It was a new day, a beautiful day.

The previous night was enjoyable, especially at the end when Vilya and I trained in the Passionate Spirit Siphon Technique. And let me tell you, it was passionate alright. Somehow I was even getting to like the feeling of getting my Soul pinched. It kind of tickled. With due time I would be able to close that gap in my subconscious defense. I guessed a few dozen repetitions should do the job, but I would test it a hundred times just to be sure.

I still couldn’t really relax though. It would take months at least, until Vilya became tough enough for me to let go. Then things would get way spicier.

We sat facing each other, using our Body Cultivation techniques and moving the Essence we consumed at dinner around the body to empower it. She was in deep concentration while I was nearly half asleep guiding it around. Cultivation was easy once you got used to it, Body Cultivation even more so, it just took a lot of time.

I was missing the stimulation of combat, so after a few hours, I stood up and went to find Shadow. I tried to get Darkness to fight me as well, but she adamantly refused. Even after I promised not to punch back, she just ran away instead of attacking.

I mean, was she really so traumatized by getting her limbs cut that one time? What a chicken. It’s not like it was permanent. I mean, it could have been, but it wasn’t.

Anyway, Shadow seemed more willing to fight than usual. If I was a suspicious man I would think something might have happened. Brain damage, for example. Luckily for him, I wasn’t. Well, at least not at that moment. I just quite enjoyed the fact that he wanted to beat me up, and so I let him.

I stood in the arena with hands on my hips and a smile on my face as he tried to do his best to bring me down with his naked fists and Qi constructs.

I was pretty sure he even brought some poisons to test them on me. I just let him poke me with needles and small golden claws until my skin was all scratched up and itchy. I then needed a whole three seconds to heal all the damage so we could go again.

Darkness and Vilya stood watching on either side, one with a frown, and the other with a curious expression. I felt like an animal on display, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel at least a bit of pride as so many eyes were glued to my chiseled body and my large pecks, all of them with plenty of emotion behind them.

Hate, lust, curiosity, awe, suspicion… It felt quite nice, actually. I enjoyed it.

I secretly flickered my Qi on and off a few times, and when I did, I realized Shadow’s attacks couldn’t even damage me anymore. And the guy was really trying. I could see it in his eyes, he was doing his best.

He even went for the weak points. Sensitive spots on my body were kicked, punched, and clawed at, but after receiving a kick in the nuts, I had to put a stop to the nonsense. Not because it hurt, but because I wasn’t having another man play with my balls. That was woman exclusive toy.

I wouldn’t mind if Darkness was the one that did it though. While she was not exactly my type and very old on top of that, that was in Earth years. As a Cultivator she was still considered quite young. The fact that her face looked to be around 30 years old wouldn’t bother me that much if she at least had some assets. But she was flat on both sides, completely disqualifying her as a mate.

Vilya was so much better than her in every way.

And my mind once again slipped into random nonsense so I didn’t even notice Shadow was already done and panting on the ground.

I looked at my left hand I just used to stop his Scatter Storm Beam. I thought he needed a sword to use it, but apparently not. My skin was red and full of tiny scratches and cuts. I subconsciously reinforced the hand while defending and his ultimate attack did little to break it.

I wasn’t even using the Soul Cuirass to resist it. That made me wonder… Was I getting stronger or was he getting weaker? Because that shouldn’t be the case. Cultivators were so special because they never grew weaker, only stronger. Unless they were wounded or were nearing the end of their lifespan, which he clearly wasn’t.

The only other explanation was that my defensive capabilities were growing faster than I would have expected. And I wasn’t going to complain.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

[Ah… Seems like we are done here.] I stretched and turned to Darkness. [You sure you don’t wanna take a swipe at me? I’m not even going to fight back.]

She rapidly shook her head and took a step back. I shrugged my shoulders and pulled up my robe.

It’s not like I could force her to strike me.

I mean… I could, but it wasn’t worth it for the effort required. She was weak, with an ever weaker mindset. Just the fact that she prevented me from entering the Heavenly Peach because she felt uncomfortable with the things inside spoke volumes of her mentality.

