Infinite Awakening: My Exp Doubles Everyday

"You don't remember anything?" Xiang Yu asked, studying her.

"No," Li Yao shook her head, her brow furrowed in confusion as she tried to piece together the missing fragments.

Xiang Yu found it quite strange. The Empress had told him about sealing some of Li Yao's most painful memories, he wondered if those sealed memories had somehow developed into that other personality. That would certainly explain her psychotic behavior despite maintaining such a childish demeanor.

He would need to investigate this more thoroughly after his medicine profession had advanced, using his appraisal hadn't given him anything useful.

"Senior brother, did I do something bad?" Li Yao asked nervously.

"No, not at all," Xiang Yu replied with a reassuring smile.

Well, except for committing a few war crimes and traumatizing your cousin, nothing much, he thought to himself.

"Oh," Li Yao responded, her shoulders sagging as she looked down in disappointment.

She thought to herself that she had secretly hoped she might have gone completely rogue and pinned her senior brother down, then perhaps they could have...

"Why do you sound disappointed?" Xiang Yu asked.

Her face immediately turned bright red, and she quickly covered it with both hands in embarrassment. "Wha—waaaaa?" she stammered incoherently.

Xiang Yu bonked her gently on the head with the notebook he'd been holding. "Your clothes are all bloodied. Go change them," he said.

She quickly scrambled to her feet and hurried away, still covering her burning cheeks as she fled the scene.

Once she was gone, Xiang Yu's expression immediately grew serious. The other Li Yao had been asking for help right before she changed back. It was safe to assume that when one personality was in control, the other was forced into some sort of hibernation or prison.

Was that the darkness she was so afraid of? He remembered the terror in her voice when she'd begged him not to let her go back there.

Xiang Yu sighed deeply as he stood up, running a hand through his hair in frustration. There was nothing he could do about this situation at the moment—his current knowledge and abilities simply weren't sufficient to tackle such a complex situation.

He'd already asked the Empress about simply unsealing everything and dealing with the consequences, but apparently some of the memories had become corrupted during their long imprisonment. When they eventually merged back into Li Yao's consciousness, the process could prove extremely dangerous, potentially destroying her mind entirely.

When he'd pressed for more details, the Empress had simply said that the enemy behind this wasn't easy to deal with. For someone of the Empress's caliber to admit such a thing, just what kind of enemy were they facing.

He let out another heavy sigh, clenching his fists. It seemed that despite all his recent breakthroughs and improvements, he was still not strong enough, in the end, it all came down to strength. He needed to work even harder, push himself further beyond his current limits.

"But first, time for lunch,"

…

In an unknown location, a middle-aged man with red and black hair sat upon a throne, his eyes staring into the void in contemplation.

Suddenly, his expression shifted. Without hesitation, he extended his arm outward.

Two large drops of blood materialized in the air above him, falling and splattering against his outstretched arm. The blood was quickly absorbed into his skin.

"Such trash," he spat angrily. His face contorted with disgust and fury as he processed what the bloodline essence revealed to him. "One of you trash couldn't even return your bloodline essence after your death!"

He had invested so much time and resources into those three Soul Formation cultivators, only for them to die like that without even gaining anything useful.

His gaze drifted toward the distance. "That direction…"

"The Azure Cloud Sect," he spoke aloud.

He wasn't unfamiliar with this seemingly insignificant location. In fact, he was quite intimately familiar with it, having spent considerable effort orchestrating events there. After all, he was the one who had carefully manipulated circumstances for Gao Aotian to discover the Demon-Sealing Tower and attempt to claim it for himself. And even before Aotian, he'd also orchestrated for a twin demons to cause some trouble there but nothing ever came of it.

"Why isn't anything going according to plan?!" he roared.

In his rage, he stomped violently on the ground. The force of his strike caused massive fissures to appear on the ground, spreading outward like a shattered mirror.

Taking several deep breaths, he forced himself to calm down. Losing his temper wouldn't solve anything, and he needed to think strategically about his next move.

He reflected on his situation. Although he was quite confident in his own strength, he still didn't want to personally go to claim the tower himself. The risks were simply too great for someone in his position.

To outside observers, he appeared to be nothing more than another cultist who fanatically believed in the Demon God. In truth, however, he didn't actually believe any of that nonsense. He possessed a much clearer understanding of the Demon God's true nature and motivations.

The Demon God wasn't helping people out of the goodness of its non-existent heart. It wanted a suitable host body to possess and control, using that vessel to return to the physical realm and wreak havoc upon the world. He wasn't nearly fanatic enough to willingly surrender his own body to become some ancient monster's puppet.

No, he had his own ambitious plans. He wanted to turn the tables completely—to take over the Demon God instead of being consumed by it. He coveted all of its accumulated treasures, all of its vast power, and all of its ancient knowledge for himself.

That's precisely why he had orchestrated for the twin demons to test the waters initially.

When that failed, he had been forced to manipulate Gao Aotian into making his own attempt at claiming the tower.

Unfortunately, the sudden birth of that new spirit had completely interfered with his carefully laid plans. He strongly suspected it was that same spirit who had killed these three latest failures. But what truly puzzled him was her impossible rate of advancement.

He didn't understand how she could be progressing so rapidly through the cultivation realms. Even if she possessed extraordinary talent, there was simply no way she could reach such heights in less than a month's time.

Unless...

"She has a divine weapon," he murmured, stroking his chin thoughtfully as his eyes brightened with sudden understanding.

This would explain everything. The general direction of the divine weapon's spiritual aura that he had sensed emanating across the continent was indeed pointing toward the same location as the Azure Cloud Sect.

Coincidence?

But the question remained: how had she managed to acquire such a treasure? He leaned back in his throne in thought.

"Ah, I get it now," the man said suddenly, rising from his seated position.

He thought to himself that the Demon-Sealing Tower contained all sorts of precious treasures within it. For something like it, it wouldn't be strange at all if it housed a divine weapon or two.

But this raised an even more troubling question: why was the tower actively helping them? The best explanation he could formulate was that the Demon God was growing increasingly uneasy about its current situation and had begun actively setting up elaborate bait.

If a sufficiently powerful cultivator noticed such incredible treasures in the hands of such a relatively weak group, they would definitely annihilate the entire sect without hesitation and claim those artifacts for themselves. Baited by even more treasures, they would go after the tower and be claimed by the Demon God as a vessel.

"Well played, Demon God," the man thought.

He stared down at his clenched fist, contemplating his options. He was now backed into a corner. If he took the bait, he might be playing directly into the Demon God's trap. But if he didn't act soon, someone else might arrive first and completely spoil all of his years of careful preparation.

"Fine," he declared, "I'll bite."

…

A/N: A little delulu but he got the spirit

A/N: Does the chapter name sound strange?