Chapter 235: Spending the Hoard [1]
Damon sat cross-legged in the center of the plush, oversized bed, the residual, lingering heat of their recent, intense group session still humming rhythmically through his skin like a low-frequency vibration.
The air in the room was thick, perfumed with a heady mixture of arousal and the faint, sweet scent of medicinal herbs wafting over from the corner.
Ariel, looking entirely spent and utterly content, lay curled tightly against his side, her head resting on his shoulder with her breathing slow, rhythmic, and perfectly even.
Nearby, the Nightrider twins, Mio and Mia, had collapsed into a soft, languid tangle of limbs, their bodies entwined in a post-coital slumber that blurred the lines between the two sisters.
Not far off, Seraphina sat in a rigid, disciplined posture near the entrance of the cave, her back straight as a blade and her eyes firmly shut as she sought to anchor her surging energy through meditation.
Across the chamber, Alenasat hunched over her meticulously organized, makeshift alchemy station, her brow furrowed in concentration as she sorted through rare, vibrant herbs with the quiet, obsessive precision of a master artisan.
Flare remained distant, stubbornly facing the cold stone of the wall, her rigid back turned to the group as if guarding her turbulent thoughts.
Damon felt the familiar, magnetic pull of his System interface, and with a focused thought, he pulled his status window into the air before him, watching the glowing blue text flicker into existence.
[Name: Damon Arcknight]
[Age: 18]
[Cultivation: Earth Spirit Realm - Fourth Level]
[True Cultivation: Heavenly Spirit Realm - Ninth Level]
[Affinities: Fire: 85, Water: 165, Ice: 205, Wind: 205, Earth: 105, Lightning: 435, Nature: 85, Light: 85, Dark: 225, Space: 50, Time: 50, Sword: 115]
[Spiritual Roots: Elemental Spiritual Roots] [Saint Grade - Low]
[Bloodline: Blood of Incubus Dragon Lord] [Heaven Grade - Low]
[Physique: Body of Incubus Dragon Lord] [Heaven Grade - Low]
[Lust points: 59,847,200]
[Harem Members: Ariel Aquaria, Mio Nightrider, Mia Nightrider, Selene Frostborn, Seraphina, Flare]
[Beasts Bonds: Neko [Heavenly White Tiger]]
[Ability: Incubus Touch, Incubus Aura, Incubus Celestial Eyes, Incubus Fluid, Incubus Dream, Polymorph, Dragon Transformation, Incubus Transformation]
He stared at the number hovering in the cool blue light of the interface, golden eyes tracing each digit with quiet, calculating intensity.
’Nearly sixty million.’
The sheer scale of it still struck him, even now.
He had anticipated a respectable harvest from the session, but not quite this.
The Yin-Yang Harem Scripture had performed beyond even his most optimistic projections.
With seven women cycling their yin qi through the shared cultivation technique simultaneously, the feedback loop had taken on a life of its own — each wave of released energy amplifying the next.
Each climax cascading into another like a chain of dominoes falling in perfect, breathtaking sequence, the total return multiplying far beyond the sum of its parts.
The system had absorbed every last ripple of it.
He let out a slow, measured breath through his nose, leaning back slightly and resting his hands loosely on his knees, the blue light of the status window washing over his calm, angular face.
Time to spend it wisely.
"System," he said silently.
"What’s the cost to advance my true cultivation from Heavenly Spirit Realm Ninth Level to King Spirit Realm First Level?"
The response came immediately.
[For Cultivation Advancement from Heavenly Spirit Realm - Ninth Level to King Spirit Realm - First Level, the cost is 25,000,000 Lust Points.]
’Twenty-five million.’
He tapped a single finger against his knee, slow and deliberate, the quiet rhythm of a man running the numbers behind his eyes.
A significant chunk, without question. But it was less than half of what sat in his reserves, and a King Spirit Realm true cultivation was not a luxury — it was a necessity.
The gap between Heavenly Spirit and King Spirit was the kind of leap that separated men who mattered from men who merely existed, and he had no intention of remaining in the latter category a moment longer than required.
He let the number settle, then moved on.
"System. What’s the cost to upgrade my Elemental Spiritual Roots from Saint Grade Low to Saint Grade Peak?"
[For Spiritual Roots Upgrade from Saint Grade - Low to Saint Grade - Peak, the cost is 15,000,000 Lust Points.]
’Fifteen million.’
He turned the figure over once in his mind, quiet and unhurried.
Forty million total for the two upgrades combined — a sum that would have been unimaginable to him not so long ago, and yet here it sat, comfortably within reach.
That still left him with nearly twenty million in reserve. A war chest, not a final bet.
He could work with that.
"Do it," he said, voice low and even, carrying the particular weight of a man who had already made his decision long before he spoke it aloud.
"Advance my true cultivation to King Spirit Realm First Level. Upgrade my Elemental Spiritual Roots to Saint Grade Peak."
[Initiating Cultivation Advancement...]
[Cultivation increased! Heavenly Spirit Realm - Ninth Level → King Spirit Realm - First Level. -25,000,000 lust points.]
The world tilted.
Power slammed into him like a physical force, dense and overwhelming, pressing against every meridian, every channel, every cell in his body.
His back arched.
His hands gripped the sheets, knuckles white.
The breakthrough from Heavenly Spirit to King Spirit was not like the minor jumps between levels. It was a qualitative shift, a fundamental restructuring of his cultivation base.
His dantian expanded, the spiritual sea within him growing from a lake into an ocean.
His meridians widened, allowing energy to flow through them with a force that would have shattered a lesser cultivator’s body.
The pressure built and built, and for a long moment he thought it might tear him apart.
Then it released.
The pressure vanished all at once, like a dam wall shattering, and in its place came something vast and terrifyingly calm.
He gasped, chest heaving, each ragged breath dragging in more of the cool night air as sweat traced slow lines down his forehead and jaw, dripping onto the sheets beneath him.
For a long moment he simply breathed, letting his body catch up to what his cultivation base had already accepted.
His meridians hummed with a resonance entirely unlike anything he had felt before, deep and authoritative, as though the very spiritual energy around him recognized what he had become and was quietly rearranging itself in deference.
The energy settled into his new foundation, layer by layer, stone by stone, solid and immovable as bedrock.
He was a King Spirit Realm cultivator now.