During this dog-tired stretch of days, Wang Qi had left the Myriad Dharma Sect because Zhen Chanzi's physical body—starting from the fertilized egg—had more or less been designed. They had even found a volunteer surrogate.
Wang Qi had heard that cultivators who accidentally destroyed their physical bodies were hardly uncommon. This was especially true of the Dark Department, the Immortal Alliance's shadowy side that faced the dangers of immortal beasts year-round. Every year, there were always a few masters who needed such services.
In some places, acting as a surrogate for fetuses designed by the Immortal Alliance had already become an industry. Healthy women with some martial training, but who had failed to break through Heaven's Gate, specialized in this work.
Since they were merely carrying the child and had no blood relation to the fetus, there was no familial relationship between these surrogates and the reborn. The Immortal Alliance had long since rectified mortal customs, and no one considered the ethics of this problematic. Still, the significance of the ritual was somewhat different after all. Thus, some cultivators would often pay generously in hopes of "leaving behind no karma."
For mortals, a single reward from a cultivator was often enough to live on for more than a decade, so women willing to do this were not rare. Furthermore, research indicated that emotional repression during pregnancy was detrimental to fetal health. Since this concerned cultivators, the Immortal Alliance had vigorously regulated the matter. Every woman in this line of work had to pass layer upon layer of screening to ensure that none had been forced.
Of course, surrogates were not especially rare, but neither were they especially plentiful. Reconstructing a physical body was not particularly easy these days, and it was even more difficult for a former Ancient Method Cultivator