《The Human Giant》
Chapter 1 1: Getting My First Talent
?"Dad I''ming!"
Outside a mud hut stood a young man who looked to be in his early twenties holding a wet cloth. The young man ran into the mud hut with worry written on his face as he went towards a deathly pale old man lying on the ground covered with thick nkets.
"Dad, you got to hang on for a few more days. I am in the final stretch of bing a schr. Once I pass I will buy you plenty of medicine to get over your sickness and I will take you to Jade city just like you dreamed of."The young man gently stroked the old man''s hot forehead as he reced the old wet towel on his head with the new one to help his fever.
This young man was Yoze Thunder, the adopted son of Drew Thunder, an old man whose entire life revolved around this field that surrounded them. However, what his father and the world would never know was that Yoze wasn''t from this world.
He was just an ordinary young man from earth and one day he found himself in a foreign world inside the body of a child. With no idea how, why, or where he was Yoze lived a tough life for a few years before his current father took him in and raised him as if he was his son.
To this day Yoze would have never imagined that he would treat another man as his father. But this old man was the one who saved him when he first came to this world and raised him as his son. So he was beyond grateful and would do anything to help him.
To help relieve some of his father''s burdens Yoze had helped him with everything he could. However, as his father grew in age the desire for Yoze to provide him with a better life grew.
With no talent to train in martial arts or any magic powers, Yoze had very few ways he could better his father''s life. The only path Yoze found that could get them better lives was to follow the intellectual path and be a schr.
To be able to achieve this Yoze had to put his entire focus on learning and following the way of a schr for the past year to have a shot at this year''s schr exam. This caused Yoze to spend less time helping his father which made him feel guilty but his father neverined or asked Yoze to find work after he told him he wanted to be a schr.
"Dad..." Yoze''s heart froze for a second as he saw his father''s eyes close before realizing that he had only fallen asleep.
After recing the wet towel on his father''s head and making sure he was asleep. Yoze went outside and sighed as he felt lost.
"It has been 13 years since I came into this world as a child. "
As someone who read a lot of novels back in the 21 century, Yoze had initially been full of hope for the future. Even as the years passed by, Yoze had the assumption that his modern knowledge would have been enough to create a better life for his father and himself.
But he realized that it was impossible to use any of the modern knowledge he had without the technology to back it up. As an average person back on earth, he didn''t have a single clue on how to build any of the machines that made modern society thrive.
Even then Yoze didn''t give up hope and didn''t want to live the same lifestyle of farming just enough to survive and nothing else. This realization instead only strengthened his resolve to be a schr.
"Dad just hang on for a few more days and I''ll get you all the medicine you need to get better." Yoze clenched his fists and nned to go find his friend to study.
[Second Best System]
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: None]
[Talent Mark: 1]
Suddenly just as Yoze was about to leave a strange transparent panel appeared in front of his eyes. It didn''t make a noise and seemed to stay in the center of his vision regardless of where he looked.
Knowing what this game-like panel must mean, Yoze felt an electric shock go through his spine as hope swelled in his heart. Yoze''s eyes went wide as he looked at the system panel in front of him and almost cried from happiness.
"Yes! It finally arrived! My cheat for my difficulties." Yoze hopped around with joy beforeing to his senses that his father was still sleeping.
"I need to calm down and see what my cheat can do first." After calming himself down and examining the panel he figured out what it did.
The use of the Second Best system was that it could allow Yoze to copy other people''s talents. However, when he copied a talent he would get a degraded version of it.
ording to the system, there are 10 grades of talent, and the higher the number the better.
Grade 1 means a 20 percent bonus on learning the talent''s particr subject. Grade 2 means a 40 percent bonus, Grade 3 and 60 percent bonus, and this continues until grade 6 which has a massive increase to 150 percent.
Grade 7 has a 200 percent increase, Grade 8 has a 300 percent increase, Grade 9 has a 500 percent increase, and Grade 10 has a 1000 percent increase.
That meant if he found someone with a grade 4 talent in literature he would be able to copy it and get a grade 3 talent in literature.
"This cheat doesn''t have much use right now but as long as I find people with high talent grades I will be able to reach the top of every category." Yoze felt his hope to be a schr solidify and an ember of ambition burned in his heart.
"I already know who I''m going to use it on."
Since the Schr exam was starting in a few days, he was going to visit the smartest man he knew. When Yoze arrived at his target''s mud hut, he saw that a young man was watering arge garden.
"Evi, how are you doing?"
The young man raised his head and smiled out to Yoze before walking over. This man was Evi and the smartest man that Yoze knew. They would frequently study together for the schr exam, however, after a bit of time the study session would be a situation where Yoze asked a question while Evi answered.
"I''m doing fine, are you here to study together," Evi asked with a smile.
"Yeah," Yoze nodded his head and agreed to the study session.
Since Evi''s hut didn''t have any lights he took out his notes from his hut and they began to study the material together. Yoze not only wanted to use this study session to study for the exam but also as insurance to stay near Evi since he didn''t know how long it took to copy someone''s talent.
"Send out the talent mark." Yoze thought to himself.
[Sending out Talent Mark on target.]
[Name: Evi Rock]
[Age: 20]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 4), Gardening(Grade 2)]
Yoze silently took a deep breath as he didn''t know his friend was learning literature almost twice as fast. After thinking about it more Yoze understood that this should have been the case.
He and Evi began studying for the schr examination around the same time however when it came to literature he had been able to get a much deeper and moreprehensive understanding in a simr amount of time. Since he had confirmed that his cheat was real and his friend did have a useful talent, he chose to copy it.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3)]
[Talent Mark: 0 (23:59:57 hours remaining) ]
As soon as Yoze copied the Literature Comprehension talent a small explosion erupted in his mind as concepts from texts and stories became clearer to him. All the discussions about literature he had with Evi in the past became easier to remember and understand.
"This is amazing, I wonder what Evi is going through."
Yoze felt invigorated and found that he was able to keep up with his friend and his knowledge of literature deepened more in a single hourpared to several hours-long study sessions he had with Evi in the past.
"It''s getting dark so I''m going to head out." Noticing that he had been studying with Evi for so long that the sun was beginning to set, Yoze decided to call it a day.
"See you at the schr exam." Evi smiled as he bid Yoze goodbye.
After tasting the fruits of being talented, Yoze was hoping to find more talented folks but he didn''t know anyone else that had more talent in literature than Evi. It also seems that he had to be careful about choosing someone and copying their talent since he had to wait 24 hours until he got another talent mark.
A few days soon passed and Yoze was standing outside of arge wooden building with freshly painted green walls. This testing facility was built specifically for the schr exam and today was the day to see if the hundreds of people that had dedicated their lives to be schrs had the qualifications.
Suddenly feeling a hand touch his shoulder, Yoze turned around to see that Evi was standing behind him with some study notes.
"Are you feeling confident?" Evi asked with the confident smile he always wore.
"I will give myself a good chance at passing the exam as long as the harder subjects are not selected for this exam," Yoze said casually as he shrugged his shoulders.
Yoze found that he was more interested in finding another talented person to copy their talent than worrying about the exam. After studying for thest few days with his new Literature Comprehension talent his previously weak skill in understanding this world''s literature was mostly shored up and his confidence in the remaining fields was good.
Chapter 2 2: The Scholar Exam And The Martial Artist
?Yoze took a seat inside the building where the Schr exam was taking ce and tried to getfortable. The exam was going to take ce all day long. The exam was also divided into several sections with 15-minute breaks in between.
It was enough time to eat a snack and drink some water but not enough time to figure out how to cheat on the following sections which were randomly selected.
"Look, the test examiners have arrived."
Yoze turned his attention to the three middle-aged men wearing schr robes and had auras of superiority. However, his attention was ced on the fourth man who followed behind them as he didn''t look like a schr. If anything his strong muscles, sharp gaze, and sheathed sword tied to his belt showed that he was a warrior.
"A martial artist?"
Yoze felt his heart shiver as he remembered the rumors that father told him that this world was filled with monsters, demons, and Immortals. Yoze always wanted to see if Immortals were real but he never came across a martial artist much less an Immortal.
The thought of using his talent mark on the martial artist crossed Yoze''s mind but he eventually shook his head and temporarily rejected the idea. He wanted to use his only talent mark in case he ran into some difficulty during the exam and copy someone with more talent to increase his chances of bing a schr. Yoze knew that he had to be a schr to save his father from dying from his sickness.
"The exam will begin in 10 minutes! Make sure to take care of your natural needs beforehand as there are will be no exceptions to leaving during this period." One of the examiners spoke drawing Yoze''s attention.
The examiners went over the rules and repeatedly mentioned that cheating would not be tolerated. After that, the first section of the exam was passed out and the test began.
The first section was about math and was the section that Yoze had the most confidence in. He had taken math courses when he went to college so he had an easier time learning and understanding this world''s math.
Two hours passed by in a sh and Yoze finished with thest question. Even though he was confident he still double-checked his answers to make sure he didn''t make a mistake.
It took Yoze another half an hour to double-check and fix the few math mistakes he made and waited patiently for the first break to start. They weren''t allowed to try and turn in their papers early and needed to wait patiently for the examiners to collect them all at the same time.
"Time''s up! Pens Down!"
Yoze looked around to see that a third of the people had sweat covering their foreheads but seemed satisfied with the exam with another third seeming like they wanted to kill themselves. Thest third were people like Yoze who seemed to be rxed and rested.
"A 15-minute break starts now!"
Yoze stood up and left the exam room to take a breath of fresh air and calm his nerves. The moment he stepped outside, Yoze was assaulted with a wave of heat.
"Damn it''s hot. I''m going back inside." Evi used his hand to shade his eyes and went inside.
Just as Yoze was going to follow him inside he saw that the martial artist that hade in with the examiners was standing outside in the zing heat.
Even from a distance, Yoze could tell that the martial artist was in a terrible mood at being forced to stand outside in the zing heat for several hours.
Making a snap decision Yoze walked outside and offered the martial artist some water.
"Sir, I couldn''t help but notice that you have been standing outside for a while and wanted to offer you some water." Putting up his best smile, Yoze lifted his water pouch full of water.
The martial artist first looked at Yoze with a look of suspicion but seeing his smile without ill intent, he epted the offering.
"Thanks, kid, what do you want?"
"Are you a martial artist?"
"Yes, " The martial artist confirmed.
"Have you encountered any monsters and demons?" Yoze asked with excitement.
The martial artist took a gulp of water and looked deeply into Yoze''s eyes and said, "No, you are more likely to die at hands of another martial artist than a demon."
The martial artist took another swig of water and continued after seeing the look of disappointment in Yoze''s eyes
"Of course, it doesn''t mean that they aren''t real. They are very much real. I might never have encountered any demons or monsters but I have heard stories from friends that you are more likely to encounter them as one gets stronger."
Seeing that his questions were being answered, Yoze asked his most important question.
"How does one be a martial artist?"
"Kid, the path to bing a martial artist is tough and filled with death. I rmend that you stick with bing a schr. It is not only safer but you are more likely to have a better life."
"I see,"
Understanding the martial artist''s advice and being able to ept it were two different matters. Since Yoze confirmed that this world might have demons from legends that treated human lives like ants existed. He didn''t feelfortable cing his life in the hands of others. Especially now that he had gotten the power to copy talents he knew he could reach the sky.
Maybe it was because the martial artist saw that the me in Yoze''s eyes didn''t diminish. Or perhaps he wanted to maintain their exchange for water with questions going. But he gave Yoze his water pouch back and told him toe back during the next break session.
"If you still want an interest in learning about the world of martial arts,e find me next break."
Chapter 3 3: Twin Fist Martal Arts
?The next section of the exam was the awaited literature portion and to Yoze''s relief, it wasn''t as hard as he imagined. With all his studying and with his grade 3 literatureprehension talent he was confident he could do well.
"Times Up! Pens Down!"
Once the next break was announced, Yoze ran over to the martial artist and gave him his water pouch.
Waiting for him to drink some water, Yoze asked him numerous questions about the world of martial arts. By the end of the break period, he had a much deeper understanding of martial artists and the martial arts world.
For instance, Yoze had a heavily basic understanding of martial arts. They had their power system. Martial artists were divided into three groups, first is the Martial artist, then the Blood Masters, andstly were the Martial Grandmasters.
Martial Artists have five levels and are considered the foundation of bing a strong martial artist. Blood Masters had four levels and Martial Grandmasters had 6 levels.
Yoze was told that Martial Grandmasters were people who have reached the limits of what was possible for mortals. They could evenpete with some of the weaker Immortals and demons.
"Immortals?" Yoze gulped as he was interested in Immortals.
"Can they truly not be killed?"
The martial artist shrugged his shoulders as if he didn''t know.
"Just like demons, Immortals are mysterious only people that have the potential to be Immortals can take a peek into their mysteries."
Yoze wasn''t yet satisfied with asking the martial artist questions but he reluctantly had to return and take the next portion of the exam.
When the next section waspleted, Yoze immediately ran to ask questions. In the dead of the afternoon heat, Yoze was having a snack with the martial artist as he learned more.
He learned that there were sects that martial artist''s dreamed of joining. However, unless one was strong and had a good reputation or had high potential it was next to impossible to join these sects.
That was when the martial artist reached into his pouch, took out an ordinary-looking book, and handed it to Yoze.
"Here kid, I can see that you aren''t going to give up on bing a martial artist. And since you have been doing me a favor I give you this martial arts book."
"Twin Fist Martial Arts. Thank you, sir!" Yoze felt deep gratitude towards this stranger for giving him a martial arts book. He learned every martial arts book was precious and it was difficult for ordinary people to acquire one.
The martial artist epted Yoze''s gratitude with a nod and said, "This book is called Twin Fists. It is one of the most basic martial arts books and is avable to be bought as long as you have money. It teaches you how to punch and fight. It can help start you on your martial arts journey but doesn''t hold up past bing a second-tier martial artist."
Talking a bit more, Yoze felt his drive to be a martial artist soar as he now had a great chance to start his journey in the martial arts world.
However, during thest section of the exam, Yoze ran into a problem. This section was aboutprehending paintings. Though Yoze was prepared for almost anything he found this section particrly difficult.
He was struggling with whether he should use his only talent mark to grab the talent of someone doing better than him. Or he could take the risk and use it on the martial artist.
"I need to make a choice now." His indecision was harming his chances of passing the exam as he couldn''t think about the test without his mind wandering.
Feeling the book in his pouch, Yoze made a decision and didn''t use his talent mark to help get him over this hurl. While it was mostly based on his intuition, Yoze felt that trying to find someone with talent rted to art was riskier. There were so many people he could choose from but if he chose wrong he would not only not get any benefits but would also lose the chance of getting some martial art talent.
This would be even worse now that he had a way to practice martial arts. If he found out that he was terrible at learning martial arts and lost the chance to give himself some talent, Yoze would truly be depressed.
"Come on, I have practice for this day. With my results from the past sections I have a good chance to still pass."
After making his decision, Yoze tossed all unnecessary thoughts away and focused on doing his best to get through the exam.
"Times Up! Pens Down!"
With the final section of the exampleted, Yoze heard a collective sigh of relief and despair.
"I hope that I never have to do this again," Yoze mumbled to himself before leaving Evi and visiting the Unnamed martial artist onest time.
This time Yoze didn''t make it outside when he saw the martial artist walking inside. After giving Yoze a nod, he continued walking past him as if nothing had happened.
Knowing that their charade of exchanging information for some water and snacks was over. Yoze simply made a note to himself that if they ever met in the future he would buy him a meal.
[Name: Grave Jungle]
[Age: 47]
[Talents: Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 3)]
"As expected he has some talent rted to martial arts. Even though it''s lower than I thought, it''s still good to have a Grade 2 talent." Yoze thought to himself as he copied the talent.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 2) ]
[Talent Mark: 0 (24 hours remaining) ]
Yoze felt a shiver run down his back as he felt that he had a bit more control over his bodypared to before. With the Schr exam finished and not having another opportunity to ask a martial artist more questions, Yoze went home to attend to his sick father and practice his new martial art book.
When Yoze arrived home he saw that his father''s fever had reduced slightly. After feeding him some vegetable porridge, Yoze went outside.
Chapter 4 4: Feeling The Flow
?"The concept of Twin Fists is pretty simple."
Yoze rubbed his chin as he read the book and felt that what the martial artist said about Twin Fists being a basic martial arts technique was true. The core concept of the book was for the users to getfortable punching with both of their hands and forming abo with them.
"As long as the users of Twin Fists get a good hit on their opponents they can form an endless chain of attacks that are hard to interrupt. Which will overwhelm anyone."
The technique had three moves, Bear Fist, Bull Fist, and Koi Fists.
Bear Fist and Bull Fist were both moves to open the opponent''s defense. Bear Fist was a straightforward punch that contained the power of a charging Bear. While Bull Fist was more of an uppercut that took inspiration from a Bull lifting its horns.
Koi Fists were the meat of the technique, once the opponent''s defenses were broken through they would face endless powerful punches. That could change directions as fast as fish in water.
"The only thing left is to try it." Taking a deep breath, Yoze took the stance that the book said to take and threw a Bear Fist.
"Whoosh,"
Then a Bull Fist.
"Whoosh,"
Finally, toplete the set, Yoze attempted to start a chain of Koi Fists.
"Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh,"
Yoze had to stop after throwing his fifth Koi Fists because he felt exhausted. Still, Yoze felt amazed at how much stronger his punches were after using this technique.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 2) ]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 0: 5%)]
[Talent Mark: 0 (22 hours remaining) ]
"Huh, a new section opened up for my Techniques. "
Yoze felt invigorated that his cheat was even able to make his progress visible. To him, this was feeling more and more like a video game. With his mood boosted, Yoze continued to practice Twin Fists until the sun started to set.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 2) ]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 0: 25%)]
[Talent Mark: 0 (20 hours remaining) ]
"With this speed, I should be able to reach level 1 in a few days." Even though Yoze was exhausted, he couldn''t help but smile as he felt his life was turning around for the better.
The next day, Yoze was back at the building where he took his Schr exam. Outside of the building were several billboards that had a list of names of those who failed and who passed the examination.
Looking through the list Yoze found that Evi had passed and even got 39th in the highest-ced scores. When Yoze found his name he sighed in relief to see that he had passed and even got the 60th-highest score.
"Dad, I will be able to buy you medicine."
Clenching his fists, Yoze felt that he was finally able to start repaying the kindness that his father had shown him. The reason he wanted to be a schr was that he would get paid a hefty amount just for passing the exam.
It was enough money for Yoze to go to the closest town to buy some medicine for his father before he had to go to Jade City. The reason for the down payment that every Schr received was so they could travel to the closest city to them without needing to have the examiners escort all the new schrs.
"Yoze, when are you thinking of heading to Jade City?" Evi asked.
"I''m going to head to Flower Town tonight to buy my dad some medicine and then travel to Jade City. How about you?"
"I''m heading off tonight. I heard that some thugs visit the houses of new schrs to extort them out of their money. So be careful." Evi warned Yoze.
"Thanks for the warning Evi, I''ll leave for Jade City as soon as possible."
After congratting each other for passing the exam, they bid each other goodbye and promised to get a drink once they saw each other again.
The Journey to Flower Town wasn''t very exciting as it only was half a day''s walk from his home. Other than practicing Twin Fists when he ate, Yoze was busy trying to get to the town as soon as possible.
"I''m finally here,"
Having been taken by his father a few years back Yoze had some semnce of where to get medicine so he immediately purchased some fever medicine and general medicine.
"Unfortunately I won''t be able to make it back tonight." Looking at the orange sky, Yoze knew he wasn''t able to make it home before night came so he stayed at an inn for the night.
"Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh."
Stopping at 10 Koi Fists, Yoze smiled as he said that he reached level 1 of the Twin Fists technique.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 2) ]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 1: 1%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
He was able to reach level 1 faster than he expected and he could already feel that he could easily unleash overwhelming force.
"Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh."
After throwing another ten koi Fistsbo without feeling like he was going to die, Yoze could understand why even people on earth still practiced martial arts. The feeling of being able to tap into the power in his body was amazing.
Yoze woke up early in the morning so he could arrive back home by the afternoon. Seeing his mud hut in the distance, Yoze breathed a sigh of relief before his pupils contracted.
When Yoze got closer he began to see odd signs around his home. Three well-fed horses were grazing near his home. What made him worried was that his front door was broken.
"Dad!"
Fear struck Yoze''s heart as he couldn''t help but worry about his sick father. Just as life wasing around, thugs just had to show up and ruin everything.
"Yoze? Don''te! Run away! Ugh!" Hearing his father''s tired voice screaming at him to run made Yoze''s heart burn with anger.
He couldn''t run away after knowing his father was endangered; he didn''t believe he could run away before the thugs caught up to him with their horses.
"Dad hold on, I''ming!" Yoze threw all caution to the wind and stormed inside his hut.
What Yoze saw set his heart aze.
Chapter 5 5: I Dont Negotiate With Thugs
?Everything that made this mud hut his home was destroyed beyond repair. And three burly men that wore ugly grins on their faces were standing over his father. One of the thugs had a scar that went across his face as he touched the sword on his hip.
"Hand over everything you have and you and your old man can leave with your lives." The thug with the sword said, seeing the anger in Yoze''s eyes.
"Fine, let my dad leave the hut first and I''ll hand you everything that I got for bing a schr. I will not even take a single step or resist as long as you let him go." Yoze suppressed his anger and calmly said.
"What makes you think that we need to listen to your demands?" The scared thug stopped his hideous grin as he replied to Yoze.
"I can either hand you everything in one package or you and yourckeys will have to find everyst coin in the field."
The Scared thug fell silent before agreeing to let Yoze''s father go beforehand.
"Son, be careful." As his father was walking outside, Yoze saw the look of concern for a son in his eyes, and the mes of his rage grew brighter.
"You old man''s outside now, hand over everything you have." Feeling impatient at how long it was taking Yoze to take out his valuables, one of the thugs urged him.
After taking a deep breath Yoze untied his pouch and walked over to one of the thugs.
"Hold on, give me the pouch." The scarred man called out seeing that the pouch was filled to the brim and couldn''t help but swallow his saliva.
"Even better," Yoze thought to himself before walking towards the scarred thug.
As he handed the pouch to the scarred thug, the anger in his heart burned and Yoze started his counterattack.
"Woosh,"
A swift Bear Fist mmed into the scarred thug''s face before he and hisckeys could react. Not giving him a chance to retaliate, Yoze quickly threw five Koi Fists before he heard a sickening crunche from the scarred thug''s head.
"Ahhh, you''re a martial artist!" The two remaining thugs became frightened and ran out of the hut.
"Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh."
Still, in a state of wanting blood, Yoze attacked one of the slower thugs and caved his head in until he heard a crunch and the body went limp.
By the time Yoze regained hisposure, he ran out the door to find that his father was safe and thest thug had run away with his tail between his legs.
"Dad, are you okay?"
Concerned that the thugs treated his father poorly, Yoze checked to see if there was any bruising before sighing a breath of relief.
"Son, you are strong." Yoze''s father said with surprise.
Yoze puffed his chest out in pride as he felt that he had made the best choice of his life to practice martial arts.
"This is something that I learned from a martial artist when I was taking the Schr exam."
"Speaking of bing a schr, dad, I got you some medicine."
Remembering the whole reason he wanted to be a schr, Yoze ran back into the hut and grabbed his pouch. After hesitating for a minute, Yoze also grabbed the thugs'' pouches and the scarred man''s sword.
"Here dad, take this medicine, this should help you with your fever. Once you take it we will travel to Jade City."
Seeing that the son he always had taken care of, now taking care of him, Yoze''s father shed a silent tear before he took the medicine to not be any more of a burden.
Seeing that his father was notmenting about staying at their mud hut, Yoze couldn''t help but feel a weight fall off of his shoulders. Taking onest look at the mud hut he had called home for thest 13 years, Yoze bid it farewell.
Several dayster, Yoze and his father made it to Jade City and were both moved by the beauty of the city. There were lines of people lining up to enter the city, so they entered the line.
By the time they reached the gate, it was starting to get dark.
"Dad, we should be able to find a ce to stay tonight so that you can get some proper rest." Seeing his father''s haggard appearance made Yoze''s heartache but he felt happy to see that the medicine was effective as his father''s sickness had gone away.
"What is your purpose foring to Jade City?"
Getting out of his head, Yoze noticed that they had reached the gate and two bored guards were waiting for his answer.
"I''m a schring to the city to offer up my services," Yoze said while showing a wooden badge with a blue leaf on it to the guards.
Seeing the badge that represented new schrs, the two guards put on smiles on their faces and warmly made rmendations for ces Yoze should visit.
"Thank you for your rmendations. I will make sure to follow your advice." Pretending to be warmed by the fake kindness, Yoze said that if they saw each other again they should go to dinner.
When Yoze enter Jade City, he felt that he had returned to a city back on earth. The buildings were several stories high and there seemed to be an endless amount of people walking the streets.
"Here, this inn looks good."
After settling down, Yoze soaked in the long-awaited warm bath.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 2) ]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 1: 10%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
Yoze saw that his progress had slowed down after reaching the first rank of Twin Fists. And ording to the book, there are three ranks in the technique. Rank 1 is considered entry-level and means that the user can throw out a chain of 10fortably. Rank 2 means that the user can throw abo size of 40. And Rank 3 Twin Fists maximum is abo of 70 punches.
Right now, Yoze felt he could throw 12 koi punches without any issue.
"I have a long way to go before I even reach the limit of this basic technique. I should try to find someone with better talent to speed up the process."
Chapter 6 6: Registering As A Scholar. Visiting The Martial Court Yard.
?Standing in front of the luxurious city hall that screamed wealth, was Yoze. His eyes stung as his nose was assaulted by the scent of overpowering perfumeing from the fat man in front of him.
"So you are here to register as a schr. Pleasee in and you are at the right ce. This is where all the new schrs are supposed to register before we give you an official position."
"That''s great, can you point me in the direction of where I need to go to register?"
Ignoring Yoze''s attempts to get rid of the smiling man, the man said, " Nonsense, this building is veryplex so I''ll take you there. It''s my job to take the new schrs here but I''ll be honest with you I only take the good-looking ones. Hahaha."
Yoze smiled at the man''s jokes while following the smiling man to not make the already awkward situation any more awkward. After going through many twists and turns, they made it to the registering counter.
"Thank you for taking me here Mr.?"
"Dwight Coal. What is your name?"
"My name is Yoze Thunder. It was a pleasure meeting with you Mr. Coal."
"The pleasure was mine, Yoze." Dwight Coal let out a bright smile after hearing Yoze address him by his name.
The registration process was simple but time-consuming. By the time it was time for Yoze to pick his Advisor position, it was pitch ck outside.
"Since you scored in the bottom half of the exam, you can only pick to be an advisor from these less favorable positions."
Yoze could onlyin in his heart as he had already made his choice and needed to deal with its consequences. When Yoze picked up the list he saw that the secretary had marked a down arrow below the 20th open position to show which ones he qualified for.
As he looked through the list, Yoze could see why they were considered to be less favorable than they needed to have more work done in these positions yet also paid less than the positions at the top of the list.
Yoze''s eye suddenly caught one particr position and immediately made his choice.
"This one, I want to be an advisor of the Martial Court Yard."
The female secretary that was waiting for him to make his choice was startled by his sudden burst of energy. When she heard that he wanted to be a Martial Court Yard Advisor she couldn''t help but persuade him to reconsider.
"Are you sure? This position is one of the worst ones. Not only is the pay much lesspared to the others. But due to you being an advisor to martial artists, who seem to make it their goal not to ask for advice, your prospects of moving to a better position are slim."
Yoze looked at the Martial Court Yard Advisor position''s monthly sry of 100 silver and thought he could make do with the yearly sry of ordinary people.
"Yes I''m sure, I have a passion for martial arts so I''m hoping to learn a thing or two while I''m there."
Seeing that Yoze wasn''t listening to her kind-hearted advice, the female secretary gave up trying to help this man and register him for the position.
"You are expected to visit the Martial Court Yard tomorrow to meet with the other advisors. After that, you will only be expected to visit the court if you are summoned for advising."
"Thank you."
When Yoze arrived back at the inn his heart was beating from excitement. He couldn''t believe he was so lucky to get a position that put him so close to martial artists. From meeting his first martial artist a few days ago to now being an advisor to hundreds. It was a leap that Yoze would have never thought could happen in real life.
Yoze was so excited for tomorrow that he could only fall asleep after he exhausted himself from practicing Twin Fists.
The next morning, Yoze arrived at the Martial Court Yard early to see if he could meet any martial artists before he needed to meet with the other advisors.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Yoze suddenly heard a deep roaring from within the Martial Court Yard and couldn''t help but feel sick from the strength of the roars, giving him a headache.
"What is that noise?" Yoze rubbed his head to ease the pain and went inside to find out.
The closer he got to the main training ground of the courtyard, the louder the roars became. It grew to the point that Yoze felt the ground shaking.
When he met the source of the sounds, Yoze was amazed to see that it wasn''t a roar from some kind of monster but more than a hundred martial artists training.
"Incredible."
"I wonder when I can get as strong as these guys."
Yoze could get a good feeling that any of these martial artists could easily kill him with a single punch.
"Amazing what the body could do if properly trained."
Suddenly startled by a voiceing from behind him, Yoze turned around to see a wall of flesh behind him.
"Yeah yes, the human body is an incredible thing. I just wonder what the limit is. Is there nothing above a Martial Grandmaster or is it because they be something else after they cross the barrier."
The strong sturdy body of the middle age man behind him tipped Yoze off that this man was most likely a martial artist of the courtyard so he tried to keep the conversation going to show his respect.
The wall of flesh scratched his beard and showed a look of intrigue to Yoze''s question beforeughing.
"Hahaha, Martial Grandmasters are the known limit. Above Martial Grandmasters are Immortals and demons. They are the only ones who can break apart the biological limit of the body."
"I see..." Yoze fell silent after receiving the man''s reply before asking him another question.
"Can I ask you a question, sir?"
"Sure, why not." The man that looked like a wall of muscles nodded his head.
"What are they practicing? I am practicing a martial art technique called Twin Fists but I don''t think that even if I reach the limit of the technique my body can get as strong as theirs."
Chapter 7 7: Cultivating Inner Vigor
?"Oh, you must be new to martial arts. What you are practicing is a technique, not a body cultivation method which makes the body stronger and produces Inner Vigor." The man looked at Yoze with surprise
"Inner Vigor? What is that?"
This was the first time that Yoze had heard of Inner Vigor. The martial artist that Yoze met never mentioned how people got stronger and raised through the ranks.
"Inner Vigor is a sort of energy that is produced as one practices a body cultivation method. For example, these man are practicing the zing Furnace martial art. The Inner Vigor that their body produces is as hot as fire and when paired up with a martial art technique can make for a deadlybination."
"To truly be considered a strong martial artist one must have a body cultivation and generate Inner Vigor. Typically the more Inner Vigor a person has the stronger they are."
"How do I get a body cultivation method?" Yoze''s eyes shimmered as he hoped to get as stronger.
"They are hard to find unless you join a faction. But we are at one of the ces that has some."
"Anyways I''ll see you around."
Bidding farewell to the wall of flesh, Yoze felt his choice toe here was brilliant. After the training a little longer, Yoze headed to the conference room were he was meeting with the other advisors.
When he made it, he saw that he was thest one to arrive.
"Take a seat and we can begin the meeting." A middle aged man with wless skin noticed Yoze''s arrival and beckoned him to take a seat.
Yoze sat down at the only seat remaining and waited for it to begin.
"We will begin with introduction. My name is Eric Lee, the senior advisor of the Martial Court Yard. I have been here for 10 years. " The middle aged man with wless skin introduced himself.
"I am Grewn also the senior advisor of the Martial Court Yard. I have been here for 8 years." The man that spoken was covered in thick clothing so Yoze wasn''t able to see his appearance.
"I am Josh Lee, a advisor for the Martial Court Yard and I have been here for 3 years." A young man with stubble who looked no more older than 20 went next.
"Leo Graham, advisor, 2 years." A older gentleman was thest to speak and kept his word short.
Yoze felt weird that their introduction were like they were in prison. But he obliged and introduced himself.
"I am Yoze Thunder, I am the recent addition to the advising team and I hope that we can all get along. "
"I like your spirit." Eric nodded his head in approval as he felt felt satisfied with Yoze''s attitude.
"His spirit won''tst so long." Grewn said with the same Vigor as an old man seeing a youth about to face his an unavoidable wall.
"Don''t be like that look Josh is still doing fine..." Eric took a look a look a Josh''s unkempt stubble, messy hair, and the dark circles around his eyes before continuing.
"Nevermind. But Yoze is different I heard he is a martial arts enthusiast. Isn''t that right Yoze."
Yoze was stunned by the fact that rumors that he liked martial arts was already spread but he didn''t deny it since there was no reason to hide his interest.
"Yes, that was the main reason I chose to be an advisor for the Martial Court Yard. I was hoping to catch a glimpse at martial artist practicing their martial arts. And I have to say so far it has not been disappointing."
"That''s good that you weren''t forced here." Grwenmented seemingly shifting his opinion to match Eric''s.
"Now that we have finished our introductions. I will tell you what we do around here. Simply put we are here to smile and act as puppets for the Martial Court Yard."
"I''m sorry but I seemed to have misheard you. Can you say that again?"
Yoze couldn''t believe what he heard act as puppets. What did that mean? Wasn''t he here to act as an advisor?
"You didn''t mishear anything. We are schrs and we are at the Martial Court Yard. The center of where all martial artist who work for the city guards are trained. "
"Even though we are ced here by the city government, internally we are just symbolic ceholders for the government to show the martial artist''s who is their boss. "
"As for actually giving advice, we don''t do that. Because the martial artist of the Martial Court Yard view as us ipetent. We all are here either because we didn''t do well on the exam or were forced here. So in a way, they are right to think we can''t give them any useful advice." Eric finished his speech with a deadpanned face as he looked at the shocked face on Yoze.
Digesting the news he just received, Yoze quickly epted it. He was never here to give advice anyways. If he could get paid and be able to collect talent and martial art body cultivation methods that would be enough.
Seeing Yoze quickly get over it, Eric and the other were impressed with his mental fortitude. After getting the main news out of the way, the rest of the meeting seemed to be tainted as Eric ended the meeting soon after.
Even though the meeting ended in bad taste, Yoze was able to ask on how he could get a body cultivation method from Eric.
"A body cultivation method? I don''t know exactly what that is but you should be able to find one in the in the library. Normally to be able to take read something rted to martial arts you would need to have made some contributions but as we are advisor we can take a look at the basic ones."
When Yoze arrived at the library, he saw an old man that wore loose clothing sitting on the floor.
"You are only allowed to read books on the first floor." The old man said.
"Thank you for telling me. Can I ask you were the body culrivation method books are in the library."
The old man raised his eyebrows and looked at Yoze''s skinny body up and down.
"You''re interested in martial arts?"
"Yes, that''s one of the reasons I chose toe here."
"Alright then, they are in the back left. However those are only the descriptions. If you want to check one out you need to bring it to me and I''ll give you a copy of the book."
"Thanks again."
Chapter 8 8: Big Golem Cultivation
?When Yoze arrived at the Martial arts section he was amazed to see the wide array of techniques and body cultivation methods. Some of them even seemed to have magical effects.
"Demonic Ape Fist cultivation increases the user''s arm strength to produce up to 2000 pounds of force. A single punch could kill a man."
"Wave Palm cultivation focuses on the user controlling their body to distribute force and return it to the enemy."
"Big Golem cultivation, the user bes a tank of pure muscle. The force generated by a single attack is devastating and can easily crush bones."
Yoze''s eyes shimmered as he read the description of the Big Golem Cultivation method. It sounded right up his alley. He wanted to be an unstoppable force that tore to shreds anything and everything that blocked his way.
There was also another body cultivation method that he wanted, Iron Skin. From the description, once he reached the maximum level his skin could tank swords.
Grabbing these two methods, Yoze left to give them to the old man.
"You are grabbing two cultivation methods. I rmend that you don''t."
"Huh why?"
"It takes decades for a person to reach the limits of the body cultivation method. By then they would have be a tier 1 Martial artist."
"To try and practice another body cultivation method without dying of old age requires a lot of talent. The talent of which would be more useful in using to break through bing a Blood Master."
"I see, then I will follow your advice and just check out the Big Golem Cultivation method then."
Receiving the full copy of Big Golem Cultivation, Yoze then went to the training grounds to try and find someone talented. Since he was new here and would being often, Yoze picked a random Martial artist to copy their talent.
[Name: Andrew Has]
[Age: 27]
[Talents: Martial Arts Comprehension(Grade 2), Giving Speeches(Grade 2), Body Cultivation (Grade 6)]
"He has Grade 6 talent in body cultivation! That means he is cultivating 150 percent faster than anyone else." Yoze rubbed his eyes to confirm what he was seeing before copying it.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 2), Body Cultivation (Grade 5)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 1: 30%)]
[Talent Mark: 0 (24 hours remaining) ]
Yoze couldn''t wait to begin practicing the Big Golem Cultivation method and read it on his way home.
The Big Golem Cultivation method matched its description. It was a type of method that increased the strength and weight of the user. It was divided into five levels corresponding to the levels of a martial artist.
The first level said that the user would weigh nearly 200 pounds and can hit like a truck. The second he would weigh over 300 hundred pounds.
In the third level, Yoze would have developed his Inner Vigor and used it to make himself heavier. The more Inner Vigor he had the heavier he got. By the time he cultivated this cultivation method to the peak, he could weigh as much as 1000 pounds.
If Yoze charged at someone with that kind of weight they would be turned into a bloody mush.
The first step that he needed to follow was to eat a lot of food while following the training regime in the book. It said that the more talent some had the greater the food-to-muscle conversion would be.
With nothing needing his attention, Yoze dedicated most of his time to training the Twin Fists and Big Golem cultivation method. Other than going to the Martial Court Yard to see if he could copy some good Talents and going to the store to buy food, most of Yoze''s time was spent at home practicing.
Three months passed by in a sh, and Yoze had trained his body to the point that one would assume he wasn''t a schr.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 3), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 3)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 3: 1%), Big Golem(Level 1: 10 %)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
"Whoosh,"
Throwing our Fists that seemed to disappear from the naked eye, Yoze could hear the power that came from his weight with every punch. He looked was built like a small truck. He had to buy bigger clothes as the old ones no longer fit him.
With three months passing by, Yoze had reached the third level of Twin Fists at an astonishing pace. This was thanks in part to the Talents he found at the Martial Court Yard. He was able to find two more gems, a grade 6 Fist Art talent and a Grade 3 talent in movement.
These two Talents worked together with his broad Martial artsprehension talent that made Yoze rapidly progress. He was even able to reach the first level of the Big Golem Cultivation method. Meaning he could be considered a third-rate Martial artist.
After finishing his morning workout, Yoze went back to the Martial Court Yard as he was summoned.
"Eric, Grewn, Josh, Leo it''s nice to see you guys again." Seeing his coworkers again after three, Yoze gave them a simple head nod.
While the four of them looked at each other as if they were confirming if the hulking man in front of them was Yoze.
Eric coughed to clear the awkward silence and told Yoze the reason why they had been called.
"There is going to be an inspection today so we will be following the Martial Court Yard directors and giving them some superficial advice."
Seeing that it was a simple matter, Yoze and the other advisors walked to the main yard where the inspector was chatting with the court''s director. After greeting each other, was made to follow in the back away from the inspector and director.
If it was anyone else, they would have gotten upset by this arrangement as it destroyed his chance to earn brownie points with the government and increase his prospects as a schr.
However, Yoze didn''t care about his future as a schr as he nned to follow the path of a martial artist. Working as a schr was simply a way to pay the bills and fund his Martial arts.
Eric and the others noticed Yoze''s calm attitude and couldn''t help but raise their opinions of him. It was difficult for schrs to give up an opportunity to improve their careers, especially to get out of this dead-end position.
Chapter 9 9: This Really Is A Big Charade
?The small group then walked around for an hour before stopping in front of the main training. The powerful roars from the training martial artists have been turned down a lot and were a hollow version of themselves.
It was obvious to Yoze that none of the Martial Artists present today were training and instead just acting like real-life ornaments.
"Here is our main training ground. We previously treated this area as a dueling arena but thanks to our advisors we changed it to be our main training ground. Do you have anything to add advisors?"
Eric stepped forward with an elegance that Yoze never saw before andmented on the reason why they gave their advice. ording to Eric the reason for changing this area to the main training area was to promote teamwork and make the martial artist feel a stronger connection to the court.
The reason that Eric gave was filled with holes and any person who wanted to find out why would have asked some follow-up questions. However, seeing the investigator taking a single note before stopping made it clear that the investigator didn''t care.
The rest of the charadested a few more hours as Yoze was dragged along with the group that treated this more as a tour than anything else. After finishing up the fake investigation and bidding the investigator farewell, Yoze was called up by Eric.
"Yoze, as I told you when you first arrived we are just symbolic ceholders. This ''investigation'' is when we ''work''. The next one will be three months from now and you will have a shot at trying to give a convincing reason for any of the fake changes made."
Yoze nodded his head, agreeing to the arrangement but didn''t pay it much mind. He was too upied with training to care for this fake job of his.
"Dad, I''m back." Greeting his father, Yoze was assaulted by the smell of meat and seasonings.
He saw that his father was making a big pot of meaty soup for him since he knew that Yoze needed to eat a lot for his cultivation.
"Come eat."
While his father had a bowl of soup, Yoze ate the rest in the pot and waspletely stuffed. But after his training, he would have digested most of it.
"Whoosh!"
A huge gust of wind followed after Yoze''s punches as they sounded like cannons flying through the air.
"I need to get another ce to train." Yoze frowned as he saw the mess he had created with his single punch. The wind he generated was enough to cause trouble and generate issues with noise.
Yoze thought of moving his training to the Martial Court Yard and rejected it because he would never get permission to do so. After being an advisor for the court for three months and bearing witness to the fake investigation, Yoze knew that he was reaching the limits of what his advisor role allowed him to do.
He could visit the courtyard every day and could go to the library and check out books on the first floor but he couldn''t enter the training grounds without reason.
"That only leaves me going to the forest."
After making up his mind to head to the forest, Yoze left theforts of the city and reached Pine Tree Forest. This forest was the city''s main source of wood and was quite safe so Yoze didn''t have to worry about getting attacked during training.
"Woosh Woosh Woosh..."
Yoze seemed to have gained four more arms as he left after images from his sheer speed. He was finally able to let loose and see how strong he had gotten.
"bam bam bam,"
With each punch, Yoze''s punch shook a meter-wide tree and left deep Fists imprints. With each punch Yoze koi Fists became stronger and faster. By the end of it, chunks of wood littered the floor as half of the tree trunk was gone.
The pure disy of power exhrated Yoze and he continued to train his Twin Fists and train his body to put on more muscle. The more he weighed the more power would be behind his punches.
Yoze only returned to the city when he had exhausted his body and was hungry.
Six months soon passed by and other than Yoze having to do the fake investigation he was focusing on trying to break through to the second level of the Big Golem Cultivation method.
Deep inside the forest, a two-headed and six-armed hulking human was destroying a 3-meter wide pine tree with his bare hands. It led to the usually quiet forest being filled with sounds as if a natural disaster was wreaking havoc.
"Whoosh, Boom!"
Finally, with a final punch the tree that had survived for decades toppled. The hulking two-headed human quickly lost his extra head and arms to reveal that it was Yoze.
After half a year of training, he had grown a couple of inches and had reached close to 6 feet tall.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 3), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 3)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 3: 99%), Big Golem(Level 1: 99%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
"Come on, I''m so close." Yoze frowned as he felt he had reached a bottleneck.
He had been at 99% for both Twin Fists and the Big Golem cultivation method for a week now. But his real frustration came from Twin Fists. He could form a chain of 69 koi Fists but every time he tried to throw out another punch he felt extreme fatigue and numbness spread across his arm.
As for his cultivation with the Big Golem Cultivation method, Yoze was confident that he could break through tonight. He had even brought a hefty amount of food with him to the forest so he could practice all night.
"By tonight I should reach level 2 of my cultivation method and should be at the peak of being considered a third-rate Martial artist."
"I just need to digest all this food and convert it to thest pound of muscle."
Chapter 10 10: Reaching A Milestone Of 300 Pounds
?Yoze ate till his stomach was on the verge of bursting and cultivated the exercise needed to speed up digestion. Using the Big Golem Cultivation method allowed Yoze to quickly gain weight and even shed his fat. When Yoze flexed his muscles he gained an aura that he was a wall of muscle.
Yoze followed a pattern of eating, exercising, and practicing Twin Fists all through the night. When Yoze opened his eyes as he digested hisst pounds of food and converted it to muscle.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 3), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 3)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 3: 99%), Big Golem(Level 2: 0%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
Yoze smiled as he felt the energy and power flowing through his body. He felt that he could destroy anything that stood in his way.
"Let''s keep the good vibes going. I will reach the peak of Twin Fists tonight!"
"Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh..."
Each of Yoze''s punches seemed to contain the power of a lion. Yoze was surprised at how much more power was contained in his punches from just gaining one more pound of muscle. Yoze was sure that if he now fought against himself before his breakthrough he would have crushed him.
"A single pound makes a world of a difference."
Yoze felt his confidence in his choice to travel the martial arts path strength soar. As Yoze sent a wind-breaking punch he felt that the air didn''t hold him back as much. It was a slight amount but after 69 punches the energy he saved was enough to send one more.
"Boom!"
Unlike the gush of wind that followed his other punches, Yoze''s final punch broke through the speed of sound and created a loud sonic boom that shook the forest residents.
Yoze lowered his trembling arm and smiled as he knew he had done it. He had reached the absolute peak of Twin Fists. His first martial arts technique.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 3), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 3)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 3: 100%), Big Golem(Level 2: 0%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
Yoze soaked in his achievement before packing up and going home. There was no point in him staying in the forest any longer; he couldn''t train his cultivation method since he had used all his food and his Twin Fists had reached perfection.
When Yoze arrived back at the inn he and his father were staying at for the past 9 months. He returned to the sound of creaking wood that was on the brink of breaking.
"I''m too heavy."
Since Yoze and his father lived on the second floor, the inn owner refused to let Yoze go to his room. He was very likely to break through the floorboards and fall into the room below.
Yoze rented another room on the bottom floor since he didn''t want to be bothered with trying to find another inn at the moment and pushed to do it the next day.
The next day as Yoze was at the Martial Court Yard watching the martial artist''s practice, he was summoned by the Martial Court Yard assistant director.
"The Assistant Director George has summoned me?" Yoze was surprised but still followed the order since ording to the record he was the Martial Court Yard''s Advisor. He had to ce everything he was doing aside and go to the summoning.
When Yoze arrived at the meeting room that he had gone to whenever they were preparing for the fake investigations he saw that beside assistant director George, who was as much a martial art enthusiasts as Yoze, was a teen man wearing clothes so expensive that he didn''t want to think how long he would have to save to afford it.
The teenage man seemed to be upset as he was firing some spicynguage at Assistant director George.
"This kid must be important."
Yoze thought as he remembered that Assistant director George had a fiery temperament. During one of the investigations, one of the Martial Artists who was acting as living decorations was so bad that even the investigators who didn''t care to ask questions began to start taking more notes.
So Assistant director George immediately walked up to the martial artist and broke one of his arms in front of the investigator. Making up the excuse that he was cking on his training and needed to be punished.
To make Assistant director George not retaliate and be forced to smile while nodding his head meant that he didn''t dare upset the youth in front of him.
With an important person in the presence of the Assistant Director and his unusual summoning. Yoze put them together and thought that this summoned had to do with this teenager.
"Yoze you''re finally here." Assistant director George sighed with relief.
"Jackie, this man is Yoze one of the CourtYards schrs. Any questions that you have about the city or the courtyard you can ask him."
Yoze understood that he was being made a scapegoat to take this troublesome individual off the hands of the courtyard and couldn''t help but curse his luck.
"Finally, why did this schr have the gall to make me wait so long?" Jackie frowned as he didn''t see the so-called schr.
"Where is he? Is he hiding behind this martial artist?"
"Cough, I am schr Yoze at your service." Recognizing that the young boy had mistaken him for a martial artist and not a schr, Yoze coughed and gave an introduction.
"You''re a schr?" Jackie''s eyes flew open as a surprise was visible on his face. He looked at Yoze and then at Assistant director George and couldn''t tell which one of them fit the category of being a martial artist more between two.
It wasn''t surprising that Yoze wasn''t recognized as a schr. Schrs are usually either fat or skinny since they view martial arts in a poor light. In their point of view, martial arts was just a fancy way of using force to get what they want.
"Yes, "
"I can understand why George and father said that I could travel without bodyguards." Jackie turned around and looked at Assistant director George with a look of betrayal.
"How am I going to be able to escape to be on my own?" Jackie thought with frustration.
"Yoze, apany the director''s son around the city and answer any question he asks. Make sure you don''t lose sight of him." Assistant director George left as soon as he finished giving an order.
"He''s the director''s son, that solves the reason why Assistant director George is so charitable."
Chapter 11 11: Dragon Gang
?"Is there any ce that has your interests?"
epting his duty of being a babysitter, Yoze tried his best not to show his disappointment. He didn''t care about giving advice but he felt that it was more degrading to be forced to be a babysitter.
"There is only one ce I want to visit and that is Shade Alley."
"You want to go to Shade Alley, do you know how dangerous that part is? If anything happensw enforcement won''t be able to save you in time."
Shade Alley is considered to be the most dangerous part of Jade City. The government has little control of that area and it''s used as the main hub for the ck market.
As long as you have the money you can buy just about anything in Shade Alley. Of course, you also have to have the strength to protect yourself or you would just be eaten alive.
"Isn''t that what you''re here for?" Jackie said with a cheeky smile.
"I''m just a schr. I''m here to provide you with knowledge but if you insist on going then I will follow along." Yoze shrugged his shoulders to show his helplessness and followed Jackie to Shade Alley.
Shade Alley was on the city''s far edges and as Yoze and Jackie drew closer they could see that there were visibly fewer guards patrolling and that shaded characters stopped hiding.
"You seemed to be quite familiar with this area," Yozemented noticing that the moment they entered Shade Alley Jackie beelined for a repair shop missing door.
"Ie here when I need to escape from my guards," Jackie said stunning Yoze with his straightforwardness.
"Goddammit!"
Before Yoze recovered Jackie sprinted into the hotel. By the time Yoze ran after Jackie, a man with tattoos of dragons blocked the door frame.
"Stop, you are entering the Dragon Gang Territory!"
"The Dragon Gang? Never heard of it."
Yoze scanned through his memory to search for a gang that matched but he couldn''t remember a single one that matched perfectly. The closest Gang was the Dragon Empire Gang however they were one of the three strongest gangs in Shade Alley. And their hideout was much deeper in Shade Alley.
Yoze could onlye up with the conclusion that the Dragon Gang was just a small gang that was insignificant. As long as Yoze never came back to Shade Alley he wouldn''t have to worry about the Gang''s retaliation.
Compared to offending the director of the Martial Court Yard, offending a small gang wasn''t much of an issue for Yoze.
"I want to see if you can stop a 300-pound man charging at full speed!"Instead of stopping like the tattooed man wanted him to do, Yoze sped up.
The tattooed Dragon Gang member gritted his teeth and stood his ground. He didn''t believe he couldn''t stop a schr, even if that schr was bigger than him.
"Bang!"
Crashing into the tattooed man felt the same as crashing into a teddy bear for Yoze and he sent the tattooed man flying. Entering the hotel, Yoze saw Jackie sitting with ten tattooed men who he assumed were also Dragon Gang Members.
Watching one of their members being sent flying like a toy, all the Dragon Gang Members took out their weapons which ranged from pipes to hammers.
"Jackie, I have been given the duty to educate you for the day. So I have to stay by your side."
"You dare to enter the Dragon Gang''s territory! You must have a death wish! Get him!"
Seeing that they weren''t going to let him just stay by Jackie''s side, Yoze sighed before he felt an excitement for battle flow throughout his body. After fighting the thugs Yoze had felt the urge to battle. For thest 9 months, he had no one that could fight. Now that Yoze faced a battle he didn''t suppress his urge for blood.
"Come!"
Yoze charged at the closest Gang member and threw out a Bear Fist. The sensation of breaking bone and watching the gang member fall to the ground made Yoze''s blood lust explode.
"What are you waiting for, attack him all at once!"
Yoze didn''t know who or where the voice ordering the Gang Members came from but he didn''t mind since he was going to beat up everyone first and then find them.
Yoze suddenly felt a sharp paining from his back and he saw that he had been hit by a steel pipe. Knowing that he needed to face the fact that he wasn''t invincible and needed to take these guys out quickly, Yoze unleashed a fiery Koi Fists.
"Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh...."
For everyone one of Yoze''s punches woulde in contact with a Gang Member''s face or rib. Once they were down, Yoze kept the chain of attacks going and went to the next member. The entire battlested only a minute before all the gang members were either unconscious or their bones were too broken for them to stand up.
Though Yoze won the battle, he had bruises all over his body. The adrenaline flowing through his body made it so Yoze didn''t feel any pain. However, Yoze felt his hatred for Jackie and this babysitting job increasing.
"Jackie... where the f*ck is he!" By the time Yoze regained hisposure, he realized that Jackie was gone.
Yoze checked every nook and cranny of the shop before finding a wooden board covering up a hole that led into a tunnel.
"He must have escaped through here."
Knowing that his job of working at the Martial Court Yard was at stake, Yoze jumped into the tunnel and saw two sets of shoe prints imprinted on the dust-covered floor. One of them matched the shoes that Jackie was wearing so Yoze ran as fast as he could to catch up to them.
"Jackie shouldn''t have gotten far." Since the fight inside the shop didn''tst more than a few minutes, Yoze was confident that he could catch up to someone who hadn''t practiced martial arts before.
Even though Yoze gained more than 200 pounds through his body cultivation method majority of it was pure muscle. So not only did Yoze''s strength get a massive boost but so did his speed. He was far faster than he was before practicing martial arts and could sprint up to 25 miles per hour if he wanted to.
Since his chance to practice martial arts were at stake Yoze didn''t hold back and ran as fast as he could, zooming through the tunnel and leaving a dust cloud behind him.
Chapter 12 12: There Is No Escape Jackie!
?Farther down in the tunnel, Jackie was getting princess carried by a short man that had the phrase Dragon King tattooed on his forehead.
"Is this necessary? Why are we running away? It was ten against one. Are you telling me you have so little faith in our gang, Rico?" Jackie looked at the man he called Rico with frustration.
"Jackie I,"
"I told you to only call me Jack!" Jackie interrupted.
"Jack I have put as many resources into creating our gang as you have but I know our limits better than you. "
"You might think that man you brought is just a schr but from how easily he sent Dragon 1 flying he is a strong martial artist."
" We have only created our gang for half a year and haven''t been able to recruit a single martial artist into our fold. We can''t beat him and can only stall for time to escape." Rico exined to Jackie.
Jackie sighed in frustration as he didn''t want to run away like this. What is the point of having a gang if he had to run away at the sight of a schr?
"Maybe Dad was right and that I should have practiced martial arts." Jackie thought with regret.
"Okay I understand but can you put me down? if we are going to escape then one should run on my own."
Rico contemted for a second before putting Jackie down.
"Thud Thud Thud Thud!"
Rico and Jackie turned around to the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps and saw a cloud of dust flying in their direction.
"How can he run so fast with all that weight?"
Jackie and Rico felt that they were facing a monster they couldn''t escape from.
"Jackie! Don''t even think about escaping!"
Jackie''s legs began trembling as he could hear the anger in Yoze''s voice and worried about what he would do to him once he got captured.
"Jackie run!" Rico bolted into his fastest sprint possible as he reminded Jackie to run.
If Jackie was afraid of what Yoze would do to him once he got captured then Rico was shitting his pants as he had a feeling that if Yoze caught up he would kill him.
Regaining his senses, after hearing Rico''s voice Jackie turned around and started running. However, it was toote for Jackie as Yoze caught up to him.
Reaching out his hand to pick up Jackie like a rag doll, Yoze continued to chase Rico as he couldn''t let this man go unpunished.
"As for you, prepare to have your bones broken!"
Rico ran faster than he thought he could achieve after hearing Yoze''s statement but it only stalled his fate for an extra 30 seconds before Yoze rammed his 300 pounds of pure muscle into Rico''s short body.
"Bang! Crack"
The crunch of broken bones came from every inch of Rico''s body and an unbelievable amount of pain shed through his mind before he passed out.
After getting his revenge, Yoze regained his calm and picked up Rico''s unconscious body along with the frightened Jackie back to the Martial Court Yard.
"Can you call Assistant director George for me? Oh and call someone to take this man to the recovery room please." Adding thest sentence due to not wanting the hassle of carrying Rico with him everywhere, Yoze felt satisfied with his progress with his battle power.
It wasn''t too long ago that he needed to get lucky enough tounch a sneak attack to defeat multiple people. But now after nine months, he was not only able to defeat ten people at the same time but even have enough stamina to capture two escapees.
The youngdy who was working as the Court Yard''s receptionist couldn''t help but be pale seeing Rico''s bloody body and exposed bones.
"Y-yes, I''ll inform the Assistant director that you need him. And I''ll call for medical assistance."
Yoze only had to wait for a few minutes before Assistant director George came alongside two medical staff members.
"What happened?" Assistant director George frowned when he saw Rico and Jackie''s pale faces.
"As per your orders sir, I followed Jackie around to give him some insights into sights he wanted to see around the city. However, Jackie thought he was clever and wanted to go to Shade Alley to use a small gang to escape."
Yoze continued to exin the story of him having to fight against multiple gang members and chase Jackie down a secret tunnel without missing any details in the story. After finishing, Yoze looked in the direction of Rico''s body and said.
"I didn''t know what to do with him so I brought him along in case you or the director wanted to ce your own punishments."
"That''s quite alright." Assistant director George quickly shook his head in rejection of the idea of punishing Rico.
It wasn''t because Assistant director George had suddenly gained a heart but simply because he feared that Rico wouldn''t be able to survive any kind of punishment they did on him after what Yoze did.
"That man is probably crippled for life." Assistant director George thought that he needed to think twice about angering Yoze in the future.
"Since this trip was a bust, I will take Jackie off your hands. As for the troubles... I know that you are interested in martial arts. I''ll ask the director if I can give you some contribution points to get a martial arts technique from the second floor."
"Thank you Assistant director! Maybe I can watch Jackie''s next trip again hahaha." Yozeughed as he felt that this troublesome youth was his lucky star.
"Just as I reached the peak of Twin Fists, I can get a higher quality martial arts technique. How lucky!" Yoze thought to himself.
"No no no, absolutely not! I will not have this crazy schr as my bodyguard!" Jackie froze and began screaming that he wouldn''t ept being around Yoze much less have him watch over him again.
"In just a single afternoon, this monster destroyed the gang I have been working on for thest half a year. He even personally crippled my right-hand man. If anything I need to tell father to teach me martial arts to teach this monster a lesson."
Assistant director George beganughing with exhration and his eyes teared up. He couldn''t believe that the decades of effort that the director and he had put in to try and fail to convince Jackie to practice martial arts was achieved by a schr in an afternoon.
Chapter 13 13: The Blood Fist
?After the whole fiasco with Jackie, Yoze was able to quickly receive 100 contribution points for his babysitting services. Excited to spend it, Yoze rushed to the library and went directly to the second floor where the martial arts techniques were located.
