Bian quickly went back to the teleporter, planning to refill the Solum Mirror before heading to the Golem Valley.
To his surprise, Han Yan wasn't in the sanctuary but was waiting for him at home instead.
"You didn't head back to the sanctuary?" Not wanting to be rude, Bian asked the obvious.
"Uhm, yeah. I didn't go back just yet—say, do you notice anything different about me?"
'Uh-oh.'
Bian winced mentally and scrutinised Han Yan from top to bottom. He didn't use the Dongxuan Sutra out of basic decency, but Bian didn't need it either.
He looked over every pore, strand of hair and contour. As a demigod, he already had good memory, but with Mental Point Targeting, he had perfect recollection.
"You seem a bit, a bit, chubby?"
Han Yan rolled her eyes at his response and beamed him a smile.
"I'm pregnant, silly."
"Say what now?"
"BIAN!"
"Wow, you're pregnant, that's wonderful."
It took Bian a moment to register what she had just said. He was going to be a father.
Everything suddenly became blurry; reality seemed to hit Bian like a truck. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but he was exuberant.
"I-I'm gonna be a dad."
Bian felt a big joy welling up from within. This happiness was different from the one he got after an evolution or a new powerful beast soul. It couldn't be described in words.
...
After the good news, they had to discuss for a while, almost to the point of arguing.
With the looming threats of the Executioners, Han Yan wanted to continue getting prepared while Bian wanted her to stay in the alliance where it was safe until she conceived.
Their heated discussion only stopped when Bian exposed the porcelain bottles he bought and explained in-depth about how the Silver Cauldron could refine creatures.
"I promise to gather enough pills to fill your Ordinary, Primitive, Mutant, Sacred-blood, and even Super geno tallies!"
Han Yan had to concede there, but there was more to power than pure gene strength.
"What about my geno cores?"
"I have the Solum Mirror, remember? With it, your geno core is practically ready to shoot up from bronze."
"But I still need to fight in the core rankings to strengthen them before they rank up. I'm sure you don't have a geno core for that one."
"I might not have a geno core; however, I do own ties to the first position rank in the Silver and Bronze geno core rankings. Just say the word and you'll be in first place."
Han Yan was gobsmacked. Bian had always been very smart and good at preparing, but this was another level from what she was used to.
If he had all these things, then maxing out his status as a demigod would be even faster than when he was a surpasser. If the world outside found out, it would go topsy-turvy.
Han Yan eventually let out a heavy sigh.
"Fine, but as the father, you have to check up regularly," she said as she walked to the coffee machine. The coffee was done brewing.
"Of course." Bian brought the cups while she added milk and sugar to the coffee jar.
"I heard Little Shadow has been doing better in school lately." Han Yan said while pouring out the coffee.
"Little Shadow? My sister, right?" Bian laid down the cups while she poured out the coffee into them.
Han Yan nodded, then they both moved to their sofas to relax while sipping hot coffee.
"You know they're about to turn sixteen. They'll soon enter the sanctuaries themselves." Han Yan said in between sips.
As demigods, they could down the scalding hot liquids in a go, and the caffeine wouldn't even affect their systems, but it was moments like these that made memories.
It was finally Bian's turn to roll his eyes.
"Don't they have like a year or two before turning sixteen?" Bian preferred to inhale the aroma of the coffee to really appreciate its taste. Then he drank in long sips, making sure not to slurp.
"Is it when they turn sixteen you want to begin making plans?"
"Haha. Alright, you make a valid point. Since we both know Qin Xuan, why don't we contact her to help us out? She has ties with the military, after all."
"I'm way ahead of you."
...
After that was settled, Bian 'refilled' the Solum Mirror before heading to bed. The next morning, he returned to the Purple Meadow and was greeted by a mantis ambush.
He had to remind these creatures who was in charge. After he killed one, Bian placed it in the Silver Cauldron to be refined while he used the Altering Brush to name the bottles he bought from Dust-Air Shelter.
Ordinary, primitive, mutant, sacred-blood, super. He named four bottles each with the names above, accounting for all twenty bottles.
