Mana 5 Chapter 8 (Patreon)

After my conversation with Ming Feng, I was starting to reflect on Wenxi and my relationship. A good bit of it had been transactional, but we’d also spent a good bit of time together. So far, she seemed to accept me for who I was.

As Ming’s guards dropped me back off at the Su Family manor, our arrival caused yet another stir. Wenxi came running.

“Is everything alright?” She asked, worry and hope warring in her eyes.

“Ming took me hunting in her family reserve.” I spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. I didn’t want to have to repeat myself. “Rather boring if I’m honest.”

“Good. And I have everything ready for our own hunting trip, if you aren’t exhausted.” There was that hope in her eyes again. She was still worried that being surrounded by other options would lead me astray.

“Not at all. We barely fought anything. If anything, it left me itching for a fight.” I laughed, pulling Wenxi’s hand into my own and leading her back out of the Su Family estate.

It was both a show to her family, and wanting to reassure Wenxi. She seemed unsure of herself now that we were in Blueheavens around her family and the other prominent families.

A few steps into our journey, she whispered. “You’re going the wrong way.”

“Ah. This way then.” Rather than turning right around, I looped back in the general direction through the streets, glad for the extra time to talk.

“Ming Feng wanted to test me. She brought me out into her family's hunting grounds to fight a dragon. I of course, passed with flying colors. Honestly, I might have put on a bit too much of a show.”

“What happened?” Wenxi pushed.

“I pushed my bloodline further than I had before. And it is apparently far purer than she thought possible. As a result, she became absolutely convinced that I was a spy from the Jin family.” I sighed. “I had to tell her some of the truth to earn her trust.”

“Did you get invited to the shard?” Wenxi asked. She was vested in the trip, although she had less to gain.

“Yes, I did, and I can also bring any of my wives that reach the fifth rank. I squeezed her hand.” Including her in that.

She blushed. “I’m not your wife.”

“Not yet. But that’s the plan, right? Or have you changed your mind?”

“No!” she shouted, causing people around us to turn to listen. “I mean… I’d tell you if the plan changed.” She said the last part in a much softer voice.

Pulling her close by her hip, I kissed her on the head. “I was just teasing.”

Wenxi grumbled something about her mother under her breath before pulling away from my hip and wrapping her arms around my right arm, holding it close as we walked.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Nothing. My mother has been filling my head with silly things.”

“Ah.” I left it at that. Tianxi would have no doubt filled her daughter’s head with naughty thoughts.

We walked in comfortable silence along another road that curved above the outer ring, allowing the middle ring to exit the city.

The whole time we moved, Wenxi pressed herself around my arm. As we left the city, headed north, Wenxi presented the guard with the mission we had taken and a token from her family.

They let us through without a second glance; apparently trips like these were extremely common.

As soon as we cleared the buzz of the city, I swept Wenxi into my arms and kicked off the ground, letting loose my cultivation as we shot through the forest.

“What are you doing?”

“Stretching my legs. I’m still antsy from being cooped up in a carriage for two weeks.”

“Cooped up?” She blushed. “Like a rooster cooped in the henhouse.”

“I’m not sorry about that; we all cultivate during sex.” I explained.

“Dual Cultivation is common. I just didn’t expect… so much of it.” Wenxi blushed, no doubt remembering the screams of my women. Celina was especially loud. Not to mention Kat’s screams, Lumi had become a favorite of hers.

“In a family the size of mine it becomes a tangled mess of love, but there’s nothing wrong with sex.”

Wenxi nodded. “Of course, there’s nothing wrong with it. Just… just…” She struggled to come up with a rebuttal.

Sex was a natural thing, like eating and breathing. All it took was consent and, preferably, love.

I wasn’t ashamed that she’d heard me and my wives rut like animals for nearly two weeks straight. At this point, I was far past any potential embarrassment.

“… you can’t do it in front of a woman who’s inexperienced.” Wenxi finally found her rebuttal before realizing what she said and covering her mouth.

“Oh.” I made an ‘O’ with my mouth at the realization. “Inexperienced.” I repeated, realizing the ramifications.

“Can we pretend that I didn’t say that?” She asked.

“Say what?” I humored her. “That you’re a virgin?”

Her face turned beet red, and she tried to hide in her hands. “I’ve been very busy with family matters and training my whole life. And every time I feel like I get close with a man, he runs away.”

“Uh, huh.” I made a noise of understanding. “Well, it certainly isn’t because you aren’t pretty enough. You have a lithe, supple grace and beauty.”

“You think I’m beautiful?” She asked. In her shock, she stopped trying to hide her face. “You are surrounded by women beautiful enough to start wars.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Wenxi.” I slowed down and ran my fingers through her long tresses of rich, black hair. “You are gorgeous.”

The way she bit her lip and blushed in my arms was truly a temptation, and I didn’t hide it as I let my eyes hungrily roam over her.

It made her smile as she smacked me in the chest. “Hurry up. I want to get this mission over with.” I enjoyed that her shyness had disappeared with our brief break.

“Yes, Milady.” I held her close and continued speeding through the forest.

