Chapter 15: Corrosion Mutation
Shu Tian Calendar year 25, southern region of Da Yao.
After the first rain of early spring fell, it was the Awakening of Insects. But this year was somewhat different.
Da Yao’s military campaigns in the south had ended, with no more soldier disasters. The people on the southern border prepared to rest well, but on this day, the people who were surprised that the sky was brightening so late, after stepping out of their thatched huts, were all dumbfounded.
First, a thick morning fog with a fishy smell spread, then in the thick fog, mosquitoes, flies, and flying insects seemed to breed. Finally enduring until noon, massive flying insects danced in the fields, blocking the sun. In the insect clouds, flies kept dropping, but after falling, they did not die immediately. The flies flapped their wings on the ground, buzzing and twitching, trying to fly up, but because they were back against the ground, their wings kept flapping against the ground, spinning upside down on the spot.
Before the people could worry if the insects would damage the crop harvest, a plague suddenly appeared in places swept by the insect fog. In the countryside, families of farmers showed twitching symptoms after returning from the fields. For a time, in the countryside of multiple prefectures and counties in the south, there were pleas for medicine everywhere, with shaman dances and prayers to gods.
The peaceful atmosphere in the countryside was destroyed, directly reflected in the “Yao” hexagrams of the Sitian Cheng in each mansion.
After the imperial court’s decree was issued, the Demon Suppressing Division under the Legalists mobilized, and at the same time, sects cooperating with the imperial court began issuing orders to their disciples training in the mortal world. This included Wu Hengyu, who had just descended from Qinghua Sect.
…Immortal hero style divider…
Due to coming from a prestigious sect, Wu Hengyu easily mixed with other righteous sect disciples. Based on intelligence from outer sect disciples of these cultivation sects in the martial world, Wu Hengyu and a group of sect disciples finally found the source of the spreading plague in late spring. It was a chubby demon covered in pustules.
This demon was hiding in a village, where all the villagers had been turned into containers for raising the five poisons by it.
As the demon beat a rusty, battered gong and drum of indiscernible original style, geckoes the size of small dogs crawled out from all the earthen houses in the village. From the well mouth, centipedes like snakes drilled out, scorpions burst from the soil, and the branches on the big tree at the village entrance came alive, turning into venomous snakes.
As for the villagers, their mouths were unbelievably wide open, with a toad on their tongues, like fish lice replacing a fish’s tongue.
This fiend flung out something like a tattered cloth, tentatively called a “banner.” As the banner was flung, these monsters coexisting with the poisons first lined up in formation, then launched attacks. The sword light from the righteous cultivators pierced them, causing pus to splash, but the wounds healed quickly.
The Immortal Sect disciples threw out dozens of fire talismans for damage, which only temporarily suppressed those toad people. After the fire talismans burned over, more blisters rapidly appeared on the toad people’s skin, the blisters abnormally oozed more pus, grew larger, and they became even more like leprous toads.
In the end, with the combined efforts of fifty-four third generation disciples from multiple sects, damaging over a dozen spiritual artifacts, they finally killed this demon.
Before this demon fell into the foul-smelling pool and melted, it muttered hoarsely in a whistling voice: “My army is defeated? No, not defeated. Golden Dou, in the Golden Dou, I want to go back.”
During the demon subduing, Wu Hengyu, who delivered the final blow, withdrew his Star River Spear. For some reason, he felt that before this demon died, it stared at him.
As if it wanted to say something to him.
…Entering the mortal world divider…
After eliminating the demon, Wu Hengyu rode Wuzhui, driving thunder all the way to Tianchi City where the Wu Family Army was stationed. In the city, Wu Hanluan’s Winged Tiger first sensed the threat, arching its back and looking toward Wu Hengyu’s approach. This reaction was just like a house cat detecting a stray cat at home.
Wu Hengyu stowed his Wuzhui and descended with wind control into the courtyard.
“Father, your son has returned from studying the Dao.” Wu Hengyu kowtowed before Wu Hanluan. Wu Hanluan, holding a military treatise, stared at his son, restrained the excitement in his eyes at seeing him, and instead said with a stern face: “Back? Have you achieved anything?”
Wu Hengyu: “Your son has succeeded.” But seeing his father’s face seemed more haggard than before. The tone he originally wanted to use to show off faltered at the end.
Wu Hanluan snorted coldly. No one knows a son better than the father. His son had always liked to challenge the strong since childhood. He taught him sword practice, but after a few days, he quit and wanted to learn how to fight thousands. He was even happier to teach him military strategy, but after getting a rough idea, he dropped it again.
Wu Hanluan’s evaluation of Hengyu was: full of comprehension but lacking perseverance, thus—giving him the courtesy name Hengyuan and sending him to the mountain.
Several years ago, among the close branches, with only Wu Fei and Wu Hengyu as juniors, Wu Hanluan ultimately chose to cultivate Wu Fei because he valued Wu Fei’s caution toward “soldiers,” while Wu Hengyu’s restless personality made him relatively unsuited for great achievement. Thus, he forcibly twisted this “melon” Wu Fei onto the military strategist inheritance path.
