"Hello, good folks, nice to meet you all," Xinzi said, and their eyes narrowed at him. He stared right back, scrutinizing the 36 with his Spiritual Sense. A brief observation enabled Xinzi to realize that the 36 each possessed a Single Element Spiritual Root—meaning that with reasonable training and resources, they'd reach the Nascent Soul stage within a few centuries. In better, wealthier hands, such Spiritual Root talents would have no trouble getting to Divine Transformation within a reasonable timeframe. Higher achievements would depend on good fortune.
Needless to say, the Soaring Crane mountain couldn't produce that many Single Element roots in one generation. Some of them had likely been born centuries ago, but trapped here to prepare for future calamities—or so Xinzi thought, and he was correct. The Soaring Crane predecessors believed that attempting to have their talents survive in the wild was no different from pushing them into perdition. There were easier ways to have them exploited or ruined than hoping that the kindness of random forces would preserve them and allow for a rebuild.
Instead, with Lord Soaring Crane at the helm, past Nascent Soul experts trapped the most gifted pairs of male and female disciples in Duality Nurturing Coffins, not only helping them to increase their compatibility but also enhancing the quality of their yin and yang. Unfortunately for the partners, they were not expected to release their primal yin or yang on one another. Instead, the elders foresaw that, should the sect suffer misfortune, it would be at the end of a force commanded by a non-negligible quantity of Nascent Soul powerhouses: the White Immortal sect, most likely.
Regardless of the destroyer's identity, only its top experts would have the right to ransack the Soaring Crane mountain's secrets—especially when you consider that they'd have to go through a fourth-layer formation to reach the coffins. If things went according to plan, those Nascent Souls would have gotten subjugated by the fourth-layer Grand Rapine Formation, and turned into the helpless dual cauldrons of the 36 chosen.
Subsequently, the chosen would not only drain them for rapid cultivation advancement but also turn them into slaves for safety and a simple way out. And in the case that the Soaring Crane mountain was unfortunate enough to get destroyed by Divine Transformation legends, well, they could still hope that their carefully handpicked and nurtured dolls would catch the experts' fancy—assuring them a future.
All this was the initial plan, a plan that never accounted for a Qi Refinement Xinzi. His appearance wrecked the 36 fellows' hopes, adding a mixture of confusion and rage to their lust-glazed eyes.
"As you can see, I'm neither a Nascent Soul nor even a Golden Core level expert. Just a plain old peak Qi Refinement dude—just like you. You won't get much from harvesting my cultivation, will you? Would be such a waste to toss your primal energies my way. Don't waste these centuries of preparation on me—your elders would roll in their graves." As the words left Xinzi's tongue, his Divine Soul and Soul Force reserves struggled to suppress the body's urges and maintain his focus. His vision blurred, forcing him to tap in the two Nascent Souls he'd stored in his Soul World after obliterating the Soaring Crane mountain.
Clearly, Xinzi would rather not waste such rare resources on frivolities. But here he saw a golden opportunity, an opportunity that merited playing the pig, if only for a minute.
"How can you stay conscious despite being under the pressure of a fourth-layer Grand Rapine Formation? By now, even Nascent Soul level powerhouses should be drooling with rabid lust." Intrigued by Xinzi's background and abilities, the leaders of this little troupe—because every troupe gotta have a leader—asked. Suspicion flashed in their eyes and their minds wandered onto wild conjectures—conjectures such as a Nascent Soul powerhouse disguising as a Qi Refinement boy to deceive them all.
"Ah, drooling is unsightly. I prefer flicking my tongue across my lips. Also, you have too many guys in your lineup. Scares me to death and chills my appetite. That said, I pledged to my mother's grave to one day become notorious for my whorish disposition, so I will try my best to surpass my fears and satisfy the ladies—at the very least. Good deal, right?" Xinzi rhetorically asked, making the ladies chuckle while the guys' gazes grew cold.
