Zeng Fei returned to his hut in a hurry, and activated the sealing formation on the door to lock it behind him.
When joining the sect, Outer Sect Disciple were all assigned a hut of their own, fit with minimal furnishing and basic kitchen implements.
Although the Treading Infinity Sect could have easily provided more, this was deliberately done to encourage disciples to provide value to the sect and earn any further furnishings they may want.
Typically, this meant completing sect missions, which earned you contribution points that could be exchanged for items, or finding other ways of directly earning spirit stones, the primary form of currency in the cultivation world.
The fact that Zeng Fei’s hut still very much looked as it had done when he first received it four years ago spoke volumes to how the beggar boy had been content simply to have a roof over his head and a bed to lie on; outside of the completing the odd compulsory sect mission - from which he’d earn the credits to meet his frugal day-to-day living needs - he had spent the remainder of his time stubbornly cultivating.
It was plain to see why those around him had labelled him as a cultivation maniac, jealous of his willpower to be so committed to the path of cultivation but also derisive that he’d only attained a mediocre fifth layer of Qi Refining despite all his effort. And now even that was gone.
Zeng Fei ignored the memories attached to this place and went over to the rough-hewn bed. He laid down and entered his domain.
Pingu, staring blankly into space, noticed his presence at once and began to approach him. The blood on the penguin’s wings was gone, and the site where the serpent had sunk its teeth had healed up. But Zeng Fei’s attention was on something else.
“So you actually are at the first layer of Qi Refining! How? You definitely had no cultivation base right before the fight.”
The reason this was so shocking was because going from being a mortal to the first layer of Qi Refining was a lengthy process, requiring you to learn how to draw spiritual energy in with your breath and exhale impurities, as well as requiring you to open your meridians so that spiritual energy could circulate through your body.
When these two conditions were met, you would be classed at the first layer of Qi Refining, which was also why Zeng Fei had not reverted to being a mortal even after his cultivation base had been consumed by those critters during the ritual.
Zeng Fei rubbed Pingu’s head and was glad to be spared from a pecking this time.
“Brr, brr,” the penguin said, enjoying the headrub.
“What do you mean you didn’t do anything?”
Those two criteria were certainly not things you could accomplish while standing around, so clearly something had to have happened.
It took many minutes of questioning for Zeng Fei to realise that: one, although Pingu had high intelligence for a penguin, he was nonetheless a chick and was clueless what Zeng Fei meant by cultivation; two, even after simplifying the question, Pingu claimed he hadn’t done anything besides eating the Green-horned Python’s demon core and some ‘stuff’.
“Wait, hold on… you ate the Green-horned Python’s demon core?!”
Eyes gleaming, the penguin proudly nodded.
“Spit it out then!”
The penguin gave him a weird look. It was only after much back-and-forth that Pingu obliged, trying to retch out the demon core, though to no avail.
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t explode or anything. And from now on, please don’t gobble up demon cores just because you can.”
“Peep, peep.”
“You can’t make any promises?! Why not? I’m being serious, you know - doing that is going to kill you sooner than later.”
But the penguin was unconvinced, so Zeng Fei rolled his eyes and gave up, figuring he’d just have to snatch up any future demon cores before Pingu got the chance to gobble them.
“And where did you learn that martial technique you were using? I could have sworn your wings were giving off a snake-like aura in the fight.”
A few cheeps, many clicks, and two toots later, Zeng Fei stared at the penguin exasperated.
“What do you mean it just came to you? That literally makes no sense…”
Zeng Fei rubbed the tension out of his brow. Who would have known that questioning his own minion would be this bloody hard? If only there was a more convenient way of doing this.
Suddenly his eyes widened, the answer coming to him.
Back when Pingu had been slapping sense into Dong Ju, notifications had popped up in his vision mentioning that Pingu’s Serpentine Slap had levelled up, disappearing shortly after.
In the heat of the moment, Zeng Fei had not known if he was hallucinating from overexerting his qi or something, but now on reviewed his memories, he was almost certain those had been genuine and not a figment of his imagination.
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He thought back to the webnovels he’d read and wondered how they made the System overlay pop up.
“Status.”
Nothing.
“Profile?”
Nothing.
“Uh, options?”
Nothing.
“I don’t know, notifications log?”
Finally, the translucent overlay showed up with a log of its previous messages. Seeing that the word Pingu was in bold, he pressed it.
The screen changed to Pingu’s Status.
Pingu
Race: Emperor Penguin
Cultivation: First Layer Qi Refining (50%)
Demon Cores: Green-horned Python (Third Layer Qi Refining)
Strength: 10
Agility: 6
Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 5
Dexterity: 2
Perception: 7
Martial Techniques: Serpentine Slap (Mortal) - Level 3
Why did Pingu have a status screen, and not him? And what did those stats mean? If only there had been somebody here to explain it all to him…
Grumbling curses under his breath at the bastard spirit adviser, Zeng Fei pressed the Cultivation row.
