Chapter 170: Settling Down

Siren City was once a territory of a mermaid race, who lived in the Blood Sea. They founded this city to trade with other demon races and acquire resources.

After the cultivator-demon war, this city fell to the hands of human cultivators. All mermaids retreated back into the Blood Sea and never returned.

When the Liu Clan solidified their power and established the Liu Dynasty, Dong Zhongying, the descendant of a deceased general, was given the Siren City as a reward for his father's service in the war.

Unlike his father, Dong Zhongying was a cruel lord. He turned against fellow humans and enslaved local cultivators, who migrated into his land. With the help of his father's secretary-general, Hua Xiong, he rose to power and became a dominant clan. With more manpower and hired mercenaries, the emperor enlisted him to the court.

Everything was in Dong Zhongying's palms - Power, money, women, and authority. Yet, his ambition had no limit. He aimed to dethrone the emperor by gathering allies in the court.

However, a new star suddenly appeared to thwart his plan.

Liu Bian, the crown prince, suddenly emerged and seized control of the emperor's royal army. With only 8 years of age, his talent in arrays and military tactics surpassed old generals, which earned the trust of many ministers.

Liu Bian became the political nemesis of Dong Zhongying. Thus, the latter couldn't sit back in this forsaken city for too long. He moved his men and subordinates to the Red Sun City to secure his position in the court before this upstarted prince could devour everything. He also used everything in his arsenal to sabotage the crown prince, including the previous corpse commission.

Then, the deed came to Jia Wenhe's hands.

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Jia Wenhe, Ju Shoufen, Jia Shan, Cao Mao, and everyone gazed at this desolate city in solemn. Rather than calling it a city, it should be called a ruin.

Most structures were either burned or deconstructed. Only unusable bricks, woods, and broken furniture remained. Aside from the intact stone roads, no intact building was in sight.

"They don't even construct a stone wall for this city," Cao Mao complained as he gazed toward the west, where he heard the roaring sound of sea waves and wind. "Is this place safe? It was once a mermaid city, right? Won't those creatures come back to take this city?"

Jia Shan shrugged, "They won't. There's nothing to gain here other than their pride. I doubt they even have one since the mermaids never fought back in the last war. They retreated at the sight of invaders."

Ju Shoufen shook her head, "But we shouldn't let down our guard. At least, we should set a defensive array to protect this place."

"Can't we just move a bit east and leave this place as it is? I think it's easier to clear the woods and build a new house rather than restoring this god-forsaken place."

Cao Mao didn't like this place. For a while now, he caught the strong scent of fresh blood from the west, but he didn't dare to speak about it. After all, the BLOOD SEA was named that way for a reason.

Jia Wenhe glanced at Cao Mao. He understood why the latter acted that way, but he disagreed.

"No. This place is ideal to settle down. Haven't you sensed the dense Qi in the air?"

After being reminded of the dense Qi, Cao Mao finally realized why he felt weird.

At Mountain Goose City, there was barely any natural Qi in the air. Everyone relied on spirit stones and spirit drinks to gain Qi energy. Only at noon or midnight, the natural Yang Qi and Yin Qi increased, but most of them were immediately absorbed by the local cultivators.

Even in Red Sun Port or Yeet City, Cao Mao didn't sense many strands of natural Qi. Only when he concentrated hard, he could feel a few strands of Yang Qi in the air during the daytime or Yin Qi at night.

But here, the amount of Qi strands in the air was unbelievable. After a rough counting, Cao Mao lost confidence that he might not be able to absorb all of them within ten years since the dense Qi in the air was like an invisible floating sea, releasing a pressuring aura. The closer Cao Mao got to the Blood Sea, the denser it was.

However, not all Qi strands were beneficial to cultivators. Cao Mao also sensed contaminated Qi.

"I sense something odd. It's not an element Qi, but it's sinister. Senior, do you know something about the Qi?"

