I massaged my wrists as I walked closer. That last double beam of energy was quite powerful, yet I still found it lacking. Using pure energy by itself was wasteful if you wanted to do the most damage. Mixing in various Elements was still better at our stage.

I noticed Darkness looking at us from the edge of the arena and waved at her. She came closer and I pointed at Shadow.

[Be a good girl and take him away, alright?] She picked him up and lifted him over her shoulder. [Make sure he recovers well. I still need him for training.] I grinned just as she was about to turn around.

She gave me a very conflicted frown and then walked away without saying anything.

Kids. I mean, they were five times older than me, but their mentality was… Yeah…

I rubbed the back of my head. Pretending to struggle for so long had been quite exhausting. Good thing I was a good actor.

All jokes aside, the beating had been an eye-opening experience. I purposely let Shadow hurt me as much as he could, without doing too much permanent damage. I didn’t want to waste too much Essence regenerating. Luckily simply closing wounds and healing bruises didn’t require regenerating any flesh, so the healing came cheap.

But there was a reason I did that. I noticed that after healing severe damage, my body’s resistance to it increased slightly. In other words, the more beat up I got, the stronger my defenses became. The boost was tiny, but after experiencing it so many times, I could say with certainty that it was there. And since I could recover in mere seconds and go again, it was easy for me to notice that.

I was also confident not many knew of that effect, if any. Those of the Golden Core Realm whose Souls I consumed didn’t know it at all. That was the problem with the focus on attack, you would miss such intricate side effects.

Just as a Cultivator’s body would adapt to greater requirements for power and speed, so it would with the need for defense. It was just that nobody wanted to get constantly beaten up to increase the toughness of their flesh by a few percent. Nobody except me!

Manual Cultivation was too slow, and I was stuck in the Sect, so I couldn’t hunt. And since I had here a guy that hated my guts, why not use him to train? It was perfect. It didn’t even matter if he realized what I was doing. As long as he could beat me up every day, I was confident that in a year, his punches would not even hurt me anymore.

I returned to Tiny and looked at his new, tougher body. I placed a hand on his shoulder and sighed.

[It’s such a shame you can’t be my sparing partner, buddy. That would make it so much easier.]

Maybe one day I would create a machine that could beat me up constantly. That would skyrocket my defenses. Well, I didn’t enjoy pain and I wasn’t a masochist, but maybe, just maybe… I was becoming one.

Damn.

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I threw away my ruined robe and wore the only thing I had left. An Outer Disciple robe. My attire didn’t matter much, and I didn’t care about it. At most, I would receive less respect when meeting new people. And it was temporary anyway until I got something better.

Which was unlikely to happen soon, as I was basically broke. The Forge cost me most of what I had, and powering it up to upgrade Tiny burned through the little money I had left. Once again, I had weapons I could sell, yet I refused to do so.

As I was leaving the arena, I noticed a glint from the corner of my eye. I went to investigate and realized it was Shadow’s sword. He must have lost it in the fight and then forgot to pick it up. Well, he fell unconscious, so that was probably the reason. Darkness didn’t notice he was missing his weapon before taking him away.

Actually, it was odd that he had a new black suit. I thought his stuff burned or was destroyed when we first met. I wondered where he got his stuff.

[Meh… Whatever.] I shrugged my shoulders and picked up the sword. I noticed it had a name engraved into the blade.

[Nightstar Blade, huh?] The longsword was forged from a gray metal, not silver like steel, but dark gray, like stone. The edges were a pale blue color though, almost white. The hilt was some sort of carved purple stone or crystal and it fit perfectly into my palm. I swung it around a few times to get the feeling for the weight. It was a good blade. Heavy, strong, and elegant.

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Into my pouch, it went.

[Mine now.] I smiled. Another trophy for my treasure trove. And a named blade as well. Most of what I had were generic swords and daggers, and the lonely Soul-Breaker finally got a friend.

I had finished The Forge, upgraded Tiny, and beat Shadow on top of gaining a new sword. It had been a good day.

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[Hmm… Oh, yeah… Keep doing that with your tongue.]

Though you could consider me broke, I actually had some change left. Not enough for a Core Disciple to live, but enough to get some time with the ladies of The Heavenly Peach. The cock-block ninjas were nowhere to be found and I could finally relax and have some fun after more than a year of abstinence.

Crystal Ivy, her work name, was a bit on the expensive side, but after hearing rumors about her divine skills, I had to try her out.

