Liang Yumao, materialized soul.

Liang Chen looked on with great interest as more and more cracks started to spread across the surface of the egg, a black mist seeping out from the egg. As more and more cracks started to appear, the egg started to wantonly absorb energy, drawing in anything it could get its hand on, using the vast and potent energy to further fuel its own growth. In just a few short seconds, the egg had absorbed so much energy that if Liang Chen had been the one to absorb it, he would have exploded seven times over.

After absorbing such an exorbitant amount of energy, the entire egg, which was now completely covered in cracks, finally exploded. When the egg exploded, black fog billowed out from it, shrouding Liang Chen's dantian in darkness, a low hissing sound sounding out. And out from this dark fog came a strange Demonic beast.

It looked like a small snake, only about 20 centimeters long, its head was triangular in shape, and its body was covered in black scales. But while its abdomen was completely smooth and scaled, its back was covered in small black feathers, the scales visible beneath the feathers, a line of tiny spikes running its spine. There were two tiny knobs growing on the sides of the snake, one on each side, which looked like they were going to grow into wings. Its eyes were a ghastly gray in color, much like Liang Chen's own eyes when he activated this bloodline.

Liang Chen had never seen or read about a Demonic beast like this before, but just by looking at it, he could feel a connection with it. This Demonic beast had been born in part thanks to his blood and Qi, so the two of them were now forever connected.

The feathered snake looked at Liang Chen, tilting its head cutely. When it looked at him, Liang Chen could hear what seemed to be words sound out within his mind. But these words were garbled and hard to understand, so he could only barely make out what they were saying. The words came from the feathered snake, it was doing its best to introduce itself. Or rather, it would be better to say that he was doing his best to introduce himself.

The little snake continued speaking to Liang Chen within his own mind, the words growing clearer and more pronounced as he kept talking, so he seemed to learn very quickly. But even if he learned quickly, the snake was still a newborn, so he knew very little and wasn't able to tell Liang Chen much about himself.

The best he was able to do right now, as he didn't really know much about himself, was to tell Liang Chen about what sort of element he could instinctively use, and what he had to do to grow. The little snake could create and control darkness, and if he wanted to grow, he not only needed large amounts of Qi but also items that had the element of darkness.

Liang Chen looked at the snake, which was doing his best to tell Liang Chen as much as he could, and he couldn't help but feel fond of him. He had grown using Liang Chen's own blood, so this fond feeling was instinctual, almost like a parent looking at their own child. He waited for the snake to finish talking before he spoke to him.

"Can you leave my dantian on your own, or do you need me to bring you out?"

Since he could understand the words of the snake, he too could, of course, understand Liang Chen's words. He quickly nodded his head, vanishing into the dark mist. Once the snake vanished into the dark fog, a small weight appeared on top of Liang Chen's head, so he removed his mind from the inside of his dantian.

The snake was now lying on Liang Chen's head, his head hanging down in front of Liang Chen's eyes, waving from side to side to catch his attention. Liang Chen smiled slightly, reaching up and patting the snake on the head using one of his fingers. Before he chose what to do next, he asked the snake a question.

"Tell me, are you willing to follow at my side? Or would you rather I find a nice and quiet place where I can release you?"

The snake was born using his own blood, but that did not mean that Liang Chen would treat him as property, he would treat him like a friend. If he wanted to, Liang Chen would find a place where he could live in peace and set the snake free. But it seemed like he didn't want that, as the snake quickly shook its head, its entire body swaying because of the movement. He was born because of Liang Chen's blood, so to him, Liang Chen was his father. Liang Chen smiled faintly when he saw how the snake acted, speaking up again.

"Alright, but if you're going to be following me, you'll need a name. How does Yumao sound? Well, I guess it would be Liang Yumao if we were to mention the whole name."

Liang Chen wasn't terribly good at coming up with names, so he simply used a word he had read about before. It apparently used to mean Feather or Feathered. The snake didn't immediately respond, seemingly sinking into thought for a short moment. After thinking it over, he nodded his head several times, letting out a low hissing sound. And just like that, Liang Chen had gained a new companion and given him a name, Liang Yumao.

Yumao continued to mutter his own name, the words appearing in Liang Chen's mind. After muttering his name for a few minutes, Yumao let out a weak yawn, jumping into Liang Chen's dantian to go to sleep inside the black fog. Yumao was just born using a massive amount of energy, so he needed some time, and rest, to stabilize himself and make sure that all the energy was under control.

As for the black fog inside Liang Chen's dantian, that was the home of Yumao, so as long as he was alive, this black fog would remain in Liang Chen's dantian. As Yumao grew stronger, this black fog would even grow thicker and stronger, becoming a source of power for Yumao, but Liang Chen was unable to use it, so he didn't bother with it.

After Yumao went to sleep, Liang Chen continued to heal his wounds using the energy in the stream. With him speeding up time by eight, it didn't take long in the outside world for his wounds to heal. Of course, it wasn't just his speeding up of time that made his wounds heal so fast, the incredibly potent yet mild energy in the stream was a great help.

After his wounds were fully healed, Liang Chen calculated that about half a day had passed in the outside world. It had taken him four days to fully heal his wounds, even with the potent energy of this water, so it was clear that his wounds were surprisingly severe. Had it not been for him being able to speed up time, he would likely not have managed to heal in time for the Hall Competition.

