Chapter 214: Success Comes At A Cost...

"Nooo!!!!" Shang Guan Qing Hong cried out in rage at his new form.

  A mix of lightning and wind surrounded him as he blasted through the undergrounds to the two brats above who most definitely caused this accursed form of his! There had to be something wrong with the two of them. He drew the formation perfectly, activated it when it should have been activated, and followed all the instructions he needed to follow. In his mind, there was no other explanation than the two freakish brats near the coffin he stole were the sole reason for this imperfect rebirth!

"Hahahahaha..." Hu Tao laughed despite his body being filled with several cuts that a normal person would have died 100x over from. He laid on his back staring up at the sky where the roof of the ancient tomb should be.

"Huff... Damn you... Just die already." Wan Qing was in a similar condition to Hu Tao with all four of her wings torn off and a single antenna cut off. She was still standing, albeit barely.

"This was the most fun I had in a while, Wan." Hu Tao shared with her.

"Tch. Don't get ahead of yourself. Did I give you permission to call me by my first name?" Wan did notice this was the first time Hu Tao referred to her by name instead of a rude nickname.

"We should do this again sometime."

"Like hell, I would be willing to go through something like this again." Wan shut him down immediately. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to absolutely crush him with overwhelming power.

  But she wasn't strong enough yet. Even after giving everything she had, it still wasn't enough to force him into using all of his power. Hu Tao was lying on the ground with his chest rising every few seconds like he was utterly exhausted but Wan Qing knew that he was still holding back in his fight against her. She was being looked down on and underestimated but she couldn't do a single thing about it!

"Why did you hold back...?" She soon asked.

"Don't be such a retard. What would be fun in killing someone with a lot of fighting potential? You grew this strong in only a matter of months when previously you didn't stand a chance against me in the Treasured Plains. Next time I decide to fight you, who knows if I can hold back without losing my life?" Hu Tao smiled an innocent smile as if there was no greater joy in the world than fighting and growing stronger. Even when it came to those he's fighting!

"You're the only person in this world that I believe I can call truly mad." Wan Qing shook her head but accepted this answer.

  Wan Qing wouldn't have accepted any other answer. This answer was the most fitting for the nutjob called Hu Tao.

'Perhaps the only reason he hangs around Jing and the rest of us is simply to see how strong we will grow. I wouldn't be surprised if that really was the reason.' Wan thought to herself.

"Like a spoiled noble brat like you could understand. Do you even have something to pursue besides being Jing's little maid now?" He casually insulted.

"Excuse me?" Wan Qing rose her voice. "I have plenty of goals I wish to accomplish!" She was getting upset again.

"Name em."

"Being a part of the most beautiful sect." Was one.

"So, helping Jing takeover the sect." Hu Tao put that goal in other words.

"Helping those who feel like they don't belong and aren't accepted by the people around them."

"Helping Jing reform the sect." Hu Tao countered that goal.

"To make friends."

"You already have friends."

"To find love."

"You have a boy toy."

"Get revenge on the Blossoming Water Palace for rejecting me from their sect on account of how I looked."

"Okay." Hu Tao chuckled. "That's the first actual goal I've heard so far."

"All of them are goals worth pursuing! Not every one of them is related to Jing. Don't insult me!"

"Ahuh. Any more?" Hu Tao asked.

"What about you!? I bet you don't have any goals besides wanting to become the strongest cultivator or fighting every strong cultivator in the world or something like that right?" Wan Qing scoffed.

"Close enough." He shrugged.

"And you have the nerve to criticize me on my goals when you have that as your life-long goal?"

"Sure do." Hu Tao said without shame.

"And what gives you that nerve exactly, huh?"

"The scale of our goals is on different levels. My goal takes me around the entire world. Your goals can be accomplished within the Evergreen Continent." He explained.

"So! That doesn't mean yours is better than mines." Wan Qing argued.

"It does."

"No, it doesn't."

"It does though."

"No, it doesn't though."

"But it do though."

"Shut up!" Wan Qing had enough. The longer she spent with this idiot, the longer she was pulled down to his level. In the future, she had to keep her contact with Hu Tao brief, lest she wanted to be infected by his simplicity.

