Aotian watched as the two women's eyelashes twitched in perfect synchrony, and then both opened their eyes at the same time.
He was stunned as he noticed the differences between them.
Rihai had golden hair and blue eyes, while the other woman—identical to her—had blue hair and golden eyes.
It was as if their hair and eye colors had been completely inverted.
At that moment, both of them had already sat up and were staring at him in confusion, blinking and shaking their heads as if dizzy.
Following the same rhythm, both closed their eyes and pressed their temples with the fingers of their right hands, clearly with a headache.
'What happened to me, and why is my vision all scrambled, like I'm seeing Aotian from two different positions?' Rihai wondered, unable to make sense of the situation.
Still with her eyes closed and trying to regain her bearings, she asked in a tired voice:
"Tian'er, what happened?"
Two identical voices echoed through the cave.
With everything that was happening, Aotian's mouth twitched, and he began to understand what was going on.
'Looks like it's not a different person, but Rihai in two bodies.'
He thought, feeling a slight sense of relief.
He didn't want some unknown person or another personality occupying his wife's body.
On Earth, he had read enough xianxias to know that the risk of another being reincarnating by creating a new body through someone was real. Not that he knew whether something like that was possible in this world, but the logic shouldn't be too different. Fortunately, that wasn't the case.
Still, there was something else to worry about in this situation.
'Now I need to find out if she created a clone or if it's something similar to my avatars… I hope it's the latter, otherwise, it could be a bit troublesome.'
Clone-related problems were also tricky to deal with, so Aotian had to tread carefully if that were the case.
Fortunately, he thought of a quick test to figure it out.
"Hai'er… first of all, open your eyes and look to your left," he requested, wanting to test it.
Both opened their eyes, confused, and looked at him.
Once again, Rihai felt her vision blur, but she followed Aotian's instruction and turned her head to the left.
However, her vision seemed to split even more at that moment.
On one side, she saw the cave wall, while on the other, she saw the back of a shameless blue-haired woman—completely naked in the middle of the room.
She didn't know what was going on, but her feminine protective instincts screamed at that instant.
"Tian'er, close your eyes, don't you dare look!" she ordered urgently, her two voices echoing through the cave. Both jumped at the same time, rushing to stop her husband from seeing what he shouldn't.
Aotian's mouth twitched even more as he saw the two women suddenly leaping toward him, trying to cover his eyes.
So as not to be at a disadvantage, he quickly wrapped his arms around their waists, pulling them against him.
With the previous test, he had already confirmed that Rihai, like him, possessed more than one body at the same time.
He concluded this because, if the blue-haired woman were merely a clone, she wouldn't have reacted by trying to stop him from seeing a naked woman, since from her perspective, she had only seen the wall. That meant both bodies shared the same consciousness.
'Uhh… who would've thought that the two of us, husband and wife, would end up sharing the same hobby of having avatars. But what a blessing for me—now I've got two wives for the price of one!' he joked inwardly, though he still wondered if some kind of fate or divine force was involved in their meeting.
Meanwhile, the "victim" of being hugged grew furious upon seeing her husband holding both her and the other naked figure at once—but froze as soon as she saw the other's face.
From one point of view, she saw her normal appearance, from the other, an alternate version of herself, with inverted hair and eye colors.
She also felt her husband's embrace from different angles at the same time, leaving her mind completely blank.
"HUH?!" ×2.
…
After Aotian explained what had happened and what he believed—that she now had two bodies—Rihai was shocked, but quickly confirmed that her husband's analysis was completely correct.
She was also deeply astonished that her divine physique's talent turned out to be something like this. She also wondered whether the trigger for its activation had been reaching the Golden Core stage, or if it was due to other circumstances and only awakened now because her roots had been repaired.
There was still much she didn't know and would have to study.
Thus, they immediately began testing to gain an initial understanding of her abilities.
The first, a mental test, was simple. Cultivators already possessed extremely strong minds, and now, with two "brains," she quickly adapted to controlling two bodies at once, soon learning how to distinguish one body from the other and act separately.
Then came the apparent physical test—administered by Aotian—which consisted of pinching and hugging both bodies in different and delicate places.
Rihai, taking the test seriously at first, rolled both pairs of eyes in anger and backed away the moment she felt Aotian's wild hands—and something else below—rise and brush against both of her bodies.
Aotian coughed awkwardly, but with both naked wives in his arms, the naïve dream he'd had upon arriving in this world—to have a wife in each arm—had left him just a bit too excited.