Simply reading the descriptions of the Martial arts techniques made Yoze realize how truly basic his Twin Fists technique was. It mainly relied on Yoze''s physical strength, speed, endurance, and technique to use Twin Fists. The stronger Yoze be from Big Golem Cultivation the stronger his Bear, Bull, and Koi Fistsbo became.
However, there was a clear limit to howrge of abo Twin Fists allowed. As Yoze reached the peak of Twin Fists he couldn''t continue with the Koi Fistsbo after his 70th punch. Even if Yoze had enough stamina to continue after, the technique didn''t have any uniqueness afterward which would lead to thebo restarting from 0.
If Yoze wanted to make thebo surpass the 70 limits he either needed another version of Twin Fists or he had to improve it himself. Yoze thought about trying to improve Twin Fists initially since it was the technique he was most familiar with and the techniques he had ess to on the first floor were also basic techniques like Twin Fists.
All the martial arts techniques were either simple or had a limit of effectiveness for second-rate Martial artists, or abination of both. Since the techniques were on the same level as Twin Fists, Yoze thought of trying to use his 5th-grade Fists talent and 3rd-grade martial artprehension to improve Twin Fists and break through its limit.
That idea was temporarily suspended when Yoze arrived on the second floor and read the descriptions of the Martial arts techniques.
"Demon Ape Martial Set, this martial art technique covers the use of all the user''s limbs like an Ape or monkey. As the user progresses with the techniques they will experience growth in their strength and defensive abilities."
"Sr Illusion Set, thisplete martial arts technique set has three Fists techniques, one leg technique, and force distribution techniques. Once users master all techniques in the set they will be able to form life-like after images with just pure speed."
"Drunk Martial arts set, this set has the user instill basic instinctual martial arts into their body. Once the user bes intoxicated their martial arts skills will rapidly improve. The more intoxicated the user, the more deadly their martial arts bes."
Yoze gulped as he read the descriptions, he could tell how powerful these martial art sets were just from the descriptions. However, Yoze was in for a tsunami of disappointment when he read their contribution costs.
"Demon Ape Martial Set, 1000 points. "
"Sr Illusion Set, 1500 points."
"Drunk Martial Arts Set, 900 points."
"Fudge is the director trying to give me blue balls. Why the heck did he let mee to the second floor and not give me enough points to buy even the cheapest martial arts set." Yoze grumbled to himself as he could only turn his head back to the single techniques.
After looking around for an hour, Yoze felt his joy froming to the second floor fade away as he saw that he could only afford three techniques.
"Blood Fist, this fist technique has one technique. Once the user unleashes this punch they will punch with enough strength to break their limits. 50 contribution points"
"Mindless Legs, this leg technique focuses on the user''s movements. It has three techniques and each allows the user not to think about moving. Once practiced to perfection the user''s feet will act as if they had a mind of their own. 50 contribution points"
"Iron muscles, this defense technique focuses on developing the user''s defensive capabilities. Only user''s who cultivated Iron Skin and reached the point of developing Inner Vigor. 50 contribution points"
Yoze looked at their prices and saw that he could afford to buy two of the three. While Yoze was interested in getting Iron Muscles in case he ever did go back and start cultivating the Iron Skin body cultivation.
He eventually rejected the idea, at the moment Yoze wasfortable with his current body cultivation method. He predicted that he would be able to break through into level three by next year and cultivate his inner Vigor.
Once Yoze cultivated Big Golem to its peak he mighte back and cultivate Iron Skin but at the moment he had his hands full with just one body cultivation method.
As for thest two martial arts techniques, Blood Fist, and Mindless Legs both sound to have mystical effects. Especially Blood Fist, Yoze could only imagine what it meant to break through his limits.
Yoze also hoped that he could somehow use Blood Fist to improve Twin Fists. It was a big ask but with his talent and drive to push himself to the limit Yoze believed he could do it.
Once Yoze made his choice he immediately grabbed copies of the two books and went to the forest to test them out.
"First up is Blood Fist, what does it mean by breaking the limit?"
As Yoze read the Blood Fist technique his face began to pale as he figured out why the description mentioned a limit.
"Blood Fist is supposed to be treated as ast resort. I have to bepletely exhausted or in a near-death state to use its true power."
Yoze realized why the director gave him 100 contribution points and not a single point more. The reason is that he wanted to force Yoze to select the Blood Fist indirectly.
The director of the courtyard didn''t expect Yoze to use the Blood Fist in actualbat but as a way to train. If Yoze ever ran into a bottleneck during training he could use the Blood Fist as a way to forcefully break through.
The reason for this weird technique is described on the first page. The Blood Fist technique was originally part of the Blood Breaker body cultivation manuals.
Chapter 14 14: Limit Breaker Part 1
?The Blood Breaker Martial art is a set of body cultivation methods that were prepared for Blood Masters. Each manual only contained one technique and only by breaking through their limits could the users reach the next level of Blood Master.
It was a ruthless body cultivation method and only the truly determined and talentless would choose this method. It stopped all hope of steady improvement over time. ording to the logic of its creator, the user''s of this body cultivation either shatter their limits and reach new peak performance or stay stuck at the same level for the rest of their life.
That is the Blood Breaker body Cultivation manuals and what Yoze had in his hands was the Blood Fist. It was a more tame version as it could be used as ast-resort fighting technique or if one became stuck during training.
The Blood Fist wasn''t a body cultivation method and was just a technique so users of the Blood Fist don''t get hard-locked to their level. It was more of a convenient method to challenge your limits.
The director obviously didn''t know how talented Yoze was in martial arts and assumed that since Yoze chose to be a schr and only practiced martial arts as a hobby he wasn''t very talented. So the director didn''t want to give away good martial arts techniques to someone who wouldn''t be able to reach their potential.
He also thought that Yoze would soon be reaching his limit and wanted to give him a chance to break through. As for Mindless Legs, it was a cheap way to thank him for the troubles his son caused him.
"Okay, this is a decent technique and I am at the limit of Twin Fists. Maybe I can break through Twin Fists'' limit by using Blood Fist."
After memorizing Blood Fist, Yoze read Mindless Legs to make sure that he didn''t get scammed by the director twice. Yoze breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Mindless Legs was a normal martial arts technique.
Mindless Legs was divided into three techniques, Soft Steps, Sticky Steps, and Silent Steps.
Soft Steps allowed Yoze to jump higher as if he weighed half his weight. Sticky Steps meant that Yoze could stick to surfaces like a Gecko. And Silent Steps meant that Yoze''s footsteps would be as silent as elephants.
These three techniques werepatible with each other and meant to be used in unison. Once Yoze practiced Mindless Legs to perfection he would be able to use these techniques without thinking.
Yoze read further to see that the book had a practice method that divided the technique into four stages.
The first stage was practicing Soft Steps until it was an unconscious habit. The second stage was practicing Sticky Steps until the technique was an unconscious habit.
The third stage was simr to the previous two stages where Yoze needed to practice Silent Steps until he made it an unconscious habit. Thest stage wasbining all three techniques until they no longer conflicted with each and boosted their performance with one another.
After also memorizing Mindless Legs, Yoze decided to spend his time trying to break through Twin Fists with Blood Fists while also practicing his Mindless Legs and Big Golem.
"Thud Thud Thud Thud,"
If someone caught Yoze practicing Mindless Legs they would haveughed at seeing his muscr build walking like a toddler taking his first steps.
Though Yoze knew he looked goofy he still treated it like any other martial arts. Anyway, there wasn''t anyone watching him so he could only be embarrassed for himself.
Once Yoze feltpletely exhausted he attempted to unleash the Blood Fist technique paired with Twin Fists. As Yoze started to punch he felt his heart begin to race. His veins grew and grew until some of them popped as Yoze''s entire body put all of its remaining energy to throw onest attack, his 71st Koi Fist.
However, before Yoze made it halfway he lost sensation in his arm and legs falling to the ground unable toplete it.
Yozeid on the ground unable to move a muscle, he could only rest until his body collected enough energy.
"Again!"
"Thud!"
Once again Yoze was able to make it halfway to throwing his 71st Koi Fistsbo fueled with the Blood Fist before dropping to the ground.
"Again!"
"Thud!"
"Again!"
"Thud!"
"Again!"
"Thud!"
Yozeid on the ground like a dead fish and couldn''t even form a smile as all his muscles throughout his body were sore. However, Yoze felt that he made a little further into his 71st Koi Fistsbo fueled by Blood Fist than his previous times.
Yoze wanted to continue but he found that he hadpletely tapped his body and he could barely stand still enough to throw his Koi Fistsbo so Yoze called it and nned to try again tomorrow.
The next day Yoze spared his usual time to visit the Martial Court Yard and watched the martial artist''s training. He wasn''t here to appreciate their martial arts, he was here scouting for potential martial artists with useful talents.
At the moment he was looking for someone who looked like they had talent rted to their legs or the movements. Eventually, Yoze scouted one such target, it was a young martial artist who was fighting against his opponents by using his agility to escape from their attacks.
Sending a mentalmand towards the young man, Yoze read his profile and clicked his tongue at how great his eyesight had be after nearly a year of practicing and searching for talents.
[Name: Lecho Macho]
[Age: 19]
[Talents: Stealth(Grade 4), Mindless Legs(Grade 9), Body Cultivation(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension(Grade 5)]
"What a talented kid, as long as nothing happens to him he is going to be one hell of a martial artist."
"His name is Lecho Macho, I shoulde to find him tomorrow to copy all his talents. But first I need his Mindless Legs talent."
Yoze was salivating from all the high-grade talents of Lecho Macho but he sighed at his inability to take more than one talent at a time.
Chapter 15 15: Limit Breaker Part 2
?[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 3), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 3), Mindless Legs(Grade 8)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 3: 100%), Big Golem(Level 2: 1%), Mindless Legs(Stage 1: 10%), Blood Fist(Entry level: 50%)]
[Talent Mark: 0(24 hours remaining)]
"A 300 percent increase in learning Mindless Legs directly." Yoze licked his lips as he made his way to his regr practice field.
"Thud!"
It wasn''t long into Yoze''s training before he fell to the ground from exhaustion. The after-effects of using the blood Fist technique are extreme but could feel that Twin Fists was improving.
After each recovery, Yoze would make slight adjustments to Twin Fist due to the feeling he got from Blood Fists. The further he got topleting the 71st punch the more he knew his adjustments were in the right direction.
Yoze also felt that his pace with learning Mindless Legs was explosive. It was his highest talent Grade and was a talent directly for the technique itself. It might be less versatile than his Movement talent but it allowed him to learn at a much faster pace than even his 6th-grade Fist Arts Talent
Once Yoze felt that he regained enough energy, he got up and restarted his training to break through the 71st limit.
A week quickly passed and Yoze was on the brink ofpleting his 71st punch. His skin was blood red as visible steam from his sweat evaporated and covered his body. Yoze''s eyes were bloodshot as he gave it his all toplete this one punch.
Suddenly Yoze coughed up blood and fell to the ground. Something he was familiar with after a week.
After resting for a few minutes Yoze stood up and looked at his progress.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 4), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 3), Mindless Legs(Grade 8), Stealth(Grade 3)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 3: 100%), Big Golem(Level 2: 7%), Mindless Legs (Stage 2: 40%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 99%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
Yoze''s Blood Fist technique was at the point of reaching its peak effectiveness. So far, Yoze had gone through the four stages of the Blood Fist. At the entry level, he was able to draw out 25 percent of his body''s potential every time he used Blood Fist.
Once Yoze reached the intermediate level he was able to draw out 50 percent of his body''s potential. At the High-level Yoze could draw up to 75 percent.
And now at the Perfection level, Yoze was close to drawing out 100 percent of his body''s potential with each use of the Blood Fist technique.
His Mindless Legs technique was making rapid improvements and reached the second stage in less than a week. Yoze was astonished when he discovered he had made it to the first stage in less than a few days but when he broke through again he was speechless.
He didn''t feel that his progress with the Mindless Legs technique should have been making such fast progress with just the 300 percent increase from his Mindless Legs talent. That was when Yoze began to ount for the fact that his other Talents were also having Effects on his progress in practice with the techniques.
Yoze also had to thank the 80 percent bonus from his Martial arts Comprehension talent and his 60 percent bonus from talent in his Movements. There was also the potential for his Stealth talent to also affect his speed in progressing in the third stage of Mindless Legs.
Once Yoze took all those to ount and was conservative with the bonuses they offered by simply adding them. Yoze himself would be learning 5.4 times or 540 percent, faster than he would have learned the technique.
That meant that Yoze was learning Mindless Legs faster than Lecho Macho himself who had a Grade 9 talent. That was however if Yoze ignored how his cheat worked and simply added the percentages together.
His Second Best System cheat applied his talent in a multiplicative manner. That meant that Yoze was learning Mindless Legs 8.64 times faster than normal.
If it would have taken Yoze eight years to master Mindless Legs with these talents with them he would master Mindless Legs in less than six months.
It was only then that Yoze began to understand the best way to use his cheat to the best potential. Having high-grade talents was nice and always good to have however there was a limit to how fast Yoze could learn based on one talent alone.
ording to the fundamentals of Yoze''s cheat, The Second Best System, the highest grade talent is Grade 10 with a 10x bonus. However, based on the degrading principle every time Yoze copied a talent he would never have a Grade 10 talent.
Yoze would be capped at a Grade 9 talent with a max of 500 percent bonus even when he encounters a Grade 10 talent. The only possible way for Yoze to get a Grade 10 talent is by some miracle he discovers a Grade 11 talent. A Grade that is out of his cheats range.
With his discovery of the nature of his talents to add to each other, Yoze couldpete with the higher Grade talents by simply having more talents thatplement each other. Yoze could even surpass the limit of a 1000 percent bonus to his cultivation!
"All this time I was avoiding adding talents that were too low Grade or didn''t seem useful to my current Martial arts techniques and I was wasting this perfect opportunity."
"I swear that from this day forth I will copy every talent that I see. Regardless of the grade and the current usefulness of the talent I will copy it."
With renewed spirit, Yoze activated his near-perfect Blood Fist technique and unleashed a furry of Koi Fists.
"Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh..."
"Boom! Thud!"
Chapter 16 16: Limit Breaker Part 3
?Deep into the night, the full moonlight was shining above a forest revealing the source of strong gusts of wind.
Yoze''s skin was as red as a lobster''s shell due to his blood nearly reaching a boiling point. Due to the constant exercise, Yoze''s shirt had been torn to shreds revealing his body packed full of muscles.
With each punch Yoze sent the next one faster and stronger, the trees in front of Yoze had lost all their leaves even though it was the middle of summer.
With each punch, Yoze grew closer to the 71st punch, and with each punch, he felt that his body was about to explode.
Suddenly, Yozs felt his mind suddenly grow sharper, and clearer, and he began to slow down.
[Blood Fist (Perfection level: 100%)]
"Badum! Badum!! Badum!!!"
A clear audible drum sound rang from Yoze''s chest and radiated into the quiet forest. Yoze felt that he was on the edge of death and he was drawing everyst drop of potential in his body to survive.
"Boom! 70."
Yoze made a mental note at his 70th Koi Fist and started to throw his 71st punch. Yoze watched as his arm went from bright red to a deep shade of red as arge amount of his blood pumped into his arm.
"Pop! Boom!!!"
Suddenly Yozd heard a crisp poppinging from his body followed by a shockingly powerful sonic boom.
Yoze did it when he had broken through the Twin Fists limit and threw his 71st punch. However, at this moment he threw that useless thought away and pushed further.
Yoze knew that in this state he had to push himself to the extreme and was going to go to the extreme. He was going to forcefullybine Twin Fists with Blood Fist to create a new martial arts technique.
"Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh."
Yoze threw out ten blood-red koi punches as he felt that he had pushed himself a little bit more.
"Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh."
Another ten followed and Yoze felt that he was gathering more of his potential and unleashing it through his punches.
"Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh."
Another ten followed as Yoze stopped using Blood Fist and only throughout punches fueled by drawing out his potential. The more Yoze punched the stronger, faster, and harder his following punches became.
The higher Yoze reached in his punchbo the bloodier his entire body became. In a sh, Yoze surpassed his previousbo limit and reached his 99th punch.
Yoze felt that his body was on fire as his skin regained his dark red hue. Without a single extra thought, Yoze threw out his 100th punch and heard a familiar poppinging from his body followed by a wave of rity.
After throwing out his 100th punch Yoze stopped because he knew that he had done it. He hade through three limits one after another in a single moment.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 4), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 3), Mindless Legs(Grade 8), Stealth(Grade 3)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 4: 1%), Big Golem(Level 2: 14%), Mindless Legs (Stage 2: 40%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 100%),
Twin Blood Fists (Perfection level: 100%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
Pulling up his status window to check his progress, Yoze smiled as he saw not only did he break through Twin Fists and reach rank 4 but he also created a new martial arts technique bybining both the good points of his two Fist Arts.
"Another way to kill people and train at the same time, wonderful." Yoze smiled as he felt his body hit the ground before everything went dark.
By the time Yoze regained consciousness, he found that he was no longer in the forest and instead in a wooden cottage. The wood cottage was filled with the scent of medicine and had numerous bowls of smelly paste.
"Where am I?"
Yoze attempted to stand up but found that his body was itchy all over and found that he was covered in a smelly ck paste.
"What is this?"
Yoze picked up a dollop of the smelly paste on his body and he immediately began to itch. The itch went deeper into Yoze''s fresh, touch his bones, and then the itch went into his bones.
Yoze would have gone insane from the constant itch inside his bones but he found that as long as he didn''t move a finger the itch sensation would disappear.
"Did I encounter a witch that wants to eat my flesh?"
Due to not him not being able to move a muscle, Yoze felt as if he was a fish on a te waiting to be eaten. His mind began to wonder about the stories his father had told of witches eating human flesh to continue their Immortality.
Witches were another existence that drew fear from their mysterious nature. They were neither demons, monsters, or Immortal. Witches were mortals that have grown to like the taste of flesh from their kind and use it as the source of their powers.
The mostmon story of Witches was the Immortal Witch. The story had existed for who knows how long and had many variations. The mostmon and most well-known was that the Immortal Witch was a vige girl who fell in love with an Immortal that had passed by her vige.
The Immortal however rejected the girl''s feelings due to her not being an Immortal herself. From the Immortal''s point of view, the vige girl''s beauty would fade away in a blink of an eye and she would be dust in another blink.
The Immortal''s rejection broke the vige girl''s heart and she ran into the forest to throw herself off a cliff. That was when she encountered a demon who heard the girl''s sorrows. The demon then convinced the girl that he had a method that could make her live forever with never-fading beauty.
The vige girl didn''t trust the demon''s lies but her delusional love for the Immortal made her ask for the demon''s solution. The demon then told the girl that she could live forever if she ate her fellow vigers. The demon then fed the girl a mysterious marble flesh that made her feel powerful. The vige girl convinced by the demon went down to her vige and ate them all in her madness.
By the time the vige girl regained herself, she was covered in the blood of her family and fellow vigers. The vige girl was filled with regret and loss from her actions.
In the vige girl''s eyes the only loved one she had left was the love of her life, the Immortal. The vige girl confessed to the Immortal that she was now Immortal and they could belong together forever.
The Immortal then said that she had sinned by killing the innocent and listening to the lies of demons. The Immortal then told her that he needed to kill her so her soul could be damned for eternal damnation.
The vige girl who had eaten her vige went mad and ate the Immortal before finding the demon and cursing it. After the vige girl finished her curse, the demon told her that he told her the truth and gave her a method to live forever. As long as she ate the flesh of humans she could live till the end of the earth.
The vige girl heart broken and betrayed ate the demon before going on to another vige to eat their flesh. In her madness, the vige girl developed a sickness that made her want to stay beautiful for the rest of the time.
Chapter 17 17: An Encounter With A Talking Goat
?Yoze felt a shiver run down his spine as he imagined a witch staring at his body''s delicious flesh. Not desiring to be eaten, Yoze gritted his teeth, stood up, and tried to find something to wipe away the paste.
The cabin was rtively clean with a weird design of being incredibly low to the ground. It was a cabin made for a child and not an adult.
Eventually, Yoze was able to find a nket and used it to wipe the paste off his body. Once he wiped thest bits of the paste off his chest, Yoze realized that a goat with long curly horns and blood-red eyes was staring at him with rapture.
"Hello, human fear not for I have heard your concerns. I am the one who took you here to take care of you. Fear not as I am not a human-eating witch but an innocent goat." The strange goat said with its mouth closed but Yoze could hear its words perfectly fine.
Yoze took a step back as he wasn''t sure what this goat was. It didn''t seem to be what he imagined a demon or monster to be. Neither did the goat seem to be an Immortal or a witch.
" What are you and why did you bring me here?"
"It''s a bit rude to question your savior. I was just doing my duty of saving people when I saw you unconscious in the forest. I couldn''t leave you there so I took you to my cabin and wrapped you up in my healing paste."
"Okay, but that doesn''t answer the question of what you are, goats aren''t supposed to talk."
"I don''t know what I am but have felt the urge to be helpful ever since my inception, does that satisfy your questions?"
"No, not at all." Yoze shook his head in frustration before deciding to take the matter of finding this goat''s secrets into his own hands.
"Target that goat. I will see for myself if you are telling the truth." Yoze thought to himself hoping to see if his cheat worked on animals.
[Name: Leah Goat]
[Age: 2 years]
[Talents: Medicine Goat (Grade 5), Spiritual Sensing (Grade 2), Goat (Grade 10), Spiritual Speech (Grade 5)]
"Ahh, I see a talented goat." Yoze was surprised to see that the strange goat was just a goat.
"From Leah Goat''s talents, it seems to me that the reason for his uniqueness came from his talent in Spiritual Sensing. However, I am interested in Leah Goat''s other Talents so I should keep him by myself until then." Yoze''s eyes glowed as he stared at Leah with an equal amount of rapture as Leah to Yoze.
"First I''ll copy Spiritual Sensing and see what it does."
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 21 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 4), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 3), Mindless Legs(Grade 8), Stealth(Grade 3), Spiritual Sensing (Grade 1)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 4: 1%), Big Golem(Level 2: 14%), Mindless Legs (Stage 2: 44%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 100%),
Twin Blood Fists (Perfection level: 100%)]
[Talent Mark: 0 (24 hours remaining)]
As Yoze copied Leah Goat''s talent in Spiritual Sensing he felt his mind rx allowing him to see more colors than he could before. Yoze also smelled a faint pleasant smelling from... the smelly bowls of paste.
The change that Yoze felt was as intense as his other Talents but Spiritual Sensing had expanded his senses and he liked the feeling. After experiencing the charm of having Talents rted to Spirituality, Yoze was even more determined to grab Leah Goat''s remaining talents.
"I see that you must be quite talented in medicine. If you are interested in furthering your talent, you cane with me."
"Thank you for your interest human but I view this forest as my home. And since you are healed I will not stop you from leaving." Leah Goat''s eyes twinkled as he spoke making him look more magical.
"Sigh, I didn''t want it toe to this." Yoze sighed and shook his head in helplessness.
"Come to what?" Leah looked at Yoze with surprise before taking a few steps away from him.
"I view your talent in medicine too highly to give up this opportunity to learn from the best. Since you are forcing me to leave, I can only leave with you in hand." Yoze sighed again before bolting at Leah.
Before Leah could react he was seized by Yoze and lifted by Yoze like a baby.
"Have mercy, I just wanted to help. I will give you all the medicine I have created just let me go." Leah began to freak out and struggle out of Yoze''s grasp.
Leah could have never imagined the human that he had helped out if pure kindness could have had such a tainted soul. To treat his benefactor with evil intent, Leah felt that he had been betrayed and his worldview of viewing everything with a good light had been shattered
"It''s okay, don''t struggle. I just want to learn from you for a few days or so before I let you go. "
Leah looked at Yoze''s face which looked like he was being forced to do something he didn''t want to do. Leah Goat had never been treated like this before, all the other humans he had helped with kindness in his heart all spoke of gratitude.
They even swore that they would never tell another soul of his existence for fear of attracting unwanted attention. That''s how you repay kindness with goodness. Not kidnapping your benefactor and ming them for their kidnapping.
Seeing that Yoze wasn''t listening to reason, Leah struggled harder but found that he couldn''t escape Yoze''s hold. His attempt at escaping was on the same level as a baby trying to get out of their parent''s hands. The difference in their strength was so wide that Leah had no chance to escape once he was caught.
He could only watch in helplessness as Yoze carried him out of the wooden cabin he called home and towards the city.
Chapter 18 18: The Smell Of Death Is In The Air
?Stepping outside of Leah''s cabin, Yoze with Leah in tow was amazed to see that every direction was covered in white mist.
"You said that you would let me go, why is there such thick mist surrounding your cabin? How am I supposed to have left on my own?"
" I thought that my benefactor was filled with pure kindness but to find that there was a trick behind your words I don''t know what I can believe anymore." Yoze sighed as he looked into Leah''s sparkling eyes.
"I didn''t lie!" Leah shook his goat head in denial.
"It is a misty day. As long as you followed a single direction you would have made it out of the mist and be able to reorient yourself."
Leah had given up on escaping Yoze and could only rely on the faint hope that Yoze would keep his promise of letting him go after a few days.
"Okay, since you helped me I''ll trust you once." Seeing that Leah was cooperating, Yoze trusted that he wouldn''t try anything funny since he was still under his control.
With that Yoze stepped into the white mist. Several hourster Yoze found himself nearing Jade city''s entrance with a goat in hand.
By the time Yoze made it to the gate for inspection, he was met with weird looks from the inspector. It wasn''t every day that they saw someone carrying a goat, especially a schr carrying a goat.
Luckily, Leah had listened to Yoze''s warning before they made it to Jade City to not talk or let anyone suspect that he was a special goat. If Leah identally slipped up he might be treated as a demon or some kind of goat monster.
Leah would be experimented with and skinned alive to see what was allowing him to talk. After hearing the horrors of what would happen to him, he repeatedly nodded his head and swore that he wouldn''t let out a peep at anyone.
"Yes, I''m taking this goat with me, is there going to be a problem or do I have to get a special ticket?"
"There is no issue at all, you may enter the city... just keep an eye on your goat or someone might steal it and turn it into goat stew."
Leah unconsciously trembles in fear after hearing the guard''s kind advice.
"Thank you, if we meet again I''ll buy you dinner."
Stepping into Jade City, made Yoze remember that his father must have worried sick from him noting homest night. So he picked up his speed and walked towards the house he rented out instead after the incident of Yoze bing too heavy.
When he arrived, Yoze felt a Stench tickle his nose as he grew closer to the door. The Stench became stronger and stronger.
"This Stench seems simr to what rotting corpses must smell like." Yoze felt sick smelling the Stench and he thought if the Stench became even stronger he would have thrown up.
Yoze had a bad feeling in his gut and didn''t bother to reach for his keys and busted through the door.
"Ahh, who there!?"
Yoze felt a wave of reliefe off his shoulders when he heard his father''s voice, he sounded more tired than he remembered but it meant that the Stench wasn''ting from his dad''s dead body.
"Dad it''s me!"
"Yoze so it''s you? Why did you bust through the door? And why didn''t youe homest night? Did you spend the night with a girl?" Yoze''s father fired question after question with a worried look on his face which cleared up when he said hisst question.
Being peppered with questions Yoze didn''t know where to begin. Just as Yoze was going to speak his nose twitched as the Stench of rotting corpses smashed into his face.
Yoze froze as he identified that the source of the Stench wasing from his father.
"Dad, do you smell anything? "
"No, why? The house is as clean as you left it and I''m not one to give up washing so there shouldn''t be a stink." Yoze''s father had a look of confusion on his face as he sniffed the air.
"Nevermind," Yoze silently shook his head, as the bad feeling in his guts grew.
"Sorry, dad from noting home yesterday. I was trainingst night and fell asleep."
"That''s alright, Yoze." Yoze''s father sensed that Yoze was in a bad mood and did something to cheer him up.
"Come eat, I prepared your favorite dishes."
Yoze felt his spirit perk up a bit after hearing that some of his favorite dishes were waiting for him and decided to figure out what was going on after having a meal.
"Thanks, Dad, I haven''t eaten all day."
After eating until he was full Yoze took Leah to his room to ask him if he smelled the scent of rotten corpses too. He had a feeling that the Stench was tied to his new talent and wanted to get more information about it from an expert.
"Sir Goat, this will be your new home for the next couple of days and I will just be asking you questions during this time. Does that sound reasonable to you?"
"That seems fine as long as you keep your promise of letting me go after a few days." Leah nodded his head in submission.
"Of course, I always keep my promises, anyways do you smell the stench in the air?" Yoze''s face went stern as he asked this important question.
"Yes, the stench of rotting corpses. It''sing from the old man you call your father. He should be reaching the end of his Lifespan and close to death."
"How long does he have left?" Yoze''s mood dipped as he had a feeling this was what it meant. He had a faint hope that he was wrong but with Leah''s confirmation he could only swallow the cruel reality.
"From how intense the smell of death around him is, I reckon that without medicine or other methods to increase his lifespan he should only have a year left."
"How long can he live with the proper medicine?" Yoze''s eyes shed with hope.
"In theory he could live forever with the right medicine, however with my skills, which I believe are one of the best in the area, I can only produce medicine that can let him live for another six months."
Chapter 19 19: A Year To Remember
?"I see," Yoze Deeply sighed in his helplessness.
He knew that his father was going to die eventually and with how advanced in age his father was it made sense.
"I can only spend myst remaining time spending as much time with Dad and try to fulfill hisst wishes." Yoze stood up and left to ask for his father''s bucket list so he could try and fulfill as much as possible with his remaining time.
A year passed by and Yoze was sitting with his father on a table. After a year his father''s skin had be pale and he had a constant cough that he never seemed to get rid of.
"Dad, what is it that you wanted to tell me?" Yoze looked at his dying father with gentle eyes.
For the past year Yoze was trying his best to fulfill all the things that were on his father''s bucket list. From traveling to other cities, trying delicious foods, and bought a small home outside of Jade City.
This made Yoze realize that he wished that he had gotten his cheat earlier so maybe he could have found some way to save his father. After all Yoze was only a martial artist, he didn''t have any life saving techniques or abilities he could use to save his old father.
"Yoze, son I know that you have been doing everything you can to fulfill my life goals because you can tell that I don''t have much longer to live. Cough!"
"But I don''t want to leave this world with you thinking that you don''t have any family left." Yoze''s father stopped to take a breath as he grabbed Yoze''s hands.
"I have a son and daughter who are in theirte twenties to thirties. They left me a few years before I took you in. Thest time I received a letter from them a few years ago they lived in New Swampscott City. "
"In myst time alive on this earth I want to connect you with them so they could take care of you." Yoze''s father looked at Yoze before continuing.
"But it''s your decision to make. If you don''t want to meet them, so be it but if you are fine with fulfilling this old man''sst request I will make you dinner."
Yoze didn''t bother to contemte a decision in his heart to take his father there to visit his brother and sister. He didn''t have much attachment to Jade City anyhow except for his friend Evi who he asionally chatted with.
As for the Martial Court Yard after a year Yoze had collected all the talents avable and stopped going for thest six months other than to go to the investigations. At the moment Yoze was splitting his attention and time to three things.
The first was obviously spending hisst remaining time with his father and making him happy. The second is improving his Martial arts and developing his Inner Vigor. Thest is learning some medicinal techniques from Leah Goat.
Even though Yoze had let Leah go after collecting all his talents, he still visited Leah to ask him questions about making medicine from him. The talent was named Medicine Goat after all so he learned from the Goat himself.
"Dad, you already know my answer because you cooked dinner already. Give me two weeks so I can take care of a few things and we can set off. " Yoze gulped his saliva as he saw the bowls and tes of food stacked in the kitchen.
"That''s good."
Yoze ate the piles of food made by his father and savored each bite. For all he knew this would be thest time he could taste his father''s cooking.
The next morning Yoze visited the Martial Court Yard onest time and took a copy of the Iron Skin body cultivation manual. Even though Yoze had made up his mind about traveling Big Golem Cultivation manuals he couldn''t resist the temptation of being invulnerable to weapons.
Yoze took onest look at the Martial arts techniques on the first floor but decided against taking them since they were too basic and wouldn''t provide any help to his basic ability.
Yoze then requested to meet with the other schrs of the Courtyard to tell them that he was leaving.
"You''re nning to leave the Courtyard, did you receive another offer somewhere else?" Eric looked at Yoze in surprise.
Out of all the other schrs, Yoze was the one who fit the Martial Court Yard out of all of them. So Eric was surprised when he heard the news that he was nning to leave soon.
"I didn''t receive another offer but I am heading to New Swampscott City to meet my long lost rtives. Since New Swampscott City is three months away from carriage, I believe that it would be better for me to resign." Yoze exined his logic.
"That makes sense!" Hearing Yoze''s reason made everyone nod their heads in understanding.
That was when Grewn suddenly spoke up, "If you are nning on leaving the city I would suggest paying a visit to the director''s son. "
"I believe that you might be short on cash once you arrive at New Swampscott and that you want to collect some extra money before you leave."
"The director''s son has be obsessed with practicing martial arts to defeat you and if he hears that you are leaving he will want to fight you at any cost. That includes paying you to fight him."
Yoze thought about Grewn''s suggestion and thought to himself that he was indeed strapped for cash. It was expensive hiring a carriage to travel all the way to New Swampscott City.
Yoze had initially been nning on selling the small house he had just bought to make up for hisck of savings. Not only would that mean he lost the house he had bought for his father but it would also take some time trying to find a buyer.
If he could get some money from just fighting the director''s son that would be ideal.
"Thank you for the suggestion, Grewn but I feel that it would be a problem visiting the director to have a fight with his son." Yoze thought for a second and said what Grewn wanted to hear.
"What if you go tell the director''s son that I''m leaving the city. If he is interested in a fight you can inform me. I will visit the Courtyard for the next few days as I get everything set up."
"That sounds like a good n. " Though Yoze couldn''t see Grewn''s expression he felt that he was pleased.
"It seems that after all these years Grewn still wants to gain some brownie points to leave the Martial Court Yard." Yoze thought to himself.
Resolving the final details of the n, Yoze said his final goodbyes before leaving the Courtyard.
Chapter 20 20: A Short Fight Worth 500
?Yoze didn''t have to wait long before meeting with the director''s son, Jackie once more. After a year had passed Jackie had undergone a transformation.
He was no longer the skinny kid that looked like he would cry from a paper cut. Jackie had worked hard to build up a physical body that put most martial artists to shame.
Simply standing in his presence allowed bystanders to feel the heat radiating from his body. Face stern and ready to battle to the death, Jackie met the monster of his nightmares and the one he dreamed of defeating.
Standing at 6 feet tall and packed with so much muscle that he looked like a wall of muscles, Yoze gave off the impression of being heavy yet at the same time he never made a sound as he walked as if he walked on marshmallows.
"Yoze, I came to challenge you to a battle. Regardless of the results of the match, I''ll give you 500 aspensation." Jackie knew that he had to give something to make Yoze interested and immediately offered up money.
"Sounds good, do you want to fight here or elsewhere?" Yoze epted the duel since Jackie offered to pay him five months of his sry. That was enough so he didn''t have to sell his house.
"Here is fine."
"Okay." Yoze nodded his head as he wondered how strong Jackie had be in a year.
"I heard that you had been training to beat me, I wonder how strong you got after a year." Yoze felt his heart race as he wanted to use this to see if his training to push his techniques to the limit and beyond had been useful in shortening the gap between them and the higher quality martial art techniques he saw on the second floor of the Court Yard''s library.
"I''ll give you an introduction then. I am practicing the zing Furnace martial arts set. It contains the zing Furnace Body Cultivation manuals and several martial arts techniques toplement it. After a year of hard work and constant training, I reached the Burning Skin Stage which makes me a peak third rate Martial artist."
"That''s incredibly fast, you must be talented," Yoze said with sincerity.
Yoze always appreciated the natural talents that people had. And to reach the peak of a 3rd rate Martial artist in slightly more than a year was impressive.
It marked that Jackie had reached the same stage as Yoze in the Big Golem body Cultivation manual and they should both be 3rd rate Martial artists and be each other''s equals.
Of course that was simply based on body cultivation alone. To calcte how strong Yoze''s and Jackie''sbat abilities were they needed to fight. This was especially true for Yoze, ever since he had started his martial arts path he had an advantage in skill over all his opponents.
This was his first match against someone of the same rank as him. Yoze couldn''t help but feel his heart race at the excitement.
"Grewn start a countdown," Jackie ordered Grewn to start the process of the battle.
"3...2...1...Go!" The moment Grewn said go, Jackie sprinted towards Yoze closing the small gap between them instantly.
"Take this Burning Fist!"
Jackie punched at Yoze''s gut with a fiery passion, the mere act of his punch sent a gust of hot wind on Yoze''s stomach. Just as Jackie''s punch was going tond Yoze''s knees bent slightly before he jumped over Jackie with ease.
Jackie wasn''t one to be underestimated as he stopped his punch and sent a kick while Yoze was in mid-air. Knowing he couldn''t dodge the attack, Yoze crossed his arms preparing to block the attack.
"Bang!"
The moment that Yoze and Jackie''s leg came in contact Yoze felt his skin burning and the smell of burning meat filled the air. Luckily, Jackie''s weight had absorbed most of the force and Yoze was able tond with his legs.
Yoze looked down at his arms and saw that a hole had been burned through his clothes and that his skin had been charred ck and had third-degree burns all over his arms.
"Incredible!"
The paining from Yoze''s arms made his blood boil, he had never been this hurt ever since he practiced martial arts. The taste of the zing Furnace martial art set that Jackie used was incredible to make the human body hot enough to cause severe burns.
And Jackie was merely on the Buring Skin Stage so he hadn''t cultivated his inner Vigor set. So the heat radiating from Jackie was bound to get much more deadly.
Knowing that he couldn''t remain defensive or he would lose Yoze threw his Blood Bear Fist at Jackie. Yoze''s entire arm turned dark red and his veins popped, his entire potential was thrown into that one attack.
"Boom!"
Jackie couldn''t react in time and took a defensive posture to block Yoze''s punch and disturb the force. The moment Yoze''s fist came in contact with Jackie''s hands, his skin began to sizzle and burn, however, Yoze could barely feel it due to the pain generated by Blood Bear and squeezing out 100% of his potential into one attack.
"Bang!"
Jackie was sent flying several dozens of feet from Yoze''s punch and heard an audible crunche from his hands. Saving him rolling on the ground Jackie stood and couldn''t feel his hands.
Taking a look he saw that even using the force distribution techniques part of the zing Furnace martial art set couldn''t stop all the force in Yoze''s terrifying punch, ending up having the bones in his hand broken.
"Whoosh,"
Suddenly Jackie felt a gust of wind blowing and he looked up to see Yoze''s overbearing body over him throwing several Blood Koi Fists.
After losing his hands, Jackie gritted his teeth and forcefully increased the temperature of his skin. He could only rely upon his offensive defense to stop Yoze.
However, Yoze was not interested in stopping at all. All pain in his body had been reduced to an after thought as he squeezed out his potential to increase the force in his Koi Fistsbo.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three solid hits of Blood Koi Fists with each having 1% more of Yoze''s potential behind thempared to the previous, sent Jackie reeling as he was once again sent flying again.
"Thud!"
The sound of Jackie''s bodynding on the ground unable to stand up, signaled the end of the battle.
"Good fight!"
Chapter 21 21: Big Golem Inner Vigor
?[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 22 years]
[Talents: Literature Comprehension(Grade 3), Martial Artsprehension (Grade 5), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Fist Arts(Grade 6), Movements(Grade 4), Mindless Legs(Grade 8), Stealth(Grade 3), Spiritual Sensing (Grade 1), Medicine Goat(Grade 4), Goat(Grade 9), Spiritual Speech(Grade 4), Finger Arts (Grade 4), Perception (Grade 7), Muscle Development (Grade 5), Flexibility (Grade 6), Research (Grade 3), Image Analysis (Grade 4), zing Furnace Martial Art (Grade 7)]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 4: 80%), Big Golem(Level 2: 99%), Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 90%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 100%),
Twin Blood Fists (Perfection level: 100%), Mindless Blood Legs(Perfection level: 100%)]
[Talent Mark: 0 (24 hours remaining)]
Yoze couldn''t help but think about how many talents he had collected over the years and felt that they were starting to get overwhelming to read. Even though he had a good track of them they were going to get some that wouldn''t have a use for a long time.
The zing Furnace martial art talent he had copied from Jackie just now was an example. Unless Yoze was somehow able to get the zing Furnace martial arts set he would never be able to use this talent to its fullest extent.
Yoze hoped it would have some effect on some other aspects like making his ability to adapt to heat training better or something simr but at the moment Yoze didn''t have an idea.
At the moment Yoze was close to breaking through to level three and being able to develop his inner Vigor. Yoze didn''t exactly know what to expect and what would happen when he did. He had a feeling that in a few days he was going to break through.
The battle with Jackie who was also a peak 3rd rate Martial artist further harden Yoze''s thought that it was better for him to break the limits of his techniques and create a new one bybining them than it was for him to waste his time learning another basic martial art technique.
The power that Jackie disyed with the zing Furnace martial arts set was crazy. How could the human body get so hot but not burn itself from the inside out?
Yoze was confident that if he didn''t choose to break the limit of Twin Fists and would have lost terribly and if he didn''t create Twin Blood Fists he wouldn''t have won so quickly.
Yoze was so in love with Twin Blood Fists that when he reached the limits of Mindless Legs he did the same thing he did with Twin Fists. He spends days before using Blood Fist to destroy Mindless Legs limits but also incorporates Mindless Legs with Blood Fist resulting in Mindless Blood Legs.
Unlike Twin Blood Fists, Mindless Blood Legs didn''t have an off switch like the original Mindless Legs technique. It was constantly active and Yoze was always practicing it. However, unlike Twin Blood Fists, Mindless Blood Legs wasn''t at full capacity when used.
When Yoze uses it unconsciously it only forces 10 percent of his body''s potential into his legs and improves them and Mindless Legs itself. That allowed Yoze to keep it active as long as he was walking on his two feet.
The only unsatisfactory after effect was that Yoze''s food consumption had doubled ever since he created the technique but that wasn''t an issue for a schr like Yoze. Though Yoze had to consider how he was going to deal with this issue when he was traveling to New Swampscott City and for most of the venture will be in the middle of nowhere.
However that was all for another day and Yoze was satisfied with the oue of the battle.
With the battle concluded, Yoze collected his 500 silver and left with a smile on his face. Even though his arms were heavily burned, Yoze had a way to take care of that. As for Jackie, Yoze was told he would make a full recovery within a month.
If it was anyone else who had fought Yoze and taken those hits they would have died and been turned into bloody paste from his Blood Bear Fist alone. To take Blood Bear Fist and only have the bones in his hands broken showed how powerful Jackie''s zing Furnace martial art set was.
After collecting the money Yoze rented a carriage and a driver before heading to the forest.
Yoze was nning on stalling the trip for the next few days to break through to level 3 of Big Golem. He felt that it would be much safer if he became a second rate Martial artist with inner Vigor than stall it.
It was the next day, Yoze had a feast of meat as he exercised to convert it into muscle. After Yoze reached a weight of over 400 hundred pounds he had been feeling like his bones were getting crushed by his own weight.
This pain that came from his bones instead made him smile as he knew that he was at the brink of breaking through. The Big Golem Cultivation manual mentioned that once he felt like his bones were turning into powder he needed to practice another set of exercises to forcefully put his body into overdrive.
In this overdrive state Yoze needs to constantly consume food with a dense amount of nutritional value and calories while also putting weights on his body.
That led to this strange situation where Yoze had bought a ton of meat and found a bunch ofrge rocks to put on top of him.
Eating thest piece of meat and mming a 800 pound rock on top of him, Yoze felt his body tingling as he felt that something wasing out of him. He felt like his life force was being drained from him and felt increasingly tired. Yoze even saw that he was shrinking! He was losing muscle mass in a blink of an eyes
"Badum Badum Badum"
As Yoze lost his muscle mass increasingly faster, Yoze felt that he was also getting heavier and stronger. Like every step he would crush the ground beneath him.
Finally after losing a fourth of his muscle mass Yoze sensed something flowing inside of him. It was strange as it felt as light as a feather at one moment and the next it was heavier than a hundred pounds of steel.
When Yoze closed his eyes to concentrate on this weird feeling he felt a strong connection with it. When Yoze wanted to feel heavy that strange feeling went from being lighter than air to being the heaviest thing on the. When Yoze wanted to be light, he felt that the strange flowing thing in his body lost its dominating heaviness with a single thought.
Yoze snapped his eyes wide open as he knew what that strange flow inside his body was.
"Inner Vigor! I finally broke through and developed the inner Vigor of the Big Golem body Cultivation manual!"
Chapter 22 22: Ghost Town
?Yoze confirmed that he wasn''t imagining this flow of Inner Vigor in his body when he saw that he had reached level three in his Big Golem Cultivation method and when he could jump from 300 pounds to 500 pounds in a single thought.
Though Yoze lost a hundred pounds of muscle to cultivate his Inner Vigor in the end he benefited massively from it. Not only did Yoze not lose any strength, endurance, or speed from his breath though but he had gotten stronger, had better endurance, and even his speed increased due to his losing a hundred pounds to slow him down.
And when Yoze needs his weight to crush his opponents into submission he could jump into the sky and think about bing heavier and fall like a falling meteor.
It was an overall benefit and had no side effects to think of. The only thing Yoze needs to do is to continue practicing the Big Golem body Cultivation manual and eat a lot instead of converting it to muscle he was now going to convert it Inner Vigor.
"At the beginning stages of Level Three, I can weigh 500 pounds with my Inner Vigor. When I reach the peak I can approximately add another 200 pounds. Adding approximately to a total of 700 pounds of muscle that has the speed of when I''m 300 pounds." Yoze thought satisfied with the effects.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 22 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension Talents, Physical Talents, Martial Arts Talents, Other Talents]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 4: 80%), Big Golem(Level 3: 1%), Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 90%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 100%),
Twin Blood Fists (Perfection level: 100%), Mindless Blood Legs(Perfection level: 100%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
"Nice, my cheat now is putting my Talents into different categories. Now I don''t have to look at a blurb of words every time I open it up." Yoze was pleasantly surprised that his cheat had adapted to his needs again.
The first time this happened was when Yoze had practiced his first martial arts technique, Twin Fists, and his cheat had created the techniques section. Now after two years his cheat had once again adapted to his needs and made itself more presentable.
Now instead of Yoze needing to look through all his talents every time he wanted to look at a talent he had copied he now just needed to open the section it was in.
"Since it has adapted to my needs twice now that means that it''s going to happen again in theter future. It''s possible that when I have more techniques it will also put them into categories."
After celebrating his breakthrough, Yoze went home to finish his preparations to leave Jade City. The next few days, Yoze was busy searching all over Jade City for arge carriage, wagon, and a guide to take them to New Swampscott City.
Standing at the open gates of Jade City, Yoze along with his father and Leah Goat, who he had "convinced" to join in the adventure for the greater good, looked back at Jade City with fondness.
After spending almost two years of his life here, he had developed a bit of attachment to the city. Jade City was where Yoze had officially started his journey of bing a true martial artist.
For whatever came about in the future, Yoze would always view Jade City with a special fondness. After soaking it in, Yoze absorbed his feelings and asked if his father was ready to leave.
"I''m ready to go whenever you are?"
"Are we ready to head out?" After getting his father''s confirmation Yoze checked to see if the guide he hired was finished making preparations for the trip.
"All good to go, if we head out now we can make it to a small town and stay there for the night instead of sleeping outside." The 40-year-old guidemented to Yoze.
"That sounds good then let''s head out. Dad, you should go in the carriage and I''ll stay out to take care of the goat."
Yoze''s father looked at the Red Eyed Goat that his son had brought along. He remembered that Yoze brought a simr-looking goat a year ago. Seeing him bring along a goat for this trip, he had nothing toin about since he thought that Yoze was nning on eating it.
"Alright, " Yoze''s father simply nodded his head and entered the carriage with his body at the moment he got tired simply from walking.
"Are you sure about that young man? There is plenty of room in the carriage to fit both of you and you might not be able to keep up with the carriage slowing us down." The 40-year-old guides gave his advice.
"It''s fine, let''s try it out this way first. If I''m unable to keep up I''ll attempt to enter the carriage. Just confirming that this carriage can support around 400 pounds right?"
The 40-year-old man looked stunned at Yoze''s question and replied with a simple confirmation.
"That''s good we will go with this n then."
"Okay, let''s set off."
About 6 hourster as the sun was about to set and darkness would engulf Yoze''s carriage, Yoze saw a town a mile away from them. At their current pace, they would arrive in ten minutes and be able to rest up in an inn.
However as they grew closer, Yoze, Leah, and the guide sensed that something was wrong with the town. All the buildings and streetmps weren''t on and there were no sounds of chatter or ying children. The town waspletely silent and looked identical to a ghost town.
"Emerald Town."
Arge sign in front of the town''s entrance showed that this was indeed the town that they had nned to be their resting spot for the night.
"Stop!"
Yoze suddenly stopped walking andmanded the guide to stop the carriage. Yoze took a couple of sniffs in the air before exchanging nces with Leah and both came to the same conclusion.
"I have a bad feeling about this town, let''s turn back to distance ourselves ande take a look at what has happened to Emerald Town with the daylight."
"I agree." The guide quickly agreed with Yoze''s suggestion as he too felt that something was wrong with the town.
Chapter 23 23: The Town Of Dead Bodies
?The next morning Yoze and Leah returned to the town without the carriage. It would be too dangerous to take it with them if there really was any danger. So Yoze told the carriage driver to stay with his father to look out for him.
If Yoze returned in a couple of hours then it would be fine however if Yoze didn''t return then the carriage driver was supposed to turn around and head back to Jade City to call for help.
Arriving back at Emerald Town''s entrance, Yoze frowned as he smelled the familiar scent of rotting fleshing from the town.
"Do you smell the stench of rotting bodies, Leah?" Yoze turned to ask Leah as he has better Spiritual Sensing talent than he did.
"Yes, I can smell the scent of death here. It is so thick that it has started to be visible." In Leah''s point of view, there was as if there was a barrier surrounding the town as it seemed to be covered in a dark tint.
"This isn''t looking good, hopefully, we can find some living people to ask what is going on."
Yoze and Leah crossed the entrance and immediately felt that the smell had grown thicker. Yoze couldn''t help but wonder how many people had to die or were going to die so that he could smell it when he hadn''t even entered the town yet.
When Yoze smelled the scent of deathing from his father he needed a range of a dozen feet to be able to smell it. However, there was still a distance of tens of feet between him and the town''s closest building.
Still not deterred by the strange situation, Yoze, and Leah continued walking. As they officially entered the town they saw that there was nobody on the streets, not even a single pet was wandering around.
The streets and buildings werepletely silent as if there was a rule banning noise at all.
Yoze then walked up to a building that looked like the town post office. The closer Yoze got to the building the stronger and thicker the stench of rotting bodies became.
When they were mere steps outside the building, Yoze understood what Leah was talking about when he said that the stench was so powerful it became visible.
The entire post office building looked like it was covered in shade in contrast to the buildings right next to it. Yoze raised his hand to knock on the door but stopped halfway as he had a bad feeling and instead tried to find a window he could look through.
Eventually found one at the back of the building peering into a separate locked room inside the building. The room waspletely empty except for the standing ck figure facing away from him.
"Yoze, we should leave," Leah spoke as he trembled in fear at the ck figure.
However, the moment Leah spoke the ck figure turned around and sprinted towards the window at frightening speeds.
Yoze reacted quickly and grabbed Leah before jumping away from the window. Just in time before the ck figure crashed into the window shattering it.
"Thud!"
The ck figurended outside the window with the ck figure''s body bent in unnatural ways that either would have killed a person or disabled them for life.
"Crack crack crack."
The ck figure simply stood up at the expense of directly breaking some of his own bones and ignored the ones poking out of his body like daggers.
"What the hell, is that a zombie!" Yoze''s eyes popped open as he realized why Leah was so frightened by the ck figure.
Initially, Yoze thought that it was due to the lights in the room being off that he had a difficult time looking at the ck figure''s appearance. Now that the ck figure was outside and under the illumination of bright sunlight did he realize that it wasn''t because the room was dark.
But that figure reeked of so much death that it not only crossed the border of being visible but was so dense that it was a ck fog that covered the person underneath.
Yoze was only able to get the impression that the figure underneath was a man in his middle ages but other than that it was difficult to see if his skin was rotting or if it was still in good condition.
The man covered in a death fog didn''t seem to have a care in the world about his injuries and ran after Yoze as if he was chasing after gold or the most wonderful thing on the.
When the man got closer to Yoze, the stench radiating from his body was so powerful that Yoze felt nauseous. That convinced him that regardless of whether this man was dead or not, Yoze was going to turn his bones into powder first.
After making his decision,he jumped behind the man to avoid the chance of getting bitten by a potential zombie and kicked the man''s legs.
"crack"
Yoze felt astonished that the man''s legs which he thought would have crumbled not only the man''s legs crumble but they were tornpletely off his body. The man who was covered in the fog of death fell to the ground and squirmed around before reorienting himself to crawl after Yoze with persistence.
"This man really is the undead," Yoze said as he saw theck of blooding from the man''s body.
"Since you are already dead I''ll send you off to spare you of your misery," Yozemented before stomping the zombie man''s head in with a pop.
"We need to leave. This ce must be filled to the brim with these undead." Leah after recovering from his shock immediately asked Yoze to take him back.
Leah was in disbelief as after meeting Yoze his life had been ruined. First, he was kidnapped by Yoze then he was forced to make medicine for Yoze''s father, and now he had been dragged to a town full of undead.
Chapter 24 24: The Talents Of The Undead
?Yoze was also considering leaving and returning with the others when he suddenly heard the sound of faint movementing from behind him.
"Bang"
By the time Yoze turned around to check what was the noise, another ck figure destroyed the door that locked the room from the rest of the building and immediately ran towards the broken window to attack Yoze and Leah.
Yoze didn''t wait to get rid of this undead and let go of Leah and threw a Bear Punch to the undead head. The undead seemed to be unaware of the danger it was in and charged straight into Yoze''s punch.
"Pop"
Once Yoze Punch connected with the undead its head popped and its skull and brain matter sttered back into the room. During the short time of this interaction, Yoze heard the sounds of rapidly approaching footstepsing from the building.
"Let''s Go!" Leah screamed entirely scared out of his mind.
"Boom!"
The wall of another building exploded as a mass of ck fog rushed out. Yoze saw that the wall had been smashed apart by a single undead whose body was now almost entirely crushed by mming its body against the wall.
More than ten undeads followed behind that crushed undead and a smaller undead ran to Yoze with surprising speed. It ran as fast as Yoze could run and he had a hard time reacting to the undead before it arrived right next to him.
Before the undead couldunch its attack, Yoze''s legs moved on their own and moved to the right just barely getting out of the undead''s range. Unfortunately for the undead, while it had incredible speed it didn''t seem to have the strength to stop itself and crashed directly into the opposite wall.
The undead''s miraculous speed had allowed it to build up arge force that left arge hole in the wall while also turning itself into a paste as well.
"These zombies seem to have supernatural speed but they are so fragile that using their speed just kills them." Even though Yoze wanted to observe these undead more, he had to get Leah out first as he was dragging him down at the moment.
Yoze grabbed Leah once more and activated the full power of Mindless Blood Legs while still avoiding the fast attacks of the gathering zombies. Tens of undead figures shrouded in the fog of death continuously destroyed walls of buildings at their own expense and anything else that stood in their way to their prey.
Yoze''s Legs became red as his leg muscles doubled in size. With a single stomp, Yoze leaped tens of feet into the air flying above the heads of the hoard of zombies escaping their encirclement.
Yoze ran towards the town''s entrance as fast as he could but the undead was just as fast and quickly catching up to Yoze. Making a quick decision, Yoze turned around and leaped once morending directly on the head of one of the undead.
Yoze stomped on the Zombie''s head smashing it before using its body as a stepping stone to leap in the head of another.
"Pop pop pop pop pop..."
The sounds of popping heads and shuffling footsteps were the only sounds that filled Emerald Town. Yoze quickly reduced the number of undead to single digits before swiftly taking care of thest few.
Yoze wanted to sigh in relief but a sudden explosion erupteding from one of the buildings. The dust from the explosion covered the undead but it couldn''t stop the powerful Stench of death from reaching Yoze''s and Leah''s noses.
In a split second a shadowy ck figure rushed out of the dust cloud heading straight for Yoze.
"Fast!"
If the zombies from before could be said to be as fast as Yoze''s top speed when he was using the full might of Mindless Blood Legs then this shadowy figure was at least twice as fast.
In a blink of an eye, it reached Yoze and started shing him, Yoze unconsciously avoided the strikes but one grazed his arm. Even with a slight gaze, Yoze saw that there was arge cut below the burned area of his arm.
Escaping the undead''s range of attack, Yoze felt a wave of fatiguee from his arm that got hit. He couldn''t help but feel surprised to see that he was getting tired so soon.
With the extra distance and having the undead stop in ce for a few seconds allowed Yoze to get a good look at its appearance. Yoze felt surprised at what he saw because this ck figure wasn''t an ordinary zombie.
This zombie had Mutated and had another set of armsing out from its rib cage. And more astonishing was that the undead seemed to be wearing a set of ck armor that covered every inch of its body.
"Wait that isn''t armor that''s death fog!" Leah screamed, drawing Yoze''s attention to the armor before he realized that despite the armor seemingly being solid whenever the undead moved, some ck gas was left behind.
This zombie''s fog of death had grown so thick that it seemed to converge and be ck armor. It was so unbelievable that Yoze immediately tossed a talent mark at it.
[Mutated Zombie]
[Age: 3 days]
[Talents: Life Attraction (Grade 2)]
"Life Attraction?" Yoze looked puzzled before ignoring it and copied the talent anyways.
Yoze couldn''t afford to be distracted by this Mutated Zombie as it was much strongerpared to the other zombies. Just the fact that it had managed to form armor out of death told of how dangerous it is.
The Mutated Zombie reorientated itself and sprinted towards Yoze at the same speed as before and just like previously it sent out a flurry of attacks that forced Yoze to ce his entire attention to avoid.
Same as before Yoze was unable to avoid one of the fierce attacks and his chest was grazed, tearing a long cut across his clothes and skin. This time Yoze didn''t feel the same wave of fatigueing from the wounded area and was able to even counterattack by sending a Blood Bull uppercut straight to the Mutated Zombie''s jaw.
Chapter 25 25: Im Not Leaving Until I Collect All The Undeads Talents!
?The Blood Bull''s force and lethality was no less on par than Blood Bear and sent the Mutated Zombie flying dozens of feet into the air. The Mutated Zombie''s defensive capabilities were on a different levelpared to the ordinary zombies as a normal Bull Fist would have popped their heads.
Yet the Mutated Zombie''s only suffered with having half its face crushed before standing up and charging at Yoze as if it was nothing but a scratch. Not wanting to keep having to hold back, Yoze tossed Leah to the ground several feet away from anything and charged at the Mutated Zombie.
The Mutated Zombie once againunched a flurry of attacks wanting to tear Yoze apart. But now that Yoze had gotten rid of the dead weight holding him back, he was able to dodge all the Mutated Zombie''s attacks and threw another Blood Bull Fist at the Mutated Zombie''s head.