I got the feeling that Wenxi just wanted to be desired. Despite the cold tactician she’d appeared to be initially, she was still a woman, one that wanted more than just a marriage. It seemed she’d had a spree of poor luck for it in the past.

I couldn’t help but draw parallels to Ming Feng’s own relationships. Maybe her husband would pull out some stops and start a spark between them.

Because despite how fiery the princess was, she seemed dead inside to love. I wasn’t sure if I’d wish that fate on anyone.

“Turn right.” Wenxi broke through my thoughts. “We need to head in this direction until we clear this forest. Then we’ll cut back north. We should run right into the cave system from there.”

“What are we hunting again?” I asked, taking her directions.

“A pangolin. It is like a large rodent armored with scales.” She explained quickly. “It has been digging out entire fields.”

“Like a mole?”

“Sort of. Like a mole crossed one with an armadillo.” She tried to find another point of reference for me.

“We’ll find out soon.” I broke out of the forest and cut north.

It wasn’t long before large holes dotted the wide open plain before us. The muddy brown holes that dotted the green landscape were fresh with loose dirty around the edges.

“Set me down.”

I slowed and put her on her feet. “There are a lot of holes. And they are bigger than a rodent.”

“It’s a fifth rank beast.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course it isn’t going to be the size of a mouse.”

As if in answer to her, the ground rumbled. I sensed the direction of the vibrations and jumped forward, snatching Wenxi. We jumped into the air as the ground where she’d been standing exploded.

A long face covered in hard dark scales appeared from the ground, its tongue lashing out where Wenxi had just been.

The pangolin looked up at me before crawling out of the hole, letting me take it all in. The creature was the size of a grown elephant and covered with huge, sharp scales. But unlike that of a reptile, they weren’t flat with its skin.

No, somehow the scales were a type of hardened material that came off its skin like spines, only they were flattened along most of its body.

When it moved, they often stuck out as the skin stretched and shifted. They were more like the quills on a porcupine than skin.

The beast stood on two legs, hunched over, with its front appendages hovering just above the ground. Its arms were covered in massive claws, and dirt clung between them. It was no wonder it could burrow through the ground effectively.

Despite the threat we were to it, the pangolin didn’t seem to mind us. If it was disappointed it had missed out on a snack, it didn’t show it.

Not wanting to waste time to complete our mission, I made a move. Drawing on Mei’s void mana, I lashed out with an impossibly thin layer of void.

But to my surprise, my attack bounced off the pangolin. The beast didn’t even budge. One scale had dented, but that quickly popped right back out.

The beast turned slowly to me, regarding me curiously after my attack.

“Wenxi, you didn’t mention how tough these things were.” I had cut right through a dragon earlier, but now this rodent was completely ambivalent to my attack.

Drawing instead on the bloodline of the nine-tailed fox, I channeled Mei’s power until an image of a nine tailed black fox hovered over my shoulder. The power of the void was at my fingertips.

Slashing down with all the power I could muster, a crescent of pitch black mana struck the pangolin.

It squealed and bounced back, one of its scales cut, but another overlapping scale stopped my attack.

The pangolin made a shrill squeak and spun around. Its scale-covered tail swung at me. Each of those plates looked razor sharp at their tips.

I dodged back, but its tail stretched as it swung, and I had to cross my arms in front of myself to brace for impact.

The bloodline of the nine-tailed fox wasn’t nearly as tough as the gold dragon, and I paid dearly for that. The scales of the pangolin were like an entire rack of swords being stabbed into me.

Even with my cultivation, they pierced my flesh many times over, covering me in cuts as it flung me away.

“Wenxi, tell me this thing has a weakness.” I tapped into Aurora’s life mana to heal the cuts covering me.

“Once you get past the scales, they are surprisingly easy to kill.” She replied, as if that was helpful.

I scoffed. Void and Mei’s bloodline had some of the strongest penetrative properties in my skill set. Yet it had only cut a single scale. “And how do you propose we do that?”

Wenxi dove at the pangolin with a sword. She was using wind and fought as if she was dancing on a breeze. She flitted around, striking and doing minor damage to the pangolin, but she was also dodging all of its attacks. “We wear it down.”

Getting back on my feet, I held onto the nine-tailed fox bloodline and used the void mana to blink to the side of the pangolin. I struck again with the attack that had managed to cut a scale.

This time when the beast spun, I mimicked Wenxi, using void to move myself to the side, well out of its swing. Then I attacked the same spot again.

It took both attacks in the same spot to break the second scale.

I put most of my focus into dodging the armored beast's attacks, but when I could, I worked to chip away at its armor until a bare patch on its right side was exposed. I smiled as I looked at the pale flesh.

The pangolin must have realized that it was exposed, because it dove back into the ground, using its front claws to move more earth than I ever thought possible. Dirt flung into the air and the pangolin, along with its exposed side, disappeared into a new tunnel.

“Don’t let it get away!” Wenxi dove into the tunnel after it.

I rushed in after her, sending more waves of attacks after the pangolin.

