Li Huang and Xue Fang quickly arrived at a waterfall, and Li Huang looked around confused for a bit as Xue Fang sneered.
With a wave of her hand, the waterfall opened, and Li Huang's eyes widened.
The cult was hidden behind the waterfall!
a whole mountain carved to be used as a base for the cult!
As Xue Fang and Li Huang walked inside, Xue Fang continued explaining a few things to her.
"our greatest enemies here in the eastern continent are the Golden Body Buddhist sect and the Azure Wood Dragon Sect."
"The Buddhists are capable of using holy techniques that hurt us more than normal techniques and attack us based on our karma, while the Azure Wood Dragon Sect has an almost unlimited pool of blood and essence, making it ridiculously hard to abuse them using blood-draining techniques."
"I am one of the elders here in this stronghold, so you won't have to go through a screening process. You should go and ask around; this outmost part is for those like you, starting out on the cult or the weakest members."
"You are on your own now," Xue Fang said as she walked away, leaving Li Huang alone.
Li Huang looked around for a bit and walked towards the first place she saw, a small reception-like desk carved into the wall.
A bored guy was sitting there doing basically nothing.
As Li Huang approached, the guy groaned and sat upright.
"Yeah, what do you want?" he asked as he sighed.
"Is there a uniform for me? or a place to sleep? or what the hell do I do? Are there tasks or jobs I have to do?"
"A newbie, huh? alright" The man seemed a bit more energetic but not much.
The man reached under the desk and pulled out a light red robe and a jade pendant.
"That is your uniform; it's for the new or young bloods. It's light red to represent you still have not taken enough blood for our cause."
"The pendant can be used to accept missions or check odd jobs while also determining where you can sleep; young bloods don't have many sleeping places, so you have to fight over them. If you defeat someone that has a house in combat, you can take their house over."
"All you have to do to activate the pendant is to drop one drop of blood on it and create yourself a profile."
"A profile?" Li Huang asked with a curious look on her face.
"Yeah, age, name, cultivation level, and field name," the receptionist began to explain.
"the age is for us to know if you are worth it; being too old and weak is a big red flag; name so we can have that in more formal meetings, cultivation level to know where you go to do missions, and field name so you don't get your identity exposed out there; if you want a field name that is already taken, just fight that person and win the right to use it."
Li Huang nodded and bit down at her thumb, breaking the skin and causing a drop of blood to fall on the pendant.
She quickly put in her age, new name, and cultivation level, and then for field name she tried to put blood phoenix, but someone already had it, so she just changed it to demonic phoenix.
She wanted to put Blood Phoenix as that is quite literally her name, but Demonic Phoenix is also a good name.
Li Huang put on the robes over her clothing and nodded.
with the pendant hanging from her neck, hidden inside her robe, she nodded again.
"Any other information you might need, just use the pendant." the guy in the desk said as he slumped over his chair again to sleep a bit
Li Huang caressed her chin a bit and looked at her pendant and found where the houses were.
She walked only a bit until she found them.
Behind a big double stone door was the living area.
many stone houses all around and many people lounging there
As Li Huang entered, everyone turned to look at her.
She was new.
The houses were, more or less, the same, so Li Huang made her way to a random one.
The house was obviously occupied.
She took out her pendant and used it a bit before finding what she wanted.
As soon as Li Huang pressed on her pendant, a guy's pendant vibrated, and he frowned and made his way to Li Huang.
As he looked at Li Huang, he grinned.
"How about this girl? I will let you sleep in my house if you warm my bed." He licked his lips as he looked at Li Huang's body and face.
"How about this: I won't kill you and only take your dick off." Li Huang said as she narrowed her eyes at the man.
The man laughed and got ready to fight.
"I will use your body after we are done here."
Li Huang just shook her head and got ready to fight as well.
The man lunged at Li Huang with a jab, but she swiftly dodged to the side and kneed his groin before putting her hands behind his neck and kneed his face twice and kicked his groin once more, sending him flying away a few meters.
the man twitched on the ground as his skull fractured in a few places and his testicles were turned into mush
the people watching quickly turned away as Li Huang glared at them
Li Huang looked at the man on the floor.
"You are in my house; can you leave?" she said to the unconscious man
a few of the sharper ones immediately felt a shiver run down their spine
After not receiving an answer, Li Huang moved closer.
"You are on my property; if you don't leave, I will use force."
Everyone was now either laughing or horrified.
Li Huang picked the man up by his collar and tossed him on the ground, making him bounce one time on the stone floor and leaving Li Huang's residential grounds.
After that display, Li Huang walked inside her new home.