This time Yoze was able to hear the satisfying pop of a head exploding as bits of flesh, bones, and brain matter sttered everywhere.
With its head destroyed, the Mutated Zombie''s body became stiff before falling to the ground with a thud. The Death Fog Armor that protected the Mutated Zombie quickly disengaged revealing the body underneath.
The Mutated Zombie''s body was a headless four armed wrinkled man wearing a bathrobe. Yoze stepped closer to the mutated zombie''s corpse and looked at the dry stump where its head used to be.
The Mutated Zombie''s flesh was dark red and looked like it had absorbed its own blood.
"It''s really dead." Yoze couldn''t help but wonder what the hell happened to Emerald Town.
Nothing abnormal had been discovered from the town and news from the town was still getting sent until not too recently. For that to be the case and not to draw any attention from anyone from Jade City meant that what happened to Emerald Town was recent.
This Mutated Zombie''s Age also confirmed Yoze''s suspicions. It meant that what caused this incident that eliminated a whole town must have happened at least three days ago. It also had to have happened fast enough that no one in the town was able to send a warning.
Something that Yoze wanted to know was why this zombie has Mutated and not the other zombies. What was special about this man that caused him to grow another set of arms and produce an enormous amount of the Stench of death to not only be fog of death but to be death armor.
Leah, who had been tossed aside by Yoze earlier, walked up to the Mutated Zombie''s corpse still trembling.
"Let''s go and inform the authorities. They will take care of this."
Yoze''s eyes glowed as he took Leah''s concerns to heart. As long as they returned they could gather the authorities to investigate and cleanse the whole town.
This might slow down their trip by a few days or maybe a few weeks but it was safer and faster than trying to find another route which could have the same thing happening.
However, for that to happen could mean that this town would be locked away from the public and Yoze would not have ess to the town. He would lose the opportunity to get the unique talents that these zombies could have.
He already got one Life Attraction which made him feel as if his skin had gotten tighter as if trying to keep his life force inside his body. However, he already had used his talent mark for the day and needed to wait 24 hours for it to refresh.
This gave Yoze a conundrum, he could leave the town and return to Jade City or stay and try to collect more talents but at the good possibility that what had caused this incident to still be around.
Yoze thought in silence for a moment before getting a n together. He looked at the trembling goat next to him and felt that it should work. Yoze took out a slip of paper he carried in his pocket and wrote a few words down before tying it to Leah''s neck.
"Okay let''s go."
Even though Leah was confused about why Yoze tied a piece of paper to his neck he was d to be able to leave this demonic town. Yoze and Leah were able to arrive back at the town''s entrance without attracting any more zombies.
Just as they were about to cross, Yoze stopped a step away from leaving the entrance to Leah''s confusion.
"Leah, I''m going to stay here and protect the rear as you run back to the carriage and give my father the letter I wrapped around your neck."
"What no! What if there is an undead wandering outside of the town and attacks me when I''m alone." Leah said frightened by the prospect of leaving by himself.
Leah had been wanting to leave for awhile but he didn''t want to lose the protection that he had in this dangerous situation. Anything could happen but as long as Yoze is with him he didn''t have to worry about being killed.
"Ahh don''t worry about it. We arrived without seeing a single undead so the trip back shouldn''t be a problem. Plus that''s the reason I''m staying behind. If one of those Mutated undead follows us with a horde of undead it would be extremely difficult to keep you alive while fighting them." Yoze waved away Leah''s concerns as he was confident he could make it.
"Now go before more undead show up."
Though Leah was still scared out of his mind he still knew that Yoze''s logic was sound and if a horde of undead did chase after them along with one of those powerful undead then he would be in more danger than escaping himself.
Once Leah had run far enough, Yoze walked back into town and walked around with caution. He wasn''t sure if the zombies chased after the sound, since Leah was quite loud when he screamed, or if they could sense life force energy.
Even though Yoze had a talent called Life Attraction he didn''t seem to gain an extra sense to find living things. So he could only assume that they tracked them down by their noise.
Due to Yoze''s training in Mindless Legs he was able to reduce his footsteps to a minimum till the point they were virtually silent.
That gave Yoze some confidence that he would be able traverse the town without too much trouble. As long as he was careful, Yoze thought he would be able to stay rtively unharmed throughout this adventure.
Chapter 26 26: Two Headed Mutated Zombie
?For the first few hours Yoze wandered around the town with caution and only moved through ces he saw there weren''t any zombies. However as time passed on, Yoze realized that these zombies had two modes of Sensing him. The first was sound and the second was through sight.
Anytime Yoze entered the visible range of a zombie they would rush at him at terrifying speeds. One time Yoze simply walked up behind a zombie and stood a mere few inches away from the zombie and it didn''t have a reaction at all.
Yoze figured that if it was an ordinary person or a martial artist who didn''t practice a movement technique to reduce the sound of their footsteps these zombies would have had a much easier time finding him. It would have made the situation before much more dangerous as more and more zombies would have been attracted.
It was possible that the zombies'' footsteps could have attracted the whole town. Even though Yoze was confident in his ability to beat the zombies he had little confidence that he could challenge a whole town with deadly zombies.
As long as Yoze maintains a trace of caution to avoid areas that zombies could be hidden and possibly see him, he found that he wasn''t in much danger.
"I might not be in much danger at the moment but I really want to find those mutated zombies. Their talents must be some of the better ones to have mutated." Yoze thought to himself not feeling satisfied with the talent he acquired from the Mutated Zombie as he only received it as a grade 1 talent receiving only a 20 percent boost.
He felt like he could find one that had a greater ranked talent and improve the one he already had. Yoze figured that he might not even need to fight another Mutated zombie as he could use his quiet footsteps to approach them from behind, copy and leave without making a fuss.
Yoze also knew he had a few attempts at finding the talents of the undead. It would take at least a day or two for the soldiers and guards of Jade City to react and prepare for an attack at Emerald Town meaning that Yoze had from now to then to copy the talents of the undead.
He eventually found another Mutated Zombie at the town center. It was smaller and more leanpared to the first Mutated zombie that Yoze had encountered. But this zombie had another head resting on his shoulders. The Death armor that covered its entire body made it so that it was difficult for Yoze to tell which direction it was facing.
However, Yoze figured it out and walked closer to the mutated zombies from behind to try and get a better look at how Death Armor looked up close. When Yoze silently stepped out of his hiding spot behind the Mutated Zombie Yoze found himself in the air as his legs automatically jumped as high as they could.
Looking down, Yoze saw that below him was the Two Headed Mutated Zombie and with its hand stuck inside a wall.
Yoze''s pupils contracted as he didn''t know how the mutated zombie could have sensed him. His steps were extremely quiet and he had made sure to avoid its line of vision.
Still his caution was all for moot as the two head mutated zombie discovered him the moment he stepped out.
Not only that it seemed that this mutated zombie was even faster than thest one even moving so fast that Yoze didn''t even see it move. It was as if it had teleported.
If it wasn''t for Yoze''s Legs moving on their own before he even knew the danger he was in, Yoze''s heart would have been plucked out of his chest.
"Damn!"
Yoze gritted his teeth in anger as he pushed his Inner Vigor to activate. Within a split second Yoze went from a weight of around three hundred pounds of meat dozens of feet into the air to a five hundred pounds of meat dozens of feet into the air.
Yoze was nning on crushing the two headed mutated zombie from the force that came from him falling straight on top of the Two Headed Mutated Zombie.
The two headed mutated zombie stared at Yoze who was falling like a several hundred pound meteor with no sense of danger and waved its free hand at Yoze.
"Bang! Cracks!"
The two headed mutated zombie when faced with Yoze''s weight demonstrated that its defense wascking as its bones cracked like ss before shattering. Within a second, the Mutated Zombie''s body was crushed, dying almost instantly.
Yoze stood up from the crushed mutated zombie''s corpse and looked at therge gash across his shoulder. The shoulder that should have been profusely bleeding was losing blood at a slower rate that Yoze had expected.
Yoze felt as if he still had life in him and was not as tired as he usually was from these vigorous movements. It wasn''t much but he only felt as if his stamina had improved about 20 percent.
"I see Life Attraction has many effects that are about life preservation measure for the body. Like me bleeding slower and losing energy to the outside." Yoze felt that this talent had been slowly making itself known. So far it had been doing so work with keeping him going.
There was also a high chance that this talent is what is preventing the strange fatigue that came from the zombies attacks. He only experienced it once and knew that it was a deadly ability for the zombies opponents.
After cleaning himself a bit and making sure that the noise from this battle hadn''t attracted more zombies before Yoze looked at the rapidly disappearing death armor.
The smelling from the death armor almost made Yoze puck from the overwhelming stench. Still he endured the stench to get a close look at the armor, however Yoze settled that he wasn''t able to glean anything useful from it.
After the Death Armor dissipated, Yozed looked at the Mutated Zombie''s corpse and figured out the reason he was discovered. The reason was so simple yet absurd that Yoze wanted tough.
The Two headed Mutated Zombie''s two heads were facing away from each other. So while Yoze avoid the view of the head aligned with the body he entered the sight of the other head.
Chapter 27 27: Stage 3 Mutated Zombie
?After observing the two headed mutated zombie Yoze left to find a ce to stay the next. Even though Yoze wanted to keep searching for mutated zombies it was too dangerous at night. Visibility would be at its lowest and Yoze would be battling against fatigue.
He didn''t want to risk making a mistake because he was tired. As long as he could find a building or space that was away from any zombies he would take the chance to rest.
Yoze was able to find a ce that he could stay the night. It was the town''s grain storage so there weren''t many zombies around. After clearing the area, Yoze found a ce to sleep and slept the rest of the night.
The next day Yoze walked further into town before he found another Mutated Zombie. This zombie was very tall, bulky and had six arms. The Death Armor on this zombie was even crazier as it didn''t simply cover the zombie but at his fists was a long spike formed from his Death Armor.
This time Yoze didn''t risk getting closer to the mutated zombie and threw out his talent mark from a distance.
[Stage 2 Mutated Zombie]
[Age: 4 days]
[Talents: Life Attraction (Grade 4), Spike Fists (Grade 3)]
"This zombie has reached a second mutation." Yoze''s eyebrows frowned as he looked at the Stage 2 mutated zombie.
"That means that there could be a third stage or a fourth stage or even higher mutated zombies further into town."
Over thest two days, Yoze had been intentionally moving further into town as he discovered that the stench of death became stronger the further he went. He was hoping that he could find the source of this disaster and from seeing this Stage 2 mutated zombie confirmed his hypothesis that there were stronger mutated zombies further into town and that the source of the disaster might still be around.
Yoze decided that he was going to go as deep into the town tonight and see if he saw any higher staged zombies. As for now, Yoze copied the grade 4 Life Attraction talent instead of the Spike Fists to upgrade his own life Attraction talent to Grade 3.
Yoze felt his skin tighten around him and felt his body''s temperature fall slightly when he took the upgraded talent.
A few hourster Yoze discovered another stage 2 mutated zombie. The Death armor around this zombie formed into whips instead of hands. While Yoze couldn''t confirm his guess that this zombie was at the second stage he was confident that he guessed right since this zombie''s death armor also formed a weapon.
After watching the mutated zombie, Yoze then left to find another ce to stay. He didn''t know if it was just due to it getting closer to winter since the sky was growing more dark as the days passed or if the visible stench of death was making Yoze mistake that it was getting darker because the stench was making everything darker.
Whichever was the case Yoze spent some time finding a safe ce to stay the night. The next day Yoze went out to find the source of the disaster. It was the third day and Yoze has a feeling the soldiers of Jade City were going to arrive either today or tomorrow. Since that was the case Yoze wanted to find a great talent for his troubles.
The deeper and further Yoze went into the town the stronger the stench of death became and the darker and more ominous everything became. After passing the town center and the stench of death was still growing more potent the further he went, Yoze knew that it must havee from the opposite side of the town.
That was why the stench of death was so less potent when Yoze and Leah first arrived in town and didn''t encounter any stage 2 mutated zombies. As Yoze walked on he saw numerous stage two zombies and avoided them the best he could since he didn''t want their talents. He was looking for a bigger and better prize.
Soon Yoze found that he was at the town''s other entrance that led to the town''s cemetery. This was where the stench of death was its strongest. This entrance was in clear contrast to the rest of the town as it looked like it had a ck barrier surrounding it.
Taking a deep breath and preparing himself to not puke when he got inside, Yoze stepped over the barrier and saw a giant four armed mutated zombie on its knees with its back turned towards him from a distance.
This mutated zombie was on a whole other levelpared to the tall zombie met yesterday. This Mutated Zombie was at least 9 feet tall and dwarfed any person Yoze had met in his life.
Yoze tossed out his talent mark to check out what stage this zombie had reached to get to this size.
[Stage 3 Mutated Zombie]
[Age: 5 Days]
[Talents: Life Attraction (Grade 5)]
Yoze was surprised to see that for a zombie that had reached the third stage its talent wasn''t as high as he expected it to be. Still Yoze copied the talent to upgrade his own Life Attraction talent to Grade 4. After which Yoze bid his goodbye, since he already used his talent mark there was no reason for Yoze to risk his life to find the source of the disaster.
He made up his mind that if the Jade City military arrived today he was going to leave town as soon as possible to not get trapped here with the rest of the zombies.
However, if the military doesn''t arrive in 24 hours and he gets his talent mark back he woulde back and find the source of this disaster or at least something that seemed to have a good talent.
"Hopefully, I will see you tomorrow." Yoze thought to himself as he looked at the giant zombie with awe. He couldn''t imagine how strong this mutated zombie was and almost wanted to fight it to see if he could defeat it.
Chapter 28 28: Wahhh!
?Yoze felt his heart shiver as he waited for the 24 hours to pass. The sky grew red as the sunset and the moon started to rise. Once night hade, Yoze went to sleep and wondered if the military would have arrived by the time he woke up.
When Yoze woke up in the morning he climbed up to the top of a building and looked around to see if he could see the figures of people rushing to the town. Even after an hour had passed, Yoze didn''t see a single shadow in the horizon and figured that the military must have been dyed longer than he thought.
With that as the case and his talent mark refreshing in a couple of hours, Yoze walked back to the cemetery, where the giant mutated zombie was, at a slow pace. He didn''t want to rush to the cemetery before he had his talent mark on the ready in case he met something remarkable.
"3...2...1...it''s refreshing." Yoze thought as he saw that his talent mark refreshed just as he made it to the entrance to the cemetery. Crossing the ck barrier of death, Yoze saw the kneeling giant mutated zombie facing away from him in the same ce as yesterday not moving even a single inch.
Yoze slowly walked up to the Mutated Zombie and noticed that the zombie was staring at the ground. He figured that as long as he walked around the mutated zombie without getting too close he could avoid awakening it.
As he walked around Yoze saw that the mutated zombie was kneeling in front of a gravestone with the name and information of the dead scratched out from what looked like human nails. Yoze also found it interesting that the mutated zombie had its hands curled up in its chest as if it was protecting something.
Yoze continued walking through the cemetery before turning around and facing the kneeling giant mutated zombie.
"The source of death ising from the thing in the mutated zombie''s hands." Yoze squinted his eyes as he wondered if he should risk waking up this zombie to see the source of Emerald Town''s destruction.
Eventually eyes shimmered as he made his decision, he was going to see the source of the disaster, and if possible grab its talent before running away from the giant mutated zombie if he couldn''t beat it.
Yoze took a deep breath and activated his Inner Vigor he also fully activated his Mindless Blood Legs to their max potential. After preparing himself, Yoze charged at the giant mutated zombie and mmed into it before it could react.
"Bang!"
Yoze mmed against the giant mutated zombie and pushed it with so much force that he tore whatever the giant mutated zombie was holding away from it.
"Waaahhh!"
Yoze suddenly heard the sound of a crying baby appear following a massive ck pir ripping through the sky. A wave of memories mmed into Yoze''s head as he saw the beginning of Emerald Town''s destruction.
There was a pregnant woman with long ck hair and gentle brown eyes stroking her stomach with tender love. The next second, Yoze watched as that same woman was no longer pregnant but standing over a gravestone. That gravestone belonged to the woman stillborn child.
Another memory shed through Yoze''s eyes and it was a sunny day and the bright sunlight was mming against the woman who was digging out her child''s coffin with her bare hands. The woman broke through her child''s coffin and clutched her child''s corpse against her chest as she whispered words of love to it.
Another memory shed through Yoze''s eyes and he now saw nothing, just an endless darkness. Seeing this darkness that contained nothing made Yoze''s blood freeze in fright. Suddenly within this darkness he heard a strange sound. The sound was muffled and it was impossible to tell what the sound was saying or what it meant but the feeling of love still passed through.
Yoze returned back to the memory of the mother holding her baby''s body but he noticed that a ck fog rose from the baby''s body as he felt a strange stubbornnessing from the baby. It was odd, he felt as if he knew what the baby''s corpse wanted to do.
The baby wanted toe back to life to meet his mother again. It was going to do everything it could to cross the imprable barrier that separated life and death. The baby''s love for its mother led to the baby producing the fog of death as a mere by-product of it attempting toe back to life.
This fog grew rapidly and thicker until the memories shattered and Yoze returned to see the endless ck pir of death, the bottomless well of death, signaling a mother and child''s attempt to reconnect.
Yoze shivered as he felt something for the mother and the child but he calmed himself and tossed his talent mark towards the baby''s body. Yoze had high expectations for the baby''s talents. What kind of talent did one have to have to literally be able to break the world''s fundamentalws simply because they wanted to?
[Death Rejecting Baby]
[Age: None]
[Talents: None]
Yoze blinked as he didn''t understand what he was looking at. Why was his cheat saying that the Death Rejecting Baby, who destroyed an entire town, did not have any talent?
"This baby was able to challenge the fundamentalw of life and death because of the power of love between a mother and her child." Yoze was astonished by what he saw and almost had his head crushed by the giant mutated zombie.
Quickly dodging the mutated zombie''s attack, Yoze jumped several times to get some distance from this monster. The Giant mutated zombie didn''t pursue Yoze like he hade to expect from the zombies.
Instead the giant mutated zombie picked up the baby that oozed an endless source of death with two of its arms and held the baby tightly before turning to face Yoze with anger.
Chapter 29 29: Arrival Of The Army
?Yoze blinked as the giant mutated zombie that he now knew was the baby''s mother charged at him. The Mother Zombie reached Yoze with a single step and threw a powerful punch.
Yoze mindlessly dodged the mother zombie punch but felt a sting from the mere wind following her punch. The Mother Zombie seemed to have be more furious at the fact that Yoze dodged her punch and used another arm to send a flurry of punches at Yoze.
Yoze was able to dodge the mother''s powerful attacks but was having trouble finding a way to counter attack and constantly had to dodge and run away. He might have been safe for now but the mother still had another set of arms she could be using if she didn''t focus on protecting her baby.
Even with this disadvantage, Yoze was in a difficult position and felt suffocated as he waspletely restricted. If it wasn''t for the fact he could dodge the mother''s strikes he would have been severely harmed.
"I can''t keep this up forever, I need to counterattack!" Feeling frustrated, Yoze gritted his teeth and decided to risk breaking his arm to counter attack.
Yoze stopped dodging the Mother Zombie''s strikes and threw a Blood Bear Fist directly at the mother Zombie''s punch. The collision between the two Fists created a loud sonic boom that sent dust flying in the air.
This collision briefly caused the mother zombie to pause her attacks and Yoze made sure to take advantage of it. He took advantage to start his Twin Blood Fistsbo and within seconds he had thrown nearly 100 Blood Koi Fists reaching the maximum of 100 percent usage of his potential.
The act of using Mindless Blood Legs at full capacity and Twin Blood Fists caused Yoze''s body to be a dark red hue as his sweat evaporated nearly instantly. Each of his punches caused sonic booms that rocked the mother zombie.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!
It wasn''t enough to defeat the mother zombie, Yoze was only able to suppress and push back the Mother Zombie for now but if he slipped up the mother wouldunch a ferocious counterattack.
Suddenly as Yoze was gaining an upper hand he heard a slight rumbleing from the distance and he couldn''t help but look to see a massive heat wave rushing for the Emerald Town.
"The military has arrived!" Yoze almost wanted to breathe out a sigh of relief from seeing the military.
The air that was in turmoil from the ridiculous amount of heat that each soldier released unconsciously and theirrge concentration created a natural disaster that would have set world record temperatures. The army itself was creating a massive mirage just simply from their mere presences.
"Okay, I can disengage with you now."
Knowing that the military wasing soon, Yoze didn''t want to keep fighting with the mother zombie any longer lest it became more of a problem. However in his attempt to disengage with the mother zombie, Yoze created a hole in his defense which the mother zombie took advantage of byunching a terrifying uppercut straight to Yoze''s chest.
"Boom!"
The terrifying force of the punch sent Yoze flying in the air only stopping after crashing through several buildings.
Back at Jade''s city zing army, Leah and Yoze''s father were being apanied by several generals that wore red iron armor and each had a sharpness in their gazes that can cut diamonds. One of the generals looked at the young man covered in bandages and smelled of medicine.
That young man was Jackie and after hearing that Yoze, his greatest goal to beat being trapped inside Emerald Town overrun with the undead. He couldn''t lie down and used his father''s connections with the army to go along with them. That General used to be a guard trained in the Martial Court Yard before transferring to the military.
Even though the General had a much higher status to the director of the Martial Court Yard. He appreciated his time there and epted the director''s request as a way to pay off the debt he had with the Martial Court Yard.
At this moment the zing Army generals and Jackie were looking at the slip of paper that Yoze had given to Leah. Back then when Leah ran back to the carriage he had alerted the carriage driver. Seeing the goat that Yoze dragged along everywhere running back in a panic of fear without Yoze signaled that something was deeply wrong with Emerald Town.
The carriage driver wanted to immediately rush back to Jade City and didn''t care to take Leah along since he didn''t want to take the chance that Leah brought along whatever caused Emerald Town''s abnormalities. But Yoze''s father stopped the carriage driver since he noticed a piece of paper tied around Leah''s neck.
He went over to take the piece of paper and read it before putting the paper down with a pale face. On the paper Yoze wrote what he discovered when he arrived at the town and the undeads he faced.
He also told his father to go back to town and head straight to the City Center building and report that Emerald Town waspletely destroyed and overrun by undead. They needed to send in the military to contain the town as he feared that whatever caused this was spreading and heading towards Jade City.
Lastly, Yoze told his father not to worry about him since he was safe and sound. He chose to stay in the town to prevent attracting the undead''s attention and getting this letter passed on.
After receiving the letter, they rushed back to Jade City and reported everything that Yoze wrote down. The city immediately sent out an order to lock down the entire city and to block anyone from entering or leaving.
The city government didn''t fully trust Yoze''s im that what caused the destruction of Emerald Town was able to spread; they still epted it without much resistance.
One of the reasons for the city''s eptance of Yoze''s im about the spread of this destructive force is due to the fact that Yoze was previously one of the city''s schrs no matter how low his position was, his words had some trustworthiness. It was also simply due to fear and caution that they immediately took harsh actions to prevent any possible spread.
The city also readied up their most elite army, The zing Army, to surround and destroy every undead inside Emerald Town. It had taken several days for the army''s preparation to bepleted and to arrive at Emerald Town but now that they arrived they were preparing to surround the town before storming in with the wrath of a God.
Chapter 30 30: The Might Of The Blazing Army!
?The zing Army''s generals huddled as they re-read the information that had been provided to them.
"Drew, are you sure you have told us everything?" One of the generals spoke with a deep voice as hot air rushed out.
"Yes, I have told you everything that happened that day and everything that had been on my son''s letter."
"Hpmh! This is barely any information at all. We know that we are facing the undead but there are several types of undead zombies. Are we facing the ones created by Immortal or witches? Maybe it''s created by the environment because a corpse hasn''t been firmly dug. There are so many different types that it will affect our strategy." The general''s dissatisfaction was clear to everyone, but they knew what this general wanted was unreasonable.
Not only was it physically impossible to put all the information that this general wanted on a slip of paper. But they had low expectations that a martial arts enthusiast had a great amount of knowledge on supernatural entities.
"General Gold, there is no use in hounding this old man as we aren''t going to get any more useful information anyways. We are going to stick with the n we came up with. We will surround the town and then have a squad check out the situation inside before reporting back." The general paused as he added another sentence.
"And if possible rescue Schr Yoze."
Drew Thunder, Yoze''s father, frowned as he didn''t like the fact that these generals were putting the life of his son as a non priority. Still there was nothing he could do to change these men''s minds and could only pray that Yoze makes it out alive.
The zing Army''s Generals confirmed their n once more before shouting orders to their soldiers.
"Move out and surround the town! Don''t let anything escape regardless of how harmless it looks!"
"Squad 3 head inside the town and check out the situation before reporting back in half an hour!"
The trained soldiers immediately followed their generals orders and headed out to surround Emerald Town.
"Aaaahhhh!"
It wasn''t long since the generals gave out their orders before an ear bleeding scream echoed out of the town. This scream made the generals go on alert and they immediately changed their ns and shouted.
"Stop! Change course for Emerald Town! Exterminate every undead!"
The devilish scream made the generals hearts heavy as they could tell that whatever creature had made that noise was strong. It was also filled with an intense emotion of anger and loss which made the generals think that their n had been caught on by the monster and was nning on fleeing.
"We can''t allow that thing to escape or the City will be endangered!"
The generals climbed onto their me Horses and charged straight into town along with the soldiers. The vibrations caused by hundreds of horse hooves mming into the earth created a mini earthquake.
The zing Army soldiers entered the town and faced the hundreds of zombies that had left their building and were in in sight. Something that puzzles the soldiers that many of the zombies were running away from them.
However that wasn''t much of a concern for them as their sole mission right now was the extermination of the undeads. The firstyer of soldiers pulled out their iron sword that had turned red from immense heating from the soldiers hands and shed at the zombies on top of their horses.
"Die!"
The voices of dozens of soldiers echoed through the town''s streets as they shed at the zombies necks. Cutting through them as if they were cutting butter with a 1000 degree knife.
The soldiers'' shouts that rumbled through the town seemed to have awakened the zombies that fresh prey had arrived at their doorsteps causing hundreds of zombies to stop running and turn around for the soldiers.
The battle between the soldiers and the zombies could only be described as a massacre as the zombies fell in droves and their corpses crushed by the horses as theyunched a crusade.
The smell of burned flesh filled the air as the soldiers wreaked havoc. However, suddenly one of the zombies bite one of Solider''s horse and the horse that had been birthed and trained to have crazy endurance dropped to the ground almost immediately as if it lost all its energy.
The sudden loss of his horse threw the Soldier''s bnce off and caused him to fall into a crowd of zombies. Several zombies bite into the soldier''s armor and take outrge chunks with their teeth exposing the soldier''s skin.
The Soldier that had lost his horse and armor didn''t panic as every Soldier in the zing Army had reached the peak of third rate martial artist''s and was able to defend himself against the odds.
Even without his horse and armor the Soldier cut through the crowd of zombies and almost made it back to the line of protection behind his fellow soldiers. However, the Soldier suddenly stopped as he coughed up blood. He looked down to see that an arm had pierced through his chest and grabbed his heart.
The Soldier knew he was going to die and had a burst of potential to swing his burning sword to the zombie that had killed him. This zombie was a young woman in her twenties wearing ordinary clothes and her deathly pale skin, murky eyes, and second mouth ced at her neck showed that she was part of the undead that had mutated.
The Soldier''sst attack that he had released with everything he had chopped off of the zombie''s arm and sank into her shoulder but she didn''t flinch with the sword in her body burning her flesh from the inside.
The soldier''s death had provoked the anger of the army''s soldiers as they all focused on killing that female zombie. For them to lose an elite Soldier was a terrible loss for them and hurt their prestigious status.
Under their focused attacks the female zombie that had managed to mutate was quickly dismembered and her body crushed.
Chapter 31 31: Stalemate! On The Brink Of Death!
?The zing Army cut through Emerald Town''s undead at remarkable speeds and pushed further into the town killing everything in their sight.
The zing Army''s generals watched as their soldiers cut through the horde and only stepped in when the more powerful stage 2 mutated zombies entered the fray.
General Gold untethered his burning spear from his back andunched his spear directly at a stage 2 six armed zombie that seemed to have the power to create holes in his Solider''s chests as if they were getting pierced by a spike. Three soldiers had fallen to this zombie''s hands and thebined power of the others couldn''t take it down.
The burning spear that would have pierced through a Mutated zombie making it half way before getting lodged into the six armed zombies chest. The Mutated Zombie grabbed the burning spear at the expense of burning its flesh and muscles off.
However before the six armed mutated zombie could pull out the spear, General Gold leaped off his horse and jumped to the mutated zombie. Seeing the general flying towards him the six armed mutated zombie ignored the burning spear and sent out powerful punches towards the General.
Suddenly General Gold''s armor bent as if it had gotten hit by something. It didn''t stop as his armor bent as if it had gotten by a sword or spike more than 30 times before General Gold reached the six armed mutated zombie.
With a single thought, General Gold''s body became covered by Blood red mes. The mes threatened to melt the mutated zombie''s flesh and a martial artist would have left the mes range but the mutated zombie ignored the dangers and attacked General Gold.
Before the six armed mutated zombie''s Fists could collide with the General''s armor its entire body''s flesh and muscles burned off its body leaving behind only a sized armed charred skeleton.
Grabbing his spear, General Gold leaped back to his horse as if what he had just performed was a simple afternoon walk. As the zing Army made it to the Emerald Town''s center they heard a strange scream before it was cut off abruptly.
The unusual screaming seemed to have attracted the zombies but the loud battle in front of them overloaded their instincts and they all ignored the strange scream and kept attacking the zing Army.
The Generals however became more concerned and jumped off their horses to head directly to the ce the scream came from by themselves.
They leaped from building to building and grew closer to the scream before seeing that numerous buildings had been destroyed and ttened. It was as if an intense battle had urred and dozens of crushed zombies littered the leveled buildings.
When they arrived at the location where the strange scream should have urred they saw a giant headless corpse holding a dead baby.
"What happened here?"
Going back half an hour ago, the Mother Zombie had sent Yoze flying through several buildings before stopping in the rubble.
"F*ck!"
Yoze tried to get up and felt intense paining from his chest and he could tell that some of his ribs were broken. However, that was the thing that concerned Yoze the least as he was incredibly angered.
He had never been this hurt before and began to feel hatred towards the Mother Zombie. Not only that there was ck fog sticking to his chest. Yoze could feel that the ck fog was trying to absorb his life force energy and his Life Attraction talent was working at its max capacity to stop the death fog.
At this moment, not only was Yoze still in danger as the Mother Zombie was quickly approaching him but Yoze felt that his body was going to explode. Thebination of using Twin Blood Fists and Mindless Blood Legs at their strongest has been taking a heavy toll on Yoze''s body and the extreme excessive energy generated was now having trouble leaving his body due to his Life Attraction talent keeping every bit of his energy contained in his body.
Yoze needed to stop using his blood techniques but the looming threat of the Mother Zombie didn''t allow Yoze the luxury. He had concluded that it was next to impossible for him to disengage with the Mother Zombie before he cracked his ribs. Now either Yoze won this battle of life or death or he was going to die from Mother Zombie''s hands or his body exploding.
Yoze could only push himself to stand up and gritted his teeth and stood up hearing audible noisesing from his chest. The Death Fog tried to enter his body but it was still being blocked. The unfortunate thing was that the Death Fog wasn''t disappearing and remained clinging to his body like a parasite.
The Mother Zombie was only a few steps away from Reaching Yoze and Yoze stomped his foot and charged at the Mother Zombie with the weight of five hundred pounds. Yoze speed stunned the Mother Zombie and she either couldn''t move away from his charge in time or she didn''t understand the thought of dodging. Either way Yoze and the Mother Zombie collided and the force that Yoze generated forced the Mother Zombie to take several steps back that left deep footprints in the ground.
Reaching a stalemate, Yoze couldn''t push the Mother Zombie any further or push her off her feet. While the Mother Zombie focused on lifting her baby out of danger preventing her from using her two extra arms to send an attack at Yoze''s back and used her remaining arms as a way to counteract Yoze''s charge and hold him in ce.
However, Yoze made the terrifying discovery that the Mother Zombie Death Armor was clinging to his skin and forcefully entered his body. His grade 4 life Attraction talent forced his body into overdrive to prevent the Death Armor from turning Yoze into a dry husk of meat and bones.
Yoze''s eyes suddenly widened as he felt his body beginning to swell. The energy that couldn''t escape was going to make him explode.
Chapter 32 32: Return Of Blood Fist!
?In a life and death crisis, Yoze felt everything slow down as his mind raced to find a way to unleash all his pent up energy. Due to his Life Attraction talent keeping his energy from leaving his body through sweat and heat Yoze could only use other means to expend his energy.
"Mindless Blood Legs can''t help me here since I''m already using it at max capacity. In this position I can''t perform Twin Blood Fists or Twin Fists without getting some space away from the Mother Zombie." Yoze''s mind raced as he went through his martial Arts techniques before he settled on Blood Fist.
Even though Yoze had been using Blood Fist as a training method it. It also was ast resort battle technique and as long as Yoze had an arm he could use Blood Fist in a difficult position like this.
"It also has the effect of pushing my body to its limits, squeezing it clean. The Blood Fist technique would be less effective when I''m not in an exhausted or badly injured condition but it would have to do."
Yoze got into position and punched using the Blood Fist technique. Immediately his arm that was already a dark red hue became even redder as his blood that was nearing the boiling point became hotter.
"Boom!"
Yoze didn''t bother to check how the Mother Zombie reacted to his attack, instead throwing as many Blood Fists into the Mother Zombie''s stomach until either she let go or he stopped himself from exploding.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
With each punch Yoze felt a growing paining from his body as he felt that the Blood Fist squeezed more and more energy and potential out of his body. It was more painful than when he used Blood Fist to break through the limits of Twin Fists and Mindless Legs.
During those sessions Yoze could only attempt to use Blood Fist once before he was physically unable to continue and needed to rest before he tried again. Now each time Yoze used Blood Fist on the Mother Zombie the force behind it became stronger, the pain and pressure on his body grew rapidly.
"Boom!! Boom!! Boom!! Boom!!"
Yoze felt that the swelling in his body slowed down but it didn''t stop. Because every time Yozepleted a Blood Fist some of the energy he used would be trapped in his body and once again threatening to make him explode.
At the same time Yoze noticed that the extreme pressure on his body was causing his body to produce more Inner Vigor at a quick pace. Even as Yoze used his excess energy that he needed to let out however it wasn''t enough.
He was finding that the Blood Fist technique was squeezing everyst drop of his potential and body to its extreme but part of that became trapped and returned back so Blood Fist couldn''t use his excessive energy fast enough. Even the dual use of Mindless Blood Legs also using his body''sst drop of his potential at the same could only slow himself from exploding.
"Blood Fist and Mindless Blood Legs are too inefficient! I need them to use more energy!" Yoze thoughts turned to the extreme as he examined these two martial arts techniques
He thought about what he could do to improve his situation. First he turned to Mindless Blood Legs before once again rejecting it.
"Mindless Blood Legs is a technique that is the fusion of Blood Fist and Mindless Legs. If I want to improve it I need to improve either Mindless Legs or Blood Fist. And I''m still a decent way from reaching the peak of Mindless Legs at the moment."
Yoze shifted his attention to Blood Fist and thought about the fundamental logic that made up the Blood Fist technique. The basic reason for the Blood Fist and simr martial arts techniques is that they are trying to allow people to exert more power from their attacks.
Humans and many creatures have natural mechanisms that prevent them from using all the maximum abilities of their bodies.
If a regr person could punch with a strength of 100 pounds then the maximum strength that person could achieve when their body allows it is 1000 pounds. On a regr basis that person can wield only a tenth of their potential.
Blood Fist is a technique that makes that regr person use that potential, that additional ninth, to use everything that person has to break that person''s limits. To do this Blood Fist emtes the person being in a life and death crisis to force the body to use that remaining potential. That is why Blood Fist bes more effective when Yoze was exhausted or if he was injured because it allowed Blood Fist to draw that potential out.
At this moment Yoze was using 100 percent of his potential in each of his punches. Each one requires arge amount of energy and ces an untold amount of stress on his body. This is the main reason why every creature has a natural mechanism that restricts their abilities since it is much easier to get injured or even die when they use their full power.
To perform these acts of using the body to their fullest potential requires a lot of energy and cesrge amounts of stress on the body. This was why the Blood Fist creator took this part from the Blood Breaker body Cultivation Set instead of different portions as this portion was the least likely to kill the person before they used it.
Even then the creator of Blood Fist needed to modify the technique to reduce the chances of death. For a martial artist to use a Blood Master''s Martial arts, frequently lead to death. To be more useful Blood Fist could only be modified.
This ended up with Blood Fist being ssified as a martial arts technique that was for the talentless, people who werepletely stuck, and as ast resort attack.
If it was anyone else using Blood Fist and Mindless Blood Legs with such reckless abandon like Yoze their bodies would have copsed a long time ago. However, Yoze was able to do this because of the same talent that had ced him in so much danger.
His Life Attraction talent was not only stopping the Mother Zombie''s Death Armor from sucking his energy dry but also drastically reduced the amount of energy waste and even returned some of his energy back. In a normal situation, this talent would be giving Yoze a boost in his stamina and make it easier to survive fatal injuries.
However in this case, therge energy that Yoze''s body used for his Twin Blood Fists, Mindless Blood Legs, and Blood Fist techniques came back into his body and now he had too much excess energy in his body now threatening to make him explode.
"How do I get Blood Fist to use more energy?"
Chapter 33 33: Surpassing 100 Percent
?"How do I surpass my body''s maximum limit!?" Yoze pondered before his eyes shined.
"Blood Fist was originally part of the Blood Breaker body Cultivation Set, a martial art made for Blood Masters! It still has the core principles of Blood Breaker, even though I can''t return Blood Fist back to what it was when it was part of the Blood Breaker set but I can get rid of the safety limiters, leaving only the core method!"
Yoze immediately enacted his dangerous n to once again use the Blood Fist to break his limits. This time he was nning on breaking the limit of Blood Fist itself.
As Yoze stopped using the safety measures in Blood Fist, he started feeling his blood actually boil. His skin, muscles, and his entire body grew bigger and bigger the more safety measures he got rid of. Yoze only stopped when he felt that he couldn''t get rid of any more or else he really would die.
Once Yoze was done modifying Blood Fist, he let out a punch at the Mother Zombie''s stomach and felt how vastly different it was from the regr Blood Fist. Yoze''s arm grew twice as big as it became red hot and his skin began to tear.
Yoze''s body followed suit as he got bigger, Yoze felt that he was drawing energy and potential from an unknown ce and the pressure in his body started cracking his bones. Which in turn sped up the production of his Inner Vigor. Before Yoze evenpleted a single punch he had used all his excessive energy in a instant
The power that woulde from this punch would be in a whole different league than anything he had done before. Yoze started to feel uncertain on whether he could evenplete his Blood Fist, however Yoze could only clench his teeth harder as he couldn''t stop or he would die from the bacsh.
"Boom!!!!"
The moment Yoze touched the Mother Zombie''s stomach, he knew he sessfullypleted his modified version of the Blood Fist and the power that came with it didn''t disappoint him.
The Mother Zombie Stomach crumbled as the force from Yoze''s Blood Fist sent her flying. Her body created a massive hole once she hit the ground.
Yoze knew that wasn''t enough to keep Mother Zombie down so he dragged his exhausted body towards her and began a long chain of Blood Koi Fists.
The first ten Blood Koi Fists contained 10 percent of Yoze''s potential. By the 50th Blood Koi Fists each Punch included 50 percent of his body''s potential. The hundredth Blood Koi Fist contained the backing of Yoze''s entire potential.
"Boom!!!"
The next Blood Koi Fist made contact with Mother Zombie Death Armor, breaking through it to finally sessfully damage the Mother Zombie for the first time.
Yoze 110th Blood Koi Fist contained a power of 110 percent of Yoze''s potential and damaged the Mother Zombie''s bones.
"Boom!!!!"
The 150th punch pushed Mother Zombie deeper into the ground as her body started to crumble to Yoze''s attacks. Even the extra set of arms that the Mother Zombie had been trying to protect the Death Rejecting Baby with couldn''t protect her baby from the deathly shock waves.
"Boom!!!!"
The 180th Blood Koi Fists, seemed to have awakened something in the Mother Zombie as every bone in her body became broken and she could only passively take Yoze''s attacks. The Mother Zombie didn''t seem to feel pain but when her arms couldn''t protect her baby from the after Effects of the Yoze''s attacks she let out a screech of pure anger.
"Aaa,"
The 200th punch Yoze felt like his arms had be like jelly and he wasn''t controlling them any more and just acted out of instinct. His fist mmed into the Mother Zombie head just as she started to let out a screech once more. The force of this single punch contained 200 percent of Yoze''s potential and the moment of contact cut off the mother zombie screech by crushing the head.
After thisst attack Yoze''s feltpletely exhausted as he fell limp, unable to move. He could only wait to see if the Death Rejecting Baby did something to avenge his Zombie mother. But it seemed that now that his mother had died as a zombie, the Death Rejecting Baby didn''t have any ties with the world of the living and gave up oning back to life.
The endless death pir and the bottomless well of death slowly disappeared alongside the Mother Zombie''s Death Armor. Seeing that the Death Armor attached to him and the death fog that was trying to enter his body were also disappearing, Yoze sighed in relief.
After regaining some of his energy, Yoze stood up and looked at the mother and her child. Weirdly Yoze felt all the excitement from his victory go away as he felt for the Zombie Mother''s and Death Rejecting Baby''s cause. They simply wanted to be together again but unfortunately their desire came with the cost of ending many people''s lives.
"I''ll fix up your body''s so you can be buried together." After sighing, Yoze picked up the Death Rejecting Baby and ced him in her mother''s arms.
Yoze wanted to bury their bodies but suddenly heard the sounds of the zing Armying closer and decided that he wasn''t in the mood to meet the military just yet and left. Before leaving, Yoze left a note in the dirt to bury the mother''s and baby''s bodies together for the military when they arrived.
A few minutes after Yoze left the generals of the zing Army arrived to see the Mother Zombie''s body and the Death Rejecting Baby in her arms.
"Is this the undead that made that terrifying screech?" General Gold asked with surprise and confusion written on his face.
"Possibly, but who or what had killed this undead before we arrived?" Another Generalmented before stopping from noticing a few words carved into the ground.
"Come take a look at this."
"General Wood, what did you find?" The other generals turned their attention to the writing on the ground that General Wood pointed out.
The generals of the zing Army looked at each other in puzzlement, speechless at what they saw.
Chapter 34 34: Meeting The Wall Of Flesh From Martial Court Yard
?After leaving the scene of the crime Yoze was walking the long route around Emerald Town and trying to return to the entrance that he had arrived from.
Yoze wanted to see if his father was brought back to Emerald Town or if he needed to go back to Jade City to meet with his father again.
"Gosh I think I did more damage to my body then the Mother Zombie did." Yoze said as he softly touched all his teared skin and muscles to the groaning of his bones.
Still Yoze couldn''t help but pull up his cheat to see how much progress he made in his martial arts after the battle. Yoze could feel that he was stronger but he wanted to know the exact amount of how strong he had be.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 22 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension Talents, Physical Talents, Martial Arts Talents, Other Talents]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 4: 86%), Big Golem(Level 3: 90%), Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 99%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 200%),
Twin Blood Fists (Perfection level: 200%), Mindless Blood Legs(Perfection level: 200%)]
[Talent Mark: 0 (24 hours remaining)]
"An all around increase," Yoze nodded his head before his eyes widened in shock.
"Big Golem is at 90 percent! I just entered level 3 a few days ago!" Yoze waspletely surprised by hisrge jump.
However if there was anyone else that had endured the level of pressure that Yoze''s body had gone through and for such a long period they would have died. So such arge increase in his Big Golem Body Cultivation manual that flourished when under pressure was reasonable.
That wasn''t the only thing that surprised Yoze as he had some expectations that his Blood Fist and Twin Blood Fists had reached new levels but he didn''t expect that Mindless Blood Legs would also get the same benefits.
"Okay, that''s all good but let me go over an overview of myself. " After improving so fast Yoze wanted to get a better sense of his body as he walked back.
"First up is Twin Fists. When I reached the peak of rank 3 I was able to throw up to 70 koi Fist in abo. After I reached rank 4 every 10 percent I could increase mybo by 15 punches. A 5x increase from stage 3. Once I reach the peak of rank 4 I can throw 220 koi Fists."
"Second, Mindless Legs at 5th stage my performance with Mindless Legs had drastically improved from the 4rd stage where Ibined the previous stages together."
"Not only that it seems that at this stage my legs are much better at detecting danger and reacting before I do. The 5th stage also increased the performance of Soft Steps, Sticky Steps, and Silent Steps."
"I can jump as if I only weighed 25 percent of my weight. With Sticky Steps it''s incredibly hard to get me off bnce and I''m able to climb 70 degree inclines as if I''m walking on t ground. As for Silent Steps, it has improved how stealthy I am."
"Moving on towards my body cultivation method, Big Golem, at this stage I can most likely break through in a month or two. My max weight is around 680 pounds, extremely close to 700. As long as I put on some more muscle, I can weigh 700 quite easily at the moment if I just eat more to get muscle instead of inner Vigor. Why limit myself? I can do both to reach a weight higher than 700." Yoze shook his head as he imagined how great his body would look in the future.
"Now it''s time for the Blood techniques." Yoze felt strange with these blood techniques as they were martial art techniques he created with thebination of his two techniques.
"They are my strongest attacks and are really useful. But they are incredibly taxing to use as of right now. I have to heal first before I try to use their full power or I''ll never heal." Yoze sighed.
"Yoze you''re alive!"
Getting snapped out of his reflection, Yoze heard his father''s familiar voice of concern and saw him surrounded by three men covered in red armor. The aura that these three unleashed gave Yoze a feeling of danger as they seemed to be the embodiment of the fire.
One of the three men drew Yoze''s attention as he remembered that wall of flesh that he saw on his first day. It was the middle aged man that had introduced him to the concept of Body Cultivation methods and Inner Vigor.
After that middle aged man left without leaving his name, Yoze never saw him again. Who would have thought that man he met in passing so many years ago by chance had been a general of Jade city''s most elite army.
"Dad!" Even with all the pain that Yoze felt throughout his body, he couldn''t help but feel better seeing his father.
"Son, what happened to you? Did those undeads hurt you this badly? We need to get you medical help." Drew''s heart felt like it was going to explode from fright seeing his son drenched in blood, brains, and covered in wounds.
"Hehehe, oh this is nothing but a scratch. I''ll heal as we head for New Swampscott City." Yoze chuckled and felt a bit of pride as he showed off his muscles. He couldn''t let his father know that he was in pain or he would cancel the trip.
"Stop ying tough, I know when you''re badly injured I''m old, not stupid."
Seeing that his father wasn''t believing a word of his lies, Yoze turned towards the generals who he had been ignoring till now to change the subject.
"Hello Generals, my name is Yoze Thunder, son of Drew Thunder, and was previously an advisor of the Martial Court Yard. It''s nice to be in your presence." Yoze tried his best to put on a schrly aura that he hadn''t practiced muchtely.
General Gold, Wood, and Water looked at each other and then the six foot man in front of them that was oozing out a heavy pressure from his body. The pressure was so strong that it was borderline reaching the beginning of the strength of a first rate Martial artist.
Chapter 35 35: Burning Emerald Town
?The Three Generals of the zing Army felt that the situation they were in was bing more absurd by the minute. First they received reports of the destruction of Emerald Town.
A town that was home to close to 5000 people was destroyed in less than a few days without anyone finding out until several dayster by one of the city''s schrs casually passing by.
When they got their hands on the piece of paper that Yoze wrote they had already concluded in their minds that he was dead. Yoze''s excuse of holding up the back line and being safe was all a front to not worry his father''s mind. At least that was what the generals and other high officials had thought. It was too hard for them to grasp the idea that a schr, who shouldn''t have anybat ability, could survive a town full of undead.
So at the very beginning of this mission all the generals had not given finding Yoze''s half eaten corpse as a top priority. Now seeing that the schr that was supposed to be dead standing in front of them alive and well. And giving these generals a feeling of being suppressed as if they were feeling the presence of a fellow first rate Martial artist.
It was especially weird for General Wood as he felt that he had seen Yoze before but couldn''t figure out for the life of him. He had visited the Martial Court Yard before and knew that they had advisors but just like the martial artist''s of the court yard he paid even less attention to them. Not to mention that Yoze''s appearance had changed drastically from two years ago.
"Cough, tell us what happened in there and how did you make it out alive?" General Gold took the lead to break the silence.
"That''s simple, I believe you must have gotten my letter so I''ll spare you the earlier details. The town is overrun by undead zombies that don''t feel pain and seem to drain an individual''s energy from the slightest touch. Some of them have mutated to be even stronger. The strongest zombie was one that had grown to a giant and she carried a baby with her."
"As for how I escaped I could only sneak through the town and whenever I was caught I had to fight for my life. Luckily, I was able to survive because there were too many close calls to count." Yoze sighed as he poured his heart out and gave the generals as much information as he knew. Yoze didn''t mention to the generals what had caused this event.
He didn''t feel the need to mention that core information as from what he could tell this was a once in a lifetime event that naturally wouldn''t ur again. It would also put more attention on himself, if he was questioned of how he figured it out, and he told them about the memories that would be putting too much unnecessary of a risk on him.
Even now Yoze didn''t quite understand why he saw Death Rejecting Baby''s memories at that time.
"Hhmm, the ability to drain a person''s energy from a touch exins our higher than normal casualties." General Wood grimaced as he hated the fact that his army had faced such losses, it was a kick in his face.
"Okay, thanks for your contributions, schr. You may rest for now as we have the situation handled. " Having received crucial information about their enemies, General Gold and the other two generals discharged Yoze and started shouting orders to their soldiers to change their approach.
Seeing that he had done his part and only needed to wait for the military to do its thing, Yoze took a nap on the soft grass amidst the howling wind.
Yoze woke up to the feeling of being nudged by horns and saw Leahying on top of him. The sky was still a zing orange as he felt a heating from the town.
"Who set the town on fire!?"
Yoze couldn''t believe his eyes as he watched a massive me covering the entire town and letting out columns of ck smoke.
"This is a precaution to prevent this from happening again. The people of the town are dead and will be buried alongside the town." General Gold''s cold voice calmed Yoze down. As Yoze stopped asking further questions.
It wasn''t his business to make and the act had already been done. There was no way for him to change the situation and could only watch the bright mes light up the night sky.
"General, can I ask how long this road is going to be sealed?" Yoze asked a question he had been holding onto.
"When the town has turned into ash is when this area is no longer sealed. The city won''t allow such perfectly goodnd to be unavable for long."
The fire that burned the entire townsted for days before thest embers died and the ck ash covered the earth for miles.
During that night, Jackie came to visit Yoze to talk to him about his experience inside the death town. And left with frustration in his heart as he could feel that the gap between him and Yoze had grown by arge extent in a mere few days.
After that the zing Army marched back to Jade City with Yoze, his father, and Leah in tow instead of continuing their journey. As they needed to go back to the city to hire a new carriage driver as thest one had abandoned the mission after he came back to Jade City.
Even though it was a pain in his ass to spend another few days trying to find another carriage driver that also knew the way to New Swampscott City he eventually had found a driver that was willing to go the distance when he increased the pay.
Standing in front of Yoze was a young girl in her mid twenties wearing some clothes thatmoners frequently wore. She seemed to have a vibrancy that made everything around more fun.
"Hello, my name is Jewel Emerald, an experienced carriage driver for thest 5 years and one of the best guides in the world for thest 6 years." Jewel smiled, extending her hand to shake Yoze''s hand.
Yoze was a bit surprised by the gesture as ever since he came into this world he had never had to give a handshake since it wasn''t part of this world''s culture. But he could easily ept since he was more interested in the young girl''sst name.
"My name is Yoze Thunder, this man here is my father, and this goat beside me is my pet Leah Goat."
"Ahh what an interesting name for your pet goat." Jewel looked at Leah with curiosity before greeting Drew with respect.
"Before we leave I need to ask you the origins of yourst name. Is it from the same origin as Emerald Town?" Yoze asked, wondering if this was fate ying its part.
"Nope, myst namees from the noble martial arts sect Emerald Armor sect. My father was part of that sect before he met my mother so they chose to change myst name to Emerald out of pride." Jewel''s face turned apathetic when she mentioned her parents so Yoze stopped his line of questioning.
Chapter 36 36: The Grand Line
?"Since everything is alright and ready to go, we can begin to head out."
The group of four headed out restarting their journey with a hope in their chests for the future.
A monthter Yoze and the gang began to see the massive mountain range that looked like massive swords aimed towards the sky.
"The Grand Line. " Drew looked up at the massive mountain range with shock and admiration in his heart.
It was always his greatest dream to travel the world and see the wonders of the beautiful world. Visiting a Grand Line was one of his most important dreams and he was now experiencing it with his son.
Yoze felt amazed looking at the stunning mountains. It was one thing to read these natural structures but another to experience them with your eyes.
"The Charred Sword Mountain Range, we need to cross a passage through it before we can truly begin our journey to New Swampscott City." Jewel exined as she looked at Yoze with surprise as she felt that this man was an abnormality.
Throughout the entire trip, he hadn''t once stepped into the carriage to rest and only walked the entire way. Even as he was injured he had steady steps and kept up the carriage.
Jewel also sensed that for some reason he gave her a feeling of being pressured. As if she was looking at an indestructible mountain. She also felt that the pressure was getting stronger every day and felt nervous whenever she had to talk to him.
Luckily, for her it seemed to her that Yoze wasn''t much of a talker and merely liked to hang out with his pet goat.
"Do you know why there seems to be a Grand Line surrounding every city?" Yoze asked Jewel.
When Yoze had been preparing for this trip he bought several maps to view all the major cities and towns that they would be passing through and noticed something interesting. Everyrge city had a massive natural border that separated it from the otherrge cities.
Take Jade City for example, it was thergest city in the Jade Mountain region and the north and west side of the region was surrounded by the Charred Sword Mountain Range.
To get from Jade City to the closestrge city, New Swampscott City, one needed to pass through this Grand Line. If instead one wanted to travel to Lost Lake City, they would be separated by the Grand Line called the Jade Ravine, the main mining area for Jade City and how it got its name.
New Swampscott City was the same, it didn''t just have Charred Sword Mountain Range that bordered its south, to its north was Devils Range, to its east was Swamp Sea, and its west was Immortal Cliff.
Whichever direction one went they would encounter a grand line separating cities apart. Yoze found that these natural structures seemed too frequent in their cement as if they were created to separate these cities.
"No one knows when the Grand Lines first appeared but there are rumors that said everything Grand Line was created by the battles of Immortals and Demons."
"Take the Charred Sword Mountain Range, the story goes that the Sword Immortal fought a fire demon to the death. Their fight destroyed thend and created these mountains."
"But in my opinion I think that is just nonsense that people created to pass the time." Jewel exined showing her disdain towards the stories.
"That''s interesting, maybe those stories have some grain of truth in them. In this crazy world almost anything is possible." After experiencing the events with Emerald Town, Yoze became more interested in these so-called fairy tales. Since he had gone through one quite recently himself.
Jewel shrugged her shoulders and didn''t argue with Yoze and turned her focus on controlling the carriage. The road that they were traveling was bing rougher as they began to leave the confines of human civilization.
The passage through the Charred Sword Mountain Range was between two mountains that were filled with wild beasts and rumors also said that this was the home of some demons. Due to how dangerous the area surrounding the Mountain Range was there was no town or vige close to it and therefore there weren''t any nice roads.
"We areing up to the passage, make sure to keep your goat close to you so the wild animals don''t sink their teeth into its flesh."
Hearing Jewel''s warning, Leah shivered and walked closer to Yoze''s side for his protection. But Yoze wasn''t very interested in these wild animals since they weren''t much of a threat to him. He was more interested and concerned if they met a demon.
It was said that demons were just as strong as Immortals and even the weakest demon could destroy a city. He had no confidence that he could survive an encounter with a demon but wanted to meet one so he could copy its talents.
Suddenly Yoze felt a rumbleing from his stomach and asked the group to temporarily stop for a lunch break. Walking towards the wagon that they had been carrying during their trip, Yoze took a few pieces ofrge dried meat and dried vegetables before walking away from the carriage.
"I''m finally going to break through." Yoze''s eyes sparkled as he could feel his inner Vigor in turmoil.
He had been stuck at the brink of reaching level 4 of the Big Golem Cultivation method for several days. He had been eating arge amount of food and pressuring his body using Mindless Blood Legs for the past month.
Now that he could feel how much Inner Vigor was in his body he felt as if could crush the ground beneath him.
"The fourth level is said to allow me to send my Inner Vigor to individual parts of my body. This means that instead of having my weight distributed evenly I can make one of my body parts weigh even more than it would normally."
Yoze allowed his inner Vigor to crash around in his body until it slowly settled with a new level of vibrance. He could feel that he had a stronger connection to inner Vigor and could send it anywhere he wanted.
Chapter 37 37: Proving That I Became A First Rate Martial Artist
?Enjoying the sensation of controlling his inner Vigor, Yoze felt as if he could do anything.
"Okay, that''s enough daydreaming. I need to return so we can cross the passage tonight." Shaking his head to get rid of his delusional thoughts, Yoze returned to the carriage to the surprise of everyone.
"You''re done that quick," Jewel asked surprised, she thought that since Yoze asked them to stop suddenly something must havee up that needed to be addressed immediately. Or it wouldn''t make sense to dy their trip across the passage.
To see that Yoze returned less than 10 minutester, Jewel felt curious.
"Yup, I was just breaking through to level 4 of my martial art. I can now be considered to be a first-rate martial artist now. Once I break through again I should be able to reach the peak of being a first-rate Martial artist." Yoze said feeling a bit of pride.
"No way, it takes decades for martial artists to be first-rate Martial artists. There''s no way you became a first rate martial artist just like." Jewel shook her head in disbelief.
"How do you know that I haven''t been practicing for decades?"
"Aren''t you in your early twenties, I won''t believe you if you say you''ve been practicing since you were a child when your father clearly isn''t a martial artist himself."
"Well I did be a first-rate Martial artist, there''s not much I can do to prove it to you." Yoze was stunned by Jewel''s logic since it was true.
In regr circumstances, if a child practiced martial arts it was due to their family having martial artists a part of their family. Meaning that they already had martial arts techniques and body cultivation manuals in their possession and didn''t have to worry about the procurement of one.
Yoze had nevere in contact with a martial artist until he was in his twenties due to him living outside the city and him taking the schr exam to be an official for Jade City.
If Yoze hadn''t taken the Schr exam or if he never passed the exam. He would still not have nevere in contact with the martial artist world nor would he have the means to procure a martial arts book of any kind.
Even when he became a schr, if he hadn''t decided to be an advisor to the Martial Court Yard it was very likely he would not have had the means to buy a martial arts body cultivation manual to officially start his martial artist career.
And it didn''t take a good eye to see that he didn''te from a wealthy or well-connected family since Yoze was a schr but his father wasn''t. Meaning that he had be a schr to improve his social status.
For Jewel to put that all together to know for a fact that he couldn''t have practiced martial arts for decades meant that Jewel herself had a great amount of knowledge of the Martial arts world.