How these people were a part of the secret force was still a mystery to me. The brainwashing they had to go through must have been fantastic because these people couldn’t do a thing of their own accord.

Shadow was acting all weird and aggressive, and Darkness seemingly fell into some kind of depression, constantly hiding in her room and avoiding contact with others. Which was just fine by me.

I went to Vilya and we both made our way back to the room. It was time for another session of healing.

After examining her Soul, I concluded that whatever I had done, was the correct thing. The scar was already healing nicely, and I figured that by the end of the week, she would completely recover. But that only went for the surface damage. I couldn’t help her with the curses or the impurities. She had to work on that on her own, a grain at a time. I couldn’t do anything to alleviate that problem, unfortunately.

I placed my hands on her bare back and began feeding her Soul Essence. I had to be really careful not to accidentally convert it to a higher grade. She was not capable of absorbing Golden Soul Essence while I could jump all over the place without much trouble.

Her Soul mended well, and over the next two weeks, her situation improved drastically. Her Soul healed completely and she even became able to Cultivate again, though it was still really difficult and slow. That was a joyful day and she cried again, but those were tears of happiness.

She trained in the Body Cultivation techniques every day without fail, and I could already see some small improvements. Usually, Body Cultivation takes years to achieve any significant results, but that could be sped up by consuming plenty of quality beast flesh. Which she did.

The curse damage was significantly slower to repair, and she spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to smooth out her energy. It was like a sickness spreading through her body, preventing her from properly utilizing Qi and Cultivating. While she could, after I fixed her Soul, it was slow, required ten times the effort, and was often painful if she pushed too hard.

While it was not visible on the surface, her internal organs already began changing according to the curse, becoming all twisted and mangled. And while it was not yet affecting her life, I did not doubt that in a few more years, perhaps a decade, she would have been in real trouble.

Curse damage was insidious in that way. It was slow acting, yet difficult to fix, and when things went awry, they became nearly impossible to change.

I wondered if it would have been possible to purposely curse a person, just in the opposite way, to counter the damage. I was nowhere near skilled enough to do that, of course, and I wasn’t willing to experiment on Vilya in case her body began spontaneously growing cancer.

It was always easy to destroy but difficult to build.

----------------------------------------

I decided I was going to build.

Having neglected Tiny for some time, I decided it was time to get him some upgrades. I had some Void Stone left, and Tiny had such a nice flat back that I decided to carve a Qi Gathering Array on it. Void Stone would help siphon Base Qi, and the array would guide it wherever I wanted. It was not to power Tiny, or even to help recharge him, but to keep some defensive glyphs active 24/7.

I still had to carve those, but that was the easy part.

I first shaved off a significant chunk of his back and replaced it with a slab of Void Stone, about two fingers thick, with the carvings already on it.

Runes were the symbols, the carvings responsible for various effects. Glyphs were a combination of those runes to create a more complicated design. Arrays were groups of connected glyphs, working together, but the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

And Formations stood at the peak, a combination of various overlapping arrays, more often than not, built in a circle.

Of course, there still existed Grand Formations, but those were just many Formations stacked on top of each other.

I was simply carving one array and a few dozen glyphs. It was a lot of work, but nowhere near the colossal effort required to make a Formation. All of it took me a few days to complete. And that was because I was working slowly, with plenty of breaks and entertainment in between.

Since Tiny was already so tough, boosting his defenses another 20% or so became worth the effort. Previously, when one punch could break his limbs, it just wasn’t worth it.

I expertly carved defensive glyphs into his torso, arms, and legs, as well as the head. The bluish-golden treads on the rocky surface made him a sight to behold. A behemoth of stone with a regal sheen. As a humongous, heavy-handed beast, Tiny was the perfect guardian.

I would have preferred him to be a sparing partner, but no matter what orders I gave him, he refused to attack me. That part of his programming was air-tight.

Unfortunate.

He was still missing beast cores though. He couldn’t go for long and had to rest to recharge more often than not. I shook my head after he powered down once more. It was still not good enough.

I theoretically required at least three beast cores at the peak of Golden Core Realm for him to keep going indefinitely. And even if I got that, I would probably just use it as an excuse to upgrade him again.

And we would have the same issue once more.

Sigh.