Ashlock watched the villagers converse with each other excitedly after Stella returned to the central courtyard and the rift in space closed. After that discussion, he had naturally amped up magic truffle production as he could tell things would get busy soon.

He still didn't know the limits of alchemy combined with his fruit and mushroom production abilities, so he wouldn't rule out being able to turn a talentless villager into a cultivator, but it would be resource intensive.

For example, why would he sacrifice his own cultivation growth to accelerate the development of more truffles and fruit just to turn some random villager into a cultivator?

It would only be worth it if he couldn't obtain a cultivator any other way.

But he would rather use those resources to improve the spiritual roots of an already established cultivator that had been practicing for many years than level up a talentless villager, as time was not on his side.

The beast tide was coming, and this area would soon turn into a hellscape. From his understanding, even after the beast tide had passed, other demonic sects would come to claim the land and establish a new sect here. Without cultivators on his side, he will forever be surrounded by enemies.

Even if his roots spread throughout the valley, he couldn't fight off an invading demonic sect alone.

Ashlock hummed as the villagers picked up their scrawny child and carried him toward the village. Interestingly, Ashlock recognized one of the villagers as the mortal Larry had spared the first time.

"Running a sect is going to be so annoying," Stella grumbled from the bench. "Dealing with cultivators is easy enough as we can speak with our blades, but trying to be nice to mortals is hard."

Stella reminded Ashlock of his introverted friends that had to spend a few days recovering after a big social event. Her arm covered her closed eyes as if she had a migraine, and she looked absolutely beat.

"Was it really that bad?" Ashlock wondered. He felt she had handled the situation rather well from looking on.

Stella seemed content on just laying there and recovering. Even Maple had gone and fallen asleep on her head, so he looked for something else to do.

He was still itching to test his S rank {Mystic Realm} skill, but he was waiting for Diana to hopefully recover before trying an unknown, dangerous skill...

Switching to his root vision, he descended the mountain and looked into the cavern. He sighed in relief as he watched Diana still beating the shit out of Bob the slime.

"Ha!" Diana hollered as she delivered a brutal roundhouse kick that sent Bob flying halfway across the cavern. The slime convulsed as it flew like a water balloon hit with a hammerAshlock pulled back on the root linked to the slime to stop Bob from slamming into the wall.

As Bob rolled for a few meters before stopping, Ashlock noticed the slime had turned from lilac to pitch black as demonic Qi swirled around the jelly body.

Compared to his spatial Qi, which had been very stable within the slime, the demonic Qi reminded him of those storms that plagued Jupiter. They were violent, erratic, and destructive. It was fascinating that Bob's body could even adapt to housing demonic Qi.

Ashlock had no idea how Diana had survived for even an hour, let alone days, with this demonic Qi inside her body.

Looking closer at the black-haired girl, her eyes had returned to their usual dull grey, and the spider web of black lines covering her entire body was faded but still visible if someone looked closely.

"So why are her flames still contaminated with darkness?" Ashlock mused as he saw her dash across the cavern with a kick and punch the demonic slime with a wrathful punch. Her strength had increased since he last saw her, that was for sure.

An hour passed with more brutal onesided combat as Bob no longer had any capabilities of fighting back, and Ashlock came to a terrifying conclusion. "Has she found a way to harness the demonic Qi without it killing her?"

Seeing Diana's dark blue flames mixed with the darkness of the demonic Qi working in perfect harmony across her body reminded Ashlock of yin and yang.

Suddenly Diana stumbled to the sidefalling to the ground and managing to get into a cross-legged position despite the slime looming over her. She closed her eyes and began to meditate.

Ashlock reeled the slime back and was glad he could still control the thing.

"Is she breaking through?" Ashlock saw Qi begin to gather around Diana in a torrent. He knew Diana had been struggling in the 6th stage of the Soul Fire realm for years now with a very significant bottleneck.

Even after going cold turkey on beast cores after first meeting Stella, she had been unable to overcome this bottleneck no matter what she did.

Was it finally happening? Had she found a way to overcome the bottleneck that had threatened to stunt her growth until she grew old and withered away into dust?

Ashlock was worried. Would the demonic Qi lurking in her body interfere with the ascension? "I guess I can only wait and see."

In an attempt to help out, Ashlock pumped some water from the mycelium network through his roots. The cavern was filled with dripping sounds as sappy water came from hundreds of roots across the cavern's ceiling.

Diana's expression was intense, and her breathing erratic, but she seemed to appreciate the gesture as the water Qi all around joined the torrent.

