9 tailed fox in TDG

tang meng can be seen seated in the backyard of his home with a demon spirit in hand, he attempts to merge with it but the moment it enters into his soul sea it gets effortlessly destroyed and refined by his tail giving him a nice boost to his cultivation.

"failed again, is it because my tail functions like a demon spirit that i can't use any other demon spirit? it would make sense, seeing as i can actually merge with my tail the same way a demon spiritualist can merge with their demon spirit."

'i need to get the thunder god's meteorite sword, i can perfectly merge with my tails so it would be stupid to use them as handheld weapons and more importantly it contains many thousands of demon spirits i can consume.

nie lie absorbed a few and shot up multiple ranks while i intend to suck them all out including the swords owns spirit, though the sword might become useless after that or at least significantly weakened.

but i would take personal power over a strong sword any day.'

with his goal in mind tang meng sets out to holy orchid institute to the vice principals office.

"i would like to enter the heavenly sacred border, i know its dangerous but i'm ready" tang meng says while slightly flexing his 2 star silver rank cultivation

"alright but be careful" the vice principal says

...

heavenly sacred border

once tang meng walks inside he finds himself in a lush green garden with flowers and trees all around, a perfect spot to relax even though its just an illusion.

'i'm assuming the sword is the core of the place so i just need to follow the inscriptions. also, what is that annoying feeling.'

"ARGH!!" a voice suddenly cries out in pain and fear

'oh, thats the sweet sound of a peeping soul discovering the sharpness of my tail, explains the feeling of being watched, good to know what that feels like.'

tang meng begins to look around trying to find the soul of ye yan, the ancestor who is sealed here but has no luck.

'guess he was not keen on a second meeting with my tail.'

tang meng resumes following the inscriptions of the array to its core where he finds a long bridge, steeped in a murderous aura that feels like it sticks to you like blood.

walking on the bridge soon becomes unbearable for tang meng and he has to fuse with his tail to not lose his mind, very slowly, step by step he advances while adapting to the weight of the murderous gazes.

He stops a safe distance from the sword, still several meters away from it. tang meng controls his tail, elongating it to wrap around the sword.

immediately demon spirits attempt to invade his soul realm but get snatched and refined by his tail, turning into pure soul force for him.

3 star silver rank

4 star silver rank

5 star silver rank

at five star silver rank there is an unexpected bottleneck which makes tang meng panic slightly, unknowingly furrowing his brow because more soul force is forced into his soul sea but it refuses to advance.

In his panic he is reminded of the chant of his technique and internally begins to recite it, immediately a second tail begins to form inside his soul realm which takes up all the excess power, saving tang meng.

once the second tail is formed the bottleneck is broken and tang meng advances to 1 star gold rank and the sword stops attacking him.

"that was too close for comfort.

ah it seems making a second tail also broke the bottleneck on my first tail and it can now continue growing again"

"hehe, i'm not done with you" tang meng says with a creepy smile to the sword, as he wraps his second tail around the sword as well, now actively focusing on consuming the swords own spirit, made up from tens of millions of slayed demon beasts.

'this is going to take a long time'

tang meng lets go of the sword for a moment and sets up a simple inscriptions around the area to form a barrier when it detects harmful intent.

When tang meng wants to start absorbing the sword spirit he suddenly feels a pull from inside himself, focusing on that pull he begins to head the chant to his technique echo in his head and a strange instinct surfaces.

He follows his instinct and begins to grow his tails to be longer and bigger and wrap around him and the sword, encasing both in a hard one large cocoon that seems to be made of hard obsidian.