"Then again she did say that her father was part of a martial arts sect before so she must have a decent amount of knowledge." Yoze thought drifted to the fact that he stillcked great knowledge about the martial arts world.
It wasn''t his fault as Yoze really had only be a martial artist in a short period of time and had either been training or studying. There was little to no chance for him to ask the martial artist of the courtyard about the martial arts world.
Even if Yoze did ask them they would most likely also only have told him the basics as they had no expectations that a schr would have that much interest in the martial arts.
"If I can prove to you that I''m a first-rate martial artist then will you tell me everything you know about the martial arts world and especially about the martial arts sects." Though Yoze felt it was a long shot to try and prove he was a first-rate martial artist he still wanted to give it a go to see if he could get more information.
"If you prove it to me I will follow that condition but you have to pay me double whether you''ve convinced me or not." Jewel perked up with interest hearing his proposal but added the condition that he needed to pay her regardless.
"Sure!"
Yoze easily agreed to her request as he didn''t want her to lie that she wasn''t convinced to get the money if he only paid her if she didn''t believe him. Now that was settled Yoze chin as he thought about what he could do that proved that he could be a first-rate Martial artist.
"I could try and use my aura thates from Inner Vigor to pressure her. No, that is too harmful and Jewel isn''t a martial artist herself she won''t feel it much." Rejecting the thought of pressuring Yoze turned his thought to using brute force.
"Showing her my strength could work but she might just say that different martial arts techniques can allow different levels of strength. But the most important aspect of first-rate martial artist''s is the control they have over their Inner Vigor." Yoze''s eyes sparkled as he had the perfect way to show his strength.
Grabbing a random rock from the ground, Yoze ced his finger gently on the rock and showed it to Jewel as well as Leah and his father who had be interested in theirpetition.
"Look, the most crucial important difference between a second-rate martial artist and a first-rate martial artist is the control over their Inner Vigor, an energy in their body that allows them to do all sorts of crazy things."
"The body cultivation method I''m practicing is called Big Golem Cultivation and it allows me to create super-heavy Inner Vigor. Normally, this Inner Vigor is distributed evenly across my body so my fingers don''t get very heavy."
Yoze activated his inner Vigor and made it distributed evenly across his body. He lifted up his finger a few centimeters above the rock and gently let it touch the rock again. The sound of the collision of the rock and finger was heavy and left a small dent in the rock.
"However as a first-rate martial artist, I can control my Inner Vigor to put all of it in my finger so it bes impossibly heavy.
Chapter 38 38: Lost Lake Sect
?Yoze lifted up his finger again the same distance above the rock and channeled all his Inner Vigor into his one finger. Once he sensed that all his Inner Vigor was in one finger he gently lowered it down to the rock.
As Jewel watched Yoze''s finger gently touch the rock without doing anything she wanted to chuckle but the pressure she felting from Yoze''s finger made shiver as she knew that the show wasn''t done.
As she expected without Yoze adding any additional force, cracks quickly covered the rock before it shattered and pieces of rock and dust were sent flying all over the ce.
"With just the weight of my finger alone I was able to crush this rock. I didn''t use any strength or use a martial arts technique to aplish this. So do you now believe me that I''m a first rate Martial artist." Yoze pped the gray dust off his hand as he looked at Jewel with expectations.
He didn''t have much hope that his little demonstration would never be enough to convince her but seeing the wow on her face he couldn''t help but feel his confidence increase.
"Yes, you''re a first rate martial artist boss." Jewel quickly hid her shock and said to Yoze calmly.
"Wow, you believed me so easily." Yoze lifted one of his eyebrows to show his doubtfulness.
"Of course, why would I not believe my employer that he had be a first rate martial artist? This will just make my job easier and this trip safer, there is no need to doubt." Jewel smiled to show her support.
If Yoze didn''t hear the strong doubt in Jewel''s voice earlier and seen the funny looks on Leah''s and his father''s faces he would have thought he had misheard what Jewel said.
"As for the additional payment..." Jewel coughed into her hand as she used her other hand to signal for the money.
Keeping his promise, Yoze ced the money that he owed her and felt like he was tricked. Seeing her cheeky smile when he put the money in her hand further confirmed his suspicions.
"She didn''t care whether I was a first-rate martial artist or not, this was just another way to get some more money. At least I could get some information for getting tricked." After figuring out that he had been tricked Yoze sighed but picked himself up when he knew that he could get some information about martial art sects.
"It''s now your turn to do your part of the deal, tell me about martial arts sects."
"Okay, what do you want to know about them?"
"Everything, how many sects are there? What sects are considered the strongest? The closest sect nearby? What are the requirements to join a martial arts sect? And what''s it like to join a martial arts sect?"
"Okay okay okay, I''ll start at the very basics." Jewel waved her hands frantically to stop Yoze from continuing with his long line of questions.
"First up is that I don''t know the total number of martial art sects there are in the world but there are only 100 notable sects considered to be the most powerful."
"The top 10 sects in order are, The Human Empire, The Crimson City, The Lost Lake Sect, The Sword Sect, The Fire Sect, The Grand Empire, The Demon Children Sect, The Honey Sect, The Ice Sect, andstly the Charred Sect."
"After the top 10 sects, the positions are debatable but in general all martial artists have to avoid the top sects in addition to the Evil Sect and the Blood Sect. These two are known for their evil practices and have no qualms with provoking and targeting children for their evil arts. "
"Now those are the notable sects that you have to look out for and make sure not to get in their way. " Jewel took a deep breath before telling Yoze a huge amount of valuable information.
At the end of it, Jewel couldn''t help but take out her water sack and take a few gulps of fresh water. While Yoze digested everything Jewel had told him.
From what Yoze knew now, his suspicions that there was more to these supernatural borders was further confirmed as not only were the cities separated but even therge sects were separated from each other as if something didn''t want them to interact with each other.
Each of the most powerful sects control a region alongside with thergest city in a dual monopoly fashion. Take the Jade Mountain Region that held Jade City this region was under the jurisdiction of the Lost Lake Sect, the third most powerful martial art Sect in the world.
But also the one that interacted the least with its neighbors so unless one had direct contact with someone inside the Sect it was difficult to gather information on them. The bnce of power between the City and Sect was tense but also symbolic.
Neither the City nor Sect could fully control the whole Jade Mountain Region so they allowed the other to control half. The sects were filled with the strongest martial arts experts and had the most Martial Grandmasters.
However, sects were just too small to challenge a city for its territory full of people, resources, and farms. The sects might hold the hands of many experts but they would only drown from the massive armies that each city cultivated.
It was the same for cities that wanted to encroach on the sect''s territory. If the cities wanted to im the territories of these sects they needed to pay a drastic price for every inch they gained. So it was rare for a city or Sect to control a whole region to themselves.
There were of course some notable exceptions, The Human Empire, The Crimson City, and the Grand Empire were all exceptions to this rule. The Human Empire was formerly called the Human Sect before it took over the city that ruled with it, taking full control of the whole region.
The Crimson City was a city that destroyed its partnered Sect, The Farm Sect. And the Grand Empire was another City that ate the Sect in its regionpletely taking over its region.
Chapter 39 39: The Refreshing Smelling Cave
?The Sect that ruled over the region that New Swampscott City lived in was the Charred Sect. As the weakest sect of the top 10, The Charred Sect should have been worried that they could be attacked by The Lost Lake Sect, the third strongest.
However, simply due to the Charred Sword Mountain Range blocking the routes other than a few passages it was nearly impossible for them to get attacked.
"Yoze, we really should get going soon or we won''t make it through before nightfall and have to stay the night in the Charred Sword Mountains," Jewel said kindly reminding Yoze of their current goals.
"Of course, let''s get going. We can talk more about the martial arts world while we are moving." Snapping out of his thoughts, Yoze looked up at the sky that had the sun at its highest point. With their current speed, it was unlikely they were going to make it through but it was safer to stay for only one night than a few nights.
Resuming their journey, the group of four arrived closer to the pitch-ck mountains that seemed to have had the surface burned clean. There were little signs of wildlife and nt life in the mountains.
"How big must a forest fire be topletely charred thend like this?"
Looking at thend that lookedpletely charred and destroyed, Yoze felt like he understood why people said that only a battle between the legendary Immortals and demons could cause this result. Only a forest fire of epic portions or a natural disaster could cause such destruction of life.
"The scenery gets better once we reach the passageway we are going to start seeing the life that these mountains provide for." Jewel smiled seeing the shocked look on Yoze''s face.
Yoze nodded his head expecting to see trees that were charred and animal carcasses but when they arrived they saw a prosperous rainforest full of giant trees, flowers, bushes, and insects between a gap between two mountains.
The stark contrast between the charred-to-dead earth and the life-giving forest was striking and it was clear that the rainforest was only as wide as a mile before one met the deadnds again.
"Beautiful isn''t it? I never get tired of crossing these passages. Too bad many people aren''t willing to cross the border." Jewel sighed as she looked at the beautiful sight before her eyes.
"It''s thebination of the natural beauty of mother earth and the persistence of life. Is this really the type of ce that is said to hide demons? It''s more like the paradise that Immortals live in."
"Nice speech as expected from a schr."
"Thanks."
Entering the forest pathway, Yoze and Jewel admired the forest life as they traveled across chatting about the varieties of life. When suddenly they heard the sound of thunder in the distance.
"We need to find shelter before the rain arrives. Can you go ahead and look for a cave or some cover to act as our shelter for the night? You will probably find one faster without the carriage acting as a burden." Lifting her hand to touch the little drizzle, Jewel looked at Yoze before if he could scout ahead to find a spot they could take cover from the rain.
Agreeing with her thought process, Yoze went ahead of the group to look for some potential shelters. As he searched around, Yoze smelled a refreshing smell simr to watermeloning to his right.
Attracted by the smell, Yoze changed his direction to follow the trail of the scenting to find a cave. With a nce at the cave''s entrance, Yoze saw that it was big enough to fit the carriage and deep enough that they didn''t have to worry about the wind blowing the rain right to them.
"This cave looks pretty good as a potential shelter. I''ll go back first to bring everyone here to get their input." Not being a cave expert, Yoze felt that it was better to get Jewel''s advice on the matter before exploring the cave deeper.
He didn''t want to waste his time exploring and cleaning up the cave only to find out that it wasn''t a good enough shelter to shield them from the cold rain.
Returning to where he left the group behind, Yoze returned to see that they hadn''t moved at all and that Leah was tied to the carriage while getting petted by Jewel. Ignoring Leah''s pleading eyes, Yoze told Jewel that he found a cave that looked like it could work as their shelter and wanted to get her input.
"That was quicker than I thought but that is to be expected when you have the help of a first-rate martial artist."
After exining the situation, Yoze acted as the guide to the cave he found. When Jewel saw the cave she looked like she had already decided that this was a good shelter for the night.
"This is a good cave but we need to check it for any kinds of dangers that could be possible. Are you able to do that boss?" Still ying with her joke of calling her boss as if she was hisckey, Jewel proposed that she follow Yoze deep into the cave to find out if there were any dangers.
Not having any particr reason to refuse her request, Yoze and Jewel ended up leaving Leah and Yoze''s father behind at the cave entrance while they did cave exploring. As they walked deeper into the cave, the refreshing smell of watermelon or freshly cutwns grew stronger making Yoze want to take a deep breath to get more of the scent into his nostrils.
Just as Yoze was enjoying the pleasant smell, he heard the sound of hundreds of squeaksing from the interior of the cave. These squeaks were rapidly approaching them causing Yoze to get into a fighting stance to block whatever wasing out from going past him to reach his father.
Chapter 40 40: The Demon Egg
?"Crr Crr Crr Crr," The squeaks grew louder and more numerous as blood-red eyes appeared from the shadows as they stared at Yoze and Jewel''s souls.
"Blood Bats!" Jewel screamed with fear, hiding behind Yoze.
The hundreds of blood-red eyes filled the darkness as the squeaking grew giant bats flew out of the shadows with hunger and directly for Yoze and Jewel.
To the presence of these giant bats, Yoze didn''t even frown as he stepped forward to confront the Blood Bats. Waiting for the closest bat to get into fighting range, Yoze tossed out a punch that weighed tens of pounds directly to the bat''s head.
"Pop!"
The moment Yoze''s fist came into contact with the bat''s skull it exploded into a Blood mist and the bat''s body dropped to the floor. Before the bat''s body touched the floor Yoze threw 10 more punches turning 10 more bat''s heads into a bloody mist.
The blood of theirpanions seemed to have instead excited the Blood Bats as their squeaks grew louder and higher pitched. The Blood Bats came out of the shadows in sizes of pairs of dozens, nearly taking up every inch of the cavern due to their immense size.
Therger the group of Blood Bats the faster and harder Yoze threw his punches and eventually he switched from throwing regr punches in fashion for his Twin Fists rapidbos.
"Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh!"
The more Blood Bats showed up the faster Yoze''s fists became and soon it appeared to Jewel that he seemed to have grown five sets of arms and three heads as each one of his fists killed more than 10 Blood Bats per second. The corpses of hundreds of Blood Bats piled up forcing Yoze to move deeper into the cave to avoid getting crushed by the mere bodies of Blood Bats.
The more Yoze killed it seemed that two more Blood Bats appeared to spawn to take their ce. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of Blood Bats.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
As soon as Yoze''s Koi Fistbo crossed the hundred mark, just the shockwaveing from his punches killed tens of Blood Bats and turned their bodies into a bloody fog. An hour quickly passed and Yoze had to reset his Koi Fistsbo several times but his lethality never decreased as he got used to how these Blood Bats moved and his dense swarms of Blood Bats became he could always kill several with one punch.
From Jewel''s point of view, it was like there was an invisible barrier behind Yoze that the Blood Bats could never get through. The number of Blood Bats'' corpses on the floor alone would have been enough to destroy towns and required a small army to deal with but they were all taken care of by one man.
A man that seemed to be more machine than human at this point as he never seemed to be the slightest bit tired. He even looked bored as he mindlessly ughtered these terrifying creatures.
Eventually, the swarm of Blood Bats began to thin out before thest Blood Bat had its body crushed into a bloody pulp. At this point, Yoze''s clothes were covered in blood, and the cave stench was bloody metallic.
However, Yoze smelled something incredibly refreshinging from deeper in the cave behind the smell of blood. At this point, Yoze knew that whatever was making that smell must be extraordinary. Not even hidden by the enormous amount of blood in the air, this smell had to being from his Spiritual Sensing talent.
The only other experience that Yoze had with such a strong smell was the stench of Death. Compared to the smell of rotting corpses, Yoze much preferred the smell of freshly cut grass.
"Let''s go deeper,"
"Really? I think that you killed everything in here. " Puzzled by Yoze''s persistence to go deeper, Jewel could help but ask why.
"I smell somethinging from deeper inside the cave and it''s either a really good thing or something really bad. Either way, I need to check it out to confirm." Not knowing how to exin his caution against any kind of persistent smell, Yoze just chalked it up to him smelling something.
"Okay, I''ll follow your lead boss!" Not wanting to be left alone, Jewel picked up whatever courage she had left and followed behind Yoze.
To their surprise, the cave did not continue for much longer before they reached arge space that had arge egg that was half the size of an adult human. The egg asionally trembles as whateverrge creature inside the egg was attempting to hatch.
In Yoze''s point of view surrounding thisrge egg was a swirling white most that covered the entire egg. As the egg quivered and shook some of the white was absorbed into the egg.
A mere sniff of the white most made Yoze''s muscles rx as he felt energized. If the scent of rotting corpses was the stench of death then this fragrance was the smell of life.
"For this egg to be absorbing this spiritual fragrance must mean that the creature inside is blessed by the heavens. I need to see if it has any extraordinary talents."
"Toss a Talent mark on whatever is inside that egg." Throwing out his only Talent Mark, Yoze was full of excitement.
[Name: Srikeagu Serpent]
[Age: Processing]
[Talents: Spiritual Sensing (Grade 6), Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 10), Flexibility (Grade 10)]
"Holy shoot! That sounds like a demonic name for something that seems so blessed." Yoze thought to himself before his eyes widened when he noticed the egg''s talents.
"This thing is blessed! It has two Grade 10 talents and a grade 6 Spiritual Sensing talent! I need to capture whatever is inside this egg." Yoze felt his heart race as he focused on the various talents of this creature to make the best decision.
"I can improve my Spiritual Sensing talent. So far it has been a great addition to my talents even when I have the lowest grade version of it. "
"But I could choose the Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation talent."
Chapter 41 41: The Giant Demon Serpent
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The temptation of the unique talent-rted body cultivation was too much for Yoze to handle so he locked onto the talent and copied it and got the second-best thing.
[Grade 10 talent Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation Talent has been locked on. Grade 9 Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation Talent has been added.]
Yoze was surprised to see that his cheat had once again updated itself to now pull up a blue message in front of him. However, he didn''t pay much attention to it as he found himself in a ck space with a truly giant Serpent Demon.
The Demon stood more than 20 feet tall and was covered in dark ck scales; its length alone would have doubled its height at least. The Serpent Demon''s sharp ws shimmered with a green glow and its blood-red snake eyes chilled Yoze''s blood.
Yoze gulped his saliva as he watched the giant serpent demon sliver on the ground before its skin cleared up and showed a green mist flowing into the demon''s muscles in a particr order and quickly absorbed into its flesh before more green mist took its ce. This process continued until Yoze realized that the demon had grownrger and its presence solidified.
"Yoze,"
Snapping out of his daze Yoze turned toward Jewel who was much farther back than he remembered.
"Why are you getting closer to that demonic egg?" Jewel asked, trembling from the aura that was leaking out from the hatching egg.
Jewel could sense that the egg''s aura gave her the same amount of pressure that Yoze had given her when he became a first-rate martial artist. And the egg''s aura was growing stronger by the minute and seeing Yoze casually walking right to this dangerous egg freaked her out.
"Uh, I''m just checking it out. I''ll be back in a bit."
Staring at the egg that contained the serpent demon he saw, Yoze paid even more attention to it as he saw that some of the white mist surrounding the demon egg was making its way toward him.
Instinctively, he knew that the white mist was good for him so he extended his hand to touch it. As Yoze did so he felt his body shiver as he subconsciously thought of the pathways that the Serpent Demon in his head had.
The white mist entered Yoze''s hand as he felt a refreshing and rxing energy massaging his muscles making them rapidly develop strangely. Yoze felt that he was getting stronger, faster, and more flexible at an incredible speed.
At the same time, his Inner Vigor became active as it flowed through his body as more and more Inner Vigor was produced by the white mist entering his muscles the same way it did with the Serpent Demon.
From a small trickle, the refreshing white mist redirected itself more and more toward Yoze until a majority of the white mist began entering Yoze''s body. The Demon Egg had no idea why it sensed that it was intaking less of its own life''s spiritual energy but it could do nothing about it until it hatched.
Meanwhile, Yoze was absorbing 99 percent of the white mist, delighted to find that his Big Golem Cultivation method was rapidly increasing. From just reaching level 4 he had sted through to more than 90 percent and there was still plenty of white mist surrounding the demon egg.
"Can I reach the peak of level 5 just by absorbing this white mist and following the Serpent Demon''s strange art? No wonder it was said that demons are much stronger than mortals. If I hadn''t interrupted the demon-hatching process it might have even be stronger than most Blood Masters or maybe even a Martial Grandmaster at birth."
The thought of meeting a Martial Grandmaster-level demon made Yoze''s heart turn cold. But he got rid of that thought and focused on taking as much from this demon before it hatched. It was the best thing he could do to protect his group so he couldn''t be selfish and started training his Big Golem cultivation method to elerate the production rate of his Inner Vigor.
A few minutester, Yoze felt his Inner Vigor running wild as it colluded against his flesh, muscles, skin, nails, and hair. Every time a bit of his Inner Vigor shed with a part of his body a small bit was lost and absorbed into his body.
However, as soon as he lost a bit of Inner Vigor Yoze''s body would produce 3 times more. Yoze could tell that the disturbance caused by the white mist was making his breakthrough into level 5 of the Big Golem art longer as more and more of his Inner Vigor was absorbed into his own body.
Even without Yoze gaining any more muscle his weight was rapidly increasing from 300 to 325 to 350 to 400 to 700 to 900 to 1000 pounds. After reaching 1000 pounds Yoze''s body seemed to have reached its max saturation levels as no matter how much his inner vigor shed inside his body no more inner vigor was absorbed.
The sudden gain in weight would have caused Yoze''s bones to be crushed but at the same time, he was getting stronger, faster, and more flexible from the Serpent Demon''s art. By this point more than half of the white mist surrounds the egg.
However, Yoze wasn''t satisfied yet as he could sense the aura of the demon was getting closer to the peak of a first-rate martial artist. He needed to continue absorbing the white mist so that when the demon hatched it wouldn''t be much of a threat that way he could obtain its other talents.
So Yoze pushed to try and reach the peak of level 5!
[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 5%)]
[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 10%)]
[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 15%)]
[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 20 %)]
...
Yoze ignored the signs that his cheat had once again updated to now include live progress. He was instead inspired by the fact that he was getting closer and closer to reaching the peak of level 5.
Chapter 42 42: The Demon Has Hatched!
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[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 70%)]
[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 80%)]
[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 90%)]
Yoze felt the inner vigor in his body quickly bing a bigger and bigger flow as it seemed to have be like a gushing river. The strange feeling that this river was like a phantompletely weightless at one moment before bing as heavy as an ocean became more pronounced.
He craved to see what he would weigh when he reached the peak. At this moment he had long surpassed the weight that the book had taken him. Just his body weight alone could have qualified him to contend with others who have reached the peak of the Big Golem cultivation method.
[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 95%)]
There was no one Yoze could talk to about this experience as he only managed to aplish it with the help of his cheat and his meeting the egg of a hatching demon. The seemingly unlimited supply of Mist of Life had allowed him to create arge amount of Inner Vigor. This huge amount of Inner Vigor allowed him topletely saturate his flesh and muscles.
This shouldn''t have been possible as the Big Golem Cultivation manual stated that the process of breaking through from level 4 to level 5 allowed for a small percentage of Inner Vigor to enter the body. Creating more room to store more Inner Vigor, however, there was a clear limit to this method.
During a normal breakthrough, Inner Vigor isn''t produced so every time a bit is absorbed into their flesh it is gone until that person starts training again. Eventually, this would lead to the person gaining 50 to 200 pounds at most before there was too little to continue the process.
Yoze instead broke that convention because while he was breaking through he continued to produce Inner Vigor at a rate faster than he lost. The process then continued until Yoze''s body couldn''t absorb anymore.
[Big Golem Cultivation (Level 5: 100%)]
Yoze stopped training his Big Golem Cultivation method because he reached its limit. He couldn''t produce any more Inner Vigor and Yoze was satisfied with this oue.
There was still some more Mist of Life circling the demon egg but it wasn''t enough for the demon inside to break through to the Blood Master Realm. So Yoze just epted the Mist of Life entering his body and tried to get used to his newfound strength.
It wasn''t even an hour and Yoze had gone through a rebirth. With newfound strength and his body seemingly filled with endless energy, Yoze felt that if wasn''t careful his foot would go through the floor.
So for thest ten minutes, Yoze focused on controlling his strength. While Jewel watched with her jaw on the floor.
She had just watched a magical event happen as she watched Yoze seem to through some transformation. If before Yoze just made her feel that he was strong then the current Yoze resembled more like a demon wearing the skin of a human.
"Yoze, are you alright?" Jewel was so terrified by the aura that Yoze was unconsciously omitting that she did not want to disturb his training.
Letting out a heavy sigh of relief, Yoze looked at Jewel and said, "I''m better than okay I''m doing fantastic."
"Thank God, but we really should find another cave to act as shelter from the rain before this demonic creature hatches."
Seeing that Yoze hadn''t been possessed by the demon, Jewel let out a sigh of relief and reminded him that they were still in danger of demon hatching.
"I think it''s toote for that,"
"Huh Why?" Jewel looked at Yoze with surprise before her eyes widened in fright as she saw cracks begin forming on the egg.
"Cracking Cracking"
The sounds of cracking eggs echoed throughout the cave as the surface eggshell revealed the dark scales of whatever creature was inside the egg. Meanwhile, Yoze watched as thest traces of the white mist entered the egg.
"..."
Suddenly the egg stopped shaking and the crack stopped expanding. For a second, Jewel thought that they might have been in the clear and that the creature inside the egg was dead.
"Boom!"
However, her dreams were tarnished as the egg that was half the height of an adult exploded. And before she could react Jewel saw that Yoze was holding a giant serpent demon by its tail just a few inches away from it wing her head off.
"Whoosh! Boom!"
Holding the Serpent Demon with one hand, Yoze flicked the demon toward the cave wall causing a loud explosion to ring throughout the whole cave and causing a mini earthquake. The Serpent Demon''s 10 feet long body became deeply embedded into the cave''s wall.
Yoze waited to see if the Serpent Demon would return tounch a counterattack but found out that it had fallen into aa and was seriously injured. There was no way the newly-born Serpent Demon could contend with Yoze who had used its own life spiritual energy to transform himself.
"I think I got him."
"..."
Jewel looked at the unconscious demon and waspletely speechless at the events that had just gone down. The creature that spread fear to all humans was instantly knocked out by Yoze. The man that was bragging just a few hours ago about bing a first-rate martial artist.
"That was just a really big snake, right? Not a demon." Unable to cope with the reality of the situation, Jewel asked Yoze whether or not she was just imagining that she saw a demon.
"Nope, this is the legendary demon that kills and eats innocent people like it''s a snack and fights with immortals. Doesn''t that make me as strong as an immortal?"
Unfortunately, for Jewel, Yoze liked seeing her speechless and didn''t let her stay in her make-believe world dragging her back to reality.
Recovering from her shock Jewel looked at Yoze like she was seeing a monster and backed away to defend herself.
Chapter 43 43: Demon Flesh Is Nutritious
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"..."
"The demon must have taken over your body, there''s no way a human can defeat a demon."
Yoze was speechless seeing Jewel''s suspicious re.
"You just watched everything unfold. When would the demon have had time to take over my body? Also, why would I stop the Demon''s real body from killing you?"
"You make a good point," Jewel muttered as she put away her suspicious re.
She was half convinced in Yoze''s logic and her realizing that even if Yoze was taken over by a demon for some master n she had to go along with it anyways or she would be killed.
Seeing that Jewel no longer suspected him of being a demon, Yoze walked to the Serpent Demon''s unconscious body. Looking at the Serpent Demon''s long body and scales that were hardly damaged from the impact, Yoze guessed that if the demon faced up against an ordinary peak first-rate martial artist it would have won by andslide.
While the newborn serpent demon had much of its own life spiritual energy stolen and was stuck at having the strength of a first-rate martial artist. Its demon physiologie still gave it a huge advantagepared to humans.
"Is it dead? Let''s just get out of here before the demon wakes up." Watching Yoze examine the demon''s body, Jewel wanted to know if a miracle had happened but changed her mind as she did not dare to think that demons could be killed so easily.
"Okay let''s go."
After confirming that the Serpent Demon wasn''t dead, Yoze agreed with Jewel''s suggestion that they needed to leave soon.
Aftering back to the cave''s entrance, Yoze and Jewel were greeted by the delicious aroma of stew and saw that his father had been preparing dinner while they were away. Even though it had only been a few hours during their mini adventure so much had changed and Yoze was ready to eat.
"Dad, we are back."
"Yoze, Jewel you two are finally back. Leah and I were beginning to worry that something terrible had happened. But it''s good that..." Drew felt his shoulders rx hearing his son''s voice and turned around to face him but froze as he saw something truly evil.
"..."
"Yoze, what is that monster you''re dragging behind you?" Drew looked at the ten feet long snake-like creature that Yoze was casually dragging with him.
"This is a demon dad. Jewel and I found a demon egg inside the cave and this guy came out of the egg. Luckily, it didn''t seem very strong so I knocked it out." Lifting the demon''s tail as if he was showing the fish he had caught, Yoze smiled to see his Dad''s and Leah''s shockedplexions.
"A demon! Is it dead?"
"No, "
"Why didn''t you leave it at the back of the cave?"
"It would be such a waste of its potential to leave it in the cave. Plus, what if it chases us down by our scent? Then it would be safer for us to keep it in check before we eat it. "
Drew didn''t know what to say to Yoze''s logic and turned to Jewel who had the same look of helplessness on her face.
"I tried to tell him we should leave this dangerous demon behind and run but he insisted that we keep it for at least two days."
"Let''s eat first before we start walking again."
Noticing that the rain was beginning to clear up, Yoze said that they should begin their voyage after they are to regain their strength.
2 dayster Yoze and his group were seen walking outside one of the few passways. After being stalled by the passage''s unpredictable weather Yoze and the gang were finally able to escape and make it to the other side of the Charred Sword Mountain Range.
And Yoze was relishing his new talents and cheat interface to mind the dead demon he was dragging behind him.
[Second Best System]
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 22 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension Talents, Physical Talents, Martial Arts Talents, Spiritual Talents, Other Talents]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 4: 99%), Big Golem(Level 5: 100%), Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 100%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 200%),
Twin Blood Fists (Perfection level: 200%), Mindless Blood Legs(Perfection level: 200%)]
[Talent Mark: 0 (21 hours remaining)]
Pulling up his cheat, Yoze ignored his techniques which were all nearly maxed out in favor of the new talent category.
[Spiritual Talents: Spiritual Sensing (Grade 5), Spiritual Speech (Grade 4), Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 9)]
In just a few days Yoze was able to increase his talent in the spiritual world. Yoze''s senses have drastically improved to sense the slight difference in all things spiritual.
Yoze ced especially more attention on his dad when he saw something amazing. Above his father''s head was a small green me that was being corroded by a ck mist which grew bit by bit as it swallowed more of his father''s green me.
What made him feel grief was more than 75 percent of the green me was corroded by the ck mist that Yoze recognized as the stench of death.
"Does anyone want to have an early lunch?"
With his mood plummeting from thinking about his father''s impending death, Yoze felt that dragging a dead demon''s corpse he killed a few hours ago wasn''t a good idea. So he wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible but he did not want to just throw the demon''s body away.
He had long heard stories that the bodies of demons had magical effects on improving the body. So he wanted to test out this rumor and see if a demon''s flesh that had just been born would taste as bad as the stories said.
"That sounds like a good idea, after being stuck inside the passage for two days I want to have a good meal to celebrate." Jewel agreed with Yoze''s proposal as she knew that lunch was going to be a rare delicacy.
Stepping out of his carriage with a knife in hand, Drew walked directly toward the demon as he was prepared to make a great dish from the demon''s flesh.
Chapter 44 44: Demon Hunting
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After getting the demons into a good position, Drew stabbed the demon expecting to get a good chunk of meat to make a delicious demon stake.
"Cachk"
However, the moment his knife hit the demon''s scale it snapped in half. Looking at his favorite knife broken in half, Drew sighed and looked at Yoze for him to deal with preparing the demon''s body.
"I got it, dad."
Half expecting this to happen, Yoze did not bother to grab another knife and instead used his hands to rip into the Serpent Demon''s flesh. Tearing several chunks of meat off the Serpent Demon''s tail.
Before handing the meat off to his father, Yoze peeled off the Serpent Demon''s scales and handed the meat to his father.
An hourter, Yoze, Jewel, and Leah were drooling as they smelled one of the most mouthwatering scents in their lives. Roasting the various pieces of demon meat above their campfire allowed them to see the golden juice dripping into the fire below.
"It''s done." Drew lookedpletely satisfied with his life.
The thought that he was one of the very few people in the world to cook and eat demon meat made him feel like he aplished something in life.
After handing the various pieces of meat to Jewel, Yoze, and himself. Drew took a bite of the demon meat even though it was still hot, burning his mouth.
The moment the meat entered his mouth, Drew felt as if he had eaten the most delicious steak in the world. The aroma of the meat filled his enter mouth before covering his body in warmth.
Unable to contain herself, Jewel took a bite of the demon meat as well and sighed at how delicious the meat was. Before taking another bite until she ate her meat in its entirety only realizing that she had eaten everything when her fork touched her te.
Meanwhile, Yoze''s pupils contracted as he saw that the green me above his father''s head started absorbing a green gasing out of the Serpent Demon''s flesh. Once the green gas came in contact with his father''s green majority of it was lost but a slight amount acted as fuel that made the green me expand and burn some of the stench of death surrounding it.
It was just a slight amount but Yoze predicted that a small amount might have bought his father a day or maybe a few days to live.
It wasn''t just his father experiencing this but Jewel as well. Instead of a green me above her head like his father she had an orange cloud that changed shape asionally.
As she was ravaging through her demon meat the green gasing from the demon flesh went towards her Orange Cloud but even less of the green gas made it to fuel her orange cloud. By the time she finished eating her orange cloud expanded less than half a percent.
An idea started to form in Yoze''s head as he took his first bite of the demon meat.
"Delicious!"
The vor of the meat was so vorful and the meat was soft but had a good texture. Yoze could sense that the green gas was Serpent Demon''s refined life spiritual energy that it had absorbed before it hatched.
The Serpent Demon''s refined life and spiritual energy escaped from the demon''s flesh and into his body. Flowing the same route that his Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivationmanded it.
He didn''t sense any of it trying to go above his head, so Yoze look up and saw that unlike Jewel and his father, he didn''t have a bunch of spiritual gas or something above his head. He guessed that it was either one can not see their own or he had absorbed it into his body like the Serpent Demon.
When he upgraded his Spiritual Sensing, Yoze saw three different types of ways spiritual energy appeared. The first was like Jewel and his father where their spiritual energy took on color and shape. The second was the Serpent Demon whocked one.
And thest came from Leah whose spiritual energy was an in-between. Leah''s spiritual energy was a red gas that covered every inch of his body with no gap in-between.
Yoze had a sneaking suspicion that Leah was a failed demon as the only other creature he found with Spiritual talents was the Serpent Demon with the only difference between them being that Leahcked a Spiritual body cultivation talent. Which he thought was due to Leah''s low talent in Spiritual Sensing.
"Let''s see what happens if Leah eats some Demon meat." Though Yoze was of the impression that Goats couldn''t eat meat looking at the desire in Leah''s eyes he gave him a few pieces.
"Have some meat, Leah."
With a grateful look in his eyes, Leah swallowed the few pieces of meat to Jewel''s and Drew''s shock. The moment that Leah ate the demon meat, Yoze watched as Leah''s red spiritual energy seemed to havee in contact with something evil. It immediately began to boil as the green gas mixed in with red gas. The turmoil caused some of the red gas and green gas to entire Leah''s body which in turn stopped the explosive reaction.
Even though the reaction was intense from the red and green sparkles appearing in Leah''s eyes it was a good thing. Watching the various reactions to the demon meat Yoze came up with an idea.
"If demon meat can extend my father''s life and even strengthen Leah then I need to get more demon meat in the future." The idea of hunting demons excited Yoze but he could only put that idea away for the time being.
"Right now I need to focus on giving the remaining 600 pounds of demon meat into dad''s and Leah''s stomachs." After making his decision, Yoze gave the rest of his demon meat to Leah and tore several more pieces of meat, and ced them on the campfire.
"For the rest of the trip, we will be eating demon meat."
Chapter 45 45: Gail Villages Protector
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It took about a week for Yoze and the gang to make it to their next rest stop, which was a small vige called Gail Vige located on the far outskirts of New Swampscott City.
Gail Vige was known for being friendly to travelers so it was a popr rest spot for travelers like them. As they got closer to Gail Vige Yoze saw that a vige girl was sitting on a tree staring right at them.
The vige girl wore a long blue dress that touched the floor and her face was pale white as she seemed to be on the verge of crying.
"A girl is watching us." Yoze turned to Jewel to get her opinion since she was the most familiar with this region and town.
"A girl? What was she wearing?" Jewel looked surprised at first but hearing that it was a girl her face softened considerably.
"She is wearing a long blue dress. So long in fact that even though she is sitting on top of a tree her dress touches the bottom." Intrigued by Jewel''s reaction, Yoze gave her a detailed report.
"That''s good, we don''t have to worry about her. She is Gail Vige''s protector and a strong one at that. It''s rumored that she is a Blood Master so any troublemakers are quickly subdued."
"A Blood Master, is she taking in students?"
Staring at Gail Viger''s Blood Master, Yoze''s eyes sparkled as he wanted to take her as his teacher. He had long reached the limit of the Big Golem Cultivation method and has been hesitant on trying to break its limit or starting the Iron Skin Cultivation method.
Both trying to break the Big Golem Cultivation method''s limit and the training of Iron Skin require Yoze to dedicate a lot of time. And with his father''s limited time, he wanted to reach New Swampscott City as fast as possible to see if his supposed siblings were staying there.
If they found his siblings in New Swampscott City then it''s good but if they weren''t there it would take a lot of time and moving around to track them down. This made it so that they were in a time-sensitive environment so staying a few days or weeks hampered down in a town could result in his father not seeing his children again before he passed away.
That all made Yoze reluctant tomit to anything, especially Iron Skin which required him to acquire all sorts of ingredients to make a special paste.
But this could all be avoided if Yoze took on a Blood Master as a teacher. He could get their Blood Master Martial arts and their talent so he could quickly improve.
The best part is he can always just leave and train during the journey. If his Master was cool enough to travel with him then it would be so much better.
"Her, taking in students? That''s funny. She is known for killing her students if they start thinking about getting near the vige. Thest student she took in was more than a decade ago and she killed him because she noticed that he started taking more interest in his master''s home vige." Even though Jewel mentioned how ridiculous the thought was, her face looked more terrified than finding it funny.
Hearing that she kept killing her students astonished Yoze as he would have never expected it. Why in the world would she kill her students for stepping into her home soil?
When he turned to look at the Blue-Dressed Blood Master he saw that her face became grim before she lowered her head to face the ground. However, Yoze had the feeling that she didn''t feel much remorse for killing her pupils and just felt embarrassed more than anything.
"Then it would be better to not have her as my teacher then, I don''t want my head chopped off because we are passing through." Hearing that the Blue Dresseddy was crazy, Yoze tossed out the idea of having her as a teacher and instead just threw a talent mark on her.
[Name: Scarlett NewBorn]
[Age: 56]
[Talents: Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 7), Body Cultivation (Grade 7), Thorny Rose Cultivation (Grade 5), Rapid Calction (Grade 4), Emotion Control (Grade 9)]
"She looks good for how old she is." Yoze thought as he assumed that from her baby face, she should have been in herte twenties at most.
Shifting his attention to the wide area of talents in front of him he pondered what he should copy.
The first thing Yoze tossed out of consideration was her Thorny Rose Cultivation Talent. It was mostly a talent rted to her body cultivation method or Martial arts technique so it wouldn''t do him much good if he didn''t n to be her student.
The next two things he tossed out of consideration were her Rapid Calction and Emotion Control Talents. These two were good on their own but they wouldn''t give that much value to Yoze at the moment. He also felt that he didn''t have the need to learn how to control his emotions to the extent that the Emotion Control talent would be able to let him reach.
That left Yoze with only two choices left, he could copy either her Martial arts Comprehension or Body Cultivation Talent and upgrade one of these two from Grade 5 to Grade 6. It was adding 50 percent from their original 100 percent which was pretty great.
"We are also only staying the night so I might be able to copy two of her Talents before we leave." After thinking about it some more Yoze decided that he should not try to be conservative and attempt to get them both.
[Setting target to Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 7). Locked on to talent and copying it. Grade 6 Martial Artsprehension talent has been added.]
The feeling of his mind-expanding and the questions and doubts he had about his martial arts slowly being solved almost Yoze sigh with relief. Even after so long, he hadn''t grown tired of the feeling of getting talents.
Chapter 46 46: Taking The Student Killer As A Teacher
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As they grew closer to Gail Vige Yoze saw that there were many travelers like themselves staying in the vige. The local people had smiles on their faces as they greeted the new travelers and waved goodbye to the ones that were leaving.
The situation was marvelous to look at from a distance as it was obvious to him that Gail Vige was simply too small to hold all these people. Gail Vige most likely had a poption of around a thousand people yet there was almost the same amount of travelers going in and out of the Vige.
This led to the situation where many travelers ended up sleeping outside or had to sleep on whatever they came with. From the looks on those travelers'' faces, it seemed that they weren''t very happy with this arrangement.
Yet even the most upset travelers held back and smiled at the vigers when they passed by.
"That Blood Master''s reputation is strong."
"That''s what you get for being so strong and using a lot of people as examples," Jewel said casually but she couldn''t help but frown from seeing all these people.
"What''s going on? Even though Gail Vige is friendly there aren''t usually this many people willing toe due to the Vige''s protector."
"Let''s ask someone. Hey, kid, do you know why there are so many people?" Calling out to a random traveler who looked like he had just be an adult, Jewel asked.
The kid traveler didn''t seem very amused by Jewel''s call but he still answered, "Blood Master Steel wrote a note that he left his Blood Master Martial arts body cultivation manual in the forest around here. So everyone is rushing to find it but since there is only Gail Vige nearby everyone is staying here."
"Thanks, Kid." Tossing out a copper coin to the kid, Jewel turned towards Yoze and pointed her hands at him.
"What?" Yoze asked.
"Work expenses must be repaid, I just gave out some of my own money to collect information so I need to get it back from you." She exined as if it was a matter of course.
"Isn''t it enough that you are eating our food? Why do you need a copper coin back?"
"Well, you can just pay for the information next time directly but now I need it back. Also, it was due to Mr. Thunder''s kind heart that I could eat some. You didn''t want me to eat a single bite, that''s cruel."
"Forget it, here the copper, let''s just find a ce to stay for the night." Sighing in defeat, Yoze and Jewel lead the carriage a bit away from the vige and set up camp.
When they got done setting up everything and were about to cook dinner, Scarlett NewBorn, Gail Vige''s protector, was standing in front of the carriage. She still had the same look that she was holding back her tears.
"Wow, knowing that she is probably a master at controlling her emotions changes things a lot." Yoze thought to himself.
"..."
"..."
Yoze and Scarlett NewBorn looked at each other in silence while Jewel, Drew, and Leah watched on the sidelines waiting to see what was going to happen next.
"Hello Blood Master, we mean no trouble as we are only staying for the night." Assuming that Scarlett visited them to give them a warning not to cause trouble, Yoze gave her his guarantee.
"That''s not why I''m here. Didn''t you say that you wanted to be my student?" Scarlett said in a somewhat embarrassing manner.
"Cough!"
Jewel and everyone else nearby eyes went wide as they feltpletely shocked. The Blood Master known for killing her disciples was thinking about taking in another student.
Even Yoze was shocked and felt that something was off with this whole thing. He had only mentioned taking her as a teacher in passing and never really gave it a real thought. For someone who was so protective of her homnd, there was no way she would take in some random stranger.
"Ah yes, Blood Master but I only said that bypassing. There is no way a Blood Master would take a random traveler such as myself."
"In normal cases, I wouldn''t but... I see so much talent and potential in you that I''m willing to make an exception. Sooo, how about it? I don''t mind at all if you have other teachers in the future. I-I also won''t dare try to kill you in the future I can promise that." Scarlett bobbed her head vigorously to show that she was taking her promise seriously but Yoze could only focus on her tears that were hanging for dear life.
"Can you give me some time to think about it? As of right now, I have to travel around and need to decide with my teammates."
"That''s fine, just tell me your decision before you leave Gail Vige." After saying those parting words Scarlett vanished.
"What should I do?" Yoze turned to Jewel and his father for their advice.
"If a Blood Master wants you to be their student, many people don''t usually have a choice in the matter. " Jewel said.
"Yoze, do whatever you feel is the best in your interest. I don''t want you to sacrifice your future for an old man like me." Drew looked to support his son''s future as best as he could.
After getting their opinions he thought about what would be best for him. At that moment Yoze was reaching the limit of all his techniques and body cultivation methods.
An ordinary martial artist really couldn''t reject a blood master''s request to have them as students but Yoze wasn''t an ordinary martial artist. At the end of the day, Yoze was confident that he could push the boundaries of his martial arts and reach the top with anyone.
Even if he had to give up the opportunity to get a blood master''s teachings he could always try his luck at a martial art sect. With his talent and strength, he did not believe he couldn''t get into one.
Chapter 47 47: The Missing Blood Master
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Though Yoze had made up his mind to not take Blood Master Scarlett as his teacher he didn''t tell her just yet. He was waiting for the chance to catch her tomorrow so he got another one of her talents before he left.
After setting up dinner and eating some demon flesh, Yoze and the group went to sleep so they could wake up early tomorrow. The night quickly passed by and Yoze and Jewel went into the vige to collect some information on New Swampscott City''s current situation.
Even though Jewel had some knowledge of the city she hadn''t been there for a long period and things could have changed. After collecting some information and eating lunch before going out to collect more information, a whole 24 hours soon passed.
"Blood Master, I have made my decision," Yoze said to thin air as he knew she was listening even though he couldn''t see her.
Yoze couldn''t see her but he could see a blue fire floating a distance of several dozen feet away at all times. Just like he expected the blue me instantly covered the distance between them and Scarlett NewBorn appeared out of thin air still wearing the same face.
"So what''s your decision?"
"I apologize but I cannot ept bing your student. I have a mission that I mustplete before I take on any teachers." Yoze said, trying to show his respect to Scarlett.
"That''s fine, if you ever change your mind I''ll always be open to having you as my student." Scarlett''s tearful face instantly changed to indifference as she epted his rejection.
"Of course, I must say that on your way out there is a possibility that Blood Master Steel wille and stop you. " She added as if she suddenly remembered important news.
"Can I ask why would Blood Master Steel stop us? I don''t believe that we have met or gotten into a conflict with him."
"He is a man that loves to be challenged, he calls it like breaking his limit, but I think he is just crazy. Anyways, the main reason these travelers are here is that Blood Master Steel wanted to fight me."
"But now that he has found a stronger challenger he isn''t interested in me any longer," Scarlett exined with an amused look on her face.
"Why would he think that I''m a better challenger than you, a blood master?" Yoze was a bit shocked.
He has just arrived and has already gotten the attention of two Blood Masters. One wanted to take me as her student and the other wanted to fight him.
"Well it''s simple you are stronger than me and more importantly stronger than him. Even though you haven''t officially stepped into the Blood Master Realm I do not doubt that your special physical prowess gives you a slight edge over Steel."
"It would have been so wonderful if you epted my offer then the Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect could have risen through the clouds." Scarlett sighed in regret before handing Yoze a pendant that had an image of a blue rose whose thorns were as big as its stem.
"If you ever change your mind you can eithere to find me or go to the sect location on the pendant." After showing how Yoze could contact the sect, Blood Master Scarlett left without hesitation.
Staring at the pendant in his hand, Yoze sighed and put it in his pouch. Since the business with Gail Vige and Blood Master Scarlett was finished, they left while Yoze cherished the feeling of improving his Body Cultivation talent.
He could feel the hold on his body that the Big Golem Cultivation method had on him loosen. His confidence in breaking through its limit rose further. He felt that he could see the path to breaking the Big Golem''s cultivation methods limit; he just needed to settle down somewhere for a week or two.
As they left Gail Vige, Yoze remained vignt for any attacks from Blood Master Steel. He didn''t trust Blood Master Scarlett at all but he didn''t know a reason why she would lie about it.
It wasn''t like Yoze would take the initiative to find Blood Master Steel and challenge him to a fight. So he decided to keep a lookout just in case blood master Steel truly does show up to fight him.
A week passed by as they departed from Gail Vige and haven''t seen any signs of the Blood Master. Yoze scanned the area and concluded that at this point if Blood Master Steel wanted to catch up with them he had to show up today.
After today they would be crossing the Rapids of this region and it would be unreasonable to follow anyone past this point. So Yoze, Jewel, and Leah were in a hyper-vignt state the whole journey until they crossed the rapids.
"Blood Master Scarlett must have been messing with you because you rejected her offer." Jewel sighed in relief for not having to be attacked by a blood master.
Yoze on the other hand still felt that the whole situation with Blood Master Scarlett was strange. Why did she want to take him in as her student if she felt he was stronger than her?
Why didn''t she mention she belonged to a sect? If she mentioned that, it could have possibly changed his mind.
Why would someone who had as much control over her emotions y a prank on someone she just met?
Also suddenly mentioning Blood Master Steel only after his rejection gave Yoze the feeling that she wanted to use him to get rid of Blood Master Steel.
"I don''t know if she was lying. It could be that Blood Master Steel isn''t as much of a battle junkie as she made us believe but he still might track us downter."
"Either way, we are almost to the city and will be able to find my father''s children and my siblings. If everything goes well then you will get paid handsomely and my father will live for a long time."
Chapter 48 48: Eternal Burning Lake
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The whole fiasco with Gail Vige was out of Yoze''s mind when they made it to their next rest stop.
The sky was pitch ck as night had fallen but they weren''t nning on stopping until they made it to town. Still a few miles away from the town, Yoze felt that the air had be drier and warmer.
The closer they got to the town the higher the temperature became and the drier. However, Jewel said that this was normal and meant they were getting closer to the town.
"Boom! Boom!"
Soon they heard the sound of beating drums and Jewel perked up as she said, " The Eternal Burning Lake Ceremony must be happening tonight. Let''s hurry up so that we can meet the town''s people, no one''s going to be in town because of that "
"The Eternal Burning Lake Ceremony?" Yoze asked
"It is a ceremony that happens every year where everyone in town gathers at Fire Lake and throws a massive festival," Jewel exined.
The Eternal Burning Lake was originally a ritual that the people who lived in the town created due to the stories of Fire Lake. Thatke was previously a demon graveyard before it became ake.
So the water in Fire Lake was pitch ck and highly mmable. Every year the people of the town would set theke on fire and toss in holy items in hopes of cleansing theke.
The longer theke burned the more demon spirits would also be burned away. This ritual has been done every new year to see if the following year would be a disaster for the town or a blessed year.
However, now most people treat this ritual more like a festival than a noble ritual. The townspeople bring in fireworks, y music and games, and sell cool merchandise to travelers visiting.
"In that case, let''s go have some fun before we settle down for the night."
Turning the carriage toward the source of the drums, they soon saw a red ball that quickly transformed into an enormous fire that looked more like a pir of fire. The mes were so hot that the closest people got to the burningke was several miles away where tens of thousands of people gathered for a massive festival.
"Dad, are you alright?" Yoze asked as he helped his father leave the carriage.
"I am fine, I have been feeling much better after eating that demon meat. I could probably live for another year." Drew said with a smile.
Yoze looked at the green me on top of his father''s head that had doubled in size and seemed to be filled with vigor. But the ck mist of death still surrounded the me and slowly corrupted it.
After eating the Serpent demon''s flesh and leaving just the bones and scales remaining had doubled his father''s life expectancy and his body became more healthy but it still only gave him a few more months to live. Luckily, there haven''t been a lot of dys so they should reach New Swampscott City in a few weeks.
As for Jewel and Leah both of them have also experienced quite a bit of growth with their Spiritual energies. However, Leah seemed to have been the one that had changed the most.
He had doubled in size and his fur had gained a tint of red and green and the green and Red sparkles in his eyes had be more numerous.
"That''s good, how about we all try to have fun and meet back hereter?"
"That sounds good, see ya in a few hours."
After saying goodbye, Jewel left the group behind leaving Drew, Yoze, and Leah to find something to do by themselves. Luckily, they were at a massive festival with the number of activities avable being nearly infinite.
Time quickly passed as they ate and drank the local cuisine and yed in the festival games. By the time they began to head back to the carriage, Yoze was carrying a whole sack of candies, toys, and prizes he had won.
"Is Jewel not back yet?" Drew asked, realizing that Jewel hadn''te back at their allocated time.
"Yoze, you should go look for her."
"Alright," Yoze agreed to go looking for her since they couldn''t leave without their carriage driver.
Yoze then walked in the direction that he had seen Jewel walk earlier. He would asionally stop people asking if they saw her but no one said they saw anyone that matched her description.
As Yoze went deeper into the festival and closer to the burningke, he suddenly saw something that made his heart flutter. There was a young couple holding hands as they were walking through the festival. And from the clothing Yoze recognized that this young couple was a pair of locals to the town.
That wasn''t what attracted Yoze because he saw that the man of the couple didn''t have anything floating above his head. Yoze''s pupils shrunk as a single word appeared in his mind, Demon.
The man demon seemed to sense Yoze''s gaze and turned around and smiled as he nodded his head as if he found arade. The man then mouthed a sentence that made Yoze leave without hesitation.
"Don''t harm anybody or you''ll regret it."
After parting with the demon, Yoze looked at the prize that he had just caught.
[Talent Mark locked on target and his Grade 10 talent Three-Headed Fox Spiritual Body Cultivation Talent. Grade 9 talent Three-Headed Fox Spiritual Body Cultivation Talent has been added.]
Yoze''s eyes quickly turned ck as he found himself inside the same void that he had been in when he took the Serpent Demon''s body cultivation talent. Instead of the towering and oppressive aura that the Serpent Demon created, a Giant Fox Demon with three heads and ten tails walked around with an aura that made Yoze doubt whether he was seeing a demon or imagining it.
Just like the Serpent Demon, Yoze saw that he could see orange energy flowing through a specific route in the demon''s body. Yoze found that he was having a harder time knowing if the Fox Demon was there or not even though it was staring at him with a mischievous grin as time passed by.
Chapter 49 49: Conflicting Talents
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Yoze watched as the Three-headed Fox demon quickly grew stronger and its illusory presence became stronger. Eventually, Yoze realized that the giant fox demon no longer stood in front of him.
No, there wasn''t even a demon inside the ck void. He was all alone for the first time. But he didn''t panic as he knew that the fox demon didn''t disappear but became so strong that he couldn''t even see it anymore even if it was right in front of him.
Instead, he just had to wait for his dream to end and he would have additional strong talent in his arsenal.
"I wonder what will happen to my spiritual energy that flows the path that the Serpent Spiritual Body cultivation talent created. "
As if something had heard his concern Yoze felt the ground below him tremble. As a heavy and oppressive aura filled the ck void.
"Hisss!"
A sharp and demonic hiss of a snake echoed throughout the void as Yoze saw the Giant Serpent Demon from his imagination reappear. The Serpent demon''s ck scales shimmered with green light and its w had been covered in the same spiritual energy that flowed through its body.
"Roar!"
Suddenly Yoze heard a soft but harsh roar spring up from the void as if in protest to the Serpent demon''s arrival.
"Baa!"
"A sheep?" Startled by the sudden appearance of the baa of a sheep, Yoze turned around to find that standing behind him was a regr goat.
Even though this ordinary goat looked like it would be killed by the Serpent Demon sneezing, this goat had no fear in its eyes. If anything the mad look of anger in its eyes was on par with the two demons.
"Hiss!"
"Roar!"
"Baa!"
The roars of three different types of beasts shook the ck void threatening to rip it apart and force itself into reality.
This battle of the legendary demon''s Spiritual bodies would have made any normal person copse in fear but Yoze simply watched as the battle was about to begin. He was thrilled to see that his talents could have conflicts in his body.
He did not know what the results would be but he could already feel his body changing. At that moment Yoze''s spiritual energy was split into two different paths. One of them was the Serpent Demon''s pathway which hosted a shiny green spiritual energy. The other was the path of the Three-headed fox demon and hosted spiritual energy simr to its own.
From the few intersection points of these two pathways, the two types of spiritual energy erupted into explosive conflict and rapidly expanded the battlefield to Yoze''s entire body. This Spiritual Body war in his body induced spiritual energy creation as these two forces fought.
"My goat talent is fighting back?"
Unlike the other two talents that existed more in the spiritual realm, Yoze could feel a tingling sensation in his bones, blood, and muscles from his Goat talent fighting back the only way it could.
Yoze loved watching the battle of the century ur in his body but the war quickly slowed and returned to a set of small locations that had intersections of his demonic talents causing his spiritual energy to slowly increase. The battle continued but Yoze felt that his talents weren''t even close to merging as he thought but they nheless did not be weaker either.
The only exception was that his Goat talent exited the war and settled down after figuring out it wasn''t endangered.
After regaining control of his body and mind Yoze saw that he had unknowingly walked a whole mile closer to Fire Lake. Being so much closer to fireke made him truly recognize how massive Fire Lake was.
He couldn''t see the ends of theke and the bright orange mes reminded him of the sun.
"So bright,"
Closer to the fire than before Yoze didn''t feel that it was hot at all. Instead, it was a bit chilly and he wanted to get closer to feel its warmth.
Still, Yoze turned back around and left to meet up with his father and Leah. He was hoping that Jewel had just drunk too much alcohol and lost track of time but still made it back.
"About the time you showed up, we were waiting for you for nearly an hour."
When he returned he saw that in addition to his father, Leah, and Jewel being at the carriage but also that same kid who they asked for information back at Gail Vige.
The kid''s clothes were covered in dried vomit and he had a big bag of treats in one of his hands. He did not look happy and looked at Yoze with an expression of asking for help.
"Yoze, look I found the same kid from the vige. What are the chances? We must treat him to a meal because fate had brought us together!" Jewel said, slurring her words a bit.
"A meal? I don''t think that would work."
"Why is that?" Jewel asked.
"Because he is sneaking away," Yoze said, pointing at the youngster who had started running after being called out.
"Heye back!" Jewel wanted to chase after the kid she had captured but was stopped dead in her tracks when Yoze put his hand on her shoulder.
"We can find him tomorrow if fate allows it. As of right now we need to get some sleep so we can leave bright and early."
"Fine,"
Even though Jewel was tipsy she was still an experienced carriage driver and explorer so she knew what her priorities were.
After packing up their prizes and treats the group left the Eternal Burning Lake festival and found that they weren''t the only people leaving. Plenty of other travelers and local townspeople were heading back as well.
So they were able to rent out three rooms from an inn in town to get some valuable rest. The next morning, the group packed up their things and left the town.
"Jewel?" Suddenly a question that Yoze had forgotten to ask Jewel earlier popped into his head.
"Yeah,"
"What is this town''s name? "
"Didn''t I tell you beforehand? Forget, the town that holds the Eternal Burningke is Burning Town."
"Ah, I remember why I did not remember this town''s name."
Chapter 50 50: New Swamp Town
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Yoze was watching two ants fighting each other to the death while he waited for Jewel and his father toplete their travel papers inside the city walls behind him.
He couldn''t help but smile as they were soon going to arrive at New Swampscott City. They just needed to cross the mini-city of New Swamp. It wasn''t a city but an extremely enormous town that had more than 100 thousand inhabitants.
New Swamp town directly bordered New Swampscott city so it was highly developed. It was nearly impossible to not think that New Swamp was a city and often people mixed up the two.
The town and city were so integrated that someone couldn''t enter New Swampscott City without showing evidence that they had first gone through New Swamp Town. It was a pain in the butt for frequent travelers but gave the city more control over its territory.
That town that was a mini city was where Yoze and his group were now passing through and getting their traveling paperspleted. As for why Yoze was all alone watching ants fight to the death was because he wasn''t allowed to enter without a stringent check-up.
This check-up was so strict that Jewel had never heard many of the measures that they wanted to do on him. So Yoze was forced to wait outside until the people who were assigned to check up on him arrived.
"Just a little bit longer than we will arrive at New Swampscott city. After that, I can have some time to focus on breaking through. I have already reached the limit of all my techniques."Yoze said, mumbling to himself.
It had been nearly three months since he had left Jade City and during this short period, he had grown extremely fast. So fast to the point he didn''t know how strong he was.
