As their relentless drive continued, it was only a matter of time before people tool notice of the village-turned-sect and their activies.

Most forces of great reknown in the world of Jie would scarecely concern themselves with a tiny settlement not even in the four digits acting strangely, but as fate, luck or karma would have it, information landed in very peculiar ears.

In the eastern reaches of an empire with a name so lengthy and self-aggrandizing it was rarely ever said, there was a province characterized by the enormous rocky mountains lining it’s southwestern borders, and the vast, sloping plains that encompassed the rest of its territory. Naturally, Qi aligned to the Earth element abounded.

Within that province, there were a set of cities known as the Eight Triagrams Buroughs. Legend has it that they were originally built up surrounding eight pagodas forming the vertices of a monumental formation to seal away a demon, but nobody has found evidence of such a formation.

Whatever the case, these eight modestly-sized cities were in fact built in an almost perfect octagon with one another, a hundred kilometers to a side.

Between the fertile plains and the many cities close by, the area around the Triagrams became prime real estate for farmland, and, in the places with rich Qi, sects. These sects often sent out junior disciples to trade in the cities’ fairs, something quite favorable for both the cities’ economies and the sects’ activities.

And as it happened, Du Han Jin, a disciple of the Earth-Shattering Avalanche Step Sect- an Earth element sect which specialized in solid stances, heavy weaponry, and even heavier armor- while selling some of the sect’s surplus mundane equipment at the fair, received as payment from an unassuming villagewoman a handful of coins that absolutely reeked of Earth Qi.

Of course, an object merely having a Qi signature wasn’t too in on itself- being in contact with a cultivator, or near a Qi spruce, neither of which were terribly rare, could leave a print on something. What stood out, however, was that these coins had a signature so rich that they must have had either been in the pocket of a cultivator of power comparable to Eldest Martial Sister back in the Sect- unlikely, as that woman didn’t seem like she had anything that could interest someone like that- or, more likely, that it had been near or in a Qi spring of very fine grade- it was not unheard of for new sources to appear every so often, but always good when it did.

“Say-“ He interjected, as she packed up the weapons with the help of a few others.

“These coins, where are they from?”

Zhi Yi glanced at the discipline with an eyebrow raised, though saw no harm in answering.

“Village chief gave me to them to buy stuff. Why?”

“Oh, no reason.” Du Han Jin replied. “They just have an odd... smell to them.”

“Is that so? It’s real gold, I can tell you.”

“Yes, I can tell it is... well, no matter. Pleasure doing business with you.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Pleasure...” Zhi Yi responded, leaving, still with a skeptical expression on her face.

———In the Dungeon———

As it turns out, putting an existing, sentient spirit into a new body is a little bit more complicated than just making a regular dungeon boss.

Not necessarily harder, actually, since, in this case, at least, the spirit is actively cooperating, but certainly more complicated.

To begin with, ‘body’ I created had to be little more than a humanoid blank slate, charged with energy, circled in raw materials, all to prepare it to assume a possible vast sky different form.

Then, instead of the simple injection of life energy and a general image that the regular boss took, the really tricky part began.

Lana sat onto the blank slate, then channeled her energy into it, followed by a ‘shell’ of my own power wrapping around and binding her to the new body with threads of life energy. The transformation began, guided by two images, both her own self-image, and my image of what she should be like a dungeon boss. The air inside the barrier started to swirl rapidly, ambient energy being draw in and condensing inside, while the materials began to flow and the body shift.

Bulk slid off, chunks shaping into feminine curves. Two thin stalks emerged from the back, slowly branching out into a pair of butterfly-like wings, while metal swirled up in a pillar emerging from the ground, taking the likeness of a spear.

The body itself took the shape of Lana, but more... monstrous. Her face was sharper- still the same fairy, but with a fiercer cast to it. A series of short, triangular horns shot up from her brow, the edge of the wings grew ragged and tattered, and veins started to glow dull red from underneath the skin.

Oddly enough, this wasn’t my intent- I think this is Lana’s own self-image of what a truly ‘Dungeon Fairy’ should look like. ...It looks like something you’d see on a metal album cover. I’m not complaining, though.

But it kept going- the pole arm twisted, a shaping into a sharp, conical drill bit, while the other became a brutal-looking lucerne hammer. More metal flowed up the body, shaping itself into armor around her. Sleek, curved pieces unlike the dwarves’ blocky equipment, it gave off an aura of machined precision and efficiency, and the decorative engravings and trappings all bore a motif of clockwork. The helmet was an heavily ornate open-faced piece, looking halfway between an aviator’s cap and the head of either a dragon or mythical bird, with a central protrusion carved similar to a beak, sharp spikes or feathers jutting from the back, notches carved into the front to let the horns through, as if they were part of the design, and prongs coming out of the side, covering the cheeks and providing some protection to the eyes.

Finally, Lana shut her eyes, and inserted the very last of her energy into the shifting creation, as the fairy body collapsed into motes of light. Erupting in searing hot light like a blazing sunrise, previously-lifeless eyes now glowing with red light and the light of a soul, the whole chamber bathed in intense oranges and yellows, she took a deep, shuddering gasp of air in.

She stood there, just taking in the new body, clasping and unclamping her hands, for a few seconds, then started to laugh. Slowly, a little chuckle at first, then quickly escalating to an almost maniacal level.

——Some amount of time later...——

...In the Earth-Shattering Avalanche Step Sect’s alchemy house...

A seemingly middle-aged man- though the Qi emanating from indicated to anyone who knew the least about cultivation that he could be either fourty or four hundred- rested his bearded chin on one hand, idly spinning a gold coin in the other.

“Aye, this sure came from a damn good Qi spring, Earth element too. You said it was from some farming village girl?”

Du Han Jin crisply nodded to his superior.

“Well, better go send some of ya to go take a look. Can’t do no harm, and if we get lucky, we get a fine new place.”