The third Mirage Demon did not hold out for very long. Only three days after Wei Yuan had left, Perfected Chuhe sent word again, saying the demon was ready to surrender, but wanted to speak with Wei Yuan first.
Though merely a creature of a grotto-heaven, it was still in the middle stage of Scenery Command after all, capable of tangling with an early Scenery Command cultivator of this realm once manifested. Wei Yuan therefore accorded him ample respect, rushing over the moment he received word.
Upon meeting Perfected Chuhe, Wei Yuan asked, "What method did you use to make him submit so quickly? What does he want to talk to me about?"
Perfected Chuhe chuckled. "Of the three Mirage Demons, the two who surrendered first were female, while this one is male—rumored to be wild-born, no less. The male stubbornly refused to yield, so I sent the two females in to deal with him. Those methods... even this old daoist had his eyes opened! It took barely more than a day before he gave in."
With hundreds of thousands of Mirage Demons now under his command, Wei Yuan had learned a great deal about their customs. The Mirage Demons revered females and placed extraordinary emphasis on pedigree. Males in their tribe were scarce, possessed mediocre strength, and basically served only as breeding tools. For this male demon to have cultivated to mid-stage Scenery Command was an absolute anomaly.
His curiosity piqued, Wei Yuan said to Chuhe, "Take me to see him."
The male demon was now confined in a secluded pool. Having shed his outer shell, he knelt in the shallow water, long hair draped loosely over his shoulders. His countenance was indeed indescribably exquisite, though from a human perspective, it was hard to tell whether he was male or female.
Seeing Wei Yuan, resentment flashed in his eyes as he ground his teeth. "What vicious methods!"
Wei Yuan stood at the edge of the pool and said, "The vicious ones weren't me, but your own kin."
A contorted expression not belonging to humans appeared on the male demon's face as he shouted, "They aren't demons! They're not worthy! I... I—"
"Do you want revenge?" Wei Yuan asked.
The male demon's expression shifted repeatedly before he finally sighed, "Forget it."
"You said you wanted to talk to me. I'm here now. What is it?"
The male demon fell silent for a moment before speaking. "By the traditions of the Mirage Demons, I am wild-born. We had the same father and mother, conceived at the same time. Half of my siblings took form innately, and the other half did so before the deadline. Only I took form and attained sapience three days past the limit. Deeming that I brought disgrace upon the family, my parents cast me out into the wilds.
"Afterward, my elder sister secretly sought me out and gave me a cultivation method. We males have no status to begin with, much less a wild-born one like me, so the days that followed were mostly... bitter.
"To protect me, my sister endured endless humiliation herself, and was even—even ridiculed by other male demons! Later on, I broke through our clan's innate limits, attained success in cultivation, and slaughtered all those past enemies one by one."
Wei Yuan listened quietly, completely unmoved by this tragic tale. The world was full of miserable creatures; in Wei Yuan's eyes, only those who suffered under his own banner were worth caring about.
The male demon rambled on at length, nothing more than how female demons and other males had devised every conceivable way to torment him. Many of these tricks were so bizarre that even the old daoist had found them eye-opening; turned into a popular novel, they would surely become an overnight sensation.
In the end, the male demon finally stated his demand: if his elder sister were ever found, Wei Yuan had to bring her over so the two could be reunited.
Wei Yuan said, "No problem. Name, residence, appearance, primordial soul aura."
An image of a female demon appeared before the male demon. She was likewise exceedingly beautiful, and equally ambiguous in gender.
"My name is Shu Qing. My sister is Shu Yan, late-stage Dharma Idol."
Recording her soul aura, Wei Yuan brought out a blood contract and an oath template, saying, "If you have no other requests, let's complete the formalities."
Shu Qing said, "I have one more request! Without my consent, those two are never allowed to touch me again!"
"No problem."
Only then did Shu Qing sign his name on the blood contract and leave his soul aura. Immediately, an eight-legged blood spider sprang from the parchment and plunged into Shu Qing's glabella.
Shu Qing was shocked, having never imagined this blood contract would possess such high status. If breached, the backlash would certainly cost him his life. As for the oath, it was a standardized template filled entirely with obligations and liabilities for breach, with not a single right granted in return.
Having battled Shengxin, Wei Yuan had little faith in the binding power of ordinary oaths. Moreover, dealing with a Scenery Command Mirage Demon demanded caution, so Wei Yuan had specifically taken several leaves of the Red Lotus Bodhi steeped in karmic debt to craft the parchment. Its efficacy was indeed terrifying.
Should Shu Qing dare violate the oath, that blood spider would gnaw away at least half of his mindscape world.
Having subdued Shu Qing, Wei Yuan immediately saw a faint, gossamer aura rise from Shu Qing's body and sink into his own. As this intangible wisp entered him, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World trembled faintly, its vitality surging up a notch.
