【You have fed the "Monster Catfish Spirit" to the "Corpse of Old Nan"】
【Flesh Sacrifice: The "Corpse of Old Nan" currently has 2 extractable divine abilities】
【Divine Ability: Call Wind (Learnable)】
【Divine Ability: Summon Rain (Not Learnable) (Sacrifice progress: 63.5%)】
“A level 17 red-named monster only increased the sacrifice progress by 0.5%. It seems I need to speed up my monster-slaying if I want to obtain more divine abilities.
However, to think that one can obtain divine abilities just by using the flesh and blood of living beings... No wonder that monk Huiyuan acted like a mad dog, chasing me without letting go once he lost this thing.”
Nan Zhi squinted at the bottom right corner of the item description for a long time before she noticed that the progress bar for the divine ability Summon Rain had indeed budged by a tiny sliver.
If this item fell into the hands of someone with wicked intentions who prioritized quantity over quality, they could slaughter a city in two days or wipe out a nation in five. By nourishing it with the lives and souls of thousands of mortals, they might even be able to cultivate a Great Demon or a Witch powerhouse.
If this thing were in the hands of capitalists, they would have it on day one, start building monster beast ranches on day two, and have the official documents for the 《Methods for the Legal Breeding of Intelligent Monsters and Accelerated Slaughter for Sacrifice》 ready by day three. By the fourth day, monsters and ghosts would become a hot commodity for cultivation resources. By the seventh or eighth day, demon speculation groups would enter the fray, and the price of monsters would skyrocket.
By then, demons and ghosts would be turned into production resources on an assembly line, ready for use at any time. At the front of the line, workers would be responsible for force-feeding the monsters spirit herbs to open their intelligence, and at the end, they would be slaughtered in seconds.
What?
Why not just go out and kill adult monsters?
Don't be ridiculous. They only want to make money, not die. If there's a safer and more efficient method, why wouldn't they use it?
Never mind a single Corpse of Old Nan; even if a Witch powerhouse showed up, they would be captured and refined clean in minutes.
“Ugh, stop, stop. What a dangerous train of thought.”
Nan Zhi shook her head, trying to fling that image out of her mind.
She was currently sitting cross-legged on the floor of the bear cave. Her long tail was wrapped around her neck like a scarf, and the tip of the tail still bore a faint, barely noticeable scorch mark.
“This thing really is a treasure. I wonder what other innate divine abilities I can comprehend besides Call Wind and Summon Rain.”
This time, Nan Zhi had transformed into the white tiger woman to kill the monster catfish at the bottom of the lake for two reasons. First, she wanted the experience points and mission rewards. Second, Mulian Lake was where she and her Grandma used to live in peace; she couldn't allow it to be defiled.
Moreover, in a sense, that catfish had been stimulated by the spiritual energy she had released during her Foundation Establishment, which caused it to abandon its hibernation and come ashore to eat people. Dealing with it was also a way to remove a major hidden danger for the villagers.
“Although I've successfully reached Foundation Establishment and officially stepped onto the path of cultivation, a cultivation level of Foundation Establishment Level 1 is still a bit insufficient in front of true powerhouses.
In the game, there are many cultivation factions and the situation is complex. With the onset of great chaos and the coming of war, having a few more survival methods like alchemy, formations, talismans, or Gu arts can never be a mistake.”
Nan Zhi couldn't help but sigh, suddenly feeling a sense of urgency.
“Time, time, time. There are too many things I want to learn, and there's simply not enough time.”
No wonder in so many cultivation novels, the units of time are always in centuries or millennia, and cultivators are always obsessed with longevity.
“As they say, ‘One should strive while there is time, for the years wait for no man.’”
With a gentle wave of her furry tiger paw, words composed of countless water droplets began to float before her.
“Right now, the primary goal is to cultivate hard and strive to reach the mid-stage Foundation Establishment stage as soon as possible. For cultivation, I will focus on the Great Huanzhen Manual and the Moon-Worshiping Breathing Method as my primary arts, with the Green Beetle Needle Art as a secondary skill.
