13 Shoggoth

Zhu Wu Shang and The Black merchant talk with each other for a while then they continue with the very first topic. The thing that the Black Merchant mention

Both of them go down from the stair of the big tree house. The shadow of tree leaves lies across the ground that cover with green luster grasses that's looks like some kind of spirits grass.

There's countless spirits herb that plant in a row-fashion like a farm. Zhu Wu Shang only Remember to some of them and what he remembers is all rare spirits herb.

But the thing that made him speechless is not all these extremely rare spirits herb but the thing that is taking care of a farm right now.

It's the horrendous black gelatinous blob-like creature that has many tentacles and organs that shapeshift to many tool-like organ that look like the farm tool in a twisted form that made of flesh, muscle, and bone.

"What… is that thing?" Zhu Wu Shang asks dumbfounded.

The Black merchant smiled then walking to the black-blob creature and patting it on its gelatinous body.

"This creature called Shoggoth, The loyal and non-fatigue labor that I created. It's not good at fighting, but it's very durable and can change shape at will. As you can see, It transforms its limb to be a tool for working in the field or even building something. Also, some of your body parts and organs that already seize to function has been replaced by Shoggoth flesh and blood. That's why I said kind of because technically you're already dead. But you survived because of the replaced organs."

Zhu Wu Shang feels astonished and looks at his limb and body. He then walks toward Shoggoth to examine it. But every step that he took It made Shoggoth body to tremble in fear.

"Is this creature... fear me?" He utter.

"Of course, with your bloodline, all the creature of horror would fear you."

"Oh? Is my bloodline are some kind of a holy bloodline that can exorcist all horror creature!?" Zhu Wu Shang asks excitedly.

Black merchant didn't answer; he just smiles with an expression full of a different kind of meaning while keeping the answer within himself.

"What's the meaning of that smile?" Asked, Zhu Wu Shang annoyingly.

Black merchant immediately acts innocent then speak.

"Nothing, By the way, My point is this thing can form itself to any shape and organs that it needs to use. But this is the first time I use it to replace someone organs and limb. But once your body has evolved into a treasured body. I'm sure that it's work well and without flaw."

Zhu Wu Shang rolls his eye at The Black merchant behavior, but he has senses something strange from this conversation. It's sure fascinating but... Why does this guy telling me all this?

While he thinks The Black merchant continue.

"You see... This creature is a good helper when it comes to heavy labor, and you also stay here at my house in the center of The great forest of nowhere, and I'm sure that right now those guy from higher realm would try to find you all over the place."

Zhu Wu Shang looks at The Black Merchant astonished and then suspicious. He astonished because this house is at the centermost of The Great forest of nowhere; And suspicious because of what black merchant is trying to say after this.

[Don't tell me...]

"Since you cannot go out for a long while then, You could stay here in my house for one and a half years, waiting for the matter to die down while enjoying the vast amount of my book collection and knowledge and taking care of my spirits herb garden." The Black merchant speech ends with a business smile while patting Zhu Wu Shang shoulder.

[Is this stingy merchant want to get some benefit? While letting me hidden here?]

Zhu Wu Shang fell into deep thought and think about it. What The Black merchant said is making sense, and It'd be much worse if a walking treasure like him go out of hiding while the matter is still hot. And helping this guy to take care of spirit herb could count as paying rent to him while he still hiding here.

And from what he knows. The Black Merchant would probably have some rare and unique book for him to learn and this opportunity didn't come every day.

"Fine, It's true that I can't go anywhere for awhile. So what do you want me to do?" Zhu Wu Shang asks.

The black merchant smile then offers him a deal.

"Well, Let me give you some motivation. These herbs are nearly ripe for the harvest. After this batch of herbs, you can use all of these plot to plant and grow yourself some spirits herb, and any herb that you grow after this batch will belong to you." The Black merchant smile in generous while his demeanor acts like a very generous man.

But in fact, It's the opposite. Because of these herbs would take more than two years to ripe, some rare and exotic herb would take more than that, and this black merchant just tries to coat a fake sugar over on this scamming deal.

