淫欲的代价

Mo Jiu looked at all the cultivators watching him with eyes full of awe. He had a feeling he\'d been attacked in the beast barrier but he had no idea who had done it or how they had done it.

The next time he\'d woken up, he found himself in a cave in an unexplored part of the Spirit beast forest. It turned out that he\'d fallen from a hole at the top. After trying several times, he discovered he couldn\'t get out through the hole he\'d fallen from so he gave up and began exploring the cave.

Not long after, he discovered a golden coral fruit. It was supposed to be a myth. Mo Jiu quickly took out more of his hidden weapons and destroyed the high grade three headed scorpion guarding the fruit.

Afterwards, he settled down to absorb the fruit. The golden coral fruit was shaped like a pearl whilst its stem was in the shape of a conch shell. It was very easy to recognize from the records of its description. It was said that absorbing the fruit could cause ones cultivation level to progress in leaps and bounds.

Two days later, Mo Jiu opened his eyes and to his pleasant surprise, he had reached the early stage of Nascent soul level. He decided to go back and try to break the barrier covering the hole he\'d fallen in from but before he could get very far, he encountered a disturbance in the cave.

It seemed to be caused by two spirit beasts fighting.

Since he was yet to contract a beast, he decided to check what the fuss was about. Who knew that he\'d end up seeing two gigantic beasts on the verge on breaking through to the pseudo divine level?

One was a phoenix and the other was a saber toothed horned rabbit. It seemed the cave had originally belonged to the horned rabbit.

Mo Jiu hid himself and waited patiently. The phoenix had beaten the horned rabbit until it went down a stage and lost consciousness. Seeing the phoenix\'s terribly weakened state, Mo Jiu struck.

He managed to subdue and contract the phoenix and then he went on to also contract the unconscious horned rabbit. They had served themselves right at his feet, how could he let such a good opportunity go?

Contracting two powerful beasts at once had been really difficult but Mo Jiu had given himself his usual pep talk and persevered. If he couldn\'t overcome this, how did he expect to protect the ones he cared about?

On the third day, Mo Jiu finally left the cave -but not before the horned rabbit took him to where all its treasures were. The horned rabbit had reduced its size until it resembled a harmless bunny since it was very weak whilst the phoenix remained the way it was, although it was still weak.

Mo Jiu had tracked down the blue robed cultivators and killed them off. His only regret was not seeing the jade twins once more but who knew he\'d be so lucky to encounter them when he arrived at the lake? He happily ate their sweet nectars and met up with his followers before leaving the Spirit beast forest.

Although he\'d managed to contract two powerful beasts and improved his level by two stages, he was still dissatisfied about that beast core. Gu Long had told him that the core had exploded and destroyed the barrier but Mo Jiu was still dissatisfied.

How could the core have been destroyed all of a sudden and how come he had no memory of it? He knew something had happened but he had no idea what.

Mo Jiu looked around the cultivators once more and his eyes trailed to He Yuan, who was lost in thought. Mei Hua had told him Mo Sheng was also missing for three days. Where could that talentless daxiong of his had disappeared to? His eyes narrowed.

"Jiu-ge!" Shen Mianmian shouted in relief as she ran over to hug Mo Jiu who caught her easily. "Mianmian was so worried about you~"She continued with misty eyes.

A lot of Mo Jiu\'s lovers had different reactions to Shen Mianmian\'s display. The Alchemy peak master was unperturbed, Gu Long looked away, Mu Qingqing clenched her fists, a lot of others -including the jade twins- were dissatisfied whilst some others were like the Alchemy peak master, accommodating.

Mo Jiu tore his gaze away from He Yuan and patted Shen Mianmian\'s head. "Silly girl, what could happen to me?"

Shen Mianmian pouted. " Nothing! After all, my Jiu-ge is the strongest." She looked behind to see the beast hopping behind Mo Jiu. "Ah, what is this cute thing?"

Mo Jiu shrugged. "Just a low grade beast I took interest in." There was no need to tell others that he\'d contracted two powerful beasts. It wouldn\'t be good to show all his hands.

Shen Mianmian giggled as she picked up the fluffy bunny. Only Jiu-ge would arbitrarily contract a low level beast because it looked good!

"Haha, brother Jiu is so awesome." Wu Ran said shyly. "The rest of us go looking for spirit beasts in order to increase our protection but brother Jiu goes looking for beasts as though he\'s shopping. He\'s so powerful he doesn\'t need the protection of others after all."

