The two guardian cultivators once more appeared. Hui stopped, looking up at the two of them. He smiled cheekily and nodded at the two of them.

“Ugh. It’s them again.”

“What, finally decided to stop by and do your duties?”

“I came back the other day, Elder Brothers,” Hui replied. To drop off my… that is, Xiao Hui’s, ‘dead body.’

The other two cultivators frowned at him.

Oh shit! Right!

“Hey!”

“Too many words!” Hui shouted, throwing his voice into the other two ghouls.

At that, the two cultivators relaxed. They shook their heads. “Whatever you’ve got to do, you’ve come just in time. It’s almost time to release them.”

“Of course.”

“Naturally.”

“I didn’t want to wait.”

The second cultivator nodded. “Be quick about it.”

Nodding his head, Hui twitched his fingers to make the other two nod as well. He leaped past the two guardians and down toward the garden patch below.

The two ghouls bounced clumsily off the tree trunks and plummeted toward the ground. Hui glanced over his shoulder at the guardians, but neither of them turned their heads to look at him and his ‘brothers.’

Hui breathed out, relieved.

He landed on the ground. Soft loam gave beneath his feet. The sprouts stood before him, as tall as he was. Though no wind blew, their delicate leaves stirred slightly, as if in a gentle breeze.

They look so innocuous, but one wrong move, and they’ll do terrible things to you! Hui shook his head at the leaves, not fooled this time.

Still, they should be full of life qi. Death qi, too, maybe, since they were fed bodies. I should be able to make quite a profit off absorbing them!

Er, I mean, what a wicked, evil trap! I must disarm this trap, for the future of the noble righteous sects Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect is unrighteously attempting to sneak attack! It’s all because I’m such a righteous cultivator, all for the good of the righteous sects!

Nodding to himself, Hui crouched by one of the plants. Tentatively, he reached a hand out to it and sent a pulse of qi into it.

Instantly, pale roots squirmed out of the ground. They wiggled in the air in a lecherous way, and even looking at them made his skin prickle and his teeth ache. A pair of roots wrapped around his arm and wormed their way up it, sliding under his robes. Hui tried to yank his hand back, to no avail. The roots wound tight. Suckers sprouted on their surface and latched onto his arm. Inverted thorns sprouted as well, thorns that threatened to dig deep into his flesh if he yanked his arm away. Fully holding him in place, the root tips pierced his skin and began to devour his blood.

Scalp going numb, Hui’s alarm rose as high as it could. The other roots lashed at him, searching for a grasp. Hui dodged, drawing his sword with his other arm. He struck once, twice, but then a root batted the sword from his hand. It darted in, stabbing directly at his abdomen.

Lecherous roots—no! They aren’t lecherous. They want my blood! They weren’t going to do horrible things, they were going to suck me dry!

…of blood.

In the breath before the vine stabbed into him, Hui flicked his hand and summoned a fire talisman into his palm. He lit it, not into a flaming tabby, but into a compressed beam of flame. A tabby’s head made up the crossguard of the blade-like beam, snarling ferociously, and the talisman paper made the hilt. Hui slashed at the oncoming root, and it fell back, streaming green goo from its severed tip. Whirling, he cut the root that gripped his arm. The flame blade severed the roots, but these roots spouted red blood instead of green goo.

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Hui’s eyes widened. My blood! These ravenous roots. I can’t let them touch me! So thinking, he fell back, leaping away from the sprout. The roots probed the air, searching for their prey. After a few moments, they gave up, exuding a frustrated air, and slithered back underground.

The talisman in Hui’s hand burnt out. He dropped the ashes and crossed his arms, giving the sprouts a good look.

I sensed powerful life qi, as well as a strange, virulent death qi within them… almost a curse! A curse, wrought upon the plants by the countless cultivators Mysterious Heavenly Forest fed them… it’s not impossible!

If I want to absorb the life qi, I need to disperse the curse. To disperse the curse, I need to get close enough to touch the plants, and be able to remain there for a time. But if I get close, they’ll absorb all my blood and devour me! That’s no good.

How can I get close without the plants absorbing my blood…?

Crystallization!

