11 Under Siege!

A little snake was coiled near the white steps that descended into a large pool of still milky water. All around him were dozens of books scattered on the blue stone floor.

His eyes were restlessly moving, devouring the words on a yellowish old page that was on the ground in front of him. Only a little glint of their original violet color remained visible, deeply buried under the bulging red veins that gave them an unhealthy crimson color.

"Master, it's been twenty-three hours since you last slept." Said a crystalline voice full of worries. A graceful figure dressed in a long purple traditional robe appeared right next to the reptile, sitting on the same ramp of white stone.

"Mmm…" responded distractedly the black snake, suddenly moving his tail to skilfully turn the book's pages.

A couple of days had passed since he first arrived at the Blue Cave. Darkscale had used most of the time immersed in the hundreds of books present in the Spatial Abode.

First, when he was told that he needed to go and find new energy sources or the entire Spirit Mansion would soon become inaccessible, Darkscale wanted to immediately move outside and start collecting souls.

However, he then discovered that his concept of "soon" and that of the MAID were incredibly different.

"2 years…" murmured the reptile, without even moving his head to look at the woman beside him. When she heard what he was saying, the face of the woman slightly twitched but then immediately resumed her previous content expression.

"Master, I didn't lie to you! Two years is truly a small amount of time! Many experts won't even consider it enough for a single cultivation session!" she lamented.

"There's plenty of time then… go on Carelia, continue that song about the king" said softly the snake, his eyes not moving from the book in front of him.

Carelia was the name he decided to give her after lots of consideration. At first, he had no idea on how to do it, so he thought of the only person that he had ever seen doing that, the green haired young human chief. Taking inspiration on how the fat human came up with the name that he now used to describe himself, Darkscale, he applied the same thinking process to the MAID.

"Care-lia, because your job is to care for me" he remembers saying to the artificial intelligence. Her face twitched when he communicated to her his decision, but he wasn't that worried: it was something that happened very frequently, probably a bug of some sort on her avatar creation module.

"Master, I probably should use the energy avatar more sparingly, it consumes power and we don't have much left…"

"We had plenty left, two years of it dammit!" thought internally the dark serpent, but instead his head nodded agreeing. "Yes, you really should hide your ugl… I mean, you really should think about conserving more power. Your avatar shouldn't be used at all".

Obviously, Darkscale didn't care much about the energy consumption: the souls in the pond were enough for keeping the whole thing running for two more years! It was an insane amount of time!

He agreed simply because he hated her looks with every cell in his body. Human! What the hell! Having a human-looking figure always around him made him incredibly uncomfortable.

He now knew that her form was derived from the avatar modules that she possessed and that it could be changed if he bought her a new one. However, such change was incredibly expensive. He simply didn't have the credit for it.

"Still, sing the song!" commanded the serpent.

Carelia had another of her facial expression bugs, but then she gracefully agreed and started singing while her avatar slowly disappeared into nothing. Only the voice remained, echoing clear in the whole Cave.

Darkscale loved songs. He never thought that hearing someone speak could be so pleasurable. His favorite song, "Vengeance of the King", was a slow and long melodic ballade that recounted the tale of a poor boy that was mistreated for all his life by the people of an evil empire. After a series of fortunate events, he became enough strong to take revenge.

Darkscale loved that song, he really could feel the pain and rage of the little boy. Plus, hearing it helped him concentrate on his books, another great thing that he discovered recently.

Books had stories inside of them! Tons of information to be discovered, forever recorded with small symbols! For someone like him, always curious about the world, it was like an incredible blessing.

It had taken him tree day to learn how to read them, all under Cornelia's careful supervision. She said that normally people took months to get to the level he reached in a few days, but probably that was due to a large amount of energy that had enriched his body.

Although he wasn't a cultivator, Darkscale's body was incredibly sturdy, fast and strong. Even his reflexes were incredible. Cerelia thought that most non cultivators creatures wouldn't be able to fight him head-on.

Still, she kept urging him to cultivate.

"Ah, how good would it be if cultivation was half as interesting as reading or listening to music?" though the little snake with a complex expression on his face.

Cultivation. He really tried to focus on it. Many, many times. However, he failed miserably every time. Simply put, it was just plain boring.

Not too long ago he congratulated himself for staying focused and continuing to train his Breath technique for an entire hour, thinking that was the greatest example of perseverance in the world. However, it turned out that even the weakest cultivator had meditation sessions that lasted way longer than that.

Of the three things that Spike gave him, he could access only one: "The Cultivation Way Pamphlet, Prefaced by Faceless Devil". The other two, Soul Agony Venom Technique and Slave Mark Seal required a cultivation base even to be read.

The Pamphlet was different: Darkscale could read the first part of the long thing. In fact, he had read it so many times that he knew it by heart.

"The Three Pillars of Cultivation are major elements that each and every cultivator needs to hone and strengthen.

These Three Pillars are: Gathering, Tempering and Manipulating.

Improvement on The Cultivation Way will require a minimum level in these skills. The Methods used to train these skills are not important as much of the level that you have in them."

At first, he was incredibly excited, Gathering? Tempering? He had the Pretorian's Breath! Both of the two first requirements could be considered already in his pocket. He immediately started to work on his Manipulation, delighted at the thought that he would soon be able to call himself a true cultivator.

However, no matter how many methods he tried, he couldn't feel anything. The energy in his body remained inside of him, even after hours of trying.

Carelia said it was normal, that Manipulation was the hardest skill and needed a long time to be mastered, but Darkscale soon started to spend his time reading from the other books in the Cave instead of trying to better his Manipulation.

There were so many interesting things! The previous owner of the Blue Cave seemed obsessed with ores: he had dozens of books that explained in detail the aspect and property of different minerals.

Boring? Think again! Darkscale discovered that existed ores capable of moving around, ores that could protect from radiation and ores that healed every kind of wounds.

The book that he was reading now, talked about a wide array of metals that were able to protect people from lightning and even contain it from later use.

"How good would it be if I could rein thunders and then use them to fry humans… ehehehe" said slowly growling the serpent, when suddenly a loud explosion shook the entire cave.

"Boom"

Everything trembled. The snake jumped on his place, his eyes opened wide as he tried to determine from where came that terrifying noise.

"Somebody is trying to forcibly open the Spirit Mansion" revealed the clear voice of Cerelia.

"Show me!" urgently ordered the serpent.

A shining light passed across the runes that enveloped the portal at the other end of the Cave. The portal vibrated slowly, then a picture emerged on its watery surface: a young human man, looking pretty concerned.

"What? … that damn human again!" Darkscale looked angry on the exterior, but internally he clearly understood that he was the one at fault: he snuck inside that human's treasure and stole it from him. Plus, he didn't even bother to run away but instead was happily reading about the world while the Blue Cave was still inside the human's purse.

Probably the poor guy didn't even know that the spirit mansion had already been taken by someone else.

"Mph, it can't be helped… humans are the scum of the world. They need to be killed anyway… let him in!" said Darkfire with a grandiose tone.

He started moving towards the portal, already feeling his blood boil. Finally, he was going to start his vengeance against the human race!

"This will be only the first of many naked monkeys that I will slay!" announced the reptile, his eyes emanating a vicious light.

"…"

"Carelia, stop playing around and open the portal! I need to show this stinky human his place, right now!"

After a long moment of silence, the MAID responded with a strange tone "Master, he's way stronger than you…"

"What?"