An orb flashed in between Bing’s palms that immediately frightened the flesh-devouring grass into releasing its barbed grassy splinters at the tip of its grass blades. Bing calmly controlled his qi and the orb solidified into a spinning black and white orb. Black on one side and white on the other side, neither color taking more space than the other. Perfectly equal and balanced just as it should be. Without this balance, Bing, Ying, and Ying’s garden would be destroyed from the explosion that would result from the disbalance of the yin and yang qi.

  Ying showed an evil grin as she began burning the rapidly growing grass trying to take over her Void World. “I can do this all day Grass Spirit! Become mine or I'll burn you to a crisp every day for the next century!” She shouted. Perhaps if Ying was able to speak Grass Spirit, she would be able to understand that SCP-355 was going through horrible pain. Being burnt alive wasn’t a pleasant feeling for most creatures under the heavens. So, once it realized that Ying was hurting it for some purpose, it had no choice but to submit.

  SCP-355 was only grass! It couldn’t move on its own, put out fires, or communicate! The most frightening part of this entire situation wasn’t even the fact that it was being burned alive. It was that slowly spinning sphere in the round one’s hand that scared it all the way to its recently developed soul! That technique could surely damage its soul if it was hit by it! With the fire, it was painful, sure, but SCP-355 could always regrow its grass. Its soul however, that was something it could not recover from so easily.

‘Stop! Please stop hurting me! I’ll do whatever you want. Just please don’t let him use that on me...’ SCP-355 begged.

  Its words fell on deaf ears as neither Bing nor Ying could understand nor see souls at their low cultivation rank. If it wasn’t for Li Li flying in and stopping them both, maybe they would’ve tortured the young grass spirit to its breaking point. Once Li Li flew in, he suddenly made both Bing and Ying look like complete fools when he brought forth a solution. More so Ying than Bing as he was just following directions. Ying’s face blushed heavily after seeing the young owl think of something she should’ve tried in the first place.

  Li Li plucked a single blade of SCP-355's grass with his talon, its anomalous properties weren’t enough to break past his feet. He then flew over to sword wrapped around Ying and stared at the young child in the eye. It willing opened up its mouth for the scary bird and the grass blade dropped inside the mouth. Hao Gang made himself chew it before swallowing it and once he did, he took on a new appearance. Previously, he mimicked Ying in appearance, as if he was her child or little brother. Same skin coloration, outfit, similar hair, and faces that resembled each other.

  But now, his skin was green, his hair turned extraordinarily sharp and spikey, and he could now control every single grass blade of SCP-355's. Ying also was able to control these grass blades as she was connected to Hao Gang through their touch. The way their bond worked was the same as it was outside the Void World. As long as Ying was in physical contact with Hao Gang, she would be able to benefit from his special abilities. What form he was in didn’t matter in the slightest for the conditions to activate.

  Ying beamed like the sun hanging overhead once she felt the connection between her, Hao Gang, and the Grass Spirit. She immediately felt like punching Bing for the terror she felt in the Grass Spirit’s emotions. Obviously, she didn’t follow through on this feeling because she was the one to ask him to do it. It would be wrong to hit him because of something she told him to do. But the feeling of that weird martial art of his, it had to be something extraordinary.

“Bing, what kind of martial art is that?” She asked while controlling all of SCP-355's grass blades.

“I kind of accidentally stumbled upon it in the Treasured Plains. It’s a cultivation technique but one unlike any other cultivation technique I've read before.” He answered.

“What makes it so different?”

“There are combat techniques alongside it.”

  Normal cultivation techniques don’t include combat techniques. Mostly they focus on aiding the cultivator in cultivation in some way. Higher ranked cultivation arts give the cultivators several benefits to their qi or body while cultivating while lesser ranked ones give far less or none at all. But very few or if any at all give combat techniques in a cultivation manual.

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“Not even my cultivation technique has a combat technique. How the hell are you so lucky, Bing?” She poked his flabby chest, slightly jealous of his good fortune.