He knew that he could destroy his previous self with his normal body weight alone. When Yoze thought aboutbining his over 1700 pounds of weight with the absurd physical abilities he gained from his demon spiritual body talents alongside his Blood Twin Fists were at 200 percent, he felt a shiver run through his heart.
" I could fight against a top Blood Master right? "
Even though Yoze was confident in his strength he didn''t want his confidence to cloud his judgment. He had met only one Blood Master-level person and that was Blood Master Scarlett. But they never fought so he couldn''t verify the im that he was stronger than her or the mysterious Blood Master Steel.
"Who is the one that is intimidating my guards!" A harsh roar stunned the two ants that were fighting to the death. Afterward, they ran away after giving each other a nod to continue at ater date.
"Poor guy, he should have known better to threaten guards." Yoze thought to himself and looked to see the troubled dude.
A strong scent of blood and iron reached his nose when Yoze saw a middle-aged angry man covered in medals walking out of the town''s gate. His eyes immediately shifted to a group of people who had tattoos written all over their bodies.
"You three dare show your faces around here, forcing your way inside!" The middle-aged man''s face turned red as a red fog leaked out of his body.
The three tattooed people called out by the middle-aged man, faces turned pale from fear as they tried to exin themselves.
"Army Commander Josh, we have no idea what your subordinates told you. Our gang leader just wanted to inform the town that the North road to New Swampscott city is being blocked by a new gang that calls itself the Radients."
"Blocked!" Yoze''s pupils shrunk as he heard the tattooed man''s news.
"Block, who has the gall to block our ess to the city?" Hearing the news, the Army Commander''s anger evaporated before his eyes shined with realization.
"That new sect is getting too big to contain themselves huh?"
Seemingly understanding the situation, the armymander left with frustration and a visible malicious intent. With his departure, everyone let out a breath of relief as the pressureing from the Army Commander was immense.
"Is it true that a new gang is blocking the road to New Swampscott city?" Yoze walked towards the tattooed people and asked.
"Who the hell do you think you are to ask?" As if they were pissed by getting yelled at, theyshed out at Yoze.
However, he didn''t take it to heart as he wanted to get a clear answer. If the road was blocked then how was he supposed to take his father to the city and fulfill his wish to see his children?
"Please, I''ll pay you if you answer my questions." Yoze pulled out the pouch he carried his money in and took out 20 copper coins.
Seeing Yoze pull out so much money without hesitation seemed to have convinced them as one of them took the twenty coins and started talking.
"Yes, the main road to New Swampscott city is blocked by the new gang. But that doesn''t mean that it''s impossible to get to the city by taking a week or two week-long detours taking the side roads."
"A week? Do you have any idea of how long it is going to take for the city''s military to unblock it?" Yoze asked as he felt a pinch when he heard that if they took the detours it would cost at least a week of his father''s life.
Before the tattooed man could respond to his question his mouth was covered by a tattooeddy who gestured for Yoze to pay up.
"Fine, take it." Not in the mood to negotiate with these people, Yoze handed them another 20 coins.
"Let''s say it will take about a few days for the city to respond and deal with this ruthless gang but they won''t open it up for the public for a while to make sure they eradicated everyst one of the gang members who have stepped out of line."
Chapter 51 51: Dealing With Thugs
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"You gotta be messing with me!" Yoze''s anger erupted as he hated the fact that they were so close but ended up being stopped.
His father was dying and Yoze had run out of demon meat to extend his life. He had only encountered two demons and he missed the opportunity to try and kill one because that demon seemed that it was sincere in that it didn''t want to cause harm.
When calcting his father''s remaining lifespan, Yoze figured his father had a little less than six months to live. It was too short of a time to make it to New Swampscott city and look for 2 people that used to live there more than 13 years ago.
It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Trying to find 2 people out of millions was asking for a long time to be wasted trying to find them.
Not only that, they weren''t just trying to find them but also to allow his father to bond with them again.
Six months was too short.
Yoze had initially nned to quickly get to New Swampscott city to settle down and use his remaining money to hire an investigator to track his father''s children while he trained to break his limits. The stronger Yoze was, the more confident he would feel fighting an adult demon and getting that demon meat to his father to live longer.
This n already had a low chance of sess with the short time he had and every day lost lowered the chances further.
"Though I don''t hate this gang I need to deal with them." With his heart rate elerating, Yoze''s eyes glinted with orange and green light as he started to emit a demonic pressure that was hard to pin down.
"Hey, we aren''t trying to cause you trouble, big guy."
The three tattooed troublemakers all turned paler when they experienced powerful pressure from the Army Commander. They didn''t feel that they were facing a human at all but a demon with a human disguise.
Their instincts screamed for them to run but they couldn''t even take a step from how heavy the aura that Yoze emitted was. It was as if an elephant was sitting on top of them, making movement impossible.
"I''m sorry about that,"
Hearing the distressed voices, Yoze calmed down and apologized to them for identally harming them in his anger.
"I need to remain calm so that I can make the best decision." Taking a deep breath to cool his nerves, Yoze thought about the options he had.
"We can''t take a longer route." Yoze shook his head as he crossed that idea out.
"It''s going to add an extra week and there is no guarantee that we won''t be intercepted before we make it to New Swampscott city."
"Waiting for the military is also a no-go, it''s going to take too long and how long it takes for the gang to bepletely eradicated is unknown."
"We can try to sneak around them... That is putting too much danger on dad."
"Regardless of if this is the best choice or if I can''t think straight from anger, I''m going to destroy that gang by myself." Yoze licked his teeth as a glint went through his eyes.
"What is the point of me training so hard if I never use it?"
It had to be said that Yoze seldomly fought and the number of battles he had been in could be counted on two hands. Some of his opponents were incredibly strong such as the mutated zombies of Emerald town. The battle with the Mother Zombie could have been said to be the closest Yoze had been to death.
It wasn''t like he was purposely avoiding fights but Yoze enjoyed the feeling of improving through training and collecting talents more than fighting.
However, it wasn''t like he would avoid fights that harmed his family members. Even when he hadn''t be a martial artist he had fought thugs because they harmed his father.
This was another situation that Yoze would directly create a fight because of his father and he was willing to do it a hundred times over.
After making up his mind, Yoze left the gate checkpoint and ran to the other side of New Swamp town, and dashed down the main road.
A few hours passed by as the sun above New Swamp town began to set. Traveling towards the town was a shirtless man holding a book in his hand. The man''s casual walk caused cracks to form on the road and blood to drip from his blood-soaked clothes tied to his waist.
That man walking towards New Swamp was Yoze who was feeling incredibly pleased with his current battle prowess. Not only did he deal with the issue but he even got himself a blood-master martial art set.
Thinking about what happened just a few hours ago, Yoze remembers some key details that he missed when he first found there were more than a hundred thugs that had set up camp on the main road.
Each one of them was dressed in simple and nondescript clothes that matched the description of a gang to a tea. While the thugs were dressed simply they all had robust powerful bodies and emitted some pressure caused by the creation of inner vigor.
Behind them, there were even several of their members who created pressures so strong that Yoze was sure that they had reached the peak of first-rate martial artists. However, these men weren''t even the strongest as hidden within the hundred thugs were several Blood Masters.
"Those men weren''t thugs at all," Yoze concluded after he started to think things more clearly.
He also found it odd that an ordinary gang could have aplete Blood Master Martial Arts Set. It was already difficult for ordinary gangs to acquire martial arts books and even more difficult to train their members to the extent that they all had developed Inner Vigor.
To think that this new gang had a few blood masters in their midst, was almost on the level of a fairy tale. For this to be possible they could only have been supported by arge organization.
"Which organizations would want to cause trouble for New Swampscott City?"
Chapter 52 52: Cold Joe
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It was confusing to Yoze as he couldn''t see the benefits of blocking this road for a few days before the strong and massive army came to take care of them.
"Sect,"
Yoze stopped walking when sudden memory resurfaced in his mind and his eyes began to twitch.
"That Army Commander said something about a sect when he talked about the gang. Did he mean that the gang was a martial art sect that was taking advantage of the city?"
Yoze stopped walking as he tried to remember every detail that happened a few hours ago when he faced the Radiant gang. As he was running at his fastest speed down the main road, Yoze eventually came across arge encampment on the sides of the road.
There were well-fed and groomed horses grazing without much concern and several Radiant Gang members on the lookout. However, Yoze noticed that twice as many guards were watching the other side of the road facing New Swampscott Citypared to the one facing New Swamp town.
"Turn around kid, the Radiant Gang has imed thisnd as our territory. If you don''t want to be killed then head back to town." An elderly man seemed to have suddenly be aware of Yoze''s appearance and told him to leave.
"I''m sorry but I was wondering if you could let me through, there is an emergency that I need to take care of at New Swampscott city." Finding that the elderly man had good intentions when he threatened him, Yoze felt his anger decrease a little as he felt he might be able to solve this problem without fighting.
"Let you though? We aren''t going to let information about what is happening reach the city. So no, that is my final warning before we will just kill you." The elderly radiant gang member said drawing his sword.
"Can I speak with your Gang leader? I want to see if there is a way I could pay to get let through." Yoze asked again.
Yoze''s desire to fight against these gang members drastically decreased after seeing that there were a few elderly in their pack. He couldn''t help but feel his heart soften when he was reminded of his father.
Even though these elderly men appeared to be hiding their trained bodies in martial arts, Yoze still thought of them as simr to his dying father unconsciously. Of course, it was also due to them not even being close to strong enough to make Yoze feel threatened that his sympathy flourished.
For a second it seemed to Yoze that the elderly man was going to swing his sword but he sighed with relief when he saw him sheathed his sword.
"Come, I''ll take you to our leader but be warned you better make a great offer or you will die without a corpse." The elderly Radiant Gang member said as he signaled to the others watching to let Yoze in.
"Thank you, can I ask you for your name senior?"
"The names Cold Joe," The elderly man told Yoze as he remembered the feeling he just had.
Just moments ago, Cold Joe was about to cut Yoze down but just as he had the intention to do it he felt his heart tighten as he felt that if he did he would awaken a dangerous beast. Out of fear, Cold Joe allowed Yoze into their encampment to send him to their leader to deal with.
"Cold Joe, you don''t seem so cold to me?" Trying to make some conversation with Cold Joe while observing the inside of the Radiant Gangs camp, Yoze secretly was amazed to see that everyst one of these gang members had trained to the point that they developed Inner Vigor.
Some of the gang members'' Inner Vigor created a sharp aura around them, others felt that they were as light as feathers and others seemed to be as cold as ice.
Cold Joe''s aura was simr to the first group and had a sort of sharpness to him. So, he asked why he was given the nickname of being cold when he didn''t cultivate body cultivation that generated cold inner vigor.
"I have killed plenty of people in my youth. People consider me to be cold-hearted." Cold Joe replied feeling nervous as he was having trouble sensing Yoze who was behind him.
His steps werepletely silent and for some reason, if Cold Joe did not turn around to check on Yoze every few steps Yoze''s presence would quickly fade away. After his presencepletely vanished Cold Joe couldn''t tell if Yoze was right against his back or still several steps behind.
The onlyfort that Cold Joe had was that he was surrounded by his teammates in case something went down.
"Sharp Gary, some rich man wants to discuss with the Boss a way to let him through."
Since the encampment wasn''t veryrge they were able to arrive at the biggest tent within a few minutes. Before they arrived, Cold Joe called out to the man standing outside the big tent.
Even before Cold Joe called out to Sharp Gary, he had ced his focus on Yoze and was confused about why the always reliable Cold-hearted killer Joe let in a schr.
However, Sharp Gary lived up to his name and immediately went inside the tent. By the time he came out, he was followed by a young man wearing a luxurious robe with red string imprinted in the fabric.
The young man looked to be in his teens but the sharp glint in his eyes revealed the intelligence and wisdom inside that teen''s body.
"You''re the schr that wants to discuss business with me," The young man smirked as he looked at Yoze''s strong body with disdain.
"I wonder where a schr gets his confidence from that he thinks he can do business with a gang. Much less the strongest gang in the Grave Region."
"Your gang is certainly the strongest gang I have ever met but like any organization in the world things can be settled if you have enough money," Yoze responded to the young man''s disdain, feeling less bad about destroying the Radiant Gang knowing that their leader was so young.
Chapter 53 53: Hidden Blood Masters
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"That might be true for thend protected by thew but in these parts having strength is what dictates everything." The young teen chuckled.
"You know, for a schr, you sure are courageous, don''t you think so?"
"Most schrs love the peaceful life that being an official provides. They rarely leave their positions unless they are required to do so."
"I guess you are somewhat right, the life of an official is afortable lifestyle. That''s the reason so many people want to be schrs." Yoze replied.
"So what is an emergency so important that one had to rush into active enemy territory even when knowing death was a high possibility?"
"Family." Yoze interrupted the young teen''s dialog as he felt that this was going nowhere.
"What do you want to let me pass?" Yoze asked directly to make his take clear.
"We''ll get to that once you tell me who you work for?"
"I''m a schr from the Jade Region and I have been trying to make my way to New Swampscott city because of a family emergency."
"From the Jade Region? That''s quite a far way to travel for a family emergency." The Radiant Gang leader looked at Yoze with surprise.
"Yeah, but there is nothing I can do about it, and I had to travel the distance as it is a time sensitive matter so that is why I am asking if it''s possible to be given an exception."
After getting Yoze''s answer Radiant Gang''s leader closed his eyes as if he was in deep thought before he slowly said, "There are no exceptions."
"Are you sure? What is your asking price?" Yoze asked again as he wanted to solve this without fighting.
"Nothing that you could afford, kill him!" The young teen''s face was calm as he waved his hand to signal Yoze''s death.
The instant the young teen gave out the signal dozens of Radiant Gang members encircled Yozed while the young teen walked back into his tent at a rxed pace. Each one of these gang members unleashed a strong pressure that could onlye about when one reached the peak of the first-rate martial artist realm.
Surrounded by gang members with fierce eyes and the intention to tear him to pieces Yoze sighed with pity.
"I hoped that it wouldn''te to this, but let''s make this quick," Yoze mumbled to himself as numerous attacks from thugs who have trained in martial arts flew towards him.
Without thinking about it at all, Yoze''s leg easily evaded all the attacks and led to a situation where it seemed that they were in a choreographed battle. The Radiant Gang members attacked and Yoze dodged to the side by just a sliver to draw suspense from the radiant gang members watching on the side.
The Radiant Gang members had initially thought that attacking a schr with the elites of their gang was already overkill but for this schr to easily dodge their collective attacks sent a shiver down their spines.
However, their nightmare was just beginning as Yoze had already decided to eliminate this encampment. So he didn''t hesitate to throw dozens of lethal punches aimed at the heads of each gang member attacking him.
"Crunch!"
To the surprise of each thug, Yoze''s punches seemed to be unavoidable andnded clean on each one of their heads, crushing their skulls and leading to instant death. The death of dozens of Radiant Gang''s elites caused silence to engulf the camp as each one of the people attacking Yoze was a peak first-rate martial artist and died in an instant.
With his hand soaked in blood, bones, and brain matter, Yoze looked at the dozens of first-rate martial artist corpses in front of him and was surprised by how strong he had gotten. He didn''t even use his Twin Fists techniques and he had taken out twenty percent of Radiant Gang and it was even their elite members.
Yoze didn''t bother to talk to the stunned thugs and simply walked toward the main tent where the young teen was in. nning on capturing the gang''s young leader and handing him over to New Swamp town.
Yoze even had a slight hope that by destroying the Radiant Gang and capturing their leader he would be allowed to enter the town without those strict examinations. That would have been a good bonus if it happened but if not then there was nothing he could do.
Before Yoze made it to the tent that held the young teen a thick blood odor covered the whole encampment as several middle-aged men stepped out of the crowd of scared Radiant gang members. Each one of these men released immense pressure showing that they all were Blood Masters.
Yoze squinted his eyes as he saw that in addition to the strong pressure that radiated from their bodies red vapor slowly leaked out of their bodies.
"Kid, I don''t know who you work for but today you will die without a corpse."One of the Blood Masters stepped forward and drew his sword.
As soon as the blood master''s de left its sheath the pressure surrounding the man doubled as blood poured out of his body covering the man''s entire body and sword. The blood quickly transformed into armor that radiated pure sharpness and felt that it would cut anything and everything it touches.
The remaining Blood Masters went all out and were quickly surrounded by their unique blood armor and each gave out an aura that either was sharp, cold, or weightless. The auraing out of more than five Blood Masters at the same time created a red fog that forced the rest of the Radiant Gang members to retreat or else they would be crushed by the immense pressure in the Blood fog.
The Blood fog could force first-rate martial artists to withdraw but the only thing it could do to Yoze was soak his clothes with blood. Being surrounded by multiple Blood Masters made Yoze''s eyes glint with orange and green light.
In that same instance, each one of the Blood Masters took a step back from the heavy, oppressive, and illusory pressureing from Yoze''s body. However, that didn''t deter them as they allunched their strongest attacks at the same time.
The sight of Radiant Gang members watching from a distance, they witnessed the scene of all five Blood Masters disappearing before reappearing in different locations. Each one of the Blood Masters'' blood armor had dents and cracks as if they had been hit by a powerful mace.
In that short instance that the Blood Masters attacked, Yoze unleashed his fastest speed and fought a battle with these Blood masters before reappearing at a standstill. Yoze touched the sword cuts on his body and found that some of the cuts reached his bones, others had caused his blood and flesh to freeze, and there were numerous smaller cuts over his body.
"Blood Masters are indeed powerful," Yoze felt his blood beginning to boil and smiled.
Chapter 54 54: The Destruction Of The Blood Armor Sect
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Yoze finally felt like he could start using his improved power. Though one of these Blood Masters wasn''t his match, several working together could put up a fight.
"Blood Bear!"
As his Blood boiled, Yoze instantly reached one of the Blood Masters whose Blood armor left tracks of frozen blood. The Blood Master''s pupils contracted as he put his sword in front of him to defend himself.
At the same time, the other Blood Masters attacked Yoze from behind hoping to force him to retreat. Unfortunately, for them, Yoze wasmitted to testing out his new and improved Blood Bear Fist.
"Boom!"
Before the sonic boom arrived at the ears of the Radiant Gang members, Yoze''s Blood Bear Fist mmed into the defending Blood Master. The absolute weight, strength, and 200% potential behind this one Fist alone shattered the Blood Master''s reinforced sword and crushed his Blood Armor, and sent him flying. Before the Blood Master touched the ground his Blood Armor disintegrated as he died.
At the same time, the other Blood Masters'' attacks were about to tear into Yoze''s back but he suddenly disappeared and reappeared below a Blood Master whose Armor focused on sharpness.
"Blood Bull!"
"Boom! Pop!"
The moment the Blood Bull touched the Blood Master''s chin, the Armor was crushed and the Blood Master''s head exploded along with his Blood Armor covering Yoze head to toe in his blood.
"Swish"
Though Yoze was fast one of the Blood Master''s des cut into his shoulder cutting into it deep. Just as the Blood Master was about to retreat and withdraw his sword he found it stuck. It was like there were hundreds of pounds holding the sword in ce and causing the Blood Master to give up his sword to survive Yoze''s counterattack.
Yoze waved his hand at the retreating Blood Master and suddenly sensed that his Serpent Spiritual Energy was flowing out of his body and surrounding his hands forming sharp ws. This sudden change didn''t distract Yoze as he followed the retreating Blood Master with his Sword still on his shoulder.
Even though the retreating Blood Master was fast and even used his best movement technique to escape but Yoze''s raw speed alone outmatched him in every field so Yoze quickly caught up and wed at the man.
"Swish!"
Surprising both Yoze and the Blood Master, Yoze''s Spiritual ws cut through the Blood Master''s Blood Armor as if it were paper and instantly gutted him. Ripping the Blood Master to shreds in such a brutal manner seemed to have triggered something as Yoze saw the Blood Master''s Spiritual Energy attracted to his ws and absorbed into his body.
Yoze could feel both his Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation Talent and Three-Headed Fox Spiritual Body Cultivation Talent ripping apart this Blood Master''s Spiritual energy and absorbing it into their pathways.
Before the two talents couldplete their meal, Yoze tossed them another healthy portion of Blood Master-level Spiritual Energy as he ripped another Blood Master apart with his bare hands.
The remaining two Blood Masters shivered as they didn''t feel they were fighting against another martial artist but a demon! How could he so easily rip apart their Blood Armor as if it wasn''t even there?
Knowing that they stood no chance against this monster, one of the Blood Masters rushed to their leader''s tent and grabbed the youth, and ran without exining.
The remaining Blood Master swallowed his fears as he attempted to buy his Master time to escape but his fear of Yoze lowered his battle prowess leading to him being ripped apart even faster.
In less than a minute more than five Blood Masters were killed and even more ridiculously by someone who hasn''t reached the Blood Master Realm yet.
Seeing that the only remaining Blood Master was running away with his tail between his legs, Yoze stopped his massacre as he knew that he had done enough. Taking a moment to collect himself, Yoze got rid of the sword in his shoulder and fully experienced the effects of his Spiritual talents absorbing three Blood Masters worth of Spiritual energies.
Yoze felt that his strength, flexibility, endurance, vitality, and everything else were growing stronger. It would have been a pleasurable experience if not for his unintentional absorption of Spiritual energy had restarted the war between the Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation Talent and the Three-Headed Fox Body Cultivation Talent.
Luckily as quickly as the war started each one retreated after grabbing as much Spiritual Energy as they could.
"This is going to be a problem if the conflict in my body is activated during a fight against an equally strong opponent." Yoze frowned as he thought about how he had to slow down because of it. If not he could have killed that Blood Master before he reached the tent.
"I need to figure out how to solve this conflict soon but as for right now the benefits have outweighed the losses." Yoze grinned as he looked at the deserted Radiant Gang campsite.
As soon as it was clear to the gang members that the Blood Masters were losing, they all ran in different directions trying to escape the danger. Soaked in blood and with the demonic orange and green sparkles in his eyes, Yoze seemed to have been a reincarnation of a demon in their eyes.
With the camp deserted, Yoze was free to loot anything he found particrly valuable. The most valuable of which was the Blood Master Martial Arts Set called Blood Swordsman.
"But I did miss that inside the Radiant Gang leader''s tent was a good amount of fancy items that a rich person with status could own."
"But a framed picture of an old man with a refined smile in front of a wall with the name Blood Armor Sect isn''t what I would think that anyone would just carry with them for sentimental value." Yoze couldn''t help but p himself at how obvious that clue was.
"So did I just destroy a Martial Art Sect?"
Chapter 55 55: Returning Soaked In Blood
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Yoze shook his head to get rid of his unnecessary thoughts. He didn''t even get rid of the Blood Armor Sect''s leader so how was it going to copse due to losing a few Blood Masters?
Even though it was six against one, Yoze had gotten a good sense of how strong a Blood Master was and he was pleased by the fact that his physical prowess had grown by 100x. Each one of those Blood Masters could have easily killed him from three months ago ten times over with just their pressure alone.
To be able to fight against all six Blood Masters ande out on top was mostly due to the spiritual talents he acquired these past months and absorbing so much of the Serpent demon''s life spiritual energy.
"The ws that I can create with my spiritual energy are fantastic weapons." Yoze looked at his hands and with a thought, he controlled green spiritual energy to form razor-sharp ws invisible to the naked eye.
"Why can''t I do the same with the Three-headed Fox spiritual energy?" Yoze pondered as he tried to make the same sharp ws but found that it was much harder to aplish and these ws weren''t as sharp.
They even faded in and out of visibility in his Spiritual Senses so it was nearly impossible to tell that these ws existed.
"These could be good sneak attack weapons against demons or other creatures that can sense spiritual energy."
Yoze stopped ying around with his spiritual ws and continued to walk back to New Swamp in a slow manner. The battle inside the Blood Armor Sect encampment didn''tst long but he had gotten very clear injuries during the battle.
Luckily, Yoze''s healing speed seemed to have also been sped up so that even the deep sword wounds on his body were visibly healing. As to not worry his father, he has been deliberately walking slowly and testing out basic techniques in the Blood Swordsman martial art set.
Now that his wounds have mostly all healed he just walked to the entrance leading to New Swamp town. Since New Swamp was sorge it took some time for Yoze who was walking around the town to reach the other side.
By the time Yoze reached the gate to New Swamp was as loud and busy as ever as the line into the town extended quite far. His eyes immediately shifted to a certain carriage and wagon as he saw Jewel, his father, and Leah all outside standing in the cold.
"Yoze, where have you been? We have been looking for you all day." Drew felt his stress melt away when he saw his son walking toward them.
"I was going for a walk around the town to check out the road we will be taking to New Swampscott city."
Due to the sun having set and relying on the torches to light up the area, Drew hadn''t noticed that Yoze''s clothes were stained red.
"Have you eaten dinner yet?" Drew asked as he headed to their campfire to cook.
"Dad, it''s a bitte to start cooking. I''ll just eat some jerky and head to bed. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow morning." Not wanting to be exposed and having to exin his risk to destroy a gang, Yoze decided to skip eating dinner and tried to suggest to everyone that they should go to sleep.
"In that case, I''ll turn in early." Drew knew when his son wanted to hide something from him and decided that it would be better to just sleep because his son did not want to worry him.
"Good night,"
The next day, Yoze and the group were woken up by the sound of shocked voices as news spread like wildfire. There were rumors that a demon had shown up in the area and called the town for quick action. Others called for an investigation to be carried out by the town government. And there were even calls that local gangs had gotten too ballsy and were dealt with by the city.
All these rumors and calls for action came about when a story broke out that there was a deserted encampment on the main road leading to New Swampscott. And inside this encampment were the corpses of dozens of men dressed as gang members and from the details of the bodies it was found out that all died at a simr time yesterday.
The people that weren''t in the know of why this encampment appeared on the main road all figured that it could only have been done by the hands of a demon. Even some of the corpses of the gang members were torn to shreds by weapons that looked like ws.
The people who were aware of the roadblock created by the rising Radiant gang all praised the New Swamp town for getting rid of the nuance so quickly and decisively.
The calls for an investigation of the town came from people who felt that this issue was dealt with too quickly and that this was organized by corrupt government officials. Once they couldn''t stop New Swampscott City from getting involved they scrapped the n.
There was even a subset of people who realized that those gang members came from the Blood Armor Sect. It was said that this martial art sect was rising through the ranks and was bing ambitious.
To see that within a single day of causing trouble all their elites and Blood Masters were dead made it so that many thought that New Swampscott City was using this incident to remind the other martial art sects that there was a reason why the Charred Martial Art Sect didn''t dare cause trouble.
As for the Blood Armor Sect''s future, it was over for them. They had lost over 80 percent of their strength in a single night and would never be able to recover. The Blood Armor Sect leader could only count his blessings that the City wasn''t ruthless enough to kill him and his family after their major loss.
This shocking news had blown out of proportion and reached the ears of New Swamps officials and they had to n their response to these ims. As for the culprit of the whole debacle, he was standing beside a woman who looked at him with suspicious eyes.
Chapter 56 56: The Leaning Library Of New Swampscott City
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"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Just trying to see through your disguise, don''t mind me."
Shaking his head in disapproval at Jewel''s joke, Yoze turned to Leah and saw that he was also looking at him with suspicion. Yoze couldn''t help but feel a bit offended that they ced so much suspicion on him without a second thought.
Don''t they know that all rumors have a grain of truth to them? It was way more likely that it was New Swampscott City dealing with these thugs than him a schr and martial art enthusiast to risk his life.
"Even though I did do it I will never tell them the truth even if they ask, " Yoze jokingly thought to himself before reminding Jewel that they needed to get in line to enter the city to resupply before leaving for a few day''s journeys to New Swampscott.
Unfortunately, their journey was dyed because Yoze forgot that he had left before he had gotten his checkup meaning he couldn''t enter the city. They waited for a few more hours before several soldiers came out to examine his body.
After getting searched he was allowed in and they were able to continue on their journey. As they traveled the main road Jewel saw the rumored encampment surrounded by soldiers and staved off travelers from entering the campsite.
They even captured a few of the surviving Radiant Gang members and were interrogating them. However, whenever they were walking past the Radiant Gang members they all lowered their heads to avoid looking at them.
Even though the soldiers noticed these actions they couldn''t point out what was making them do so as there were arge number of travelers passing through at the same time due to being held up by the road blockage. The soldiers also couldn''t understand why each of these gang members described the battle differently as if they were witnessing different battles.
Some described that the perpetrator was a tall gentleman and had a refined aura and each step he took reaped tens of lives. Others described the perpetrator as a brutal demon in human skin that tore apart his victims with bare hands.
However, they all shared simr physical traits of the perpetrator''s appearance when he first arrived so they were able to have an impression of what he looked like. He was a tall gentleman who had short hair, was muscr, and wore the clothes of a schr.
Unfortunately, for the town, the perpetrator had long left by the time they decided to find him and he was on his way to the city.
Jewel sneaked a nce at Yoze who was walking beside the carriage and reading a book that she had never seen him read before. Even though Yoze didn''t say anything, Jewel felt that the attack had something to do with him feeling that this couldn''t be a coincidence.
Just as their journey was about to get dyed a miracle happened and the gang blocking the road was gone in a single night. She couldn''t help but thank her wit for not interfering with the demon that took over Yoze''s body.
Two dayster they entered an area that had a lot of swamps and the general aura was a bit chilling and ominous. But even though this was a scary region they knew that New Swampscott City was just a few miles away and felt their shoulders rx as this three-month-long journey was finally about toe to an end.
Soon they were able to see New Swampscott City''s most well-known tourist attraction. It was an extremely tall building that was leaning toward its side. The building was so tall that it was visible before anyone could see the city''s massive defensive walls to keep out armies.
"The Leaning Library, it is said that the city spends a butt load of silver every single day to keep it from falling over and crushing tens of thousands of people," Jewel exined the massive building to Yoze.
"Quite simr to the Leaning tower of Pisa on earth just on steroids." Yoze couldn''t help but make a connection between these two leaning structures in his head.
"Now if you want to look for someone living in the city you have to hire an investigator that is approved by the city. That is the only way the City will allow their records to be searched and these investigators tend to be quite expensive. Are you sure you have enough money to do it?"
Yoze opened his porch and saw that after this trip he only had the equivalent of three hundred silver or three years of a regr person''s yearly sry and wondered if this was enough.
"Well, I hope so if not I''ll just take my services as a schr to New Swampscott''s city hall and work as an advisor," Yoze said casually.
There was a reason why being a schr was a popr profession. Not only was it afy job that offered a ton of money but any major town or city was willing to hire any schr that showed up their way. Meaning that if Yoze was truly strapped for cash he could simply be an advisor again.
The only unfortunate thing was that it was going to be difficult for Yoze to find such an easy job like being the Martial Court Advisor that offered him money and plenty of free time since they didn''t care for his advice.
In any case, Yoze was prepared to spend as much as he needed to find his father''s children.
Once they reached New Swampscott City''s gates and entered the long line into the city, Drew stepped out of the carriage and felt amazed. Even though he had been to anotherrge city he couldn''t help but feel stunned by how enormous cities were every time.
It took about an entire afternoon before they reached the gate and saw the guards letting people through. When they saw Yoze''s strong body they patted him to make sure he wasn''t affiliated with any of the gangs that the city ssified as evil organizations before letting them in.
Chapter 57 57: Ten Ton Inn
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New Swampscott City''s style of architecture was vastly differentpared to Jade City. The buildings were thicker and had a wider base to prevent them from sinking from the soft ground that the city was built on.
Yoze looked around and felt like he had traveled to another country on earth. Everything down from the buildings to the people seemed to have a more sturdy feeling to them. As if they were the children of the earth, it seemed that even the environment had influenced the people''s spirits. As Yoze noticed that it was quitemon to find brown dots mixed in with their spiritual energy
"I wonder if Jade City had something simr to these brown dots." Yoze thought that Spiritual energy and Spirituality are mysterious powers and he should study them more.
"Yoze, what''s in your n are we going to find an inn to stay at first or going to look for an investigator before?"
"Neither, my father has an address that we are going to look at first to see if we are lucky and they are still living in the same ce." Yoze turned to face his father who had pulled out an old letter and read it out to Jewel and Yoze the address.
"North Winger Street is on the other side of the city, it will take at least a five-hour walk from here to there and three hours by carriage. I rmend we find an inn first before we get there and have to find a ce there." Listening to the address, Jewel spoke up as she recognized that the n wouldn''t work in their favor.
"What''s so bad about North Winger Street?" Yoze was curious about Jewel''s attitude towards the ce.
"The ce ain''t bad and the rents are low but the people living there make it terrible. They all seem to be pricks and have attitudes that they are looking at fools. " Jewel gritted her teeth as she made a punching motion to simte her desires.
" Not all the people that lived there were bad people but the ones that made everything terrible." Remembering that Drew''s children had previously lived on that side area, Jewel added some saving grace for the street.
"In that case, it is even less likely that they stayed on that street for so long. As the turnover rate for people living in that part of town is quite high."
"In that case, are you fine with us finding a ce to stay the night before we head over to that address?"
"Of course, I don''t expect them to be living in the same ce after all these years. Those two always liked to travel around."
"Okay, Jewel do you have a good rmendation of where to stay? And preferably they have sturdy floors." Yoze turned to face Jewel who had at some point taken out a notebook.
"Let me take a look, there is an inn 20 minutes away from here that should be able to handle your weight." Jewel scrolled through her notebook that had all her notes about the ces she had been to and eventually found an inn called Bear Inn.
After confirming that Bear Inn was still around, they went over to find that it was quite busy as a bunch of tall and strong martial artists went in and out of the establishment.
When they finally made it to the counter to register for a room, they met a young man behind it.
"Excuse me, do you know the weight limit of your floors?" Yoze called out to the young man seeing that he hadn''t noticed them.
"What? Uhh, the weight limit of the floor? They should be able to handle anything under a ton." The young man said.
"Let''s go find another ce, " Yoze couldn''t help but feel that his weight could be a problem.
"Okay, let''s go check out Martial Pce." Seeing that even a weight limit of under 1000 pounds wasn''t enough made Jewel a bit concerned that they might not find a ce.
After trying five more ces and taking more than two hours, they eventually found a ce that not only satisfied Yoze''s weight requirements but exceeded them by 10 times.
It was an Inn called Ten Ton Inn and was an inn for animal handlers who had elephants or any heavy animal could rest without having to sleep outside.
"This ce is perfect, " Knowing that they couldn''t find a better ce, Yoze paid for three rooms that were the furthest away from the animals.
Since there was no way for them to travel to North Winger Street before nightfall, they all put their stuff in their rooms before they went to eat dinner at a nearby restaurant.
The next day, Yoze and Jewel went by themselves to find the address that had his father''s children. By the time they arrived at North Winger Street, they found the apartment building that the address led to.
However,Yoze and Jewel left soon after because they found out that it was indeed the case that the previous tenants had moved out a few years prior. As they left, Yoze turned to Jewel if she had any contact with a good investigator.
"Nope, I never had to look for someone before so I don''t know any investigators. But it shouldn''t be hard to find someone since the government has a list of investigators they support. We can just ask a guard and they should be able to point out someone." Jewel rified.
The guard that they asked was a middle-aged man wearing a suit of armor that had the city''s guard emblem on its chest.
"Excuse me, Sir, do you know of any good investigators to find people?" Yoze asked the guard.
"Hhmm, how much do you want to pay for the investigation?" The middle-aged guard scratched his stubbled chin as he asked how much Yoze was to spend.
"I can afford to spend a hundred silver for this investigation," Yoze said in a calm voice.
Chapter 58 58: Detective Dave
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"A 100 silver!" The middle-aged guard''s eyes went wide with shock.
He couldn''t believe that this man in front of him was willing to spend a person''s yearly sry on an investigator to find someone.
"If you are nning to spend that much you are best to get an expert in finding people, here this investigator is known for his ability to find people. He is expensive but he says that if he can''t find the person he will return the money." The middle-aged guard took out a slip of paper and wrote down the investigator''s address and information on it before handing it to Yoze.
"Thanks for the help," Yoze
"No problem, always happy to help around." The middle-aged guard said as he looked at Yoze with expectation.
"Here is a tip for being so helpful." Seeing that Yoze wasn''t getting the guard''s hint Jewel grabbed her money pouch and handed the guard a silver coin.
The middle-aged guard nodded his head, grabbed the silver coin, and left without another word.
"That will be 1 silver coin aspensation." Jewel turned around and waved her hand at Yoze demandingpensation.
Knowing that it was his fault for being slow in getting used to the culture of this region, Yoze gave Jewel a silver coin to pay her back.
After that ordeal, they both looked at the information that the guard provided. On the slip of paper were the investigator''s name, address, and a brief description of what he looked like was jotted down.
"Detective Dave, and from the address it shouldn''t take us long to get there," Jewel said reading the information.
"Then let''s check it out. If he is as qualified as that guard says he is, then there shouldn''t be a problem for us to hire him today."
Not wasting more time the two of them went over to the investigator''s address and found themselves standing in front of a small nameless building.
"Knock knock"
Knocking on the door, Yoze and Jewel waited until they heard the door unlock and slowly open to reveal the investigator mysteriously sitting at his desk. However, the mysterious atmosphere was ruined when Yoze and Jewel heard a child''s voice below them.
"Hello, are you here for detective Dave''s services?" The child looked to be around 12 years old and had a bored look on his face.
Yoze was instantly drawn to the child''s head as he saw that his collection of Spiritual energy had formed into a yellow dog with brown spots.
"Yes, we are here to ask the detective if he can find a missing person." Jewel''s eyes sparkled as she saw the child as she said why they came here.
"Okay,e in and getfy, Detective Dave is at his front desk." The young child nodded his head as he went to be at the detective''s side.
Taking a seat in front of Detective Dave, they noticed that he looked younger than they imagined, looking like he was about the same age as Yoze.
"Nice to meet you, Detective Dave, my name is Yoze and her name is Jewel and I want to hire you for your services to find two individuals."
"Thank you for choosing me, but before we begin I need to put up some information. The people that will be doing the main bulk of the investigation will be my two students while I help them along. If you can''t ept that then we will not be able to work together." Detective Dave looked into Yoze''s and Jewel''s eyes as he added his caveat.
"That''s fine, as long as these two people are found I don''t care who is doing the investigation. But I will prefer that this investigation goes as fast as possible since I''m in a time crunch." Yoze said without hesitation.
"If we can''t find that person within a month then the investigation will be considered a failure and your money will be returned."
"As for my rate, it''s at least 20 silver for us to take the case, and if you want us to put out entire focus on your case that will bring it up to 80 silver." Detective Dave said calmly, half expecting some shock to be on Yoze''s face.
However, he was disappointed by theck of reactioning from Yoze and Jewel.
"Here is 100 silver, 80 for the investigation and 20 for the information that you found if you can''t find them."
Yoze took out a pouch he had stuffed with 100 silver beforehand and gave it to the detective. Even though he had to give up a third of his savings to pay for this investigation Yoze didn''t flinch as he was long prepared to spend big.
As for Jewel, she had already known that Yoze was nning on spending 100 silver for the best investigator so she didn''t flinch at the shockingly high prices.
"If you can give me the information of the two people you want me to find then we can start looking for them today." This time it was Detective Dave who was shocked into silence before taking the money and asking for the information.
"Are we able toe back in an hour to tell you the information?" Yoze asked as he didn''t know what his father''s children looked like or much about them.
"That''s fine, we will be here until sunset if you have any information you want us to know."
Yoze and Jewel soon left after that and went back to Ten Ton Inn to inform Yoze''s father and take him with them to Detective Dave. The process of telling the detective the information was quick and they had given the detective all the information they could and left to go celebrate.
By the time they returned to the Inn, it was getting dark but Yoze took out both the Iron Skin body cultivation manual and the Blood Swordsman martial art set.
"It''s finally time to begin another training session and practice these two."
Chapter 59 59: Armored Swordsman
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After not having a dedicated training session for three months, Yoze missed the time he could put everything to the side and focus on bing a stronger martial artist. Now that they had arrived at New Swampscott City and hired an investigator, all Yoze had to do was focus on improving as much as possible to prepare to start hunting demons.
After looking at both of the books in front of him, Yoze took a deep breath as he knew he had a lot ahead of him. To start with the manual that he had been carrying around for a long time, the Iron Skin body Cultivation manual.
This method of body cultivation had only three levels corresponding to the three ranks of martial artists. The first level required Yoze to create a special paste and apply it to his skin for 4 hours a day to absorb it. After a month or two he would have made it to the first level and have reached the peak for third-rate martial artists.
The second level requires yet another special paste that Yoze had to wear for 6 hours a day and after three months he would have started producing the Iron Skin Inner Vigor. Three months after that Yoze will have made it to the peak of the second level and be a peak second-rate martial artist.
The third level changed the method of cultivation and required Yoze to be inside boiling water for as long as he could. The longer he was able to withstand the heat the more inner vigor his body would be able to produce. At its peak, Yoze''s skin would be able to turn as hard as iron at will and be able to take the attacks of most first-rate martial artists.
"This is as incredible as I thought it was but it says nothing about my insides. My skin might handle the damage but my insides will be hurting."
After years of training in martial arts and having a high talent forprehending martial arts he was able to see the weakness of such a great body cultivation method. And he understood why there existed the Iron Muscle body cultivation manual on the second floor of the Martial Court Yard''s library.
"Iron Skin is most likely part of a sect of body cultivation manuals. How deep does that set of body cultivation manuals go? Does it go as deep as someone''s organs?" Yoze wondered if he would ever have the chance to go back to the Court Yard''s higher floor to see if they had more versions of the Iron Skin body cultivation method.
"Training in Iron is simple but time-consuming but I can still train my other stuff while training it."
Yoze turned his attention to the martial art set he had recently acquired and looked at it with admiration.
"This martial art set is incredible. It can handle and mix different types of Inner Vigor!"
The Blood Swordsman martial art set forced anyone who wanted to train in this art to reach the Blood Master Realm to start at the very beginning. Yoze had to first reach the peak of the Armored Swordsman body cultivation manual along with its techniques.
Only after reaching the peak of the Armor Swordsman body cultivation method could one begin to train in the Blood Swordsman body cultivation and its respective techniques.
Even though this was a massive blow to anyone that had reached the peak of their respective body cultivation and didn''t have enough talent for another one, Yoze felt that it was worth it.
Because once he cultivated Armor Swordsman to its peak and began to practice the Blood Swordsman he could add his Big Golem inner vigor to the Blood Swordsman''s inner vigor. Making his Blood Armor and Blood Sword be extremely heavy.
The best thing about it was that there wasn''t a limit on how many different types of Inner Vigor he could add to his armor and sword. Once Yoze cultivated his Iron Skin inner vigor he could add it to strengthen the defensive properties of his blood armor.
"Okay, let''s put that aside for right now and see how I am supposed to train in the Armor Swordsman method." Yoze reluctantly moved away from the Blood Swordsman section of the Blood Master martial art set and focused on the beginning portion.
The Armored Swordsman had six levels and every two levels corresponded to a martial artist rank. The first and second level was tied to being a third-rate martial artist. The third and fourth levels meant that Yoze had reached the skill of a second-rate martial artist. And the fifth and sixth levels could only be challenged by fellow first-rate martial artists.
What Yoze found interesting was the way he was supposed to train in the Armored Swordsman was tied to his proficiency in his sword skills. He had to practice two sword techniques that came with the body cultivation method, The Armored Swordsman sh and The Armored Swordsman Shuffle.
The Armored Swordsman sh was an offensive attack and the Armored Swordsman Shuffle was a movement-type skill. Both had six levels to them and only by reaching the level of both skills could he reach a specific level of the Armored Swordsman body cultivation manual.
Yoze saw that these techniques were dual purpose just like his Blood Fist, Twin Blood Fists, and Mindless Blood Legs. These techniques both served as a way to train and improve himself but also had incredible uses as battle techniques.
His Twin Blood Fists technique saw the most use when Yoze fought and had be a core technique of his fighting style. As for Mindless Blood Legs acted more as constant body training as Yoze could never turn it off.
Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle acted simrly to his blood techniques and served more as a direct means of improvement. While his blood techniques served more as supplementary techniques and great ways to break his limits.
"I even have to go buy some armor to practice these techniques. As a part of a Blood Master Martial Art Set, it makes sense that it had a higher requirement to practice."
Chapter 60 60: The First Week! Going On A Buying Spree!
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As he discovered that he couldn''t start his training in either Iron Skin or Armored Swordsman techniques Yoze created a list of items he needed to ask Jewel to help him find.
After which Yoze closed his eyes and began to attempt to break through his Big Golem body cultivation. Now that he has some free time he could put the ideas he had to break his limit to the test.
Feeling his inner vigor spread evenly across his body Yoze concentrated all of it into one of his fingers to create room for more inner vigor. This idea of surpassing his body''s limit came from the fact the Big Golem method used a simr way to create more room for inner vigor by cing them into his flesh.
Now Yoze was trying to attempt something simr by concentrating his inner vigor into one ce he would have created plenty of space for new inner vigor to be produced. Once all his inner vigor was collected he began practicing the Big Golem''s exercise method to produce stress on his body and force inner vigor out of his body.
However, Yoze soon stopped his exercise as he felt that not only the exercise wasn''t creating the required amount of stress. But after twenty minutes of concentrating his inner vigor on his finger, Yoze noticed that once he didn''t pay attention to his inner vigor it left his finger and returned to its evenly spread state.
"First I need to increase the exercise to create more stress on my body. Maybe I canbine it with my Blood Fist technique."
After having the idea Yoze tested out how to incorporate Blood Fist and his Big Golem body cultivation. By the time Yoze finished what he thought was a decent integration of the two he found out that the sun had begun to rise.
"Are you still awake?"
"I''ll sleep in a minute,"
Seeing that Leah had woken up, Yoze coughed out of embarrassment and decided to catch some sleep before he went over to ask Jewel for some help with finding the supplies for his training.
By the time Yoze woke up and had gotten dressed he found that Jewel and his father had already started eating breakfast.
"Jewel, could you help me look for the things on this list?" After waiting until after breakfast, Yoze asked Jewel for help in acquiring everything he needed.
"Most of these we can find at the stores as for the armor. I think we will need to check on the east side of the city to find the ces that sell these things." Jewel took a look at the list and found that they were allmon herbs and medicine.
The only difficult item to find was the full set of armor but after taking a look at her notebook she found the general area of the city that sold weaponry and armor.
"Fantastic, let''s go when you are ready."
"I am ready to go,"
Yoze and Jewel then left and found that they had gone shopping for herbs for four hours before they collected all the ingredients and tools to make the special paste for the Iron Skin and another two hours finding armor that fit Yoze.
By the end of it, Yoze had spent close to another 100 silver which mostly came from the set of armor Yoze had bought.
"Good thing I took a sword from one of the Blood Masters or I''d have spent everything I had without being able to pay Jewel." As Yoze paid for his armor he realized that he hadn''t given Jewel her money for taking them to New Swampscott City.
Not wanting to not pay her, Yoze waited for them to return to the inn before he gave Jewel her due pay. Mostly because he wanted her to help him carry the bags of herbs back to the inn.
"Jewel as per our contract here is 50 silver and to be fair for all the help you have given me when we entered the city here is another 10 silver." Yoze took out his money pouch that had his remaining savings and gave the majority of its contents to Jewel.
However, Jewel looked at the pile of money and stepped away while she looked at Yoze with suspicion.
"What''s wrong, 50 is what we agreed upon back at Jade City," Yoze said as he was puzzled at why she was still staring at him with suspicion and not taking the money.
"I see through your plot, demon. Attempting to get rid of me once you have everything you need to hide your identity." Jewel said, with conviction.
"You don''t think I''m a demon, right?" Seeing that Jewel hadn''t stopped joking around about him being a demon, Yoze was beginning to understand that she was serious.
"I am clear about what you are but I don''t care. I only hope that you take me as your student and teach me of your demonic ways."
"..."
"Why else would I have not anything about not getting paid for my service? I am hoping that you can train me and allow me to live forever."
Yoze saw that deep within Jewel''s suspicious eyes hide a desire to be strong and a longing for life.
"But I told you I haven''t been turned into a demon. The one we found in that cave was just weak at birth, that was why I could kill it." Yoze tried to exin but he only saw the suspicious look in Jewel''s eyes grow.
"Then can you exin why you didn''t kill the evil demon after knocking it out but instead waited several days before dealing the final blow? Also, how could the demon be so weak and your physical power grow in such a short time."
"I''m a martial artist myself so I could tell the pressure that came from your body became devilishly strong as soon as we found that demon egg and the demon''s increasing pressure slowed down."
Chapter 61 61: Too Talented
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Yoze was speechless as he didn''t know what to say. He had known his actions were odd but it didn''t matter if people thought it was weird. There was no way for anyone to see the existence of Yoze''s cheat, the Second Best System, or acquire it.
The existence of Yoze''s cheat, the Second Best System, waspletely invisible to others, and there was no way for anyone to acquire it. The act of sending a talent mark to copy someone else''s talent was so subtle and quick that no one would be aware of it happening, and the victims wouldn''t even know that something had transpired unless Yoze told them.
As he was acquiring a person''s talent and someone''s skill or ability he never could greatly increase his ability in such a fast manner that someone would notice or find it greatly disturbing. So, even if someone felt that something strange was going on, there would be nothing concrete for them to cling to as evidence.
Moreover, it was difficult for people to even fathom the idea that someone could copy another person''s talent for themselves. Unless someone could see the Second Best System, it was hard to think that anything strange was happening. The only exception was when he acquired the Serpent demon''s talent and stole its life spiritual energy, causing him to rapidly be stronger.
He didn''t think that it had caused Jewel to have such arge misunderstanding of what had happened that day.
"Okay, that was weird but can you me me for wanting to have a legendary demon by my side for a few extra days?" Though Yoze found this ridiculous he didn''t try to find an excuse for his behavior it would only make her more doubtful.
"Before you say anything else, let''s just make it clear that I hired you to take me and my father to New Swampscott City from Jade City. And I will pay you for that service before anything else, including that demon stuff." After making his stance clear Yoze pushed the 60 silver into Jewel''s hands and left.
He couldn''t be bothered at the moment to deal with this nonsense just because he has talents that solely belong to demons doesn''t mean he is one.
"On second thought, that demon from the Eternal Burning Lake Festival did mistake me for a demon." Thinking about the encounter with his second demon made Yoze aware that he had a lot of room to grow.
He still hasn''t even reached the peak of human performance as a Martial Grandmaster, still stuck as a first-rate martial artist. It''s been almost three years since Yoze had gotten his cheat and he had made a lot of progress. He was still filled with the same ambition he had back then. To stand at the top of the world as the best at martial arts and give the best life for his family.
"Forget it, this demon talk had distracted me. I need to just train." Shaking his head to get rid of his distraction and began preparing the paste needed for the Iron Skin training.
The paste was blood-red and reeked of spices causing Yoze to feel that it was almost as bad as the medicine pastes Leah made. pping the paste all over his skin was a pain but Yoze endured the burning sensation.
"Crack"
Just as Yoze moved he found that the burning sensation of the paste had disappeared and even saw that it had dried into red powder. As the red dust flew off his skin Yoze could feel that it was a little bit more durable.
[Physical Talents]
[Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Movements (Grade 4), Muscle Development (Grade 5), Flexibility (Grade 9), Perception (Grade 7), Slower Muscle Deterioration (Grade 7), Lung Capacity (Grade 3), Regeneration (Grade 5)]
"Shoot my physical talents are all involved by the paste causing my cultivation of Iron Skin to be a monster. I don''t think I bought enough herbs." Yoze sighed with pride and created ten times more paste and began applying them one at a time.
"This is taking too long," Yoze frowned as the application of the paste was taking longer than him absorbing the paste. After thinking of an idea Yoze grabbed the rest of his herbs and filled arge tub of it before crushing it all into a paste. After that, he plunged his entire body and could feel the heat from the paste digging into his skin.
Several hourster Yoze stepped out of the tub that was filled with red powder and felt that his skin had be much stronger.
[Second Best System]
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 22 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension Talents, Physical Talents, Martial Arts Talents, Spiritual Talents, Other Talents]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 4: 100%), Big Golem(Level 5: 100%), Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 100%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 200%),
Twin Blood Fists (Perfection level: 200%), Mindless Blood Legs(Perfection level: 200%), Iron Skin (Level 2: 1%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
"I reached the second stage in just one night, my talents working together are making progress like crazy." Yoze couldn''t help but smile as he looked at his strengthened skin.
Even though Iron Skin focused mainly on increasing his defenses it still increased Yoze''s strength making him stronger by a good margin.
However, when he looked at the empty bags lying on the floor, Yoze couldn''t help but feel heartache as he needed to spend even more money so soon.
"I can buy another two-month supply before I need to think about bing an advisor again." Yoze sighed before putting it behind him as he knew training anything required a lot of money.
Now that his training speed was bing crazy he should be prepared to spend his money like drinking water.
Since Yoze had reached the second level of Iron Skin and couldn''t practice it any longer until he got more supplies he began trying to break through Big Golem. Even though Yoze had gotten the armor required to train the Armored Swordsman he couldn''t train in an enclosed space like this inn. He had to find another training ground somewhere outside like a forest which not many people traveled to but were easy to ess. For him to find that kind of ce would require him to get a bit more familiar with New Swampscott City.
An hourter Yoze''s skin was blood-red his blood was boiling as he pushed his body into strange positions to try and attempt to create more inner vigor. The stress on his body was immense and would have destroyed his body if his body was any weaker but at that moment it was enough.
Squeezing his body out of 200 percent of all its potential was making Yoze grit his teeth from the pain alone but he didn''t stop as he could feel something being created inside his body.
Chapter 62 62: Level 6 Big Golem
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The sensation of Inner Vigor creation was all too familiar to Yoze and he would never give up on this opportunity just because his body felt like a 1000-pound snake was squeezing the life out of him.
"Just a bit more,"
As Yoze created his Inner Vigor he wasn''t prepared for the chain reaction that was going to ur. The moment the new strand of heavy Inner Vigor was created all the Inner Vigor concentrated into his finger seemed to have gained awareness of its existence and fell intoplete turmoil. In the same manner as when Yoze broke into the fifth level of the Big Golem Body Cultivation.
Having experienced this before Yoze didn''t panic and continued putting stress on himself to produce additional inner vigor. Just as Yoze expected his inner vigor ran rampant inside his body causing additional stress as it crashed into every nook and crook until it found somewhere to go.
With his fleshpletely saturated the first stop from this inner vigor was the bones that made up his skeleton. The sensation of Inner Vigor entering his bones was incredible and opened the floodgates as all his inner vigor flooded into his skeleton.
Before he realized the severity of the matter everyst drop of his inner vigor had been absorbed into his bones like a sponge leaving Yoze empty.
"What the" Yoze quickly pulled up his cheat panel to check what level he had reached. He couldn''t help but wonder if this was what reaching the sixth level of Big Golem was supposed to be like.
[Big Golem (Level 5: 175%)]
"I didn''t break through!" Yoze was surprised to find that even though his bones had soaked up his Inner Vigor it was reaching a new level.
But after thinking about it more, Yoze finally found the reason why it wasn''t considered a breakthrough was that he weighed virtually the same weight. As all his Inner Vigor was absorbed in his bones Yoze didn''t have any additional Inner Vigor to increase his weight further.
That meant at the moment his body weight was the same as when he activated his inner vigor at level five. It was only a little bit more because he had created more inner vigor when he broke through.
Instead of being 1000 pounds and having a max of 1700 pounds with his Inner Vigor. Yoze''s base weight was his previous max of 1700 pounds.
"Does this mean that until I saturate my bones I won''t have any Inner Vigor I can manipte?" Yoze blinked before he focused on breaking through.
Even though he didn''t break through to level six, Yoze wasn''t disappointed instead he felt his motivation skyrocket. He could sense that every strand of Inner Vigor he produced was absorbed into his bones like a sponge leaving nothing for him.
For the next few hours, Yoze focused on pushing his body to the limit and 100 percent saturation as soon as possible.
[Big Golem (Level 5: 200%)]
As thest strand of Inner Vigor entered his bones Yoze felt a strange relief before he felt a crushing pressure acting on his organs. Fortunately, as soon as the pressure came it disappeared, with his bones no longer retaining their endless desire to absorb his inner vigor.
Knowing that he hasn''t reached level six just yet Yoze pushed his tired and aching body once more to try and create more Inner Vigor.
As his muscles, skin, bones, organs, and blood were boiling Yoze felt his mind sucked into his body as he felt he could see that in between every fiber of his body, a tiny amount of Inner Vigor was being squeezed out before bing a crystal clear strand that felt as heavy as the moon yet as light as a feather.
[Big Golem (Level 6: 1%)]
"Finally, I did it." Completely exhausted, Yoze''s mouth was bone dry but he didn''t have the strength to move a single finger and decided that it would be best if he slept on the floor tonight.
The next day Yoze woke up feeling something sharp poking and saw Leah staring at him with his plus-shaped eyes with curiosity.
"Am I going to find you sleeping on the floor more often or is this a one-time thing?"
Yoze rolled his eyes at Leah''s joke and asked him what time it was.
"It''s noon, Jewel, and your father knocked on your door but since you were sleeping I didn''t open the door."
"That''s fine, I needed the rest." Touching his growling stomach Yoze cleaned himself up and went to a nearby restaurant and ate until he was full causing the restaurant staff to stare at him in shock.
As he ate Yoze thought about how fast he was improving and how much easier it had gotten for him to break through his limitspared to a few months ago.
There was only a difference of three months but the difference in his cultivation speed was unbelievable. Back then he didn''t dare to try and cultivate two body cultivation methods at the same time for fear that it would slow his progress on both of them.
Now he was nning on cultivating three body cultivation methods at the same time. He had his Big Golem body cultivation method that had reached level 6, now he had Iron Skin that had reached level 2 in less than a night, and he was getting ready to train in the Armored Swordsman body cultivation method.
Not only was Yoze not worried about his cultivation speed being affected but he was worried that he didn''t have enough money. A month''s worth of herbs for Iron Skin cost Yoze about 15 silver meaning that he could only buy 2 months of herbs for his training for Iron Skin.
"Two months isn''t even enough tost me two days and not enough to produce Iron Skin inner vigor. " Yoze frowned as he thought of the issue of money.
"But it doesn''t matter, I should go to the city hall and ask for an advisor role to supplement my money problem."
Chapter 63 63: Deal
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As Yoze enjoyed his meal, marveled at his new control of his Inner Vigor. Plucking a strand of hair Yoze dropped it on the table.
"Thud!"
The moment Yoze let go of this strand of hair it fell towards the table as if it were 1000 times its weight andnded with a deep thud.
"I can now create deadly projectiles."
After reaching level 6 Yoze found that his level of control of his inner vigor had increased further. Before when Yoze manipted his inner vigor he wanted to test if he lost an arm through battle would lose the inner vigor inside that arm.
To test this theory he ced a strand of inner vigor into one of his nails and cut it. The result was that no matter how fast he lost that part of his body his inner vigor woulde back to his body.
Now after breaking through level 6 he could force his inner vigor to stay in a piece of his body even after that piece of him was detached.
"I can make some destructive and disposal weapons like throwing a strand of my hair that weighs 1000 pounds. It would pierce through anything." Yoze''s eyes sparkled as he picked up the hair strand and reabsorbed his inner vigor.
"Can I join you?"
Yoze turned his head to see Jewel looking at him with her cheeky smile and before he could say anything she sat down.
"Before you say anything after thinking about what happened yesterday I know that I was mistaken." Jewel let out a heavy and regret-filled sigh.
