Legacy of Hatred

Without the handy pool, Liam had to resort to the water his Master had stashed for him to clean himself. Luckily, the room filtered that dirt away once it fell on the floor, eventually achieving a modicum of cleanness.

That wasn’t fully true for Liam. Even after no traces of the goo were left on his body or room, he still smelled it, and from two different sources. It seemed its mark in the air would take longer to vanish.

Still, the stench was bearable now, and it did confirm Maxwell’s opinion even further. Liam’s senses had always been astonishing, but they seemed to have become beyond superhuman now.

Of course, Liam didn’t know if that was due to his new Qi, whatever his bloodline had done to his body, or both. He wasn’t even sure how far that would go.

Liam sat down after he was done washing up, only for the bloatedness in his jaw to reclaim his fingers. He also touched his canines and explored his nakedness to check whether something else had transformed.

Nothing revolutionary stood out, but Liam saw differences. His muscles looked slightly bigger, more defined, and tougher than he recalled. He was also fully healed despite the healing pill failing to keep up with the rank 2 Boar’s Touch.

As far as Liam knew, that shouldn’t be the result of the breakthrough. He should have only become more otherworldly, pure, not brawny and monstrous, so he felt inclined to connect those changes to the Ancestral Snake.

’If ...,’ Liam decided, stopping pressing on his bloated bicep, ’If this helps me defeat the Dragon King, then so be it.’

Liam had never cared much about his appearance, and the Dragon King’s threat was realer than ever now. It wasn’t just about the alleged army of Dragons. If his Master had felt the need to send him away, that distant inevitability was bigger than his wildest expectations.

Also, the dream had shed light on a different perspective. If even something as gargantuan and immensely powerful as the Ancestral Snake had felt wary of the Ancestral Dragon, Liam needed all the help he could get.

’If I grow fangs, scales, and a tail,’ Liam considered, ’Will Melissa still be willing to kiss me?’

Heartache rose through Liam’s chest, but he simply let it stay there. He didn’t even know if Melissa would see him as her lover anymore after leaving so suddenly. He wouldn’t blame her if she resented him forever, and he had no other option.

The Ancestral Snake had lost. Even someone as grand as Horace Rauret had sounded desperate in his warning. If Liam wanted to hope to survive, he had to become a fiend, and that might include looking like one.

If the price were to become a monster in body and spirit, Liam would pay it and face its consequences. No self-sacrifice was too steep to complete his revenge and fulfill his vow to his Master.

’Forsake all you hold dear until you are strong enough,’ Liam recalled his Master’s words, materializing the green jade in his hands.

’Three spiritual roots develop nine minor roots,’ Liam read, almost hearing his Master’s voice in the teachings in his inheritance. ’Six roots develop thirty-six. Nine, eighty-one.’

That was the lesson about the rooting stage, something Liam had heard directly, but that he couldn’t help but review. After all, his situation was unique.

’I have ten spiritual roots,’ Liam thought, bringing his attention to the pulsating canvas with his cultivation, counting the cracks again. ’Each root will sprout ten new ones. I have to grow a hundred minor roots to complete the rooting stage.’

That potential was nothing short of divine, or diabolical, something beyond Heaven’s designs, but it came at a steep price.

The width of a cultivation indicated many things. Its size determined how much Qi it could contain, its firmness, and the stages it could support, but also how much it needed to grow to reach completion.

The Divine Cult had handled that issue when Liam was a foundation expert, but he would have to deal with the rooting stage on his own, and as a lone cultivator on top of that.

Of course, the benefits were immense. They grew exponentially with talent and became more meaningful at each higher stage.

Liam had only possessed a few additional spiritual roots at the foundation stage. However, that advantage would multiply if he reached the peak of the rooting stage.

Considering that most cultivators had fewer than six spiritual roots, Liam would have more than double or triple the Qi of his fellow rooting experts, having access to reserves no one could hope to match.

It also made sense now how such a meaningful gap could exist between Joel and Maxwell. The rooting stage was far longer and broader, enabling stark power differences depending on how advanced it was.

The trend promised to be even more meaningful at higher stages. The issue was getting there.

Liam performed a few tests, first smoking and then licking the deadly poison he applied to his weapons, but the results were as underwhelming as he had expected.

Liam’s cultivation still liked those substances, but they hardly provided any sustenance. They were drops in a boundless ocean that didn’t bother to record them, resulting in no growth or accelerated Qi production.

The only silver lining was that Liam suffered no damage from ingesting those substances. It seemed he had become virtually immune to rank 1 poisons.

’I need to concoct rank 2 poisons,’ Liam accepted, still puffing from his pipe while his mind was inside the space-ring. ’Master left me enough ingredients for several batches, but they won’t last.’

Liam also lacked any terms of comparison. He had never experienced the growth through a stage, and his talent had impossible demands. Chances were that what his Master had left him wouldn’t be enough to scratch the surface of what his cultivation needed.

’How long will the ingredients last anyway?’ Liam wondered. ’Do they still wither normally inside the space-ring?’

The space-ring was an ethereal, isolated environment, but time could still apply to what it held, making natural erosion a possibility.

Lastly, there was the biggest issue of them all.

’These spirit stones,’ Liam calculated, checking a few rank 3 recipes in the green jade. ’They’ll never suffice for a rank 3 concoction, will they?’

Even if Liam miraculously reached the end of the rooting stage, he would need to concoct a rank 3 poison to become a branching expert, which required rank 3 ingredients and more spirit stones than he had ever owned and probably seen.

Of course, that bottleneck was impossibly distant. Liam hadn’t even started growing through the rooting stage.

Yet, it was wise to prepare accordingly, always working toward future problems so that Liam could face them once they became relevant. That was what Joel had done, too, and it was the norm in the cultivation world.

’It’s impossible,’ Liam realized, ’Not as a lone cultivator.’

Liam obviously felt no dismay or surrender. He had a vow to fulfill, and a path toward that goal existed.

’I guess I have to become a demonic cultivator,’ Liam decided. ’I need to find someone I feel like robbing or killing, or both.’