Cultivating Wu Fei went quite smoothly. According to reports from Yongji Pass in the south, he was fully capable of taking the position of future family “Military Master.”
Thus, upon learning of his son’s return, Wu Hanluan had an idea: perhaps his son’s flaws could be corrected.
Therefore, upon seeing Wu Hengyu descend the mountain, Wu Hanluan adopted a strict attitude.
After hearing that Wu Hengyu had completely detached from the sect this time to help the family cope with the great tribulation coming to the world under heaven and was prepared to “serve” the family, Wu Hanluan raised his hand and patted his shoulder. Sensing Wu Hengyu’s vigorous internal energy, he paused slightly, and this old father’s originally “picky” gaze softened.
Wu Hanluan: “Since you’re back, stay in the tent, but! Don’t think of independently leading troops; you’re not the material for it. Listen more and learn more.”
Wu Hengyu nodded in agreement, but his eyes were filled with eager fighting spirit.
Wu Hanluan glanced at his son, suddenly feeling some doubt: “This son of mine is always competitive; after learning of the Military Master inheritance and seeing Wu Fei, he won’t compete aggressively, will he?”—He wasn’t worried about the brothers falling out, but suspected if Wu Fei would take this chance to “step down and yield” and quit.
Fierce generals must rise from the ranks, prime ministers from prefectures and counties. Wu Hanluan had gradually promoted Wu Fei bit by bit, with great difficulty molding him; don’t let this rebellious son ruin it with one blow.
…On Wu Fei’s side, already like an Indian electrician, facing all sorts of troubles in a tangle of messy wires…
In Yongji Pass, a terrified scream came from Flower Immortal Tower, once filled with nightly music and revelry; guests inside shouted “monster” and fled in panic.
After half a stick of incense, patrolling soldiers sealed off the area and brought Wu Fei to the scene. At this point, a wooden building had been burst open from inside, and from the broken doors of the second and third floors, a giant snake tail as thick as a water jar appeared. Clearly, a giant beast had emerged inside.
Just as the Yongji Pass patrolling soldiers hesitated whether to burn the building with fire oil, Wu Fei raised his hand and ordered the soldiers to withdraw.
Because, the “hiss hiss” snake hissing from inside the building, Wu Fei happened to understand; it meant: don’t kill me. If he hadn’t spent time with the owner of this voice, Wu Fei really wouldn’t have understood her dialect-heavy plea for mercy.
After the soldiers withdrew to the perimeter, Wu Fei walked into the damaged small building. The building was filled with a “thick incense” smell; one whiff made him feel dizzy, with a decadent, indulgent taste. Then he saw some unspeakable props in the building, and Wu Fei realized these were aphrodisiac toys.
Focusing on the hall, Xiao Qing, once in a delicate human form, now had an upper body half-human form a zhang long, even larger than the Eight-Foot Madam version, with pale bluish skin, scales below the navel, and a lower body that was a water-jar-thick, fully five-zhang-long snake tail, already at monster beast level, and its snake tail didn’t end normally but had four snake heads.
Wu Fei saw at a glance that this was “mutation out of control”; she had taken an evil path route, absorbing unknown power and loading it onto her essence, qi, and spirit.
For the orthodox sects in Da Yao, enhancing the “essence, qi, and spirit” foundation was the supreme method, while the dramatic mutation before him was using evil arts in pursuit of that “supreme method.”
Wu Fei now used condensing killing intent on external armor and equipment for his own use, which belonged to heterodox path. The reason behind it: three years ago, during the entry test on Qingyun Mountain, the Daoist said to Wu Fei, “Due to aptitude, no affinity with the Dao path.” Wu Fei didn’t admit it verbally but accepted that he had no advantage in nurturing magic power from essence, qi, and spirit or accumulating supernatural powers. Thus, he took the heterodox path, using exquisite equipment to substitute for profound root bones.
In Flower Immortal Tower, Wu Fei found a chair to sit on and said to Xiao Qing, who had mutated into a giant snake before him: “What exactly did you do? Turning into this.”
This snake coiled its tail, its massive upper body shrinking into the snake coil, head lowered. Since her tongue had become a forked tongue, she couldn’t speak.
At this moment, Xiao Qing herself was also very confused. After obtaining a technique called “Di Ding Lu,” she used the “sweet dew” produced in Flower Immortal Tower as medicine, and while absorbing, she mutated.
At this point, Xiao Qing began circulating the technique. Wu Fei looked up and saw her entire scaly skin become semi-transparent, purple energy pulsing under the blood vessels. Then drops of sweat seeped from the skin, and these sweat beads were filled with a strange incense smell. Feeling something in his body being stirred to become light and floaty, Wu Fei quickly steadied his spirit, picked up a small wooden block from the ground, and flung it at Xiao Qing’s forehead, telling her to stop.
Xiao Qing suddenly shrank back into the snake coil. Of course, without the creaking of scales, this action would have been quite cute.
Wu Fei stood up, took a deep breath, and began to think.
Right now, this was the first time since transmigrating that Wu Fei decided to let the system back him up.