Male and female, neither of the two leaders, however, found Xinzi's jokes funny. After all, they'd been trapped in these coffins earlier than any of their peers, knew all the details of the initial plan, and had no doubt that if Xinzi was here, their Soaring Crane mountain had turned into a wasteland. Worse, while Xinzi modified his white robe into a monastic garb and didn't have the emblem of the White Immortal sect embroidered, his monastic clothing still looked so white that it made them think of the White Immortal sect anyway—instantly adding fuel to the fire of their hatred.
"Humph! Impressive nerves. At the gates of death, you even had the audacity to make nonchalant remarks and spit jokes at your enemies' lustful faces? Hehehe! Brothers, although this bald donkey is a bit too muscular, and not quite fair, that herculean physique of his must be hiding no end of secrets. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to get here, much less manage to keep his thoughts straight. I say we…explore that body, and harvest its secrets!"
The male leader said. Clearly, coffin and fog had gotten to his head, or maybe he'd always swung on the dark side. Regardless, his fellow disciples seemed oddly stimulated by the thought. Also under the influence of coffin and fog, the females didn't like that they'd have to take a backseat, so to speak, but with their leader apparently in favor of the outcome, they had to stand back.
"I will harvest the meat," said leader said. Xinzi much preferred this outcome. In fact, he'd rather it be the only option. Alas, as they stepped forward, clearly intent on ganging up on him, the 18 males clearly refused to see the errors of their ways. A pity for them, because as they closed in on him, our monk's lips curled into a fiendish grin.
The Immemorial Blood Gu kicked into gear, prompting a surge of dark-purple qi to erupt from Xinzi's body. Blood light streamed out as well, but it was the dark-purple qi that grabbed the Soaring Crane chosen's attention.
"Evil Qi!" They roared and, in spite of their state of inebriety, backpedaled as far as walls and space allowed them to. Still, Xinzi didn't move. Not that he didn't want to. The fog's impact crippled his mobility. Unfortunately for his foes, just like the divines had a bunch of innate perks, demons did so as well. One of them being that, as long as their demon heart remained in close vicinity, in a moment of crisis, their demonic abilities could act independently of them—protecting them from sneak attacks. In the Infernal Paradise where treachery ran amok, this ability had saved more than one fiend from extinction. Here, it'd preserve our monk all the same.
From 1.75 meters tall, Xinzi rose to an impressive 2 meters, and underneath his foes' horrified gaze, his body mutated into a herculean creature with six sanguine eyes, jagged teeth and chalky-white skin. A fanged mouth formed on his stomach, laughing uncontrollably. Thousands of spider-like red silk threads shot out of the fanged mouth, latching on the males and wrapping them all in adamantine cocoons.
"Don't worry, fellow daoists. I'm facing a shortage of talented lab rats to experiment on. Initially I planned to procure them on the black market, but you will do just fine." Xinzi burst into a victorious laugh. The Immemorial Blood Gu kicked in, draining the aphrodisiacal fog that contaminated its host. At the same time, Xinzi triggered the first-level of the Reincarnation of Mahasura. One dark-purple arm rose from a coiling mass of Evil Qi, holding a pink heart that beat as loudly as battering rams slamming into fortified defenses.
The heart, Xinzi's Klesha Heart, not only nullified what remained of the enemy fog, but unleashed a pink mist of its own: the Klesha Haze. That haze sneaked into the beauties' tender flesh, making them experience the frenzied lust that would have been Xinzi's lot had he not come prepared with impeccable defenses.
"As for you, beautiful, didn't you want meat to chew on? Unfortunately, I only have one stick, but as the saying goes, should they all lead to the same room, 18 holes only need one key: mine. You guessed it, I've just invented that saying now." Xinzi passed one hand across his bald, monstrous head, and still in his demonic form, spread his arms wide.
The 18 beauties' eyes turned red, and they launched themselves at him.