"Ah," Jia Shan and Jia Wenhe nodded, "That's the faint will of vengeful spirits. They attach to some of the Qi strands."

"Eh? Won't this energy dangerous? The babies will inhale these things!"

"Pfft. Don't worry about it. As long as we can set up a filter array, those vengeful spirits will be purified and become pure energy. Then, we can engrave more seal tattoos to their stomach, so the seals will filter out all unnecessary Qi from entering their bodies. When they grow up, they will adapt to the Yin and Yang Qi faster, and they can get stronger quicker than their peers."

Jia Shan taught Cao Mao how experts in the holy land prepared for their children.

In the Holy Land Continent, the Qi in the air was a lot thicker than the Blood Sea. Rather than calling it Qi, they were qualified to be called essence. Not only essence droplets mixed with the natural moisture in the air, but various types of element Qi was also plenty.

Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth Qi were everywhere. It wouldn't be strange for the local people in Holy Land to be able to use four basic elements at a young age. As for Jia Shan and Jia Wenhe, they were in the talentless category, so they had to become vessels for dao gods.

Learning about the background of the Holy Land, Cao Mao understood why they should nurture their children at such a young age.

Everything was for their natural aptitude, constitution, and natural immunity against Qi.

"Okay. I understand. Let's do as you said."

"Meh, you don't have to worry much. Your children are half-orcs, so their natural aptitude is far higher than humans. But for a safety measure, let's start setting down arrays."

Everyone got to work. They might have arrived at their destination, but they couldn't call this place "Home" unless they build one.

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It took the elders an entire day to build a make-shift filter array to prevent malicious Qi from coming close to the babies. The yin slaves couldn't go far from their children, so they couldn't help.

The hard tasks were given to Cao Mao, Ju Chen, and Kang Yan, who didn't have to watch over the children. The elders told them to build houses.

Cultivators were not carpenters. Although they cut trees with ease, turning lumbers into planks was not something they were familiar with. In the end, the three decided to build three houses without each other's help, competing against each other.

Cao Mao skipped a night of sleep to create a log house. Of course, he summoned helpers to cheat.

"KQ, White Album, do you know how to build a house?"

'Nope!'

[Nope!]

"Well, fuck it. You guys are useless!"

'You're stupidly useless. Are your wood element is for show?'

[That's right. Hooman, you can use wood element, so why don't you create a fucking house with your wood Qi? You can create tree root spikes, but you can't create a simple wooden house?]

"..."

Once more, Cao Mao was scolded for not being thorough.

After getting a piece of advice from the talking katana and a clone spirit, Cao Mao had an inspiration. He circulated his Life Essence and converted them into wood Qi. Then, he imagined what he wanted to create.

"Treehouse... A big tree house... No, a villa with a swimming pool..."

Cao Mao's imagination ran wild. He didn't realize that he already released the wood Qi.

RUMBLE

The ground shook. Cao Mao could sense that over 100 liters of his Life Essence were spent. Alarmed by the essence consumption, he snapped back to his sense and widened his eyes.

It was too late to react. A silver hopea odorata tree shot up from the ground. The wood element Qi created a 100-square-meter tree and a wooden building on top, but the house was 100 meters above the ground.

Cao Mao was also carried by the tree.

"What the!?"

Cao Mao looked at his creation in shock. The creation was too sudden. Moreover, it was different than what he had imagined. By the time he came back to his senses, he was sitting on the rooftop of a wooden square house, which only had eight windows. There was no door to get inside.

The tree villa he had envisioned was a luxurious 2-story house with a large tree trunk as its fences. However, this one was a tree with a giant wooden box on top.

Although Cao Mao was disappointed, he got down from the rooftop and checked the house interior.

Since there was no door, Cao Mao had to enter through one of the windows.

When Cao Mao got inside, his face distorted.

The interior walls already had a built-in wallpaper of several women's breasts. Human-sized statues of his yin slaves and Wei Yuan with the Jojo poses were at the center of the room.

