44 Dual Cultivation ( Part II)

"4 DAYS?" Darkscale was flabbergasted by the revelation. He was so stunned that his Will Manipulation broke, and the energy that he was using to play with the poor red wolf dispersed in the earth.

The creature crashed head first on the ground, losing its senses from the severe beating it had just taken.

"How? Didn't you say that it would take around a year if I didn't culti-" the snake stopped halfway in his sentence, his expression abruptly darkening. 'No way' he thought, starting to feel a bad premonition. 'No, that's not possible' he reaffirmed as he immediately summoned new energy from his cultivation base, activating the magic treasure that was fused in his body.

A silver light shined on the grey band around his neck, and the access portal to the Blue Cave started to activate. With a burning rage that was making his body tremble, the serpent disappeared from his position in the Blood Woods.

This sequence of events happened in a few seconds: the terrified grey crow only saw the violet-eyed snake stopping in his tracks for a couple of moments then, with a silver flash, disappeared into thin air. The creature was stunned by such a strange vanishing power. Once recovered, it took the opportunity to flee away. Not by flying because for some strange reason it couldn't quite manage to fly off. Instead, it used its short feet to run away in a ridiculous fashion.

Long after its escape, the bird has noticed that even more of its feather had completely lost their colors after that closed meeting with the damnable violet-eyed demon.

Meanwhile, Darkscale reappeared inside the Blue Cave. With fury while scanning his vast abode, he was trying to find the Forest Will Tribe girl. He hoped that his premonition was wrong, that he hadn't been scammed so easily by that damned human. No, there was no way that something like that could happen.

Yet, he was soon shocked even more when he realized that he couldn't find the woman anywhere in the cave. He darted towards the pool, looking in the corners that weren't visible from near the portal, but he still didn't manage to find her.

The only thing he could find was the robe that she recovered from a wagon, sitting on the top of the only table present in the Cave.

'Where is she?'

The rage in his body soon became a weird feeling of shock. Where did the human go? He had the ring on him, linked to his skin and flesh all the time. It wasn't possible that she managed to sneak out under his nose. So, if that wasn't the case, where was she?

'Carelia!' Screamed the serpent. 'Where is the human?' he continued, checking again around him, disbelieving what he was seeing.

'Oh, Master, your dao companion is cultivating inside the Pond. It has been a couple of days since she's there. Should I try to talk to her?' echoed an innocent voice, resounding all over the spiritual abode.

'And you let her be?!' the snake coughed a mouthful of blood, he's reddened with madness.

What was the use of having a MAID if it couldn't even protect his spiritual cave? Wasn't the first reason why Spike gave him the Artificial Intelligence was to make sure that no one other than him could take possession of the cave and everything that there was inside it?

'She was cultivating, master Darkscale' said the MAID with a defensive tone.

The serpent's eyes sparkled with fury. Cultivate? A couple of days? Damnation! That stupid human dared to waste his Ghost Energy? She managed to consume a year's reserve in just a few days! This made him want to cry. Even he, while he did not work to get new souls, did not overuse the Ghost Pond for fear of being left without access to his Blue Cave somehow.

'You let her get inside? Why?!' he angrily spouted.

'Master, how could I refuse an order of your personal dao companion?' said a gentle voice, responding to the snake.

Darkscale almost fainted from the anger he felt in that moment.

'Fucking stupid bitch ass maid, you are worthless! What the fuck is wrong with you? Did they make you to help your owner or bring them to insanity?!' he screamed, shaking.

'I really don't understand the question... I obviously was following the primal directive. Protecting the master... which also means protecting his dao companion' continued innocently Carelia.

Darkscale could swear of having heard a tinge of laughter in her voice. Maybe it was just his rage causing some sound illusion, but it felt like the damned matrix was now even treating him like a fool.

If he could destroy the Artificial Intelligence with his thought, he would have already done so.

Not being able to do anything to the MAID because he still needed her to control the entire spiritual abode as his cultivation base wasn't strong enough, he concentrated his energy towards the other female that was causing him a heart attack.

'I want you to immediately call h-'

"Thank you sister Carelia, but I think that my 'dao companion' doesn't quite understand the meaning of our pact..." a clear voice interrupted him with, coming from the Ghost Pond.

Darkscale narrowed his crazed eyes, watching the calm white waters suddenly distort in thousands of ripples as a figure emerged from beneath the milky liquid. It was Star Leaf, obviously, exiting slowly from the pool with a satisfied expression in her eyes.

She was completely naked, her supple and hourglass-shaped body completely under the scrutiny of the furious snake. Her skin was flawless, almost glowing, and her short green hair seemed to have become even more voluminous, flowing softly on her shoulders.

There was a silver light now shining in her eyes, while small ripples of energy expanded from her exposed body.

She looked at the snake before her, not bothering at all to cover herself. There was confidence in those green eyes with silver sparks. It was almost like she was expecting something.

However, when she noticed that the red eyes of the creature didn't even budge for a second even after seeing her naked, she staggered back. Her smile died down and her luminous eyes widened in surprise. Even the girl's mind was turmoil: she waited for the perfect moment to reveal her body, but the devil didn't even move his gaze from her face.

