Goldy stared wide-eyed at the youth making the victory sign in front of him. His clothes were now no different than burnt rags and the floor below him was now the same consistency of carbon.
What was more astonishing though, was neither the charred clothing or the burnt floor, but the waves of power emanating from the youth.
A faint golden aura could be seen glowing, emitted from the child's body. It was constantly refining the energy surrounding him into the beneficial spiritual energy and constantly nourishing the body.
Although no results would be seen in just a few days, in a matter of months, maybe even weeks, the body would be greatly enhanced.
The impurities have already long since been expelled, while the muscles would have toughened up and the bones grown firmer and stronger. Let alone the progress of a few months, in ten or more years the body would then be no different than a steel weapon itself! An incredibly might Fleshly Body
Putting aside this glow emanated from Cheng Hao's body, the aura he now had was that of a noble, above the simple mortals.
A faint golden light tattoo that couldn't be seen orbited around his right hand just like some kind of satellite. On it where inscribed the words 'Nightmares Haunt All The Living' as well as the drawing of a black, wingless, arm-and-legless and mouthless dragon.
The monster in the picture seemed alive as it moved in the tatto in a circular fashion. Wrapped around Cheng Hao's neck was now a strange black scarf. It wasn't made of cloth, leather or any other common materials. Many small black hexagons covered the rough surface of the black scarf.
Xiao Wu could tell at a glance. Scales. She tried to change her completely shocked expression into a milder one but it was no use.
'Just how many secrets do you keep from me, Brother Cheng Hao?'
Before she could ask anything or he could get up suddenly something flew towards Cheng Hao and hit him squarely on the stomach. Thanks to the Golden Glow he sustained no damage however he still lost his balance and fell on his back.
The red and purple as well as incredibly excited face of the golden snake, Goldy, appeared in front of Cheng Hao's.
The dragon stared into the human child's eyes and then excitedly said "That scarf... Could it be... Little Black?"
The black scarf suddenly seemed to shudder. It was not awake yet but a bad feeling still disturbed its sleep for a few breaths before it fell back into its slumber.
Cheng Hao nodded, propping himself back up.
"First Floor... Clear! We got our mount!" a wide grin found its place on the child's face.
His golden eyes were now even brighter than they were before. His left eye's pupil though, seemed a slight bit darker than the other and it looked more like a deep well that could swallow someone whole, body, energy and soul alike.
"Right now it is sleeping and resting to recover from living those two months in a cramped space without any Qi or energy to absorb..." Cheng Hao said.
A hint of sympathy appeared in Goldy's eyes: if it weren't for him reverting back to his infant stage, he would also have been sealed in the tower. Fortunately, he Re-Lived just a few days before Cheng Hao came to be due to an extremely bad feeling, thus avoiding slavery by a hair's breadth.
Re-Life, somethings that all Heavenly Beasts reaching the stage of Supreme could accomplish. It was basically restarting from scratch once again, rewinding back one's lifespan and cultivation for another chance at Immortality. After all, no matter how much martial training one can do, only upon reaching the rank of Immortal will one truly live forever, unhindered by the time and body altogether!
Those Heavenly Beasts who felt that they would be unable to reach the Immortal Stage would then gamble it on their next life, again and again, until they either got killed or reached Immortality. Although they would revert back to their infant state, they would still keep their memories and experience which will, of course, aid them in future attempts.
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Still, Cheng Hao couldn't let such a source of knowledge and, he would of course never admit this, a great friend that had accompanied him for a lifetime already, go away. So he decided to keep him as a pet or, in Goldy's words, an 'Animated Living Encyclopedia', without caring about its low cultivation.
After all, knowledge and cultivation can be acquired, however such a good friend is hard to come by.
"How much time until it awakens? After all this harassment from you I need to pay it back! But since I can't harm you, I can only let my feelings out on this Fake Heavenly Beast of yours!
