Dual Cultivation System: My Cultivation Was Crippled, So I Rely on Intimacy to Level Up

Chapter 183: All Eight Women Assembled, Celebrating Survival After the Calamity

The afternoon sun spilled down with a lazy warmth, melting the tension from Zhou Kai’s bones until his entire body felt pleasantly weak and relaxed.

Zhou Kai sat on a wooden stump in the courtyard, teasing three mantises with his fingertips. These three Jade Arm Mantises leaped and danced, waving their razor-sharp, sickle-like forelimbs between his fingers. Yet, displaying remarkable spirituality, they always maintained a hair’s breadth of distance from his skin, never actually cutting him.

“What a pity, what a pity,” Zhou Kai smacked his lips, shaking his head in mock regret. “All three of you are little girls. If I had just one male, you could spread your wings and multiply, breeding an endless dynasty of little killers.”

The three Jade Arm Mantises seemed to understand his words. They stopped in unison and tilted their little heads to stare at him. One of them even retracted its forelimbs in an incredibly human-like gesture of dissatisfaction.

Zhou Kai chuckled lightly. He leaned back, his head sinking into an expected patch of soft, fragrant warmth.

A pair of hands, so soft they felt boneless, came to rest gently on his temples. The fingers began to massage his pressure points with the perfect amount of force.

“Husband’s injuries should be fully healed by today, right?”

Shen Hanyi’s voice drifted down from above, carrying a trace of unusual, hypnotic magnetism. Without even turning his head to look, Zhou Kai knew that the dark red whirlpools were currently swirling within her eyes, making her look eerily enchanting.

Ever since Zhou Kai had thoroughly subdued this Sword Immortal Maiden, Shen Hanyi would frequently display her Demonic side in front of him. In this state, she was passionate, bold, and completely unrecognizable from her usual dignified and aloof self.

Previously, she would only switch to this state when Zhou Kai explicitly demanded it.

The Sword Immortal Maiden was a walking contradiction. When they Dual Cultivated normally, she remained as composed and dignified as an immortal untouched by mortal desires. Even with her face flushed a deep crimson, she wouldn’t utter a single moan.

Only when she slipped into this Demonic state would she completely let go, unleashing an astonishing, uninhibited passion.

“Yeah…” Zhou Kai let out a long, satisfied sigh, the alluring scent of her body lingering at the tip of his nose. “I’m finally alive again.”

He closed his eyes, but his thoughts involuntarily drifted back to the nightmare of four months ago.

After spending several days thoroughly “comforting” Wu Hongxiao in an intense, passionate entanglement, he had locked himself in her meditation chamber. He spent an entire month in secluded cultivation, successfully re-tempering her spear for her.

But the moment he stepped out of seclusion—before he could even share a tender moment with Wu Hongxiao—Li Qiwen had slammed them with an emergency order.

All disciples at the Foundation Establishment stage and above were to head to the front lines immediately!

That battle was absolute chaos. The skies turned black as the fighting raged non-stop for three entire months!

Every single day was filled with the earth-shaking roars of slaughter and the deafening explosions of Dharma Treasures colliding. Flesh and blood rained from the sky. Both the righteous and demonic sides had gone completely insane, treating their Cultivators like expendable firewood and tossing them endlessly into a massive, merciless meat grinder.

Nascent Soul powerhouses loomed high in the sky, maintaining a terrifying standoff. Golden Core masters personally led the vanguard, charging headfirst into the enemy ranks.

On a battlefield of this scale, there was no concept of fairness or “bullying the weak.” There was only life and death.

A casual palm strike from a Golden Core cultivator would instantly reduce both Foundation Establishment and Bone Forging cultivators to a fine red mist, leaving them no time to even scream.

On the battlefield, Zhou Kai dodged and hid whenever possible, yet he still racked up an untold number of injuries.

The most dangerous moment came when he was targeted by an early-stage Golden Core Demonic Cultivator. The bastard unleashed a vicious Dharma Treasure that nearly pulverized Zhou Kai’s internal organs. If he hadn’t stuck close to Su Xuan’s side, he would have undoubtedly perished right then and there.

Healing? Non-existent. As long as you could still twitch, you were expected to pick up your Chaotic Sky Hammer and charge back into the fray. If you were too crippled to stand, you were dragged to the rear, force-fed Pills like they were cheap candy, and shoved back onto the front lines the moment you caught your breath.

For three torturous months, Zhou Kai teetered on the razor’s edge of life and death. His nerves were constantly strung to the breaking point. Even a peaceful night’s sleep became a luxury he could only dream of.

This can’t go on any longer! If his cultivation was delayed, that was a minor setback. But if he lost his life, it was game over. He could sense that after this brutal meat grinder, both sides had suffered such catastrophic losses that they would be forced to recuperate for a long time.

But what about the next war? When conflict erupted again, what then?

