Villain Cultivator

184 Essence Cores

After coming back from the slum, Cao Mao sat on his bed, staring at the two essence cores.

The two palm-sized balls had the value of 2,000,000 refined stones. Yet, Cao Mao was unhappy.

The existence of these items showed that another higher tier of currency was circulating in the market. Then, top sects should also have many of these essence cores.

Therefore, the bid for the mural might be fierce. Several top sects might gun for it, and Cao Mao would never have enough cash to compete with them.

'Do I have to give up the mural piece?'

Cao Mao closed his eyes. He tried to put himself in a protagonist's shoes and think of an idea to obtain the mural.

Stealing it from the auction or bidding for it was impossible.

Then, how about robbing it from the auction winner?

Still, snatching something from a top sect or clan would be suicide. Unless he was a protagonist with unreasonable plot armor and OP skills, he and his family might have to face the wrath of all villains.

'If only a protagonist can have it…'

Cao Mao thought of Ma Moxi's face. He chuckled.

'Should I let him have it? Nah, he will probably empty his piggy banks for whatever items he wants for his grandfather, and he will get it one way or another. Some idiot son of a sect master will eventually find trouble with Ma Moxi, and that fucker will get all items from the dead rivals.'

As Cao Mao semi-gave up pursuing the mural piece in the auction event, he stored essence cores and various pills into his system inventory and fell asleep.

.

Isolation Training Space

Cao Mao brought out both essence cores from his system inventory. Then, he absorbed its energy.

An invisible flow of energy rushed into his arms, torso, and legs. Cao Mao's dantian also absorbed all flowing essence water like a whirlpool in the middle of a river.

Ding

\u003cYou have absorbed 1,514 liters of life essence.\u003e

\u003cYou have absorbed 1,321 liters of life essence.\u003e

\u003cYou have absorbed 1,259 liters of life essence.\u003e

\u003cYou have absorbed 1,537 liters of life essence.\u003e

System messages came out non-stop, but Cao Mao had no time to pay attention to the screens around him. He focused on directing the flow of essence into his dantian, so they could merge with his essence pool.

Normally, cultivators had to extract either yin or yang energy from the life essence to use. But for Cao Mao, his constitution could directly absorb life essence, so he did not need to go through a conversion hassle.

Twenty minutes later, the essence cores ran out of energy. They disintegrated into dust.

Moreover, the "Core" within the pool grew larger. Although it was still glowing in green light because of the wood element, it looked resemble the "Essence Cores" that Cao Mao had just absorbed.

Cao Mao had a deep frown on his face as he wondered why the dantian's "Essence Core" was called that way and where the physical "Essence Core" came from. He had a disgusting theory, but he didn't want to acknowledge it.

'Is it possible that an essence core is a cultivator's actual "essence core" in their dantian!? If so, how does it contain life essence instead of yin or yang essence?'

Ding

\u003cEssence cores that you have consumed are different than essence cores in the dantians of local cultivators.\u003e

"Oh?"

The system was surprisingly kind today. It revealed some information without Cao Mao asking it.

\u003cThe essence cores in this world are the refined dantians of the dead cultivators from the primordial time. In the ancient past, people cultivated life essence instead of yin and yang essence, and they went through ordeals that you went through so far, including how they condensed their essence core by using the same standard as you did.\u003e

"Wait, what!?"

The tale sounded cliché, but Cao Mao had several questions in his mind.

How did the system sponsor know? If the system sponsor knew, was he someone from the ancient era?

What was the purpose of this system? What was the purpose of the system sponsor for nurturing him?

\u003cWhen a cultivator condenses a sea of life essence, that person's essence core will be truly born. This type of essence core can only contain 50,000 liters of life essence. Your sponsor and the people in the ancient time called this type of core a rank 1 core.\u003e

"So, there are higher tiers."

\u003cCorrect. You can get 50,000 liters of life essence from a rank-one core, but you will get 500,000 liters from a rank-two core.\u003e

\u003cBut before we go into the details, shouldn't you start solidifying your "Core"?\u003e

Now that the system reminded Cao Mao, he discovered that the life essence water in his dantian floated around. They did not gather in one place as the gravity power from the essence core was lacking.

Cao Mao manually moved the water droplets and bubbles of life essence water to the pond. Yet, it did not stay in one place. Some of them flocked toward the lightning cloud on the top of his dantian and got consumed by the residual element energy.

He had the urge to ask the system for help, but he recalled something regarding the element power and its cores.

The wood element crystal had merged with the essence core when he first broke through to the half-step 4th-stage, and the system used to give it an evaluation.

--

Element Crystal Levels

Wood (Primary): 1/3

Lightning (Secondary): 2/2 (MAX)

--

'Element crystal level and essence core… If I raise the wood element level, can it enhance my core?'