Cheng Hao smiled as he said in his mind 'Although you have grudges, that poor black beast has a much deeper hate compared to your childish revenge... And seeing how you bullied it in his first life, even giving it the name of 'Dreamy Animated Roasted Meat' (Why do all your made-up names contain the word 'animated' within?), it would probably spare no time to give it all back...'
Seeing the happy and somehow perverted smile on Goldy's face though, he couldn't help but put aside the thought of telling him that.
After all, he should give the Hellish Nightmare Dragon a chance to vent his anger, otherwise...
Remembering the enraged glowing eyes Cheng Hao shuddered a bit as he thanked the Heavens, of course not the Nine Heavens of Tian but the original, True Heavens, that his bluff worked.
Fortunately, it seemed like the figure of the Evil Saint had left quite the impact on it. Since he could barely use the abilities for around twenty seconds so he thought that, as he had no other choice, he might as well bet on the fact that he was so cold blooded and ruthless as Xu Ling that he 'traumatized' many of his... 'subordinates'.
Although few knew, many of the army of Pseudo-Heavenly Beasts and Heavenly Beasts were actually monsters he had fought and defeated on his journey to the Ninth Heaven to battle Tian. Little Black, for example, was the jail keeper of the Nine Heavens' highest security jail.
Following Blindlight's suggestion, he had attacked the prison and freed the captured criminals. Although some had immediately ran away, most decided to join his army and get their revenge against the people of the Nine Heavens.
During the jailbreak he had fought many minions of Tian, but the most formidable was none other than the jailkeeper of the World's End, the Hellish Nightmare Dragon.
He challenged it to a duel, the terms being if the dragon won, then Xu Ling would have followed him as its slave for ten thousand years, while if Xu Ling won it would become His mount for a thousand years. The battle was long and harsh, but Xu Ling completely dominated the flow from the very first move and only had trouble because of the drastic difference in size.
The pact was a Soul Pact, just like the one Cheng Hao had made in his consciousness with the same Hellish Nightmare Dragon, meaning the winner would hold the loser's life in its hands and, if the loser didn't comply to the terms, the winner of the pact could destroy the other's soul.
Following the massive jailbreak were many other events which made Xu Ling's group grew more and more until it could cover the sky with just its members' frames.
During the thousand years Xu Ling passed in that state of neither being alive nor dead the contract also expired so the dragon was set free. Little did it know then that it would one day wake up locked inside a huge tower and, judging from all the other roars coming from above him, it found out it wasn't alone. At first it thought of uniting its force together with those beings aside from himself.
When it was about to do that he suddenly heard the roar of an incomparably mighty Heavenly Beast and immediately gave up on the thought. After all, it was sure the person that imprisoned him wouldn't have done that just for fun so it deduced it only had to wait some time, maybe a few dozens of years of most, and that person would then show up. The dragon would deal with him then.
Unfortunately it was just so unlucky to have been imprisoned from the one person it didn't want to meet again in its life the most.
It thought that it could only be called bad luck that Xu Ling (no, was it Cheng Hao now?) had found it, but little did it know that the karma threads that had been connected to Xu Ling after striking a Soul Pact weren't something that would disappear with time. On the other hand, they would instead grow even brighter and clearer. For a Heavenly Beast like Goldy that specialized in Qi manipulation and Karmic detection it had no chance to escape the moment the deal was stricken.
It Truly was 'sowing bad Karma'.
...
"Xiao Wu, how was it? Did you successfully breakthrough?" Cheng Hao had already changed into a new set of clothes.
"Yes" she nodded cheerfully "And it was all thanks to Goldy uncle and Brother Cheng!" At the 'uncle' part Goldy could only scoff as he technically Was already over a few millions years old. It would take more time to say all the 'great's in 'great great great great ... grandfather" than it would take for him to live an average human's lifespan of eighty years. It was already enough that she didn't call itself grandpa...
"That's great! Now, I will teach you two things. The first is how to use your martial way in battle and the second is..." Cheng Hao's mouth formed a crescent moon as his eyes glinted "The first scripture of the Purple Moon, Black Dragon and White Tree scriptures!"