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The answer was obviously yes, but Ashlock also found his level of control over the Ash spider a bit unsettling. In a way, he preferred his relationship with Maple.

Although the little bastard wouldn't listen to his every whim, he felt he could depend on Maple to save him if he were in danger. In contrast, Larry reminded Ashlock of an intelligent Ai.

If Ashlock was dying and unable to order Larry to save him, Ashlock was positive the spider would watch as he died without lifting a leg. The spider may eat and breathe, but Larry didn't feel alive to Ashlock.

But what could Ashlock do? Setting the spider free from his control was a terrible idea—at only the [C] grade, the monster had slaughtered cultivators with the ruthless efficiency of a top predator.

The cultivators weren't dumb. They had attempted a variety of tactics to deal with the spider, but limited information and its constant moving made it hard to pin Larry down and determine its threat level.

Stronger cultivators were naturally dispatched after around thirty kills, but Larry was long gone by then with a bundle of corpses on his back for his master.

After Ashlock pressed [Yes], Larry began to weave a lair out of webs between Ashlock's branches—much to Stella's protests.

"Tree! Tell that creepy thing to go away!" Stella crossed her arms under her chest and glared at the massive shadow blocking out the sun so she couldn't continue sunbathing. Her eyes then wandered to the sack of silk next to her.

"What's in here? It reeks. Ugh." Stella summoned a knife from her spatial ring, crouched down, and sliced the sack open. A man's half-eaten face stared back at her with wide-open eyes as if the man had died while in total shock.

"Agh!" Stella stumbled back while holding her nose, "That's disgusting!"

Ashlock had to agree. Even with his dulled emotions and detachment from gruesome scenes, it looked like something out of a crime scene. Luckily, as a tree, he had no sense of smell, but if Stella's face of absolute disgust was anything to go by, the sack of decomposing human corpses was far from pleasant.

Unfortunately for Stella, Ashlock had a plan for these bodies. Using {Devour} on them would net him some credits, but he felt it would be easier to try communication with a human body.

Since Diana and Stella had been so busy training, Ashlock had been unable to resist and had eaten the last monster corpse for 20 credits, so now the only bodies he had access to were these human corpses.

While Larry was fussing about with his new lair of webs, Ashlock activated {Root Puppet} on the exposed corpse.

Stella winced as a black root snuck up from the ground and inserted through the corpse's ajar mouth. Ashlock felt Stella's reaction to the whole thing rather amusing, considering she had slaughtered so many people from a young age. Ashlock thought she would be used to seeing corpses.

Actually, now that Ashlock thought about it. Since Stella always fed the corpses to him, she had never seen a decomposed corpse before.

Diana strolled into the courtyard and gave a lukewarm reaction to the gruesome scene. "Human corpses..." Her eyes narrowed on the black root, "...and that puppet ability again."

It took a few minutes, but the silk bag of corpses eventually began to shudder as Ashlock tried to move the root puppet. "This corpse has a Soul Core, but it's weaker than mine. This guy was a freshly promoted Soul Fire cultivator at the first stage. What a sad fate."

Ashlock could already feel the corpse's Soul Core starting to crack. If he could get hold of a high-stage cultivator, it could last longer than a few minutes, but alas, his skill wasn't kind on the corpses. "Why can't the system give me necromancy? That would be so much better..."

However, Ashlock had to admit that being able to project his own cultivation through the puppet, turning it into a suicide bomber, did give him a very effective method of attacking, so long as a spare corpse was nearby.

"If I got hold of a Star Core cultivator like the Grand Elder, could I use {Root Puppet} to make it go supernova? Or would I also need to be in the Star Core realm to do that?" Ashlock wasn't sure, but if he could cause an explosion like that inside a beast tide, wouldn't he get an ungodly amount of credits?

Ashlock diverted his attention back to the corpse, pushing a little of his cultivation into the body. His lilac flames coated its hands, and the male corpse climbed out of its cocoon with jittery movements that made it look like a zombie from a crappy movie.

"Right, time to communicate." Ashlock made the corpse stand there and open its mouth—but all that came from it was a wheeze, foul-smelling air, and some fluid dripping from its chin.

Ashlock tried again, but he discovered the issue. The corpse had its vocal cords and lungs, but he didn't know how to make it talk. Controlling limbs is easy enough—although the jittery movements betrayed his level of control as being rather poor—but to manually adjust the corpse's tongue, vocal cords, and lungs all to simulate speech? Impossible without a lot of practice.

But Ashlock wanted to communicate today, not years later when he had perfected the art of corpse speech. "I could play charades with the corpse... but what do I even want to say?" Ashlock didn't want his first impression to be him making a corpse dance and randomly pointing at things.

There were naturally many things Ashlock wanted to tell Stella. They had been side by side for years, and he had been nothing but a spectator and listener, never able to console or offer solutions to the distraught girl. Ashlock finally had a chance to change that. If only he could communicate.

The corpse clawed at its face in frustration. There had to be a way to convey thoughts—

Ashlock looked at the pristine white wall of the pavilion, and an idea crossed his mind.