A while passed, and Ashlock could tell she had broken through the bottleneck as Qi exploded in a wave with her as the epicenter and shook the cavern causing bits of the ceiling to fall. Luckily he had reinforced the cavern with his roots, so there wasn't a total collapse.

But what happened next surprised himwings of feathered darkness sprouted from her shoulder blades, each thrice her size, claws of shadow materialized around her hands like gloves, and her eyes went black.

She wailed like a tortured soul as she stood up. As she stumbled forward, demonic Qi swirled around her body in a fierce mist. For some reason, Ashlock felt... unnerved. It didn't make senseeven if she broke through to the 7th stage of the Soul Fire realm, she should still be far below him regarding cultivation, so why did he feel hunted.

It was an instinctual fear as if he were facing down a predator. Even though he knew he had the equivalent of a loaded gun in his back pocket that would guarantee victory, his nonexistent heart still thumped in his chest.

Through the dark mist, he could only make out the outline of Diana's demonic humanoid shape as the howls continuedshe prowled forward through the mist like a predator and then pounced toward Bob with a fiendish pace.

Bob's skin was pierced, and two claws that didn't resemble human hands, more like bird claws, were thrust insideAshlock then felt the demonic Qi inside Bob rush toward the hands as if Diana was trying to absorb all the demonic Qi.

"Do I stop her?" Ashlock could flood Bob with plenty of spatial Qi to get Diana away, but should he? Was Diana absorbing demonic Qi a good or bad thing here?

Deciding to wait and see, a while passed. Bob had almost all of the demonic Qi that had been stored up inside drained. To maintain control, Ashlock had no choice but to refill the slime slowly with spatial Qi, which eventually forced Diana to take her clawed hands out.

The fiendish howls and inhuman movements continued as combat resumed. Ashlock had to overload Bob with spatial magic and hold the slime with his roots so Diana's chains of attacks didn't destroy Bob in seconds.

Demonic Qi transfer to Bob occurred in the same way as before but at a much faster rate. The cavern continued to tremble as Bob was kicked through the black mist and pulled back in. All Ashlock could see the entire time was Diana's outline which included two feathered wings and claws.

Eventually, Diana left Bob alone, and the dark mist that had obscured her body dissipated into the air. Ashlock saw her crumble to the floor like a puppet cut from its strings, and she fell asleep.

Her body had returned to normal, and even her clothes were unscathed. There was no sign of any demonic Qi corruption nor her weird demonic form.

Ashlock let out a long sigh of relief. If someone had told him that the demonic form he'd just witnessed in that dark mist was an illusion or dream, he'd have believed them. Even the shirt around her shoulders showed no signs of holes for wings.

"Had the demonic Qi influenced her mist ability to an even higher level than when she was first infected with demonic Qi?" Ashlock mused to himself.

When she first used her illusionary mist technique after becoming infected with demonic Qi, the laughing delusions that tricked the mind and enraged cultivators into acting on impulse had morphed into howling fiends.

Had it simply upgraded and given Diana an illusionary form to make her seem more intimidating... or was it something else? Ashlock didn't know. He kept tabs on Diana for a little longer to ensure she was fine, and after confirming she was sound asleep and wasn't going to suddenly turn into some undead ghoul, he could finally relax.

Ashlock spent the rest of the day practicing telekinesis in the central courtyard by trying to write on the wall.

Stella had spent the afternoon sorting through the many spatial rings from the invading cultivators she had unlocked while searching for beast cores for Diana. She now wore four golden ringstwo on each handcontaining all the items she deemed necessary to loot.

One of the rings flashed with golden light, and a stick of black chalk manifested in her hand. She threw it out into the air as she lay slothfully on the bench, and Ashlock caught it with telekinesis.

Stella lay on her side while keeping her eyes on the white pavilion wall opposite. She seemed to still be recovering from her social interaction with the mortals or maybe just taking a well-deserved break. She had been cultivating and fighting nonstop for a while now, and with Diana sleeping down in the mine, there was a brief moment of calm.

The black chalk stick paused before the wall as Ashlock struggled to figure out what to say or ask. Then he thought of Diana... Stella hadn't seen the girl for a while nor knew of her recovery, so he decided to inform her.

"Diana has recovered and broken through to the 7th stage?" Stella let out a long sigh of relief and grinned. "I'm so glad. She is a great friend and ally. I can't imagine having to run a sect without her."

Considering she seemed to handle the mortals so well from his point of view, he decided to ask about it.

