A Scheme Is Brewing

- Host's Mind: Layer 2 -

Leaning forward over the table, Demon placed his elbow on the table and his hand on his chin in a resting position. In boredom, he stared aimlessly at the amalgamation of bugs. "How long till it gains sentience?"

Producing a glass of wine, Shadow nonchalantly turned his head to the side to look at it. "I couldn't say; my only basis for how long something takes to gain sentience is you, and you're existence happened like a flash bomb; one moment you didn't exist, and in the next, you were there."

Shadow cleared up the fog like shadows covering to reveal a heavily burned body. "Plus, this chair and table don't appear to have consciousness; as such, it wouldn't be too outlandish to assume that this amalgamation of bugs is nothing more than exactly that, an amalgamation of bugs."

Just as he had finished speaking, a voice that sounded like a phone call with a bad connection echoed forth from the bugs. "A good assu. . .mption, but a wro-ng one non-the-less. But, sadly, mak. . .ing wrong assu-mptions is the only . . thing one can do whe-n one lacks infor. . .mati-on." Some of the words coming out of the creature would pause like a bad connection over the phone; however, unlike a phone call, none of the transmission was actually lost.

Raising an eyebrow at the bugs, Demon leaned back in his seat before dropping his feet on the table, making a clunk sound similar to when a steel pan is placed on top of a stove. "Are all the bugs speaking, or is there something inside the mass that is speaking?"

"We apologize for . . . our lack of fluent speech . . . as we don't possess . . . actual vocal cords; rather, we make our legs vibrate, creating sounds that . . mimic what vocal cords can produce. Our name is Hive; it refers to..."

"Hive mind." Shadow interrupted Hive as he slowly thought more and more about the implications and special design behind Hive, trying to connect the dots.

". . . Exactly correct. You see, our ability is to look at things from. . . different angles. It grants us new insight into prob-lems that would otherwise stump even the least tunnel-visioned of in-divid-uals." As Hive talked, he became more fluent with his words. "There are many reasons why people fail: lack of experience, ignorance, poor luck, and tunnel vision. All humans fall pray to tunnel vision. When a batter is on the plate and watches a ball fly for them, tunnel vision is good, as you would want all of your energy and focus to be spent on that ball. However, when a scientist is stuck doing the same experiments again and again because it almost worked that one time, tunnel vision instead becomes a funnel that takes away all his research funds."

- Southern Border: Croaking Mountain Swamp -

"Hey, are you interested in doing business?"

Upon hearing those words from Xie Ling, Vai Tao considered the many advantages and disadvantages.

After he thought about it for a while, he found little reason to not at least talk. After all, he had already been found out, and talking wouldn't put him in any danger as he could still talk from a safe distance. If he didn't like the business deal, he could simply go back to plan one, hunting him down from a safe distance.

Vai Tao opened his mouth to reply when he noticed a trickle of blood begin dripping from Xie Ling's nose. This sudden additional variable prompted him to take a step back and calculate the new variables: just by doing nothing, the damage done to Xie Ling's body would continue to accumulate, and all he had to do was stall for time.

Meanwhile, inside Xie Ling's mind, Shi Zhe was throwing a tantrum.

- Xie Ling's mind -

"Give me the body!"

"Not now; I'm busy thinking of a way to get us out of this situation."

"Oh yeah? Like giving the body a stroke? We can all see the amount of mental energy you're forcing through the body. Just look! Even blood has begun dripping from the nose."

Hua Zhe paused for a moment to look at the injury. If Shi Zhe hadn't told him about it, then it would have likely taken a few hours before he noticed. "The raise in blood pressure from the Emotion Path hidden attack has caused a nose bleed; it's nothing to worry about; it won't impact my fighting capability.

"Don't bull*** me! The rise in blood pressure is obviously your fault! Your fighting capability is a joke; let a real man deal with this."

Hua Zhe rolled his eyes. He knew that if Shi Zhe were given control over the body, he wouldn't care about the possible problems that may arise from killing Vai Tao and may instead actually want to kill him more, saying things like, 'The more enemies that come to us, the faster we can accumulate Gu worms.'

Of course, Shi Zhe wasn't dumb and knew that such things were implausible and would likely lead to death; however, his sadistic side was currently on a rampage. As of lately, the longer he lived without the former scientist's peaceful influence over him, the more it felt like he had an unscratchable itch penetrating his very essence.

Even the current scientist, Xue Jia, was having his emotions go on rampage; however, he didn't opt for control over the body and instead tightly gripped onto his head.

Not wanting to waste his time in humoring Shi Zhe, Hua Zhe turned his attention back outside, first looking directly at 'Hao Lee - The Swamp Demon.' Raising his hand, he rested it on Hao Lee's head and commanded all of Hao Lee's Gu worms to leave the aperture and enter his own.

Upon seeing this, Vai Tao's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets from what they were witnessing. Just through physical contact, a Gu Master instantly refined another Gu Master's Gu Worms and transferred them to their aperture. He'd never heard of such a method before—not even the most insane of local fairy tales were as insane as what he'd just witnessed. This was on a whole different level from anything he's seen till now; it was other-worldly.

He could have attributed this to a strange Thief Path method; something about it was off. While methods for stealing Gu worms are uncommon, they are not so rare that he hasn't seen them before. As a matter of fact, he even has a Thief Path Gu called Steal Knowledge Gu.

