Chapter 23: You are (a)live!

"Shit, girl…"

I took a deep breath, even though it was of no use to calm down my beating heart.

"For a moment I thought you were a robber or something."

The adrenaline still blazed in my veins, my fight or flight instinct fully awake.

The sun coming from the doors and Claire's words proved I'd just pulled an all-nighter, and yet... Every fiber of my being was bristling, ready to fuel the one thing I knew how to do perfectly well - to throw a straight, simplistic punch out.

But all of this energy, all of this adrenaline-powered force… had no way to go.

For it wasn't a home invader… but the very girl that made it hard for me to concentrate for likely half of the night I'd just pulled!

"What?" Claire barked, somehow taking my reaction for the weird part of the scene where…

Where she literally kicked my doors open to make her way in.

"I…"

Before I could even mention it, her eyes dashed around my room, only to soon lock on the phone that faithfully remained on the makeshift stand I'd prepared for it before I started the work.

The recording was to serve as my teaching material, a way for me to go back and study the secrets of the abilities I've showcased during my meditation. Reference material of sorts that was to allow me to better study the ins and outs of my strange ability, all in hopes of perfecting my ability to craft consciously.

Having a part of me that I couldn't control, as great and beneficial as it was, just rubbed me the wrong way. Until I claimed those crafting abilities truly for myself, I innately just couldn't rely on them as much as I wanted.

Still…

Claire's eyes flashed, her eyelids rising up a tiny bit only to then contract as she locked in on something in my room.

I couldn't even see her rush forth. Her hand just… appeared on the far end of my narrow room, grabbing my phone and smashing it against the table.

"Okay, what the fucking hell?!"

Weirdly, as I jumped up in righteous anger… I somehow felt strangely justified.

It was as if… just saw the kind of thing someone in a relationship would have to deal with. It felt like… Spending my whole life single as a pringle didn't seem all that bad if that was the stuff I've avoided.

"You moron!" Claire, rather than coming back to her senses, pressed on into her craze.

"The fuck are you talk… No, what the fuck are you doing?!" Already up on my feet, I finally found the voice to protest. "First my doors, now my phone? What the hell is wrong with you? Even if…"

My face suddenly tensed up.

'Less for the doors, maybe she thought…'

On one hand, what were the chances of a cultivator like Claire suddenly finding lapses in her memory, unable to recall if my phone was recording back when she… happily mingled with me?

But on the other hand, if that's what she thought in the heat of the moment…

'Which still doesn't explain the doors…'

"Haaa…!" Even when Claire breathed out… it somehow came out aggressive.

And it was finally the moment, with how things happened, for me to address the fact of Claire… Wearing both a mask and a deep hoodie! Sure, she looked adorable in those… But with an addition of a mere pair of black glasses, she would be sporting the prime "poorly masked person" fit!

"What the hell were you thinking?!" Claire exploded again, snapping her hands to rest them on her hips as she leaned forward, acting as if… I was the one in the wrong?

But her deep frown only continued to grow.

"Aaah!" Claire raised her hands to her face as she groaned and leaned back.

'Okay, that's enough.'

"Again, what the fuck are you talking about?!" I lashed back. "You come in storming, literally break my door fucking open…!"

Claire's hands clawed down on her face as if me merely daring to retort was akin to insulting her entire lineage.

"Wait!"

Claire froze for a second before rapidly breaking her hands off and reaching down to her pocket. She then hurriedly pulled out her phone and quickly scrolled…

But as her eyes flashed up in a mix of shock, panic, and urgency, my hand shot forward…

Just in time to intercept her fist on course for my phone!

"What the hell do you think you are doing?! No matter what you think happened, it did not…"

"You are live, for heaven love!" Claire cried out in what seemed like an outburst of a righteous yet powerless fury.

"Of course, I'm fucking alive!" I retorted, still holding back her wrist… Only for the girl to easily wrestle it out by pulling her hand off to the side and then throwing both her arms, not to strike me, but...

But to drop her hands down on my shoulders.

"You are on a live stream!"

…

I took a moment to process what she just said.

It was just… so out of the ordinary, so much outside of the range of my expectations…

…

"Oh…"

For a moment, we both froze.

Claire then grabbed my shoulders… Before attempting to shove me aside, likely to… reach my phone?

'Wait…'

Bit by bit, things started to click. And once they did…

'No, wait, what the hell? What? How?'

An array of questions exploded in my head, and all the while Claire continued in her attempts to move me, only to fail over and over again.

"Turn it off!" she screamed once she somehow ended up coming to terms that a cultivator like her… couldn't move a newbie like me.

Likely, the physical benefit of the last five years that I've spent doing nothing but standing in place and mastering my punch. And standing perfectly still to maintain the form was just one of the many elements I've mastered in my hopes of breaking through the meditation barrier.

But it was also right as Claire shouted that another figure appeared in the frame of my now broken doors.

It was a huge, no, massive man, hardly able to fit through the entrance. He wore perfectly white, thick robes of a practitioner… And looked at me as if I was the source of all evil in the world.

Then again…

I've finally managed to process what was happening.

'Claire came because apparently I'm on a stream.'

'What stream?'

'I wasn't streaming, so…'

'A bug? Malfunction?'

Sensing that the time before this heavy yet perfectly athletic man would snuff the life out of me with a single punch was drawing near, I shot my hand up as if to stop him in place with just a gesture. Then, I took the risk…

And looked him straight in the eye, all the while keeping my mouth perfectly shut.

For a second, we just stared at each other…

And then I turned my head over my back before carefully picking up the phone Claire just smashed against the floor before pressing its power button down for a few seconds only for the short signal to announce it was now turning off.

Now then…

'Who is this man?'

'He's with her?'

'Much older. More… not even more powerful… he's just… more than her!'

'Who?'

'Father?'

Seeing me turning my phone off, Claire finally dropped her left hand off my shoulder and reached to check her own phone again.

And only then did she breathe a sigh of relief, the look of agitation and rage slowly washing off her face.

"Dear…" the man in the doors threw a quick glance at my place before turning his eyes over to Claire as his face steeled. "Who is this young man?"