【You fed the "Monster Catfish Spirit" to the "Corpse of Old Nan."】
【Flesh Sacrifice complete. Number of divine abilities currently extractable from "Corpse of Old Nan": 2】
【Divine Ability: Call Wind (Comprehendible)】
【Divine Ability: Summon Rain (Uncomprehendible) (Sacrifice progress: 63.5%)】
“A Level 17 red-named monster only increased the sacrifice progress by 0.5 percent. It seems if I want to acquire these divine abilities, I’ll need to speed up my monster hunting.
Still, obtaining divine abilities simply by sacrificing the flesh and blood of living creatures... No wonder that monk Huiyuan pursued me like a mad dog after losing this.”
Nan Zhi squinted at the bottom right corner of the item description for a long moment before noticing that the progress bar for the divine ability “Summon Rain” had nudged up by a hair.
If this fell into the hands of someone with wicked intentions who favored quantity over quality, they could slaughter a city every two days and wipe out a kingdom in five. Nourishing it with the lives and souls of tens of thousands of mortals might very well breed a Great Demon or a Witch powerhouse.
If this ended up in the hands of capitalists, they’d acquire it on day one, start building demon beast ranches on day two, and have official documentation for the 《Legal Breeding of Intelligent Monsters and Accelerated Slaughter Sacrifice Procedures》 signed by day three. By day four, demon beasts and specters would become hot commodity cultivation resources. By days seven and eight, speculative investors would step in, sending the prices of demon beasts soaring—
By then, monsters and specters would become raw material on an assembly line, ready to be processed at any moment. At the front end, workers would force-feed spirit herbs to awaken their intelligence, and at the back end, they’d lift them up by the heels to slaughter them—the whole process taking only a few seconds.
Why?
Why not just go out and slaughter adult demon beasts directly?
What a joke. They only wanted to make money, not die. If there was a safer and more efficient method, why wouldn't they use it?
Forget a single "Corpse of Old Nan"—even if a Witch powerhouse showed up, they’d be captured and refined clean in a matter of minutes.
“Eww, stop, stop. What kind of dangerous thought is that?”
Nan Zhi shook her head, trying to banish the image from her mind.
She was currently sitting cross-legged on the floor of the bear cave, her long tail curled once around her neck, its tip still bearing a barely perceptible singe mark.
“This thing truly is a treasure. I wonder what other innate divine abilities I can comprehend besides 'Call Wind' and 'Summon Rain.'”
Nan Zhi’s transformation into the white tiger woman to kill the monster catfish at the bottom of the lake had been done partly for the kill experience and quest rewards, and partly because Mulian Lake was where she and Grandma had once lived in peace—a place that could not be defiled.
Besides, in a sense, the catfish had only abandoned its dormancy to come ashore and eat people because it had been stimulated by the spiritual energy she released during her Foundation Establishment. Dealing with it was also eliminating a major hazard for her fellow villagers.
“Even though I’ve successfully reached Foundation Establishment and officially stepped onto the path of cultivation, a Foundation Establishment Level 1 cultivation is still far from impressive in front of true powerhouses.
The cultivation factions in the game are numerous, and the situation is complex. With the onset of great chaos and impending war, having a few more life-saving methods—like alchemy, formations, talismans, and Gu arts—can never go wrong.”
Nan Zhi couldn't help sighing, feeling an immediate sense of urgency.
“Time, time, time... There are too many complex things I want to learn, and simply not enough time.”
No wonder the units of time in so many cultivation novels started in centuries or millennia, and why cultivators were always obsessed with longevity.
“No wonder people say, ‘Strive while there is time, for years wait for no man.’”
Nan Zhi gave a gentle wave of her fluffy tiger paw, and text composed of countless water droplets hovered before her:
“Right now, my primary goal is to cultivate hard and strive to reach the mid-stage Foundation Establishment realm as soon as possible. As for cultivation, my main methods will be the 《Great Huanzhen Manual》 and the 《Moon-Worshiping Breathing Method》, supplemented by the Green Beetle Needle Art.