The puppet shuffled across the courtyard with trembling feet, and Stella gave it a wide breadth as if it was cursed or diseased. Ashlock made it slash its fingertip on a sharp bit of the runic formation that was jutting out of the ground, drawing blood.

The corpse stood motionlessly before the canvas like a deer caught in headlights, clotted blood dripping from its finger. There was an uncomfortable silence as Ashlock's mind blanked. What should be his first words?

Stella and Diana looked on curiously from a distance, neither willing to get too close.

Having come to a decision, Ashlock made the corpse raise its trembling finger, and with as much precision as possible, he spelled out a simple message.

I am Ashlock.

The corpse burst into lilac flames as its weak soul core shattered. Ashlock released his control and let the flaming corpse tumble to the side before its blood-stained message.

Not willing to waste the corpse, Ashlock cast {Devour}, and vines erupted from the floor, encasing the burning body.

Stella seemed grateful that Ashlock was disposing of the body as she nodded to him and walked past the slithering vines, and with Diana by her side, she inspected the words.

Ashlock waited nervously—he had never seen what text looked like in this world. Could they even read? Did he write in their language? What if they thought his name was stupid? Should he have said something more mysterious?

"Can you read this, Diana?" Stella tilted her head, and Ashlock felt his nonexistent heart stop. Had he just written rubbish on the wall? Did they think he was stupid?

"I should have drawn a picture... darn it," Ashlock grumbled. Now that he looked at the words the corpse had written, it wasn't any language he was familiar with back on earth, just a bunch of scribbles. How had he known how to write this weird script that looked so similar to—

"Runes." Diana said, "I think these are runes. But ancient ones. We could go find a specialist to decipher them..."

"No, we need a teacher." Stella retorted.

"Why?" Diana scrunched her brows in confusion.

Stella tilted her head like it was a stupid question, "Obviously, so I can write Tree letters when I leave the sect to train." She then pointed to the blood-stained wall, "And so I can understand whatever Tree writes anytime!"

Diana rolled her eyes and muttered, "Oh yea... obviously. How did I not think of that."

Stella practically ran past Diana toward the pavilion entrance, "Come on, Diana, we have no time to waste!"

Diana caught up to the excited girl while putting on a black cloak with a hood and a white mask to hide her appearance, as most Ravenborne cultivators had the same distinct black hair and grey eyes.

Ashlock watched them go and couldn't help but chuckle to himself.

[+20 SC]

"Oh, the corpse was absorbed." Ashlock looked at the silk sack and debated casting {Devour} on them but decided against it. Instead, he would save them for when the rune translator arrived. Then, he could speak to them some more. "I got one sentence out of that corpse, and I have nine corpses left, so one line per corpse?"

Ashlock's mind wandered about what to say in those nine lines when a popup almost startled him.

[Ash Spider {Larry} has begun to evolve]

[Please select {Larry} evolution path...]

[Colossal Ash Spider...]

Colossal Ash Spiders are known to inhabit the molten plains. Their size is comparable to an adolescent fire drake, and armor plates coat their head, abdomen, and legs, making them walking tanks that can fight toe to toe with the demonic realms' most fearsome brutes.

"Hell no," Ashlock said as he glanced at the silk sack hanging from his branch. It was so heavy Ashlock's wood was creaking, and the sack looked like it could contain a grand piano.

Larry's size had proven useful, but it would eventually become a detriment. With the addition of armored plates, the spider would naturally be slower and struggle to sneak silently across the canopies of the forests. In addition, this option would limit Larry's to being a front-line tank, which Ashlock didn't need right now.

[Ashen Prince]

An Ash Spider Queen will give birth to thousands of offspring throughout their lives, but only one can be deemed the prince of the spiderlings. The Ashen Prince has no outstanding qualities over his siblings other than inheriting their mother's deep understanding of the Dao of Ash.

Ashlock liked the sound of this one. Not only due to the royal title, but in a world of cultivation, nothing was more important than understanding the Dao. With a deep understanding of one's Dao, a cultivator has unlimited potential.

Larry had also used his limited ash techniques a few times to survive a trap by the cultivators, and the one thing Ashlock wanted was for Larry to survive.

[Chaos Spider]

Chaos Spiders thrive from slaughter and become stronger with every kill by devouring the souls of their opponents. Although this path leads to immense power very quickly, Chaos Spiders quickly embrace the mad hunger of the hunt.

Ashlock rolled his nonexistent eyes. He may be a demonic tree, but he was no stranger to the up and downsides of demonic cultivation techniques. Anything that promises quick results and unlimited power will have an equal downside, such as losing sanity.

He already had iffy control over Larry at long distances. The last thing Ashlock needed was the spider going on a warpath and killing everyone, just for an enraged Grand Elder to squash Larry like a bug.

The spider had only lived so long because of his cunning nature, not brute strength. "I think the option to pick is obvious."

Ashlock naturally picked [Ashen Prince], but the other options would have been better if he were under different circumstances, like the [Chaos Spider] would be perfect in the beast tide. But for the long term? [Ashen Prince] was the way to go.

[Evolution path {Ashen Prince} chosen, evolution initiating....]