Chapter 86 - Promise! A One-Month Promise

“Devil fruits!” Athena could hardly believe her eyes. She kept blinking and looked carefully again. It is indeed the devil fruit.

This man created miracle once again. Not only he returned unharmed from the hands of the ghost dragon, but he also got the devil fruit!

“These are all for you!” Chen Rui had tried to convert the devil fruit into aura, but it was unsuccessful. Besides, he didn’t know if it served any function to the human body. So, he simply be generous this time. However, even if it could be converted, he had already made up his mind to leave half of them for Athena.

Athena was holding the 6 fruits that were invaluable in the eyes of Demons. She looked at Chen Rui with a smile and her eyes became a little red. At that moment, she was completely determined in her mind. The shadow equipped with both wisdom and bravery while facing the poison dragon; the shadow that was knowledgeable and humorous; the shadow with wisdom and plans; all of them combined into the smile just now. Compared to the smile, the devil fruits were truly nothing.

“Thank you.” Athena didn’t say anything else.

“I remember the last time I said thank you, you unsheathed your sword.” As Chen Rui said with a smile, he suddenly grabbed a shadow that was about to jump toward the fruits on Athena’s palm. “Dodo, these fruits are Athena’s. Don’t touch!”

Athena looked at the translucent onions in Chen Rui’s hand with surprise. She never thought that with her senses, she actually didn’t notice this thing. Besides, the onion was making a flattery voice, “My noble master, Dodo just want one, please? ”

Athena recovered from a certain mood and curiously asked, “What is this?”

“This is the true face of the ghost dragon…” Chen Rui told her everything about Dodo. Surely, he omitted the part where he fought the ghost dragon. He only said that he used the knowledge of the grand master to change those magic traps and subdued the fake ghost dragon.

These were the “confessions” agreed in advance between Chen Rui and Dodo. Dodo nodded cooperatively, but its two big eyes were staring at the devil fruits in Athena’s hand.

“The devil fruit is only effective for the first time. It’s useless to eat the second one!” Athena’s face turned from shocked into astonished, “Stupid slime, tell me now! How many devil fruits did you eat?”

“Hmph! You dare to call Master Dodo a stupid slime! Even if I die…”

Before Dodo could finish his words, his head was knocked by Chen Rui, “Quickly say!”

“Respected master, please wait. Let Dodo count.” Since its master said so, Dodo had to recall unwillingly. He used <Transform> to become two hands and began to calculate.

Soon, it created two more. After a while, there were already 8 hands on Dodo, but he was still counting.

Chen Rui and Athena were sweating badly as they looked. Especially Athena, she almost went crazy. How much devil fruits did this slime eat? These are invaluable!

Dodo counted for a long time and had a sad look, “Master, Dodo can’t remember clearly, but it was probably 8 or 9 hands.”

Even with Athena’s strong will, she almost fainted at that time: 8 or 9 hands! That’s like more than 40 devil fruits! According to the fruit number of the fruit tree, it bears only 5 to 6 each time. If it’s more than 40… this isn’t Lala Potato! It’s a precious devil fruit that is enough to wage war!

Chen Rui was also shocked. In his opinion, it wasn’t devil fruit that Dodo ate, but massive magic crystal coins. In other words, it was a massive amount of auras! What’s squandering? This is the exact definition of squandering!

However, the devil fruit only matures once in a few hundred years. So, it seemed that those previous years had nothing to do with Chen Rui who had just crossed over this year. After calculating, Dodo at least lived a few thousand years.

“Chen Rui, I don’t want to eat the devil fruit anymore.” Athena regained her consciousness. She said while clenching her teeth.

The slime was overjoyed when he heard that. As he was about to ask his master for it, but Athena’s next sentence unexpectedly frightened him, “I want to eat this slime!”

Chen Rui went along with her words, “Dodo ate so many devil fruits. If you eat it, it might be more useful than eating devil fruit. It just happened that I brought along a lot of condiments for barbeque. I’ll make sure that you’ll be satisfied.”

Seeing even the master said so, the slime scared out of its soul, and he started pleading, “My beautiful and brave mistress, please don’t eat your most loyal slave! I’m hard and smelly; I don’t taste good at all!”

The word “mistress” made Athena blushed, then she quickly glanced at Chen Rui. However, the human didn’t realize at that time as he was looking at Dodo in amusement.

Except for Royce, how would it look like when my three servants, Dodo, Slee and the old dwarf, Didi meet each other?

After Chen Rui made fun of his new servant for a while, he stopped scaring it. He told Athena, “Your injuries are quite bad. Let’s go to the place where Dodo fake as a ghost dragon to rest for a few days. There are a lot of magic traps around, and the demonic beasts don’t dare to approach usually. It should be quite safe. I’ll bring the two wyverns there later.”

“Okay! The potion you gave is very effective. My injuries are recovering very quickly. You can take these 5 devil fruits. I’ll just keep one. Also, this is for you, make sure you keep it properly.” Athena took out a diamond-shaped crystal from her space bracelet and gave it to Chen Rui.

Chen Rui only felt that this crystal was cold. It was emitting a special kind of coldness. He asked curiously, “What is this?”

