Jin Shu closed his eyes and thought to himself. "I wonder if I'll be able to reincarnate again? Probably not I'm probably done for good this time."
A few minutes past as he waited for the inevitable transformation that he believed was about to occur. When he realized that his body wasn't getting any heavier. He opened his eyes and looked over at his shoulder and noticed that neither his skin nor his blood was turning into metal. Instead the tigers body was slowly melting, forming a pool of silver metal on the ground that was slowly wiggling towards him as if it were alive.
"Well that's new. I've never seen the Martian Metal do anything like this before."
The now seemingly living metal slowly crawled up Jin Shu's leg. That was when the Winged Tigers now lifeless statuesque corpse completely melted away.
Jin Shu wanted to brush the moving metal off but his right shoulder was broken and immobile and he had no strength left in the rest of his body either due to the heavy blood loss.
"What is this thing doing? It's not going to heal me is it?"
Jin Shu laughed weakly. "Haha nah that thinking is to wishful. It's probably going to incase me in a metal coffin before I die"
The now massive pool of squirming metal continued to climb up his leg, soon it reached his stomach and continued it's climb upwards, when it reached the height of his shoulders a small stream broke off and entered into the wound on his right shoulder, bringing with it searing pain. The rest of the metal was moving towards his head when it reached his head it tried to enter his open mouth, but Jin Shu quickly closed his mouth, not before a little of the liquid metal made it inside though.
Jin Shu tried coughing the metal back out to no avail. The metal was drowning him. When the rest of the liquid metal couldn't get into his mouth it covered his entire head and seeped into his nose, eyes and ears. It was causing Jin Shu unimaginable mind-numbing pain.
Jin Shu screamed in agony shortly before passing out from the pain and lack of oxygen.
"GAH!!"
"..."
An unknown amount of time passed when Jin Shu awoken. He sat up groggily, rubbing his throbbing head. "Gah... Ow my head hurts..."
Remembering what happened before he passed out Jin Shu looked down at his shoulder seeing most of the wound left by the tiger miraculously healed except for a piece of what looked like metal sticking out. "I thought I remember all of the tiger tuning into liquid? I guess not. I better pull this peice out before it decides to transform me."
He reached over with his left hand and attempted to pull the peice of metal out. When he pulled on it, it moved slightly but caused him to much pain to continue pulling, so he let go.
After he let go of the metal peice the now slightly opened wound bled some silver liquid and started to visibly heal. Then he could feel the bones in his shoulder start twisting, before the metal peice retracted into his body and the wound completely healed over. That was when he realized that wasn't a peice of the tiger, that was one of his broken bones.
"Was that a peice of my shoulder bone? Why was it metallic? Did that liquid turn the inside of my body into Martian Metal?"
"If it did turn my skeleton into metal, I don't think I want to call it Martian Metal anymore. I'd rather not go around have something called Martian Metal inside me, plus I never did like the name Martian Metal, it always reminded me of that little green cartoon alien, Marcus or whatever his name was. I think I'll call it Living Metal instead, that sounds much cooler."
"Now that the tiger is gone where am I supposed to get the metal I need for my bullets? Also what am I supposed to do with this pickaxe I inscribed with Sharpness runes and Flame runes for mining the metal? Wait! Pickaxe!? I totally forgot I had this stupid pickaxe. I could have used this when I was fighting that tiger. Well I guess there's no point in worrying about that now."
As he struggled to comprehend what had happened to him, he tried to stand up, however he was still quite weak from everything that had happened. He reached back to grab the mountain wall behind him, when he heard a cracking noise and felt his hand enter into what felt like stone. He looked back to see his hand stuck inside the rock wall.
"Is the rock that weak here? I shouldn't be able to crush rock with my bare hands like that. I believe that the last time I tested my grip strength was when I was in the 9th stage of the Body Refining Realm at that time my grip strength was around 800 pounds which is only slightly above average for a 9th stage Body Refiner. Even if I'm at the Qi Gathering Realm now my grip strength shouldn't have gone up by much seeing as how Qi Gathering doesn't strengthen the body as much as Body Refining does."
