Xiao Gou Shi was inside one of the 13 big houses which he had noticed when he first swept over the sect with his spiritual sense. Infiltrating any of the houses was difficult because wind had never seemed to be able to get near the house, and Bao Gang therefore did not want to take the risk of giving up the element of surprise without even locating Xiao Gou Shi. If the dust was not camouflaged as dirt, it would not be difficult for a xiantian realm cultivator to see it. The xiantian realm demonic bear’s reaction when he got close to it showed that its spiritual sense could detect the God’s blood, but before this, the demonic beasts could never detect his God’s blood, even the ones which had entered the improved brain stage(8th stage) and had unlocked their spiritual sense.

Banking on the lowered concentration of God’s blood, he hoped that a xiantian cultivator would never detect the God’s blood because it was separated into such small sizes. Luckily, this seemed to be the case as they had not been detected up till now.

But, as long as he did not make hte sparkles obvious, a xiantian cultivator would likely not look for it, and would thus be unnoticed.

For days, no one had entered one of the 13 houses, and as his God’s blood had been able to infiltrate everywhere else, he knew that Xiao Gou Shi must be inside one of them. However, this all changed when a cultivator, who had already been tagged with the golden sparkles, had ran up to, then entered into one of the houses. When the sparkles entered, he could almost “see” the space around them through his spiritual sense. The cultivator, who had been in a rush, kept running, and handed a few spiritual herbs, which had appeared out of nowhere, to another man inside the house--the outer sect master.

Bao Gang was lucky that the man was in a hurry, because as soon as he entered the house, an alarm went off, but before the man had a chance to stop, he had already arrived within 5 feet of the outer sect master, which was just barely within the range of his spiritual sense through a sparkle of God’s blood(what this means is that he can sense the stuff within 5 feet of the God’s blood. He has lost the traditional spiritual sense, and now has to sense through this method). The outer sect master was near Xiao Gou Shi, with a pile of spiritual herbs off to the side, presumably the dragon’s food(Wei Yun said that Xiao Gou Shi is actually a dragon, not a lizard). The pile of spiritual herbs was not very small, but there was scraps around for several meters, showing that Xiao Gou Shi had been rapidly eating his way through everything the outer sect master gave him. It showed too.

Xiao Gou Shi had originally been around a half foot in length when Bao Gang left him, but was now around 2 feet in length.

Xiao Gou Shi’s growth had originally been limited by the amount of spiritual energy he consumed, which makes his growth even more shocking. Over 24 hours of unlimited absorption when Bao Gang was drawing the spiritual energy of the entire planet, Xiao Gou Shi had only grown a few centimeters, but had now quadrupled in length while Bao Gang was gone!

Size is not a linear quantity based off volume. When a sphere doubles in radius, its volume actually goes up by 8. With other three dimensional objects, the same is true. This means that Xiao Gou Shi had now consumed 64 times as much spiritual energy as he had before Bao Gang left him!

Based on the outer sect master’s frightened expression, clearly Xiao Gou Shi had been at it for quite a while. This fright might come from Xiao Gou Shi’s ability to eat much more than his body would let on, or his inability to keep such a ravenous pet.

Over the 5 months Bao Gang had been gone(2 months of training + a few days sinking in the lava + weeks of hallucinations in the infernal prison + a few days of swimming out of the lava + a few days of hunting demonic beasts), Xiao Gou Shi had gotten closer to the outer sect master proportional to how much he had been fed, and at this point the outer sect master was considering entering into a contract with Xiao Gou Shi, but was now reconsidering. If Xiao Gou Shi demanded food as a condition, he did not believe he would be able to supply it!

But now he heard his house alarm go off. This meant that a soul which had not been approved by him had entered.

The outer sect master looked up at the cultivator who had run in and now looked surprised at the alarm. Then he stood up and shot forward, sticking his hand into the chest of the man, then ripping it out.

A gush of blood shot out of the man’s chest,

“What--why--”

Then the man collapsed. In the outer sect master’s hand was not a beating heart. It was a mash of blood and muscle which had once pumped blood throughout the man’s body, but now could not be recognized as a heart.

The outer sect master clearly knew what it meant if his alarm went off. An unauthorized cultivator had entered the building.

He had found an ancient inscription diagram which would sense the intrusion of soul sense, and wanting to hide Xiao Gou Shi from the sect master and grand elders, rigged up the inscription to make absolutely sure Xiao Gou Shi would stay his secret. Even the walls of the sect could not do this! It had taken him years to find all the materials needed for this inscription, and had even needed to trade for some of them with other hall masters when he realized he needed to set up the alarm quickly.

He had already dealt with Hao Lin, who mysteriously disappeared while searching for herbs, never to be found again.

If the cultivator had triggered the alarm, this meant that the cultivator who he trusted was impersonated. This almost made the outer sect master sad, because this would probably mean the cultivator had been killed. Sadly, he had outlived his usefulness.

