Chapter 52: Infectious disease

Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he opened his spiritual senses to feel better, he closed his eyes and used his soul willpower to scan deep into the last remaining building. The building was surrounded with formations that kept it out of dangers way, however, they were no cracked due to the intense fight, and were ready to explode.

Yun Jhin disabled them easily as he walked towards the building and entered it, no one was inside, but Yun Jhin knew that he had to go deeper to find who he wanted.

The baby dragon was nuzzling himself inside Yun Jhin's clothes and from time to time his head would pop out of his cloak and look around with interested eyes.

Yun Jhin let him do as he pleased as he continued to enter deeper into the building, after a while, he found the stairs that led to the underground site of the building, it was like a cellar but not quite so, it was remodeled into a cultivation chamber and a middle-aged man sat cross logged in the middle of a healing formation.

The man's life force indicated that he wasn't that old but his face and body were full of wrinkles, his hair was also half white half black.

The man opened his eyes as he looked at Yun Jhin but didn't say anything, he was sweating black gunk intensely, suddenly he vomited a mouthful of dark blood, Yun Jhin looked as the dark blood started to sizzle and a purple gas appeared, the gas dissipated after some time and the man's face turned paler than it already was, he also gained some new wrinkles.

Yun Jhin got closer to the formation and looked it up and down, he shook his head and said:

"Your formation is quite decent, unfortunately, you won't live more than a few weeks from now, the curse inside you is etched too deeply."

The man's eyes widened but he kept his mouth shut, it seemed if he lost any concentration, the curse would relapse and kill him instantly.

Yun Jhin didn't beat around the bush as he looked the man in the eyes and he said:

"Do you want to live?"

"I know you can't answer, but I will give you a chance to live, however, you will have to be my slave from now on."

The man's eyes showed that he wouldn't ever become someones else's slave, even though his cultivation aura was pretty weak currently, it seemed he was a powerhouse at the 8th King Realm or above, if he wasn't weakened like he was right now, the whole giant army would have ended up defeated by him alone!

Unfortunately for the Zither sect, their patriarch was afflicted with a strange curse that needed a dragon heart to cure, thus they were eliminated...

The sect master knew that all of his sect's members were dead, after all, he observed the whole fight with his soul willpower and knew that it was all Yun Jhin's fault, but if Yun Jhin decided to attack him right now he would be dead, there was nothing he could do currently besides lying down and waiting for death.

He was the reason Suo sent out the grand elder to the Long Empire to find the dragon caterpillar. Even though a dragon caterpillar was a half-dragon, there was still a 50% chance of healing him so they took it. Unfortunately, the grand elder mistook Yun Jhin as a passing dragon royalty and he didn't go through with the plan.

This led to the sect master's current situation, on his death bed, vomiting dark blood, even if he wanted to save his sect he couldn't, his fate was to watch his closed ones die in front of him.

Yun Jhin watched as he man's eyes changed from time to time, he was pondering Yun Jhin's proposal very hard, seemingly he was ready to accept it!

Yun Jhin inserted his soul willpower into the man's consciousness where he was viciously attacked by him, however, he easily backed away from the soul space, even if the man had a stronger soul than what he currently had he couldn't be able to kill Yun Jhin.

The most ineffective attacks against Yun Jhin would be soul ones after he mended his soul back in the catacombs of the Corpse sect it's recovery boosted itself, combined with all of the souls he ate along the way up till now, he could use 1% of his former soul abilities.

Even though 1% seemed insignificant, at his peak Yun Jhin was a God Realm 9th stage expert, with very few equal people to him.

Yun Jhin looked down as the man started to wretch and vomit even more blood, he tried to kill Yun Jhin and absorb his memories thinking he could get the cure that way, but he just hastened his death, he failed and the curse backlash hit him even harder.

Yun Jhin wanted a slave at the 8th stage of the King Realm but it seemed he wouldn't be lucky enough today.

The man started to melt into a pool of meat and blood, a decaying stench immediately filled the room as the formation broke and corroded by itself, Yun Jhin watched pensively, unfortunately, he couldn't eat the man due to his situation, he would have to first cure him and he had no more time.

