Ren withdrew the sword and stepped back to observe the now motionless creature. The snakes had settled still on its head, leading Ren to believe that he had 'killed' it.

He looked past it at the body parts littering the floor with the green blood. 'Is this a male version of Medusa?' he wondered, walking beside the mess to stand beneath the plant on the roof of the cave, which had already regenerated into another body like the previous one. 'Bloody... How many times am I supposed to do this?'

He readied his sword to rain slashes at it but stopped when he saw a jade pendant buried in its roots. The shape was not clear due to how it was positioned, but he could now see it unlike when he had been far.

He stopped to think. Had this thing been born out of the jade pendant like Han had been born out of Han's core?

If so, then if he took out the pendant, would it die?

He wanted to test his theory, but the roof was out of reach and he was yet to get over his phobia.

He contemplated throwing the sword at the pendant, but that would risk breaking it. Fire blades would equally damage the plant and the jade.

After a lot of thinking, he settled on using his root, disgusting as it may be, to pull the pendant from this weird entity.

Hesitantly, Ren sent up his roots which could reach the roof and beyond effortlessly. The more he raised his cultivation levels, the more his ginseng body continued growing and evolving.

'This feels awkward,' he said slipping a root through the curve of the pendant to pull it out. But when he touched it, the serpent came alive again, hissing and barring its crooked and sharp teeth down at him. 'Here we go again.'

He withdrew his roots and immediately summoned his sword. Just like before, seeing the blade instantly subdued the creature.

The hostility disappeared, the murderous intent disappeared and it slowly detached its upper half from its roots to fall before Ren.

Its serpent half materialized, giving it a base to stand on. Only this time, the grassy hair on its head didn't transform into snakes.

Ren came to a firm conclusion that it could fight him to death(if at all it could die) but was hesitating each time because of the sword in his hand.

He raised the blade in the air, and the entity bowed its head as if telling him he could cut it up as much as he wished.

The sword was lowered. "You." Ren raised its chin using the tip of the sword. "Why are you here? Why did you try to kill my disciples?"

"Di...sciples?" It spoke, its speech flawed.

"Can you even speak normally?"

He lowered the sword and opted to search its memories instead of trying to talk to it. From the many corpses in the tunnels, Ren concluded that it probably killed people instead of inviting them for a cup of tea.

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RENSHEN'S POV

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The coldness in my mental galaxy had died after rescuing my disciples. Only now did it all make sense. This thing that looked like an abomination made from a snake, a human, and a plant, had been the cause of the coldness in my body. Its mental attack had been so strong that it had managed to cut the link between me and my disciples almost entirely.

I brought forward my index finger and let a wisp of my consciousness enter its forehead in search of answers behind its existence as well as its weird abilities.

Down I fell into the pit of thick darkness. Not a ray of light could be seen in the vast emptiness that felt like an endless abyss. When I didn't cease falling, I decided to leave its head to save myself from the panic attack of having to fall for so long.

As my consciousness slipped back to my body, my eyes opened, and the creature's gray skin began to peel off to reveal a glowing brown skin beneath it.

The transformation continued all over its whole body with the snake half fading into a lower human body that was neither female nor male. There was just...nothing.

The grassy hair turned into real red hair that flowed down its body, seemingly longer than the creature's height.

It raised its hand, a finger pointing at the sword. "Mas...ter." When it tried to make a step, it crumbled to the floor, panting all of a sudden for no reason at all.

"Haa!" I sighed pressing my palm across my eyes. Had I done something stupid again without knowing? "Hey? Now that you've fully transformed, can you speak?"

It just shook its head staring meekly at me like it hadn't just tried to kill my disciples and steal their souls.

It was useless to waste my time here. This creature had no sense and all it could see and think about was the sword it kept calling master. This was more than I could take in one day. I had to leave the cave so I could settle the energy in my dantian that was all over the place due to my carelessness.

"Goodby-" I said, turning around when my ankle was grasped lightly, yet I couldn't free it. "What is it?" I questioned glaring down at it.

Since it was impossible to kill it, I'd just leave it here and hope someone else would do it because I was not going to burn more energy for no reason.

Mindless, emotionless, soulless, and maybe insensitive since I had just brutally killed its first body.

"Take...me," it said, its expression a veil of indifference. But I had already established that it had no emotions.

"Why should I? You have no value to me."

It looked down, but after ten seconds, it raised and turned its head to the roof where its roots were. Opening its palm, a green light appeared before moving through the air to the roof until it covered the half plant.

One by one, the roots attached firmly to the stone surface began to peel off until they detached fully from the roof and floated towards us.

"Value..." the creature said offering me the now shrunken grass plant that was only half. But at least the jade was tangled in the roots and this creature didn't seem to mind that it was giving away its life.

Or maybe what it was offering wasn't the jade, but the plant itself.

Falling on my palm, the small grass plant seemed to be covered in frost which wasn't trying to penetrate my skin. Thinking through the many books I had been reading, I recalled a type of grass with icy properties used in elixirs for cultivators practicing ice skills. It helped them deepen the foundation of such skills and abilities.

It was called, the heavenly grass. But in the texts, they had said it was purple. The one in my grasp was red like fire yet pleasing to look at.

Since it was so valuable, I could just sell it if I ran into financial difficulties in the future.

"I don't trust you...um, what's your name?"

It leaned forward to whisper, "Xian."

"Then, Xian, if you're to follow me, you must undergo the trust ritual. If you don't want to, then you can't follow me."

It looked directly into my eyes with its green pair and nodded.

How could it understand everything I was saying yet couldn't use even telepathy to communicate with me?

I felt sickened and embarrassed by what I was about to do, but I was not going to take any risks with my life.

This thing was so powerful that even I couldn't see its levels or anything about it. If it one day awoke with the desire to kill, I'd fall under its odd powers and so would my sect.

"Eat this." I presented it with a little piece of my roots while acting like I had no idea what it was. That was a part of my body dammit. How had I discovered such a wicked method to make other beings submit and stay loyal to me? What had I been doing feeding humans my roots?

Without hesitating, Xian received the root and put it in its mouth. There was no chewing, it just swallowed.

Thirty seconds later, nothing happened, which had me questioning myself about so many things regarding this ritual.

For Clay to appear in my mental galaxy, he had consumed a lot of my roots.

Did it mean that I had to constantly feed this thing like I had with Clay? But most importantly, how many roots had I given my disciples?

The image of ginseng roots on a plate like noodles with Liuyue and others feasting on them like the most delicious delicacy in the world filled my mind, instantly making my stomach churn.

Could I be any more disgusting than that?