The Demon Dragon Cult

"Well then." I cleared my throat and turned toward the Demon Dragon Cult members. "Listen well, for I will only say this once! I will be taking command of the Demon Dragon Cult, anyone who disagrees with this will face me in combat!"

A few murmurs rang out from the crowd, though nobody dared to speak loud enough to be heard by me. But to be honest I was hoping this cult had a bit more strength in its martial arts. Despite not being the focus of the sect, the Mount Song Sect knew that if they wanted to stay in the world, they would need to have strong martial arts.

"You, the old cult leader, what's your name?"

"My name is Baek Il, Great Dragon."

"Vice-leader Baek Il, did you have someone bring my head here too?"

Baek Il looked at the ground and stammered, "n-no, Great Dragon."

"Hmmm, now that's a problem Vice-leader Baek Il, I need my old body's horns to forge an ultimate weapon. Send your most trustworthy man to fetch it for me."

"D-do you just need the horns, Great Dragon?"

"Yes, the horns are the only thing I require from my head. And no more calling me 'Great Dragon,' just call me cult leader from now on."

"S-since that's the case, we already have the horns with us. We had planned to turn them into decorations, but if you can put them to a better use that would be stupendous."

Good, I only need the horns to make an ultimate weapon, be it a sword, blade or even a spear. Anything will be helpful while I'm still in the Foundation Establishment stage.

"Good, now that that problem is settled, show me around the cult's headquarters. I'll need to know where everything is if I'm going to lead you lot."

"Y-yes, Cult Leader. But may I have my sword back, the blade will dull your previous body's blood stays on it for too long."

Is this brat thinking of attacking me once he gets the sword? He must be really upset that he wasn't able to absorb the energy from Jinlong's core so he could bring his cult back to full power.

Buuuut, if I give him his sword and still beat him, it'll show the rest of cult members not to mess with me. This is going to be great.

I stabbed the sword into the ground next to Baek Il's legs and turned around. Beckoning him to begin the tour as I did so.

I doubt he'll be able to resist such a perfect chance to stab me in the back. To him, a dragon he thought was dead just came back in the body of a and stole his cult. Unless he's truly devoted to the dragons like the name of the cult suggests, he won't enjoy being under someone else's rule.

However, Baek Il walked past me after a few moments of silence, with his sword neatly hidden within the sheath. I guess he's not the type to go against what the cult's name represents.

The Demon Dragon Cult's name means to worship a demonized dragon. So, if a dragon who acts cruel towards those around him appeared right before their eyes, it would seem like their lord has descended to help them when they're trying to revive the cult's strength.

Well, I'd best pay attention to this tour, I'm going to be spending a good portion of my life here.

---

I've made a horrible mistake...

At first, I thought that by becoming the leader of this cult, I'd be able to use its resources to progress through the stages to Ascension while rehabilitating the people of this sect to be proper Taoist martial artists, like those from the Mount Song Sect.

But this is not what I expected.

The Demon Dragon Cult had only one major finance, blacksmithing. And that was only because they had one blacksmith within the cult's headquarters that did nothing but shut himself in the forge and produce weapons of decent quality.

He had to be reminded to eat and drink because of how long he would spend within the forge, but that wasn't even what concerned me the most about the cult's headquarters. These bastards had no martial arts training, no elixirs or spiritual pills or herbs, no training grounds or closed rooms to practice their fighting. Nothing, not a single thing that would be of use to me at the moment.

This meager headquarters only had five buildings, three of which were smithing buildings to keep themselves afloat. The other two were the cult leader's room and the bath house. Of which I was currently in the latter.

If there was any upside to this situation at all, it was the blacksmith who holed himself up in his forge. If I could somehow convince him to train a few of the less talented members of the cult to be master weapon smiths, I could have him focus on making my ultimate weapon with Jinlong's horns.

What would I even use this ultimate weapon for after I reach the Golden Core stage though? My martial arts are based in palm fighting styles, but I can use a few of the Golden Dragon Arts from the Mount Song Sect with a sword or blade.

Sigh... I don't need to worry about that for now. What's more interesting to me is my body. I thought that when the hole in Jinlong's stomach had become too small for me to fit in normally that the corpse had just shifted in a funny way. But that wasn't the case at all.

No, my body had grown exponentially because of Jinlong's blood alongside the completion of the Bone Tempering stage. My bones had grown completely just from the high amount of nutrients in Jinlong's blood, but my muscles had only grown to fit my body's new size.

If I had to guess, I'd say I'm roughly around two hundred and five centimeters tall now, it's just a rough guess, but it works for now.

This blood is a blessing and a curse however, since it doesn't seem to come off my body! I'd been in the bath for well over an hour and there were still crimson red stains all over my chest and hands.

I guess it's not coming off for now, I might as well leave them there then and focus on the first step of turning this cult around. Finance management... This is going to be a long day, isn't it?