The alarm continued to go off, but having never been triggered before, the outer sect master did not know this signified that the unauthorized cultivator could still sense the happenings of the room. The outer sect master believed that the alarm would need to be reset in some fashion, and that the man he just killed was an impersonator.

“Damnit beast hall master! I had hoped you would not find out about this lizard(The outer sect master does not know Xiao Gou Shi is a dragon) until I had entered into a contract with it, but I guess my rapid use of spiritual herbs tipped you off to my finding of a demonic beast which I wish to tame!”

Even if he himself would not contract with Xiao Gou Shi, he would sure as hell not allow anyone else to and risk losing benefits. At the very worst, he would give it to the sect master for a sizeable reward.

Now that the inscription had done its job, the outer sect master stomped on a section of the inscription, and it cracked the floor, breaking the inscription and getting rid of the annoying alarm.

Angrily stomping off to go negotiate with the beast hall master to keep the lizard a secret, he left the house and walked towards the wall between the outer and inner sect, where the beast hall is located.

Having found Xiao Gou Shi and not wanting to show his goal for the infiltration and give the sect power over him, Bao Gang did not sneak more golden sparkles in and risk giving himself up, he just left Xiao Gou Shi in the house, safe from any danger.

After the outer sect master had left the elder court, Bao Gang planned to attack him. He took the golden sparkles which had not attached to anyone in the elder court and slowly moved them towards the wall surrounding the elder court. After passing this wall, he would no longer need to be so careful with the speed of its movement. After 20 minutes, he had 80 golden drops of God’s blood which coalesced into a miniature human body.

It would have taken very long to move this much blood out of the elder’s court, but much of it was near the walls to begin with due to it being blown there by the wind, and all he had to do was move it out.

By this time, the outer sect master had already entered the beast hall. Bao Gang moved the golden figure(Not the same as his body) to the beast hall, now not caring about speed(although he wasn’t seen due to being high in the air) and punched towards the roof of the beast house.

BOOM*

The roof blew off, and the demonic beasts and cultivators inside were scared out of their minds. Stunned, the outer sect master and beast hall master looked up.

“Who is that?!?!”

The beast hall master shouted.

“Grand elder?”

Yelled the outer sect master.

“GRAND ELDER!?!?!?!”

Screamed the beast hall master.

Even though they had mistaken his identity, Bao Gang did not correct them as this might even give him an advantage.

Although this makes the two look stupid, this is not wholly an accurate representation, because he had shown the strength of a xiantian realm. Only the sect master and grand elders had achieved xiantian realm.

The small size and golden body could be attributed to a cultivation method which allowed shrinking of the body or being a puppet. After all, the two had never seen the grand elders. They were usually just recluses who cultivated inside their houses atop the summit of the mountain.

The golden human figure shot at the outer sect master, trying to get some of the nearly invisible sparkles on him.

Bao Gang had not attached any sparkles to him earlier as he did not want to alert him, and as he had not yet formed the golden body, did not want to show that it had actually been him that set off the alarm, which would completely ruin his plans.

But now, he had a perfect motive. Hiding information from the sect for personal gain is a punishable crime, which gave him reason to attack the outer sect master.

The outer sect master pulled out a stick of jade.

“WAIT!!!! If you keep attacking me, I will break this jade, which will trigger an inscription under the lizard. Make a contract with me that you will never hurt me, or I will break the jade and die with the lizard. If you don’t then how do I know you won’t kill me after guaranteeing the safety of the lizard?”

Bao Gang began to get nervous. He could not wait to make a contract because his entrance had attracted a lot of attention and would soon bring other powerful people who would be able to threaten him.

He ordered the golden sparkles which were near the Elder’s court to swoop down into the elder’s court and attempt to fly Xiao Gou Shi out of there, not caring for the consequences.

“Halt!” a voice from the summit shouted.

“I knew something funny was happening! I kept feeling as if someone was entering the sect, but wasn’t able to sense them!”

A shield formed around the outer sect hall master’s house, and the golden sparkles began to hit it and suck out the spiritual energy powering it.

Another shield formed above the sect, forming a dome which encapsulated the sect, leaving him no way out.

“Now that the sect’s defensive mechanism has been activated, you can forget about getting what you want from the sect! It's too bad the spiritual energy disappeared, or we would even have enough energy to activate attack type inscriptions!

With no other course of action left, Bao Gang began to suck the cultivation of everyone in the sect.

Everyone in the sect had been alerted, several xiantian realm cultivators were coming to stop him, his goal had been uncovered and he was unable to rescue Xiao Gou Shi immediately.

If he fought the outer sect master, Xiao Gou Shi would get blown up. If he didn’t then the other xiantian realm experts would be able to capture Xiao Gou Shi and use him as a hostage.

The situation was truly untenable!