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Translator: Tamon
A snake and a dog stormed out of an inn. This might sound like the beginning of a joke, but the two demons ran out of River Town and further away, to a secluded area on the riverside while ensuring there was no man in five kilometers.
Next came the glorious moment of splitting the haul down the middle.
Hei Huang offered the many pills and demon meat, enough to keep the snake’s tempering appetite for half a year, worth over a hundred spirit stones.
He also solemnly swore never to skim again, so help him Heavens.
Xu Hei didn’t fall for it. The dog was so strong he was bound to have even more stuff hidden somewhere.
The snake revealed Zhao Yiduo’s items.
A broken bell, a silver soft armor, and a metal chunk for making puppets.
“This is all he had since I burned the rest,” Xu Hei said.
He picked up the copper bell, sporting three holes that connected through cracks. His scales did that.
The silver armor was what Zhao Yiduo wore under his clothes.
“A low-grade spiritual treasure! The good stuff!” Hei Huang gasped at the armor.
Spiritual treasures were something Foundation Establishment cultivators used. A low-grade spiritual treasure meant this armor could take an early Foundation Establishment cultivator’s strike.
Since Zhao Yiduo lacked in cultivation, the armor didn’t protect his entire body, proving fatal when Xu Hei targeted his weakness.
Xu Hei pondered. “Can it change shape so I can wear it?”
Hei Huang eyed him. “Until peak Awareness Stage, when you can barely use it, you’re better off forgetting about it.”
He said as he wore it himself, shining in a silver hue and fitting him like a glove.
“Heaven bloody damn it…” Xu Hei spat and lunged with an open maw.
Hei Huang threw out a pile of mechanical beasts as compensation for his blatant appropriation. “They’re yours. Are we good?”
Xu Hei eyed the lizards, frogs, and birds, Yu Qiang’s toys.
“I’ll even make them better with this inkstone. Agreed?”
Hei Huang pointed at the metal chunk.
Xu Hei strained a nod.
Hei Huang took out the treasures he seized and, after much haggling, Xu Hei settled on taking 46 spirit stones.
Booty split successful.
Xu Hei kept one thing to himself all this time, the fingernail-sized black jade. He guessed it was Zhao Yiduo’s most prized possession and he wanted to check it out.
[The rotten dog must be hiding even more. Curses, I need to learn from him and not be an honest snake all the time.] Xu Hei vowed to himself.
Since they had Zhao Yiduo’s sail, they just build a raft instead of taking a boat to cross the river.
The trip to River Town offered them resources to last them six months, enough to get Xu Hei to the late Awareness Stage.
…
In a land far beyond Qin Kingdom, a middle-aged man resembling Zhao Yiduo sat before a thatched hut, passing for a mere mortal.
His eyes snapped to attention. “My embodiment sent into the world died again.”
The man made a few signs and a shifting light curtain appeared before him.
The embodiment’s viewpoint played like a movie.
Its death meant nothing, but he’d use every embodiment’s death as a learning experience for the next one and avoid making the same mistakes.
“I’ve never seen such ruthlessness.” The man frowned, finding no slip-up in his embodiment’s actions, yet it still died.
Even as it died, the other kept pelting it with attacks until all signs of its Divine Sense were gone.
He was a man of caution, hence limiting the number of embodiments he sent out and choosing to learn from each one’s death.
Today he saw someone even more paranoid, earning the respect of a fellow man of caution.
The man’s eyes focused as three dark golden scales came into view.
They broke the impervious Foundation Establishment defense with ease.
“This…” The man’s eyes widened.
…
Hei Huang took a day to find a suitable training area in the forest north of the Drifting Geese River.
It was an abandoned spirit mine, depleted since five centuries ago, having not seen human attention in ages.
“This place has the thickest spiritual energy in twenty-five kilometers. We’ll train here.” Hei Huang dug a hole.
Xu Hei jumped in and his Divine Sense told him of the crumbling mine carts, the fragile skeletons, and miscellaneous tools.
The mine was depleted, but spiritual energy was still thicker than in most places.
Xu Hei filled a jar with water and threw some scarlet powder. The water turned crimson and steamed.
“Yang Sand, top-grade medicine used in tempering the body and refine the bones. An extremely rare tempering ingredient, this alone is worth 20 spirit stones.” Xu Hei sucked a breath and jumped in.
His skin turned red and his muscles throbbed from pain, an agony a mountain of dirt bearing down on him hundreds of meters below the ground could never replicate.
To squeeze every bit out of his training, Xu Hei upped the dosage ten times that of human standards.
“The first time is the most effective. So stay awake.” Hei Huang smiled.
Xu Hei would never pass out. His will trumped a human’s a hundred times over!
Before long, Xu Hei’s old skin peeled off, sizzling to nothing in the boiling jar. He compensated for his last advancement since he didn’t shed at the right time.
Xu Hei felt how his muscles brimmed with power, not stopping even as it reached his cultivation level.
His bones grew, meridians toughened, and his flesh expelled impurities. Every inch of his body transformed.
The process lasted a whole week.
All that remained in the jar when the water evaporated was black ooze, the junk he expelled.
His body had grown, reaching three meters. He might’ve grown, but he could change his size at will.
“Small!” His body crackled and shrank down to two meters.
“Again!” Xu Hei went further, to his limit of one meter.
He breathed out and was back to his normal size.
He test-ran the body by crawling around the cave a couple of times at top speed, kicking up a cloud of dust.
“Body control, strength, and speed, all improved three times!” Xu Hei cheered.
His cultivation hadn’t budge, yet his power left the old him in the dust.
The dark golden scales on his tail reached thirty, extending, surely but slowly, towards his torso.
Xu Hei reckoned he’d be covered in them at the peak Awareness Stage.
[How much stronger will I become?]
At least it made it harder for someone to hurt him.
Xu Hei snaked on demon meat and spread his Divine Sense, finding no sign of the swindling dog.
His eyes shone and examined the black jade.
The jade was so black it sucked all light and dimmed the cave. Intuition screamed at him that it was important.
Xu Hei scanned it with his Divine Sense.
“This…” Xu Hei’s heart jumped then ran away from the jade.
He took a while to gather his courage to try again.
As his Divine Sense peered inside, it felt like a bottomless black hole.
Xu Hei went as far as his Divine Sense took him, a hundred meters.
Switching direction, he found that he could sense a hundred meters up.
“Can it be…”
Xu Hei sucked in a sharp breath as his mind ran wild. “Is this storage space a hundred meters wide, tall, and deep?”
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