Nine Solitary Swords (1)

"Slurp♡ Slurp♡"

The disciples of the Mount Hua Sect were taking turns sucking my cock.

In a certain sense, life since joining the sect had been even more comfortable than my days at the Golden Cock Clinic. At the clinic, I was the one getting paid. Here, the women chased after me like I'd debuted as an idol.

My level had jumped a full three points.

I tapped the level-up reward.

Thirty points, even if they landed at random. That was a damn fine payout. My stats were already on the high side, but in a world of Murim warriors, you could never have too much raw physical power.

The B-rank proficiency boost was a special privilege — a flat ten percent to any skill ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at B-rank or below. The problem was that I'd been so absurdly lucky my main skills all started at A-rank or higher.

The A-rank version was the same idea, just one tier up. The catch was the word random. I didn't get to choose.

Odds on that one are a little thin.

But it was too early to write it off. A similar rank-up ticket had landed on Tentacle Monster Transformation once before. Even a long shot wasn't something I could afford to ignore.

Holy shit.

Virility was already my highest number. Pumping it up by even a single point ate a fortune in S-Points.

The B-rank proficiency ticket went straight into Tentacle Monster Transformation. Why? Because it was the only B-rank skill I had. Everything else below that line was Silver Tongue at C-rank, plus Ideal Type Mirror and Flawless Bewitchment sitting down at D. And more than that — I had already glimpsed an entirely new dimension of what Tentacle Monster Transformation could do.

Right now, I was transformed, a tentacle buried in Ryu Su-gyeong's ass, using the SS-rank Eye of Truth to jack directly into her mind. Sure, the Eye of Truth was doing maybe ninety percent of the heavy lifting. But without Tentacle Monster Transformation, that remaining ten percent didn't exist — and neither did a stunt this deranged.

I could even open a psychiatry wing at the clinic later.

With Tentacle Monster Transformation and the Eye of Truth working in tandem, a psych practice wasn't a joke. Used right, I could turn even high-rank heroes and hunters into personal cock-sleeves.

Not that I would, given my personality. Not as a full-time operation, anyway.

The Eye of Truth, chiming in with a warning before I'd even finished the thought.

Come on. Come on.

"Hell yes!"

A little more and I'd hit 3-star. At 3-star, my swordsmanship would be good enough that I wouldn't get my ass handed to me wherever I went. My Taiyu Extreme Way was sitting at 42% — already enough to put me on the stronger side of second-rate martial artists. And with stats like mine, I could probably take a weaker first-rate fighter and have a real shot at winning.

Those were my numbers after I'd spent S-Points tuning the stats by hand. Pushing any stat past 80 now cost fifty S-Points a pop. From here on, those points were going into skills, not attributes. My physicals were already too clean to get dropped by some stray arrow or a lucky sword stroke.

Virility, especially. The random stat roll had dumped a ridiculous eighteen points into it. I fed it two more out of pocket and landed at 190. One more point would have hit 200, but the S-Point cost at this height was obscene. I couldn't quite close the gap.

I could pump semen from dawn to dusk and still sit on near-infinite reserves, thanks to Recovery and Super Recovery stacked on top of a number like that. Sex wasn't a question of volume anymore. It was a question of quality. If I wanted to keep farming S-Points, even a single round had to be more pleasurable, more exquisite, more beautifully filthy than the last.

Which meant I needed to get weirder with it. Nastier. Like the Rice-Barley Game.

"How do I get strong in one shot?" I muttered to myself.

"Slurp♡ Schlp♡ Get strong all at once? You mean a fated opportunity?"

"Nngh—!"

I came, thick and sudden, flooding the disciple's mouth. Spurt. Spurt.

"A fated opportunity?"

"Gulp! Mm. The Murim is full of them. For every master who spent a lifetime refining their art, there's a hidden treasure they stashed away before they died. The place is stuffed with them."

"That so?"

"There's a rumor that at least one person a year becomes a real master off a find like that. The Nine Sects and One Union even keep dedicated teams just to track down their own missing elders."

"A fated opportunity, huh."

Eye of Truth. Search for fated opportunities.

"Where would I go to get that kind of information?"

"Mmm♡ Play the Rice-Barley Game with me and I'll tell you."

"Hah. You lost the last round. You're the one who should be asking."

The naked disciple bowed her head and pressed her forehead to my cock like it was an altar.

"May this Grand Loser Pussy — ten matches, ten defeats — request a Rice-Barley Game with Lord Cock?"

I flexed. My cock twitched once against her face. Match accepted.

"This time you squeeze until nothing comes out."

"Yes. But this match seems a little unfair. How is a cock supposed to just… not ejaculate?"

"Oh, look at that. Still some reason left in that head of yours."

I drove into her. One hard, sudden thrust.

"Nnhhgh—!"

"Talking back to Lord Cock, are we?"

"I'm soooorryyy♡ Nnghiih♡"

I fucked her in deep, punishing strokes, stirring up the inside of her cunt like I was looking for something.

"Start talking. Everything you know."