After he finished the healing process, Liang Chen decided to move on to the next thing he had planned, cultivating. He swiped his interspatial ring, taking out the corpses of Geng Zhen and Xiao Daibao, the two cultivators at the late stage of the Heaven's Gate realm that he and Yan Ling had killed in their most recent mission.

The corpses floated on the water in front of him, Liang Chen freezing the time of the air around them to keep them in place. He then took a deep breath and closed his eyes, placing a hand on each of the two corpses. His consciousness sank into his own mind, into the bloody city that represented his mind.

The black book that was the Chaos King Technique was still floating there, surrounded by a bloody maelstrom. He connected his consciousness with the book, circulating his Qi according to the instructions of the book. Two invisible streams flew out from the book, one end of the streams connected with the bloody city, while the other end of the streams flowed into his arms and entered the two corpses.

The two streams vanished after entering the corpses, a strong devouring power appearing within the corpses. After a short moment, two murky balls of energy appeared within the corpses, the two invisible streams dragging the two balls, the souls of Geng Zhen and Xiao Daibao, back into Liang Chen's body.

The Chaos King Technique allowed one to devour and absorb the souls, Qi, or flesh of other living beings, using them to supplement your own. But as of now, Liang Chen had only carved the channel that let him devour the souls of other living beings, as his own soul was his greatest weak point.

The two souls tried to struggle free as they were being dragged towards Liang Chen's mind, following their instinctual desire to not be devoured. Liang Chen's expression was solemn as he looked at these two souls, emerald lightning crackling through his veins as it headed for the two souls. He had to properly purify these souls, otherwise, they might start to influence his personality, they might even cause such discord in his soul that it simply shattered.

The emerald lightning surrounded the two souls as they were dragged through his body, whipping them and whittling them down, weakening their resistance. Once they were too weak to resist, he fully flooded them with his emerald lightning, the strongest lightning he could use without wounding himself, it was also the lightning that he himself had created by fusing the azure tribulation lightning and the normal golden lightning.

Yumao noticed the commotion, so he poked his head out of the black fog to check what was happening. But when he saw that Liang Chen had everything under control, he went back to sleep.

Liang Chen's emerald lightning did a good job of weakening the souls, but they were the souls of cultivators at the late stage of the Heaven's Gate realm after all, so his lightning wasn't able to perfectly purify them. Liang Chen wasn't willing to have his personality altered just to gain some strength, so he tapped into his poison lotus, drawing out a dusty white poison.

The poison quickly moved through his veins, the scent of death following it. This was the poison he gained after bathing in the blood of the large spider type Demonic beast in the Demon's Graveyard in the Mystic's Hidden Realm. The poison was so potent that he couldn't use it for too long, as it would backfire and wound him if he tried to do so, but it was perfect for this situation.

The white poison joined the emerald lightning, sinking into the two souls and purifying them, erasing the last few traces of Geng Zhen and Xiao Daibao. Once both the murky souls were completely purified, they became as clear as crystals, gleaming with a faint light. The two souls then arrived within the bloody city, sinking into it and vanishing.

When they vanished, Liang Chen could clearly feel a refreshing, almost breeze-like energy enter his mind and nourish it, allowing his thoughts to move even faster. More and more energy continued to flood into his mind, 25% of Geng Zhen's and Xiao Daibao's souls becoming a part of him.

Once the Chaos King Technique had finished absorbing all the energy, Liang Chen could feel the bloody city in his mind trembled, a strange energy gathering in the air above it. As he watched, a body was slowly formed in the air, quickly taking on Liang Chen's likeness.

Liang Chen knew what this was, it was his soul, it had finally fully materialized. The soul was the crystallization of everything that Liang Chen truly was, so it looked almost exactly like him. There were only two differences between him and the soul, and that were the eyes and the hair color. His own hair was emerald and his eyes were golden, but the hair of his soul was a bloody red, while the eyes were a ghastly gray in color.

The bloody hair came from the bestial instincts he had devoured after bathing in so much Demonic beast blood, and the gray eyes came from his Heaven Devouring Bloodline. Looking at his own soul, Liang Chen couldn't help but be excited.

Since his soul had now materialized, he could see if he could strengthen it using the principles of the Lightning God Physique, but switching out the lightning for his poison. He could also do things far more efficiently now that his soul had materialized.

In the past, while he could split his mind to focus on several tasks at once, the downside was that this would reduce the efficiency. If he split his mind to focus on two tasks, both tasks would only be performed with 50% efficiency, meaning he couldn't truly focus on two different cultivation techniques at once.

But now that his soul had materialized, he could split his concentration in two and have both tasks be performed with 100% efficiency. His own mind would focus on one task, while his materialized soul would focus on the other. This meant that if he wanted to, he could now sit in the various libraries in the sect and read books, while at the same time cultivating his Lightning God Physique or focusing on cultivating his soul or Qi.

But before Liang Chen's excitement could get the better of him, he was snapped out of it by the sound of the warped space around his location vanishing, footsteps coming closer. It seemed like more time than he thought had passed, the Hall Competition had likely arrived.