... 

a week later

holy orchid institute

nie lie, du ze and lu piao enter the vice principals office

"vice principal, i want to enter the heavenly sacred border, there shouldn't be any issue with that right?" nie lie says

"of course but please do be careful, a couple students have been in there for a while now"

"which students?" nie lie

"xiao ning'er and tang meng"

"i'll be careful, and check in on them" nie lie

...

heavenly sacred border

"i'll be going in now, you guys can wait here for a bit for me." nie lie says, addressing du ze and lu piao.

once inside, nie lie has to quickly sit down and stabilize his cultivation

"another strange brat huh, how did you integrate with 2 demon spirits?" the ghost ye yan asks

"who are you?" nie lie counters while looking at ye yan

"you can see me?" ye yan

"yes, how did you get that scar, you are a ghost" nie lie 

"another brat came in here and when i wanted to say hi, a spear inside his soul realm attacked me" ye yan

'a spear in the soul realm? must be tang meng, i didn't know tails could attack souls' nie lie

"i have seen many geniuses over my centuries in here, none of them could catch my eye. but you and those other two kids are not bad, i will accept you as my discipline"

"i'm not interested, and who are you. no, where are the other two." nie lie says, now quite annoyed

"brat do you know who i am?" ye yan says angrily

"i've asked you twice now and you have ignored me" nie lie retorts, slowly approaching the end of his patience.

"i am one of the ancestral founders of glory city ye yan" ye yan

"ah you are one of the ances-" nie lie says before being interrupted by a powerful shockwave originating from a breakthrough in a high realm of cultivation.

"haah that brat is at it again" ye yan says trying to not sound scared

nie lie is immediately attracted to the origin of the shockwave, on his way there he comes across ning'er

"nie lie, did you feel that" ning'er

"yes, it must be tang meng, he's the only other person in here"

together they head in the direction of tang meng, ignoring ye yan who has gone silent and is staying safely behind the two.

when they arrive at tang mengs location they find a massive cocoon of fur that looks to me made of obsidian and pulsates with power, soul force from the surroundings is being drawn to the cocoon but not absorbed, making the concentration of energy almost toxic in intensity.

nie lie looks at the cocoon in stunned amazement

'this incredible power, with him on our side we might just defeat the sage emperor'

"ning'er quickly start cultivating" nie lie says as he looks for a spot where the soul force is still bearable.

...

inside the cocoon

tang meng finds himself in a dark void in his mind, suddenly a lightning bolt lights up the void, striking him but causing no real harm.

one by one bolts of lightning begin to appear around him, lighting up the void as they begin forming more complex patterns.

"the lightning is actually forming inscriptions and they seem to be related to the soul, this must be the inscription that connected nie lie to his friends in the novel." tang meng says in astonishment even as his mind races to comprehend the patterns.

...

1 hour later

'i've finally figured out exactly how my tails grow, basically in each mayor breakthrough i make, all my tails will face a bottleneck and i need to make a new tail to break this bottleneck, then in each minor realm they will gain 20% of the power of one layer of the rank i'm in.

so in bronze rank that would be 20 points of soul force per minor rank, in silver that would be 200, 2000 in gold rank and so on.

however in the higher realms there are 9 layers per rank and none of them use soul force for cultivation so i will once again have no idea how it works, great.'

the energy around the cocoon begins to dissipate but nie lie has already grown to 1 star gold rank and ning'er has reached 3 star gold rank.

tang meng's tails, now 5 of them, begin to uncoil from around him and the sword, the moment he is free his overwhelming aura nearly crushes nie lie and ning'er.

'legend rank!' nie lie

tang meng quickly restrains his power to prevent himself from crushing anyone.

"tang meng! you have reached legend rank! which layer are you at right now?" nie lie says somewhat shocked and surprised.

'legend rank!!' ning'er

"i'm at five star legend rank right now but i can't seem to go any further than that." tang meng

"How did you reach this so quickly?" nie lie 

"my tails can absorb demon spirits and this sword has absorbed tens of millions of them of many thousands of years, so in the process of subduing the sword i managed to absorb a lot of soul force from consuming them" tang meng says

'and still the damage to the sword is not too bad, some insane sword this is.' tang meng thinks to himself

tang meng finally pulls the sword out unleashing a loud sound that reverberates throughout glory city, though no one can locate its source.

"lets get out of here" tang meng says to his shocked companions