"I'm going to go catch some ghosts on my own and do not follow me." Wan Qing made sure to emphasize the last part of that sentence as she ate a piece of Ying's recovery cake from her storage ring.

"I need to catch some too! Wait for me!" Hu Tao also took out a recovery cake to heal his injuries.

"I said don't follow me!"

"Jing wouldn't like it if we were split up!" Hu Tao mischievously giggled as he made his way over to Wan Qing.

  As he was about to casually place his hand on her shoulder, he sensed something coming from below him. Wan Qing seemed to have noticed too because she was already moving to get out of the way. Hu Tao wondered what the hell was coming from below them. Was someone trying to split them up or ambush them? He hasn't seen any animals in this place so, he didn't think it was an animal but a cultivator. And it didn't make sense to him that a ghost would be dwelling underground or had a presence like this.

  Hu Tao threw the Net of the Wild Hunting Immortal on the place where the thing was coming from. The Net of the Wild Hunting Immortal is a sky-ranked spirit tool that very few living creatures could escape from. He nabbed it from the Immortal Phoenix bastard that he still needed to capture for Jing. This spirit tool was made from extremely dense and pure qi that nearly no creature could escape from when captured.

  Both him and Wan Qing watched as the figure below them tore through the ground and tangled itself in the spiritual net. It screamed in anger and confusion at this sudden development. Once it felt its qi being restrained and strength leaving its body, it could only wail louder in rage. Upon seeing the child in the net, Hu Tao and Wan Qing had a weird feeling deep inside themselves as they saw it.

"Why does this boy look like our kid if we banged?" Hu Tao got straight to the crux of the matter. He grabbed the net with the captured child inside it.

"I think you mean girl and how am I supposed to know?" It was a very pretty child but had quite a fierce temperament.

  She would consider herself pretty and Hu Tao fierce, so his guess wasn't completely off. But she knew she would never have sex with Hu Tao even if he was 100x more handsome than he already is. So, this child shouldn't be a thing. Wan Qing was not so naïve to believe that a boy and girl getting in a life-or-death battle could produce a child even if she wasn't properly taught of the matters between a boy and girl by her older sisters. Only an idiot could believe something like that.

"Don't you see his little cock? How are you gonna say it's a girl? Are you blind?" Hu Tao questioned, shaking the net for Wan to see the boy's member shaking.

"Are you blind? Can't you see the thing underneath that thing? I'm sure you of all people have seen one of those before." Wan rolled her eyes.

"What the fuck?" Hu Tao just noticed what she was talking about.

"Release me now!!!" Shang Guan Qing Hong yelled.

  Shang Guan Qing Hong has never been so humiliated in all of his life. Even when he was being killed all those years ago, they never treated him with so little respect. It was the first time anyone has ever dared to question his gender, treat him like a child, and mock him in front of his face! He wanted nothing more than to rip these two to shred even if they were the only reason, he was alive right now.

"Not until you do some explaining little freak. What the hell are you? And why do you look like our kid?" Hu Tao asked shaking the net some more just to bother the kid.

"Stop shaking me, you foolish mortal! I'll break your bones and feed your flesh to dogs!" Shang Guan Qing Hong shrilly screamed.

"I don't like your attitude brat." Hu Tao rapidly shook the net some more until eventually Shang Guan Qing Hong was forced into throwing up, still not used to his living body.

"Foolish mortal?" Wan Qing took notice of this statement. Could this child be a ghost? But it was clearly alive, so that couldn't be the case.

"Apologize or I'll shake ya some more." Hu Tao evilly grinned.

"Wait... Maybe we can come to an agreement. A deal of some sorts..." Shang Guan Qing Hong tried negotiating.

"Hmm..." Hu Tao looked as if he was thinking deeply about it. "Nah! Hahaha!" He continued shaking the net, torturing the suspicious weird child until they did as he said.

  If this was an ordinary child, Wan Qing would've long stopped Hu Tao harassment. But whatever this child was was anything but an ordinary child. She didn't see this kid before the start of the second test, meaning that it had to have come from inside the Endless Plains. And for some reason, it took on the appearance of what the child of herself and Hu Tao could possibly look like. Wan needed to know why which is why she wasn't interfering with Hu Tao's bullying of the boy. They needed answers and if the child kept acting the way it was, they wouldn't get anywhere.