-like roots. It became apparent why when she pulled out a small jade token from her storage pouch.

“Was I mistaken about you saying there was only one life-saving measure?” William was surprised that his voice didn’t show his quickly rising anger. All he could think about was the unnecessary risks taken with the belief that there was only one trump card.

“I wish you were,” Princess Jin grumbled, completely missing his barely held-back anger, “It would make everything so much easier. But I don’t qualify for more than one of that level.”

William’s growing anger died an early death. Not just because of the princess shutting down any misunderstanding without confusion but also due to what the jade token did.

She tossed the token casually, and a faint sound of it breaking was heard before a soft, mostly transparent mist seemed to originate from where the jade token had been broken. The swaying, hair-like roots within the mist started to slow gradually before completely stopping after a few seconds.

William blinked stupidly at the frozen roots before staring at Princess Jin’s smug expression.

“See?” She preened, “I told you I could take care of it.”

He turned back to the frozen roots when he heard a soft crack. It was at that moment when the cracking started to spread exponentially. All of the roots inside the mist shattered as if they were made of glass.

William had to admit that this was good. But there was a slight problem.

“Congratulations, princess,” he praised rightfully before asking the obvious question, “So what are we to do about the ones that weren’t affected by your token?”

“I would just use another,” Princess Jin said with a smug smile as she pulled a similar jade token from her storage pouch and showed it to him.

“… How many of those do you have?”

“A lot!” She reached again into her pouch, withdrawing a literal fistful of those jade tokens, “I’m not sure how many I saved over the years, but it has to be at least twenty.”

“Saved?” William repeated slowly, “Were these something you received regularly?”

“All the time,” Princess Jin paused before adding, “Though I won most of the Sprout Bane Tokens from my cousins. My family only gives me one every other month, and they lose their effectiveness after a year, so it's been difficult to make sure I have enough supply that works as intended. I thank the ancestor that my cousins are so unlucky.”

William doubted it was because of the princess's unlucky cousin. Instead, it was her innate Luck attribute coming into play.

Leaving that aside, he decided that he really needed to stock up on all these useful trinkets after he got out of this secret realm. If something so helpful was used as a disposable item, there must be an endless amount of things that would be helpful for a reasonably cheap cost.

… Unless this Sprout Bane Token was not cheap at all, and the only reason it seemed so was that Princess Jin was from the Imperial family.

“How much would these tokens cost to buy?”

“To buy…” Princess Jin trailed off as she tilted her head in thought, “I can’t be too sure, but maybe one Spirit Stone? I know these are easy for most alchemists to make.”

William hummed in acknowledgment, his mind going to the catalog given to him by the sect. If alchemists were the ones who produced these, the sect would be the cheapest way to buy them.

“As much as I enjoy the look on your face, we should move.”

William narrowed his eyes at her grin before motioning to move on with a wave of his hand. It wasn’t like he was delaying them. Until now, he could still see the slightest twitches in the roots, which he had been waiting to stop. Princess Jin clearly knew that.

The rest of the trip through the tunnel almost felt like a letdown. It wasn’t a bad thing, not even close. Still, this was strangely disappointing, with the previous trips being a complete adrenaline rush.

Sure, William didn’t need to lift a finger to do anything, but watching Princess Jin toss the jade tokens before waiting a minute for the roots to be destroyed was mind-numbing. Even when the roots started to become thick enough to resemble ropes instead of hair, nothing changed.

“How does this only cost around a Spirit Stone?” William asked incredulously when the jade token cleared another part of the tunnel of any living roots for what must have been the tenth time. The difference this time around was that they were about to reach another large chamber, though he didn’t see any more forks where the paths split.

“It was more expensive a century ago,” Princess Jin explained, “The Imperial Protector ordered the alchemists of the Empire to find a way to make these tokens more affordable for younger cultivators like us. The forests of the Empire are untamed by design to temper lower-realm cultivators. However, the spirit plants grew too dangerous at that time, making the point of the forests moot.”

“I guess that’s convenient for us,” William commented before asking, “This wouldn’t have the same effect on the spirit beasts, would it?”

“Of course not,” Princess Jin shot him a look that told how stupid she thought that question was, “If I did, I wouldn’t have had to use my only life-saving measure. There are tokens that clear mobs of spirit beasts, but they are far too valuable.”

“That’s fair,” Willam raised his hand, silently saying he didn’t mean to insult her, “No wonder you were so adamant about continuing deeper into this maze.”

Princess Jin nodded, “I was confident in dealing with any spirit plants, but I’m completely helpless with the beasts. Hopefully, we don’t have to deal with them anymore.”

William winced, not liking the fact that she said that out loud. He hadn’t been a superstitious man in his previous life, but in this world, he believed in nothing more than the Luck attribute.