Due to the sect master's actions, he wouldn't be able to eat him or enslave him, Yun Jhin found it to be a great pity. As the man transformed into a puddle of smelly gore on the ground Yun Jhin bypassed the remnants of the formation and entered deeper.

He walked further inside until he reached a dead end, there he clicked on the wall tiles in a particular way that made them open, it was the password to get to the patriarch's cultivation room, Yun Jhin gained it after he devoured Suo's soul, whoever died in his hands would have the fate of their soul being devoured as well.

Yun Jhin entered the room and looked around, it was full of Zithers of different colors and sizes, inside in the middle of the room stood the patriarch, he looked so old that you would think he was a corpse, his body was emaciated and he had no hair left on his whole body.

His eyes were closed as he stood there, his hunched back trembled from time to time indicating that he was breathing but he didn't have much time left, his weak aura indicated that he was at the 9th stage of the King realm, and the peak of the stage as well!

The man tried to break through the Sage Realm and gain some more longevity. Yun Jhin sympathized with the man, he tried the same thing in his former lives after he reached the peak, he remembered everything like it was yesterday, unfortunately, sometimes hard work didn't give you the results you wanted or needed.

Yun Jhin observed the way he circulated his life force and shook his head, the man wasn't going to live for much either, it seemed he was just like his relative in the other room, his days were numbered and the only thing he could do was watch them go away.

Yun Jhin became a bit nostalgic as he watched the mummified man, then he shook his head and his arm became a sharp weapon that he inserted into the old man's chest, the old man coughed a mouthful of blood and died instantly, Yun Jhin opened his mouth and ate him quickly or else he would have dissipated into dust.

Cultivators that live enough to die of old age transform into dust and return to nature everything that they took from it, that's how new cultivators can be born, that was also why no one truly reached true immortality, God Realm practitioners only reached half immortality of unable to be killed, and that was those who reached the 9th stage, they still aged and died like normal commoners, they just lived longer.

Yun Jhin stabilized himself fully into the 7th stage of the Ki cultivating realm and was even ready to break through into the 8th stage, but he lacked a certain factor, and no it wasn't more energy, after some self-inspection, it seemed his caterpillar body rank wasn't high enough!

He wanted to ask the system what was his caterpillar rank but a notification appeared by itself:

[Dragon Caterpillar (Mature Royalty): Rank 2500/7500, for further breakthroughs Rank 3000 is needed or above.]

To increase the rank of the caterpillar body Yun Jhin needed energy, some did seep into his body but he used most of it towards his cultivation base instead of refining his body, in most of his previous lives he never encountered such a situation so he didn't know how to act.

But now that he knew he needed to find some other nutritional corpses to increase his body's rank, he let some giants run back to the tribe, maybe they would come with reinforcements? But it wasn't likely to happen.

Their main chieftain and their most talented youngster died here, they would be dumb to try and attack again, after all, there was no one here anymore either so they would be just waiting time, they would surely think that the one who orchestrated everything would have already left by now.

Yun Jhin walked by the puddle of gore again as he tried to leave the underground area, but the baby dragon inside his cloak started to sniff around, Yun Jhin looked as the dragon jumped down from his bosom and ate the whole puddle of gore in one big gulp, this was the first time Yun Jhin used such a technique so he wasn't sure how the dragon worked, all he had was the theory he learned.

Yun Jhin watched the little dragon eat the puddle of gore, his cultivation base started to fluctuate as he became very sleepy, it seemed he was ready to break through to the King realm!

Yun Jhin made a mental note to look further into the artificial dragon's behavior and body structure while he slept, he needed to make sure he knew what he had on his hands.

The dragon caterpillar left the buildings then the sect grounds with his baby dragon sleeping neatly in his cloak.

After he made sure the baby dragon slept soundly in the cloak, he grew wings then flew to a nearby city, where he would plan his next move, which sect he would attack or subjugate to gain enough nutrients to break through his body rank.