The higher-ups of both factions were clearly fighting while negotiating, using the lives of low-level Cultivators as cheap bargaining chips on the negotiation table. The true apex predators—the Nascent Soul ancestors—hadn’t even lifted a finger!

Zhou Kai had only one burning desire left: he prayed those Nascent Soul old monsters would get serious, settle the score in one decisive battle, and quickly carve up the Crouching Tiger Mountain ruins. Then, he could finally go home, embrace his wives, and live a life of carefree comfort.

“Hanyi! Hanyi! Zhou Kai! Are you guys there?”

A clear, boisterous shout shattered his reminiscence. The voice arrived before the person. A second later, Wu Hongxiao dropped from the sky, landing with a heavy thud.

During this period of intense camaraderie, her Affection had long been maxed out.

Seeing Zhou Kai comfortably resting his head on Shen Hanyi’s lap, she brazenly raised an eyebrow at the Sword Immortal.

“Hanyi, if he tries anything funny, just stab him with your sword!”

Previously, Zhou Kai had assumed Wu Hongxiao would get along best with Fish Baibai.

He was dead wrong. Wu Hongxiao had absolutely zero interest in a food-obsessed kid like Fish Baibai. Instead, she had hit it off immediately with the equally fierce and dashing Shen Hanyi. One was as cold and deadly as ice, the other as explosive as fire. Standing together, they complemented each other perfectly.

Shen Hanyi gave her a slight nod in greeting, her hands continuing to massage Zhou Kai’s temples.

Wu Hongxiao plopped down onto the grass, completely unbothered. “So, Zhou Kai, why did you call me over?”

Zhou Kai opened his eyes, sat up, and smiled.

“The injuries for the three of us are finally healed. I just swept the area with my Divine Sense. Fish Baibai’s seclusion is nearing its end. Her aura is stable and continuous, so she should be emerging any minute now.”

“Once she comes out, our whole family is going out for a feast to celebrate surviving that calamity.”

Fish Baibai hadn’t gone to the front lines. For the better part of this year, she had been buried in secluded cultivation, purely focused on artifact refining.

This was all because of that Yun Kang they had encountered earlier. The man was a useless piece of trash at the 6th Layer of Bone Forging. He should have been squashed with a single hammer strike. Yet, relying entirely on his mountain of Dharma Treasures and flashy parlor tricks, he had nearly made Zhou Kai stumble.

That incident had served as a stark wake-up call. That was why Zhou Kai had ordered Fish Baibai, a Rank 3 Artifact Refiner, into strict seclusion. He told her to ignore everything else and focus solely on forging Dharma Treasures—specifically defensive and escape types. The more, the better.

…

Huiyu Workshop, the top-floor Tianzi private room.

This was the very first time Zhou Kai had gathered all of his women together for a meal.

They sat in a wide circle around a massive round table.

Chen Ziyi gracefully poured tea for him.

Lin Zhiwei looked around, her eyes full of curiosity as she observed everyone.

Chen Ziqing and Wang Qiaoqiao were quietly bickering over some petty slight.

Wu Hongxiao and Shen Hanyi sat shoulder-to-shoulder, their drastically different auras blending in a surprisingly harmonious way.

Fish Baibai’s eyes were practically glowing as she stared at the menu, drooling as she muttered, “This one, this one, and that one… Junior Brother, I want all of them!”

Li Youci maintained her disguise as “Xia Min,” sitting quietly with her usual arrogant expression.

During his healing period, Zhou Kai had consulted Li Youci to clarify the relationship between Comprehension and cultivation realms.

He already knew that Comprehension dictated cultivation speed and the ability to master techniques. It also allowed one to perceive the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth.

What he hadn’t known was that this perception was hard-capped by one’s cultivation realm.

Anyone below the Nascent Soul realm could only “perceive” the Dao. They could not truly “communicate” with Heaven and Earth.

Therefore, most Cultivators only began focusing on enhancing their Comprehension once they reached the late Golden Core stage.

Zhou Kai had also asked her about Spirit Roots.

To his astonishment, the legendary Immortal-grade Spirit Root didn’t actually increase raw cultivation speed beyond the Heaven-grade. However, it drastically reduced the Qi and Vitality cost of techniques within its corresponding element, while simultaneously skyrocketing their destructive power!

Learning this had made Wang Qiaoqiao the happiest out of all of them.

The dishes flowed onto the table like a non-stop stream, their rich aromas filling the private room.

Serving the feast were two maidservants. Both were in the mid-Qi Condensation stage—one at the 5th Layer, the other at the 6th. They possessed graceful figures and rather pleasing features.

They kept their heads bowed respectfully the entire time, their movements deft and efficient, clearly demonstrating strict training.

However, the moment the two maids made eye contact with Wang Qiaoqiao, the expressions on all three of their faces twisted into something incredibly strange.

The other women were too busy chattering and laughing to notice the sudden, eerie silence.

But with Zhou Kai’s powerful Divine Sense?

He instantly caught the exact moment their gazes locked.