“After my injuries are recovered, I’ll eat the devil fruit.” Athena lowered her head; she didn’t look directly at Chen Rui, “This fruit has a special attribute where the stronger the user is, the greater the poison will be. Countless people have died in the history. Even an antidote can’t do anything.”

“If I can’t stand the fruit’s poison…” Athena paused and said firmly, “You must never go to Mountain Xilang to die and don’t go back to Dark Moon Estate. Take the wyvern all the way to the west and take this ice crystal to the Dark Shadow Empire’s capital city to look for a woman named Delia. She owed me a huge favor three years ago. With your ability and Delia’s help, you should be able to be accommodated in the Dark Shadow Empire. Do you understand?”

Chen Rui was shocked. He didn’t expect that Athena to arrange a backup plan for him. He felt that the cold crystal in his hand seemed to contain a burning feeling. He suddenly silenced.

“Athena, you’ll be fine.”

“Chen Rui, you don’t understand…”

“The one who don’t understand is you…” Chen Rui raised his head and stared into Athena’s ruby-like eyes. He took out a green pearl, “Hold this… do you remember this?”

“This is… the antidote given by the blue lake poison dragon previously?” Athena took it and looked at it for a while. “It seems to taste very spicy.”

Chen Rui nodded. “This is called Jade Pearl. A precious crystal of the poison dragon. It’s produced once every 200 years. It can quickly recover from injury and permanently enhance the body’s poison resistance after eating.”

“Permanently enhance physical ability?” Athena was taken aback. “Why did the poison dragon give such precious crystal as antidote?”

“That’s because you, little princess and Kia aren’t poisoned at all.” Chen Rui had kept this in his heart for a long time. He finally couldn’t help but revealed it, “I’m sorry. I never tell you the truth… ”

“You’re such an asshole! You’ve made me always worried!” Athena pounced toward Chen Rui in spite of her injury and pushed him to the ground. She kept beating him, “Damn it! Asshole! Asshole…”

Seeing its master being attacked, Dodo wanted to help initially, but he didn’t dare to intervene due to the trauma of her “mistress” saying that she was going to eat him. Besides, the situation between his master and mistress was a bit strange. It felt like when the season came, the female and male creatures liked to flirt before “attracting” each other. The behavior wasn’t much like it, but it seemed like it. If he disturbed them at this time, he might truly be grilled and eaten.

The slime who had gained considerable intelligence finally wisely chose to turn a blind eye. It was like a “you can’t see me” transparent background.

The judgment of the slime wasn’t unreasonable. Athena was very fierce, but the beating on Chen Rui’s body was powerless. Perhaps it could be understood as she wasn’t able to use her strength as a Higher Demon because of the injuries. However, her voice was truly worse than her bite. Even on a normal human body, it couldn’t make much damage.

Athena’s action finally stopped. She kept panting while laying on Chen Rui’d body. Suddenly, she felt that her action was too embarrassing. Her heart accelerated, then she supported her body up with her blush and gave him another punch before turning over to sit on the ground at the side.

This level of “attack” was only scratching for Chen Rui. However, he knew that this had always been burdening Athena mentally. She even thought of battling the poison dragon to death, so he indeed felt guilty. After being “punched”, he climbed up and explained to her.

When Athena heard that the contract that Chen Rui signed with the poison dragon was a symbiotic contract, she finally understood. At that time, the relationship between the two, along with the characteristic of symbiotic contract, even Athena herself wouldn’t leak such secret that was a matter of life and death.

“Asshole! Why didn’t you keep hiding?” Athena’s anger had almost disappeared. “How much more are you hiding from me?”

“There are actually still a lot…” Chen Rui saw Athena’s eyes dilated again, and he sighed, “Athena, if you believe me, give me a month time. Don’t ask anything now. After a month, I’ll tell you about a lot of things. However, you have to listen to me for this month. Okay?”

Athena frowned slightly and asked, “Do Princess Royal and Alice know about these?”

Chen Rui shook his head, “Other than the guy who shares the symbiotic contract, you’re the only one that knows.”

Athena’s eyebrows raised and her eyes were shining, but her voice still seemed annoyed, “Hmph! Remember what you said!”

“Alright, don’t be angry anymore. The Jade Pearl’s poison resistance isn’t a lie. For you to ride the wyvern safely isn’t because of the antidote I have you, but its your body’s poison resistance, thus it shouldn’t be a problem when it comes to devil fruit.” Chen Rui smiled and said, “Let’s find a place to rest now for you to recover from your wounds first. Regardless of whether the Jade Pearl is effective or not, eat one more before you eat the devil fruit. After you completely digest the fruit’s power, we’ll continue our journey to Mountain Xilang.”

Athena didn’t throw any more tantrum, gently touched the Jade Pearl in her hand and nodded.

Chen Rui wasn’t a fool. He could somehow felt Athena’s feelings; he did have feelings for Athena too. However, there wasn’t much time left before the battle with Arux. Thus, he should concentrate all his efforts on this matter; he couldn’t be distracted by the other aspects. After this, he would then seriously deal with the problem between them as two single man and woman.