Steal Knowledge Gu feeds on Distant Thought Grass. It's body is like a long pole with a string at the end, and on the end of that string is a book with a picture of a tightly clutched hand on the cover. This Gu, while very uniquely useful when used, will steal the most recent memories of a target within five meters, making it very easy to get away with recent crimes; however, if one was being followed for months on end, it would become unfeasible to remove the memories, as a person would obviously find it strange that they can't remember an entire month.

Xie Ling instantly stealing Hao Lee's Gu Worms surprise Vai Tao, but not enough to cause him to panic; rather, it was their way of leaving the body that caused him to panic. His years of experience and knowledge all told him that the Gu worms left the body willingly, which meant they were refined. This would have to be a combination of both Thief Path and Refinement Path, each on the level of being made my master in their path.

"Thief Path: Unknown; Refinement Path: Unknown; Transformation Path: Gao Xia; Ice Path: Bing Lu; Dark Path: Hei Rou; Emotion Path and Soul Path: Qi Cuo and Hun Cho." Vai Tao, during his time following Xie Ling, had learned many things about Xie Ling, including his many kills from rank-3 Gu Masters to rank-4 Gu Masters. "Why in the hell would a rank-5 Gu Master be going around and using killer moves from different paths? Let alone from a Gu Master an entire rank lower than their own."

Vai Tao knew plenty of Gu Masters that would have a few Gu worms completely unrelated to their paths. However, that was typically done by incompetent Gu Masters who had to temporarily fill in their weaknesses because of precarious circumstances. Any Gu Master worth their rank would have learned to stick to one path.

The reason? Experience and killer moves!

When using a Gu of the same path, often it would be a lot quicker to gain some skill in using it than it would have been if the Gu was of another path.

Secondly, a properly constructed killer move can be ten to hundreds of times stronger than an attack made up of simply adding more Gu worms on top of one another. Vai Tao's last attack would be the perfect example. By combining the use of Rapid Thoughts Gu, Flashing Idea Gu, Bright Memories Gu, Remembrance Echo Gu, and Sharp Intent Gu, it made an attack that contained speed, surprise, burst, and length. By using Gu Worms from different paths, it's a lot harder to combine their effects without causing serious backlash because of the difference in Dao Marks, causing Dao Mark destabilization.

Sharp Intent Gu was the only Gu at rank-5; the rest were rank-4 Gu worms. However, nonetheless, his attack carried the sharpness of three Sharp Intent Gu, the speed of four Rapid Thoughts Gu, the unexpectedness of three Flashing Idea Gu, and the increased distance of six Remembrance Echo Gu. Bright Memories Gu didn't add an extra effect; it was there as a support Gu to amplify the effects of all the other Gu worms. If the rest of his Gu worms were also rank-5, he would bet the effect would reach up to ten times.

"If a Strength Path Gu Master wanted to be better at collecting information, they would use a Strength Path Gu with Information Path as a subpath, like the 'Strengthen Sight Gu'."

There's a saying, 'attack, defense, movement, investigation, healing.' These five fields represented what a Gu Master needed to survive alone at rank-3 and rank-4. Only those who had yet to build a solid foundation would have one to three Gu Worms on different paths.

However, a rank-5 Gu Master would have all five fields perfectly filled with Gu Worms of their primary path and then and only then, secondarily, into a subpath. For him, his healing Gu worm was primarily Information Path and secondarily Water Path, it was called Soft Force Heal Gu. However, these standards of primary path and subpath clearly did not apply to his target, Xie Ling.

Inside his mind, Vai Tao kept trying to calculate the reason someone would use such an inefficient method of cultivation; however, he couldn't find any real reasons for it.

Unable to find an answer, Vai Tao decided to get answers: "Considering the situation you are in, me the hunter and you the prey, what makes you think I'm interested in business? Also, what makes you think that you're in any position to negotiate?"

Position to negotiate? In truth, Xie Ling was very confident he could kill Vai Tao if he put his all into it. Having the ability to use multiple Gu at once without using any mental energy was simply a godlike ability. Most people were restricted to using Gu worms of the same rank as their own because learning how to use a single Gu is a lot easier than learning how to use ten or even a hundred.

Even though Xie Ling had not yet used killer moves with more than six Gu Worms at once, he could use hundreds of Gu Worms at once with a simple command; granted, they could not all be rank-5 or even rank-3, as he was still limited by the amount of Primeval Essence within his aperture at any given time. Killing Vai Tao would be a rather simple endeavor; his reason for not attacking Vai Tao stemmed from an entity far stronger than Vai Tao.

His question for business was also profound; he needed to know exactly how much this entity could influence the inhabitants of this world. Was it simple suggestions like whispers in his ear that brought Vai Tao here, or was Vai Tao fully under its control?

Naturally, the former was far better than the latter; however, if Vai Tao was fully under its control, that also meant he could directly negotiate with the thing. Well, negotiate wasn't the correct term, as that would mean that they were on equal ground.

Vai Tao believed himself to have the advantage, and technically, if that thing was his backer, then yes, Vai Tao was in the advantage, but he didn't know that.

So as a reply to Vai Tao's question on his situation, Xie Ling grabbed Hao Lee's head and activated a killer move, causing an extra head to grow from the joint between the first spinal bone of the neck and the last spinal bone of the back.

Giving the new head some time to get fresh blood pumped through it, Xie Ling crafted a thin blade of ice in the palm of his hand before expertly severing the new head from Hao Lee's body.

Lastly, Xie Ling lightly tapped Hao Lee's connected head to show he was perfectly intact. "This is the deal that I can provide you! Complete and utter immunity from all who know your name!"