Previously, spending 0.2 academic credits to exchange for the “physical test instrument” was being stimulated into consumption by the system. As for the occasional virus scans popping up from the system over these three years, Wu Fei noticed he had encountered anomalies but didn’t know how serious, so he didn’t take it to heart and wanted to freeload forever.—Narrator: Similar to 21st-century Eastern people well-protected by the state, unaware of how much the state worries.
But now, Wu Fei felt the terror of the weird things in this world for the first time.
As the exchange catalog appeared, Xuan Chong confirmed another item to exchange: the “Restoration Gem” worth 0.94 academic credits.
After a simple read, it was known that this item’s mechanism was simple: no matter what damage received or mutation occurred, it could return to the original state.—Even if turned into a zombie, it could restore to a vital human body, amounting to resurrection. Currently, Wu Fei had saved 3.34 credits.
At present, Wu Fei had completed the scan. The differences between Xiao Qing’s “human form” a month ago and her current mutated form, along with a series of dynamic diagrams of organ and tissue mutations, were densely displayed by the system. Wu Fei, feeling nauseous looking at the diagrams, felt knowing the general effect was enough.
System: “Since this is your first time using the ‘Restoration Gem,’ you can enjoy one free chance, just complete the following quiz.”
Wu Fei: “Hmm? Okay.”
Thus, the system popped up a sharp question.
First question: Please analyze your own considerations of self-interest in this exchange process? Hint: Elaborate in detail, the idea you previously explained of catalyzing the military-merchant system through the relationship between “young master and beautiful maidservant”!
Second question: Three years ago, you were “indifferent to fame and fortune” and yearned for cultivation; now commanding a large army with ease, using your experiences as material, elaborate on power’s corruption of the individual.
Third question:……
Wu Fei, no, Xuan Chong, directly closed the entire screen, then firmly said: “Activate Restoration Gem, use credits.”
System: “Are you sure to abandon the quiz? Hint: Directly quitting will forfeit the free chance.”
Given the urgent situation, plus not liking what the system said, Xuan Chong demonstrated the “internet gentleman six arts”: canon, filial piety, urgency, joy, steel nerves, win/mnah?
Xuan Chong: Cut the crap.—At the same time, as Wu Fei, he suddenly flew into a rage and kicked away a nearby bench.
The massive snake woman nearby saw Young Master Wu Fei’s darkened face, as if frightened, prostrating her upper body from the snake coil, sticking out her forked tongue to push aside the clutter that might have angered Wu Fei, then recalling the past.
Several months ago, after leaving the camp, Xiao Qing found herself with nowhere to go, feeling abandoned by the world for a moment. But then a voice in her heart told her not to give up.
Thus, she established Flower Immortal Tower under the identity of Young Master Wu Fei’s servant girl, and after confirming the General’s Mansion did not deny her actions, she regained her position. But now mutated into a monster, the “abandoned” feeling surged again; this time she wanted to stay, even as an ox or horse!
Now Xiao Qing’s mind turned very quickly: her new body could no longer move freely in the markets, but it could exist as a “warrior.”
Da Yao Dynasty had such cases; for example, there were “Yellow Turban Warriors” refined by immortal family methods in Da Yao, such warriors ten zhang tall, bending to enter city gates, wearing heavy armor into battle, their giant copper hammers sweeping to directly break formations.
While the snake woman was pondering her future path, Wu Fei’s hand touched her forehead. In an instant, she, who had been frantic and mad, became as peaceful as a baby sleeping in a cradle.
A gem appeared in Wu Fei’s hand, and in Xuan Chong (Wu Fei)’s view, this gem was light condensed from the depths of the earth, though Xuan Chong didn’t know that this underground light wasn’t from dozens, hundreds, or thousands of meters, but projected and condensed from the planetary core thousands of kilometers in breadth.
As Wu Fei’s hand touched, the snake woman quieted, showing a gentle and obedient expression.
However, Wu Fei showed an embarrassed and hesitant expression. Of course, after three breaths, he still opened his mouth.
Wu Fei, um, Xuan Chong aimed at the moon and began singing a certain animated show’s song as the activation incantation for the Restoration Gem.
Holding back his expression to restrain shame as much as possible, Xuan Chong sang: “Heavenly spirits, earthly spirits, Restoration Gem show your power hey. Return to origin, time has come! In the transformer, truth revealed.”
The snake woman was stunned, then enveloped in golden light and unable to move. As the golden light contracted, she began shrinking and changing; the sudden mutation process from several hours ago started reversing!
In this process, something in the surrounding space seemed enraged, purple power trying to stop it, but the golden light seemed prepared, counter-infiltrating the space-exuded purple power like thunder, quickly driving it clean.
Ten minutes later, Wu Fei walked out of the damaged small building.
Behind him was the restored Xiao Qing, as if nothing had happened to her.—However, now she could switch from giant half-snake half-human to normal human form.
At the same time, the system issued a task line: launch special military operation in Southern Border, investigate all roots.
……
But six days later, Wu Fei received a secret order from his uncle to lead three hundred elites north.