And I’m happy to say, the rumors were true, as far as I was concerned. The things she did with her tongue almost made me melt in her embrace. Her hands hands massaged my legs and body while she licked and sucked like a starving animal.

Her bare assets bounced all over the place and were often used as part of the show. Yet the thing that most attracted my attention was her tongue. It was extremely long, two, maybe three times the normal length, and super agile. No doubt the result of extremely focused Body Cultivation. And she could do miracles with it.

A satisfied groan escaped my throat as she plunged down, taking the entirety of my big brother into her mouth. Yes, I grew there too, and I was in heaven.

My Soul tingled and I got goosebumps. 100% the best experience I had ever felt in my life. Those 100 Spirit Shards were absolutely worth it. I would never forget the day, or what happened immediately after, at the peak of pleasure, as I was ready to burst.

She then suddenly began to suck, and it was like an industrial vacuum. Full force and as if her life depended on it. The only problem was that I felt absolutely nothing with my physical body. My Soul, however, was another thing entirely.

I sat up at lightning speed and shoved her away and as Qi flared out of my body, she froze in the air, unable to move.

I had just experienced an assault. An assault on my Soul.

Closing my eyes, I examined the damage. I quickly noticed nothing actually happened. My Soul was too powerful compared to hers, like an elephant compared to an ant. But that didn’t mean a bite from an ant didn’t hurt. It just didn’t do damage.

It was such a weird feeling when she did that. As if someone tried to rip off a part of my Soul. But once again, the power was very small compared to mine, but it was vicious. And concentrated. It also directly targeted my core, ignoring the obstacles in my Sea of Consciousness, with the accuracy and sharpness of a scalpel in a surgeon’s hand.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Ivy turning a deep shade of purple as she choked to death. Though I held her for only a minute or two, that seemed to be too much for her to handle, and I released from my Telekinetic grasp.

She fell to the ground and began coughing and gasping for breath.

[What was that?]

I heard quiet sobs as her voice trembled and she stammered amid stifled cries. “F- forgive me, S- Senior… I- I didn’t k- know...”

That’s when I realized she mistook me for a lowly Outer Disciple. I certainly had the face of one, and with the robes, it was an easy mistake to make.

She must have missed my badge.

Upon a closer examination, I realized I must have left my badge back in my room where I last changed.

Hmm, oh well...

That didn’t change the fact that she tried to steal a piece of my Soul!

[Get up.]

She trembled and stood up, holding her hands clasped before her, shoulders lowered and head bowed, unwilling to look me in the eyes.

Her figure went from seductive to a frightened criminal caught in the act. The fact that we were both naked didn’t help either.

[I’ll ask again, what was that?]

She burst out in an uncontrollable sobbing while repeatedly apologizing and begging for forgiveness. In short, she was a mess. A snap of my fingers could fix all of that. I just had to consume her Soul and I would know everything.

But that just wasn’t how things were done. Instead, I rolled my eyes in annoyance and went to look for my clothes. I took a Memory Orb and shoved it in her hands.

[You know how to use this, right?] She nodded timidly.

[Good. Then I want you to copy the technique you just used on me and hand it over.]

She looked at me with wide eyes. I could see tears running down her face, accompanied by snot. She also trembled as if I just sentenced her to death. “P- please…”

[Do it!] I ordered.

She began sobbing even harder and brought the Memory Orb to her forehead. A few minutes later she handed the sphere back and then crouched on the ground, sniveling.

I took the orb and put it to my forehead and absorbed the memories. Almost instantly, I had the entirety of its workings and purpose in my mind. And it was awful.

[What is this garbage?] I frowned. [Passionate Spirit Siphon Technique?]

The technique allowed a person to suck out the Soul of another at the peak of pleasure when they were most vulnerable. It was the most insidious Cultivation Technique I had ever seen! It basically relied on backstabbing your sexual partner, hundreds, thousands of times, to fuel your Cultivation.

At least I killed my opponents before devouring their Souls while that thing destroyed their lives in the most awful way possible.

Oh, and it only worked one way. A man could not use it on a woman, or even on another man. There were some biological incompatibilities. But the way Ivy used it was not right. The technique clearly stated the two had to be connected in two places, both top and bottom, and the Soul would be extracted through a kiss.

What she was doing was some weird bastardization of the Passionate Spirit Siphon that wouldn’t even properly extract the Soul. According to what I understood, it would at most tear off a small piece…