"Why did I find speaking to the mortals so exhausting?" Stella hummed for a while and then answered while looking up at his canopy. "I have hardly talked to anyone other than Diana my entire life, and the mortals are just so different from me."

Stella chuckled, "You saw how they looked at me as if I were some kind of monster. They didn't see me as a fellow human beingnot that I blame them. We treat mortals like insects. It's ingrained in our minds from the start."

There was a pause, and then she continued, "When I was very young, I was surrounded by mortal servants that would do my bidding despite the fact I was just a child, and my father would always point at the wrinkled old maid that went around the courtyards groaning about having a bad back and told me that's what separated mortals and cultivators. We never become weak like that with time so long as we keep cultivating."

Ashlock had to admit it was an interesting dynamic. Stella and Diana looked and talked like humans, but the fact they could live far longer and run around at supersonic speeds naturally separated them from the mortals in feudal society.

It didn't help that the cultivators could lord over the mortals without repercussions out here in the wilderness, as without the cultivators, the mortals would perish to the beasts, so any kind of revolt was impossible.

"Maybe it's different in the Celestial Empire." Ashlock mused, "It sounded much more civilized from what Senior Lee described, although that old man did say he preferred it out here."

Ashlock was briefly lost in his thoughts when there was a sudden rush of water, and Diana shot out from his hollowed-out root that led down into the mines with a splash.

She landed gracefully and offered Stella a weary smile as she collected all the water in a swirling ball above her palm. "Sorry to have worried you, Stella."

Diana then turned to look at Ashlock and clasped her hands, "You too, Patriarch. I appreciate your assistance with my matter." She thengave a ninety-degree bow toward the towering tree.

Ashlock hadn't been mad at her, but he appreciated the apology nonetheless.

Stella jumped up from the bench and gave Diana a tight and quick hug. "I was so worried about you!"

Diana grumbled another apology, and the two returned to the bench and caught up on what had occurred while Diana had been insane. It was rather funny watching Diana's facial expressions as Stella recalled her being chained to Ashlock and how she screamed for multiple days and nights straight.

They talked throughout the night, and Diana confirmed she was okay.

"The demonic Qi is suppressed and under control, but if I push myself that far again, I will likely enter that insane state again," Diana explained and offered a reassuring smile. "But I can always beat the slime up again to return to normal!"

Ashlock decided to ask about that demonic form she took by writing on the wall.

"Ashlock asks about feathered wings and claws you had down in the mine." Stella calmly translated and raised a brow at the message. "Well, that sounds like an interesting story."

Diana slowly nodded in agreement, with confusion written all over her face. "Feathered wings? I don't remember ever having anything like that..."

Idletree Daily Sign-In System

Day: 3478

Daily Credit: 4

Sacrifice Credit: 0

[Sign in?]

The sun crested over the horizon, and Ashlock's sign-in system popped up. With such few points to spend, he naturally dismissed the notification, but it had reminded him of something.

His desire to test his new S rank skill {Mystic Realm}.

Ashlock then asked the two girls if they were well-rested and ready to watch him test his most powerful skill yet. Stella seemed genuinely annoyed when he mentioned he had no idea what his new skill could do.

"Fine," Stella grumbled as she rose from the bench, summoned a sword to her waiting hand, and took a combat stance. Her cultivation flared up, and light purple flames coated her form. "But I am taking no chances this time."

Diana gave a nod of approval with a hint of jealousy as she noticed Stella's improved spirit rootStella just rolled her eyes in response, "You will get to improve your spirit root as well."

Ashlock made sure to wake Larry up from his slumber and even shouted enough at Maple to cause the squirrel to stir from his deep sleep. The squirrel seemed annoyed but also intrigued at what was happening.

With the whole gang ready to go, Ashlock brought up his skill menu. He felt like a president about to launch a tactical nuclear strike for some reason.

"Well, here goes nothing."

Ashlock activated his ability, and everything changed. A dense white fog filled with weird celestial flakes swirled around the central courtyard swallowing his sect members, and before Ashlock knew it, everyone was goneexcept for him.

He remained rooted in place, but neither his spiritual sense nor {Demonic Eye} could see the group through the fog.

"Guys?" Ashlock shoutedeven trying to pull on his tether with Larry, but there was no response. Where did they go?

Left with no other option, Ashlock sent his roots to surge out of the ground and into the perpetual fog in search of them.

He demanded answers and wanted to discover what the hell this {Mystic Realm} was all about.