I knew he was right, but such extravagant interest would turn me into a slave for Yonker. “I can agree on the interest, but lower it to half,” that was what I could do.

That won’t do but that dude knew he held the upper hand here, Don’t try to bargain with me. You simply have no capital to do that

He was right again, yet that told me how rude and brutal the life outside the system was. Such a higher up was fighting with me over such low things as my souls.

“Ok,” against my will, I agreed. I had no other choice but to do that.

Great, you’ll get a contract now

“What for? You didn’t do that with any item before!”

You are a human race, and humans known for their shamelessness

“Are you sure you aren’t a human?”

Hahaha, no, I’m not

I found a contract in front of me with everything he spoke about. That interest was calculated for the next five years. Just looking at the number at the end of it made my scalp numb.

“Are these numbers right?” I couldn’t help but ask. The debt started with one hundred million souls and ended up by almost two billion souls!

This is a compound interest rate Hye, just calculate it and make sure by yourself

“I suck at math!”

Then trust the system, after all these numbers came up from the system and not me

I looked again and as he said, the system stated that it ran the numbers and were provided by him.

“Ok,” I felt more bitter than before when I saw these numbers. At this point I knew I had to work my ass literally for the first six months or else that scary number would be my fate.

Two billion souls? Damn! How many fallen gods could I summon with them? How many drugs? Damn!

The item is coming to you now the tone of Yonker told me how excited he was. You won’t regret this deal

“I won’t delay the payment beyond the six months time,” I said in determination, “I won’t wait to see that number.”

Good luck then

His tone was so annoying, as if he was laughing at my words and decision. That tone and attitude made me more determined to pay at least most of this debt by the end of the first six months.

The thing wasn’t in the great toll I had to pay, but that huge number would put all my plans into a pause for a long time.

I had to be more careful now when dealing with soul points. Sigh, sorry my summoned fallen gods, I wouldn’t be able to summon lots of you in the next six months or even an entire year.

*Flash!*

Just as I was lost in my bitter thoughts, something flashed in front of me. It looked like a small ball made out of pure milky liquid.

I didn’t consider it milk as it floated with any help at all. Besides it emitted flashes of lights in the shape of curved lines from time to time.

It’s in front of you, just swallow it and it will create a new dantian in your body Yonker said before adding, This new dantian will be perfectly identical to yours. Also it will be connected with it as if it was a twin of your dantian

“I eat that?” I asked while grabbing that floating ball of milk and drew it closer to me. I felt like I was holding a piece of jelly, so soft and squishy to be honest.

Just do it and you’ll see the changes instantly

I shrugged. For this little thing here, my next six months or even years were about to be consumed in repaying its price.

It should be good, it ought to be.

The moment I put it into my mouth, it melted right away. Then a surge of heat erupted that engulfed my entire body, before a strange sensation started to emerge from my belly.

I never had such an awareness before. The belly region began to change, evolve and develop a new sense there, enabling me to see through everything there.

And there I found a small circular void that was all silver white in colour. Without the need to ask, I knew it was my dantian. That thing just awakened my dantian without any delay.

That was a good start.

Then things started to develop faster.

From that dantian, I felt a severe pain that made me even close my eyes partially. I endured for a few minutes, wanting to scream but didn’t.

Then a new smaller dantian appeared next to the bigger one. This one was identical to my dantian, yet it had free mobility and lied completely under my control.

I thought and it moved right and left, allowing me to notice that small and yet stable thread that linked the two dantian together.

“The new dantian appeared,” I said, “what should I do now?”

Simply move it towards your shadow

I looked at my feet, where my shadow was connected with my body. With a simple thought, that smaller dantian flashed and appeared at my feet before finally crossing to the shadow region.

The moment it passed, I felt a new change in my shadow area. That deeply rooted black hole seemed to sense my dantian, and instantly reacted.

A surging energy wave appeared, trying to smash my dantian. Yet while I grew anxious over my weak and small dantian, all the waves of energy that came at it got absorbed and turned into pure spiritual energy.

The amount of my silver white spiritual energy there increased. And that wasn’t all. I also felt the intensity of its brightness intensified as well.

That meant my energy was getting increased in quantity and quality.

“I dare you to keep attacking it!” At this point, all the worries inside me vanished and instead a sense of confidence surged.