"BAH!" Mu Qingqing shouted just to grab Mo Jiu\'s attention even if Wu Ran was right next to her. "You seem to have forgotten Jiu-gege contracted a phoenix.. A phoenix! Contracting an almost pseudo divine level beast on the first try, which cultivator can proudly come out and boast of the same achievement in their lifetime?"

The conversation devolved into the cultivators and harem members praising Mo Jiu to the high heavens whilst the man in question swallowed up all the praise.

He Yuan, on the other hand, was low key freaking out. He had prevented Mo Jiu from absorbing the beast core but the man had ended up contracting two high level beasts in return. He also had no way of knowing Mo Jiu\'s exact cultivation level now.

He had been depending on the storyline to deduce Mo Jiu\'s level but with the appearance of the two beasts, he knew he couldn\'t do that anymore. It wouldn\'t be accurate. Just what had happened when Mo Jiu went missing?

The young cultivators were soon dismissed and everyone slowly dispersed. Some faster than the others as they wanted to be the first to spread the news of a first time contractor contracting such a high level phoenix.

He Yuan hopped on the lotus artifact and rode to the Converging peak. As soon as he was settled in Mo Sheng\'s courtyard, he began cultivating. He\'d missed on cultivating this past week because he needed to keep an eye on Mo Jiu.

After all his efforts, Mo Jiu\'s luck still pulled him through. It was better to focus on getting stronger. He would still push through with his other plans of stopping Mo Jiu\'s lucky encounters though. There was no better option.

As the surrounding qi rushed into He Yuan\'s body, his anxiety calmed considerably and then he focused on practicing the fourth set of the [Strongest Martial Arts].

The next time He Yuan opened his eyes, a frown was etched upon his face. Even if he had no cultivation, elder Mo had linked the barrier surrounding Mo Sheng\' courtyard to Mo Sheng so he could feel when it was breached.

And right now, the barrier was breached. He grabbed his sword and cautiously rushed out.

Mo Jiu.

Mo Jiu stared with a bored expression as He Yuan walked out of his room. There was no need to beat around the bush, he came here for business. "Where did you disappear to when you went missing for three days?"

He Yuan raised a brow. "Did I not already tell you not to question me? What does my whereabouts have to do with you?"

Mo Jiu drew out Huoyan and in a flash, he arrived in front of He Yuan, pointing the flame sword at his neck. "Don\'t play smart with me. Start talking."

He Yuan\'s eyes widened as the pressure from Huoyan bared down on his very soul. Every person whether you could cultivate or not -as long as you had a spiritual root- was especially sensitive to one thing and that was killing intent.

The amount of killing intent that was wafting off of Mo Jiu at the moment was so thick you could practically see it clogging the air. He Yuan swallowed. Did Mo Jiu discover something or was he just being overly paranoid?

Even as He Yuan\'s mind was processing at the speed of light, his face remained neutral and his fists were clenched at his sides, holding a teleportation talisman within. However things turned out, he was leaving this place with his soul and body intact.

"Take your sword away from my sight Mo Jiu." He Yuan said slowly. "Since when are you so bothered about my movements?"

Mo Jiu pressed Huoyan forward and the sword glare wafting off the sword was enough to break He Yuan\'s skin and spill blood from a point in his neck. Mo Jiu scoffed. He couldn\'t help but be suspicious of this daxiong of his.

Mo Sheng was not the type to partake in public events like the spirit beast hunt -not surprising seeing as he had no cultivation- so why had he chosen to attend this one and why had he been tailing him, Mo Jiu?

The broken formation that had released the beast might have been the plan of the blue robed cultivators but Mo Jiu was not dumb, he was certain that someone had attacked him. When he\'d chased after the black clad figure, everyone else was cultivating, everyone except Mo Sheng.

Then, he thought nothing of it. After all, this daxiong of his was talentless but when he\'d received details about the search for him, he realized that from everyone\'s perspective, Mo Sheng had disappeared around the same time as him.

Putting two and two together, it wasn\'t so hard to figure out that Mo Sheng might have followed him and he would have easily managed that without detection by staying just outside the range of his spiritual sense.

Mo Jiu sneered. What he hated most was people touching or trying to claim his things. "Where\'s the beast core?" He asked He Yuan directly.

There\'s no way he would believe that a cultivator would destroy such a valuable beast core after gaining possession of it. That blast that everyone claimed had happened must have been some sort of foul play!