There were probably only so many places and ways for a kid in a city to get corpses. It wasn’t like this weak kid could just go around murdering people all the time. If he did, it was only a matter of time until someone found out and hunted him down. That was the sort of dark thing that people took over cities or towns to pull off. If they weren’t in charge, then the ones that were in charge would take it as a challenge to their power and act accordingly. The people in the towns were a resource they controlled and they didn’t take kindly to losing them.

“I see. Then I have an offer for you. Come with me, I’ll get you what you need.”

“For some reason I can’t trust such a vague offer. Let me guess, you think I need to be unalive? Thanks, but no thanks. Just kill me now and get this over with.”

“You’re a prickly one. Well, all you have to do is not resist for a moment and I’ll carry you away. Just come along. When we get there you can decide if you want to stay, right? It would be hard to make it worse than where you already are, right?”

“If the place is fully enslaved or imprisoned I won’t be able to escape easily, will I? Well, if you don’t let me change my mind I can always end my own life.”

Sage didn’t bother to point out that he’d controlled the boy’s mind earlier. He’d not bothered to remove the memory of what he’d done as he didn’t want to have to explain their first meeting over again. It wasn’t like he couldn’t just do it later if he needed to. With the boy finally showing a loose agreement with his suggestion, Sage stepped closer and stretched out his Spirit Power, wrapping it around the boy and then pulling him into the Inner World before the kid had a chance to even think about resisting. There was a bit of resistance, but the boy disappeared either way.

“Where is this?”

“You’re in another world. You can think of it as a Hidden Domain or a Secret Realm. Here, I’m in charge and I can arrange for as many corpses as you need. Better yet, we don’t have to do anything terrible to get them.”

“Really?”

“You can use corpses that aren’t human, right? If not, well then I can’t make any guarantees. The rate of natural death on this planet might not be high enough.”

Sage was being very conservative in his estimates. There was no telling if this new main character type just needed a few dead animals, or if it was actually a big boss origin and needed millions of human bodies. If it was the latter, they still had plenty of time to re-educate or put it out of its misery. So many supervillains could be prevented with some proper guidance at the right time. He also happened to be a good research subject, especially since none of the information he’d gathered so far had anything like this strange bone flower. Even the information gathering groups in the Depths hadn’t sent back anything about it. That said, they also hadn’t gathered much information about the Xuanyuan Empire, but there were some tips on how to fight Gu Cultivators, just nothing conclusive about how they worked or what they were.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Until the kid could see more, they were accepting enough of the conditions and Sage asked one more question before sending him away, “What’s your name?”

“Sang Hua.”

With that minor disturbance taken care of Sage walked out of the alley and back out onto the main street. After walking for just a few minutes he slowed down and turned down another alleyway. This one led to a dead end, and Sage walked up to the wall at the end and then turned around. He feigned a surprised expression and then smiled, disappearing from his position with a flash. He reappeared at the other end of the alleyway and there were five thumps behind him. Turning around he looked down at the five unconscious bodies and retraced his steps with a slow pace. Each of the five people disappeared along with the weapons that were in their hands.

While leaving the site of his last encounter, the research team had been studying Gu Cultivators and they found a few things that needed more thorough testing. They had to confirm that the results of their tests on people from the Inner World wielding Gu were the same as those on the outside world. As luck would have it, Sage sensed a group of thugs starting to follow him. Not wanting them to give up so easily he turned into an alleyway and was pleased to see that they were just as scummy as he thought. When the group drew their weapons it confirmed what they were up to and he knocked them out in an instant. Then he tossed them to the Inner World for some tests to be run. None of the tests required death or even any maiming so he felt no guilt giving these thugs a bit of punishment.

With this last task accomplished, Sage returned to the territory of Bear Three and went to the courtyard he was assigned. Just as he sat down in his room to rest there was a breakthrough in the research and his eyes widened. One of the Purple Mist Sect members still on the Inner World decided to join the test subjects and attempted to become a Gu Cultivator. Somehow this high level Demonic Beast in human form was able to use one of the Gu cultivator techniques to tame his own Gu. Demonic Beasts were only supposed to be able to use the cultivation techniques created by their ancestors to match the specific traits of their race. All others merely grew slowly over time by eating other Demonic Beasts or Natural Treasures. More surprising than there being no danger, the Gu was actually helping them cultivate! A sort of bond was created between the soul of the Purple Mist Sect member and the Gu. Despite this success none of the other Purple Mist Sect members were as daring with their future. Instead, some of the other human sealed Demonic Beasts gave it a try and there were varying levels of success.

According to the books they acquired there were many different techniques used to form bonds with Gu. Each big clan or sect in the Kingdom had their own special methods for raising and bonding with Gu. These specialties were what gave them their strength and helped them succeed over others. The Demonic Beasts only had success with the most basic of techniques while the few they had access to for more specialized Gu or from extinct Clans were far less useful. They theorized these more specialized techniques were specially tailored to the family or Gu. The research teams immediately started researching their own ways to modify the Gu for the Seething Purple Cobra and the Thunder Soul Mantis.

Despite all these promising research directions, there was something else that was more important for them to understand and Sage left the manor he’d been assigned before the seat even got warm. Heading back out into the city, Sage returned to the bookstore he’d just come from with a different goal this time. He called over one of the bookstore workers and gave them a simple request, “I need everything related to the founding of the Empire and the original Gu, even if it's a very vague connection. Give me all of them.”