"I shouldn''t have called you out on your scheme. And I shouldn''t be so greedy to be your student so soon. I will take it a step at a time and just ept being your human guide for the time being." Jewel''s face lights up as she tries her best to hide the deep suspicion she had for demons.
"Are you still going about that? I won''t be taking in any students and us working together was transactional, to begin with. Also, why are you so certain that I will hire you to be my guide for the human world when I''m human." Yoze took a bite of his meal and felt confused about whether he should be more delighted that she had misunderstood what he had done or disappointed that she still believed it.
"Well you might be ''human'' but Yoze aren''t you a man from the rural part of the Jade Mountain Region? Just because you''re a schr doesn''t mean you know everything. You already don''t have much understanding about this region so what about the countless other regions?"
"I can help with that. You will never have to waste precious time learning about a ce in advance because I can do it for you. Plus, are you still willing to hire anyone else when there is a possibility that they too can find out your secrets?" Jewel puffed out her chest with pride as she felt like she was negotiating with a legendary demon.
How many other people are confident that they could negotiate a deal with a demon? The race is known for screwing humans over and over again and turning them into flesh-eating monsters.
Jewel knew she was ying with fire but her longing for eternal life had made her take this risk. She also felt that her life would be in constant danger regardless as the demon she saw Yoze as might think that she was better off dead even if she knew nothing.
Jewel wouldn''t even be surprised by that fate if she did nothing, she had a deep distrust for demons from the stories and tales she had heard. And after witnessing the birth of the Serpent Demon she sensed just how weak and fragile her life was.
"If I''m bound to die, I might as well do it with my attempt to change my fate as a mortal." Jewel''s thoughts rapidly spun as she tried to show her value to Yoze.
Meanwhile, Yoze finally realized what he should be feeling. He should be happy that Jewel mistook him for a demon because he could benefit by getting a world-experienced expert.
Yoze didn''t like notcking information but he had been spending the majority of his time training his martial arts with little time to study the world around him. There were also pieces of information that Yoze just could not ess. Even though he searched the first floor of the Martial Courtyard library he didn''t find anything on the martial art sects. It was a frustrating situation for him and there wasn''t much he could do to remedy the situation.
Yet for Jewel due to her being raised a part of a martial art family, she had a deep pool of knowledge about themunity. Not only that she was also an explorer with fantastic carriage-driving skills.
Her knowledge and understanding of this world was no doubt deeper than his. She might not know everything but would be a great supplement while he filled his knowledge pool.
"You do make a great point, okay I''ll hire you so let''s start with your pay. I think 10 silver a month is good." Making up his mind to take advantage of Jewel''s misunderstanding Yoze immediately tried to seal the deal.
"I won''t ept anything less than 20 plus I want you to pay for my living expenses just like during our travels." Jewel quickly replied.
"Make it 15 and you got a deal." Yoze calcted how much he would be spending to keep up with his father''s lifestyle and keep up with his training by using what he made back in Jade City as a reference before settling on the price of 15 silver a month.
That was a price he was willing to pay and it should satisfy Jewel seeing that she would be making almost twice as much as an ordinary person.
As Yoze expected Jewel fell silent as she thought about his offer before extending her hand.
Knowing that she had epted his proposal Yoze smiled and grabbed her hand to seal the deal with a handshake.
Chapter 64 64: Visiting The City Hall
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"Okay, boss what is it that you want to do now?" After sealing the deal with Yoze, Jewel felt her shoulders rx as she once again feltfortable around Yoze.
"We are going to go to the City Hall to get me an Advisor position and to have money to start paying you," Yoze called over the waiters and asked for the bill.
"That is for the best,"
After paying, Yoze and Jewel went to the center of New Swampscott City until they reached their destination. It wasn''t a very tall building but it was massive and this building''s foundation alone took up several blocks of the city center. The dark color of the building seemed to enhance the feeling that this building would never fall even as the world ended.
"This building is New Swampscott''s City hall and as you can tell the designers ced a lot of care to design it so it could never sink into the ground." Jewel waved her hand as she introduced the building.
"Impressive,"
Since he had arrived at his destination Yoze didn''t want to wait any longer and stepped inside. However, as soon as he and Jewel stepped inside they had gotten the guard''s attention.
"Hold up, what is your purpose for visiting?" The guard tried his best to make it seem that he was calm but from the tremble of his voice, one could tell he was nervous.
For someone of Yoze''s stature, it was obvious to the guard that he was a martial artist and needed to first be investigated before allowing him in.
"I''m here to acquire a schr position, here are my papers and seal from Jade City." Yoze took out a slip of paper that had his information and what he had done in Jade City as well as his wooden seal with a blue leaf.
"You are a schr?" Even though the guard was terrified by Yoze''s presence he couldn''t help but doubt Yoze''s im.
"Look at you and tell me what part of you shows you are a schr." The guard didn''t know why but the pressure surrounding Yoze suddenly disappeared as if he imagined it and felt more confident.
"My brain. Just because I train in martial arts on the side doesn''t make me any less of a schr who would bring great benefits to the city." Yoze sighed as he didn''t know what he could do as he knew this was bound to happen frequently.
"Alright, just hand me your papers and I''ll give them to someone to check that they are real. After that, we will let you in with no issue so don''t cause any problems." The guard who had regained his confidence snatched the paper and badge in Yoze''s hand and walked inside.
Five minutes soon passed, before the guard returned with a facepletely pale, and following behind him were four new people.
The person that drew Yoze''s attention the most was a young man with long ck hair and a skinny body. Even though he looked on the weaker side the scent of bloody steeling from the man showed that he was a Blood Master.
The second person was a middle-aged man dressed in simple in clothing. This man looked at Yoze as if he was a monster disguised in human skin.
The third person was a middle-aged woman wearing a pair of sses and had a sophisticated presence to her.
Thest person surprised Yoze as he was Cold Joe whom he met back at the Blood Armor Sect''s encampment. Cold Joe had his arms and legs chained and was missing his sword.
Seeing Yoze standing in front of him made Cold Joe shiver but his face remained as cold as ice as if he had already prepared for his death.
"This is the man,mander," The guard that Yoze was speaking to respectfully said to the young-looking Blood Master.
"Oh, so you are one of the Jade City''s schrs. Congrattions on making it all the way here safely." The young man that seemed to be a sort of Commander spoke highly of Yoze.
"Thank you, it was a bit tough but now that I have arrived I''m ready to put my skills to use." Knowing this man had a high position Yoze replied as respectfully as he could.
"Yes, before that let''s talk about what we found about the information Jade City wrote about you, Sarah could you please provide us with the information?"
"Of course, " The middle-aged woman stepped forwards and began to read aloud the information on the slip.
After reading a section, she would look at Yoze and ask if he had anything to add. Of course, Yoze knew this was a test to verify that he was a schr and not a random person who stole a schr''s identity.
The only way to pass this was by adding in information that could be close enough to the slip but also adding in things that weren''t written down but hinted at.
"You are a martial art enthusiast and worked as an Advisor for Jade City''s Martial Courtyard. Do you have anything to add?"
"Yes, while I did work for the Martial Court Yard as an advisor I didn''t add too much as there were plenty of more experienced Schrs who knew the in and outs much better than I did. So I frequently took their advice to take a look around before speaking."
The moment Yoze finished his sentence, the middle-ageddy stopped her line of questioning and gave the slip of paper back to Yoze but not his wooden badge.
"That confirms he is a schr." The middle-ageddy then turned to Yoze and continued.
"Yoze since you have so much experience with Jade City''s Martial Courtyard you will be a great fit for ours. The monthly sry is 150 silver and you will need to only head over once you receive a summoning. As for right now, please enter and log in the ce you will be staying at and any other types of useful information." The middle-ageddy tossed out where Yoze was going to work before walking inside.
Chapter 65 65: The Training Yard
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"Now that we got your identity all settled, I wanted to ask if you were the one who destroyed the Radiant Gang''s encampment?"
After everything seemed settled, the Blood Master ranked Commander asked Yoze if he was the one who destroyed the Radiant Gang encampment with calmposure.
"The Radiant Gang? If that is the same Radiant Gang that blocked the north road then I believe so." Yoze didn''t try to hide his action as he knew that it was pointless.
If they brought Cold Joe with them that meant they were quite confident that they had the right guy. Yoze also felt that he shouldn''t have any ill intent.
If the Commander did have ill intent Yoze would have been surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, Blood Masters, and Martial Grandmasters with that much firepower even Yoze didn''t know if he could survive that.
"Well, it''s nice to meet the person that could cause a martial art sect topletely copse all by himself. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention the Radiant Gang was a martial art sect disguising itself as a gang." Seeing that Yoze admitted his achievement so easily, the Commander nodded his head with approval.
"Thank you but it was just a case of me defending myself and clearing the road toe to the city," Yoze said casually hinting that he had already known the gang''s secret identity.
"Since you did the city a solid by getting rid of that pesky sect, I''m allowed to reward you. Is there anything you would like?" The Commander''s impression of Yoze went up a notch seeing how calm he was.
Yoze wasn''t surprised by the fact that he was being rewarded as there was not any harm in getting on the good side of someone as strong as him. This was also a good way for Yoze to get the government to trust him more and not ce him on some kind of watch list.
"I do have something in mind, is it possible for you to find me a training facility of some kind for me to use?"
"That''s all? That is easy, we can just clear out a space for you to use at the Martial Courtyard, is that fine with you?"
"That sounds great, thank you for the help."
After settling themander''s questions, Yoze was allowed inside the City Hall toplete his remaining paper to be officially signed as one of Martial Courtuard''s advisors. Once he was finished with everything, he and Jewel were escorted to the Martial Courtyard and given a tour around the ce.
"This room is the main meeting room for the advisors of the courtyard. When you are summoned in the future this is where you should head to."
"And this is the central training yard. Every morning to noon all the martial artists of the courtyard gather here to train before they head out to their various positions."
"As for this yard, we have cleaned it up a bit and added some training objects that should satisfy you. I wish I could exin more. Unfortunately, I don''t know much about martial arts and various training equipment." Yoze and Jewel''s tour guide, named Steve said with embarrassment.
"No need to feel embarrassed, I have no idea what any of these things do either," Yoze replied, not at all embarrassed.
"Oh that makes me feel a bit better, I rmend you ask the martial artists here if you are interested in using this equipment." Steve let out a sigh of relief and felt that Yoze wasn''t as terrifying as his reports had led him to believe.
"But that should be the end of our little tour, if you want to know where anything is, feel free to find me and ask."
After a brief goodbye, Yoze and Jewel went inside his private training facility. Looking at all the strange equipment, Yoze realized that due to how simple his techniques and body cultivation methods were he never needed these kinds of special equipment for training.
The only thing that came close was his Armored Swordsman body cultivation method which only required a suit of armor and a sword, nothing too fancy.
"Jewel, have you ever seen these kinds of equipment?" Noticing that Jewel was walking towards a particr piece of equipment Yoze couldn''t help but ask if she had any experience with this equipment.
"Yup, these things are quitemon in martial art sects since the martial arts they practice can have strict requirements for training these types of gears aremon." Jewel touched training equipment that was covered in spikes with familiarity.
"This one, in particr, my family had back home to train in the Jade Armor body cultivation method. I haven''t used this in years."
"How strong are you?" Yoze asked, realizing he never asked Jewel, who was a martial artist, what level she had reached out to before stopping.
"I should be considered a third-rate martial artist by now," Jewel said proudly as she flexed her muscles.
"Congrats, now that we got a tour of the ce. Help me buy some more herbs, the ones we bought yesterday had run out."
"Run out? But didn''t we buy a month''s worth of herbs?" Jewel said with surprise.
She didn''t expect that Yoze would have used up so many herbs and medicine so quickly that another few months'' supply might also notst long.
"No wonder, you wanted to be an advisor so soon. You were running out of money to buy your herbs. Not that you wanted to pay me my wages." Jewel said, pouting after figuring out that Yoze had the intention of bing an advisor before he hired her.
Three dayster, inside Yoze''s training courtyard was arge bonfire that was cooking a metal tub full of red-colored water.
As the water evaporated into clouds of white vapor and its red color grew lighter, Jewel asionally added more boiling water and tons of herbs into the tub while she kept the fire going.
She had been doing this for several hours and was covered in sweat from the intense heat. Even though it was hard work, Jewel didn''tin since she knew that someone was having it a lot worse than her.
After tossing a few more herbs a red hand popped out of the red color water. Seeing that hand Jewel stopped adding fuel to the bonfire and waited for it to die down.
Chapter 66 66: Reaching Level 3
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Once the fire died down, a red-skinned Yoze climbed out of the tub feelingpletely refreshed.
"This progress is fantastic, in a few weeks or so I should be able to max out Iron Skin," Yoze said out loud, not minding that Jewel could hear him.
"I really should thank thatmander for giving me my monthly pay early. It allowed me to just buy all the herbs I needed to max out level 2 of Iron Skin cultivating its inner vigor."
Yoze clenched his fist as he manipted his iron skin''s inner vigor to cover the surface of his skin. In a short sh, Yoze''s red skin turned a silvery gray color and had a metallic shine.
"Big Golem''s inner vigor is clear and heavy while Iron Skin''s inner vigor is silver and has metal-like defenses. I wonder what the Armored Swordsman''s inner vigor will be like?"
As Yoze dried himself off he pulled up his cheat window to get a better sense of what he wanted to do in theing few weeks.
[Second Best System]
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 22 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension Talents, Physical Talents, Martial Arts Talents, Spiritual Talents, Other Talents]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 4: 100%), Big Golem(Level 6: 2%), Iron Skin (Level 3: 10%), Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 100%), Armored Swordsman (Level 0: 25%), Armored Swordsman sh (Level 0: 25%), Armored Swordsman Shuffle (Level 0: 50%), Blood Fist (Perfection level: 200%), Twin Blood Fists (Perfection level: 200%), Mindless Blood Legs(Perfection level: 200%)]
[Talent Mark: 1]
Yoze frowned seeing that there was simply too much information on his techniques crowded together. He wondered when the next time his cheat would adapt to his needs.
So far his experience with his cheat was good since it never became a problem of there being too much since it adapts before it bes an issue. Yoze shook his head and ignored that thought for now and ced his attention on his techniques and body cultivation methods.
"I reached the max of both Twin Fists and Mindless Legs. Leaving the only thing to progress is Big Golem, Iron Skin, and the Armored Swordsman''s techniques and body cultivation."
At level 6 Yoze could store more inner vigor in his body from having 700 pounds worth of Big Golem inner vigor to 1000 pounds worth of Big Golem inner Vigor.
With how advanced Big Golem had be Yoze knew that it would take him at least 6 months to refill his inner vigor storage before he could start making progress on using that additional inner vigor he could hold. This was when no special or tragic events urred during this period.
If Yoze happened toe across another demon egg and took its life spiritual energy he could rapidly speed up the process. But there is also the chance for Yoze to lose his inner vigor due to not being able to retrieve it from the object he ced it in.
"That is a long time but I can''tin it did take me years to reach this point." Yoze frowned as felt that it was a huge time that he would be short of inner vigor.
He knew that this was an incredibly fast speed to anyone else since it would have taken years to reach the 700 limits of Big Golem that was if they never became stuck in their progress. Yoze never faced getting stuck at a level due to his high body cultivation talents, martial artsprehension talent, and the money from being a schr always providing everything he needed.
But others would often get stuck on a level and then spend years trying to break through. After this, they spend another few years trying to increase their weight and inner vigor before once again bing stuck. This was how it wasmon for people to spend decades of their lives on one body cultivation method.
To be qualified to say he could reach a level that others spent decades on showed how much progress Yoze had made. It was abination of his spiritual body cultivation techniques constantly entering into a conflict that Yoze''s body was always getting stronger.
Yoze''s frequent usage of his blood techniques pushed his body to its limits regrly. Mindless Blood Legs especially worked 24/7 to stress his body enough to always force out 20 percent of his potential.
All these factors greatly condensed the time that it would take Yoze to refill his inner vigor to its previous amount and even reached the limit of his current storage limit.
"There is not much I can do to get amazing progress on these three body cultivations except to continue to train."
Yoze looked at Iron Skin and the Armored Swordsman and saw that he had the opposite situation for them both. For Iron Skin his progress with it was fast so he didn''t worry about it. As for Armored Swordsman, his progress was incredibly slow since he didn''t have any talents with swords.
Even though he was getting a boost from his Spear and Axe talents, which he copied during the journey to New Swampscott city, it wasn''t much of an increase in speed that was on the same level as Iron Skin. Yoze could only ept that his progress was going to be slow with this martial art set unless he picked up some type of Sword talent.
"I should focus on breaking Twin Fists and Mindless Legs'' limits. These two are my main fighting methods. I need to keep them improving or I won''t be able to be asbat-effective as I could."
After deciding to break the limits of these two core techniques of his, Yoze began by trying to break through Twin Fists and Mindless Legs at the same time.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
With Twin Fists instantly breaking through the sound barrier and causing sonic booms and Mindless Legs making Yoze move all over the training ground Jewel was able to witness Yoze turn into a red three-headed and eight-armed giant turning into a blur jumping all over the training yard.
Chapter 67 67: Mindless Body
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The pressureing from Yoze''s attempt at a breakthrough made Jewel sweat as she retreated to a corner to not get in his way. She was worried that if he identally mmed into her she would die in an instant.
Completely focused on breaking his limit Yoze could feel every change in his body. Every muscle twitching, his blood flowing, and even how the tiny tears in his muscles quickly healed before tearing again.
Yoze''s insights into his own body were so detailed that he could almost create a perfect image of his internal situation inside his head.
As Yoze pushed his body he noticed that something strange but expected was happening with his legs. Two conflicting situations were urring simultaneously. One was where Yoze was in control and told his legs to jump to a specific location and another was where his legs tried to move on their own in another direction.
These two actions conflicted with each and resulted in some wasted time and energy just before Yoze''s will took control. It was such a big waste of time and energy that Yoze had a feeling fixing this issue could be the key to breaking through Mindless Legs'' limits.
Following this feeling, Yoze began to stop giving orders to his body and tried to let Mindless Legs do what it wanted. Yoze used brute force topel his mind to stop giving orders causing him to stop training Twin Fists.
[Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 101%)]
But Yoze felt that it was worth it as he saw that had made some progress with Mindless Legs. It wasn''t enough for a breakthrough but he knew he was on the right path and continued to train in this method.
[Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 120%)]
By the time the sun began to set Yoze had reached 120 percent and had gotten rid of the lost time and wasted energy that was guing his legs. Even though this was a good thing Yoze could not help but feel that he was missing something.
Not only is he stuck at 120 percent, but he also didn''t see any more room to grow in this direction. Yoze had been allowing his legs to do all the orders allowing his movements to be much more streamlined and flexible.
"What is the issue with my method that is halting his progress?" Yoze grabbed his chin and remembered what he had been doing previously.
"Wait, could it be?"
That was when inspiration struck Yoze as he tried to capture it and used Mindless Legs. Putting a hyper-focus on the movements of his body Yoze noticed that there was a slightg between his legs moving and the rest of his body.
"My legs move before anything else causing this slight disconnect. Once again causing a lot of unnecessary waste of time and energy."
"I need to make them sync with each other again. But how can I do that when I don''t know what my legs are going to do?"
Thinking about how he was going to solve this issue, Yoze suddenly sensed his right leg twitch as he felt that it was like his legs were trying to spread their control to the rest of his body.
"Do I need to give up control of my own body as well? Mindless Legs isn''t satisfied with just controlling my legs, but wants to control my whole body. It''s like it''s getting a mind of its own."
Yoze recalled the description of Mindless Legs being that it allowed for his legs to seem as if they had their own mind. But to Yoze his mindless legs seemed to be really trying to acquire a mind of their own.
"From Mindless Legs to Mindless Body, I wonder what will happen?" Yoze smiled as he felt that he once again found a direction he could chase after.
Just as he was about to start another training session, Yoze remembered that he wasn''t alone. Yoze looked around to find that Jewel was curled up in a corner staring at him as if she was a kitten abandoned on the street.
"Hey Jewel you can leave whenever you want. I''m just going to stay here to continue training." Yoze said feeling bad that he hadpletely forgotten about her.
"It''s fine," Jewel quickly replied as if she wasn''t going to leave until he did.
Yoze would have felt better about her wanting to stay but when he saw that she still had her eyes staring at him with suspicion. He felt that she felt that he would do something crazy and didn''t want to be left out.
"You said that to train the Jade Armor body cultivation requires equipment to train, right?"
"That''s right, what about it? Do you want to start teaching me?" Jewel suddenly perked up hearing Yoze asking her about her body cultivation method.
"Nope, but you can use the equipment to train if you get bored. I will just avoid this area of the yard for you."
"Oh, thanks," Jewel said in a disappointed tone.
Seeing that Jewel didn''t seem to be interested in training at the moment, Yoze went back to trying to break through Mindless Legs'' limit.
Yoze tried to rx the parts of his body that he felt his Mindless Legs tried to control. At first, it was a slow process and there were many times that even after rxing Yoze couldn''t give up control over those areas.
But as it went deeper into the night Yoze lost more and more control of his body and handed control over to his mindless legs. Starting from his legs then to his torso, his arms, and finally, to his head Yoze allowed Mindless Legs to expand its control.
To Yoze who wasn''t controlling a single fiber of his body. He felt his mind''s processing ability and mental capabilities rapidly grow. In Yoze''s perception, it was like everything had slowed down and the darkness of the night became as bright as the outside.
He saw that Jewel had walked towards the equipment with spikes and used it to poke her entire body. From the look on her face, he could tell that it was painful. But he saw that even though it looked like the spikes were going to poke holes in her skin, in reality, her skin was hanging on to its dear life but wasn''t at risk of breaking.
Chapter 68 68: Animal Style
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[Mindless Legs (Stage 5: 199%)]
"Mindless Legs still hasn''t reached level 6?" Yoze''s mind raced to produce all sorts of ideas to try to fulfill thatst gap.
"Stage one is Soft Steps, Stage 2 is Sticky Steps, Stage three is Silent Steps, Stage four isbining all three, and Stage five was me improving their integration and making it more instinctive."
"Most of the previous stages had a technique that needed to be incorporated. Should I create a technique and integrate it?" Yoze closed his eyes as thought of what kind of technique Mindless Legs needed.
He first thought about creating some type of speed technique but he rejected it because hecked experience with those kinds of techniques. Mindless Legs never focused on increasing his speed and relied more on Yoze''s strength and speed to push his body faster.
Then he thought about creating a fighting technique before also rejecting the idea. To Yoze Mindless Legs was merely a movement technique and shouldn''t be muddled with trying to fight an opponent.
Yoze''s mind raced faster as he began to feel that his mind was being dragged into a ck void. As he looked around he saw that he was in the spiritual space where his Spiritual demons appeared every time he absorbed another Spiritual Body Cultivation Talent.
But he didn''t find any of the demons in the space except for the Goat. With the Goat simply wandering around the ck space Yoze found that he could see its every movement. From its muscles stretching to when it contracts. How it breathed and even how it twisted and turned its body when it suddenly started climbing a vertical wall with ease.
Every detail became engraved into Yoze''s mind as he knew that he had the perfect opportunity to close that gap and breakthrough. Yoze''s body began to move strangely, this way seemed less human and more simr to a four-legged animal but for Yoze''s body it seemed almostpletely natural.
At first, Yoze''s body moved slowly, and with caution but as it gained experience its movements became smoother and quicker. By the time Jewel finished her training, she saw that Yoze seemed to have mastered his movements. As he moved around so naturally that she felt that he would have been mistaken for an animal if he wasn''t sorge and muscr.
[Mindless Legs (Stage 6: 1%)]
"Finally, I broke through to stage 6." Yoze sighed with relief as he could feel that his body''s movements were much smoother and even acted on their own from time to time.
After reaching level 6, Yoze knew that Mindless Legs was much more efficient and more able to escape all sorts of dangers. If he was ever in danger that he couldn''t escape from his body would act to move him to a safe ce. Even if that meant he got closer to the threat.
"Level 6 is going to take much longer to reach the peak but it''s going to be much stronger when I do."
If the previous levels of Mindless Legs simply made it look like his legs moved on their own then level six was when his whole body gained a mind of its own. To reach this level Yoze created a movement technique he liked to call Animal Style. This style was the central core of level 6 and by incorporating different animals'' movements and instincts Yoze trained his body to know how to react to any situation.
Yoze hypothesized that at the peak of level 6, he would have encoded the instincts and movements of tens of different animals and would be able to befortable in any situation and environment.
To be able to reach that kind of level would take many decades of studying the movements and habits of each animal individual and would take a normal person decades to aplish. Even with Yoze''s talent in movements, leg arts, and research it still would take him years to be able to achieve the level that Level 6 required.
"I could speed it up if I had more animal talents." Yoze thought shifted to his only animal-rted talent, Goat.
After Yoze got this talent from Leah, he had been asionally sending his talent mark onto animals but even to this day he hadn''t found a single animal that had a talent rted to their species. Yoze at first didn''tprehend why these animals didn''t have their own talents but aftering into contact with demons he had some semnce of what was happening.
It all came down to awareness.
Every person has some talents but if they never got the chance to use or be aware of that talent then they would be considered to be talentless.
It was the same thought that a child from a rural vige could be the greatest math genius that the world had ever seen. So much talent in fact that his introduction to the field would revolutionize the whole industry.
But if that rural child never came into contact with math then he would never be able to use that math talent. And this would lead to that rural child and the world into thinking that child didn''t have any math talent.
It was simr to animals and their talents. They were animals so they didn''t have the awareness that they were animals and that acting as those animals took on the form of talent.
For demons, it was another story as they were aware that they were demons and even were aware that they could strengthen their bodies using their Spiritual energy. That meant that every demon made full use of their spiritual body cultivation talent and was able to show up on Yoze''s Second Best System.
As for Leah, he mentioned that he had been aware he was a goat ever since he was born. So Yoze was able to copy his Goat talent using his cheat.
In theory, as long as Yoze could make someone aware of their hidden talents he could be able to make them show up in his cheat and therefore copy those talents.
Even the talent of being human could be in existence just waiting for Yoze to find and copy.
"Either I find animals that are aware of their species or I can try to make them aware."
Chapter 69 69: Endless Chained Fingers
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After spending the whole night training Yoze and Jewel decided they would go home to rest beforeingter that day.
Eating a good meal from his father and taking a long nap, Yoze and Jewel returned to the training ground and went back to training in the evening.
When they arrived Jewel returned to training her Jade Armor body cultivation she remembered why she stopped training it. She had reached a roadblock trying to break through to the next level and be a second-rate Martial artist with inner vigor.
But her love-and-hate rtionship with the art was reinvigorated after sensing that she had once again begun to make progress with this torture training. She felt that she could break through to the next few weeks if everything went well.
However, she felt that her progress was unbelievably slow whenpared to Yoze who was training right next to her. Hearing constant sonic booms made her wonder if she would lose her hearing one day due to this.
Not only that, Jewel had to bear the growing pressureing out of Yoze''s body. Only during periods when Yoze''s pressure disappeared would she be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
This became a daily urrence for Jewel as a week passed by. She had been feeling her body bing tenser as if there was an unknown energy trying toe out. It was a vague feeling but Jewel knew that within theing weeks, she would break through atst.
Meanwhile, Yoze was standing still as constant sounds of sonic booms began to ovep each other. His skin was redder than a ruby and the intense heating from his body warped the air. Yoze was punching so fast that Jewel couldn''t see his attacks.
[Twin Fists (Level 4: 190%)
For the past week, Yoze had been putting his main focus on breaking through Twin Fists but found out that it was much harder to break the limits of such a simple technique as Twin Fists. There were fewer concepts that Yoze could expand and shift his focus to.
Twin Fists were one of the mostmon and simple martial arts techniques that people could acquire. It focused on creating abo chain of attacks to overwhelm and overpower their opponents. Due to that it only relied on making the user send out more punches. The more punches that one could send the less likely your opponent would be able to survive.
At its peak Twin Fists was a good technique for second-rate martial artists and could form a chain of up to 70 koi fists. But for Yoze that wasn''t enough and he broke this simple technique''s limits and could form a chain of hundreds of koi fists.
However, even then when Yoze met strong enemies he rarely used Twin Fists in its regr form and utilized Twin Blood Fists to fight. Because when in a battle there wasn''t going to be an opportunity to unleash hundreds of punches. He either defeated his enemies using the increased lethality that Twin Blood Fists brought to the table or won because he was just much stronger than his enemies.
After reaching Twin Fists peak once more Yoze had thought long and hard about whether he should start looking for stronger offensive techniques. But he shelved that idea because he felt Twin Fists'' w could be resolved if he broke its limits again.
It had been a week and Yoze was able to push Twin Fists much further and increased hisbo chain number much higher however he hadn''t sensed a change in the essence of the technique until now.
Yoze stopped his using Twin Fists as he knew that his progress had finally stalled. He needed to change something with Twin Fists to be qualified to push it further and reach the next level.
Seeing that stalled and couldn''t make any more progress Yoze was about to try and use his test Blood Fist to help him forcefully break through but he suddenly noticed that Jewel was practicing her fist technique in her corner.
Her fist technique was much more deadlypared to Twin Fists. From his observations, her technique aimed to concentrate her power into one attack that pierced through her enemy''s weak points.
As Yoze watched Jewel train his mind raced as he remembered when he reached level 4 of his Big Golem body cultivation method he was able to concentrate his inner vigor anywhere in his body.
"Both Big Golem and Jewel''s fist techniques take the concept of concentrating force into a small area to increase their user''s power. What if I start doing the same with Twin Fists?" Feeling that he had a stroke of inspiration Yoze returned to his training to attempt to transform Twin Fists.
[Twin Fists (Level 4: 191%)
A few hours passed by before Yoze was able to transform his punches into chops while also carrying the same force but even greater power. Yoze knew that he was heading in the right direction and continued to train even after sunset.
Due to that night having a new moon, Yoze would have been training in the darkness if it wasn''t for thenterns that Jewel lit up. But Yoze was too focused on improving Twin Fists.
[Twin Fists (Level 4: 199%)
Progress with Twin Fists was much slowerpared to Mindless Legs but Yoze was able to now concentrate the power of his Twin Fists into just his fingers.
Whether it was Bull Fist, Bear Fist, or even Koi Fists could be done with a finger while not bing weaker on the contrary they were even more powerfulpared to their regr counterparts.
"Boom!"
[Twin Fists (Level 5: 1%)
With a single flick of his finger, Yoze caused a sonic boom that would have been able to pierce right through any of Blood Master''s Blood Armor.
"I finally can use Twin Fists on strong enemies without having to always rely on Twin Blood Fists and strain my body."
Chapter 70 70: The Scholar Exam
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Feeling the power thaty in his fingers Yoze couldn''t help but feel like he could kill Blood Masters without having to use his Twin Blood Fists. His Koi Fistbo done with his fingers could turn his enemies into swiss cheese before they are even aware of what happened.
As for when he did use Twin Blood Fists it would be incredibly powerful. Even Yoze didn''t know how powerful or how deadly it had be. Before breaking through Twin Fists his Blood Bull Fist easily crushed the Blood Armor from a Blood Master. Now with that power, all in a finger Yoze couldn''t imagine how anyone was supposed to survive it.
"I wonder how far away I am from being able to kill Martial Grandmaster?" Yoze felt the itch to test his strength through battle but he suppressed it since he didn''t have anyone he could fight.
"Are you done with training?" Seeing that Yoze had stopped training Jewel walked over and handed Yoze a letter.
"What''s this?" Yoze looked at the letter with surprise because it had New Swampscott''s city seal.
"No idea, but a man came over a few hours ago while you werepletely focused on your training and threw it to me before running away," Jewel said calmly.
"Someone came over sote into the night?" Yoze lifted his right eyebrow to show his confusion.
"Forget it, I''ll just take a look to see what the city wants me to do." Tearing the letter open, Yoze read the letter before ripping it to pieces.
"What did it say?" Curious about the letter''s content after seeing Yoze tear it apart, Jewel asked.
"They want me to visit a vige to help with the schr exam. And they said that I would only know where I''m being sent to in a few days so I should be prepared for anything." Yoze was a bit surprised to find himself participating in the Schr Examination again with himself as one of the examiners.
"Oh, then I should start packing up. I don''t want to be freezing my butt off if we are sent to the Eastern Coldnds." Jewel said excitedly for another adventure.
"You don''t need to pack up, I am hoping that you stay here to take care of and keep my fatherpany while I''m out. Also to talk to the detectives about the progress with the investigation."Yoze shook his head as he asked Jewel to stay.
"Fine, I''ll stay just this once but after we find your dad''s kids I''ll never leave your side to make sure you don''t do anything funny." Jewel narrowed her eyes to show that she was still suspicious of him but still epted her request.
"Thank you," Yoze said with gratitude for Jewel epting his request. He knew he hired her to follow him around as his guide but right now he wanted to make sure that his father wasn''t alone in a city he wasn''t familiar with.
"Wait, that doesn''t exin why you tore up that letter?" Jewel asked curious about why he had torn up the letter if he wasn''t even given any valuable information.
"It was also written that I had to tear it up so that I couldn''t secretly send it to a rtive or some elite to prepare their followers to be prepared to meet me at the examination destination."
"Couldn''t you still tell them in secret?"
"Yes, but the city is a difficult ce to keep secrets and it''s very likely that no matter how hard one tries to keep it a secret the government will know it has been leaked. They would then cancel my trip and detain me for months before releasing and demoting me."
"The thing that scares schrs the most is getting demoted since that means their careers are over. They might not even be able to keep their status as schrs and be forced to work an ordinary person''s job. So not many schrs dare to take the risk." Yoze exined the serious consequences that one faced when trying to mess with the Schr Examination.
It was the belief that schrs shouldn''t be influenced by external factors that made this a big deal. If someone became a schr due to external powers they would be chained to do what those external powers wanted. Even the possibility that a schr could undermine the city''s interest and cause chaos for that external power to take advantage of wasn''t out of the question.
"Oh, I get it now. The city is afraid that the martial art sects will use the city''s schrs to destroy it from the inside." Jewel''s eyes lit up when she understood who those external powers were.
There were only two forces in every region, the first was the major city and the second was the strongest martial sect in that region. These two forces might appear to have no interest in the other but underneath the surface, they fought constantly.
Most of the powerful gangs and evil organizations were either supported by a martial art sect or were just a disguise for the sects to challenge the city''s authority without much risk. For every piece ofnd and territory that these gangs and evil organizations im, the fewer resources and people that the city had and the harder it was to spread its influence.
Every powerful gang or evil organization that the city destroyed meant that the martial art sects had fewer resources and fewer talents, they could call upon. Meaning that they would begin to decline and possibly have all their territory taken over by the city.
There was always a fierce game of tug of war going on with the stakes being everything. If one side lost they would be eaten andbined into a mega force that dominated a whole region. Regardless if the city won or the martial art sect either way that region would gain a powerhouse that couldn''t be toppled.
And Yoze, Jewel, and every living person was part of their fierce game. But for Yoze he didn''t care about which force won or lost as long as his or his father''s daily life wasn''t affected he couldn''t care less.
Chapter 71 71: Traveling To Rockbell Village
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Since the City was the one who was paying his bills Yoze couldn''t help but side with the city and help their cause. So after getting the letter, Yoze stopped his training and made preparations for any possibility that could happen during his trip.
"The Schr Examination should be starting in 2 months. So for me to receive a letter so early means that the ce I''m going to be traveling to is quite far."
As Yoze packed his things he took a bunch of dried food with him to satisfy hisrge food requirements if, at any point during the trip, he couldn''t eat the food that his guides brought along.
He also grabbed his sword and his armor as he nned to focus on training his Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle along the way. Yoze didn''t n on training Iron Skin since he couldn''t be sure he would be able to have arge source of boiling water throughout the trip.
As for his Twin Fists and Mindless Legs after they both broke through his progress speed had greatly slowed for both of them. It would take him a few years to reach the peak of either of them with his current talents. So Yoze nned to take it slow and train them when he had some spare time during the trip.
The next few days passed by quietly and Yoze had just bid his father, Jewel, and Leah goodbye when he saw that several soldiers dressed in armor were walking toward him with a middle-aged schr following them from the back.
"Are you Yoze Thunder?" A particrly gloomy young soldier stepped forward and asked about Yoze''s identity.
"Yes, I am Yoze," Yoze nodded.
"Fantastic, I am Timothy, a soldier of New Swampscott City, and have reached the Blood Master realm. Myrades are also Blood Masters so you can ask any of us if you have a special request. " The young soldier named Timothy''s voice remained dull and maintained an attitude of not wanting to be here.
"You all are Blood Masters? Where the hell will we be traveling to that requires the City to send such heavy firepower?" Yoze was shocked by Timothy''s casual remark about being a Blood Master.
If Yoze didn''t know better he would have thought that the Blood Master''s rank was low given Timothy''s attitude. Timothy alone could have destroyed the Blood Armor encampment alone if they hadn''t sent all the Blood Masters to defend it.
Not to mention that apanying him on his trip was more than 10 Blood Masters who from what Yoze could tell were all young.
[Name: Timothy Skyrock]
[Age: 33 years old]
[Talents: Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 7), Body Damage Absorber (Grade 6), Armored Spearman body (Grade 9), Wrestling (Grade 2)]
"As expected of a Blood Master who was so young, his talents are crazy,"
After sending out a talent mark on Timothy, Yoze couldn''t help but confirm his statement alone by his talents.
"I can answer your question, Schr, my name is River by the way."
"To answer your concerns, Schr, there was also a report that there was strange activity around the area where you and this other Schr will be doing the examination. The City just sent us to deal with the strange event and send both of you over. Killing two birds with one stone." Another soldier stepped forward who introduced herself as River had a more upbeat approachpared to Timothy.
Yoze couldn''t help but draw aparison between River and Timothy because they looked nearly identical. As if one was the male or female version of the other.
"Strange activity, am I allowed to know more about that?"
"No, that is ssified. Unless there is an emergency we are not allowed to leak the strange idents." River shook her head denying his request.
"That''s fine, but can''t I ask where we are going at least," Yoze asked another question, which he thought was important.
"Yup, we are heading to a vige that is around 10 days away from the city," River replied, not adding any more details.
After confirming a few things but not even knowing the direction they would be leaving the city from, Yoze took his wagon full of his things along for the journey to the surprise of everyone else.
When they did set off, it was pitch ck outside and made it difficult for any normal person to tell which direction they were traveling.
It was only after they left the city and could see that they had left from the West Gate that Yoze and the middle-aged man were told about which vige they were heading towards for the Schr Exam. It was a small vige named Rockbell Vige which Yoze and the middle-aged Schr had both never heard of before.
The next few days were mostly spent walking with them and taking brief breaks to eat and regain their strength. Since Yoze himself tried to get as much practice in his armor as possible, the only times he took it off was when they were resting.
The schr who was following along had a hard time believing that Yoze was also a schr since he didn''t have the body of a schr. He even never entered the carriage that had been prepared for them and preferred walking alongside the soldiers.
But from his brief talks with Yoze, the middle-aged schr was amazed to find out that Yoze was a schr who practiced martial arts on the side. That made the schr consider whether he should take martial arts as a hobby.
As for Yoze, he was mainly focused on training his Armored Swordsman sh and Armored Swordsman Shuffle. After practicing for so many days he made a lot of progress. He had already reached the first level of the Armored Swordsman Shuffle and was close to reaching the level for Armored Swordsman sh.
Not only was Yoze constantly training on the move but he was copying a talent from every Blood Master. Since this trip was only 10 days Yoze made sure to throw a talent mark on a different person every 24 hours to try and get a talent that could speed up his training.
Chapter 72 72: Emergency
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If there was one soldier that Yoze wanted to have more of their talents then the clear winner would be River. She alone had 6 talents all of which Yoze felt would greatly help speed up his training.
[Name: River Skyrock]
[Age: 27 years old]
[Talents: Armored Combat (Grade 8), Hand to Hand Combat (Grade 9), Vitality Retention (Grade 10), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 9), Movements (Grade 9), Street Fighting (Grade 10), Martial Arts Adapter (Grade 7)]
"River''s lowest talent is Grade 7, even without a talent for a particr Martial Art she is a monster inbat." Yoze felt like he was looking at a store and wanted everything. Unfortunately, there was just not enough time for him to acquire all of the Blood Masters'' various talents.
In the nine days that they had been traveling Yoze had been able to gain five new talents. They are a grade 7 talent in Armored Combat, grade 5 Muscle Maniption, grade 6 Running, grade 5 Body Damage Absorption, grade 8 Earth Guardian Martial Art, and a grade 7 talent in Sword Arts.
He also was able to upgrade a few of his talents such as Fists Arts, Movements, Scent Tracking, and Axe Art, that he had gotten in the past.
While these weren''t the highest-graded talents that the Blood Masters had, Yoze imagined he could use these talents to speed up his training.
Especially, when it came to his Sword Arts, Fist Arts and Movements talents all were core talents that Yoze appreciated having to speed up his improvement in his current body cultivation methods and martial arts techniques.
Yoze could already sense that he was improving more for the same amount of effort in his Twin Fists and Mindless Legs. The increase in grade wasn''t too high only being an upgrade by one to two grades but with how high his talents were. A jump in a single grade meant he improved much faster.
The group had stopped in front of ake and were eating lunch when Yoze suddenly heard someone call his name.
"Yoze and Jackson, can youe over here?"
Hearing their name they walked over to the group of soldier martial artists and saw that they all had grim faces.
"The messenger that we have set up to wait for us here hasn''t arrived, meaning that something must have happened. That means that we are dropping everything and making it in the next hour." Timothy said,pletely serious.
"Wait, that''s impossible, Rockbell Vige is still more than a day away. There''s no way we can make it in less than an hour."
"If we have the horses run as fast as they can with no breaks I believe that we can make it in half a day but no earlier." The middle-aged schr knew the seriousness of the situation but he had to be the voice of reason. In his mind, no one could travel such a distance in such a short amount of time.
However, the soldiers looked at the schr like he was dumb. Feeling their stares, the middle-aged schr felt ufortable and looked at his fellow for assistance.
But Yoze was in too deep thought to be able to help out the middle-aged schr. He was wondering why they were going to meet up with someone a day before making it to the vige.
The only exnation that Yoze could think of was that these soldiers were nning on handing them over to another party while they dealt with their mission. For a hick-up to happen now meant that something must have prevented the person froming over. He might have been attacked along the way or he could be dead.
"He is right, if we travel by horse there is no way we can make it to the vige within an hour. But I don''t think that we are going to be traveling by horse but on foot instead." Yoze said out loud drawing everyone''s attention.
The middle-aged schr felt that something wrong was with Yoze''s mind to think of traveling using their feet as an option.
"That''s ridiculous,"
"That is exactly what we were thinking. As expected from a schr that is well-versed in martial arts." Timothy interrupted the middle-aged schr and looked at Yoze with a rare look of appreciation.
"There isn''t much time so I''ll spare the details. Arthur is going to carry Schr Jackson while we run." Before the middle-aged man could reject this n he was lifted by the soldier that Yoze had gotten his running talent.
"As for you Schr Yoze, we heard that you are very strong and fast but we aren''t sure if you are capable of keeping up with us. If you aren''t confident I can carry you while we run." Timothy began walking towards Yoze as if expecting him to want his help.
"I''m good, even if I can''t keep up with you guys I will just be slowing you down if you carry me along." Yoze shook his head to deny Timothy''s help.
Yoze knew that his running speed might beckingpared to these Blood Master soldiers since hecked a movement technique that improved his speed.
But as long as Yoze jumped instead of running and maxed out Mindless Blood Legs he was confident that not only would he be able to catch up but even surpass them in no time.
"Nonsense, just because you are a little bigger than me doesn''t mean I can''t lift you." Timothy also shook his head as he thought that Yoze was just embarrassed about being carried given his strength.
Hearing the report that Yoze, a schr, destroyed the entire Blood Sect encampment by himself without sustaining heavy injuries made Timothy and the other Blood Masters doubt the report. They thought that the report must have been exaggerated due to ack of information at the scene.
But after traveling with Yoze for these past couple of days they knew that the report really was inurate but instead of overestimating Yoze''s abilities the report heavily underestimated how terrifying this schr was.
Chapter 73 73: Metal Elephant Demon
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Just standing next to Yoze when his oppressive and heavy pressure leaked out made Timothy and the rest of the soldiers unable to raise their heads.
The only person that came close to giving Timothy this amount of pressure was his Martial Grandmaster but even his master''s feltckingpared to Yoze. So Timothy could only pray that Yoze didn''t rip him apart due to feeling embarrassed.
Seeing that Timothy was going to insist on carrying him, Yoze deeply sighed and prayed for Timothy not to break his back. When Timothy got into position to lift Yoze he realized that Yoze seemed to be much taller than he looked from a distance.
Standing around 6 foot and 3 inches, Yoze was considered to be a giant in the Grave region since on average everyone was a bit shorter than their counterparts from the Jade Mountain region who were right next door.
Timothy himself was around 5 foot and 7 inches tall and was considered to be average for men in this region but the average height for men in the Jade Mountain region was 5 feet and 10 inches. With a height disparity of 8 inches, Timothy looked more like Yoze''s sonpared to being his elder.
"Here we go,"
Not letting those thoughts distract him, Timothy first casually tried to lift Yoze but found out that he hadn''t moved a centimeter. He tried again with much more strength and found out again that it wasn''t enough to shake him.
This time putting his entire strength and ability, Timothy''s face turned blood red as he activated his Inner Blood Vigor to increase his strength. And finally was able to lift Yoze an inch off the ground before having to put him down due to him nearly passing out of exhaustion.
"Schr Yoze, can I ask you how much you weigh?" Timothy asked as he tried to catch his breath.
"I weigh about 2100 pounds, that''s all muscle by the way," Yoze said, impressed that Timothy was able to lift him.
It must be known that it was harder to lift Yoze than to lift his weight alone. Simply because Mindless Legs and Mindless Blood Legs both were always using their upgraded Sticky Steps to keep him bnced and stuck to the ground.
It would take someone to apply more than 5000 pounds of lifting force to lift him. For Timothy to be able to output that kind of strength meant he was a powerhouse of his own.
Timothy and the other soldiers all looked at Yoze like he was a monster. They couldn''t believe that a human can weigh more than 2 tons and not crust themselves to death.
"I understand why you said that you would slow us down if we carried you. But we don''t have much time, we need to go now!" After understanding that there was no way to carry Yoze, they could only hope that he was able to keep up.
Before Timothy even finished his sentence they all began running so fast that they disappeared from human sight. Yoze was able to keep up with their movements and guessed that they were traveling around 700 miles per hour.
"Luckily they aren''t too fast, I can put on my armor and still follow them." Putting on his armor and taking his sword in less than a second, Yoze activated the full force of Mindless Legs and allowed his body to move on its own.
With a simple hop, Yoze immediately reached a speed of over 660 miles per hour. With a second hop, he traveled around 750 miles per hour, and with a third hop, he reached his peak speed of 800 miles per hour and was rapidly catching up to the soldiers.
After catching up to them Yoze slowed down to match their speed since he didn''t know the way to Rockbell Vige he couldn''t lead the charge. Witnessing Yoze''s crazy speed, Timothy and the others all breathed a sigh of relief before focusing on truly using their full strength.
Timothy''s skin turned Blood red as his speed doubled but the others weren''t to be underestimated either.
Once River activated her full strength blood leaked out of her pours and covered her entire body and armor. Once she waspletely covered, her blood was reshaped into a werewolf that was madepletely out of her blood. She was able to transform all while keeping up with everyone else which impressed Yoze immensely.
The one who shocked Yoze the most with the use of their full power was Arther. When he went to full strength he simply turned into a bloody haze.
The activation of more than 10 Blood Masters going all out created a thick blood fog but unless one had strong eyes it would be impossible to see it given that it was also traveling at their crazy speed.
15 minutester Yoze and the others wereing upon Rockbell Vige when they saw that the vige was on fire. They heard people screaming and the sounds of metal shing with metal.
It was only when they grew closer that they saw the culprit that was destroying the vige. It was a giant elephant-like creature that seemed to have armor-like skin.
Unlike their reputation of being gentle giants, every swing of this massive elephant trunk crushed tens of people into blood fog. The elephant released a heavy demonic aura that made one feel like they were watching a moving Mountain made out of steel.
This monster was truly demonic and terrifying as it seemed to be bored as it easily killed everything in its path. Whether it was a man, woman, child, or animal the monster simply crushed them to death. It wasn''t even allowing anyone to escape this carnage as it threw pieces of rubble from the destroyed buildings to kill anyone who escaped the vige.
One single monster passed through Yoze''s, Timothy''s, River''s, and everyone else''s minds. The monsters that every living creature dreaded meeting as once one encountered one meant that their fate was sealed.
"Demon!"
Chapter 74 74: Ten Blood Masters Vs One Demon
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[Name: Treu Trant]
[Age: 7 months old]
[Talents: Spiritual Sensing (Grade 4), Spiritual Speech (Grade 1), Spiritual Energy Maniption (Grade 2), Armored Elephant Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 10)]
With each death, the spiritual energy of the vigers was absorbed into the demon''s body to be torn to shreds and used to feed its spiritual energy. Yoze could even see that the Elephant demon''s eye glimmered with a slightly darker shade of blue with each spiritual energy that it devoured as its pressure became slightly heavier.
"Boom!"
Suddenly hearing a sonic boom right next to him, Yoze turned to see that all the soldiers had left him and Jackson behind. As they instantly reached the vige,unching a coordinated attack on the Elephant demon.
Noticing that new prey had entered its footsteps the Elephant demon''s eyes glimmered with deep blue sparkles.
The Elephant demon''s speed was faster than Timothy and River expected as they ran straight towards the demon to restrain it while the others attacked it from its back. But ignoringmon sense, the Elephant demon was much faster than any of them. With a swing of its trunk that was as thick as a bucket, it mmed into both Timothy and River''s chests, sending them flying.
Without pause, the Elephant demon stood up on its two hind legs before stomping the ground with its full weight of over 100 tons. The earth shattered and copsed causing the others to be unable to maneuver around the demon.
"Tik tik tik tik,"
There was one exception: a bloody haze circled the elephant and covered one of the demon''s legs. The sound of rapidly shing metals filled the air but before anyone could get excited the elephant demon kicked the bloody haze with its freed foot.
"Bang!"
The power behind that kick broke the blood master''s bones and his bloody haze faded away as he was only living by a thread thanks to his strong vitality.
In less than a second over 10 Blood Masters were pushed back by the demon and weren''t even able to damage its skin.
With his ribs broken, Timothy tried to stand up to go support his friends and protect the vige people. But the sensation of his broken bones ripping apart his insides sent him falling back onto his knees even with the help of his body damage absorption talent allowing him to take more damage than anyone else.
"Damn it! Why the hell are demons so strong? It has nearly wiped us out with such ease." River gritted her teeth as she watched her friends get nearly killed.
A strange hopelessness filled everyone''s hearts as the Elephant demon began to restart its harvest. This time focusing on devouring the spiritual energy of the 10 blood masters that had entered its te.
The Elephant demon''s eyes focused on the several blood masters that were on the ground, nning to stomp them into a meat paste but stopped short when it sensed a fellow demon nearby.
Standing a few feet away from the elephant demon was Yoze who was about to step into the fight but stopped seeing that the Elephant demon''s attention had shifted to him.
Staring at the elephant demon Yoze was able to admire how massive this demon was. It stood more than 20 feet tall and its weight was in the hundreds of tons. Comparing a human to this demon was likeparing a baby to the tallest man in the world.
However, others might be frightened by the thought of fighting a demon but Yoze felt his heart pounding as he felt a sense of danger he hadn''t felt in a long time. He could finally find out how strong he truly was and see if he had the qualifications to begin his demon hunt.
The Elephant demon simply stared at Yoze and its eyes sparkled with intense blue light as if it was trying tomunicate something to Yoze.
"Has it mistaken me for a demon? Does it want to tell me that I entered its territory and should bug off?" Yoze''s thoughts ran wild as he tried to figure out the demon''s message before settling on what made the most sense.
"It doesn''t matter, I''m going to kill you today," Yoze said, shaking his head at the Elephant demon.
Yoze was not nning on sparing the Elephant demon as he did with the Fox demon at the Eternal Burning Lake Festival. Back then he was surprised to see that demon and it seemed to Yoze that he wasn''t nning on hurting any innocent people during the festival. Yoze alsocked the confidence he had now about his strength to kill demons back then and left soon afterward.
Even though others might think that talking to demons was useless Yoze knew that creatures that had Spiritual Speech talent also had some understanding ofnguages so he guessed that the Elephant demon could understand his general meaning.
"Roar!"
Regardless of whether the Elephant demon understood Yoze''s announcement, its eyes glimmered a deeper shade of blue as it roared from its mouth. The Elephant demon then vanished from the point of view of the Vigers who had run to seek shelter from the soldiers.
In the Blood Masters'' eyes, they barely saw a blur moving past their line of sight before mming into Yoze. However, they didn''t expect to see Yoze suddenly growing an extra 5 inches of height, ending up close to 7 feet tall, due to his sudden growth his armor was forced to stretch and nearly broke.
Even more shocking, they watched as the Elephant demon narrowly missed Yoze. The Elephant demon made a sharp turn and charged at Yoze again, ending up missing again.
Timothy, River, and the rest of the soldier''s jaws drop as they watch the deadly demon that was able to easily kill them being led around by its nose.
"Wait, he is leading the Elephant Demon out of the vige! We can''t be sitting on our asses waiting for Yoze, everyone follows my orders and get as many people out of here." Timothy''s eyes shed as he noticed that Yoze and the Elephant demon were quickly leaving the vige and towards the forest and gave out orders to the rest of the blood masters who still could move.
Chapter 75 75: Armored Elephant Spiritual Suppression
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Yoze felt his mind racing as he allowed his body to move on its own using fully activated Mindless Blood Legs. With his mind trapped controlling just his head, Yoze could feel the enhanced effects of using Mindless Blood Legs.
He could feel that his body was burning from the inside as his blood boils, his heart created deep thumps from his chest that were audible from the outside, and his muscles twisted and turned in strange ways that didn''t seem made for a human body.
The skin underneath his armor was growing colder as more of his life energy became trapped in his body as extra fuel. The sensation of power and endless energy made Yoze feel like he could run to the ends of the earth destroying everything in his path.
Yoze also felt his mind bing more clear the more potential he squeezed out of his body. He watched from the sidelines as his body dodged each of the Elephant demon''s attacks just narrowly able to move out in time.
However, while he could dodge the Elephant demon''s attacks for now he couldn''t fight back since Mindless Legs had no offensive abilities and he couldn''t control or predict where his own body would take him. If this went on eventually Yoze might make a mistake or he got fatigued and end up getting hit by that demon''s heavy hits.
"This can''t go on forever." Yoze''s thoughts spun as he tried to find a way out of this predicament.
Once they got far enough Yoze saw that Timothy and the others were encouraging the people to leave the vige while making sure that any rubble that was sent flying toward them was destroyed.
At the same time, the Elephant demon watched as the prey that it was using to feed his spiritual body cultivation was using this opportunity to escape. Anger shed through the elephant demon''s eyes before it stopped chasing Yoze and suddenly shifted to face the vige.
"Roar!"
The feeling of anger inside the Elephant demon''s roar shook the earth as the demon''s spiritual energy that was flowing inside its body materialized as a deep blue armor.
"Roar!!!"
Yoze watched as the deep blue spiritual energy flowed toward the Elephant demon''s trunk before another angry and oppressive roar sent a shockwave of the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy toward the Rockbell Vige.
The wave of spiritual energy quickly covered the spiritual energy of everyst single person. Causing everyone''s spiritual energy to be squashed under the weight of the deep blue spiritual energy.
Timothy felt as if a mountain weighed against his mind making his body freeze as it couldn''t move. A simr scene happened with the other blood masters as they all lost control of their bodies unable to move.
As for the ordinary people, they weren''t able to take on the pressure caused by the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy and fell to the ground unconscious. Timothy and the other Blood Masters felt a cold shiver wash their minds as they watched thousands of people all simultaneously fall unconscious at the same time.
The feeling of beingpletely powerless to do anything made them feel ashamed as the reason many of them chose to take the difficult path of bing fighters was to not be helpless. To defy their fates as ordinary people and be able to live their lives freely without worry.
To be so powerless due to one demon reminded them of why the wilderness was considered a death zone for humans. And why there were millions of stories of the strength of demons, immortals, and witches.
"The true masters of this world are the immortals and demons. Humanity is simply a yground for these two forces."
A feeling of eptance filled some of the Blood Master''s hearts as they began to ept the fact that all of them already knew but held onto stubbornly. The fact that regardless of if they became Martial Grandmasters and reached the absolute limit of the human body they were nothing but ants in front of demons and immortals.
However, two Blood Masters gritted their teeth as they resisted that thought as they still had faint hope keeping their spirits from copsing. Timothy and River stressed their eyes to the forest as they waited for the fight between Yoze and the Elephant demon to end.
Once thest body dropped to the ground a feeling of superiority filled the Elephant demon''s heart. It didn''t see humans as more than ants that it could use as a way to fuel its cultivation.
The only thing standing in its way was the demon disguised as a human trying to take away its prize. The Elephant demon turned around to fight Yoze but found that he was nowhere to be found.
"Boom!!!!!"
The Elephant demon felt five terrifyingly sharp, heavy, and powerful objects m into its armored head. For a second, the Elephant demon''s heart was gripped with fear as it felt its armor get ripped apart before the five objects pierced deep into its head.
"Roar!" The Elephant demon let out a cry of pain as it felt pain for the first time in its life.
Unfortunately, this was just the start of the Elephant demon''s suffering as Yoze didn''t stop his attack but started a chain of attacks that tore apart the flesh on the Elephant demon''s head.
With each chunk of flesh that Yoze tore out a bit of the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy was absorbed into his body to be devoured. His Serpent demon''s oppressive and sharp spiritual energy and his Three headed Fox demon''s elusive and illusory spiritual energypeted to eat and absorb the Elephant demon''s heavy spiritual energy.
[Target mark has locked into grade 10 Armored Elephant Spiritual Body Cultivation. Grade 9 Armored Elephant Spiritual Body Cultivation has been added.]
However, these two couldn''tpete with the new spiritual demon in town. A giant elephant demon with deep blue armor integrated into its body was inhaling the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy with ease.
For every three strands of the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy that enter Yoze''s body. Two strands would be absorbed by Yoze''s Armored Elephant Spiritual Body Cultivation talent alone. With his Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation talent and Three-Headed Fox Spiritual Body Cultivation talent having topete with the leftovers.
Chapter 76 76: The Armor Elephant Demons Spiritual Model
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"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang"
Yozeunched hundreds of Blood Koi Fingers paired up with the sharp ws from the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy and with all his Inner vigor concentrated into his fingers.
Standing on top of the elephant demon''s head Yoze wreaked havoc as he removed half of the Armored Elephant of the flesh on its head. The elephant demon in its immense pain crashed into trees and boulders in a futile attempt to dislodge Yoze from its head.
"Boom!!!! Boom!!!! Boom!!!!"
Yoze continued tounch hundreds of Blood Koi Fingers at the Armored Elephant''s bloody skull. He couldn''t help but feel terrified at how hard it was to kill this elephant demon.
Regardless of how much the Armored Elephant demon mmed into trees and rocks Yoze''s Mindless Blood Legs kept him steady and he stuck onto the Armored Elephant demon as if he was glued to it.