'Ahem… let Rihai get used to her new body. I'll have plenty of time to have fun later, hehe!'
Outwardly he remained serious, inwardly, he wasn't thinking anything appropriate.
Rihai seemed to sense that with her sixth-sense-as-wife, looked at him with a flat stare, and rolled her eyes in an expression he found irresistibly charming.
While she tested and familiarized herself with the incredible prospect of having a new body, and enjoyed the comfort and confidence of her divine roots restored, her eyes eventually fell on the piles of stones scattered on the floor.
Confused, she picked one up and stared at what was in her hands in astonishment.
It was a large elemental stone, imbued with a fire element so potent it took her breath away.
"Aotian… is this?!" she choked out, frightened.
Aotian snapped out of his daydream and approached, raising an eyebrow.
"This? It's a perfect-grade fire elemental stone. When I realized your physique was awakening and that you'd need a lot of Five-Elements energy, I rushed to get these from the elders. They're not rare in the sect, don't worry."
"The only reason I didn't bring these stones for us to use earlier is that, unlike spirit stones, perfect-grade elemental stones contain extremely heavy and tyrannical energy. Normally, the ideal is to use elemental stones that match our level — in this case, medium-grade ones."
He explained with a shrug, not overly concerned.
Rihai had to take a deep breath to calm herself.
She already knew the sect possessed perfect-grade spirit stones—Aotian had once given her one to power her flying device—but elemental stones were even rarer and more valuable than spirit stones, and in fact neither of those two kinds of stones of that grade even existed in this world. So seeing the cave filled with them as if they were rubble was a shock.
To get a better sense of that wealth, it was like, instead of stones, the place was a huge football field piled high with gold—but those stones were worth countless times more than ordinary gold.
Seeing that scene made clear how rich and powerful the Infinite Dao Sect truly was.
Calming her trembling breath at such absurd wealth—which even an ex-wealthy young lady like Rihai could hardly bear to see—she struggled to steady her mind and sat to cultivate.
Aotian didn't stand idle and began gathering the stones from the floor and storing them into storage rings, after all, that was far too much wealth to leave exposed, even if it wasn't as valuable to him personally.
Although just the presence of the stones could greatly enrich the environment, it wasn't as efficient as actively drawing energy from medium-grade elemental stones during cultivation. So it made no sense to leave these scattered around.
Meanwhile, Rihai cried for joy as she cultivated without pain for the first time in more than a decade, feeling only the pleasant comfort of true cultivation—not the torture she had endured before to gain power.
Sensing again her supernatural cultivation speed, now many times faster thanks to the sect's techniques, a new confidence grew in her heart.
Even the long-buried desire for vengeance rose like a tide.
Hatred began to fill her mind, and a thirst for blood she hadn't felt in a long time grew.
But she quickly clenched her teeth and restrained it. Rihai then paused her cultivation and opened her eyes.
Her blue eyes focused on her husband, who was rubbing his chin as he studied and admired the sight of her newly created avatar meditating beside her, clearly plotting improper things.
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the scene, while her earlier rage toward her enemies drained from her mind.
The look she gave him in that moment was pure affection and love, even with his antics.
'Haah… I can seek vengeance, but I will never sacrifice my happiness with my husband, who gave me hope and a new life. That would not be what my father would want, nor what I want.'
She thought, finding peace in her heart, and closed her eyes again.
'But just because I decided to live happily with my husband, that doesn't mean I'll give up exterminating all who took everything from me. Only children make choices, I want both.'
Rihai decided, fiercely determined.
If Aotian could read her thoughts, he would roll his eyes and think: 'Please don't use the line protagonists usually use when they're about to do morally questionable things.'
Unfortunately, he didn't know that and remained busy with indecorous thoughts as he stared at his wife's beautiful and exotic second body.
Fortunately, Aotian had enough enlightened minds not to fixate solely on perversions, and they could think about several things at once.
'Rihai's talent awakening is recent, and we still have much to explore to understand this so-called Divine Physique of the Sun and the Sea. For now, we know she gained a water affinity in her new avatar, while her main body retained the fire affinity. The main body's water affinity disappeared upon awakening—or rather, was transferred to the avatar.'
'She cannot cultivate the old technique in both bodies. I'll have to create a good water technique for her avatar, as well as provide compatible spells of that element.'
With that decision, he began to work.