Mana 6 Chapter 22 (Patreon)

The next morning, I was up bright and early, untangling myself from Lanhua.

“Morning already?” She yawned, rubbing at her eyes.

“Yes, and we better get going.” I pulled on my robes and stepped out of the tent to see Steve and Jonny sitting on stumps, waiting for us.

“Damn. That was the first time I’ve seen a sixth rank cultivate. You two really churned quite the mana.” Jonny chuckled.

I frowned, but then I realized our dual cultivation with Lanhua’s entire cultivation had made quite the ripple in the world’s mana. “That was unique.”

“The first time is always the sweetest.” Jonny kissed his fingers.

I looked around for the tree that we’d notched the previous night after Bai had given us her help.

Gauging it with the sunrise, it looked like we were heading South East. Given what we knew of the area we thought was the greenhouse, we didn’t need to be perfect. As long as we could reach the paths, we’d be able to find our way.

Lanhua pulled herself free of the tent, and it disappeared into her spatial ring. Something was different about her today. She seemed lighter. She’d always moved with grace, but now it was like she was calm and seduction all in one. Her smile had an extra brilliance to it.

“Okay, are we heading off?”

I nodded. “Come on. There’s no reason for us to hide our cultivations at this point.” Wrapping the group in my domain, I lifted us into the air. With Edmond gone, the remaining sixth rank Bishou were something I could deal with.

Unfortunately, I used a little more force than I expected. We shot high up into the air before I brought it to a screeching halt.

Jonny and Steve’s bodies continued up, and I caught them in my domain far further than I had expected.

“Sorry about that. There’s been a change in my cultivation last night.” I looked down at my chest. The seventh ring was there, but it was ghostly pale.

I had no idea what that meant, but for now, I had other things to worry about.

“Lanhua, use your domain.”

“Up in the air? Is that really safe?” She asked.

Jonny looked worried as his head swiveled back and forth between us. “Is it safe, Isaac? Enquiring minds wish to know this before they fall to their death.”

“Pretty sure?” I replied. It was all new to me. The soul wasn’t such a fragile thing, at least not at our cultivations.

Lanhua focused, and I felt her domain expand. I knew Michelle was going to lose it when she found out we’d tried.

It didn’t feel like a different domain, or even that mine was being used. It felt like I was using a domain. “This is very strange.”

“We aren’t falling. So that’s good in my book.” Jonny commented with his best charming smile.

I nodded in the direction we were supposed to go. “Can you push my domain?”

Slowly, Lanhua moved Jonny and Steve forward. “Yes. We share this domain. try to restrict me?”

I grabbed all three of them with my domain and started heading the direction that Bai had indicated last night, but Lanhua stepped free of my control and stood next to me as we flew.

“It is all one domain. We share it.”

Jonny dusted himself off and stood on my other side. “That’s quite the commitment. You’ll never shake her now.”

I snorted. “Good thing that was never the plan.” I turned back to Lanhua. “See how far you can extend the domain.”

She pushed her domain out, and it continued stretching far past what I was expecting.

My domain before had been constrained to about ten feet. Now she was expanding past a hundred yards before she stopped.

I felt a slight tug on my own domain. “Hold on.” I retracted my domain to just what I needed. “Try again.”

She pushed her domain just a little further. “So we share the domain, very literally. The total domain usage is limited across us.”

I sighed. “That means it is shared with my other wives as well. But I could feel the tug when we were getting close.”

“Let me feel? Maybe try to pull it back?” Lanhua suggested.

Steve and Jonny kept looking between us, not knowing what to do with this fresh development.

I tugged on Lanhua’s domain and could feel some give, but then I really pulled, and her domain shrank as mine grew. “Good news! I can pull without tearing our soul apart.”

“You two are just too cute, but can we steal some herbs?” Jonny asked, pointing down to a grove that looked like it might be part of the ‘greenhouse’.

“Do you recognize that grove?” I asked.

“Nope. But I’m sure they have more than we’ve seen. It took us two days on foot to stop seeing them. We are traveling much faster, but we shouldn’t be back yet.” Jonny explained.

I swooped down, extending the domain over the grove, but it was Lanhua who scooped them up and placed them in our shared soul space.

“I guess we might share the domain, but within it we are like two full strength cultivators.” Lanhua observed.

“Stronger together.” I said, nodding. Michelle would love that; it was about to be much harder getting out of the estate without her. “I’ll fly us. You scoop up as much as you can.”

Focusing on flying the four of us, I shot off, trying to maintain the same heading. We continued following the herbs, which gave me hope we were headed in the right direction.

***

It had taken a good portion of the day, but we came upon familiar trails and wound our way back to the fake wall that was really a teleportation enchantment.

“Phoebe, want to take a look at this?” I pushed on her ring, summoning her. As she appeared, it became clear that she’d been in the middle of a shower and quickly wrapped herself in a bright red towel.

