Deep night in Unit A-19.

  Chen Gensheng sat cross-legged, a small pile of Green Oak Charcoal before him. As his spiritual energy surged through the charcoal, the "Dross Qi" clung to it was stripped away like filth in a clear spring, dissolving into wisps of black smoke.

  Beneath his broad sleeves, his other four hands were far from idle.

  Two were weaving the complex alchemical hand-seals he had stolen from Lu Zhaozhao’s dream. Though the movements were still slightly stiff, he was rapidly engraving the muscle memory into his new frame. The last two hands—his smallest—each gripped a low-grade spirit stone scavenged from Wu Yong, siphoning their meager energy bit by bit.

  "One heart, six uses" had long since become his instinct.

  At the hour of the Rat, a crimson centipede—thick as a man’s waist—crawled out from the shadows of the courtyard. It moved with chilling silence, its hundreds of segmented legs gliding over the ground without a sound. Three feet from Gensheng, it arched its body, its segments shifting and snapping. Flesh writhed, and bone rearranged itself.

  In a flash, the monstrous centipede vanished. In its place stood the middle-aged scholar in the cyan robe—the Insect Demon.

  "I heard the Saintess of Maple Red Valley has reached the Golden Core," the Demon remarked. "Did you not enter her dream to shatter her Dao Heart?"

  Gensheng looked at him, his gaze level. "I entered it. Deeply."

  "Then how did she succeed?"

  "In the dream, she truly could not live without me. Who would have guessed she’d take that obsession and turn it into her Dao? She used that very madness to smash through the bottleneck."

  "So be it," the Demon sighed. "Tell me of yourself. Now that you wear this human skin, how does your cultivation feel? Any obstacles?"

  Gensheng revealed the four hidden hands from his sleeves. The top two continued to weave intricate seals, spiritual light shimmering at his fingertips. The middle two held the spirit stones, the rate of absorption never wavering. The lowest two gestured toward the charcoal, flicking out bursts of energy to purge the final traces of impurities.

  The Insect Demon watched this fluid, six-armed choreography. The admiration in his eyes intensified.

  "Exquisite. An insect’s frame as the root, a human body as the nest, and six hands as the tool. In a hundred years of effort, I never managed to create a monster as perfect as you."

  Gensheng retracted his hands. "I am eating humans too slowly."

  The Demon nodded. "The path of blood-sustenance is the crudest of the dark arts. It’s fast, but it invites disaster too easily."

  "Senior, can you give me an alchemical furnace?" Gensheng looked up. "And a few recipes."

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The Insect Demon froze. For the first time, a look of genuine bewilderment crossed his refined face. "A cockroach... learning human speech, using human hands... and now you want to learn human alchemy?"

  "Why not? I learned all of Lu Zhaozhao’s insights in that dream. An ordinary alchemist can only refine one batch at a time. I might be able to refine three."

  The Demon fell silent. He paced around Gensheng several times before stopping.

  "That Shadowfire Butterfly told me you were uncanny," he muttered. "Today, I finally see it for myself. I gave you my Corpse-Barrier Wasps so you would inherit my mantle and follow the supreme path of Insect Control. Why insist on human alchemy?"

  Gensheng met the Demon’s probing gaze without a flicker of emotion. "The wasps and I need food. Food means killing. To do it as we have been... is too slow. Too stupid."

  The Demon’s eyebrows knit together. This cockroach’s logic was evolving. "The power of an Insect Master lies in driving a thousand swarms to slaughter cities and sects with a thought. How is that 'stupid'?"

  "That is your Dao, not mine." Gensheng stood up, dropping the purified charcoal. "I want to learn everything. With these skills, I can eat humans... faster."

  The Insect Demon burst into a fit of startled laughter. "You truly are a born devil."

  He reached into his storage space and pulled out a black furnace, half the height of a man. It was obsidian-black, its surface covered in patterns that looked like insect carapaces. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be forged from a mountain of tiny, fossilized insect husks, radiating an ancient and malevolent aura.

  "The Ten-Thousand Insect Tripod. I forged it from the skull of a thousand-year-old Corpse Beetle. It has been with me for a century. Ordinary spiritual fire cannot light it, but the Insect Essence in your body is its perfect fuel."

  He tossed out several palm-sized tortoise shells, carved with minute, blood-red characters. "These are the recipes I’ve gathered. They are complete."

  The Demon stood tall, looking Gensheng in the eye. "I am human, yet I walk the path of the Insect. You are an insect, yet you seek to devour the very Heavens and Earth. Our races differ, our Daos differ, but the desire to pierce a hole through the sky is the same."

  "My wasps are not disgraced in your hands, nor is this furnace wasted on you. From this day, you are half a successor to Jiang Guixian." His voice dropped an octave. "In the future, if I seek you out for a task, do not refuse."

  "Deal."

  The Demon’s form dissolved into red light, returning to the waist-thick centipede. It burrowed into the earth and vanished.

  Gensheng touched the Ten-Thousand Insect Tripod. The cold surface felt as if it were sipping the essence from his fingertips.

  The Demon’s parting words echoed in his mind: "You must feed the wasps fresh flesh to breed them. If you feed them well, a Queen will be born to lay eggs. Those larvae, once consecrated with your blood, will be your greatest weapons."

  Gensheng opened his mouth. The dozen wasps flew out, buzzing around his head. "How strong are they really?" he had asked.

  The Demon’s honest answer: "The ones I gave you are larvae. They can eat a Qi Condensation cultivator’s flesh, but they are fragile. One good strike from a decent artifact will kill them. A true adult wasp can rival a Foundation Establishment expert. I lead three thousand eight hundred adults—that is why I am invincible under the Golden Core realm."

  As for money? The Demon had laughed: "We cultivators dine on wind and dew. Why care for such filthy things as gold and stones? Find your own way to earn them."

  Gensheng packed the tripod and recipes into his bag. By the time he cleared the courtyard of all traces, dawn was breaking.

  In the Hall of Propagation, Deacon Gu was napping as usual. A dozen new disciples sat before him, each with a pile of purified charcoal.

  "Time’s up," Gu yawned, waving a hand. "Line up. Let’s see your work."

  One by one, they presented their "homework." Gu barely glanced at them before waving them away with insults.

  "Mediocre." "Are you purifying charcoal or just adding ash to a stove?" "Fool! Your Qi control is a mess. This is filthier than when I gave it to you."

  Finally, it was Gensheng’s turn.