There was no furniture other than the boob walls and the statue of his naked wives.

Looking at the pieces of art, Cao Mao forgot about everything. He reached out his hands to rubbed Wei Yuan Statue's breasts and compared them with the real size.

"Wow. It's even bigger than hers!"

The statues were made from Cao Mao's imagination. Even though everyone had different faces, their bodies and height were the same, reflecting his inner desire for this type of body.

It didn't take long for Ju Chen and Kang Yan to notice the massive tree. Ju Shoufen and Jia Wenhe also flew to the treehouse to investigate.

"Brat, what did you do again?" Ju Shoufen peeked from the window. When she spotted the statues and the boob walls, her face distorted in disgust.

Jia Wenhe was expressionless, "You should be ashamed of yourself, brat. Is sex the only thing in your mind? Can't you think of other things other than women's breasts and pussies? Well, a nice taste there. I used to create a wooden doll of a naked girl when I was young. But your creations are superb! Those boobs look smooth and clean! Good job."

"Wait a minute, Wenhe!"

"Give the boy a break. He's at the reproduction age. He's supposed to make hundreds of babies to continue his bloodline! Leave him be," Jia Wenhe laughed and waved his hand, teasing his mother-in-law. He also glanced at Cao Mao. "I don't care what you cultivate or what your secrets are anymore. But do me a favor. Learn a sound-proof technique. If you don't have the technique, come see me, so I can teach you the sound-proof array. It's okay to have sex, but be considerate of your neighbors, okay?"

Cao Mao had a wry smile on his face as he watched Jia Wenhe dragging his mother-in-law away. This elder looked scary at glance, but he was an easy-going person.

On the other hand, Jia Shan was scarier lately. During the past 2 months, he often scolded Cao Mao for having sex all day and neglecting the sword training. He even wanted Cao Mao to meditate and visualize a sword fight scene in his mind.

Of course, Cao Mao always worked hard without Jia Shan's reminder, but he did it in his Isolation Training Space. During the day time, he focused on refining Wei Yuan's constitution with his manual-dual-cultivation mode, so she could upgrade her base energy to Life Essence and increase her compatibility with wood Qi. Only at night, Cao Mao allocated half of the time in space self-training, sparring against clones, practicing various techniques, and studying alchemy. The rest of the time was spent having sex with the yin slaves.

Later that day, Kang Yan and Ju Chen helped Cao Mao creating a door and ladders. This place would be Cao Mao and Wei Yuan's personal living quarters from now on. Unfortunately, Wei Yuan threw away the wooden statues since it occupied too much space in the house.

The yin slaves continued sleeping inside the carriages for now as they waited for Kang Yan and Ju Chen to finish their houses. They preferred a simple house over the tall treehouse, which required them to jump up and down if they wanted to enter or leave.

The elders stayed outdoor as usual, except for Jia Shan. He dug a small tunnel inside Cao Mao's tree trunk to make his own cave. It became Jia Shan's humble home ever since.

The array was also completed within a day. The new home was far from complete, but everyone was satisfied.

.

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"Ah? Who the hell intrudes my secret base?"

A handsome teenager was floating in mid-air above the Xuan City, a city north of the Siren City. The distance between the two cities was 10 kilometers, but this person could sense the newcomers even from this distance.

The flying teenager was invisible to the local cultivators in the city. He was using the Heaven and Earth Escape technique, which temporarily turned his physical body into a transparent spirit.

Ma Moxie contemplated if he should fly there to check the intruders. However, he had unfinished business in this city that he had to complete within today.

He planned to assassinate someone, and that person was a son of a prominent clan lord.

"Tsk! I'll leave that city's matter for now. That bastard tried to kidnap Xingjuan. I need to kill him first!"

Ma Moxie flew to the Qiang Clan's estate, where his target always spent the night.

While Cao Mao was relaxing and building houses, another protagonist's story had already started.