With how much effort Yoze had put in he knew that he could have killed hundreds of Blood Masters. Each one of his Blood Koi Fingers had the lethality to kill a Blood Master but as hisbo grewrger so would the power in each of his attacks.
For the Armored Elephant still, to be alive after hundreds of his strongest attacks showed how strong the demon was. It also made Yoze d that he had followed his instincts back at the Eternal Burning Lake festival as he would have been easily killed if he tried.
Suddenly as Yoze was pounding the Armored Elephant''s head, he suddenly lost control of his body as Mindless Blood Legs took control. Just as Yoze''s body jumped away from the Armored Elephant demon''s head he saw the Armored Elephant''s trunk m right at the spot where Yoze was previously standing.
If Yoze had stayed at the same spot and hadn''t allowed his Mindless Blood Legs topletely take over without a second thought that trunk could have crushed his bones.
Before he could breathe a sigh of relief for escaping, Yoze saw that the Armored Elephant''s demon''s spiritual energy suddenly transformed into a sharp long sword. The Armored Elephant''s trunk range instantly extended and reached Yoze and was about to m into his head.
Luckily at thest minute, Mindless Blood Legs moved Yoze''s head to the left, avoiding his death. However, the Armored Elephant demon''s attack sliced through his shoulder armor, his Iron Skin, flesh, and bones as if it was mud.
Nearly losing his entire right arm as Yoze tried to escape from the Armored Elephant demon''s unknown attack range. Unfortunately, for Yoze the Armored Elephant demon was consumed by its rage and desire to kill him that it was ready to risk its life to kill him
The Armored Elephant demon swiftly turned around and used its trump card to finish Yoze once and for all. As Yoze tried to gain some distance to recover he saw the Elephant demon''s spiritual armor turn back into spiritual energy and gather above its head.
The gathered spiritual energy quickly shaped itself into a miniature version of the Armored Elephant demon but the amount of pressureing off of that mini Armored Elephant demon was radiating the entire pressure that previously came off of the Armored Elephant.
As if the Armored Elephant had used all of its spiritual energy to form this mini-version of itself, the spiritual pressure weighing down Timothy, River, and the other Blood Masters disappeared. They were able to regain control over their bodies and the first thing they did was to ce their entire focus on Yoze''s and the Elephant demon''s battle. The Blood Masters wanted to know if Yoze had won or lost as it would decide their fate.
Unaware that the soldiers were freed from the Elephant demon''s spiritual pressure, Yoze watched as the Armored Elephant demon''s mini spiritual version of itself grew from the size of a tiny bean to the size of a small child. What made Yoze feel a shiver of dread was that for the first time, he felt that the spiritual energy was alive.
The Armored Elephant demon''s mini version eyes glittered with life and intelligence while the Armored Elephant''s eyes dimmed and grew lifeless. It seemed less like the Elephant demon was controlling the mini spiritual energy version of it and more of the opposite was happening, the spiritual energy Armored Elephant demon was in charge and control.
As if confirming Yoze''s feelings the spiritual energy Armored Elephant took a step forward and at the same time the Armored Elephant demon did as well.
"The Elephant demon body became the mini version''s puppet." Yoze''s mind raced as he watched his body running away as fast as it could from the danger.
Unfortunately, the Armored Elephant demon that was being controlled by its spiritual energy was much faster than before. It rapidly started catching up and ignored every obstacle that Yoze''s body hid behind, simply deciding to crush them into powder if they got in the way.
Once the Armored Elephant demon got close enough Yoze watched as the Armored Elephant demon made out of spiritual energy left the Elephant demon''s body and charged straight at Yoze.
Within a few seconds apart from each other Yoze felt his mind had been mmed by an iron mountain and at the same time his body felt the full force of 100 tons traveling at unbelievable speeds.
"Bang Bang Bang, Boom!!!!"
Yoze was sent flying and crashed through hundreds of trees and only stopped because he crashed into the side of a cliff and nearly destroyed it along with him.
Yoze could feel his flesh, muscles, and bones breaking and nearly turning into dust. The physical pain that Yoze felt alone almost made him faint.
But the war of spiritual energy raging inside his body calmed Yoze down as he saw that somehow the Armored Elephant demon''s spiritual energy entered his body and was trying to eat his spiritual energy from the inside.
With an enemy foreign invader entering Yoze''s body and trying to devour them, Yoze''s three distinct types of Spiritual energy stoppedpeting with each other and worked together to fight this unbelievably strong threat.
"Hisss! Roar! Roar!!" Yoze heard the sharp and oppressive hiss followed by the Three-Headed Fox''s soft and hoarse roar andstly was the excited roar from Yoze''s Armored Elephant.
These three spiritual energies shed with the Armored Elephant demon''s spiritual energy which was muchrger and stronger. Even with thebined force of the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy and the Three-Headed Fox Spiritual energy paled inparison to the enemies.
"Roar!!!"
A pained and angry roar came from the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy as it sensed that a chunk of its spiritual energy was devoured. The Elephant demon''s spiritual energy shifted its attention to Yoze''s Armored Elephant spiritual energy who was slurping up the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy and integrating it into its own body with ease.
Chapter 77 77: Devouring The Elephant Demon
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The moment the Elephant demon switched its attention to stopping the Armored Elephant demon''s spiritual energy from slurping its spiritual energy it felt two forces devouring its spiritual energy. When the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy turned its attention back it saw the Serpent demon''s and Three-Headed Fox''s spiritual energies munching on its spiritual energy.
Anger flowed through the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy as it tried to counterattack by focusing on the Three-Headed Fox demon''s spiritual energy. This spiritual energy had been the most annoying for the Elephant demon spiritual energy as it would vanish and take a bite before vanishing again until the Elephant demon shifted its attention.
The sudden burst of aggression caught the Three-Headed Fox demon''s spiritual energy by surprise and it lost a chunk of its spiritual energy which was devoured by the Elephant demon. However, before it could enjoy its victory the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy felt three massive chunks of its spiritual energy being devoured.
"Roar!!!"
The pain of losing so much spiritual energy nearly made the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy go insane. The pain of feeling your spiritual energy being devoured was on the same level as being eaten alive.
The angered Three-Headed Fox demon''s spiritual energy was even more brutal and cautious when it attacked and hid far away from the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy onlying back once it confirmed that it was safe.
The brutal war between spiritual energies raged inside Yoze''s body as he witnessed everything. He felt a bit anxious for the first few minutes but calmed down as he saw that the flow of the war was going in his favor.
An hour passed by as the elephant demon''s fought back with everything it had but it wasn''t enough. As it grew weaker Yoze''s spiritual energies became stronger.
This was most evident with Yoze''s Armored Elephant demon spiritual energy as it didn''t need to go through trying to convert the foreign spiritual energy. It simply added it to its body without doing anything and just enjoyed growing without limit.
It was the smallest and weakest out of the three spiritual energies but with the help of the Serpent demon''s and Three-Headed Fox demon''s spiritual energies restraining the Elephant demon, it was able to eat and catch up to them.
Though the Serpent demon''s and Three-Headed Fox demon''s spiritual energies weren''t as easily able to convert as the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy into their own, they had an infinitely better timepared to their enemy.
The Elephant demon''s spiritual energy could only stop the converting process of the spiritual energy it had captured as it did not have the leisure to convert the spiritual energy without losing more.
An hour into the battle, the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy had grown so weak that it was weaker than any of Yoze''s spiritual energies. At that point, its death was sealed as Yoze''s spiritual energies attacked together to finish it off.
"Roa..." The Elephant demon''s spiritual energy tried to let out onest roar of injustice before it waspletely devoured.
With thest strand of the Spiritual energy devoured and converted the three Spiritual energies stared at each other with the same level of hatred and desire to devour as they showed the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy. With their foreign invader gone the war for dominance over Yoze''s body restarted with even more brutality than the previous.
The battle quickly transformed into the Serpent demon''s and the Three-Headed demon''s spiritual energies ganging up to bully the Armored Elephant demon''s spiritual energy. They both tried to rip apart this neer and worked together but the Armored Elephant demon''s spiritual energy wasn''t a slouch either as it pushed back.
Even though the Serpent demon and the Three-Headed demon''s spiritual energies worked together, their distrust for each other made it impossible for them to put their full effort into attacking the Armored Elephant demon''s spiritual energy. The battle quickly stalled as the battle came to an end. With each of the spiritual energies returning to their paths, but the number of conflict spots in Yoze''s body quadrupled.
Finally regaining some control of his body, Yoze used his left arm to push his nearly cut-off right shoulder back in ce.
He waited for his Life Attraction, Regeneration, Slower Muscle Deterioration, and other physical talents to connect back his shoulder and arm to his body before he stood up to look at the Elephant demon''s lifeless body.
"Crack" Once Yoze stood up the Elephant demon''s lifeless body took a step back identally stepping on a stick.
"You are still alive even after I took all your spiritual energy?" Yoze felt shocked by how difficult it was to kill grown demons.
Even after having lost half of the flesh and muscles of the head, turning into a bloody skull, and losing the entirety of the spiritual energy they were still able to live on.
"Don''t you dare think of leaving," Yoze growled as a burst of deep blue spiritual energy left his mouth and crashed into the retreating Elephant demon''s body.
With all of its spiritual energy that flowed through its body gone the remaining spiritual energy in the Elephant demon''s flesh wasn''t strong enough to resist the crushing weight of Yoze''s spiritual energy.
"Boom!"
Underplete suppression, the Elephant demon''s body crashed into the ground it could only helplessly watch with horror as Yoze stepped closer. Staring at Yoze''s eyes and seeing the multi-colored sparkles in his gaze made the Elephant demon tremble.
Feeling how natural using the Elephant demon''s technique against it, Yoze once again felt that there was more for him to learn about the nature of Spiritual Energy.
But that was forter right now Yoze was considering whether he should kill the Elephant demon right here and now. Or should he take a risk and wait until his talent mark is refreshed and take the Elephant demon''s Spiritual Maniption talent?
"This demon has caused so much pain and suffering that killing it would be the right thing to do. It would be better if the vigers came and took the demon''s life but with their strength, it would be impossible." Yoze said out loud not caring if the Elephant demon heard him.
"But they can take revenge by eating its flesh and use that as retribution for the fallen people of Rockbell Vige."
Chapter 78 78: The Elephant Demons Death
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Looking at the trembling Elephant demon at his feet and the pirs of ck smoke rising from the destroyed vige, Yoze made his decision. Lifting his hand Yoze sent a chain of Blood Koi fingers at the Elephant demon''s head.
It took a while before Yoze was able to break open its skull and destroy its brain but once he did he felt satisfied. He might have not gotten the Elephant demon''s Spiritual maniption talent but he couldn''t take the risk of the Elephant demon trying to make a counterattack in his current state.
With his right shoulder and arm still needing time to reconnect and his broken bones, Yoze was lucky to be alive. If it wasn''t for his Life Attraction talent and various other things that made him hard to kill he would have died from the Elephant demon''sst charge.
"There is no way I can carry this back to the vige, much less carry this back to the city to give to Dad." Staring at the demon corpse that weighed over 100 tons Yoze decided it was better to get some help.
After leaving the forest and returning to the vige, Yoze saw that it was mostly evacuated and only a few Blood Masters remained. When he got closer he saw that out of the 10 Blood Masters, only Timothy and River stayed behind to wait for Yoze while everyone else had left.
"Timothy, River, can youe help me move the Elephant demon''s corpse so we can eat it." Yoze felt fatigued as he was still recovering and could only pass the request to them.
"You mean you managed to kill the Elephant demon?" Timothy and River looked at each other with shock beforeunching question after question to Yoze.
Since he knew this was an amazing feat, Yoze exined the whole battle to them and even told them about the spiritual energy battle that raged in his body. He only changed the terms to make it more believable.
"Schr Yoze, so you''re saying that all demons canunch mental attacks. Which is why we couldn''t move at all earlier?" Timothy asked with a realization on his face.
"Yes, it was because the Elephant demonunched all its mental energy at me. That allowed me to stun it so that I could kill the Elephant demon. I can exin this in more detailter. Right now we need to deal with the corpses." Yoze looked at the destruction and felt that before they did anything the people of Rockbell Vige deserved a proper burial.
"Of course, I''ll go get the others so we can do a mass burial ceremony." River understood Yoze''s thoughts and took responsibility to get it done.
As for Timothy, he followed Yoze to the Elephant demon''s corpse and marveled at the sight. After which, Timothy with the help of Yoze stripped the flesh of the elephant demon.
Half of the meat was sent to the vige to be cooked and the other half was dried so it could sustain a trip of sending 5000 people to New Swampscott City. When the people of Rockbell Vige heard that the monster that had been massacring their friends and family was killed they couldn''t believe it until they saw its corpse.
The people all felt that it was a bittersweet victory but felt happy they had gotten revenge. Especially when they heard that Yoze was giving them half of the meat to eat and throwing a mass burial ceremony for all the people that had lost their lives that day, they cried tears of joy as they thanked Yoze.
By the time they were able to bury everyone who died, the sky was dark and the night sky was filled with bright stars. Every person stood up and silently prayed for the people''s souls to rest in eternal peace.
As Yoze prayed he felt conflicted. He saw that the Elephant demon had eaten the people''s spiritual energy. But he wasn''t sure if spirit energy was rted to one''s soul.
He knew that spiritual energy was linked to one''s mind and life but he didn''t understand how they connected. There were many things Yoze didn''t understand about spiritual energy and his questions flooded his mind.
Why does Death Spiritual Energy not appear when someone is killed?
He had only encountered Death Spiritual Energy twice; the first was from his father dying from age and the second was from the destruction of Emerald Town. However, Yoze had seen many people die and their spiritual energy either disintegrated upon their deaths or their spiritual energy was absorbed.
But both of these situations did not lead to the appearance of the corrosive Death Spiritual Energy. The longer Yoze had his spiritual sensing talent the more he noticed the strangeness of spiritual energy.
There were all sorts of different types of spiritual energy and Yoze only had some understanding of two of them, Death Spiritual Energy and Life Spiritual Energy. These were the two spiritual energies that he could sense even when his talent was much lower.
If he excluded those two he would still have plenty of questions. Like would someone''s spiritual energy be absorbed be the same thing as that person losing their soul? Or was it simr to what happened to the Elephant demon where they would just be in aa state or maybe even still act normal?
Yoze felt his mind fill with questions about spiritual energy before he suddenly thought of another energy he never thought to question, Inner Vigor. What exactly was Inner Vigor?
He was only told that it was a special energy that appeared when the body was under extreme pressure and certain circumstances. Yoze couldn''t help but question why Inner Vigor has different attributes.
If it was a type of energy that was held inside everyone''s bodies why doesn''t everyone have the same type? If all Inner Vigor was the same but took on different attributes based on different methods couldn''t one have every single type of Inner Vigor in the world as long as they knew the method?
Countless questions about the world that he lived in, circled through Yoze''s mind. He wanted to learn about this world and its mysteries but everything seemed to be shrouded and concealed in a fog. He couldn''t gather this information through normal means and most likely find out secrets that he wasn''t supposed to know.
The more he learned the more terrified Yoze became at how dangerous this world was. The more terrified he felt the more he wanted to protect his family and his desire for power grew.
From the demons that Yoze nned on hunting to the mysterious immortals, strange animals, witches, martial artists, and even the cities themselves had secrets that Yoze desired to understand.
Chapter 79 79: Returning To The City
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With his desire to solve the mysteries of this world growing Yoze had many more questions that he wanted to try and find the answers to but he suddenly felt a light tap on his shoulders attracting his attention. Standing behind was the pair of Blood Master siblings, gloomy Timothy and talented River
"Is there something you need from me?" Yoze asked curious about what they needed from him.
"Schr Yoze, we wanted to ask you for permission to allow us to speak of what happened today with the city?" Timothy asked with the same gloomy voice Yoze had be used to.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Such as allowing the city to use your name as propaganda to attract talented folks into their fold. The city will reward you for your support, of course." Timothy exined.
"I would prefer if my name is not used by the city but I''m fine with you telling everything else."
After thinking about it for a bit, Yoze eventually decided to not have his name sung praises about. Even though he didn''t care about being low key he didn''t want to attract any unwanted attention from people.
"That''s fine but we have another request. Is it possible to hire you to kill demons?"
"That''s fine but I want to get the final say about whether I take the case or not." Yoze''s eyes glowed as he epted the offer. If he could get the city to investigate and find demons for him then he wouldn''t have to worry about finding demons on his own.
After asking theirst request, Timothy and River left as they needed to still add a few ingredients to the Elephant demon soup that was being prepared. Once the mass burial ceremony waspleted everyone went to the entrance of the town where several giant pots of soup were being served.
The smelling from the pots smelled heavenly and made everyone take another sniff of the warm air. It didn''t take long for everyst person to get a bowl filled to the brim with soup and demon meat.
Yoze felt his mood be lighter seeing the looks of joying from the Rockbell viger''s faces. He watched as the spiritual energy that was trapped inside the Elephant demon''s flesh was devoured by the viger''s spiritual energy.
"Everyone we have a long journey to tomorrow so make sure you eat as much as you can to regain your strength. Don''t hold back as we have plenty of meat and ingredients that we need to eat tonight."
Yoze turned toward the piles of meat that were waiting to be cooked and wondered whether everyone had the stomach to eat 50 tons of meat. Luckily, he didn''t have to worry about having too much as all of the food that remained was eaten by him and the Blood Masters who hadrger appetites.
The next day they set off back to New Swampscott City. With Rockbell Vige in ruin, there was no longer a need to host the Schr Examination here so they returned.
However, they were now traveling with a whole vige so the trip back had be much slower.
When Yoze traveled with 11 people it had taken them 10 days to arrive at Rockbell
Now traveling with more than 5000 people would have taken forever and that is assuming they had enough food tost them the whole trip with so many people.
While they had enough food to feed themselves and the vigers for 2 weeks it wasn''t enough to truly make it back to the city. So to solve this they sent one of the soldiers ahead to get to the city to meet them halfway with an escort group.
Even then with them only needing to travel halfway, it took more than 20 days for them to arrive at the spot where they were going to meet the escort service and hand them over. With a ton of demon meat in his hands, Yoze decided to leave the escort group when they first met and travel back himself since he was faster.
He was able to make it back in 2 days after traveling non-stop. When he got back home he saw that Jewel and his father were waiting for him.
"Yoze your back I''m d you came back safely. I heard that a vige had been destroyed by a demon. Did you encounter it?" Drew looked at his son with relief but seeing his armor crushed and stained red with blood made him think of the recent news reports.
"Yeah, Dad, my group encountered the demon but we were able to kill it. I even brought a lot of demon meat for you and Jewel to eat." Yoze ced the meat in his father''s kitchen.
"Good, I''ll go start cooking so you two catch up." Drew looked at the stacks of demon meat and couldn''t stop his mouth from watering remembering what the demon serpent flesh tasted like.
Yoze turned his attention to Jewel and saw on her face that she wasn''t particrly happy about being left out of such a major event. Once his father left, Jewel looked at Yoze with suspicion and entered a fighting stance showing off the faint green Inner Vigor above her skin.
"I thought this was just a trip to do the Schr Examination. Why did it turn into a fight against demons?"
"For starters, I didn''t know that this would happen or I would have done a couple of things differently. Why would I leave you and my Dad out of the huge amount of demon meat?" Yoze tried to exin.
Jewel shook her head as if she thought it was a simple answer, "Because we have tasted demon meat before and could have caught you in your lies about killing the demon."
"As for how you nned it out without anyone knowing is anyone''s guess but that is not what is important. What is important is that I''m going to be stuck to you like glue until you ept me as your student and make me live forever."
Chapter 80 80: The End Of The Investigation
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"I don''t know what to tell you to convince you that I have no hidden motives." Yoze put his hand up in helplessness.
After seeing that Yoze wouldn''t spill the beans, Jewel reluctantly put away her Inner Vigor which she was so proud of and told Yoze about the results of the investigation piquing his interest.
"The detective and his assistants found your Dad''s kids," Jewel said seriously.
"That''s good, why didn''t my father mention this when he was here?" Yoze breathed a sigh of relief before asking since his father should have been excited about this.
"I haven''t told him yet since they were found but it seems like they are running away and are trying to not get discovered. And I wanted to get your opinion on how we should handle it."
"What do you mean they''re running away? If they are scared of something then we need to find out what and we need to still contact them." Yoze looked puzzled.
"No you misunderstood, they are not running away from something else. They are avoiding the investigators and every time they are discovered they change locations." Jewel shook her as she exined the weirdness of the situation.
"That''s particr, let''s go ask what the Detective has to say about this. If he has proof that they were found then I''ll pay double to continue the investigation until we catch them." Being so close to fulfilling his father''s dream reunion, Yoze was ready to pay a heavy price.
After making his intent clear Jewel and Yoze went to visit the Detective''s office and found that by the time they arrived, the door was opened and the small child that they met before was waiting outside the door for them.
"We are here to see the Detective," Seeing the small child made Jewel smile as she loved how cute he was.
"He was waiting for you toe back. But he is currently out right now. He left a note that you could talk with me and Jasmine about the case." The child pouted seeing how Jewel treated him like a baby. But his round baby face didn''t help at all with his case.
"That''s fine, where is the other assistant that you mentioned?" Yoze asked as he didn''t see any other spiritual energy other than the child''s dog''s spiritual energy and the Detective''s spiritual energy that was inside the walls.
He didn''t judge the Detective for not wanting to meet him since he had only hired him to find his Father''s kids. As long as the case was solved and his Dad was happy he didn''t want to bother with the details.
"I am Jasmine." Hearing a cute child''s voiceing from behind the detective''s chair, Yoze and Jewel looked up in surprise.
The detective''s chair slowly spun until the person who spoke had fully turned around. Inside the chair was a 17-year-old girl who was wearing colorful sses. She had a smug smile on her face as she looked at Yoze with disdain.
Looking at Detective David''s two assistants, Yoze felt interested at the sight of these two. He wanted to know how the detective''s method for recruiting assistants since his two assistants both had unique qualities. Both of them had uniquely shaped spiritual energy that he had never seen in other people.
First, was the child with his spiritual energy shaped in the form of a dog and now there was a girl whose spiritual energy was in the shape of sses. Her spiritual energy even came in a multitude of colors that formed a rainbow.
"Toss a talent mark on her,"
[Name: Jasmine Rose]
[Age: 14 years old]
[Talents: Investigation (Grade 7), Perception (Grade 8), Puzzle Solving (Grade 8), Memory Retrace (Grade 10), Spatial Construction (Grade 7)]
"No talent in spiritual energy even though her spiritual energy is in such a strange form? Is it because she just isn''t aware of her talent?" Yoze felt that these two kids must have some talent rted to spiritual energy and he wanted to test out his hypothesis that he could make talents appear in the system.
"Nice to meet you, Jasmine. Have you ever considered bing a martial artist or a schr?" Yoze tried to see if he could get her interested in bing his student so he could test out ways to get her to be aware of her hidden talents.
But he only drew confused looks on Jasmine and Jewel''s faces.
"No, I have no interest in either of those two things and much prefer to continue being a detective," Jasmine replied, shaking her head.
"If you ever change your mind feel free to contact me I think you could do great if you tried them out."
"Thanks but I''m not interested. Let''s talk about the case and how this is going to end." Jasmine rejected once more.
Knowing that his attempt to make her his student was a long shot, Yoze didn''t feel stressed about being rejected and sat down at the table with Jewel.
"Can you go over what you found and what is going on with them running away?" After gettingfortable Yoze asked the questions he was most concerned about.
"It''s like this..."
Listening to Jasmine''s exnation Yoze was able to get a general grasp of the situation. They were able to find the tracks of his father''s children after the second week of the investigation but when they arrived at their new residence they found that it was abandoned recently.
It took them another week to get a sighting of the two and discover where they were now hiding. But as soon as they were going to report it back to Jewel they noticed that they had been discovered.
After they were discovered, his father''s kids frequently changed the location of where they lived and never stayed in a single location for more than 48 hours.
After going into detail about all their findings and the results of the case, Jasmine looked at Yoze before inquiring about ending the case.
"Since this case was supposed tost only a month and is only about finding these two people. I would like to dere that the case was sessful and closed."
Chapter 81 81: Yozes Invitation
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Yoze frowned at Jasmine''s deration of the case being solved. Even though he knew that she was right from her perspective but as the client, this is not even close to what he wanted.
"I appreciate everyone''s work on the investigation but this is hardly a satisfying ending. From what I know as the client is that I hired you to find two people. And after a month you have imed that you have found them but you don''t know where they are. This can''t be considered a sessful case."
"Is that what you think? We have proof that we found them." Jasmine said.
"If you have proof that they have been found I''m willing to pay to continue the investigation for you to help me catch them or at least meet them." Knowing that keeping the investigation alive was the best way to catch his targets Yoze told them up front that he was willing to pay.
"Unfortunately we don''t do this kind of service. I can tell you theirst location. As for you meeting them, that isn''t our concern or our expertise." Jasmine quickly denied Yoze''s request without further consideration.
"I understand. I would appreciate having theirst location and all the information that you have collected so I can hire someone else to catch them," Yoze said, a bit disappointed that they were so close to meeting them but missed at thest second.
"That''s fine, we have already prepared a package of the information. As for their location, I can take them there right now. If you are lucky they might still be in the area and you can catch them."
"Then what are we waiting for let''s go." Yoze''s eyes shined with hope.
[Grade 7 Investigation talent has been selected. Grade 6 Investigation talent has been added.]
"Maybe this talent will be of some use in finding them." Yoze thought as he copied Jasmine''s talent.
It took around an hour to travel to the east side of the city where Jasmine said that they were spotted yesterday. The building that they previously stayed at wasn''t in good shape and had beenbeled by the city with red x''s showing that were marked to be removed and renovated.
They didn''t enter the building since there was a low chance that they were still inside. Instead, they walked into a coffee shop that was nearby and observed the ce to see if they could find anyone matching his father''s kids'' description.
"Do you see that man and woman dressed in ck, right there? Those two are who you are looking for." Jasmine had a surprised look on her face as she pointed out two people that were walking toward the coffee shop.
"Are you sure that this is them?" Though Yoze didn''t doubt her he couldn''t help but confirm since he had never seen his two supposed siblings before.
"100 percent your luck is simply unbelievable." Jasmine couldn''t help but marvel at the chances that as soon as they arrived these two decided it was time toe confront them.
Just as Jasmine predicted the two people dressed in ck entered the coffee shop and beelined for them. When they arrived the two groups looked at each other with interest.
"Since your targets have made themselves known I will be leaving." As a detective in training, Jasmine was aware that she should never try to stay any longer than she needed to when it came to her clients.
The two people suspected to be Yoze''s father''s children allowed Jasmine leave and took a seat across Yoze and Jewel before taking off their covers to reveal their faces. Looking at their appearance Yoze was surprised to find out that they looked young and even looked like they haven''t aged a bit after turning twenty-five.
"That shouldn''t be right." Yoze''s mind questioned their age since they should have looked older. But other than their age they matched his father''s description of them perfectly.
The man in ck should be his father''s son, Dreyer Thunder. He had brown hair and brown eyes, and he also always looked like he was nning to y a prank on someone.
Thedy should be the eldest sibling and his father''s daughter, Tiki Thunder. Shecked her brother''s brown hair and had ck hair which matched her mother''s. She had crystal brown eyes that looked like they could see through a person''s lies.
"Are you two Tiki and Dreyer, daughter and son of Drew Thunder?" Yoze asked to confirm their identities.
"Why are you following us?" Instead of answering his question, they asked their question.
"Your father is about to die and he wanted to see you onest time," Yoze said calmly.
He noticed that when he mentioned his Father''s death there was clear sadness on their faces before they tried their best to hide it. Seeing that they cared for their father, Yoze couldn''t help but feel happy for his father and he tossed them an invitation.
"He is currently staying at Ten Ton Inn in room 302. You shoulde to visit him when you have the time."
Dreyer sighed before saying, "We will think about it. There are just too many things that we have to deal with right now."
"I see," Yoze nodded his head understanding but his hands had already grabbed both Dreyer''s and Tiki''s cors and lifted them to their shock.
"Hey what are you doing let us go!?"
"Were you just using our father''s name to gather us? What do you want with us?" In contrast to Dreyer''s panic, Tiki was much moreposure and still tried to get out information from Yoze.
"Don''t bother resisting, I''m just taking you to see your father. He doesn''t have much time and I don''t want to wait for you to get your things settled and waste his precious time." Yoze picked up the two adults like chickens and made his way out of the coffee shop.
Jewel who was also there sighed as she paid for their meal and quickly followed behind. She was already so used to Yoze''s personality that she knew that he wasn''t really inviting them toe to visit. Regardless of their answer, he was going to bring them along whether they came willingly or not.
Chapter 82 82: Family Gathering
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"So that is what Dreyer and I have been up to since we moved to New Swampscott City. Who knew that 16 years had already passed by so quickly." Tiki looked at her father with emotions, the father she knew in the past was strong and healthy but the man right in front of her was old and weak.
"16 years and this old man had be so old and wrinkly but look at you two it''s like you haven''t aged at all. You even still have some of your baby fat." Drew smiled as he felt the warmth of aplete family for the first.
Not only was he here with his biological son and daughter but even his adopted son who had made him so proud. Seeing that they were doing good made Drew''s worries melt away and he felt ready to move on to the afterlife with no regrets.
"I know this meeting was a little forced but Yoze has a good heart. It''s just once he makes a decision he tries to see it through until it''splete." When Drew saw his kids being dragged to his door by Yoze, he was able to guess what happened.
"It was okay Dad, we just didn''t fully believe that you came so far away from our home." After calming down and talking with his father, Dreyer felt morefortable about the situation.
"Yeah, finding out that people were investigating your whereabouts is scary so we had to be extra cautious. Luckily everything that Yoze said was true and we came to see you." Tiki added.
Yoze watched the family gathering a bit away from the table that they were chatting at and sat near the door. While he didn''t think they would try to run away on sudden notice, he didn''t want to go through the trouble of finding and capturing them again.
Noticing that the conversation was wrapping up and that Dreyer and Tiki were getting ready to leave, Yoze interjected to add his thoughts.
"Dad, it''s been a long time since you, Tiki, and Dreyer have met so it''s understandable that they are not telling you that their living situation isn''t the best so why not let them live with us?"
"We have plenty of room and I think it would not only give you and them plenty of time to catch up a bit but also allow them not to worry about their living situation."
Hearing Yoze''s desire to make them live with them, Dreyer and Tiki both hid their difort and concern for their father''s safety.
But Drew, who heard his kids struggling stood up and appeared worried, "If you two are not doing good you can stay with us as long as you need."
"It''s okay Dad, we are doing much betterpared to when we lived in Jade City. But from hearing that Yoze is a schr I can see why he thinks our living standards are shabby at best."
"That''s true that Yoze and I are living in much better circumstances but what kind of father would I be if I let my kids live in worse circumstances? As long as I''m alive I won''t let that happen." Drew mmed his fist on the table to show his resolve. Since he was doomed to die soon he would not be able to die without regrets if he knew about this.
Tiki tossed a nce at Yoze to see that he was holding a pile of papers that had their various information ranging from the location, past homes, and many other things. She then sighed as she had a feeling that this was another situation where it wasn''t a request that they stayed but a demand.
"Alright Dad, you made your point clear, we will stay with you." After quietly sighing to herself Tiki signed up for her brother and started living with their father again.
"But we need to get our stuff from our home to move everything here." Dreyer stepped into the conversation adding his concerns.
"I am sure Yoze is willing to help you and your sister get your things." Drew a look at Yoze asking him to help.
Yoze then walked over as this was a fine addition to why he wanted these two to stay. While he shouldn''t have so much doubt fit his siblings Yoze wanted to confirm who they said they were by using his cheat and sending a talent mark to confirm their identities.
"Jewel and I would be d to help you out with your stuff."
"Thanks," Tiki and Dreyer looked at each other with defeated smiles before they headed outside.
Several hours passed by and Yoze''s father''s room was filled with boxes of clothes and trinkets. Even though there were only four Yoze rented out a wagon to help take all their stuff with them in one go which made Tiki and Dreyer more impressed with how much money Yoze had.
It took another hour to take out their stuff which is when Yoze turned to face them and asked them a question that had been bothering him.
"What are you two so afraid of? Are you being chased by an enemy or did you break aw and run away from the police?"
"It isplicated and it''s not something a schr can help with." Dreyer looked at Tiki both speaking as if he wanted to confirm that they weren''t going to involve anyone.
"Try me, if I can''t help you as a schr or a martial artist then I won''t get involved." This was the first in a while that Yoze heard from someone that he couldn''t be involved in a matter or solve it.
"Fine, it''s like this. We don''t have a particr group of people out to get us but that doesn''t mean we are safe. If we let our guard down for too long then people will begin to target us."
"Can you somewhat understand why we don''t want to involve our family? We don''t want to bring harm to anyone, especially our family if we start to attract attention."
Chapter 83 83: Grade 2 Crystal Nerves
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"That is tricky but that doesn''t mean that I can''t help. As long as you are my family and friends then I don''t mind protecting you from these unknown forces."
"And before you say anything this protection isn''t optional. The moment you stepped up to meet my father is the moment you gain my protection. Even if it is the city, gang, martial artist, demon, or anything like that you are not going to have to worry under my care." Yoze pledged even though he had a feeling that they wouldn''t know how serious his protection was.
Unless it was a demon, immortal, or some other kind of magical being his protection was solid. Whether it is a spiritual or a physical attack Yoze had no fear about being able to protect them.
Even ambushes were no longer effective on him as Yoze was able to see spiritual energies through walls. So unless it is a Martial Grandmaster who was proficient in the maniption of spiritual energy then there aren''t many people who could harm any of his family members as long as he was around.
"Thanks for your protection," Dreyer casually replied, not putting much importance on Yoze''s promise.
The next day soon arrived and Yoze knocked on his father''s door. After watching for the whole night to make sure that Dreyer and Tiki didn''t try to leave in the middle of the night he was confident that they were still there.
And with his talent mark refreshed he was ready to go and confirm Dreyer and Tiki''s identity. When the door opened Yoze was sted with the delicious smell of cooked demon meat.
"Yoze you arete for breakfast everyone has already started eating without you."
"Sorry Dad, I stayed uptest night practicing martial arts." Yoze casually apologized before walking inside with Leah who immediately ran to his portion of demon meat on the ground.
Walking inside Yoze saw that his father, Jewel, Dreyer, and Tiki were munching on the Elephant demon meat with faces full of joy. This was especially the case with Dreyer and Tiki as this was their first time eating the delicious meat of a demon and receiving the benefits of having their spiritual energy supplemented.
"Come eat, I had your Dad prepare you a separate breakfast that was without this special meat since I knew you would not eat it." Jewel smiled with aplishment as she helped her employer and future teacher.
"Thank you," Yoze went to go eat his separate breakfast which was around 3 times as much food that the five of them were eating put together.
Even though his breakfast didn''t have any delicious demon meat Yoze didn''t mind as he wouldn''t have gained as much benefit as his father or everyone else. Increasing his father''s remaining life was the most important thing for Yoze.
If it wasn''t because he hired Jewel and Dreyer and Tiki were family and he knew his father would have kicked up a fuse about sharing the meat then Yoze would not have let them eat demon meat. Every pound of meat that his father didn''t eat meant that he was closer to his death.
After getting settled and eating his massive breakfast Yoze tossed his talent mark at Tiki.
[Name: Tiki Thunder]
[Age: 32 years old]
[Talents: nning (Grade 4), Teaching (Grade 3), Crystal Nerves (Grade 2), Throwing (Grade 6), Hiding (Grade 3)]
"Hmmm, "
Yoze looked at Tiki''s profile and saw that she was his father''s daughter and his eldest sister. Even her age matches up with what his father said it would. What Yoze found interesting was that given her age she looked very young.
And this was even more of a shock since Yoze didn''t sense that she was practicing martial arts which had the effect of making one look younger and she alsocked any talents that could have contributed to her and Dreyer''s unexpected youth.
"What kind of talent is Crystal Nerves?"
Yoze was surprised to see a talent that he wasn''t familiar with. After having his Second Best System for so long Yoze was used to all kinds of strange and seeming magical talents.
There was Life Attraction that he had gotten from the undead from Emerald Town. The many spiritual talents from demons and strange creatures such as Leah. And even more down-to-earth talents that had incredible effects that on earth would have been considered a superpower such as regeneration.
So even if Yoze encountered an unknown talent he was usually able to guess what kind of effects it would have. But this was his first time seeing anything remotely simr to Crystal Nerves. He had seen talents such as Tough Nerves or Quick reaction but he had never heard of Crystal Nerves.
He couldn''t even guess what kind of effects on the nerves this talent would have. So to see such a unique and strange talent Yoze had to snag it.
[Talent mark has locked on to grade 2 Crystal Nerves talent from Tiki Thunder. Grade 1 Crystal Nerves has been added.]
As soon as Yoze acquired the talent he felt his body be numb as he felt the sensation of something growing in his brain. It rapidly spread into his spine, then his bones and muscles before covering everyst milliliter of the inside of his body.
This new growth reminded Yoze of a seed spreading its roots into the earth, his body took the ce of the ground and his brain was the seed ready to grow.
This even led to his memory and intelligence increasing by 20 percent in such a short time. After experiencing such a dramatic change to his body Yoze looked at Tiki as if she was a treasure.
While he didn''t know the full extent of use of this talent, Yoze had a feeling that since this talent appeared on his cheat, that meant Tiki was aware of it. And maybe she had a way for him toe into contact with others who had simr talents.
Chapter 84 84: The Immortal, The Witch, And The Martial Artist
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Once everyone had finished eating dinner, their faces glowed as their spiritual energy became more energetic. While his father''s spiritual energy had burned some more of the death spiritual energy''s corrosion
"Tiki and Dreye I have something I wanted to ask you two?"
"Ask away,"
"Have you heard of the term Crystal Nerves?" Yoze tossed out his question as he watched to see their reaction.
Interestingly not only did Tiki''s pupils contract in shock but even Dreye had the same shock reaction. After waiting in silence for a whole minute and knowing that they had been exposed already. Tiki and Dreyer struggled toe up with a good enough lie since they didn''t know how much Yoze knew about them.
"We heard of the term but don''t know very much about it." Tiki eventually answered not denying her knowledge.
"Okay, tell me everything you know about it. As someone who has it, I believe that learning from you would provide valuable information." Yoze said, trying his best to hint to her not to try and lie.
Tiki''s pupils contracted again before she sighed and told him everything she knew about Crystal Nerves. As Yoze listened he couldn''t help but be shocked as these Crystal Nerves are rted to Immortals.
From the information that Tiki told Yoze Crystal Nerves are found inside a small amount of the human poption and are difficult to detect unless one''s talent is high. The reason why it was easier to detect and find people with higher grades of Crystal Nerves is that these nerves benefit people''s intelligence.
The more talent a person showed rted to Crystal Nerves the smarter they were and vice versa if one showed extremely high intelligence then that increased the possibility that person had Crystal Nerves. However, that only helped people with high talent in Crystal Nerves be discovered by their peers, Immortals. After being discovered they would be swiftly sent to an immortal sect to learn how to evolve their crystal nerves and step into the path of immortality.
That was only the case for people with a high talent for everyone else whose talent was too low but still was discovered by immortals; they would receive a basic cultivation book that lead up to the Crystal Skull level. This was how Tiki first came to know about her Crystal Nerves and learned about the immortal world.
"The talent system has five levels and each level is based on the quality of one''s Crystal Nerves. The purer ones Crystal Nerves were the faster they can process information and are able to cultivate."
"The grade of one''s Crystal Nerves could fit in 5 of these ranks from worst to best, Impure, Pure, Crystal, Earth, and Heaven. With my talent, I am near the bottom of the Impure talents so I stood no chance of getting into one of the Immortal Sects. "
"As for the power system, I only know the realms up to the Crystal Brain realm where once someonepletes this realm they can truly be considered Immortal."
"They are the Nerve umtion realm, Nerve Crystallization realm, Crystal Spine Realm, Crystal Skull, andstly Crystal Brain realm. Each of these smaller realms also has five smaller realms." Tiki paused to catch her breath not realizing how much she knew.
"As for me after cultivating for 6 years I have only reached the second level of the Nerve umtion realm." After telling Yoze the basics Tiki paused wondering if she should get into the weeds of rogue cultivators like her.
But before she made a decision, Yoze turned to Dreyer and looked at him to see if there was anything he wanted to add. After having such a reaction when Yoze mentioned Crystal Nerves he thought that Dreyer must have been an immortal cultivator as well.
"Hehehe, " Noticing Yoze turn towards him, Dreyer let out a bitter smile and shook his head before continuing.
"I''m not an immortal cultivator like my sister but I do have Crystal Nerves. It''s just that... mine are dead. So I can''t cultivate so I chose a different path of bing a witch."
"A witch?" Yoze''s mind wandered over to the countless stories he heard about witches and their evil.
"Yes, but I don''t eat people or flesh, I just practice witchcraft," Dreyer said after regaining hisposure.
"I see, so what is it that can make a witch and an immortal go on the run and not dare to show their faces." After learning that his two siblings were the legendary witch and immortal Yoze wondered what could be making them so terrified.
Dreyer and Tiki looked at each other before looking back at Yoze and said, "Immortal cultivators,"
"We don''t want to show our faces because every rogue immortal cultivator and witch near New Swampscott city is being hunted by other immortal cultivators."
Once Dreyer and Tiki exined everything, Yoze had some understanding that there was a mythical fruit that was born nearby and that drew out thousands of rogue immortal cultivators because it was rumored to help one''s cultivation. That also drew in the crazy and strong rouge immortal cultivators who had no qualms with killing bystanders to lowerpetition.
The fruit had bloomed half a year ago and had already been taken; however many of the crazy immortal cultivators continued their hunt to try and make the city their territory. That was bad news for cultivators like Tiki and Dreyer who had set up base here. To prevent them from getting hunted themselves they went into hiding before they were discovered.
"Do you know who is hunting other immortal cultivators and witches? And how strong are they?" Yoze asked, wanting to know who and how powerful his enemies were.
"We don''t know who they are, how many they are, or even how powerful they are. All we know is that it''s best to avoid them and not get anyone of our loved ones involved with the affairs of the immortals and the witches." Tiki looked up into Yoze''s eyes with resolve.
Chapter 85 85: Magic?
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"Even if you reached the peak of the martial arts world you would stand no chance in handling our enemies. Now that you know, I hope that you will let us go willingly or we will leave without your permission." Tiki crossed her arms expecting to see Yoze feel nervous or fearful about the scope of their enemies.
However, she and Dreyer didn''t expect that not only was Yoze not scared or nervous but he was excited. To him, he wasn''t worried at all about immortal cultivators and instead longed to meet them.
To be able to challenge demons and not die meant that immortal cultivators had powers that could rival spiritual energy. Yoze wanted to experience their power and learn it himself but his talent at the moment was too low.
If it took Tiki 6 years to reach the second level of Nerve umtion how long would it take him when he had half of her talent? But he could solve that issue by finding those strong cultivators and copying their talents.
As for being scared Yoze had faced demons who were just as or if not more dangerous since they were born with the fighting ability of Martial Grandmasters. Their spiritual energies are incredible weapons that can establish dominance over anyone else that doesn''t know how to protect their spiritual energy.
"If you think that would deter me, you would be mistaken, as for you staying here. As long as you convince Dad and can leave without me being able to stop you then I won''t try to find you again."
"In any case, you mentioned that you don''t even know if anyone is hunting you specifically yet so what''s the big deal of hiding here for a while?" Yoze looked at Dreyer and Tiki with confidence and patted their shoulders before leaving.
He wanted to ask Tiki for that book to start his journey of cultivating the immortal path but felt that it wasn''t time yet. Once he convinced them that they would be safer in his care than out there then he would request to learn the book.
After returning to his room Yoze went back to training his martial arts for the next few days. He had plenty of time to train while also preventing Dreyer''s and Tiki''s poor attempts to try and escape.
This time Yoze noticed something happening to their Spiritual Energy. Their spiritual energy fluctuations were bing more unpredictable and grew fainter and fainter until they almost disappeared. If Yoze hadn''t had his spiritual sensing talent for so long and had remembered what their spiritual energy was like he wouldn''t have been able to sense their spiritual energy.
Once their spiritual energy stopped its fluctuations their spiritual energies snuck out. This time however Yoze didn''t stop them, instead he chose to follow them in the shadows cause he wanted to see what other tricks they could do.
After Tiki and Dreyer walked far enough they began to whisper to each other but Yoze was able to pick it up.
"Tiki, did you sense anyone leaving the inn?"
"None, but we shouldn''t stop your Life Signature hiding technique. We already know that he has strong senses so he might notice us even from this far away." Tiki shook her head.
"Agree,"
After that brief chat, the two continued sneaking away instead of bing more rxed the further they were from the Inn the two of them became more tense and cautious. They were no longer worried about being caught by Yoze and worried more about the crazy hunters.
"Do you think we are making the right decision? With Yoze''s help, we might be able to hide better and fend off anyone who shows up." Dreyer turned towards Tiki and whispered.
"I don''t know but what we are dealing with is far out of our league much less him. He has never even fought against another immortal cultivator or seen their tricks so it is putting him and Dad in too much danger."
Tiki and Dreyer had already assumed that they had escaped but they were wondering if they made the right decision. From all their attempts of sneaking out, they could understand where Yoze got his confidence from.
They even needed to resort to burning one of Dreyer''s precious treasures to avoid him. It also won''tst much longer so they needed to find shelter before the effects ran out.
Eventually, they were able to find an old building that they could use as protection for the day. While Tiki and Dreyer were entering the building Yoze noticed that there was another spiritual energy in the form of a blue ball inside.
Knowing that the building wasn''t the safest, Yoze continued following Tiki and Dreyer into the building in case something happened. When he entered the building Yoze saw that it looked abandoned and the blue ball of spiritual energy had moved beneath Tiki and Dreyer''s feet.
Suddenly, Yoze, Tiki, and Dreyer felt a cold chill spread across the room instantly alerting them of danger. Before Yoze had to run to rescue the two, Tiki and Dreyer both dodged the silver needles that came right below their feet just in time.
"Ambush!" Dreyer yelled to Tiki.
What amazed Yoze was that at the spot the needles came out of, ice was rapidly spreading across the floor up to a foot away. If Tiki and Dreyer were hit their legs would have been turned into ice popsicles.
"Dreyer now!" Tiki took out three sharp knives that burned red hot where the needles came out causing a small explosion that held so much heat it melted the floor.
Dreyer wasn''t willing to wait around either as he threw three seeds that had been stained red to the ground and watched them grow into mushroom soldiers that radiated a pressure as strong as a peak first-rate martial artist.
These mushroom soldierscked spiritual energy and had mechanical and choppy movements. But having three of these mushroom soldiers added a lot of protection for Tiki and Dreyer.
Chapter 86 86: Kidnapping An Immortal Cultivator
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"Defend!" Dreyer yelled out an order causing the three mushroom soldiers to protect him and Tiki.
However, after waiting for the mysterious enemy toe out they discovered that their attacks didn''t even damage the enemy. The melted floor quickly froze into ck rock nearly making Tiki instinctivelyunch another attack but she held herself back since she knew this was a trick to draw her to attack.
Yoze meanwhile watched as the blue ball of spiritual energy had long left the area it had attacked from and instead retreated to the corner of the room. Noticing their trick hadn''t worked, the blue ball of spiritual energy sneaked below Tiki and Dreyer''s feet.
Yoze drew closer to the blue ball of spiritual energy ready to intervene if things began to get too dangerous. He was even two steps ahead and was preparing to capture the enemy to throw a talent mark on them in the morning.
Unfortunately to Yoze''s disappointment, Tiki and Dreyer suddenly called out to their enemy. Secretly throwing each a nce at each other, Tiki and Dreyer prepared their trick to reverse their situation.
"We are not hunters, we are just trying to find a ce to stay. And we will get out of your way as long as you let us go." Tiki said.
The blue ball of spiritual energy seemed to hesitate for a few seconds to consider if it was worth it to fight this battle. After its consideration, the blue ball of spiritual energy suddenly moved away from below Tiki and Dreyer''s feet narrowly avoiding getting stabbed by the three mushroom men''s feet.
"Crack"
The room filled with a bitter cold as the ice began to spread with the blue ball of spiritual energy as the epicenter. The ice rapidly spread across the floor as it touched the three mushroom soldiers'' legs turning them into ice popsicles in a blink of an eye.
Watching the iceing towards them Tiki took out a foot-long knife she kept tied to her arm. The moment her hands grabbed the knife it turned red hot as it even began to melt under the heat. Tiki threw the melting knife below her feet causing a wave of heat to spread and counter the ice''s expansion.
Witnessing his precious mushroom soldiers be destroyed, Dreyer wanted to sigh but he knew this wasn''t the time and he took out two blood-stained potatoes and tossed them to the ground.
The potatoesnded with a solid thud as a ssh of blood leaked out. A pungent bloody smell filled the room as two giant potato nt soldiers grew.
Yoze''s eyes widened with shock as he witnessed Dreyer so easily create two nt soldiers with Blood Masterbat ability. Just like the previous three mushroom soldiers, these two Blood Master potato soldiersck any spiritual energy and their movements couldn''tpare to the fluidity and speed of a true Blood Master
However, in most cases, this was enough to deal with any threat. Even when they faced other Blood Master realm martial artists they just needed to use numbers to make up for theirck of quality.
A Blood Master could handle two or maybe three of these Blood Master Potato nt Soldiers but how about four or five? They would be overwhelmed and killed through sheer numbers.
Yoze couldn''t help but want to learn Dreyer''s skills and special witchcraft. He already got a grade 2 talent in witchcraft from Dreyer and was ready and willing to learn the art of nt soldiers.
Yoze''s attention snapped back into the battle as he noticed the blue ball of spiritual energy retreating from the building. It had already begun to leave the moment it sensed that things weren''t going its way.
With the great teamwork between Tiki and Dreyer, an immortal cultivator and a witch, this rogue immortal cultivator recognized its position and started its escape.
As the blue ball of spiritual energy made its escape Yoze''s eyes glittered with colorful light as he made his way to capture the retreating rogue immortal cultivator. If this blue ball of spiritual energy had attacked him Yoze might have allowed it to leave but it had attacked his family. Meaning that its fate was sealed and Yoze was going to capture it for the night to check out its talents first.
Once Yoze arrived at the back of the building that the blue ball of spiritual energy had retreated to he grabbed at the rogue immortal cultivator through the walls. Sticking his hand through a solid cement wall was a piece of cake for someone with Yoze''s strength and he grabbed onto the immortal cultivator''s neck before pulling him out.
"What! Please let me go, I''ll help you kill other rogue immortal cultivators!" The rogue immortal cultivator screamed in fright at being pulled out of his hiding ce.
Yoze looked at the middle-aged man that was covered in dust and a strange slick liquid and wondered how he was able to crawl through the walls and floor without making a sound. As for the middle-aged man''s mistake of him being one of the crazy and strong rogue immortals cultivators, Yoze didn''t bother to correct him. He was going to be dead either tomorrow or in a few days if his talents are good.
"Don''t move," Yoze looked at the man''s spiritual energy as he uttered two words that terrified the middle-aged man.
These two words changed the rogue immortal cultivator''s view of Yoze from him being a fellow rogue immortal cultivator that could be reasoned with to that of an unreasonable demon. With two single words, the middle-aged man felt his mind being crushed by a heavy and oppressive yet illusory force.
Looking at the results of unleashing all his spiritual energy to suppress another person''s spiritual energy, Yoze was quite satisfied with the results. The middle-aged man couldn''t move a muscle and even couldn''t move his eyes. As for his blue ball of spiritual energy, it was squashed into a t pancake by Yoze''s spiritual energies.
After making sure that the middle-aged man couldn''t use any of his immortal powers or tricks, Yoze frisked his body for anything valuable. Eventually, he found 100 silver needles and two weird-looking rocks.
Chapter 87 87: Disappearing
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"Whatever, hopefully, he will have some good talents," Yoze shook his head at the middle-aged man''sck of items and felt that it was enough for the current him.
Yoze turned his attention back to the building and saw that Tiki and Dreyer noticed that their enemy had left already and began to make their way out of this dangerous area.
As Tiki and Dreyer made their retreat, Yoze watched them as a hawk before moving in to bring them back. After witnessing that battle Yoze became more interested in their power system. He had been watching the entire battle and couldn''t sense any usage of Inner Vigor or Spiritual energy.
"So they must be using a different type of energy that I couldn''t sense."
Witnessing their battle made Yoze no longer interested in letting Tiki and Dreyer wander around and fight immortal cultivators while he followed them. He wanted to bring them back home and ask them to teach him about immortal cultivation and witchcraft.
After deciding to bring them back home Yoze rapidly jumped over to the alley that Tiki and Dreyer decided to use as their escape route and made himself known.
"Who is there?" Tiki''s eyes widened as she scanned her surroundings. She frowned as she felt a presence near them but couldn''t pinpoint where it was.
"It''s me," Yoze waved as he stepped out from the shadows holding the stunned middle-aged man in one of his arms.
"Yoze?" Tiki asked cautiously as she didn''t recognize him with his new armor on.
Realizing that they never saw him wearing armor, Yoze took off his helmet to show them that it was him. Tiki and Dreyer instantly felt as if a boulder had been lifted off their shoulders.
After living with Yoze for a few days Tiki and Dreyer had grown used to the strange yet stable aura that Yoze leaked and felt morefortable than they should have been considering he was keeping them captive at their father''s home.
This was thanks to Yoze''s spiritual energies being more stablepared to before but the conflict between the three spiritual energies still made Yoze leak that strange aura that Tiki and Dreyer were used to.
After gaining the Armored Elephant Body Cultivation talent there was less chance for one of his spiritual energies to run wild and unleash their pressure as they did back when he only had two since they formed an imperfect bnce.
"What is it that you want? It can''t be to take us back. When we sessfully escaped." Tiki said confidently.
"Plus look at you it looks like you just came back from a mission so how about you focus on handling your prisoner beforeing to us in such a hurry."
Convinced that they had escaped and coupled with Yoze''s strange outfit and captive, Tiki and Dreyer became under the impression that Yoze had gone out toplete a mission which was one of the reasons for their sessful escape. After finishing the mission and realizing that they were gone he rushed to find them not even putting away his captive beforehand.
"Can''t you tell this man is the person who attacked you and Dreyer moments ago? I just captured him to ask him a few questions." Yoze lifted the frozen middle-aged man and took out his silver needles and two weird-looking rocks.
"So I wouldn''t call that your adventure a sessful escape but it was entertaining to watch immortal cultivators and a witch fight." Yoze nodded his head in approval as his admiration for his two siblings doubled.
He could tell from the fight that they were skilled fighters and must have experienced plenty of life-and-death situations to be so skilled. It also exined why they were so determined to leave since they were used to relying on themselves to survive.
When Tiki and Dreyer saw Yoze pull out the middle-aged man''s silver needles they looked shocked but they weren''t fully convinced that they hadn''t escaped sessfully. They felt that there was a small probability that he had just arrived and seen the needle-shaped holes before using his own to trick them.
However, when Yoze took out the two strange-looking rocks the looks on theirplexions became nervous before they hid it. Tiki and Dreyer have been in the field for long enough to tell when an item belonged to an immortal cultivator even when they had no understanding of its usage.
That meant either Yoze had stumbled upon an immortal cultivator and was given these rocks, or had killed an immortal cultivator and stolen his things. Either case meant that he was someone who knew that they had tricks and wouldn''t be surprised by their escape methods.
As for whether that middle-aged man was the person who attacked them no longer mattered and Tiki and Dreyer had a feeling that Yoze meant it when he said that he allowed them to leave. After being under the impression that they had escaped from Yoze''s hold, Tiki and Dreyer didn''t want toe back without first attempting to escape again.
In any case, they felt they had a better chance now that he was burdened to carry that middle-aged man. So Tiki and Dreyer threw a nce at each other before they walked closer to Yoze.
"You can''t use these items to prove that this man is an immortal cultivator. They could have belonged to anyone which means you can''t..." Before Dreyer finished speaking he pulled out a ck ball and a flute and mmed the ck ball into the ground.
The ck ball then exploded into a cloud of inky ck smoke that covered their bodies.
"...take us back." Dreyer''s speech continued as his voice grew smaller and fainter as if the distance between them was rapidly increasing.
Just as Dreyer continued his speech a wind blew the ck smoke away revealing that they had disappeared.
Looking at the empty spot in front of him, Yoze felt impressed by Tiki and Dreyer''s trick. He didn''t know how they did it but they were able to make Dreyer''s voice sound as if he was miles away from him.
But looking at the purple star of spiritual energy and the green sphere of spiritual energy still right in front of him Yoze knew that they were still just here. While he was impressed by their tricks Yoze ced the middle-aged man down and grabbed fit Tiki''s and Dreyer''s cors.
Chapter 88 88: Teacher Tiki And Teacher Dreyer
Unable to react in time, Tiki and Dreyer could only watch as the illusion they created shattered into a million pieces when Yoze grabbed their cors.
"There you are,e let''s go home."
Seeing that Tiki and Dreyer reappear after he touched them, Yoze couldn''t help but be curious about what would have happened if he had identally bumped into them.
Realizing that they weren''t going to be able to escape today, Tiki and Dreyer surrendered and peacefully went home with Yoze. After making sure that they weren''t going to try and escape again Yoze returned to his room
He tossed the middle-aged man into a corner of his room and trained all night. Once a full 24 hours passed he tossed a talent mark on the rogue immortal cultivator.
[Name: Regen Steel]
[Age: 51 years old]
[Talents: Crystal Nerves (Grade 3), Painter (Grade 5), Rock Collector (Grade 7)]
[Grade 3 Crystal Nerves talent has been locked on. Grade 2 Crystal Nerves talent has been added.]
Yoze felt his head clear up as his thoughts sped up and his intelligence increased by another 20 percent when he copied the middle-aged man''s Crystal Nerves talent. After looking at his prisoner''s talents and not feeling particrly interested in them Yoze took the middle-aged man and swiftly took his life to save him from any more suffering.
After giving him a proper burial, Yoze returned to the inn and knocked on his father''s door.
"Yoze you finally arrived, we were just about to start eating breakfast."
"Sorry Dad, I was finishing something."
Seeing his father opening the door with more energy and vigor in his steps Yoze couldn''t help but smile. Before his thoughts turned to the fact that he was going to need to find another demon in the next few months to be able to continue providing a stable supply for his father, Jewel, Leah, and now Tiki and Dreyer.
"Next time I must bring a cart with me so I can carry therge demon bodies with me." Making a mental note to himself that only having one ton of demon meat wasn''t enough, Yoze nned on preparing for the massive bodies of demons the next time he went hunting.
After shaking his head to clear his thoughts Yoze stepped inside and saw that Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer were in the middle of a deep conversation. Noticing that he arrived Jewel waved over to Yoze before pointing at the giant breakfast that was on his table.
Strangely there was a giant b of cooked demon meat that was double the amount that everyone else had.
"Dad, why did you cook some of the meat for me?" Yoze turned toward his father.
"Don''t look at me, Tiki and Dreyer cooked this for you since you''ve been helping them so much." Drew looked at Tiki and Dreyer with pride as he felt that everyone was starting to get along.