With his left hand stuck in the wall Jin Shu reached over with his right hand and knocked on the rock, it seemed like normal stone and not some brittle and weak stone either. He pulled his right hand back and formed a fist then threw a punch at the wall, the wall crumpled and shot dust and stone fragments outward. A few seconds later another cracking noise sounded close by.
*Crash*
After the dust cleared Jin Shu looked over to his right to see a crumbled piled of stone in a section of the cliff face with a cave behind it.
"No way I found a secret cave with a cultivators hidden legacy or some hidden treasure right?"
"I really shouldn't go into that cave, definitely not without a weapon. Well I guess I have my pickaxe but it's not really much of a weapon."
Oh... I really shouldn't, but I'm going to."
Jin Shu walked over to the cave entrance and peered inside. It was to dark to see very far into the cave, all he could make out was a tunnel that seemed to stretch into an endless void of darkness.
"Well nothing ventured nothing gained as they say."
Jin Shu entered the cave and walked through the twisting and winding tunnel that seemed to slope uphill, for about an hour, before he saw some light further ahead. Walking for a few more minutes he came upon a large open cavern with a hole in the ceiling that let in the sunlight. Laying directly below the hole was a nest of sticks and branches, with a orange and black striped egg.
"That must be a Winged Tigers egg. I wonder if it's the egg of the tiger I killed? If so that would make this a Demonic Beasts egg. From what I've heard a Demonic Beasts egg is born as a Demonic Beast and they can form spiritual contracts with cultivators before they hatch."
The nest was about 6 feet tall so Jin Shu had to climb up the nest. He examined the egg up close and noticed a King symbol (王) on top of the egg.
"Oh wow that's a King symbol! I've read about this in a book about rare Demonic Beasts. From what I remember the King symbol denotes the incredibly rare bloodline of a Monarch Winged Tiger, it was said that they can only be birthed by a Demonic Beast. Which means that tiger I killed was most likely this eggs mother."
"I think I remember the book saying that there was a special way to bind the egg in a spiritual contract. Normally to form a spiritual contract with a Demonic Beast you would have to have a cultivator of the Spirit Strengthening Realm craft a master/servant contract using your blood and the beasts blood. Thus making you the master of the Demonic Beast. However certain rare species have a spiritual consciousness formed at birth and they can form a special type of spiritual contract called a equality contract, this allows both parties in the contract to share Qi, this would allow you to essentially double your cultivation speed."
"To form this contract I need to place my forehead against the egg and concentrate my Qi into the egg, after which I need to bite the tip of my tongue and drop my blood onto the egg."
Jin Shu closed his eyes rested his head against the egg, the egg was warm to the touch, probably because it was resting in the sunlight. Next he concentrated the Qi from his forehead into the egg, then he bit his tongue and let the blood drop onto the egg. What he didn't notice was that his blood wasn't the normal red color but instead a metallic silver.
Jin Shu opened his eyes and was shocked to see the egg had turned a metallic silver color with black stripes and was now glowing with a dim silver hue.
"I don't remember the book I read saying anything about the egg changing colors when you form a contract."
As Jin Shu was wondering about the change in the eggs color a cracking noise followed by what sounded like a kitten meowing echoed in the cavern.
*Cra-Crack*
"Me-Mew!"
In the next second a little fluffy silver and black bundle of fur jumped out of the egg and slammed into his chest. The impact from the tiger cub knocked Jin Shu over, before he could get back up a rough little tongue started to lick his face. He started to feel a thought in his mind that seemed to say that it was hungry.
"This must be the feeling of the tiger cubs spiritual consciousness. Seeing as it was just hatched it can't yet form words."
The little cub stopped licking Jin Shu's face and let out a mighty roar. "Meeew!"
Jin Shu picked up the little cub and looked it over. It's fur was a metallic silver with black stripes and in the middle of its forehead there was a golden King symbol (王). It also had little wings, the feathers on its wings were a slightly darker silver color than it's fur.
With their connection he could also feel that the little cub was born at the first stage of the Qi Gathering Realm. From what he remembered reading a fully grown adult Monarch Winged Tiger would reach at least the Spirit Strengthening Realm.
