The two Divine Cultivators led Cain and the Disciples down the road, which led along the border between the two Sects. It was nominally on the Thunder Gods' side of the river that divided the two territories, but that was only because the Foot Clan side was mostly marshy and not suitable for a road to be made without going further into their territory.
The trees here were incredible, though. Clearly, the Sect's attempts to increase the energy in the area had been working, and they didn't practice mass logging because many of the trees that they passed were a dozen meters wide and had an air of ancient energy to them that gave the area a solemn presence.
There also weren't any of the damaged areas that indicated recent fights between Cultivators or monsters here, so they weren't joking about keeping the area clear of major threats. It made for a very relaxing walk while the Divine Realm Cultivators exchanged barbed comments and bragged about how competent each of their Sects' Inner Disciples was.
The Core Disciples of the Sect rarely gained more than one new member every decade, thanks to the limited potential of most of the applicants, so the Inner Disciples were the hope for the future, while the old men viewed the Outer Disciples as nothing more than promising children, not yet old enough to have proven themselves worthy of attention.
That would normally apply to Cain's disciples as well, but both of the old men had taken a great interest in the rate at which they were progressing, as they knew that once power was amassed, it only took a single new skill of the appropriate power level, or a flash of inspiration to Awaken to the next level.
At their power level, granting those Immortal Rank skills was no big deal. They could teach them with a mind-to-mind transfer that was nearly as effective as Cain's method of granting skills with [Modify]. It was that skill that had made them mistake him as one of them, an old monster and true powerhouse, even by the standards of an Immortal Realm.
The road eventually led them to a clearing, where there were many signs of recent camps and a small group of kids in plain gray cultivator's robes waiting for them.
"These are the applicants who either had no affinity for our Sect's technique or were turned away for a lack of potential. They have all volunteered for this experiment in hopes of having their potential increased so that they can find their place among the Sects in the future. If the chosen applicant's process is successful, we will escort them to the city, where they can petition a suitable Sect to take them in." The Thunder Gods' Elder explained.
If they were really volunteers, that took the moral ambiguity out of the situation in Cain's mind, and with a pair of bored old men looking to show off for each other, Cain was certain that three of these aspiring Cultivators would soon have enough potential for someone to take them in.
"Might we ask, what brought you out of seclusion today, Divine Elder? Did you sense something about the applicants?" The Foot Clan's representative waiting with the children asked.
"Nothing so fancy. I heard that an interesting man was passing by with the skills to change fate, and I wanted to see it for myself." The old man answered.
The younger Elders looked in shock at the high praise that the Divine Elder had heaped upon Cain, but none dared to question his judgment, so they only ordered the aspirants to line up for the selection.
[Wandering Cultivator System Quest] Grant a failed Disciple an Immortal Body and change their fate.
Cain looked at the notification with some confusion. That wasn't the first time he saw the System call itself that since he arrived in this world, and he was beginning to think that it was having a laugh with him and convincing the others that he met that the System was, in fact, him, not something that he had inherited.
Cain looked over the disciples and found his perfect target. There was a very bruised and scarred young boy among the gathered options. There were no girls, so he wouldn't be following in his usual pattern of just finding a cute thing to play with, but if Cain had to list the greatest Main Character tropes, he had to say that a bullied and abused, undergrown and malnourished failed applicant who had nearly given up hope on life was very near the peak.
You couldn't have a rags-to-riches story if they didn't start in rags, after all.
"You, boy. Come here and tell me your name." Cain demanded, gesturing for the filthy boy to come forward.
"They call me Slave, sir." The boy answered quietly.
"Seriously? Like, not even a job so that they know where you belong? And I thought I had terrible naming sense." Cain replied while the two Divine Realm Cultivators chuckled.
"He was once called Rupert, but he lost the right to a name after he was caught stealing for the second time." The Elder from the Thunder Gods Sect explained.
"A thief? Perhaps not then." Cain sighed. He wasn't trying to make a supervillain.
"Please, sir. It was a misunderstanding. I was asked to bring those clothes to the laundry." The boy begged.
"And the first time?" The Elder asked.
"I admit, I stole that food." The boy sighed, defeated.
Good, broken was perfect. Cain would give him a little tweak to make sure he stayed humble.
"I will give him a chance. Whether he seizes it or gets executed as a thief is up to him." Cain announced.
"Oh, a fine choice. A new lease on life while working with his very last chance. I like it." The Foot Clan Elder cheered, then pointed at one of the boys.
"You look like you have big dreams, come here, and I will give you a future."
The Thunder Gods Divine Elder looked over the options and then picked one out without a word. Cain could sense that the boy had a good aptitude for Lightning but no cultivation talent to speak of. He was rejected by the Foot Clan, who didn't train in Lightning skills, so he might have some hope by just moving across the valley once his talent was improved.
"Now that we all have our selections let's begin. Watch carefully, Elders. You might learn something today." The Thunder Gods' leader announced.
He sat the boy he had chosen down in front of him and took out a set of golden needles. Then he ordered the boy to strip to his skivvies and lay down so that he could begin the acupuncture techniques that would improve his energy flow.
The Foot Clan leader did something close to the same, but he also used a salve applied to strategic spots, and Cain could feel that he was channeling energy into his test subject right from the start, enhancing his muscles.
Cain looked over his charge with interest. By all standards, this guy was completely worthless. No Elemental Affinity, No open vital points, not a single speck of energy in him at all. He looked moderately intelligent, but Cain would be altering that as well, so the base material wasn't all that important, only his character.
Cain started with [Modify] and turned the boy's bones into the same energy-infused and incredibly durable pattern that Bear Monsters were known for. Once the skeleton was done, he increased the muscle density by dozens of times, making the boy a force to be reckoned with, even with no cultivation. Then it occurred to Cain that he could do this a much easier way than going bit by bit to improve the boy from a Mythic or Spirit Rank body to an Immortal Rank Constitution.
After he reworked the boy's energy pathways so that they would flow nearly as well as Cain's own, he dug a Beast Core out of his inventory. It was an Immortal Rank Dire Bear Core that had been traded to him as part of the payments for his services, and Cain set to work molding it into the boy's body and merging it with his energy paths.
The System wanted someone to get an Immortal Body? He would do exactly that. He would give the boy the body and core of an Immortal Bear.
It was going better than Cain had expected, but he had to wonder if the boy would even be able to cultivate once he was finished. For all intents and purposes, he had created a human-shaped monster.
It might have been funnier if he had started with an actual monster and made them look human before setting them loose, as stronger Magical Beasts were incredibly intelligent, to begin with, but that wasn't what the quest wanted.
As he finished, the core began to merge into the body, absorbed by the cells to grant them the vitality needed for an Immortal Beast, but leaving him with no cultivation base, only a very durable body.
The other two had fed their subjects a few rare materials as well, along with various energy manipulations and even a surgical procedure to repair past damage. Most of the day passed while they worked since it took so long for the Monster Core to be absorbed by Cain's subject and the other Elders' procedures to complete, but by nightfall, they had three completely revamped cultivators in front of them.
"Now, let's get a good look at you all and see how you turned out." The Thunder Gods' Divine Elder announced with a smile, looking down at his work with pride.
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