Evil Mage Cultivation: The Immortal Enslavement Path-Chapter 90: The Cornerstone

The summoning ritual expanded outward and slowly formed into a massive emerald circle of light. Inside it, a glow appeared and gradually took physical shape, and when it finally settled, a giant Emerald Cloud Eagle materialized from thin air.

"Hello, master." Theron bowed its head low and bent its legs, then opened its eyes and tilted its head. With its exceptional sight it could tell immediately that not just the face, but every component of its master's body had changed.

If not for the soul connection binding them, it wouldn't have recognized the person standing in front of it as its master at all.

"I switched bodies since we last met. What do you think?" Han Suwen asked.

Theron went quiet. Its senses could feel the immense strength contained within, but it couldn't read any Qi signature from its master's body, as though he were an ordinary person. Which it also knew wasn't true.

"Master's power is boundless. I can't sense it at all." Theron regarded him with deep reverence, almost awe. Not long ago this man had been weaker than it, winning through wit and cunning alone. Now he had become something Theron couldn't even begin to measure.

"You've grown quite a lot as well. Just a few more steps and you'll reach the 9th stage. Good work." Han Suwen praised Theron's rate of development.

Beyond adapting to the magic he had granted it, the eagle had been pushing itself continuously, growing to nearly twice its original size.

Not only that, its heartbeat and senses had grown increasingly potent.

Evolution wouldn't be far off now.

"Enough catching up, let's go." With a single command, the giant winged beast lowered itself and Han Suwen leaped onto its back.

The moment he settled, Theron felt the weight of the presence behind it and shuddered.

As the apex predator of this stretch of sky, it had not had anything above it for a very long time.

But it calmed itself.

No matter how vast the sky it could hunt, it was bound by the contract for life, so there was nothing to fear. All it needed to focus on was fulfilling its duty to the fullest and keep on hunting.

"Yes, my master!" Theron's wings sheared the air and it launched into a streak of light before vanishing into the clouds.

In a few short breaths they touched down at the nest.

Had Han Suwen traveled here on his own it would have taken several hours.

'This is why I love flying mounts.'

Until teleportation could be used freely, a flying mount was the best alternative, and far superior to traveling on foot.

Han Suwen stepped off Theron and surveyed the surroundings. It hadn't changed much since he last checked in through Theron's senses, but the thick smell of decay hit him immediately, triggering something instinctive buried deep in the body's human nature.

It passed after a short while. He adjusted.

Han Suwen's body simply wasn't accustomed to that kind of smell, which was one more reason he needed to build his own.

In the end it was the same old smell, and if anything it was milder than the corpses he had worked with back when he first began learning the necromancy school of magic.

Han Suwen expanded his divine sense and took stock of what was here. Around seventy bodies, average cultivation at the 5th stage.

Theron had been busy, bringing back quite a number of quality disciples, some as young as eight years old and barely usable for the plan.

But barely usable still counted as usable, so that was a plus.

"Should have stayed home and played ball with your friends." Han Suwen shook his head.

Back in his world, venturing out into the wider wood required loads and loads of experience before any parent would ever allow it. These kids had learned to circulate their breath a little differently and thought that meant they could wander into the wilderness alone.

Such arrogance.

"You've got some nice bones piled up here too," Han Suwen remarked, looking over the waste dump Theron had made for itself. When it hunted other beasts for food, it had been dragging the carcasses back to eat here, and the result was a stack of bones sitting alongside the bloody corpse mountain.

"It's nothing, master. I hope you don't mind me hunting on my own," Theron said, feeling slightly uneasy about using the freedom his master's power afforded outside of direct orders.

"Not at all. As long as your assigned work is done, everything else is yours to do as you please. Just keep that in mind going forward." Han Suwen was far from a strict master.

He had certain expectations of his subordinates and all he wanted was for those expectations to be met. Beyond that, he didn't care, it was welcome even.

After observing the surroundings and finishing his planning, he stopped.

"You must be curious why I wanted a pile of rotten, mangled, decayed corpses full of maggots and fungus, right?" Han Suwen asked.

"Yes." If it said no it would be a lying. As a beast, simply piling up meat without doing anything with it was a concept it couldn't quite grasp. Even a bear would eat all its food or store it inside its body, and those that hoarded food usually only hoarded things that didn't decay.

And truthfully, the smell had been bothering it for a while now.

It had simply kept enduring it out of obedience.

"Biology lesson time," Han Suwen smiled. He knew Theron would be the only one here smart enough to follow along, given that it shared a portion of his intellect through their link.

"How is a cultivator's body different from a normal human or beast?" He called out a large number of spirit stones, nearly 5000 of them, and they danced outward, expanding into multiple magic circles that connected to one another.

"Compared to a normal human, not by much. The base is mostly the same regardless of how different the surface appears, and this trait carries over even when a human becomes a cultivator." From all the time he had spent studying these people, he had picked up some interesting facts along the way.

"That is why martial techniques can be passed down through generations, even a thousand years after their creation, because the user will always be fundamentally the same human down the line." As the magic finished forming, tentacles of light slowly descended and began dragging the dead bodies away one by one.

"And beasts?"

Suddenly, as one of the dead bodies touched the spinning magic circle, it was ground down into blood and meat, then separated into two contained magic spheres, turning the light show into a blood ritual stained with a dark gleam.

"Every beast is unique. Not just by race, but also by their spirit connection, their bloodline, even their rank." He glanced at Theron, which looked back at him, vaguely following what its master was laying out, though with some difficulty.

"Beasts like you have too many unique variables. Even within the same race, a pack leader and an ordinary member would be fundamentally too different to compare." Beasts evolved at a fundamental level, and it was an erratic and unpredictable act of nature, while human progression was locked into a defined path.

"While I could combine two different beasts into a new species, it would take so much effort it would hardly justify the cost." Han Suwen smirked at Theron. "But if you ever wanted it done, just bring me the target alive and I'll do it for you."

"Thank you for your kindness, master. I'll consider it." Theron partially understood, but if it meant becoming stronger, it was willing, even if it would no longer be counted as an emerald cloud eagle at that point. Who cared what they called you when you were stronger?

"Back to cultivators. Just like humans, they are mostly the same, and because they are the same, if you figure out one, you've figured out them all." Slowly, the pile was consumed and broken down into raw materials waiting to be used. Brains, blood, muscle, nerves, and dantian.

Not exactly in their original forms, since everything had been ground to pieces and stripped of impurities, but the raw material of a human being was right here.

He wasn't going to create a human though. He was going to do something far worse.

Had you ever questioned how much of a human still counted as human?

The raw material slowly flowed into the air as Han Suwen's hands moved like a conductor drawing out dark musical notes. The parts gradually took shape, a massive partial human anatomy assembling itself piece by piece.

"One human brain has its limits," Han Suwen's smile grew wider and wider, wider than even a beast's taunt, wide enough that it made Theron uneasy.

Han Suwen knew he would never be able to utilize six million bodies worth of material with just one brain.

But.

"One really powerful one though... oh. That's different!"

Everything connected at once.

Dantian fused into a power source, nerves threaded into pathways, muscle and brain matter pressing together and condensing into a cube no larger than a meter across, then tightening further, folding inward until it sat in his palm like something that had always been small.

Then, like the first breath of a newborn, the excess magical energy was drawn inside.

Thump. Thump.

He looked down at the thing in his hand as it beat like a heart.

His first one in this world.

The cornerstone that every mage who ever dreamed of lichdom spent their life trying to create.

A phylactery.