I need to find time to kill red-named monsters to obtain more Spiritual Energy Clusters to assist my cultivation. As for pills, I also need to systematically accumulate spirit herbs and recipes while studying alchemy.”
Foundation Establishment, as the name implies, is the process of building the foundation for the Great Dao, expanding the sea of qi so that the body can store spiritual energy.
If the spiritual energy stored in the dantian during the Qi Refinement stage was like tiny stalactite drips, then after Foundation Establishment, the volume of spiritual energy the dantian could store was easily tripled.
In gaming terms, those with higher cultivation have higher levels and a larger mana capacity, allowing them to use more powerful spells.
Those with lower cultivation would find their mana bar empty after throwing a few minor spells, leaving them at the mercy of others.
In a battle between cultivators, life and death are decided in an instant.
Nan Zhi's current advantage was her extraordinary constitution and her abundant supply of Qi-Supplementing Pills and Blood Supplementing Pills.
Imagine a day when she was fighting someone else. In a life-or-death moment, both sides have exhausted their spiritual energy and used up all their dharma treasures.
While the opponent still needed to sit in meditation and use breathing and expiration to recover spiritual energy, Nan Zhi only needed to swallow a pill. She wouldn't even need to refine it to instantly recover her mana.
She might even recover to full mana.
As long as she didn't die and her pills didn't run out, she could fight forever.
She could literally wear her opponent down to death.
This was the reason why Huiyuan, whose cultivation was far higher than Nan Zhi's, had been led around 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. Because of that, having good information is very important.
Under the cover of Ma Guniang, I can obtain news about instances in the Qianli City area through Qin Yue. As for the white tiger woman, the authorities will likely try to make contact. Perhaps I can use the name of the Mountain Lord to obtain news about instances in the Xixiang region through the local authorities.
The game world is still better. Little monsters like Shu Jiulang are everywhere. With just a few bottles of Qi-Supplementing Pills, I can find out anything—not just about instances, but even what color the Dragon King's underpants are.”
Thinking of this, Nan Zhi added another note in the air.
“The secondary goal is to collect as many ancient books and relics related to alchemy and cultivation as possible. Although spiritual resurgence has begun and some people have realized something, there might still be some fish that slipped through the net.”
Items as good as the Chixia Cauldron were likely not limited to the inherited treasures used to guard Taoist monasteries and Buddhist temples; there were probably many scattered among the common people.
Resigning from her job was a must.
Nan Zhi made up her mind.
When she went back, she would say she discovered that her Grandma had left her a sum of money. With financial freedom, she would claim she planned to become a backpacker and go on a self-driving road trip across the country.
She had to firmly protect her cover identities and strive for the maximum degree of freedom for her cultivation without having her cover blown.
“Ma Guniang's identity is set as an itinerant emissary under the Demon Suppression Commissioner. As for the white tiger woman's origin, perhaps I can refer to...”
Nan Zhi rubbed her brow, then suddenly sensed something. Her eyebrows shot up as her divine sense naturally extended outward.
Invisible and shadowless, her divine sense probed out of the cave, crossed the deep valley, climbed over high mountains, and finally landed in the dense forest a kilometer away.
Outside the mist-shrouded Huyue Gorge, three yellow-furred foxes that didn't belong here were standing amidst the white mist.
They were three yellow foxes of varying sizes and builds. Compared to the red fox Nan Zhi had caught before, they were significantly smaller.
The leading fat fox spoke in a pinched, squeaky voice that gave Nan Zhi quite a shock.
“Oh, for goodness' sake! Old Lady Lanhua wasn't kidding. This mist is so thick it’s like the bathhouse my grand-aunt’s third nephew runs—completely endless! Without a guide, the three of us would be stumbling around blind!”
Well, it was even a Northeast fox.
...
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