In my daily routine, I need to make time to kill red-named monsters to acquire more spiritual energy clusters to aid my cultivation. As for pills, I must also systematically collect spirit herbs and pill recipes while studying alchemy.”
Foundation Establishment, as the name implied, meant laying the foundation for the Great Dao, expanding the sea of qi so that spiritual energy could be accumulated inside the body.
If the spiritual energy stored in her dantian back in the Qi Refinement stage was like trickles from stalactites, sparse and thin, then after Foundation Establishment, the volume of spiritual energy her dantian could hold had tripled.
To explain it in game terms: a higher cultivation meant a higher level and a larger mana pool, allowing one to cast more powerful spells.
Those with lower cultivation would empty their mana bar after casting just a few minor spells, leaving them completely at the mercy of others.
And in cultivation battles, life and death were decided in an instant.
Nan Zhi’s current advantages were her extraordinary Constitution and her rich reserve of Qi-Supplementing Pills and Hemostatic Pills.
Imagine a day when she fought someone else: at the brink of life and death, both of their internal spiritual energies were depleted, and all their dharma treasures exhausted.
While the other party still needed to sit in meditation and practice breathing to restore spiritual energy, Nan Zhi would only need to swallow a pill to instantly restore her mana without even having to refine it.
—Her mana might even be fully restored.
As long as she didn't die and her supply of pills didn't run out, she could keep fighting indefinitely.
She could grind the opponent to death through sheer attrition.
This was precisely why Huiyuan, whose cultivation was far higher than Nan Zhi's, had been led around by her like a dog on a leash for half a month.
“Spiritual energy clusters can only be obtained by killing red-named monsters in the real world, which makes staying well-informed crucial.
In Ma Guniang's guise, I can obtain news about dungeons in the Qianli region through Qin Yue. As for the white tiger woman, the authorities will likely try to make contact with her too. Perhaps I can use the Mountain Lord's name to get news about dungeons in the Xixiang region through the local Xixiang government.
The game world is still better. Minor demons like Shu Jiulang are everywhere. For just a few bottles of Qi-Supplementing Pills, never mind dungeons—I could even find out the color of the Dragon King’s underwear.”
Thinking of this, Nan Zhi added another stroke in the air:
“A secondary goal is to collect as many ancient texts and relics related to alchemy and cultivation as possible. Even though Spiritual Resurgence is happening now and some people have begun to realize what's going on, there might still be some gems slipping through the cracks.”
—Good things like the Danxia Cauldron, aside from heritage treasures used by Taoist monasteries and Buddhist temples to protect their grounds, were likely scattered among the common folk in decent numbers.
Resigning was an absolute must.
Nan Zhi made up her mind.
When she returned, she would say she discovered Grandma had left her a sum of money, giving her financial freedom, and that she planned to become a backpacker taking self-driving trips across the country.
She needed to maintain her cover identities firmly and strive for the maximum degree of freedom to cultivate without blowing her cover.
“Ma Guniang’s persona is an itinerant emissary under a Demon Suppression Commissioner. As for the white tiger woman’s background, perhaps I can reference...”
Nan Zhi rubbed the center of her brow. Suddenly sensing something, her eyebrows arched as her divine sense naturally extended outward—
Invisible and formless, her divine sense swept out of the cave, crossed deep valleys, climbed over high mountains, and finally settled on a dense forest a kilometer away.
Outside the mist-shrouded Huyue Gorge, three yellow-furred foxes that did not belong here were standing amid the white mist.
They were three large yellow foxes of differing sizes, heights, and builds, though noticeably much smaller compared to the red fox Nan Zhi had once caught.
When the fat fox in the lead opened its mouth, speaking in a high, pinched voice, it gave Nan Zhi quite a shock.
“Oh, my sweet lord! Old Lady Lanhua wasn't lyin' at all! This mist is so thick it looks like the bathhouse my grand-aunt's third nephew runs—nothin' but clouds 'n steam all over! If we ain't got someone to guide us, the three of us'll be flyin' completely blind!”
Yep, a Northeast fox.
Rate on N.U.