“Lucky is one thing I can promise I'm not.” Bing confidently claimed.

“Bull crap.” She responded.

“I can’t deny the prowess of my martial arts but I can deny that my luck is anything but good. In fact, I think my martial arts are the cause of my terrible luck in the first place.” He shared.

“Whatever Bing. Thanks for helping me out with the grass. I’ll leave you alone to be a cow and eat all my spirit grass.” She chuckled.

“Don’t knock it till you try it! Spirit grass tastes better than you think!” He defended himself.

“Is that true...?” She asked Hao Gang.

“How would I know?” He innocently shrugged with his childish voice.

“Guess that was dumb of me to ask you. The creator of this world and all.” She sarcastically remarked.

“I don’t go around putting just anything in my mouth!” Hao yelled. Feeling wronged his mom would even assume that.

“You’re always asking me to feed you things. How would I know if you ate spirit plants or not?” Ying argued.

“I only want to eat interesting things!”

“You and me both know that’s not true.” She’s seen him ask for rocks to eat on the ground just because they had an ‘interesting’ shape.

“It is true!” The things a demonic sword considered interesting was different from what a human would consider interesting. Especially one that was only born several months ago.

  The two continued their little argument while Ying tried a few things with SCP-355. Bing left the two alone to strengthen himself as much as possible. Jing already told him of his impossible task and honestly, he didn’t see himself accomplishing it without a little bit of help from Hu Tao or Wan Qing. Leng Huan was at the very least a 4th stage Qi Consolidator. Managing to land a fatal blow on someone like that at his rank, simply impossible. But she wasn’t a complete monster, there were tasks he could do before that one to increase his strength.

  Things like raising his cultivation rank, harassing a few notable individuals in the sect for Jing, or weakening the Huan Clan’s forces within the sect. It was all rather troublesome but he planned to deal with the Huan Clan eventually. Being pushed into doing so wasn’t too bad. He’d probably just train, eat, and laze around until they decided to mess with him again. Getting rewards for doing something he was going to do in the first place was pretty good. Jing was good at motivating them into doing tasks. There was almost nothing cultivators cared more for than resources and gaining strength.

“Do you think the world would be better off without cultivators?” Bing suddenly asked the cultivating Lei Zhi.

“Hehehe... Maybe.” He chuckled at such an abrupt and sudden question.

“I only asked because we don’t really do much good for the world overall.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“There’s no benefit in helping others.” Bing easily answered.

“And that’s the problem with most cultivators. They only see benefits and gains. Cultivators don’t think the troubles of others is their problem. Or the problems of the world as something they should deal with, even if they can solve it with a wave of a hand.” Lei Zhi stated.

“I understand what you mean.” Cultivators are the very definition of selfish.

  The only way you could get the disciples of the Golden Serpent Sect into doing acts of charity is if you threatened their lives. Bing didn’t see any other method of changing these screwed up disciples. He honestly respected Lei and his goal of reforming youth and the sect as a whole once they help Jing get in control. Something he was starting to believe was possible more and more as the days went by. All of Jing’s followers heard how the Sect Leader was thinking of taking on Jing as their personal disciple. Wasn’t this enough to say that the future of the sect would belong in Jing’s hands if she doesn’t meet a premature end? Bing thought so.

“What is your task Lei?” Bing asked.

“To not break through into the Qi Consolidation stage until after the Grand Tournament.”

“Huh, why?”

“I’ll be able to easily take top 5 in the Outer Court compared to not even being able to match up against the 10th spot in the Inner Court. Is what I guessed.” Lei told him.

“Huh... That’s actually pretty smart. I guess I should stay at the 9th stage as well and then breakthrough after the Grand Tournament.”

“Sounds like a plan my friend.” Lei smiled.

“Let’s get them rewards Lei! And if we meet each other in the tournament, no hard feelings alright? No matter who wins.”

“No hard feelings at all.”