The ink in the Altering Brush barely went down and would recover in a matter of minutes.
Bian killed another mantis and refined it, gaining two green ordinary pills which would increase a demigod's fitness by ten ordinary geno points.
The bottles could only hold six pills each. This was why Bian needed so many of them.
He put away the two ordinary pills and then captured and refined two primitive mantises. The process wasn't as quick as it was for the ordinary mantises, but it only lasted about an hour in total.
"Leveling the Cauldron was really the way to go. I couldn't even begin to imagine the waiting I would do otherwise."
Now the mantises were scared of Bian and for good reason, but they could not escape from him.
Bian gathered four ordinary mantises and he used the Emperical Decree to fuse them into a mutant-class mantis.
The geno core of the mantis was countered by Bian's senses, and he had Sacred-blood armor on, so Bian disposed of this creature without much hassle and formed another one, which he killed a moment afterward.
This time, he waited three hours to refine the first mutant and another three hours to refine the second mutant.
By now, the mantises had learnt their lesson. They retreated to the far edges of the Purple Meadow, so far back that they left the range of the Emperical Aura.
Bian hadn't even gotten any sacred-blood pills, but that was okay. He was at his limits anyway, due to the heavy toll of using the Emperical Decree so many times.
He surely could only afford to use this power because he knew he was safe in this area. Aside from that, it was more cost-effective to use it on beast souls, as that drained him far less than using it on creatures or geno cores.
Bian briefly returned home to rest, and he was able to show Han Yan the pills he was referring to. If not for the Ivory Serpent beast soul which he had gotten from the third sanctuary, he wouldn't have been able to bring the pills to the alliance.
After resting for some hours and recovering, Bian teleported back in, and to his surprise, a lone mantis had decided to come back.
It was just an ordinary mantis, and even then, it was injured. One of its forearms was a stump, lacking the blade, and several of its legs were missing.
"What happened to you?" As Bian approached it, a crystal lens appeared beside the creature and shot a ray of light at him.
Unfortunately, it was too low-levelled to even affect him. Bian didn't want to kill the creature, as that would bring him no benefit, but he got a new idea.
He had fused beast souls and geno cores once before. The results were always random and quite unreliable, but it could be done.
Bian wondered, if he could fuse this mantis with a metal, wouldn't it become a metal mantis?
And what if it was done with its own geno core?
There were no guidelines here in the sanctuary, and the only way to find out what would happen was to try it.
Bian grasped the geno core in one hand and the squirming mantis in another.
He felt slight danger right before he fused them.
"Seriously?"
Although it wasn't as alarming as when a super creature was coming for him, it showed what he was about to do was quite dangerous.
Bian was now more curious than ever.
He activated the Emperical Decree and watched as the crystal lens and purple mantis turned to viscous indigo light and melted into one another.
The substance stretched and compressed itself, taking on a new shape. The air around it was suddenly dragged in, and even space seemed to be blocked.
None of this was affecting Bian, but he was quite shocked. This reaction was similar to when the sanctuaries had to kick out a creature that was too powerful for that level.
Although this time the effect was milder, and no space cracks were forming overhead to kick the creature out, this still showed that the fourth sanctuary was now rejecting the purple mantis, albeit to a minor degree.
"Of course! When a demigod wants to ascend, they have to open a God's Door. The power inside would crush their body and rebuild it according to the element of the caster, and the geno core would fuse with this rebuilt body.
Now that I've fused this mantis with its geno core, it's practically ascended by half a st—"
Swoosh!
Bian, who was talking, suddenly stopped midway through his sentence and dodged to the left.
The indigo light had disappeared, and so had the mantis, attacking him as soon as it formed.
Clank!
A shoulder piece of the Silver-Plated Armor suddenly fell, revealing a bone-deep injury underneath.
"Straight for the neck, you didn't even say thanks."
Bian looked at the purple mantis, and it glared back at him. The creature had recovered from all its injuries, and its carapace now gleamed with light like a precious crystal.
He would have mistaken it for an inanimate object if it didn't just try to take his head off.
Screech!