Li Shen was topless in his room that was filled with runes on its walls. He was seated in a cross-legged position while his brows were furrowed evident that he was displeased by something.
His eyes soon opened and irritation suddenly began pouring out in waves.
“Are you going to continue this ridiculous tantrum?”
As Li Shen said that his Seven Sin’s Plum Blossom appeared on his forehead.
Around it was the ring of black fire, but in addition, was a rune in the form of a five-star point that seem to be holding the plum blossom in place.
However, it seemed to be fighting back.
“I only used your power a little no need to go crazy.”
Li Shen then lifted his finger and pressed it against his forehead.
As the rune’s strength increased the struggle of the Seven Sins Plum Blossom weakened until it stop overall.
A sort of depressing feeling radiated from the plum blossom and Li Shen sensed this and huffed.
“Stop your whining, you’ll get no sympathy from this cold callous heart of mine.”
After suppressing the plum blossom Li Shen let out a sign.
“Such a troublesome little guy.”
Over the past two to three years, Li Shen had spent a great deal of time studying it. That’s how he came to understand its properties.
Because of its original nature, and coupled with its fusing with the Seven Carnal Sins Manipulation Art, it mutated and gained the ability to enslave someone.
Well, enslave wasn’t the right word, rather it rewrote their seven core emotions to become loyal to Li Shen to a fault.
Needless to say, Li Shen was taken aback when during his routine conjuring of a miniature copy of the plum blossom he randomly toss away one only to have it inadvertently fused with an ant below.
A sort of connection was formed stemming from his plum blossom where the ant unconditionally followed his will. Even with its limited intelligence.
From there Li Shen moved on to human experiments, Demonic Cultivators to be more specific.
It was because of this along with the chaos happening across the continent that he decided to become someone in the shadows. And from that idea, several things spawn into how it was today.
However, the ability of the plum blossom isn’t invincible. Every time he used it the plum blossom would visibly weaken. And even though it was a minuscule amount, the Seven Sins Plum Blossom would instinctively react to the danger and fight back against him.
He had fought numerous times over time, but Li Shen was the one in control.
With that said, Li Shen was careful of this type of broken ability. He knew there will times he would become tempted to use it in situations just for the convenience of it. But he had morals he wouldn’t cross, he’ll never use it on his friends, Faction members, or his family, especially his family.
Weisheng was the first person he used the full power of the plum blossom’s ability.
Due to this, he was forced to reinforce the rune he had created for extra precaution. The ring of fire as Li Shen found out was a product of his Qi Sea.
Speaking of Qi Sea! Li Shen closed his eyes and sent his perception into his dantian.
Appearing in the expansive void, Li Shen’s projection slowly floated towards his Qi Sea.
Its gigantic size of a hundred meters was awe-inspiring and was something to behold. The Seven Sins Plum Blossom was floating motionlessly above, Li Shen’s runes seal present on its surface.
Li Shen’s eyes examined his Qi Sea. His Constant Qi Circulation was flowing without hindrance and his Qi Sea projection in his Sea of Consciousness was working overtime like a champ.
An abundant supply of Time Qi was swirling in his Qi Sea with the vigor of a young man in his prime.
But this didn’t please Li Shen one bit.
‘It’s about time.’
Li Shen thought, and as soon after, like a young man that sadly reached the end of his life to become a bedridden old man, almost all of the Time Qi was sucked out of it towards the Time Seed that was casually hovering over the plum blossom.
Watching it gorge on his accumulated Time Qi Li Shen couldn’t help but curse internally.
‘This little piece of crap is so small but so gluttonous!’
A terrifying torrential suction force came from the Time Seed to quickly absorb the Time Qi.
Li Shen feeling this gulped and slowly floated back.
After sucking his Qi Sea dry, it didn’t do anything else. It just remained there above both his plum blossom and Qi Sea as if it was saying this was its territory. Its will was law of the land.
Even his plum blossom was trembling nonstop when the suction force emanated from it. It was fearing that one of these days the Time Seed would randomly decide to eat it along with the Time Qi.
Li Shen seeing its cowardice behavior spat out.
‘Bastard, you only have strength for me.’
But who he was angrier with was his Qi Sea.
Turning to look at it, it now hardly have any Time Qi within its hundred-meter vortex of a body.
Its once youthful fast rotation was now sluggish, and it looked like it was on its death bed ready to kick the bucket.
The Qi Sea projection never stopped and continuously supplied it with Time Qi.
‘Bastard look at you!’
If his Time Qi was a person, its face would look droopy as exhaustion racked its body.
‘If you hadn’t greedily gone after this thing we wouldn’t be in this situation! Even that guy upstairs isn’t looking good!’
Li Shen was referring to the Qi Sea projection. Dark circles under its twitching eyes, with its body fidgeting constantly as if it was high on caffeine.
If it was a person that’s the current look it would have as it worked overtime to gather Time Qi from the void.
Li Shen frowned before he moved his Divine Will.
His body began actively absorbing Time Qi from the world. With its tongue out of its mouth, his Qi Sea projection laid flat on its back as a huge burden was lifted off its shoulders.
As for his Qi Sea, the faster absorption supplied it with Time Qi so it gained a bit of vitality.
Li Shen signed internally before he moved his gaze towards the Time Seed.
‘This thing isn’t doing anything but steal my Time Qi. I can’t even break into the Foundation Realm because of it.’
Irritation couldn’t begin to describe what Li Shen was feeling towards this thing. If he wasn’t confident that something good will happened when it had enough he’d have tried to get rid of it to continue his cultivation normally.
‘But exactly how long would that be? It’s been almost three years and it’s still absorbing Time Qi. If I were to calculate how many times it sucked my Time Qi dry with the amount of Time Qi within was within the Qi Sea, the amount would have allowed me to form at least four Divine Platforms and break into the mid Foundation Realm.’
Such a scenario was completely ridiculous to Li Shen. But he only glared at the Time Qi as always before he came back to his physical body.
“Dammit...”
Muttering under his breath, Li Shen then stood up from his cross-legged position and went to open a window in his room.
The sunlight poured in causing the darkness that once enveloped the room to retreat into the corners.
It was a few days after the meeting with everyone, with him being in seclusion until now.
“Today should be this week’s seminars. Those disciples should be coming for the morning session soon. I should probably get ready.”
Even though Li Shen said that he only rested his head against the window still to gaze at the rising sun.
A few second and third-story buildings were built that overlook everything as well as allow someone to see over the ten-meter walls surrounding the courtyard.
Li Shen’s residence was one of them and despite being located at the back of the courtyard, he had a perfect view to see disciples going about their day. Though Li Shen had this courtyard built somewhat out of the way on the Sword Pavilion mountain so there weren’t that many disciples walking by.
There was even a small forest at the back of the courtyard, leaving only the front available for entry.
But one thing that should be mentioned was that if one were to look from the outside they would be unable to see him or the buildings over the walls. Li Shen had placed an illusion rune formation around the courtyard, and he made it strong enough that most eye techniques wouldn’t be able to penetrate it.
As Li Shen was observing the outside casually, a small morning breeze blowing his untied hair slightly, he took notice of two disciples in black robes approaching his courtyard front gates.
“Is the academy decided to make a move?”
Lihua had visited him during the days to tell him that rumors were going around that he was brainwashing disciples.
Li Shen chuckled before he got up and went inside before closing his windows.
***
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