She just wanted to show everyone that she was not an easy target and was also ruthless.
get herself a profile
once inside Li Huang sighed and began looking at her pendant for jobs she could do.
and she quickly found something that would resolve many of her issues
"Infiltration job: enter a golden body Buddhist monastery and try and get information. New blood only, first-stage cultivator only."
She quickly selected the job and sent a request.
After a bit she received her green light, so she just smiled and walked outside and exited her home.
As she was passing by the reception guy, he called out to her.
"Hey, you should probably leave the pendant and robe here; you can get them back later. You can't be walking around with a target on your back while outside."
Li Huang nodded, as that made sense, and gave the receptionist both of them for him to hold on to and walked outside.
unbeknownst to Li Huang, she was being watched by Xue Fang
If she tried anything, she would die.
Li Huang knew that almost certainly someone was watching her, but she didn't know how or who.
from the pendant she had received all the information she needed from the monastery location and how to reach it
Li Huang ran most of the way, and after an hour she arrived at the monastery.
"Hello there, child, Do you need anything?" one of the monks asked with a smile, brown robes on his body and shaved head
"Yes, I am traveling around, and my food and water just ended; could I please get some? I can work and help out to pay back what I take. Li Huang answered with a smile as she spoke.
"No need to worry, child. Come, I will get you something to eat, some water, and enough to last you a few days on the road."
"Please, I can't accept such a thing without repaying the karma; let me work here for a day." Li Huang bowed down, and the monk could only relent.
"Alright, child, you can water the gardens and remove whitered or dead leaves from our plants; that should pay for what you need."
The monk walked and showed Li Huang the well where she could get water, the bucket, and a gardening knife.
Li Huang smiled as she took a bucket and filled it with water before she began watering the plants and taking care of the garden.
While doing so, she made sure to hear anything the monks talked about near her.
She had to at least go back with something.
Meanwhile, the queen insect that was sleeping in her bellybutton woke up and began flying away.
Li Huang did not look or even acknowledge the queen insect as it flew away.
As Li Huang was doing her thing, hearing out for information, the queen insect was making its way into the depths of the monastery.
The queen quickly arrived at the feet of an old monk sitting cross-legged near a statue of Buddha while lighting incense.
The queen flew past the old monk's face, and he frowned at the insect. Just as he was about to escort it away, he noticed it was not a normal insect.
The insect flew in the air, and his eyes widened as he read what the insect wrote in the air.
"follow"
"help"
"danger"
the old monk just thought for a bit before ringing a bell near him
a monk quickly rushed in
"Take two others and follow this insect," the old monk said before going back to his praying. The monk bowed down and nodded.
"Yes, teacher."
The monk whistled, and two other monks quickly came to him, and the three began following the insect.
The queen got on the leading monk's body under his robe and began guiding them as they flew away from the monastery.
Li Huang looked at the three flying monks and only smiled before going back to her thing.
After watering all the plants and taking care of withering and dead leaves, she took some food and water and left.
After reaching the blood demon cult hideout and getting her things back, Li Huang wrote a report.
"Three strong monks flying southwest; all the monks are relaxed, not many things are happening, and there is low security. They accepted me as a traveler and offered me food and water for free even without knowing me."
after writing the report Li Huang put on her robe and pendant and made her way to her home to go to sleep.
While Li Huang was sleeping, the monks arrived at the island, and the queen insect quickly found Yi Yan.
Once everyone saw them, they all sighed in relief and began explaining everything to them.
Of course, they left a few things out.
such as Li Huang becoming a member of the Blood Demon Cult
for her safety, of course, as if news spread, Li Huang would surely die.
Li Huang continued living inside the Blood Demon cult hideout and doing all sorts of jobs that became available to her.
Meanwhile the Group of Seven had returned to the northern continent and were currently discussing how to proceed.
"We should tell someone, our fathers, maybe even our sect masters and elders." Gang Jian began
"What if the wrong person hears that and Li Huang dies for being considered a spy?" Yi Yan rebutted quickly.
"So what the hell do we do? We let her rot? be corrupted and wait until we all hear news about the atrocities she did?" Jun Lan said with a concerned voice,
"We can't just tell anyone; we have to be intelligent with it." Guo Juan tried to calm things down.
"What about her aunt? What was her name? Xie Ning, right? We should at least tell her."
"How? Technically we are still missing! We are in the middle of a bunker under the Black Winter Empire!" Yang Chang added as he sighed and lay down on a couch, and everyone also got pessimistic while looking around.
steel walls, floors, and ceilings, all to keep them safe for some time while everyone fakes them still being missing to trick the blood demon cult.