This theory did not make sense, but Cao Mao felt believed that it was related, judging from the size of crystals and their level. The lightning element crystal was three times bigger than the size of his life essence core, which had merged with the wood element crystal.

Cao Mao opened his system inventory menu and stared at the icon of wood spirit pills, which he had prepared for his yin slaves and Wei Yuan. 98,588 pills were sitting in the inventory space.

These pills were mutated pills, which had been enhanced by Cao Mao's orc bloodline and his life essence energy. When they were created by the mass-production cheat, the system also bestowed the characteristic of Cao Mao's bloodline and energy to the pills. The wood element Qi from the wood corn kernel became milder and easier to digest.

At first, Cao Mao wanted to give these pills to his yin slaves, so they could condense a wood element crystal. But now, he needed them.

Cao Mao pulled a pill from the inventory menu and tossed it in his mouth.

As soon as the pill entered his stomach, it melted and released wood element Qi into his blood vessels. Cao Mao directed them to his dantian right away.

As the pill contained a bit of Cao Mao's life essence and his orc bloodline, it was so compatible with him to the point that his body did not reject the pill effect. Regardless of how many pills he ate, his body would never develop a resistance against the pill effect.

Thus, pill intoxication syndrome that Cao Mao once had during the fight with Xie Tian would never happen again with the spirit wood pill!

Sensing the compatibility between his pill and his body, Cao Mao shoved ten more pills into his mouth and chew them like candies. Wood element Qi rushed into his dantian and automatically merged with his essence core.

When more wood element Qi entered the essence core, it grew larger and the gravity force around the core got stronger. Then, more essence water gathered and condensed with the pond.

Cao Mao laughed. As he had expected, his essence core and the wood element crystal were deeply related. Since the wood element was his primary element, the power level of this element reflected the strength of his life essence core.

'I don't know how, but I don't care. I'll just feed it with more wood Qi!'

Cao Mao started eating spirit wood pills as if they were snacks. After eating spirit wood pills for three hours and digesting a thousand pills, the system finally gave him feedback.

Ding

\u003cCongratulations, your wood element crystal level has increased.\u003e

'Yup, it works.'

The life essence core in Cao Mao's dantian got three-times bigger. It had become the same size as the lightning element crystal, and its gravity force attracted more life essence water to the pond.

But that was not enough. The water mass still floated above the pool as the gravity force couldn't pull everything in the dantian space to itself.

Cao Mao took a deep breath and controlled the life essence mass to merge with the pool. Then, he continued eating the spirit wood pills.

.

.

100 hours later, Cao Mao finally raised his wood element crystal level to 3, which was the max level he could get at the moment.

As soon as the life essence core got bigger again, it became easier to condense all essence water into one place. Although Cao Mao lost a few liters of life essence water to the lightning element crystal, most of the energy remained intact.

Ding

\u003cCongratulations, your wood element crystal level has increased.\u003e

\u003cYou have collected over 100,000 liters of essence water and form a complete pond.\u003e

\u003cYou have ascended to the essence gathering realm!\u003e

\u003cYou can upgrade element crystals to a higher level.\u003e

Cao Mao lied down and clenched his fist.

"Ha! I'm a genius! WOOOOO!!"

From now on, Cao Mao could call himself a full-fledged 4th-stage expert, even though it was an early stage. He was confident that he could take on anyone in the same realm, including the protagonists.

But for now, Cao Mao needed to relieve his stress. He summoned Ju Chen to the space, so he could violate this girl. Moreover, he was curious if he could ask for this Ju Chen's [Blood Essence] and trigger another race change quest since she was now a [Queen].

When Ju Chen appeared in the space, she looked around. Then, she turned to her master with a bright smile, "You finally call for me. I'm tired of waiting."

Cao Mao scoffed. He checked this strong-willed girl's status to see if her loyalty dropped again.

--

Ju Chen Character Settings

Loyalty: 280%

Love: Food, Blood, Sleeping, Ju Shoufen, Jia Wenhe, Ju Jia, Mao Miaomiao

Like: Mao Miaomiao's Wives, the orc babies, Wei Yuan's baby.

Hate: Yuan Clan, and Xu Clan

Trait: Protective, Caring, Loving, Motherly, Cheerful, PTSD, and Assertive.

Life Goal1: Be Mao Miaomiao's loving wife and boast his greatness to the world.

Life Goal2: Convince Ju Shoufen to become Mao Miaomiao's yin slave.

Life Goal3: Convince Jia Wenhe, Jia Shan, and Ju Jia to become Mao Miaomiao's servants.

--

Fortunately, her loyalty didn't drop.

However, there was a change in her personality. The former [Expressive] turned into [Assertive], and her life goals became weird.

Cao Mao had a deep frown on his face. He sat up and stared at Ju Chen, "Chen'er. What have you been doing these days? What are you planning? I need you to tell me everything in detail.