You ever have one of those moments where something is not working or is blocked and then you find the blockage, like one of those times where the vacuum is plugged so you have to take it apart until you find the blockage
It was like that except so much better when I finally laid my eyes on the Corpse Parasyte, I had fought and butchered the hellhound over the course of nearly 3 hours if you counted the preparation stage! And seeing that ugly little weasel just made it all worth it
It was coiled around the core like a snake and appeared to be hissing at me like a started cat, I was contemplating how I should kill it in a way that would be satisfying when I came up with an idea
Over the of the hour, I spent butchering the murder puppy a fair portion of my chi had returned, while it was only around a third of my full capacity it was likely more than enough h to deal with this Bastard
Moving quicker than it could react I, using the back of my forearm back handed it into the air above me "enjoy hell kekeke" I couldn't help but yell at it before concentrating the chi into my mouth and firing a beam that directly hit it and reduced it to dust, giving me a nice firework display
After spending a few seconds just taking in my victor I returned my gaze toward the shining core. It was swirling unlike the other cores that I had previously which more glowed like l small sun. upon closer inspection as I removed it from the body and held it in front of me I noticed that that it seemed to be filled with little flecks of red amongst the purple.
Taking it firmly between my arms I began to think about the odd core and could only confirm that this was one of the ever rare "distorted cores". A distorted core was created when the spiritual cores of two beasts came into proximity and naturally merged, phenomena know as spiritual heresy due to the very idea of it going against the heavens
As my tree and the flowers surrounding it came into focus, I was faced with a dilemma, see a normal cultivator would never touch a core that was distorted due to it bringing both a higher chance of death as well as its possibly mind warping effects, a distorted core was about as corrupted as spiritual energy could get without the direct intervention of an actual demon or heretic god.
And as such It could cause the cultivator to go insane and enter a killing rage. However, this did not apply to either Beasts or Demonic Cultivators. Beast were unable to be spiritually affected by cores due to their physiology and would instead face greater physical changes once they went up a class, and a demonic cultivator's soul was generally already used to taking in corrupted and heretical materials meaning it had little to know effect on their minds.
Reaching my tree and climbing into the space within I basically collapsed on the ground as my adrenaline finally ran out and I was left tired on the ground, I had spent a little time during my training improving my living situation and now had a cozy little home with a bed made of moss and soft grass.
I made my way towards my makeshift bed and placed the core next to me as I curled up/sat on the bed
A major part of phase 2 of my escape plan had been completed and all I had to do was successfully class up into a Wild Beast and then I would be ready to search for and protect an apprentice cultivator as to use them to find the way out
I lifted the core towards me and prepared to begin my "evolution" into a higher class, I made sure that there was nothing near my base that could potentially cause a risk or damage to my self and then began to bite into the basketball sized crystal. I had only reach halfway through by the time the pain began… it started feeling like my skin was itchy and this caused me to eat even faster, by the time I had eaten the last of the core It already felt like my skin was burning.
The pain kept rising as I felt my skin and muscles tare and mend only to tare again, I felt my whole skeleton shatter bone by bone before reconstructing in a different size and shape than before causing the tearing of skin to begin tearing all over again.
I felt each and every part of body change but unlike the first time I had eaten a core I was know aware of my chi, so I felt a entirely new pain as my chi and spiritual pressure where assaulted by a foreign energy
I don't know how long the rosses took but it felt like years, possible even decades before a strange cocoon made of my own blood, sweat, bone fragment and chi formed around my snapped and twisted body and all I could see was an inky red
I have no idea how many changes my body went through, it was bad enough that I was ascending classes but add on top of that, when a beast normally ate a distorted core they weren't at a stage where it caused them to rank or class up and so their body had some time to adjust to the heretical force, but no not me I went and ate it immediately causing greater pain and mutation
Smart guy huh?
Then everything went black