Zhu Wu Shang isn't someone stupid that wouldn't know of this fact. He feels annoying right now, but his face didn't show any signs of annoyance. He can't do anything about this anyway because this is the Black merchant home.

After the deal was done. The Black merchant guides Zhu Wushang and introduces him to his home that has many rooms and separate buildings. Each building has a different function, The Great Forge that has all of the top equipment ready to forge any weapon, armor equipment or tool one can ever imagine, The Alchemy lab that has the cauldron from the first civilization from the higher realm and all of the top tier necessary equipment.

The Black merchant then brings Zhu Wushang to the last and the largest building of his Manor that covers more than one sq Kilometres. The outside of this building builds with the spirits marble that can supply the energy to the great formation that protects this building.

Inside the Library are the countless bookshelves that store more than millions of books; most of it is the books from all the sects that the Black merchant destroyed in his early day as The Venerable Black River. The books contain many knowledge ranges from the basic history to the forbidden knowledge that many cultivators would kill to get it.

The sight of these books can make Zhu Wushang poker face to change to astounding and display a great hunger for knowledge that he would usually hide it.

The Black Merchant smiled then brought out the blue metal seal from his storage ring and give it to Zhu Wushang as he says.

"I can't stay here to teach you myself but consider this Master Seal to be the key to your advancement; This seal will give you unlimited access to all of my knowledge within this library that even the greatest sect in the Upper realm could only dream of getting their hands on.

After they came out from the Great Library. The Black Merchant activates the invisible formation to make this place invisible to the naked eye and the spirits sense against the expert of Ascension realm and below.

"Ok kid, I'll take care of my business first then, I'll see if I can shoo away those higher realm investigators to go back to their home. I'll be back after two years, but if I didn't come back by then, you could go out yourself."

The Black merchant then flew through the sky and disappeared on the horizon.

He then looks back on the Shoggoth that continues working without stop. He thinks about the special properties of it that can change into any form and any organs it wants. He thinks of something and commands it.

"Hey, can you change shape to look like me?"

As Zhu Wu Shange command, The gelatinous black blob divides itself into many parts and change themselves to look like Zhu Wu Shang, Many of the clone body of Zhu Wu Shang stand naked in a neat row.

He must say that these Shoggoths is very good when it comes to mimicking someone appearance. The problem is that their intelligence is somehow lacking. But that's to be expected because The Black merchant creates it to do the heavy labor for him. If they can think and rebel or don't want to do their assigned job, then there's no point to creating it in the first place, and he is not some naive fool to meddle in this thing and let the Shoggoths have intelligence and then free them to satisfy his moral ego.

He experiments Shoggoth ability for two days before he can summarize it to 5 rules.

1. Shoggoth can transform their body into anything within the scope of organic lifeform.

2. Shoggoth needs to see the person once if they want to transform into a specific person.

3. The mass of a transformed shoggoth can compress up to 5 times of the apparent mass. (For example. If shoggoth transforms into a person with 50 kilograms, its actual mass can compress up to 1

250 kilograms.)

4. Shoggoth intelligence can be upgraded if they have special permission.

5. Shoggoth didn't have gender, but it can transform into any gender as they wish.

But during the experiment, there's one thing that picks his interest the most. When he's commanded the Shoggoth to change from into anything that it knew, one of the forms is his mother in black cloth like the one who's working as an infiltrator or spy would wear during their mission. Does this mean his mother already met with Shoggoth at some point?

After that, he commands Shoggoth to divide itself into many bodies in a smaller version of itself and let them do the work which is much faster and more efficient than before.

He uses the remaining time to study in the Great Library of The Black merchant. In the morning he supervises many of Shoggoths to work until noon. Then he studies and practices a skill until he mastered it in a short time with his heaven-defying comprehension.

Spirits Blacksmithing technique, Weapon refining technique, Medical arts by using Shoggoth to transform itself to be a human patient, Pill concoction, Herb and vegetation knowledge, Weapon handling, Treasure refining technique, Spirits Formation, Many of the spirits Arts, Many of the Combat arts, Spirits arts creation theory, Combat arts creation theory. Etc.

Nearly all of the book in a large library has been read.

And thus, two years had passed.