True Cultivation: n/a
Artificially Gained Cultivation: First Layer Qi Refining (50% progress) from Green-horned Python
Total Cultivation: First Layer Qi Refining (50%)
Ah, so it wasn’t that the demon core had activated something inside of Pingu and allowed him to attain that cultivation, but rather that the demon core itself was providing his current cultivation base.
Well, a demon core was somewhat analogous to a dantian inside a demon beast, so by that logic, it wasn’t outlandish that swallowing one would give Pingu the cultivation stored inside it. But why only part of it then? And what was the 50% progress about?
Pingu had said earlier that he’d sensed the presence of this demon core when he got close to the snake, and that he’d felt an instinctual need to consume the core once he’d dug it out of the snake’s body.
As far as Zeng Fei knew, this was not ordinary penguin behaviour, so he could only guess that the Heavenly Demon Divine Art was influencing this behaviour.
Moving on, Zeng Fei pressed the demon cores row next.
Max Capacity: Third Layer Qi Refining
Current Demon Cores:
* Green-horned Python (Third Layer Qi Refining): granting +2 strength, +3 agility, +2 constitution, +2 perception
So consumed demon cores provided Pingu with not only a cultivation boost but also stat bonuses. These stats didn’t appear random either as they matched up with the python’s strengths as a constrictor snake.
Unfortunately, any tactic of endlessly feeding demon cores to Pingu was off the table due to that max capacity figure. Worse still, Zeng Fei had no clue how it’d been determined seeing as there was no other information provided.
A dropdown of options did come up when he clicked on the Green-horned Python’s core itself, but the options were all blank except for two: Fuse and Eject. Fuse was greyed out, so that was a no-go, whereas Eject looked normal.
Curious, Zeng Fei pressed it.
Immediately Pingu gave a jolt, then lowered his body until it was touching the ground. A frown of intense concentration cast over his face, followed by relief a dozen beats later.
The penguin let out a chirp and waddled forward, giving Zeng Fei the opportunity to check out his handiwork.
There, on the icy ground, the Green-horned Python’s demon core sat pretty.
Seeing Pingu going for it again, Zeng Fei yelled out. “Oi! Don’t eat it.”
He had to move quick to snatch it up before the penguin belly flopped onto it. Ignoring Pingu’s mournful cries, he inspected it in his palm and was glad to see there was no residue or skid marks on it despite the less-than-enviable route it had taken out of Pingu.
The demon core was marble-sized, mostly an off-white colour with slivers of maroon and green inside that moved like the fluid inside a lava lamp. The core was unexpectedly hot too, making it quite comforting to hold inside the cold domain.
The demon core also gave off such a potent qi signature that it was obvious it would cause harm to Zeng Fei’s body if he ate it as Pingu had.
Though this raised the question of why it hadn’t already damaged him seeing as it was currently inside his domain, which was inside his dantian, which most certainly could not handle this much qi at his current level of cultivation.
Well, just another oddity about the domain to add to the list.
When Zeng Fei looked at Pingu’s status again now, he saw that Pingu’s stats and cultivation had fallen as expected.
What was unexpected, however, was that the martial technique row had also changed, going from mortal quality to trash, despite not being listed in the Green-horned Python’s demon core section.
Pingu
Race: Emperor Penguin
Cultivation: n/a
Demon Cores: n/a
Strength: 8
Agility: 3
Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 5
Dexterity: 2
Perception: 5
Martial Techniques: Serpentine Slap (Trash) - Level 3
Curious to see why, Zeng Fei expanded the technique.
Serpentine Slap - Level 3
Technique grade: Trash
Positive modifiers: n/a
Negative modifiers: Low level, Absence of Serpent Essence
Ability effect: Increases the speed of unarmed strikes and concentrates qi into the tip of the slapping appendage, allowing for effortless piercing.
[Emperor’s notes: This was a rudimentary technique taught to disciples on joining the Venomous Court.
Although dealing negligible damage by itself, the technique is deadly when used to administer poisons to the target’s bloodstream.
Worthwhile practising for any poison builds as it works well with the Venomous Court’s advanced techniques, especially those under their Dao School of Dance. The ones that are directly linked to Serpentine Slap will be unlocked when this technique is levelled high enough.]
Zeng Fei’s mind was blown considering the manifold implications of the information here.
At last he could see why the ancient cultivators had been so frightened of the Heavenly Demon Emperor that they’d not only grouped together to kill him, but also gone through the effort of wiping his name from all the history books.