If I crystallize my flesh, the plants shouldn’t be able to puncture my skin… if I even still have blood once I’m crystallized. At the same time… They’re soft, fleshy plants! If I can absorb their life qi, I feel as if my comprehension of the other half of my body comprehension technique will grow stronger.

I must have that life qi. Therefore, I must comprehend the secret to crystallization, petrification, whatever you want to call it, right this moment!

He drew out the piece of Mount Mu and sat down just outside the reach of the soft loam of the garden patch. Crossing his legs, he began to meditate. The two disguised ghouls stood over him, acting as makeshift dao protectors.

I’m not going to make it to see the lotus… Oh well. I’ve already seen the lotus! Erlan shouldn’t be too bothered by my absence. I only obtained the permission to come because I passed the trial realm. It’s not as if I’m an inheriting disciple or the member of a highly-considered clan within the sect. They won’t even notice a trifling cultivator like myself going missing.

Settling his thoughts, Hui guided his breathing and immersed himself in the piece of Mount Mu. As he immersed himself, he continued to guide the new, tiny qi passages through his flesh. Time passed. One hour. Two. Slowly, a resonance grew between him and the piece of Mount Mu. The piece of Mount Mu lifted off his lap and began to levitate in front of him, emitting a gentle green qi. With every breath, Hui absorbed some of the green qi and circulated it to his body. The green qi began to transform his flesh, altering it fundamentally.

But… I want to be able to turn it off. With both my body cultivation techniques, I want it to appear as though I haven’t cultivated my body! Otherwise, cultivators might suspect that this small cultivator is faking death if I die too easily with an impressive fleshly body, or even… dare to covet my fleshly body after death!

His hands began to move instinctively. His thumb began to bleed again on its own, and he scrawled symbols over his own body, marking his flesh and robes with talisman formulae. The red gem appeared from within his storage ring, the blood qi within resonating with his new actions. The symbols glowed alternatively red and green, strobing between the green qi in the scrap of Mount Mu and the red blood qi in the gem.

Brighter and brighter. Hui began to draw in qi wildly, absorbing it at a ridiculous tempo. The sprouts closest to him shuddered and gave up some green qi, as did the forest around him. Qi swirled around him, pouring into his body. His body began to crystallize, starting from his fingertips and toes up toward his core. Slowly, it crawled over his limbs, then toward his abdomen, up his core and to his head. At last, even his head crystallized. The last thing to turn to crystal was the red mark on his forehead—the mark from the original talisman he’d forged into his body.

As he crystallized completely, Hui’s eyes opened. Shocking green light poured out. He stood, his body creaking and shrieking as crystal rubbed on crystal, clattering like a glass windchime in a tempest, and spread his arms. Talisman marks wound around his entire body, forged in blood.

“Forge the body into a talisman. Flesh becomes paper, blood becomes ink!

“Burn blood… crystalize the body!”

All the light that had beamed out of him suddenly contracted into his body, as if he became a black hole. His body shimmered. Green and red light pulsed under his skin, and the bloody talisman marks squirmed. All at once, they all rushed toward Hui’s forehead, forming a second petal-like mark to the right of the first. Unlike the first, which allowed him to burn lifeforce to unlock shocking power in a pinch, this talisman allowed him to burn blood to harden his body, to make it impervious as crystal!

As it didn’t burn lifeforce, the second petal could be considered weaker than the first in terms of sheer burst power, but in return, the second petal could be activated for longer. In addition, it didn’t affect his longevity. Hui flexed his hands, looking down at the glittering crystal. His limbs looked rough and primitive, covered in flat planes as if he had a low-polygon body from an old video game. His skin shimmered, reflecting and refracting the light. A coldness burned in his stomach, and in the back of his mind, a vague awareness of his remaining blood jiggled. Although it doesn’t burn longevity, that doesn’t mean I can’t die from using it. If I use it too long, I face the risk of burning all my blood and dying of blood loss.

He clenched his fists, mentally gauging his remaining blood. Right now, I can use it for about ten minutes. It’s pretty obvious visually… hopefully I can refine it to look more normal as I continue to develop the technique!

Hui looked at the sprouts, and his eyes flashed. He strode forward, joints clattering as he moved. Time to test out my new technique!