I wanted my dantian to deplete the entire dark energy of that shadow, ending up devouring that black hole as well.

Yet after half an hour of constantly attacking and failing at the edge of my dantian, that black hole seemed to reach a realisation.

It couldn’t break my dantian. This was its losing war.

So I saw the dark energy recede back, only leaving an area of safety around my dantian.

“Now what?” I waited and hoped for my dantian to do the impossible, yet nothing else happened.

You shall start merging with your bone now Yonker mistook my comment to be for him. I didn’t mean him by that, yet he reminded me about the next step.

Everything was ready. The shadow already got the Curasee race body with part of my soul in it. Also it got my second dantian, which was connected to my primary one.

So it was time for me to start absorbing that bone. It was finally the moment of truth.

Would I be able to do it?

I knew it would be a hellish experience for me. I had to endure the full power of that bone’s berserk spiritual energy, guide it towards my dantian before pushing all the energy into the secondary dantian.

Yet the main problem I could see was the weakness and limit of the thread-like link between the two dantian.

I knew this would delay the movement speed of that berserk spiritual energy towards my secondary dantian. And when I thought about that, I knew I had not only to endure that pain, but also try to find a way to deal with the extra energy until I expand that link.

The only way I thought of was to open my meridian network. It was the only thing I had to fight against that brutal energy. However, according to the old man’s teachings, the newly developed meridians would be fragile at first.

“Is there a way to strengthen my meridians?” as I had zero idea about what to do about this, I asked Yonker, praying I’d not pay another hefty price to that stingy greedy dude.

What do you think that item is doing in your body right now? It’s strengthening the meridians once you opened them

Phew! I heaved a silent sigh of relief. Thinking back to the extravagant price of that milky liquid ball, I realised it wouldn’t make any sense to only work for making a new dantian for me.

So it also worked at my meridians. That was perfect.

“Activate the separation skill,” as everything was settled, I loudly said, “merge this damn bone with my body!”

The merge will start now

One hundred thousand soul points are deducted for the merge

The merge process will start now

One percent completion of the merge

Two percent completion of the merge

Three percent completion of the merge

It wasn’t the first time for me to see a countdown from the system, but I wasn’t in the mood to count with it. The moment the merge started, my body felt like it was thrown from ice into the depth of hell itself.

“Ahhhh!”

I gritted my teeth, and roared like a real monster. I thought the influx of the energy would start after the bone merge. I was prepared for pain in my arms, but that didn’t happen.

What really happened was for that bone to turn into strange black dust, swirling around me in torrents before it started to dissipate inside my body.

And from that moment, my entire body felt like it was burning with hellish fire.

The pain was simply unbearable! Yet I tried my best to focus on the main task at hand.

“Keep moving that damned energy,” I kept yelling to myself, trying to muster up any will hidden inside me. The energy that assaulted my body was so violent and yet so thick and heavy.

Just trying to force it to move towards my dantian was a torture. Then when it reached there, I tried to push it outside before I felt a strong blow to my belly.

My dantian started shaking, and I even felt cracks appearing all over it. Damn! If I didn’t act fast, then that dantian of mine would explode and I’d end up crippled.

Just at this crucial moment, something flared up. It felt like I got a cool shower of cold water while standing in the depths of hell.

I saw a milky white energy appearing from my entire body, circulating and surrounding that dark energy before it made it more flexible to my orders.

It was that milky ball I took from Yonker. Just seeing what it did here made me realise it was worth every single soul point I paid for it.

The dark energy lost a lot of its aggressiveness and became much easier to follow my orders. The cracks that appeared before inside my dantian started to get healed on a rate visible to my naked eye.

It was making my dantian stronger. It wasn’t fast, but it was noticeable at least. That told me how valuable this thing was, and how vital its role to play up ahead would be.

“Time to get you opened!” I heard the description of the old man about the meridian network inside our bodies.

According to him, there was a very complicated and dense network of meridians that would even reach the level of each cell of my body.

Opening more meridians meant the more powerful my cultivation would be. Yet opening lots of meridians at first would be a hellish task.

To open meridians, one had to obtain a dense and enough spiritual power to crack open and pass through the isolation membrane surrounding each meridian.

That also required a lot of tenacity and much work and endurance.

I have an insane amount of energy at the moment. I also had the will and desire to do it. So why wouldn’t I go all out and try to open as many meridians as possible?