Somewhere underground in an unspecified location.
"Okay, then I'll be coming over with some more stuff later just in case this ain't enough, so just get started! Oh right! Before I forget, there was something I needed to ask you!" Nox said to Ai.
"Okay? What?" Ai said.
"About the rat-man? Are you really sure you don't remember anything about him? Nothing at all?" Nox inquired.
"I told ya earlier! No! That a problem or somethin?" Ai asked.
At her words, Nox's eyes began to glow as she looked her biological grandmother up and down before replying.
"…! Probably, but it won't affect this so it can wait until later!" Nox said before turning towards the exit.
"… proud… daughter… great… super-dad!" The concussed Xing mumbled on the ground as Nox passed him by.
"Hey, old man! Pick up your brat and let's go!" Nox said as they left.
Shortly after leaving the underground.
"So, are you going to tell me?" Ming asked Nox.
"Uh, okay, I may have gotten a bit too carried away with the squeaky hammer! So, if he got brain damage, the next brain surgery is on the house!" Nox said, imagining herself 'Accidentally' removing the her father's sense of taste.
"That is not what I was referring too, and you know it!"
"…"
"You said Ai's memory would return with time, but it hasn't, has it?" Ming said.
"Actually, it has!" Nox replied.
"What?"
"Nearly all her memories have returned, and all the damage to her soul from back then has healed and stabilized! I wouldn't have bothered suggesting this plan if it hadn't!"
"But then why is-?"
"Old man? Do you remember how I described the memory loss?"
"What are you talking about?"
"It's random! All the memories she lost could be anything! A nice day at the beach, a near death experience, a page from a book she read, or just a memory of drinking some soup! It could be anything from something insignificant to something important, so how come she has not a single memory of the rat man?"
"Well, it's-! Didn't you say it was because of the memory loss due to her soul being injured?"
"Well, some of her memories probably was at first, but her losing all her memories of him purely because of her soul's injury would be highly unlikely! If he had been an acquaintance or someone she had very few interactions with, then it wouldn't be too surprising if she forgot who he was, but he is her child, someone who she has known for decades! Considering she can still read and write just fine, the fact she can't remember a single thing about her oldest son is suspicious to say the least!"
"Could you get to the point already?!"
At his question, Nox pulled out an old, broken and moldy mask.
"This world can be such a horrible place. That's why, sometimes, when the truth is just too ugly to admit, some people choose to forget, burying it deep within the recesses of their mind, so they can pretend it never happened. Ignorance is bliss as they say, *sigh* not that I would know anything about that." Nox said as she stared blankly into the broken mask.
"What are you trying to say?"
"We're here!" Nox said, as she looked up from her mask at the bright mountain in front of them.
…
Nox's POV:
"WHO GOES THERE!" said the goons standing in front of the stairs to this mountain that had so many lights floating around it, it should legally be classified as a Christmas tree.
"Yo!" I said as I threw the pink nightmares identification token at the blood smeared goon trying to show me how sharp his stick is.
Soon after, they moved aside without a word, giving looks of envy and dissatisfied admiration towards this cool and tall lady that being me. The reason why we were here was because of the giant bright as fuck energy pool shining like a star atop the mountain. One of the things I got from the Playboy in the marriage-sham was this spirit spring of light. Spirit springs are basically fountains that poor out liquid energy instead of water. They come in three sizes.
-Large
-Medium
-Small
Now normally, liquid energy of the elemental variety usually don't occur naturally as it has a habit of skipping straight past liquid to gas or solids, but sometimes, if the concentration of an element is high enough and the conditions are just right, it can start pooling together in a puddle of pure energy, which is what a small spirit spring is. However, if this puddle continues to grow in size, eventually it will become so energy rich, it'll start lightly drawing energy from one of the nine spirit realms, a different dimension made almost entirely of one specific element, and a Large spirit spring will directly open up a gateway to one of these places. Now, I would have loved to order a large spirit spring to feed my growing old man, but this and the puppy continent are all out of those due to an energy shortage, and so I had to settle for a medium one.
Any-who, once we made our way up the long ass staircase to the giant-ass light serving as the star of Mt. Christmas tree, the dumbass finally snapped back to his senses.
"Huh? Wait, where? What was I doing? WAIT, where am I? Ah! My eyes! Why's it so bright?!"
"Oh, goody. You recovered. Yay." I said, feeling less than enthusiastic about not getting to surgically remove the word 'daddy' from his head.
"Ugh! Noxy, is that you! I can barely see you baby girl!"
*Bang*
"Maybe it's not too late!" I said, after I punched him in the face.
"Ouch! Hehe! You may have gotten your mother's looks, but you got your old man's right hook! I think I just lost a tooth!"
"Tsk! No, dice! I'm so going to regret this, aren't I?" I said, activating the barrier around the mountain in advance.
"Okay, then I'll begi-!"
"Hold up old man! Go hide over there and stop anyone who tries to stop me! That's an order!" I ordered as I was about to do a thing.
"Huh? Ugh! Can you not at least explain why you-!"
"Sorry, I can't hear you over your terrible sneaking skills!" I said, as I turned to the dumbass.
"Noxy what are yo-?"
"And stab!" I said as I stabbed my hand into his gut!"
"…! N-!"
*Crackle**BOOM*
I don't really want to, but the quickest way to deal with my current problem is to make a big show out of fixing the dumbass's cultivation core. As the sound of lightning was drowning out the shouts and screams of the world's worst hide 'n senior, the barrier I set up was suddenly being attacked from the outside.
*Crackle**BOOM**BOOM**Crack*
As I was finally beginning to near the indigo stage with his core, the barrier I set up finally shattered and some guys suddenly showed up, amongst which were the goons from earlier.
"DIE-!"
*Sizzle*
"To bad, so sad!" I said, as the pointy stick from earlier didn't quite reach me before it and the guy holding it got incinerated by old man lasers.
*Crackle*
"WHAT? WHO DARE-?!"
*Sizzle*
As the old man was shooting down the intruders while I was wrist deep in dumbass guts, the final lightning bolt came shooting down.
*BOOM*
"Well, that's not good!" I said, as without the barrier to keep out the unnecessary lightning show, I got kind of scorched.
Not wanting to be confused for a racist, I quickly decided to go back from being black, by un-scorching my bacon skin and dusting off all the soot with spirit magic.
"DAMN IT! RETREA-!"
*BOOM*
And stealing the old man's thunder came the dumbass as he mixed his aura and qi to make this giant ass laser beam that absolutely demolished all the goons in one fell swoop.
"Is this real? Huh? Wait, since whe-! THE ENTIRE TIME! NOX!" The dumbass shouted, probably hearing my mom's voice in his head explaining stuff I have actively been neglecting.
"That's my name!"
"Have you really been able to do this the entire time?"
"Uh! I mean, if it's this exact method, then no! I only managed this after I fully recovered from waking the granny, and even then, I would still need to rely on a spirit spring to supply the energy all the way up to indigo! I do have other ways of fixing a cultivation core though, so yeah, pretty much the entire time! Why do you ask?"
*Sigh*
"I know I should be proud and happy about this, but it's getting really hard not to get mad when you keep trolling me like this you little scamp!" The dumbass said in a playful way as I saw his eye twitching in irritation.