Wei Yuan had not expected this male demon's contribution to be so immense—it nearly matched the combined total of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Mirage Demons.
It seemed that within the Mirage Demon race, this fellow was truly a child of karmic destiny.
Wild-born and male: a starting hand that could not possibly be worse. Were he human, it would be equivalent to being born in a dilapidated temple with nothing to one's name but a chipped bowl.
The Mirage Demons were completely different from the race of Silver Blade and Lei Ling.
Silver Blade and Lei Ling had been formed from an immortal's power, conceived and nurtured naturally by the grotto-heaven; their life and death were truly held in the palm of an immortal's whim, much like the mindless creatures within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World or the offspring bred by mortals.
Mirage Demons, however, were beings that originally existed in the world, once possessing flesh and blood of their own before being suppressed and subjugated by an immortal, who refined their physical forms with immortal arts and cast them into the grotto-heaven to be reared.
The fundamental distinction lay in the fact that Lei Ling was elevated because the grotto-heaven's status had reached that level, whereas the Star Forest had become a golden grotto-heaven because it possessed the Mirage Demons.
Therefore, by subjugating the Mirage Demons, Wei Yuan gained an extra share of a race's karmic luck, making the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World that much more complete.
Correspondingly, whatever Wei Yuan gained, the Wise King of the Left lost. Furthermore, Wei Yuan had disseminated a virus targeting the Mirage Demons throughout the Star Forest, driving them to near extinction, which was tantamount to gouging out a massive chunk of the Wise King of the Left's karmic luck.
Reflecting on it now, Yanshi had certainly not chosen the Mirage Demons on a whim, nor had the Xuanhuang Bell immortal art been selected at random—otherwise, why had he not bestowed the Heaven-Opening Axe, the Three Purities Sword, or the Chaos Spear?
And had this entire grand design begun years ago?
Having subdued three Scenery Command Mirage Demons, Wei Yuan was overjoyed. From here on, his combat power reached another height; he could already arm-wrestle with ordinary Scenery Command cultivators.
As Wei Yuan pondered how to settle these Mirage Demons, the little rooster's crow sounded in his consciousness: "Where are you? Quick, come help this seat up!"
Wei Yuan entered the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World at once. Sweeping with his divine sense, he saw the little rooster collapsed on an islet across the sea.
The islet was charred black, with subterranean magma flowing through its center. Whenever sea waves crashed ashore, plumes of steam immediately billowed upward.
At the center of the island grew a zhang-tall fiery-red immortal herb, its blades burning with faint flames. This was the Flame God Grass; to facilitate its growth, Wei Yuan had specially created a volcanic island to transplant it onto.
Now, the little rooster lay sprawled beneath the Flame God Grass, feet pointing to the sky, with a single blade of grass pressing down on its belly.
The blade looked light and gossamer, yet it pinned the little rooster so thoroughly that it couldn't budge.
Wei Yuan was mildly surprised. He walked over, brushed the grass blade aside, and lifted the little rooster with effortless ease. The blade clearly didn't even weigh two liang, yet the little rooster had been paralyzed as if it were impossible to break free.
"What happened here?"
Looking at the Flame God Grass, the little rooster said with lingering dread, "Terrifying, absolutely terrifying! Why didn't you mention there was Flame God Grass here? Not to speak of nesting in it, even having a single leaf resting on you feels so comfortable you want to die! If you hadn't come, this seat would have lain here until the end of time, ruining my path to immortality!"
Wei Yuan was both exasperated and amused. "Then shall we change places?"
"No, I can't stay in here. Send me outside, or I'll just end up lying here again."
Wei Yuan hadn't expected the little rooster to possess such willpower. Carrying it out of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, he brought it to the Medicine Garden, set it down, and said, "This is the Medicine Garden. It's quite large inside, so feel free to wander around. Pick whatever you want to eat, but be sure to tell me if you leave the garden."
The little rooster looked around and seemed very pleased with the surroundings. "Not bad at all. A backward place like this is perfect for tempering one's will and honing sinew and bone. As for those unimpressive medicinal herbs of yours, this seat has no interest in them; just bring some spiritual rice to satisfy my cravings. Cultivation shouldn't rely on external things—what one achieves through one's own efforts is true ability!"
Wei Yuan, however, could not agree with that.
The founding patriarch of the Monastery of Creation had pointed out long ago that Dao power was simply Dao power; that gained through one's own breathing and circulating was no different from that granted by consuming pills. Moreover, high-grade pills provided various benefits beyond spiritual energy that individual cultivation could never match. Any cultivator who decried external aids as useless did so simply because they couldn't afford them.
Chapter 807