Unfortunately, it was hard to follow the beast. In an effort to escape, it was filling in the tunnel behind itself. I had to use my void mana to destroy the earth it sent behind as we all moved deeper into the earth.

Suddenly, the ground fell out below us, and I grabbed Wenxi as we tumbled down into a cavern.

As we stood within the cavern, we realized it was the home of not one rank five pangolin, but two. And the second was much larger than the first. It was crouched in a nest with several smaller, pink versions of the other two.

“It’s a nest.” Wenxi stated the obvious.

“Yep, and now we have two of them to deal with. And that mama looks pissed as hell that we just crashed into her nest.” I jumped back as the larger pangolin darted forward, those claws of hers coming far closer than I would have liked.

As much as I wanted to be sympathetic to the beasts rearing their young, they had become a problem for the city and, most importantly; I had a feeling we were not getting out of this alive without taking down the adults.

Pushing, I released my four mana beasts. “Quinn, Aurora, you are on defense. Lumi, Mei, offense.” I barked orders to them as I put Wenxi down to the ground.

My mana beasts charged forward. Quinn and Aurora took a pangolin each, attacking it, but doing little damage.

It was Lumi and Mei that came over their shoulders with powerful attacks. Mei’s five tails each shot void blades into her pangolin, while Lumi’s lighting exploded on the side of the other.

Wenxi shot forward as soon as I put her down. Her sword moved towards the bald spot on the male Pangolin, but it was aware of the weakness. It turned, trying to protect its side even as Lumi’s attacks knocked it around.

I wasn’t about to be left out. Joining Mei and launching void attacks, we shaved down the defenses of the mother pangolin.

When the male screamed, Wenxi darted away, her sword covered in blood. The male thrashed at her, abandoning all pretext of defense and trying to kill Wenxi with its dying breath.

Quinn transformed into a dragon and blocked off the space between the pangolin and Wenxi.

The two enormous beasts went down in a tussle as Quinn tried to stall it.

Seeing her mate harmed, the female pangolin became enraged. It tried to get past Aurora, but the cavern was far too small for Aurora’s colossal Kunpeng form, like Quinn had used hers to block the male.

Instead, the bubbly mana beast raced up to the pangolin’s face and head butted it with all her strength.

Both of them stepped back, dazed from the exchange.

I switched my bloodline to the gold dragon and charged the dazed pangolin, using my momentum to knock it on its side.

The male continued to scream as the other group finished it off, and the female was forced to protect itself, curling into a ball as it tried to recover from Aurora’s headbutt.

Attacks rained down on the female pangolin, as Mei and Lumi joined our group. Once the female’s hide was finally exposed, I drew my mother’s bone sword and stabbed through its soft hide, channeling lighting mana through the sword. I destroy its insides with brutal efficiency.

“Phew.” Aurora rubbed at her forehead. “That thing had a thick skull.”

“Maybe we don’t headbutt beasts several times our size?” I joked.

“Are you kidding me? That thing was a pipsqueak. If you brought me out on the surface, I would have picked him up and carried him off like the catch of the day.” Aurora grumbled as she continued to rub at her forehead.

“Master has to fight his own battles.” Lumi reminded Aurora.

“Because you lost your turn when we came out to fight. Does that mean I won this round of The Game?” Mei asked Aurora excitedly.

All of my mana beasts paused, clearly pondering over the question.

“No. The Game will resume when we get back. I didn’t lose; not yet!” Aurora declared defiantly.

“Game?” Wenxi had a cloth out, wiping down her sword. The dead male pangolin behind her made her look quite vicious.

“Not important.” Quinn covered Mei’s mouth as the fox girl tried to speak.

My four mana beasts smiled like innocent little angels.

“At least this time you didn’t get beaten up.” Aurora commented, looking me over. “Darn, I wanted some proper nursing time.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t get beat up every fight.”

The mana beasts looked between each other conspiratorially. “You need bandaging quite often. I’ve gotten fantastic at it.” Mei wiggled her mouth free from Quinn’s hands.

Wenxi watched all of us curiously. “You all seem like a family.”

“We are! Master is the best.” Aurora ran over and gave me a big hug. “I’m so glad I found you to give you my core.”

“Me too.” Mei bounced on her feet.

Quinn sighed. “I’ll admit, it was one of the better decisions of my life.”

“I didn’t get a choice, but then again, I’m not sure I would have ever given my core over willingly to a human.” Lumi added. “But you aren’t so bad, Master.”

“Thanks Lumi.” I ruffled her hair between her ears. She closed her eyes and smiled before she realized what she was doing and pouted at me.

“I’m going back inside. Let’s finish The Game.” Lumi declared before she shot back into her ring like a bolt of lightning.

“Wait for me! I’m winning this time!” Mei bolted back into her own ring.

Aurora rolled her eyes. “Enjoy yourself, Master.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek before disappearing.

Quinn smirked. “I already lost that round. I’ll stand guard.”

I was confused at Quinn’s comment, until I turned to Wenxi, who was blushing and suddenly in a very different outfit than she had been a moment earlier.