"The Mount Hua Sect collects leads on fated opportunities too, but most of what we get comes through the Hao Clan or the Beggar Union, Lord Cock. Hnnngh♡"

"Yeah? So where do I actually go?"

"Check the sect's own records first. Heaven's Ear Bureau is where all the sect's intelligence gets compiled. You'll find it there."

"Got it."

I came. Wave after wave, no holding back.

"Khhhnngh! This pathetic pussy has lost again! I squeezed for my life, I really did—"

Smack. I slapped the swollen mound of her cunt.

"And what happens to a pathetic loser pussy at the end?"

"I have to masturbate and piss ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠myself in front of my fellow disciples."

"Then get to it."

"Y-yes!"

She dropped her hand between her legs and started working herself, my semen running down her thighs in thick strings, every other disciple watching. Her moans cracked open. The rest of them followed — fingers on their own cunts, sinking into the same heat.

"That's enough training for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠today."

Heaven's Ear Bureau. The Mount Hua Sect's intelligence organ. Every scrap of information the sect needed flowed here.

"What's our token male doing all the way out here?"

The Bureau Chief had an enormous chest and a long-stemmed pipe between her fingers. White smoke curled off the bowl in lazy ribbons.

"Got bored of the orgies with the disciples?"

When the hell had they compiled that?

"Thanks to you, even if Mount Hua goes under, we'll never run out of disciples. This place is going to turn into a daycare."

Her breasts rolled heavily with the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠laugh. I stared.

"Just where do you think you're looking, you rude disciple?"

"Sorry. I came because I wanted information on fated opportunities."

"Fated opportunities? Hah! You really are young. You do know that for every person who finds one, a hundred die looking?"

"It's just curiosity."

"Is it. Then why do you keep staring? Keep being rude to a first-generation disciple and I will put you in your place."

"Yes. Sorry."

I'd spent so long surrounded by women who threw themselves at me that running into an actual normal person was throwing me off.

I headed into a dilapidated archive deep inside the bureau. Grade-3 intelligence — fully open to every disciple in the sect. The kind of far-fetched rumors nobody had ever bothered to lock up.

Martial manuals, spirit beasts, elixir pills, artifacts, treasured swords — the works. Countless leads on the Murim's fated opportunities, all jumbled together. Most of it was the take-it-or-leave-it variety: thin, unsubstantiated, and probably worthless. Some of it was written on parchment or bamboo slips; some had been compiled into thin booklets. All told, the pile was about as thick as a couple of phone books.

I flipped through every last page. Not a scrap left unread.

The Eye of Truth turned the problem over for a long time. The intelligence was that thin, and most of it had nothing resembling evidence.

Even half-starved for data, an SS-rank skill was still an SS-rank skill.

What? A mile and change?

That was about as far as you'd walk a small dog. I was going. Now.

The Mount Hua Sect sat across two great mountains. One was Greater Mount Hua, where the main compound stood. Across from it rose Lesser Mount Hua, a ridge broken into several peaks of its own. I left Lotus Peak — the one everyone actually used — and started climbing Jade Maiden Peak, a mountain the sect treated as little more than a backyard hill.

I reached the summit of Jade Maiden Peak. A small Taoist hall sat there — the Jade Maiden Hall, famous once. The peak itself had been one of the Mount Hua Sect's great scenic landmarks, a long time ago.

I kicked off with everything my legs and inner force could give and landed on the hall's roof. Old tiles crumbled under my feet with a dry whisper. From that height the mountains unrolled in every direction, green and vast enough to pull a sound of wonder out of my chest.

I grinned. An SS-rank skill, through and through. I had just found a fated opportunity on Mount Hua that the Mount Hua Sect itself had never known was there.

A small cave, crowded with stalactites. Water ticked off the stone in a slow, even drip.

"This is really the place?"

Chu Yang-hon. The strongest swordsman in the Mount Hua Sect's eight-hundred-year history. His last traces were about to come to light.

I went in, then further in, crawling into a passage that narrowed until my shoulders scraped stone. Get stuck halfway and I was as good as dead.

My whole body melted into tentacles and I shot through the choke point like something poured down a drain. Before long the passage began to widen.

Tweet — tweet —

Tiny birds hopped among the branches, pecking at mountain berries, shaking out their wings.

"There's an entire ecosystem inside that crack in the rock?"

The sky opened up overhead, wide and unobstructed. A garden and orchard spanning what had to be several thousand square meters still overflowed with the vitality of a spring day, as if the season had never moved on.

"And that is…?"

A stone path led me to a small thatched cottage. I looked inside. Nothing. Not even a single sword — the one thing you'd expect to find.

I knelt at a babbling brook, drank, and surveyed the surroundings.

Eye of Truth. I'm not seeing anything unusual.

Granted, the entire hidden valley was mysterious — borderline supernatural. But nothing here screamed fated opportunity.

I steadied my pounding heart and walked where the Eye of Truth pointed me.

"No way— this is—!"

I'd found it.

The legacy of the First Sword of Mount Hua.