Chapter 574: New Caretakers
Chapter 574: New Caretakers
Miaomiao was disappointed. No centipede queen or ȧduŀt centipede was born in this batch.
He counted his profit. After killing five 9th-stage cultivators, he got a million baby centipedes for the trouble. Moreover, his lifespan decreased by 1,000 years to manifest them into the real world.
Now, Miaomiao had 170 years to live.
Seeing how his lifespan went down from over 2.8 million years to 170 years, Miaomiao had heartache. His bloodshot eyes glared at the centipedes, "You'd better behave! You're my last hope!"
The centipedes innocently looked at Miaomiao as if he were their father. They gathered around him to get his attention.
"…"
Even though he was angry, he couldn't blame them for what they did. After all, it was their nature to consume someone else's Soul Qi, Soul Essence, Providence, and Lifespan to grow.
His expression softened. He waved his hand and enveloped all centipedes with his Qi. Then, he carried them back to the stable.
Several surviving stalkers opened ways for Miaomiao. No one dared to ambush him anymore after the sudden appearance of a million centipedes.
Instead of attacking Miaomiao, they contacted their friends, superior officers, and their family.
A new batch of centipedes had arrived! Miaomiao might open his shop soon!
Screech!
Miaomiao ignored their hunger. He brought them to the garbage dump. Then, he tossed them into the pit.
As no garbage remained in the pit, Miaomiao scanned his spatial ring, including the dummy rings that he had looted from dead cultivators.
'These guys need food. Well, I have plenty.'
Even though Miaomiao had cleared a lot of junk, many dummy rings with leftover garbage from the landslide incident were still in Miaomiao's pockets. Miaomiao unloaded the content to the garbage pit, letting the centipedes deal with them.
The little centipedes let out a delighted scream. They scrambled for the random objects.
After taking off all the junk from his spatial rings, Miaomiao scanned for more food for the children.
Old clothes, low-grade artifacts, and broken items of dead cultivators were thrown into the pit. Even spatial rings with small capacity were discarded.
Miaomiao lost count of how many rings he threw into the pit. He checked his system inventory and saw over a thousand rings in the same inventory slot.
He sighed. Since Miaomiao needed these centipedes to grow up to increase its price, he patiently brought out more rings.
Looking at these precious stones gave him a sense of nostalgia. Miaomiao thought of his early days when he squandered refined yin and yang stones to get stronger.
Since these stones were useless to Miaomiao now, he tossed everything to the centipedes. Even low-grade, mid-grade, and high-grade artifacts were dumped into the pit.
The centipede began fighting each other to get those stones and artifacts. They ate everything as if they were candies.
'This is kinda fun. It feels like I'm feeding fishes in a pond.'
Miaomiao got addicted to the feeding frenzy. He tossed the empty spatial ring to the pit and searched for something else to feed them.
He started throwing more precious items that he didn't need, such as strength-boosting pills, opium, weed, wet cigarettes, spoiled food, rotten herbs, and furniture.
He even discovered a ring with nothing but his sėmėn! He didn't even know how it remained in his system inventory!
Yet, Miaomiao didn't care. He sprayed the thick-old and stinky sėmėn to the centipedes!
Because of the fun, Miaomiao accidentally ejected everything in a money storage ring into the pit. A hundred thousand essence cores went into the pile of trash.
Everything disappeared in a blink of a second!
SCREECH!
The babies cheered and rose up, opening their mouths like newborn birds, waiting to be fed.
It seemed that they loved it.
Miaomiao shrugged. Since essence cores were useless here, he might as well use them to grow these cute creatures. Miaomiao scanned for other rings that he had used to store essence cores.
There were a hundred of them! From a rough estimation, Miaomiao had over five million essence cores in these rings.
"Hahaha! Okay, here's your buffet!"
Miaomiao ejected them out like a fountain. He no longer cared about them anymore as he could always produce them from his dantian mines and quarries.
A million centipedes jumped and seized those essence cores. They devoured everything in the blink of an eye.
Yet, it was far from enough.
"You glutton bastards! You ate a lot, but you still want more?!"
Miaomiao thought of the previous batch. Last time, the centipedes had a mountain of corpses, dead beasts, and rotten junk to eat. The amount was more than what Miaomiao gave the second batch.
He wondered if the corpses of random cultivators were more nutritious than essence cores and random objects.
Suddenly, Miaomiao had an inspiration. He turned toward the stalkers and peeping toms, giving them a wide smile.
Meanwhile, the stalkers observed Miaomiao's activities in astonishment. They stared at the discarded spatial rings and random treasures.
As small asteroids in space were all soul stones, they thought of those items as junk. However, precious essence cores were rare here, and they could use them to nurture children and juniors, who had yet to reach the nascent soul realm.
As such, their heart bled when they saw millions of essence cores being thrown away.
Suddenly, Miaomiao turned toward them. His dark sclera and golden pupils didn't hide his killing intent and sinister thoughts.
Betraying their expectation, Miaomiao suddenly bellowed.
"Recruiting pet caretakers! The wage is a compound element core for a one-year contract!"
Several cultivators stopped on their track. They hesitated if they should bite the bait.
Ta Dun widened his eyes. As a rogue cultivator, cultivation resources, such as elemental cores or high-grade soul stones were hard to come by. Moreover, a compound element core was extremely rare as no immortal or deity wanted to waste their time condensing an extra core for others.
Still, an immortal like him needed to disperse his progress and regress back to the mortal realm if he wanted to add a new element to his dantian, and this process often caused heavy backlashes. Condensing a new compound element crystal as an immortal was also time-consuming as one might averagely require over a thousand years to condense a new compound continent.