She was sure that it wasn't something that had to do with their different bodies: from the diary of her ancestor she knew that devils, or beast cultivator as she called them, had an incredible high sexual appetite. Especially snakes. In the Heavenly Reptile Sect, snakes were almost exclusively in the Domination Faction.

As for the difference in anatomy? they were supposedly made completely worthless thanks to something called Vitruvian Transformation. She didn't know what that was in detail, because the diary didn't provide any further explanation, but she could tell that it was some cultivation technique that permitted devils to be able to satisfy their earthly desires.

However, contrary to what she had learned, this devil didn't seem to be impressed at all by her. He ignored her even when she was completely naked! People had always flocked to her service only to have a chance to speak to her again, even dying to protect her in the battle against the Fire Earth raiders. Yet this devil didn't even care when he could take so much advantage of her?

'You took MY ghost energy' stated the snake, interrupting her agitated thought. There was a hint of killing intent in his voice that he didn't even try to conceal.

"Everything you own, it's also mine now" she answered. Ignoring him and getting to the table.

"Plus, now we can cultivate, aren't you happy?" she continued while she was putting on the robe, finally covering herself.

Darkscale didn't care much about what the human was wearing. For him, it was a naked monkey with or without clothes. It was the first time that he saw one naked, true, and he had to say that they were even more disgusting when they weren't wearing anything.

However, he was too angry to care about such a trifling matter. If it wasn't for the blue seal that would have blocked him regardless, he would have already attacked her, even if that meant losing access to the herbs he wanted and to the information about the mythical organization of cultivators that she talked about.

The snake didn't even care that the woman had evidently formed some kind of cultivation base. A very weak one but, even so, it was quite impressive seeing that she only cultivated for a few days. From the radiation that came out of her, he could also understand what technique she used. Normally, he wouldn't be able to do so but he recognized the energy imprint of the undulations that came out from her.

'Heavenly Battleground Technique' he murmured. he didn't even try to ask from where the human got the technique. He already knew the answer.

'I need to get rid of both of them. The sooner, the better' he decided. He blocked his instinct to attack her, he didn't want to get trashed by the blue energy a second time. No, he needed another way of doing this.

After a moment of thinking about it, he came up with a plan and he started moving towards the portal.

'Yes, sure, let's go outside... you have already consumed most of my energy' he coldly said while getting out.

Star Leaf followed him, her brows arching in surprise by the simple and very calm answer of the creature. He didn't even try to harm her. Strange. She could still hear the hostility in his voice, but the killing intent was gone. Or well hidden.

'What are you planning?' the woman asked in her mind while following the serpent outside. She wasn't afraid of being attacked: the blue link would save her, plus she felt that even if she couldn't be considered as strong as the serpent, she wasn't as feeble as before.

The two reappeared in the Blood Forest. Star Leaf immediately started to talk, explaining what she wanted to do.

"I think we should cultivate while moving towards the Outpost. In any case, we are at least a month from our destination". She then sat on the ground, her cultivation base flowing outside her body as she started cultivating the Heavenly Battleground Technique.

"We need to be near each other, the closer, the better" she said, then after a second a light passed through her eyes and she chuckled. She didn't explain anything, only signaling to the serpent to come close.

Darkscale did what she asked. He was already planning to leave the stupid thief of energy and try to find another Forest Will Tribe member but… it wasn't a bad idea to test this dual cultivation thing before abandoning her.

'Hmph, there are other people chosen to enter the Heavenly Reptile Sect... I just need to find them. As for her... I will let the Blood Woods kill her'

Maybe now that she had a cultivation base she would survive. However, he didn't think so. Even with a cultivation base, she didn't have any technique to use and her body was basically the same as before. She didn't use the Pretorian's Breath to reinforce her flesh. Even a common hunter from her tribe or a warrior from the Fire Earth Tribe would have a better chance of surviving than her.

The serpent moved next to the woman, trying to keep his breathing calm and not to lose his temper looking at the person that had consumed all his Ghost Energy and was the reason why he was now forced to go around and find plenty of souls to feed to the Pond.

With a rapid thought from the reptile, a piece of wood started to fly in the air, dancing over the ground, carving complex marks on the earth around him. He wasn't ready to use his cultivation technique without the auxiliary of his runes. However, he now could use it to create the runes themselves.

When he finally created the array he needed, he looked at the human before him and started operating the same technique.

A strange magnetic energy started to immediately form between the two cultivators. The two powers weren't united, but they seemed to stabilize in the same frequency.

'So this is dual cultivation... ' Dakscale wasn't impressed. He could feel that his technique was connecting in some way with that of the human, but that was all. The rate of absorption wasn't better, nor anything else regarding the technique.

'Wait, why is she looking at me surprised?' he asked himself when he saw that the girl before him was looking at him with a puzzled look.

"What are you doing?" she asked suspiciously, slowing down her cultivation.

"What are YOU doing? This dual cultivation thing is useless!" Darkscale answered, his killing intent reemerging.

"I'm not doing this," said panicking the woman. Realizing that something was wrong, she tried to stop her technique but she wasn't able to. Her cultivation base was going out of control.

In that moment, a blue light started to shine from their respective bodies and in a beam of light, two strands of energy emerged from them and bound them together.