Jiang Mang had now become aware of all the obvious changes, but to know everything, he had to speak with the poison spirit herself. He made the poison orb appear before him and unsealed her appearance. The alluring figure of the poison spirit appeared in front of him, but she had an angry look on her face.
She immediately started shouting: " Bastard, how long were you going to keep me sealed in that small space!!"
Jiang Mang answered: " I don't even know if I should keep you or not?" This statement terrified her for a second, but she immediately returned to being angry:" Bastard, am I not beautiful enough to keep around? Why should you even be afraid of me, when you can control my every action? I can also tell you, that by keeping me, as long as your cultivation is sufficiënt, I will grow with you, which will automatically raise your comprehension of the poison dao."
Jiang Mang responded: " You mean, that after we fused, your cultivation base is tied with my own, while I share with you the same characteristics of the nether flower."
The poison spirit acknowledged before continuing: "You are right as I am now dependent on you for raising my cultivation, while you have not only gained my comprehension towards poison, but also immunity to all poison equal or weaker than me. You are also able to summon my spirit outside your mind, which is equal to peak saint stage cultivators, while I have to obey any of your requests, and if you die, I will die as well."
Jiang Mang was now clear to how their relationship entailed and was happy about his gains. He spoke the following words to end their discussion: "I understand your circumstances now and have decided to allow you to stay in your current form in my mind, while I will also give you the name Gu Hei, which I will now call you by."
Gu Hei responded with a laugh and spoke: "Pretty boy, I accept the fitting name for me and will stay obediently in your mind recovering the soul power I lost when I tried to possess you."
After that, Jiang Mang left Gu Hei alone in his mind, while he returned his attention to the outside. He was now back to seeing darkness and using his other senses to feel the whereabouts of the others. He immediately found Feng Xue concocting pills while Chu Lingxin kept the lookout for intruders or saint beasts, and Hua Ye was meditating next to him, probably to keep an eye on him.
Jiang Mang stood up and alerted his friends. Hua Ye opened his eyes and asked about his condition to which he responded that everything was fine. When Feng Xue was done concocting pills, the four gathered together and renewed their plans for the recruitment. They had gathered almost a thousand points by now, and with Jiang Mang's gaining his perfected poison intent, which should now increase their rate of gathering. They should be guaranteed a spot in the top thousand, but they are now aiming for the top hundred as those people would be regarded with more importance than the rest. Hua Ye and Jiang Mang were both equal to those in the top 100 rankings, while the two girls were only just below the top 100, which should make their team capable of facing those below the top twenty.
The team started clearing all the beasts around the cave after their gathering ended. The days continued to pass peacefully, besides the occasional encounter with other participants, who were swiftly dealt with. The first month of the three months had passed, when all the saint beast in their immediate surroundings were dealt with. The team of four had managed to gather six thousand points worth of beast corpses, after this month of fighting and robbing.
The team had also managed to increase their cultivation slightly with Jiang Mang reaching small accomplishment in both the speed and claw intent, while Feng Xue reached small accomplishment in her scorching intent.
Hua Ye and Chu Lingxin remained at the same level but had managed to polish all their techniques to perfection.
These small improvements managed to increase their teamwork and damage output against enemies and had increased their chances of entering the top 100. They had also decided to start hunting other participants, as saint beasts were becoming quite scarce after a month.
Gu Hei was still inside Jiang Mang's mind, but she had managed to recover her soul force to her peak and started bothering Jiang Mang daily out of boredom. Now was such a moment, when the team was recovering there qi. Gu Hei was trying to get Jiang Mang's attention while standing in front of his soul. He had gotten used to it after a short period and became capable of ignoring her. Gu Hei remained unsuccessful when she suddenly gained an idea. She knew that Jiang Mang was only interested in getting stronger and protecting his friends, which brought her the idea to try and exchange knowledge for certain privileges. She had recently become interested in weapons after seeing Chu Lingxin use the sword and Jiang Mang using his hidden weapon mastery, but Jiang Mang didn't allow her as he still didn't trust her completely.
Gu Hei said the following, which attracted Jiang Mang's attention: " I know of the location of a spirit spring, which should allow one person to increase their cultivation by a small stage. I got to know about it from that viper king, which you guys killed." Jiang Mang immediately knew that she wanted something for the piece of information and started pondering. He eventually decided to give in to her by saying the following:" I will give you my poison dagger technique so that you can create yourself some hidden weapons. While I am willing to create an illusion in my mind for you to practice hidden weapon mastery. I will also give you access to my musical instruments if you are bored in the future to keep yourself busy by playing music. Gu Hei immediately agreed, before giving him all the information she knew about the spirit spring.
The spirit spring was located on a mountain, which was guarded by the king of the island, a six-tailed fox, whose bloodline had awakened. It could rival King realm cultivators when it used its bloodline and was capable of human speech through its extraordinary intelligence.
It specialized in illusions and speed attacks, while its claws could pierce through any saint realm defense.
The mountain was also inhabited by fox groups that originated from the six-tailed fox. The spirit spring was also located inside its nest and viewed as its greatest treasure, as its bloodline had awakened through it. It was thus required to slay the fox king if they wanted to use the spirit spring.