"Now, this is unexpected. What could the logic behind this even be ?" Xuhan wondered aloud as his consciousness floated alongside Zhanxian inside his dao tower.
Today was a special day. Zhanxian, his first minion, was about to truly step on the path of a cultivator from this day forth. The skeleton minion had reached the second layer of its artificial qi cycling system just a few days ago. It was high time for it to start constructing its dao tower.
Han Xuhan had been quite surprised to learn that the artificial qi system wasn't enough for one to create their own dao tower. How, or why, he had no idea. And it wasn't as if he could go around asking his peers about this sort of evil technique. Some extensive research in the library had bore some fruit, though.
Experts from the mosquito apocalypse era were the first ones to officially recognize this subtype of cultivation technique. Due to the terrible outbreak of giant mosquitos all over the planet, many mortals were forced to actively fight them off.
During the crisis, a handful of them got lucky and absorbed the meat of extremely powerful mutated mosquitos. The intake of the large amount of spiritually enhanced substance awakened them to some very barbaric, primitive methods of cultivation. After discovering this phenomenon, many sects guided these lucky ones into the path of real cultivation. However, due to the lack of proper foundation and resources, most of them died before reaching the soul reformation realm. This left their families with the primitive cultivation methods that hadn't been, as quoted by scholar Long Aotian, 'registered' by the heavenly authority.
Thus, this subtype of cultivation techniques were given the title 'Stub' worldwide. Although such incidents had happened before the mosquito apocalypse era many times, the apocalypse was the pivot point that caused the knowledge and popularity of the techniques to rise, which forced the proud ancient cultivators to acknowledge the subtype of cultivation officially.
Han Xuhan had little idea what the mosquito apocalypse was about. But based on his knowledge of this world's history, ridiculous shit like that happened a lot. Regardless, he had gotten a rough idea of what went down after finishing the passage.
A technique can only go as far as its best practitioner, but the creator of the artificial qi cycling system died when he was at the third layer. If one wanted to build a dao base with it, they'd have to create their own path, and reach the final layer where they'd encounter the heavenly tribulation for the physique transformation realm. Their dao tower would be recognized by the heavens during the tribulation and grow rapidly to a normal shape if they passed the phase.
Nevertheless, this tiny problem wasn't enough to make Xuhan pause. What did make him pause was the anomaly that came afterwards, when he made Zhanxian cultivate according to the manual of the 'Zeroth Layer of the Physique Transformation realm'...
"As your underling's minion, should we let Zhanxian become a part of the mediocre cultivators around us, boss? Since we have practiced the extra layer, we should let our underlings too!"
That's the logic he would have thrown out to appease Mu Ran if he ever was found out....But now, it seemed that the issue he had ended up creating was about to bite him in the ass again.
"Ah, I always wanted to be one of those guys in textbooks who discovered something new and unique. Guess that wish is about to be fulfilled. Why do I feel like complaining?"
Once Zhanxian's cultivation came into effect, it had ended up affecting Xuhan's own dao tower rather than creating one inside Zhanxian's consciousness. He had never heard of anything quite like this. But again, almost no one had been crazy enough in recorded history to summon minions with human intelligence and bear the expenses of their forced, artificial cultivation.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Han Xuhan's dao tower used to look like an ordinary building on a square plot of land. One storied, one room, four white walls outside, numerous ghastly graffiti covering the walls inside, and a plain roof overhead.
Now, one of the walls had been demolished, and an extension the size of a mini trailer occupied the space there. Zhanxian's avatar, the palm-sized floating skeleton had now moved on to that part. His second minion Tun Shi Tian was still within the original dao tower, hovering silently and watching the situation with great interest.
"Look at that, little Tian. Once you start following your senior brother's footsteps, you'll get your own apartment! Aren't you excited?" Xuhan said with a light chuckle as his consciousness probed the extension of his dao base carefully.
"Hmph, trying to bluff? Stinky brat, you're a millennium too young to fool me !" The owl responded.
"You're lucky I'm not making you pay rent, little birdie. I'm the landlord here. Better not take that tone with me or I'll create a dog for my next project and let it chew on you all day long."
"Dream on, you disgraceful trash. By that time, I'll become much more powerful compared to my current form. My talent for cultivation surpasses yours by thousands of li!"
"True, true. But have you considered how far your monstrous talent can take you when I cut your resource budget and refuse to give you cultivation techniques?"
"....Ahaha, I was just kidding, master. I'm very grateful that I have a master as benevolent as you who even offers to give us worthless minions separate living space! Who else can boast of such a ridiculous feat?"
With an exhausted tone, Tun Shi Tian admitted defeat and fell silent. Xuhan had figured out its true nature by now. The owl was even more greedy compared to Zhanxian, and a million times more ambitious. As long as Han Xuhan kept a tight leash on it and didn't let its rebellious streak go wild for too long, it would stay in line.
"Master, do you feel my part of the dao tower affecting your original foundation in any way?" Zhanxian asked nervously.
"Nah, nothing feels out of place," Xuhan said after a few more probes.
Floating away outside his dao tower, he took in the unfamiliar scene in front of him again. Zhanxian's new apartment stuck out like a sore thumb from the original dao tower. His worries set aside, Xuhan couldn't help but be curious to see what sort of abomination the tower would be once he reached the peak of the physique transformation realm.
Would it become a condo?
This was going to be quite fun if it didn't backfire on him somehow.
Retracting his consciousness from the dao base, Xuhan opened his eyes and summoned Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian. Both of the skeletons were cultivating together with him. Zhanxian had just made his breakthrough with the zeroth layer while Tun Shi Tian was practicing the artificial qi cycling technique. Xuhan was busy with his third project, a rattlesnake.
Able to live in many types of habitats, known widely for being one of the most venomous species of snakes, small enough to sneak around easily; these three advantages of a rattlesnake would be terrifying when mixed with human intelligence and cultivation resources. After observing Zhanxian and little Tian, Xuhan had become sure that all summoned creatures retained their species-specific abilities. Right now, he had a human skeleton to act as his body double under a mask and a spy high above in the sky to keep a tight lookout.
A hidden, living weapon that could hide in his sleeves or scout underwater was the best choice for now. He had to be prepared for every type of environment!
"That's another task I've covered so far..." he muttered as he ticked out a sentence from the list in his hands. Then, after a few moments of consideration, he wrote down a new line.
1. Put a bounty on the mad guy - done
2. Make the minions cultivators - done
3. Start working on the third minion - in progress
4. Pay Yuen Zhou's weekly lecturer fee - done
5. Learn the technique for the resource transfer -
6. Complete the first transaction with Brother BB -
7. Make the minions cultivate the 'Spiritual Bones' technique -
8. Discuss the dao base anomaly with elder Kong -
9.
10.
The list went on and on. To give himself a moral boost of sorts and keep his current goals in sight, he carried the list everywhere and constantly added, retracted, or rectified the details. These days, too many things were happening at once, distracting him from his goals constantly. The list did wonders to keep his nerves under control.
The fifth goal, to learn the spell that would allow him to transfer Brother BB's resources to the Holy Land of Laws, was also near completion. So far, he had been summoned to that realm of consciousnesses twice. Brother BB had almost thrown a fit when Xuhan had revealed that he had confessed to Xuan Zi. But the indication that Xuan Zi was interested in a partnership between their sects had calmed him down instantly.
Tonight, he said, they'd meet in the separate realm for the third time and Han Xuhan would receive the guidance on how to transfer the resources.
Putting the list down, he sat beside the skeletons and started cycling qi again. He had everything he'd ever need to progress his cultivation. Wasting time wasn't an option he could afford to choose.