She cleared her throat at the stares she was getting. “We don’t have to shower, but I always thought they were relaxing. They were novel in my time. As to this? Hmm.” She bent over, dripping fake soap suds on the ground. The suds quickly disappeared back into mana.

“Yes, it is as you believed. I didn’t pay attention when you were traveling through it before.”

“Think you could change where it sends us?” I was trying to avoid popping up in the middle of the Leon family estate.

She shook her head though. “Sorry, Master. It keys into another location. I could scrub that out of the enchantment, but we don’t know another teleportation location to key into it. That’s not something we’d want to guess at.”

I nodded, not wanting to find out the consequences if we changed that part haphazardly. “Thank you. I thought it was worth a shot.”

She gave me a wet kiss on my cheek. “No problem. I’ll be getting back to it.” Phoebe disappeared into a stream of light.

Jonny let out a long, slow whistle.

I smacked him upside the head hard enough to make him stumble. “Do you have to do that? And she can still hear you when she’s in there.”

He gave a soft chuckle. “Sorry, old habits die hard.”

Steve gave Jonny a sad shake of his head as he sighed, clearly believing his friend was a lost cause.

I looked at the arch and had the urge to destroy it, but I knew we needed it to get home. And it wouldn’t cut off the Bishou. They had other ways of leaving the jungle.

“Okay, we need to form a plan when we get out of here.” I paused. Shit was about to hit the fan, and it was going to be a fight out of Jonny and Steve’s league.

“You two will go first and get a five-minute head start. Just walk out like normal and try to get out of the Leon Family’s estate. Go to the Yunpi Estate and seek out Terrance. Tell him about what we’ve seen and tell him I invited you both to stay in my courtyard.” I watched as they fought through the desire to stay by my side, accepting that it was the best plan.

“We’ll see you shortly. No need to worry about us.” Jonny slapped me on the shoulder while Steve nodded.

Both of them headed through the arch, and I turned to Lanhua. “Lanhua, where do they keep the guardian lion beast's core?”

“We aren’t just rushing out of there?” She asked, surprised.

“Nope. I have a plan for getting us out, too.” I smiled wide, not yet wanting to explain it. But I had a feeling that with our newly shared domains, we could likely break the rules in a delightful way.

Lanhua squinted at me, but I just winked at her. I wasn’t entirely confident my plan was going to work, but it was our best option. And if it meant I also stole the beast's core, that was an added bonus.

I wanted to make a big enough splash that the Yunpi family would know to respect me going forward, or at least be more hesitant to attack me so openly.

“So, where is this core?” I pushed her again.

She frowned, but relented. “There’s a pavilion that is reserved for just the ceremony around the core. The core is kept there in a secure safe. It is one of the clan’s prized possessions. There’s no way they won't unleash a storm if you go after it.”

“We just need to worry about getting in.”

Lanhua frowned, but nodded and turned toward the arch. “Ready?”

“Always, let’s act natural until trouble arises. You take the lead.” I took her hand and squeezed it as we walked through the arch together.

Once more into the frying pan.

We exited, and the Leon family was quiet. Thankfully, we didn’t see Jonny being dragged back, nor a large number of guards milling about.

Everything was… normal.

“This way.” Lanhua pulled my hand, and we walked through the Leon Family estate as if we had business with someone.

Guards watched us with nothing more than a slight frown. I noticed that Lanhua’s hand was shaking in mine. I knew being in the Leon family territory must be bringing back memories.

“You are doing great.” I encouraged her.

“I hate them.” She hissed.

I nodded along with her. “That’s okay. We’ll get what we came for and then be out.”

A guard flew before us in a relaxed manner. “Excuse me, what business do you have in the Estate?”

“We were doing errands for Rougu Leon.” Lanhua said smoothly.

“Ah.” The guard nodded, stepping aside for a moment, but I could feel tension behind me. “Rougu hasn’t returned to the family.”

Lanhua squeezed my hand. “Well then, why the heck was I told to deliver this?” She looked pissed off.

The guard held up his hands. “As he’s not here, I’d like to ask you two to leave the family estate.”

I nodded. “We understand. Apologies for the mistake. I just wish the guard at the gate had been as up to date as you.” Doing my best to keep up the act so he didn’t look too closely at us.

The guard gave me a tense smile before it tilted to the side, spraying blood in an arc as his whole head rolled off his shoulder.

Pink flower petals speckled with blood danced in the air before returning to Lanhua. “You were going to do that, anyway.” She gave me a sweet, satisfied smile at killing the guard.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side.” I joked, grabbing her by the waist and launching both of us deeper towards the pavilion.

I had underestimated my strength when I pushed off. The ground shattered behind me, and I threw us further than I was expecting.

Lanhua clung to me as my sword flashed out, killing two fifth rank guards that tried to stop me.

“Left.” Lanhua shouted.

The ground exploded behind me again as I turned. Four more guards were moving towards us. And they were all sixth rank.

They moved to try to get in front of us.

I drew on my mana.

The well of mana I could draw upon was considerably deeper than it had been before my pseudo leveling.