Then, there were the issues of their golden core, soul, and Dao, which had to be compatible with the new compound element. If their affinity was low, it would have been a waste of time to recultivate.
The stalkers grumbled in bitterness. Most of them had already ascended, and they didn't want to recultivate from scratch. Thus, they decided to give up this opportunity.
Some smart cultivators pondered. Even if they couldn't use the elemental core, they could give it to their family or their disciples. However, they still hesitated, being cautious of Miaomiao.
But one brave rogue cultivator volunteered.
"I'll do it!"
Ta Dun raised his hand. He decided to bite the bullet.
The others were surprised by Ta Dun's decisiveness. They waited to see what Miaomiao would do to him.
Miaomiao brightly smiled at Ta Dun, "I remember you. You were the first to flee when I was about to activate my domain. What's your name, fellow Daoist?"
Ta Dun stuttered in nervousness, "I-I am Ta Dun, sir!"
"Have you taken care of domesticated monsters or beasts before?"
"No. Not at all."
"Okay. How about your strength? What immortal path are you pursuing?"
Ta Dun bit his lower lips. He was embarrassed, "Immortal Saint Path, sir. I'm an immortal knight."
"Immortal Knight? Tell me if I'm wrong, but is that rank equal to 2-Star Stellar Constellation Immortal Realm?"
"S-Something like that."
In reality, his strength was only on par with 1-star stellar constellation immortal.
"Alright. It's a shame, but you're good enough. Well, listen carefully. It relates to your job."
"Yes, sir."
Miaomiao began explaining the detail out loud.
As Miaomiao couldn't always look after these glutton centipedes, he needed someone to feed them in his stead. Ta Dun had to scour the city and find random junk, corpses of cultivators, and any cultivation resources to feed the centipedes.
Secondly, Ta Dun was required to transfer his soul Qi to the centipedes once a week. The amount was 50% of his total dantian's capacity!
And lastly, every month, he had to donate a liter of blood to the centipedes!
Ta Dun's face turned white as he regretted his decision. He wanted to change his mind, but he was afraid of provoking Miaomiao and getting himself killed.
But as soon as Miaomiao mentioned the wages, Ta Dun had a second thought.
"Oh, about your wage, I should be able to give it to you within six months. For now, I'll pay you 100 4th-grade soul stones every month until the end of the contract. As for the compound element crystal, I'll give it to you when the contract is over. How's that sound?"
A hundred 4th-grade soul stones?!
The stalkers ġrȯȧnėd and screamed in their minds. They regretted not accepting the job earlier.
Adam Coins might be the currency here as everyone could use them to trade for heaven-grade, immortal-grade, saint-grade, or even legendary-grade technique manuals from the sect. But in an essence, the king of currency was soul stones as they could be directly consumed to boost one's strength.
Gaining 100 4th-grade soul stones a month for a year would ensure their safe and smooth cultivation life!
"YES! I'LL DO IT!" Ta Dun grabbed Miaomiao's right hand and shook it.
"Oh, good," Miaomiao glanced at Ta Dun's sweaty hands. He inwardly clicked his tongue while his consciousness in the dantian world prepared some sacred water and a bar of soap in advance.
Miaomiao gazed at the other stalkers in the sky and behind several buildings. Although having one employee should be enough, he needed more blood donors for his children.
"I need two more employees, preferably immortal-ranked employees!"
The crowd widened their eyes. Now, they raised their hands.
"I'LL DO IT!"
"ME!"
"I'LL WORK FOR YOU!"
"PICK ME!"
Suddenly, a hundred cultivators surrounded Miaomiao. All of them were rogue cultivators like Ta Dun.
Then, Miaomiao noticed a few men who seemed to be out of place. A cultivator in the initiate uniform also volunteered.
He was other than Tugu, who was Miaomiao's first customer!
"You, too?" Miaomiao laughed at Tugu.
The initiate's face reddened in embarrassment, "Y-Yes. C-Could I work for you?"
"Okay. You're in!"
"Thank you, sir! I won't let you down!"
Miaomiao scanned through the crowd for the last employee. However, the competition was fierce.
"Sir, pick me! I used to take care of an immortal beast for my clan! I know how to handle dangerous and wild beasts!"
"I inherit my grandfather's monster-taming techniques, and I'm the most suitable person for the job!"
"I've mastered the Nature Element! I can communicate with trees and beasts! If you give me a chance, I will show you how it's done!"
Many experts in the field showed up and overshadowed the other stalkers. The rest of the cultivators shrank away in bitterness as they were aware of their shortcoming.
Miaomiao was satisfied with the resumes of the experts as well. He wondered if he should take them all in.
But then, the corner of his eyes spotted a strange boy in the mix. He looked shy, but his aura was no joke.
The boy was definitely a high-ranked immortal, and he had abnormally long ears as if he were an elf. His pretty face, long silky hair, jade-like skin, tender lips, and round eyes attracted him.
Miaomiao narrowed his eyes and inspected the boy's curvy body. His perky buŧŧ was in a perfect shape, and his ċhėst was abnormally striking for a boy. It was as if he had wrapped his ċhėst with a long bandage to hide his natural ȧsset.
His pussƴ-hound sensor, aka the D, was reacting to this boy.
His instinct cried that the boy was a girl in disguise!
He was definitely a SHE, and she might be a rare species in legends, aka the Big-Boob-Loli!
Before Miaomiao could utter a word, he heard Xie Tian's voice in his mind.
'Master, please spare her.. She's my little aunt.'