The little cub protested in his arms "Mew-Mew"
"Alright I know, your hungry. Let's go get you something to eat. Your a little tiger so you should eat meat right?"
The little cub cocked it's head sideways and mewed confusedly "Mew?"
Jin Shu made a quick trip around the cavern to make sure he didn't miss anything. He found nothing but some moss and a crystal clear pond. He was quite thirsty so he drank a couple of mouthfuls of water, the little cub also took a few licks of the water as well. But quickly lost interest and started mewing again.
And with nothing else keeping him here Jin Shu walked back down the tunnel with the little cub in his arms mewing occasionally.
After a little over an hour of walking the cub had fallen asleep in Jin Shu's arms and they reached the end of the tunnel.
Stepping back out of the cave Jin Shu had to take a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light.
He spotted a little horned squirrel in a tree a few yards away. He bent down and picked up a stone from the rubble. "The little guy could probably eat a horned squirrel right?"
Jin Shu cocked his arm back and took aim at the little squirrel, he threw his arm forward and launched the stone at the squirrel.
*Swoosh*
*BANG!*
His aim was slightly off so he missed the squirrel and hit the tree branch that it was standing on. The branch exploded into fragments and the little squirrel dropped to the ground. It lay on the ground for a few seconds twitching before it grew still, it seemed to have died due to shock.
"OK something is definitely wrong, my strength has at least doubled after my skeleton was turned into Living Metal, I'll have to test my strength when I get back home."
Jin Shu walked over to the now deceased little squirrel, picked it up and handed it to the little cub, who had just been rudely awaken by a big bang.
The cub looked down at the squirrel than back up to Jin Shu, it shook it head and mewed in protest. "Mew!"
Jin Shu could feel a vague sense of rejection coming from his spiritual link with the cub.
"What do you mean? You don't want it?"
The cub nodded and sent a thought of acknowledgement "Mew"
"Well what do you want than?"
The cub stretched it neck forward toward Jin Shu's hand and bit down on it.
Jin Shu dropped the squirrel and yelped in surprise and a little pain "Ow!"
The little cub started to lick the silver blood off of his hand. "What are you some type of vampire tiger? Why are you drinking my bloo... wait why is my blood silver?"
He pulled the tiger cub back away from his hand, before he began to examine the blood dripping from the bite mark. The silver blood dripped off of his hand and slowly solidified into little droplets of metal on the ground.
"So it wasn't just my skeleton that was transformed, looks like my blood has also become Living Metal."
The cub mewed and struggled to get back to his bloody hand. "Mew!!"
All of the sudden Jin Shu realized that the Living Metal might harm the cub. So he quickly turned to the cub and asked if it felt alright. "Are you OK little buddy!? You don't feel your body getting heavy do you?"
He held the cub up to his eye level and checked to make sure it wasn't transforming into a metal statue. It didn't look like the cub was being affected by the Living Metal, at least not yet.
"Actually now that I think about it, I thought it was strange that your egg turned silver after I dropped my blood on it, plus from what I've read a normal Monarch Winged Tiger is orange and black just like a normal Winged Tiger, the only difference is the gold King symbol."
"Mew!"
The cub was still struggling trying to get to his hand, which had already healed at this point.
"Hold on, let me check something else."
Using the sharp point of his pickaxe Jin Shu pricked the cubs paw.
"Meeew!!"
The cub didn't like that at all.
Jin Shu looked at the blood that dripped out of the wound on the cubs paw in surprise. The cubs blood was a mix of red and silver.
Jin Shu turned to the cub and asked. "Is this why you want to drink my blood? To turn your blood into Living Metal like mine?"
The cub nodded it's head, but in the next second it shook it's head as well.
"Mew... Mew"
"So you do want to turn your blood into Living Metal but you're also just hungry?"
The cub nodded again.
Jin Shu took his pickaxe and cut his hand and offered it to the cub. "Alright, well hopefully this doesn't kill you."
The cub drank it's fill of his blood, yawned and then fell back to sleep.
"Alright time to head back home."
Jin Shu turned and headed back towards Black Mountain City.