It wasn’t just my mana anymore. The shared soul space was the strength of all of my wives and all of our mana beasts.

When I thrust my hand forward, it wasn’t just a kunpeng’s claw that emerged to attack. Instead, it was like Aurora’s entire sixth rank kungpeng body formed and came crashing down into the guards.

Because of its sheer mass, it took out a few buildings of the Leon Family’s estate as it smashed into the ground.

The kunpeng was absolutely colossal. It was the size of a small village, and it crushed the four guards, smashing buildings all around.

I was stunned for a moment before Lanhua jerked me to the side, running as fast as she could.

“That’s one way to get every fucking person’s attention.” She yelled over the roar of collapsing buildings.

I cringed, not sure how to answer.

Between our own growth and that of the merged soul space, I had vastly underestimated how much mana I was able to pull. And it was hard to dial it back in those moments of adrenaline rush.

My sword intent flashed out at a cultivator wearing the Leon Family robes as he tried to get in my way. He was cut in two without even blinking.

But powerful cultivations were flaring up all around the estate.

I knew we were running on borrowed time.

The kunpeng disappeared into mana again, and Lanhua pointed to a low squat building wrapped in columns. “That one.”

“Fantastic. You get the core.” I positioned myself in a defensive stance, ready to take on the guards that were swarming around us.

The strongest among the group was a sixth rank cultivator wielding a long glaive as he dove at me.

I parried him physically while a second sword, one made of sword intent, slashed out at his open guard.

The horror in his face was apparent as he tried to pull up his domain and turn the attack with his glaive, but it was useless as my sword intent cut right through both of them.

Blood splashed the guard behind him, and I spun with a horizontal slash that sent the guards scattering and regrouping in a circle around me.

“You are invading the Leon Family. That was a terrible mistake.” A guard scoffed at me. “Even now, cultivators far beyond you are coming.”

I laughed. “Oh, shit. This is the Leon Family? No way.”

The guard was clearly far too gullible, as his eyes widened at what he thought was my mistake, and he nodded.

“I was told that this housed a family that was so weak it had to hire out its dirty work to assassins. Huh, who knew that was the Leon family?”

Not having time to spare, I activated the yin harmony bird bloodline, and I tugged at Celina across the shared soul space.

If our cultivations were merged, I hoped I could make better use of her bloodline.

I felt a deeper connection, as if Celina was right there with me, hanging on my shoulder as I took a deep breath and exhaled a dark purple mist.

The mist expanded rapidly, blanketing myself and the guards who had circled me.

I gave Celina a mental kiss as she drifted away.

The mist spread quickly. A few guards tried to jump away, others tried to blow air to keep it from reaching them, but they all failed.

They were all starting to fall over, grasping at their throats as their skin darkened.

A huge surge of mana appeared above me, and I dodged to the side. The ground exploded around me, so I wrapped myself in a domain to shield myself from the flying debris.

“You will pay for killing my guards.” An older man with a deep sixth rank cultivation appeared.

He wasn’t nearly as scary as Terrance, but his power was far above what I could have dealt with previously.

His bloodline flared to life as his spear thrust forward.

And I instinctively knew it was time to call upon another one of my wives. One whose skills might make the other attackers think twice.

Calling on Kat, I stared into his soul as the world around us exploded like shattered glass into a black space.

He stopped mid thrust and yelled at me as if what I’d done was offensive. “Soul arts.” Then he began attacking his surroundings.

Kat appeared like some giant bending down to look at both of us. “I love you, husband; you brought me such a treat.” She reached down and plucked the guard off the ground, already ripping his soul apart.

The momentary illusion between us shattered, and the Leon family expert was frozen mid strike as his body shuddered and collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

His sudden death succeeded in scaring more than a few of the guards off of me as they paused, waiting for a stronger expert from the family to deal with me.

I smirked and chased after Lanhua.

When I reached her, she had smashed apart a section of stone and was lifting a gray metal box the size of her torso with a frown. “I’m not sure how we get this thing open. It’s tough.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out later. For now, we need to go. Take it with us.” I threw it into the domain within my soul space.

As it entered my soul space, the entire pavilion around us exploded in a shower of stone and rubble.

It was like being in the eye of a tornado as the stone swirled around me, but inside the center, everything was calm. A seventh rank immortal stepped through a small area barricaded from the onslaught, cool and relaxed.

He was graying at the temples. He had a blocky face that reminded me of a lion, and a body that had been tempered through millennia of martial practice.

But it was his eyes that bothered me the most. They were cold in calculating, like a boy who once pulled bugs apart just to see what happened.

“You have invaded the Leon Family. You will die after I understand who you are and why you are here.” He said calmly.

“This is the time for your plan.” Lanhua clung to my arm, a bit of panic in her voice.

“Of course.” I raised my sword and pointed it at the Leon Family elder. “I’m going to fight him.”

“Isaac!” Lanhua tugged at my arm before relaxing. “Fine. My life is yours. We’ll do this together.”