"I see, " Noticing Jewel''s curious eyes, Yoze wanted to see what kind of trick they were going to pull.
After finishing his breakfast and eating the whole b of meat, Yoze felt a bit drowsy but it disappeared in a sh after his Life Attraction talent prevented him from losing unnecessary amounts of energy and kept him energized.
Once he had eaten everything, Yoze walked over to Tiki and Dreyer to ask them a few questions about immortal cultivation and witchcraft. After witnessing that battle he didn''t want to wait for a better rogue immortal cultivator with better talent to arrive at his doorstep and instead nned to start early.
"Tiki, can I see the book that you received to cultivate? Dreyer, can you teach me more about witchcraft?" Making his request clear Yoze saw the shocked looks on their face.
"I can''t give you the book since I no longer have it. I destroyed it long ago after I memorized the whole thing." Tiki said, taking another bite of her breakfast.
"Is itmon to destroy books after someone memorized them?" Yoze remembered how he couldn''t find the rogue immortal cultivator''s book and wondered if it was due to the same reason.
"Yes, it''s quitemon since to cultivate properly one has toplete the process in one go. If you had to stop and reread the book then you would never be able to improve. So it has be a sort of tradition to destroy the books after you have memorized the book in its entirety."
"But it doesn''t matter if I don''t have the book. Unless you also have crystal nerves then it''s all for nothing. Why are you asking for it?" Tiki said curiously about why Yoze was asking her about her immortal cultivation book.
"I have Crystal Nerves but I don''t have a way to cultivate them," Yoze exined.
"You have Crystal Nerves? How do you know?" Tiki and Dreyer looked at each other with surprise. It was rare to find people who know they have Crystal Nerves but aren''t on the path to bing immortal.
"Just a feeling but I''m 100 percent certain," Yoze shrugged as he didn''t know how to exin his cheat to acquire talents.
"That''s fine, I can just act as your teacher to help you to cut out the unnecessary time figuring out theplexity of immortal cultivation." Even though she didn''t understand why Yoze was so sure he had Crystal Nerves she wasn''t opposed to teaching him.
"It''s good that you have crystal nerves but if you are alive and well that means you can''t practice witchcraft since it requires dead Crystal Nerves," Dreyer said.
"That makes sense why the system showed that one of Dreyer''s talents is a grade 2 Dead Crystal Nerves talent." Yoze nodded his head as he remembered the surprise he felt when he looked at Dreyer''s profile.
[Name: Dreyer Thunder]
[Age: 30 years old]
[Talents: Dead Crystal Nerves (Grade 2), Witchcraft (Grade 3), Gardening (Grade 4)]
When Yoze saw that Dreyer''s Crystal nerves were being disyed differentlypared to regr Crystal Nerves and how he felt another set of Crystal Nerves were being created in his body he wondered about the differences between the two.
But hearing Dreyer''s answer Yoze had the realization that the reason was that a witch had to use their Crystal Nerves differentlypared to Crystal Nerves so they ssified it as a separate talent.
"That shouldn''t be a problem either since I also have dead Crystal Nerves," Yoze said with confidence.
But from the looks on Tiki''s and Dreyer''s faces, they didn''t believe him for a second. They even began to doubt Yoze''s im that he had Crystal Nerves.
Because it wasmon knowledge that a person could only have one set of Crystal Nerves simr to how every human has one nervous system. One could have either normal Crystal Nerves or dead Crystal Nerves but never at the same time.
Chapter 89 89: Jewels Ticket To Eternal Life
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Even though Tiki and Dreyer doubted Yoze''s im of having both Dead Crystal Nerves and Regr Crystal Nerves they didn''t deny him his request.
"You''re forgetting someone here," Jewel coughed as she tried to get the attention back on her.
"What are you guys talking about when you mentioned Crystal Nerves, witchcraft, and immortal cultivation?"
Tiki and Dreyer looked at each before looking at Yoze who was perfectlyfortable with Jewel listening in. They also were fine with Jewel learning their identity since they knew that she was someone Yoze trusted.
"Jewel, as my guide I''ll inform you that Tiki is immortal and Dreyer is a witch," Yoze told Jewel the truth about Tiki''s and Dreyer''s identities curious about how she would react.
"Now that Jewel knows that Tiki is immortal I wonder if she won''t be interested in trying to be my student anymore." Yoze thought to himself.
"Are you kidding me? Tiki, you''re an immortal. Dreyer, you''re a witch." Jewel''s face was full of shock as she heard Yoze spill the beans.
"Well, technically I''m not immortal yet. I need to continue cultivating before I can have the chance to truly be unable to be killed." Tiki exined calmly.
"Incredibly, this family is full of surprises." After calming down, Jewel''s eyes darted between Yoze and Tiki before staying silent.
"Aren''t you going to ask her to teach you how to be immortal?" Yoze was a bit surprised to see that Jewel didn''t try and take this opportunity to be an immortal cultivator''s student.
From what he knew about her, she was an opportunist who wanted to live forever. She was even willing to be a demon''s student to live forever. So for her to give up an opportunity to learn from a true immortal surprised Yoze and he couldn''t help but ask her why.
"No, it''s just not worth it. Why would I be an immortal cultivator''s student to learn how to live forever when she hasn''t reached that state herself?"
"Not, only that just from listening to your brief conversations about needing Crystal Nerves I most definitely don''t have these nerves. Even if I could cultivate, why would I switch when I already have a ticket to eternal life with fantastic benefits?" Jewel shook her head as she felt her logic was solid.
Even though Jewel felt she had partnered with a demon, the race known for massacring the human race, she felt that Yoze was different from the stories. He was much more reasonable and treated her as an equal even when the trump cards in her hands weren''t as strong as his own.
Jewel was also able to get free demon meat and was getting paid much more than she used to. Even if she never aplished her goal of bing evesting, the demon meat alone was enough since it was helping her martial arts training.
If she had a constant supply of demon meat Jewel predicted that she would be able to be a first-rate martial artist in a year, a Blood Master in three years, and a Martial Grandmaster in five years. That alone was worth the risk of perishing at the hands of a demon.
"Forget it then," Hearing that Jewel was still willing to use him, Yoze shook his head but was relieved that he didn''t lose a valuable guide.
"Since we are all here, why don''t we start teaching?"
Feeling like they were being left out of the loop of Yoze''s and Jewel''s conversation. Tiki and Dreyer wanted to ask what Jewel was talking about but hearing that Yoze wanted to start learning they decided to askter.
"I''ll go first, I''m going to first recite my entire immortal cultivation book before going back and reciting smaller pieces and exining their concepts," Tiki said.
"Alright,"
For the next 6 hours, Tiki patiently recited and exined the concepts to Yoze while he listened and engrained her words into his head.
"Impressive you are learning at a much faster rate than I did. If you keep this pace up you will memorize this in 2 to 3 months." Tiki said after taking a sip of water to hydrate.
"Thank you, you''re a great teacher," Yoze seriously said.
Tiki''s talent as a teacher was helping Yoze understand the deeper level of the immortal cultivation method at a faster pace than if he was learning by himself.
"Okay that''s enough for today, I''ll let Dreyer teach you about witchcraft," Tiki said, handing over the responsibility to Dreyer.
"Thank you, Now we witches don''t cultivate like immortals or train like martial artists. We focus on using our Crystal Nerves as storage for Crystal Energy. Then we use the collected Crystal Energy to create strange objects like the nt soldiers that you saw me create yesterday." Dreyer drew Yoze''s and Jewel''s attention.
"Even though both immortal cultivators and witches have Crystal Nerves because their Nerves aren''t dead, so the crystal energy they absorb gets used as nutrients for their crystal nerves."
"While a witch''s Crystal Nerves can''t absorb the energy as nutrition and simply coats the outside allowing us to transfer it to other objects in unique ways." After exining the differences between the two different types of Crystal Nerves Dreyer went on to exin the basics of witchcraft.
Several more hours passed by and the sky had grown dark as the sunset. Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel all yawned as their bodies signaled that they needed to sleep.
However, they resisted their urges to sleep as they stared at Yoze who had no signs that he was getting tired if anything he was energized as when he woke up. Tiki and Dreyer looked at each other with dismay while Jewel looked as if she won a bet.
"Pay up, I told you whatever thing you added to his food wouldn''t work on him," Jewel said with pride as she extended her hand to signal to hand over their money.
Though Tiki and Dreyer wanted to wait a bit more to see if the sleeping agent they added would kick in they had to pay up since they lost ording to the bet they made this morning when they were caught by Jewel.
"Yoze, how did you do it? Did you take an antidote to the sleeping powder when we weren''t looking?"
Chapter 90 90: The First Step To Immortality
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"That exins why I felt drowsy this morning." Yoze thought to himself but he just shook his head and told them that he felt nothing.
"Ahh forget it, it must be because you are a martial artist that the sleeping agent had no effect." Dreyer looked visibly disappointed as he was the one who suggested this n.
"Have you two not given up and epted the fact that you are safer here than out there?" Yoze asked.
"We won''t give up when our family''s lives are at stake. If we can''t escape before you memorize my immortal cultivation book then we will give up." Tiki said with determination.
"It''s good to know that you won''t keep escaping forever." Yoze felt relieved by Tiki''s promise.
If they never gave up even after many months Yoze would be under pressure of choosing between staying home to prevent them from running away or going out to find demons when their demon meat runs out.
It was also lucky that Yoze felt he couldprehend the book within 2 months and if he wanted Yoze could find some schrs and copy their literature talent since he found that it was useful in increasing hisprehension speed.
After getting everything settled Yoze returned to his room and trained in his martial arts while trying to remember everything he learned that day. And noticing that Tiki and Dreyer were attempting to escape, Yoze went over to stop them.
Three months quickly passed by after Yoze began learning from Tiki and Dreyer. He was sitting at the table with Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer as he said every word of Tiki''s immortal cultivation book.
After he finished he saw Tiki and Dreyer smile with reluctance as they knew that Yoze did what he promised and memorized the entire book in three months. He would have learned it faster if it wasn''t for them intentionally slowing down their teaching but it was inevitable and today was the day.
"Congrattions Yoze, you memorized everything in the book. And we will keep our promise of not escaping anymore." Tiki dered.
But she and Dreyer knew that they weren''t going to attempt to leave even if Yoze let them. They had grown too used to living with family again and not having to worry about money and their safety.
Even the past two months of escape attempts were just out of habit and more of a game than a real escape attempt. Yoze also knew that they weren''t going to leave for a while now but it was nice to hear it verbally.
In any case, they were starting to run low on demon meat so Yoze wanted to start trying to find where demons lived. He hadn''t heard anything from the city so he had to take things into his own hands and find out some information on his own. He also asked Jewel to search for ces where there could be demons hiding about to get ahead of things.
"That''s good, since everything is ready, let''s go buy some crystals to start my cultivation, and yours too." Feeling excited to start his journey to immortality, Yoze didn''t want to wait any longer.
"Okay, but you don''t have to support our cultivation. We can handle it ourselves." Tiki denied Yoze''s wish to support them.
"How much money do you guys have?"
"I have 30 silver and Dreyer has 15 silver. It ain''t a lot but we can buy the number of crystals we need."
"You''re poorer than even Jewel. I''m buying you those crystals so you don''t hold back my cultivation." Yoze couldn''t help but shake his head.
Yoze was paying Jewel 15 silver a month and after so many months she had much more money than Tiki and Dreyerbined, much less himself. As for the cost of these crystals, they should be considered to be a leisure good for ordinary people so they would quickly eat up whatever money Tiki and Dreyer had left.
Seeing that Yoze was going to buy them crystals anyways Tiki and Dreyer epted the fact that they were just too poorpared to a schr like Yoze.
When they arrived at the market they eventually found the store where Tiki and Dreyer frequently bought their crystals. Looking at the price of the crystals with good enough quality to be used as cultivation material being sold at around 5 silver Yoze couldn''t help but look at Tiki and Dreyer differently.
"They must have been spending a considerable amount of their money on buying the few crystals they could afford." Yoze thought to himself as he bought a box of crystals 20 crystalsing to a total of 100 silver.
After buying the crystals they went home and Yoze was ready to try and cultivate for the first time. He gave 15 of the crystals to Tiki and Dreyer and left himself 5 crystals since he didn''t have to rely on his immortal cultivation or witchcraft to fight.
So he felt that they needed these crystals much more than he did. After giving Tiki and Dreyer their portion, Yoze grabbed arge blue crystal from the box and ced it between his hands before attempting to cultivate.
At first, Yoze didn''t feel anything but after 10 minutes he started to feel something entering his body through the skin of his palm.
"That is it," Yoze knew that feeling was his Crystal Nerves turning the crystal into dust and absorbing it into his body.
However, Yoze could feel that this dust split into two paths as he sensed his Crystal Nerves absorbing the dust and his Dead Crystal Nerves attempting to do the same thing but failing. Resulting in the crystal dust covering the surface of his Dead Crystal Nerves.
After five hours of cultivating Yoze suddenly felt that there was no longer any crystal dust entering his body. When he opened his eyes he saw that therge blue crystal that was in his hands was gone.
Instead of grabbing another crystal to continue cultivating Yoze thought about what he learned from Tiki and Dreyer over these past few months. Before he was able to reach the first level of Nerve umtion he needed to saturate his Crystal Nerves with crystal dust before filtering out the Crystal Energy inside the dust.
After filtering out all the dust and leaving only the pure crystal energy behind he had to use it to create more Crystal Nerves. And he needed toplete this step in one go or all his effort would go down the drain. Once he created his first Crystal Nerves he would have reached the first level of Nerve umtion.
Chapter 91 91: Meeting The Skyrock Siblings Again
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"With my current speed, it should take me one year to saturate my Crystal Nerves. " Yoze looked at his remaining crystals and felt that these weren''t enough for him and he needed a lot more.
"As for practicing my witchcraft, I''m going to need to burn through tens of crystals."
If he wanted to support Tiki''s and Dreyer''s endeavors he also needed to make more money than even his sry as a schr could reasonably afford.
"The money from just being a schr isn''t enough to sustain our cultivation but it is enough for now. I''m not in great need myself so I will focus on supporting Tiki and Dreyer. I can also get more money bypleting some missions for the city." Feeling his ever-increasing need for money, Yoze couldn''t help but recall the conversation he had with Timothy when they were traveling back to the city.
Four months ago...
"Yoze, can I speak with you?" Timothy walked over to Yoze.
"Yeah of course,"
"Have you ever considered selling the demon meat and bones?"
"Sell the meat and bones?" Yoze raised his eyebrows as he knew what Timothy wanted.
"Yes, I want to buy the meat and the bones of the demons you kill. Well not just me but other martial artists. However, the main entity that wants to buy it is the city."
"After experiencing how delicious and good demon meat is for martial artists'' training it would instantly be a hotmodity in the market." Timothy''s gloom disappeared for a short period as he recalled the taste of the elephant meat.
"If you know it''s going to be an instant hit, why would I sell it to the government and not just auction it?" Yoze asked.
"Simply because most martial artists will not be able to afford it so only major powers would be able to. That includes martial art sects which the city despises. So if you wanted to sell the demon meat and bones you would need a permit that the city controls."
Even though Timothy didn''t finish his thought process Yoze knew what he wanted to say. If he wanted to sell his demon meat in an auction inside the city and not use the ck market he had to get the city on his side.
Meaning he either sold some of his demon meat and bones directly to the city before going through an auction or only sold it to them. The price that he would sell to the city would naturally be lower than it would bepared to doing it through an auction.
But that came with the question of whether Yoze was willing to put his security and privacy at stake due to selling this rare and life-changingmodity. After thinking about it, Yoze felt it was in his best interest to sell it to the city alone.
Not only was it safer since he didn''t have to deal with multiple powerspeting with each other but it was much more convenient for him. What Yoze might lose by selling it at a lower price but he would gain in other things such as ess to martial art body cultivation manuals and techniques.
"I see what you mean and I am interested in that transaction. But how are we going to settle on the price if we never auction it or put it in the market?" Yoze questioned again.
"Simple it can be based on your price right now and can be further amendedter. But for now how much are you willing to sell the Elephant demon''s skeleton?" Timothy looked at the giant Elephant skeleton, which weighed 16.5 tons alone, being dragged in a cart by his 9panions.
"100,000 silver or 1000 gold for the whole skeleton." Looking at the monstrous skeleton that still radiated spiritual pressure Yoze felt he was lowballing but he kept the price.
"Only 1000 gold? Yoze you are a generous man but you got yourself a deal." Timothy didn''t hesitate to ept Yoze''s price.
When Yoze thought back to when he made that deal to sell the Elephant demon''s skeleton he was d he made that decision since he didn''t have to worry about money for the time being. With 100 thousand silver he would be able to finance his and Tiki''s and Dreyer''s crystal expenses for the time being but he still needed to go out and find some demons.
"Knock Knock"
"Speak of the devil." Turning his attention to his door Yoze''s eyes glowed as he knew who was at the door.
When Yoze opened the door he saw Timothy and River standing at his door with their armor on. And it seems to have gone through an upgrade as Yoze noticed that pieces of the Elephant demon''s bones were added to the armor.
"Schr Yoze, it''s nice to meet you again after so long." Timothy''s and River''s eyes sparkled with admiration as they gazed at Yoze. They could tell that he was much strongerpared to four months ago and even grew another inch.
"Nice to meet you two again,e in and take a seat," Yoze said, meaning every one of his words.
As Timothy and River were talented folks and their talents helped greatly increase his training speed so Yoze was grateful. They also were fun to talk with so Yoze considered them close acquaintances.
"Thank you,"
After Timothy and River gotfortable and stared at Leah, a goat stomping on herbs, with curious eyes before they began to talk about why they were there.
"Schr Yoze, we came over because we got the news that you were searching for demons," River said.
"That''s right, I have recovered from my injuries and am ready to start hunting. I''m guessing from the fact that you too came to visit that the city had picked up some traces of a demon encounter." Yoze said calmly.
"The city has information about numerous demon attacks numbering over 20 attacks but in most of these encounters the city had detected them toote which is why you haven''t been contacted." River straightened her back as she continued.
"But the city had just lost contact with a town up north and we suspect it is due to a demon. If we are fast enough we might be able to make it and find that demon."
Chapter 92 92: Entering The Grand Swamp
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"You lost contact with a town," Yoze felt a shiver run down his back as he was reminded of Emerald Town.
Yoze knew that even if a demon didn''t destroy the town, some other kind of abnormality could have done it. Either way, Yoze wasn''t going to back down from this opportunity.
If it was a demon then that is good he could get more spiritual energy talents and meat. If it was another bizarre event that was also good as he might be able to acquire some unique talents.
His Life Attraction talent was still paying dividends to this day and Yoze would like to increase this talent if he could. Or if possible get other talents simr to it.
"I''m very interested in this case, but do I getpensation for epting it?" Even though Yoze was interested in taking this case right away, he still wanted to get paid for his service.
"Of course, how does 1000 silver sound to take the case regardless of what you find there?" River smiled.
"That''s fine, tell me where I need to go?" Satisfied with the amount of money, Yoze agreed to take the case.
"We need to head over to a Town named Deepshed, it''s near the Grand Swamp region."
"If you don''t mind Timothy and I would like to join you and your journey to the grand swamp."
"I don''t mind, but first I need to go get apanion before we leave." Yoze thought about his promise to take Jewel on his adventures and nned on keeping his promise this time.
"That''s fine, we will wait for you here if you don''t mind."
Yoze nodded his head and stood up and walked over to Jewel''s room and knocked on the door. After a few seconds, Jewel came out wearing leather armor, and her stuff packed up.
"I''m ready to leave," Jewel said with determination ready to make an argument if Yoze tried to leave her behind.
"That''s good, follow me we are leaving tonight." Feeling a bit embarrassed, Yoze said and walked with Jewel back to his room to inform Timothy and River that they were ready to leave.
By the time they reached the gate that leads north, Yoze felt that it was a pity that he had to leave his cart behind since they needed to travel fast and it would just drag them down. Still, he made sure to carry an extrarge and strong bag to help him carry more meat.
"We need to get to the Grand Swamp which is more than 2000 miles away. If we travel at our fastest speed we should get there quite quickly. "
"The quicker we get there the higher the chances we can find the thing that is blocking our connection with Deepshed Town," Timothy exined.
"I heard of Deepshed town and know that it is one of the most connected towns to New Swampscott city. Every few hours travelers from the town woulde to the city so it''s not too surprising that the city felt that something was off if the travelers from the town suddenly stoppeding." Jewel exined, easily figuring out how the city knew something was wrong.
With how easily and quickly she was able to draw out the method they used made Timothy and River give her a nod of approval.
"As you guessed it we lost contact with the town a few hours ago so it is very likely that whatever is causing trouble is still somewhere near the Grand Swamp." After making a brief exnation of the directions and exining the urgency of the matter Timothy and River set off.
Seeing Timothy and River gone, Yoze signaled Jewel to get on his back and began hopping to catch up. Within a few minutes, Yoze caught and passed Timothy and River and kept going. Previously he wasn''t able to rush past them since hecked a guide but with Jewel as his guide, he knew where to go.
After an hour Yoze began to see a giant swamp that was extremelyrge. Sorge Yoze couldn''t see where it started or ended and couldn''t see the sides as they crossed the horizon.
Deciding it was better to stop and get an understanding of his surroundings, Yoze helped Jewel off his back and saw that her hair was a mess and her face was pale. His eyes twitched as knew that her experience wasn''t very pleasant.
When traveling at his speed it was a miracle that Jewel didn''t get sent flying off and die. He also couldn''t get rid of the wind so he had to slow down and try to focus on protecting Jewel.
Still, they were able to make it just fine and Yoze just made it a note to himself to ask Timothy and River how they were able to travel with that kind of speed with the schr he used to travel with. He was only an ordinary person whose body wasn''t in the slightest bit trained but he was in a much better statepared to a second-rate martial artist like Jewel.
"Are we here?" Yoze asked.
"This looks like the Grand Swamp. Deepshed town should be around here." After recovering a little from the journey and reorienting herself Jewel came to the shocking conclusion that.
"Wait we are inside Deepshed Town right now."
"This ce is Deepshed Town? But where are all the buildings and people?" Yoze frowned as he scanned the area.
Eventually, he found a piece of wood sticking out of the swamp and picked it up. It was dirty but was cleanly cut, something only a human and tools would be able to do.
After wiping away the dirt he saw that four words confirmed their location, "Wee to Deepshed Town!"
"Let''s wait for Timothy and River to arrive and then we can discuss what we should do next." Feeling that another strange event was happening Yoze decided to make sure hispanions were safe before he decided to explore.
"Yoze, Jewel, why did you stop?" It took Timothy and River a few minutes to catch up with them and they wondered why they suddenly stopped.
"We are in Deepshed Town. The town has been destroyed and is most likely buried underneath the swamp." Jewel said.
Timothy and River paused from hearing Jewel''s revtion and looked around before seeing that the surroundings were familiar. So familiar that they recognized they stopped here every couple of years for vacation but there usually was a small town here as well.
"Could a demon make an entire town disappear without a trace?"
Chapter 93 93: Unnatural Events
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"Is the demon that destroyed the town this powerful or was it an unnatural event?" Timothy frowned as he pondered what could have caused the entire town to be destroyed and sunk into the swamp in a matter of hours.
If it was just a demon he had some confidence that Yoze might be able to handle it. Timothy truly feared if the town was destroyed by an unnatural event as it meant they were dealing with a bigger problem.
Having been a soldier for many years now, he had witnessed numerous incidents that were considered to be unnatural. Such as a time when a boulder that was worshiped by a vige suddenly gained life.
At that time he and River were only first-rate martial artists and were sent alongside 20 other first-rate martial artists by the city to kill that boulder that gained life. At first, he and River didn''t understand the reason why the city was so determined to kill the boulder when it seemed peaceful.
Luckily, they were sent with experienced soldiers who dealt with these unnatural events before and followed orders. It was only when they fought the living boulder did they realize that it had somehow turned the vige people into puppets that followed its bidding.
They even tossed their lives away to block their attacks. It did immense damage to Timothy''s and River''s minds to see the tragic scene of innocent people getting cut down causing them to almost turn into the boulder''s puppets that day. Even with so many first-rate martial artist-ranked soldiers working together, they had lost half of the soldiers that came with them.
Emerald Town was an unnatural event that Yoze personally experienced and he knew firsthand how terrifying these events could be if left unchecked. Yoze frequently reflected on the time he spent in Emerald Town and could only feel that he was lucky that he found the town so early in its development.
If Yoze entered the town a few dayster or if he didn''t have his Spiritual Sensing talent he might have been killed the moment he stepped into the town. If the Mutated Mother Zombie evolved one more time before he found her or if Jade City''s army didn''t hold down the tens of thousands of undead he would have died in that fight.
Yoze knew that if things changed just the slightest bit for the worse the chances of him surviving Emerald Town would fall to just a small sliver. And he wouldn''t even have been safe if he decided to rely on Jade City''s protection.
If he didn''t discover the town so soon then the City would have also discovered that there was something wrong with Emerald Town muchter. They wouldn''t even know the severity of the matter until a week or two passed by due to the Emerald Town and Jade City rtionship between them not being as strong as New Swampscott City and Deepshed Town.
This could have resulted in the Mutated Mother Zombie undergoing more mutations and evolving further. If she went through a fourth, fifth, or even sixth mutation she could have been able to kill Martial Grandmasters. Alongside the Mutated Mother Zombie''s and the other mutated undeads'' abilities to use the Death Spiritual energy, they generated as weapons to suck out the energy of their opponents would have made them a monstrous threat to all living creatures.
These factors already ced Jade City''s survival in question and that was when they ignored the root cause of the event, the Death Rejecting Baby. The baby that rejected death and was attempting toe back to life to meet its mother again. The baby that even the fundamentalws of the world couldn''t keep dead.
If it wasn''t for the Death Rejecting Baby choosing to stop rejecting its death after the Mutated Mother Zombie died Yoze had no idea how he was supposed to stop it. Much less stop the endless ck pir of Death Spiritual energy that caused Emerald Town''s destruction.
If they couldn''t stop the Death Rejecting Baby then the threat would never be gone and would just turn every living being into the undead. As for if Jade City might of had a method to stop the Death Rejecting Baby and contain the death pir Yoze had no clue. But this incident showed how dangerous unnatural events could be and why Timothy would have rather encountered a demon than another unnatural event.
Luckily Timothy breathed out a sigh of relief after he heard Yoze found a clue to the real culprit of the town''s destruction. As Yoze was scanning their surroundings for clues to what could have destroyed the city his nose smelled a unique scent.
It wasn''t an ordinary scent that came from his normal senses but from his spiritual sense of smell. It had the scent of thick mud and had a thicker swamp smell than the Grand Swamp itself.
"There is the smell of a demon around here. " There was only one creature that Yoze knew of that could have such a strong spiritual energy that he could smell it. Even though he wasn''t sure of his guess Yoze still decided to let everyone else know his guess.
In a split second after Yoze finished his sentence, he felt his Mindless Legs technique act up and took over his body. Knowing that his Mindless Legs only acted like this when there was danger Yoze didn''t resist as his body leaped dozens of feet in the air.
In that exact moment that Yoze left the ground he saw the ground he was just standing on, cave in before exploding as a giant demon covered in thick brown spiritual energy.
"Impressive as expected of a demon who has such aplex aura." A deep and husky voice rang from the demon but its mouth was closed.
Yoze''s pupils contracted as he saw a truly massive leopard demon below him. It was asrge as the Elephant demon and strangely covered in holes that went through its body. However, the Leopard demon didn''t seem to mind the holes and didn''t even bother to have its spiritual energy armor cover them up.
"Talent mark that demon," Yoze sent out his talent to get a general understanding of how strong this demon was.
[Name: Leaka Tily]
[Age: 5 years old]
[Talents: Spiritual Sensing (Grade 5), Spiritual Speech (Grade 7), Swamp Diving (Grade 7), Swamp Leopard Body Cultivation (Grade 10), Hunting (Grade 9), Wisdom (Grade 3)]
Chapter 94 94: The Demon Summit
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"Five years old," Yoze felt a chill run down his spine when he read the demon''s age.
It must be known that Yoze hadn''t fought any demons that were so high in their age. All the demons Yoze had previously killed were below the age of one yet they still posed a threat to him at that time.
The Serpent demon was just born and even had arge amount of its Life Spiritual energy stolen but still reached the top of the first-rate martial artist level. The Elephant demon wasn''t even a year old yet was able topletely crush 10 Blood Masters and most likely could kill Martial Grandmasters.
The only demon that Yoze had met who had lived for more than a year was the Three-Headed Fox demon. Even though Yoze didn''t know how strong that Fox demon was, the fact it could take a human form gave him the impression that he must have been strong.
Whenever Yoze recalled the Three-Headed Fox demon''s talents he wanted to see if he could find that demon again and copy its talents.
[Name: Fracud Trumor]
[Age: 20 years old]
[Talents: Spiritual Sensing (Grade 9), Disguise Arts (Grade 5), Three-Headed Fox Body Cultivation (Grade 10)]
Though this Leopard demon was much younger than the Fox demon it had more talent so Yoze felt that it could be stronger than the older Three-Headed Fox demon. Looking at the Leopard demon''s spiritual armor that seemed made for digging underground tunnels Yoze was sure that this demon was a much bigger threatpared to the elephant demon he faced months ago.
Yoze nevertheless didn''t feel scared but excited to see such a talented demon. He could only see it as a treasure chest that he could copy talent frompared to it being a threat.
It was because he didn''t feel threatened at all. In these few months, Yoze wasn''t the same person he used to be and was much strongerpared to when he fought the elephant demon.
Not only did Yoze absorb the majority of the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy but he even learned to suppress other spiritual energies in addition to molding his spiritual energy into ws. With his conflicting and ever-increasing spiritual energies, Yoze had much more spiritual energy in his bodypared to the elephant demon and could therefore suppress stronger spiritual energies including the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy.
Yoze also had begun his first step toward immortality and was receiving the benefits which were increased body control and faster information processing. With a double boost in intelligence and information processing from his two crystal nerves it was harder for anyone to get the jump on him.
Yoze was also improving his martial arts as he progressed in his body cultivation arts, Twin fists, Mindless Legs, and his Armored Swordsman techniques which made him stronger overall.
As for the few times that the Elephant demon was able tond his attacks on Yoze through using its trump cards and the unique properties of spiritual energy, Yoze was much more prepared for that kind of attack.
"I''ll hold off on copying one of the Leopard demon''s talents in case it has the same trump card of sending a mini version of itself made of spiritual energy to attack me." Yoze''s eyes glimmered with multi-color sparkles as reorientated himself to fall right on top of the Leopard demon''s head.
As soon as Yoze felt himself falling he gathered all of his Big Golem into his fist and activated his Iron Skin inner vigor causing him to rapidly fall like he was an iron meteor. As Yoze fell he saw that the Leopard demon was not moving and instead looked up at Yoze with a grin on its face.
Seeing that the Leopard demon was so confident in its defense that it could endure a fist that had the force of 2600 pounds behind it, Yoze''s eyes glowed as he poured all of his Big Golem energy into his finger instead. Then he formed a thick and sharp w made out of the Serpent demon''s oppressive spiritual energy and the Elephant demon''s heavy and durable spiritual energy.
"Blood Bull Fist 200 percent!"
Just as Yoze''s w was about toe into contact with the Leopard demon skull he wanted to do as much damage to this confident demon so he used the full strength of his Blood Bull Fist all concentrated on his one finger.
"Boom!"
Yoze felt his finger hit a thick spiritual armor that the Leopard demon wore and create a dull explosion before piercing through the Leopard demon''s armor and cutting through to the other side. The remaining energy forced the Leopard demon''s body to crumble to the ground and create a mini earthquake in the Grand Swamp.
After unleashing his attack Yoze jumped away from the demon''s body and grabbed onto Jewel before retreating further into the Grand Swamp. Seeing Yoze retreat Timothy and River guessed that the Leopard demon must have survived that devastating attack and decided to leave the swamp until Yoze dealt with the threat.
"Is it dead?" Even though Jewel also guessed that the Leopard demon must have been alive judging from Yoze''s reaction.
"No," Yoze looked down at his finger and could recall destroying some of the Leopard demon''s brains as he passed through it.
But the burst of spiritual energy that should havee with the Leopard demon''s death didn''t appear. Theck of spiritual energy and the countless holes that simrly went through the Leopard demon''s body hinted to Yoze that the demon was still very much alive.
And since he couldn''t kill the Leopard demon in one shot Yoze knew that the battle was bound to get messy. If he isn''t careful he could cause the idental death of Timothy, River, and Jewel.
To prevent that oue, Yoze made a quick decision to retreat for now to take Jewel a good distance away from the battle. As for Timothy and River, he had confidence they could escape on their own when the Leopard demon''s focus was on him.
As he expected the moment the Leopard demon recovered the first thing it did was stare at Yoze. Looking into the Leopard demon''s eyes which were full of surprise, fear, and hatred Yoze tightened his grip around Jewel to prepare for an attack but the iing attack that he expected never arrived.
"Hahaha senior demon, I was just testing your reflexes. I meant no harm at all. " The leopard''s deep and husky voice that was full of power and confidence previously vanished without a trace as it called out to Yoze.
"No harm?" The disbelief in Yoze''s voice was clear but the Leopard demon ignored it.
"Yes yes, it was something the other members of the demon union ordered me to do. I truly meant no harm."
"The demon union?" Yoze''s pupils contracted as he never thought that demons had created a force of their own.
"If all demons joined this organization then there would be no one that could stop them except for immortals." Yoze''s mind raced as he thought about the devastating consequences that the human race might face in the future due to this demon union.
"Yes senior, recently I had gotten the chance to destroy a human settlement around thoughts to prepare it for the demon summit that ising in a year."
The leopard demon didn''t know that Yoze was human and thus couldn''t understand Yoze''s thoughts and misunderstood that he was worried about facing the force of the demon union. So it decided to lean on its identity as a member of the demon union to use its reputation as a shield.
"Since I didn''t smell the scent of a demon union mark on you, I had to follow my orders to test every demon passing the area. Please understand senior demon." The leopard demon lowered itself further and twirled its tail in a way that Yoze felt like he was looking at a cat.
"What if I want to join the demon union? How do I get the demon union mark?"Yoze looked at the Leopard demon and felt strange to see a demon trying to behave like a cat.
"You want to join? There is noplex procedure, just show up at the demon summit and you can join them."
"Where is the demon summit exactly then?" Feeling interested in attending this summit Yoze asked.
"It is deep in the Grand Swamp. Once the moon reaches its peak a year from now then the demon summit will begin andst for a few days." The Leopard demon felt that it was gaining Yoze''s goodwill so it started to rx its guard.
Chapter 95 95: The Wise Leopard
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As a demon who had survived for 5 years, the Leopard demon was more clear than anyone else that a demon''s greatest threat came from other demons. Humanity was too weak as individuals to do any harm to even some of the weak newborns while immortals had their focus on not getting plotted against by other immortals.
Demons however view other demons are prey and this became more clear the older a demon was. To develop one''s spiritual energy quickly hunting human towns and viges was effective.
The older and stronger a demon became, devouring the spiritual energy of thousands of humans at a time became less effective. Only by hunting therge towns that had hundreds of thousands of people or even the human cities that held millions of people would entice those demons.
However hunting human cities was suicidal for all but the most powerful demons. Simply they were simr to ho nests because once a city was attacked the entire poption would join arms and fight. The sheer number of tens of millions of humans alone would send a shiver down any demon''s back.
And if the sheer numbers couldn''t kill you and you destroyed the city then they must be ready to face the wrath of the whole human race inside the region. With an enraged and berserk human race of hundreds of millions of humans hunting them and every demon down without caring for their own lives.
The hundreds of millions of humans were also known to form mega coalitions they called nations when they faced simr urrences in the past. Each one of these nations'' abilities to destroy everything in their vicinity made even demons blush as they began hunting demons and other monsters en masse.
If these nations grewrge enough and the human casualties were monumental enough the human race from other regions would flood into the region. It was simr to a flood gate and once the gate was open it couldn''t be stopped.
However, that was a possible trigger from the demons that have lived for thousands of years to be able to cause so much damage to the human race. In any case, there are other effective ways to increase one''s spiritual energy so most demons will switch to these different methods rather than waste their time hunting humans.
One of these methods was to switch their targets and hunt other demons instead. It was dangerous but the rewards for sessfully devouring another demon''s spiritual energy were much better than destroying several human towns.
To temporarily have the aura of different demons in one''s body was an easy way to tell that a demon had done a sessful hunt and was still in the middle of digesting their gains. That was why the Leopard demon mentioned Yoze''s strange aura, mistaking him to be one of those demons that hunted other demons.
When the Leopard demon saw Yoze''s humanpanions its assumptions were reinforced. As the Leopard demon thought that Yoze was going to devour these humans'' spiritual energies to help digest the demon''s spiritual energy he had just obtained.
So while the Leopard demon felt more confident in its survival he was still cautious and ready to fight for its life.
While the Leopard demon was faking its rxation and remained cautious Yoze also didn''t trust the Leopard demon at all. Even with the information of the demon summit and the demon union Yoze''s desire to kill the Leopard demon remained.
If anything Yoze hoped that he could devour a majority of the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy without killing its body simr to the situation that happened with the Elephant demon. He wanted to figure out if he could still collect the Leopard demon''s talents if it was spiritually dead but physically alive.
If he could still collect the Leopard demon''s talents that would give Yoze a way to collect his enemies'' talents without having to keep them alive and worry that they could counterattack or escape. Having the Leopard demon''s body alive would also allow him to get a close look at the Leopard demon''s body and figure out how it was able to survive with so many holes.
Just looking at the Leopard demon''s unfazed face while it had a fist-sized hole that went through the leopard demon''s skull. It seemed to Yoze that the Leopard demon could manipte its flesh to seal the damage from the holes.
However, he could see that he was able to do some real damage to the Leopard demon as some drops of blood fell out of the hole and sshed on the ground. Yoze was able to see an interesting sight witnessing that as the Leopard demon''s blood dried, strands of brown spiritual energy would be released into the open air.
Only to be ripped apart and destroyed not long after being exposed to the outside world. The Leopard demon didn''t seem to mind the loss of a few strands of its spiritual energy since it was too tiny of a loss to care.
"Spiritual energy inside the blood. That reminds me of how as my spiritual energy grows some of it is entering my flesh just like my inner vigor. Is the next stage of spiritual body cultivation simr to the Blood Master realm?"
Yoze felt an idea pop into his head and wanted to explore it but decided to put this thought on hold to figure out the Leopard demon''s true intentions.
"Since you are preparing the Grand Swamp for the demon summit are there other demons performing this task? Since the Grand Swamp is quiterge even for demons," Yoze asked wondering how the Leopard demon would respond.
The Leopard demon''s answer would tell Yoze whether he should take the risk to attack now or whether he should first take Jewel to a safe area before he came back alone. If the Leopard demon was honest and told him that it was alone then he had more reason to attack it now.
On the other hand if what the Leopard demon said was true that in a year Grand Swamp was going to be hosting the demon summit and needed multiple demons to prepare the swamp then Yoze didn''t want to fight with the Leopard demon.
Not only was there a possibility that he would have to fight with multiple demons at the same time but more importantly Jewel would be his Achilles heel. Causing Jewel to be in more danger since she would be an easy target for the demons to focus their attacks.
Chapter 96 96: Swamp Diving
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After asking his question Yoze looked at the Leopard demon ready to read its expressions. The holes through its body and the fist-size hole created an odd situation for Yoze to read its facial expressions but he tried to make do.
"..." The Leopard demon seemed to Yoze to have been caught off guard by his question.
The friendly and rxed expression on its face slowly vanished as it stared at Yoze. It even stopped twirling its tail and took a more defensive posture. Even though Yoze couldn''t read the Leopard demon''s mind he had a feeling that the temporary peace that they had with each other was broken.
"There is only me, I''m the sole surveyor." After a few seconds of silence, the Leopard demon''s attitude shifted toward being more confident as if to project power.
"The leopard demon is lying," With the Leopard demon''s long pause and shift in attitude Yoze could tell that the Leopard demon was lying.
"Why would it lie?" Surprised by the Leopard demon''s swift shift in attitude Yoze''s mind raced as he tried to figure out what benefits the Leopard demon would receive from telling lies.
"Does it want to increase its importance?"
The first reason Yoze thought of was that the Leopard demon wanted to increase his prestige and level of importance within the demon union. As the sole demon that the union relied on to prepare the Grand Swamp, it could create the impression that the Leopard demon could do so and had strong connections with the demon union.
If that was the case in a normal situation that could work to give the Leopard demon some protection from stronger demons.
"Or it doesn''t want other demons to be involved,"
The other possibility that Yoze thought of implied that the demon union wasn''t as unified as he initially thought they were. With the clear understanding that the Leopard demon didn''t trust him and still held a cautious attitude Yoze felt that it was because of the Leopard demon''s caution that it didn''t want other demons involved.
The introduction of additional demons threatens the image of the importance that the Leopard demon wanted to create and imnt in Yoze''s mind. With the Leopard demon''s connection with the demon union seeming less important, it could increase the likelihood that he would attack.
The Leopard demon might even think that Yoze seeing these other demons could cause him to seek out these demons instead to join the demon union. In an extreme case, Yoze and the other demons could join hands to attack the Leopard demon together.
" Senior demon, I''ll take my leave." After lying to Yoze about being alone the Leopard demon tried to retreat sensing that the situation wasn''t going in the direction it wanted.
"Wait, I want to ask you one more question." Seeing that the Leopard demon wanted to leave, Yoze called out to stop it.
The Leopard demon stopped trying to escape and stared at Yoze with caution trying to see through his intentions
"I don''t trust you and you don''t trust me so how do I know that you are leaving or trying to set up another ambush." Yoze continued after seeing that he grabbed the Leopard demon''s attention.
"How about you deactivate your spiritual armor? I am not wearing mine so why don''t you deactivate yours so I can be sure that you won''t attack me the moment I lower my guard." Yoze truly meant what he asked as he wasn''t sure about the Leopard demon''s true intentions.
After witnessing that the Leopard demon had a talent known as swamp diving and prior was inside the earth waiting to ambush anyone who went near it. Yoze was highly suspicious of whether he could trust that the Leopard demon wasn''t going to follow him and sneak attack himter on.
The Leopard demon deactivating its spiritual armor was a strong sign to him that he could at least trust that it didn''t want to fight.
"Senior demon, you are making this difficult for me." The Leopard demon''s eyes shed with a deep brown light as it lowered its body to the ground.
"Haven''t you already made things difficult for me when you decided to attack me? I am just asking for you to be considerate." Yoze suspicion of the Leopard demon rose seeing it lower its body closer to the ground.
"..." A brief silence engulfed the Grand Swamp as the Leopard demon and Yoze stared at each other with suspicion before the silence was broken by the Leopard demon.
"It seems that you have made up your mind to kill me, in that case, don''t me me for not holding back." The Leopard demon''s spiritual armor darkened as more brown spiritual energy surged out of the Leopard demon''s body.
"Roar!!" The Leopard demon then let out a deep roar that created a shock wave of the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy surging toward Yoze and Jewel.
As soon as Yoze notices that the Leopard demon wasn''t going to continue ying their game, he began his retreat to get Jewel to safety. As soon as Yoze jumped up the Leopard demon let out its terrifying spiritual energy attack and it had to cross arge distance to catch up to them.
However, the attack was too fast to cross the distance that Yoze had created between them in a mere few seconds. As soon as the Leopard demon''s demon''s spiritual energy was about to touch Yoze and Jewel, Yoze created a spiritual w out of the Serpent demon''s oppressive and sharp spiritual energy with his spare hand and shed at the wave.
Yoze''s spiritual energy w tore the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy wave and devoured the majority of it, turning it into more fuel to grow his spiritual energy pool. However, he wasn''t able to devour all of it and some of the spiritual energy collided with Yoze and Jewel.
The remaining spiritual energy that attacked Yoze made him feel like he was stuck inside quicksand which made his body feel sluggish and his mind slowed down. The more Yoze tried to escape from the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy the more it seemed to slow him down.
Jewel wasn''t spared from the sshes of the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy and experienced a stronger effect due to her spiritual energy being exposed. She felt sick to her stomach as the feeling of having her mind slow to a crawl and being unable to move was unbearable.
Luckily Yoze''s internal spiritual energy arose from their slumber and began to eat at spiritual energy that touched Yoze and Jewel. It took less than a second for Yoze to recover from the Leopard demon''s attack after his spiritual energy is the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy.
Due to that, he was able to witness the Leopard demon''s body sink into the ground as if it was water,pletely disappearing without a trace. Simr to how Yoze wasn''t able to sense the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy until it attacked him, he found that he couldn''t sense the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy once it entered the ground.
Without Yoze having to think his Mindless Body went into overdrive as he jumped up into the air. Just as his feet left the ground Yoze saw 10 spikes made of spiritual energy phase through the ground and chase after his body.
However, they stopped following his body after reaching a maximum height of 10 feet. An uneasy feeling surged through Yoze''s heart when he saw that the 10 spikes made out of the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy stopped chasing after him.
"What is it nning?" With his mind working on overdrive Yoze''s mind raced as he tried to figure out what the Leopard demon was nning
Chapter 97 97: Crystal Nerves Special Quality
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Yoze felt the Leopard demon was smart enough to know that a sneak attack from underground had a low chance of working against him. Especially now that he knew that the Leopard demon couldunch attacks from the earth.
Scanning the ground for any movements or trembles from the ground, Yoze searched for any clues. Even after he almost reached the ground again, he didn''t discover any traces of the Leopard demon.
"Maybe the demon is not underground." Jewel also tried her best to look out for the Leopard demon and suddenly said.
Yoze also had the same thought as Jewel but felt that something was off with that theory. For one, the Grand Swamp was t and held several giant swamps and the earth below the surface was unstable. So there weren''t many hills or trees that the Leopard demon could use as cover, meaning it would have to go quite far to escape from his sight.
If the Leopard demon was going to travel such a long distance underground it would be better to find the other demons in the Grand Swamp to gang up on him. Instead of giving Yoze a good chance to escape without worrying about being followed.
The wisdom talent that the Leopard demon had also concerned Yoze as he felt that it was more likely toe up with a solution to stopping Yoze from dodging its attacks than trying to find a ce to crawl out of. There was also a good chance that the Leopard demon would make its move when hendedpared to when jumping about.
The moment his feet touched the ground Yoze''s worries were confirmed as he saw the ground beneath him instantly begin to crumble into a giant sinkhole. At the same time, Yoze felt something warm liquid touch the back of his neck making him want to wipe it away with his hands.
In this dangerous situation, Mindless Legs'' Sticky Steps came into y as his body mindlessly used the falling ground as a sterling stone to jump out of the hole the Leopard demon created.
As Yoze jumped out he felt a painful sensation as the warm liquid quickly started to dig into his skin. However, due to Yoze having Mindless Legs activate he didn''t reach out to deal with the warm liquid on the back of his neck until after it had dug itself in.
"What is this?" Yoze ced his hand on the back of his neck and felt a tiny hole in his neck
"Senior demon, your physical defenses are somewhatcking." The Leopard demon''s hoarse voice echoed inside Yoze''s has sent a cold chill down his spine.
Yoze''s face fell as he heard the Leopard demon''s voiceing from inside of his head like a thought. A sudden painful sensation sprouted from his neck as he heard the sound of the Leopard demon chewing on meating from inside his head.
"Hahaha, how does it feel to be eaten alive from the inside? Hmmm, what is this?"
"Why do you have so many nerves and some of them are strange? They seemed to have been turned into rocks."
"Senior demon, you have the strangest body I have ever seen but that won''t help you survive. Even demons that were older than me have fallen to me and I have eaten them alive! It is too easy to devour another spiritual energy when you are inside them, hahaha!" The Leopard demon''s cruelughter rang inside Yoze''s mind rang like a bell as he felt the painful sensation swiftly turn into numbness.
"The demon''s inside my body," Yoze calmly said to Jewel trying not to cause her to panic.
"Inside your body? How is that possible?" Jewels looked at Yoze with shock before calming down when she remembered that demons could do magical things beyond herprehension.
"Are you able to deal with it?" Jewel felt that Yoze was too calm for a demon to be inside his body.
"Most likely, " Yoze said simply as he tried to leave the Grand Swamp to be able to focus on dealing with the Leopard demon inside his body. He felt more worried about being ambushed by demonspared to the Leopard demon being inside his body.
After experiencing the Elephant demon''s spiritual model enter his body to kill Yoze, he had been wanting to experience that type of situation again. He could test his theory if he could copy the talents of the demons that had lost the majority of their spiritual energy
Even though the situation he was experiencing with the Leopard demon was different since the Elephant demon''s attack was purely spiritual energy while the Leopard demon seemed to have been able to do the same with both its body and spiritual energy. Instead of feeling panicked Yoze was worried his mind would be dragged into his body to watch the battle that would ur in his body from his spiritual energies causing him and Jewel to be helpless against any ambushes.
"Jewel do you know of a deserted area around here??" Yoze could feel that the Leopard demon was slowing down in eating his bones.
"There is a small valley that has nothing near it. " Knowing the severity of the situation Jewel looked through her memories before pointing Yoze in the direction of a valley that had nothing but rocks.
Yoze immediately followed her directions and arrived at the valley that was outside of the Grand Swamp. He was able to make it to the barren valley before he heard the Leopard demon speak out again
"Are these nerves or rocks? How could these nerves be so tough!?" The Leopard demon yelled as the frustration and hatred in its voice was crystal clear to Yoze.
The Leopard demon was livid as it was struggling to bite through Yoze''s Crystal Nerves. It had already bitten through many of Yoze''s regr nerves which should have paralyzed him.
However, due to Yoze having two different sets of Crystal Nerves he had barely noticed any changes to his movements. This was one of the benefits of having another set of nerves that immortal cultivators and witches enjoyed.
They didn''t have to worry about nerve damage with their regr nerves since they had backups. This was applied even more to Yoze as he had both Dead Crystal Nerves from Witches and Crystal Nerves from immortals in addition to his regr nerves.
He could lose two sets of his nerves and not worry about being paralyzed. Crystal Nerves were what made it possible for humans to be unkible immortals and allow them to fight against demon spiritual attacks.
One of their special properties is that they were strong and durable. They could even endure the attacks of the Leopard demon for some time showing how powerful these nerves were. With Yoze''s three types of nerves, all bundled up together made it impossible for the Leopard demon to do significant damage to Yoze in a short period.
Just as he ced Jewel down Yoze noticed that the Leopard demon seemed to have gone mad. It stopped trying to eat through his nerves and bones instead choosing to rush toward the path his Serpent demon''s spiritual energy flowed.
"If I can''t eat your nerves and bones then I''ll devour your spiritual energy before eating your mindless body." The Leopard demon was in a difficult position as its backup escape n had been cut off.
Chapter 98 98: Trapped Again
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Every demon wille to be aware of its weakness in the demon hierarchy. How they''re dominating the human race and other creatures was just child''s ypared to what the true demons at the top had.
This came around the age of 1 year old when usually a demon has enough spiritual energy to further their spiritual body cultivation and take control of their path. That was what happened to the Leopard demon after it had consumed the spiritual energy of ten thousand humans from a town.
Typically demons are not able to grow their spiritual energy after they are born because spiritual energy doesn''t grow after a creature is born much less when it''s not exposed to the harsh environment and isn''t stimted. This protection from the outside elements allows demon spiritual energy to never decay or have to face the terrifying death spiritual energy that urs when a creature is close to the end of its lifespan, allowing them to live forever.
This led to the situation where demons that have lived for thousands of years roamed the world with unimaginable power. They could reshape the earth and every being around them as they saw fit with their spiritual energy.
Simply having more spiritual energy wasn''t enough for a demon to survive in this world unless they nned to bury themselves deep into the earth and nevere out. They needed to use their spiritual energy in more effective manners. They needed to make use of their talents in spiritual body cultivation and push their existence to new levels.
When the Leopard demon understood this demonw of survival it stopped its reckless destruction of human settlements as it was making it an easy target for stronger demons. It then focused on making use of its talents to create techniques and methods ofbat that could kill demons.
After a few years, it had done it and managed to be able to manipte its spiritual energy to create spikes and use it to suppress other creatures. However, what the Leopard demon was most proud of was it managed to integrate its spiritual energy further into its flesh, blood, and bones.
It could control its body in ways that only creatures like slugs and boneless creatures could. It could seal wounds and even survive wounds that went straight through its body.
The Leopard demon even could send a majority of its spiritual energy into the body of other creatures by pumping spiritual energy into a glob of its blood before sending it to the target. This way the Leopard demon could actively attack other creatures from inside their bodies and even engage in spiritual battles with added protection from its physical blood.
The Leopard demon felt proud of this method of attack but knew better than to feel like it was unstoppable. While it knew better than to be arrogant since there were many demons and monsters much stronger than it at heart, following its own advice in practice was difficult.
With a method to fight against demons, the Leopard demon went out to hunt demons before quickly running into a brick wall. A demon that was covered in metallic ck spikes, had no limbs, no eyes, or even other sensory organs other than a mouth filled to the brim with razor-sharp teeth.
"A young demon with such a powerful ego, I''m going to enjoy eating you." The ck spiked demon licked its teeth in a high-pitched voice.
The Leopard demon at the time felt the powerful aura that the ck-spiked demon had and knew that to survive it needed to use its trump card. Without responding to the ck spike demon, the Leopard demon buried itself into the ground and shot an arrow of its blood filled with a majority of its spiritual energy at the ck spiked demon.
What happened next invigorated the Leopard demon as it entered the ck spiked demon''s body with little resistance and started to eat it from the inside. In the illusion of being in a superior position, the Leopard demon at the time didn''t realize it was trapped inside the ck spike demon''s body without a way to escape.
Once its escape was sealed the ck spiked demon went on the offensive and beat the Leopard demon into submission simply due to how much stronger it was. Just as the Leopard demon was on the verge of being devoured it heard the ck-spiked demon chuckle before spitting it out.
"Hehehe, that was a fun game we yed but since you lost and don''t want to die how about you join the demon union?"
After that day, the Leopard demon swore to never allow itself to be trapped again. It even modified its technique to have some of its blood keep the small hole it made to enter the creature''s body open allowing him to have an emergency escape route.
Not even a year after it joined the demon union it found itself trapped once more inside a demon it had invaded. Even the small hole that it kept open as an escape route was forcefully shut.
With the Leopard demon trapped inside Yoze''s body, it was both frustrated and terrified as it was now in a life-or-death scenario. The Leopard demon either won and killed Yoze or Yoze would devour the Leopard demon.
In such a life-and-death situation the Leopard demon couldn''t risk wasting its time trying to chew through Yoze''s tough nerves and focused on dealing with the much bigger threat to its life, Yoze''s spiritual energy.
The Leopard demon rushed directly toward Yoze''s spiritual energy paths, eating his flesh along the way to create a path. However, it didn''t take long for the Leopard demon to feel heavier and begin to slow down.
Due to the Leopard demon''sck of ability to sense inner vigor, it wasn''t aware that it was consuming Yoze''s Big Golem inner vigor along with the flesh. The weight of the Yoze every strand of inner vigor that the Leopard demon ate was many times the weight of the Leopard demon''s blood causing it to slow down from the sheer weight inside its blood.
Chapter 99 99: Spiritual Puppets
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With the Leopard demon having to deal with the weight of Yoze''s inner vigor it was forced to slow his advance but that wasn''t enough to stop it. Soon it reached the path where the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy flowed.
The crystal clear green spiritual energy circting through Yoze''s body radiated heavy oppression and shimmered with sharpness. From time to time the stream of spiritual energy would be slightly bigger as some strands went rogue and departed to be absorbed into his flesh.
"Hiss!"
Sensing the leopard demon''s arrival the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy shook as it gathered and reformed to create a model of the Serpent demon. The Serpent demon''s spiritual energy model hissed with an oppressive tone as its highly detailed scales and sharp ws pointed toward the Leopard demon.
"Now that I see your true form, I seem to have overestimated your strength." The Leopard demon growled as it manipted its spiritual energy to create a spike to attack the Serpent demon.
"Hiss!" The Serpent demon was quick to also take action but made it clear that it wasn''t going to fight head-to-head with the Leopard demon instead in favor of dodging its attacks.
With the home-ground advantage and the Leopard demon''s physical form being burdened by Yoze''s inner vigor, the Serpent demon was able to avoid all the attacksing its way. With each of its attacks unable tond on their target, the Leopard demon was feeling uneasy as it felt that the Serpent demon was acting too passive.
It gave off the impression it was waiting for something toe to help. However, that should be impossible since the Leopard demon was attacking Yoze''s spiritual energy directly. He should have been using all of his strength now and shouldn''t be able to conjure up additional strength.
"Roar!!"
"Roar!"
A chill ran through the Leopard demon as it heard the roars of other demons rushing at it. A wave of deep blue spiritual energy that seemed to be as heavy as a Mountain of metal surged toward the Leopard demon.
Due to its quick reflexes, the deep blue spiritual energy attack missed its target as the Leopard demon managed to dodge at thest second. However, that wasn''t the end of the Leopard demon''s suffering as it felt a chunk of its blood and spiritual energy be bitten off.
Turning around, the Leopard demon saw the spiritual energy model of the Three-Headed Fox demon retreating as it devoured and absorbed the spiritual energy before spitting out the Leopard demon''s blood to nourish Yoze''s body.
"How do you have multiple types of spiritual energies!?" The Leopard demon couldn''t believe what it was seeing.
Three different types of spiritual energy reside in the same body. Not only that, two of the spiritual energies seemed to have enough control that they took the form of two different demons.
"Roar!!"
After missing its attack the deep blue spiritual energy felt dissatisfied with its performance the Elephant demon''s spiritual energy let out a roar of frustration. Shocking the Leopard demon even more as it watched the deep blue spiritual energy reform into a model of the Elephant demon.
"Three spiritual energies, three spiritual body cultivations, how are you alive!?"
Sensing the foreign blood of a demon, a force deep within Yoze''s blood awakened and gobbled the blood with ease. The soft satisfied baa of a goat echoed from Yoze''s blood as the demon blood was used to nourish and heal the wounds inside Yoze''s body.
The feeling of healing using demon blood was astonishing as it made Yoze feel energized like he had drunk five cups of coffee. He didn''t even know that his Goat talent would have had such a usage since he mainly used it for improving his level 6 Mindless Legs.
Initially, Yoze was a bit worried that his Spiritual energies wouldn''t be able to handle the Leopard demon since it had the protection of its blood. Luckily it seemed he didn''t have to worry since it appeared that his spiritual energies and Goat talent could handle this threat.
However, after experiencing this Yoze knew he needed a better way to kill demons spiritually instead of putting his life in danger in hopes they entered his body. His mind turned toward the Leopard demon''s method of entering other creatures'' bodies.
If he could figure out how to send out one or more of his spiritual energies into other creatures'' bodies could he control them like puppets? However, Yoze put those thoughts on the back burner since he was still in a dangerous situation
"How are you doing? Is that holey demon dead? Or are you losing and need me to chop off your head?" Noticing Yoze opened his eyes, Jewel rapidly fired questions to know the situation.
"I''m fine this demon wasn''t as strong as I thought it was going to be since it was much olderpared to the other demons I killed. Also, you can put away the sword that wouldn''t be able to cut me?" Yoze hastily replied since he saw that Jewel was drawing out her sword.
Even though he couldn''t be cut when he activated his Iron Skin inner vigor he still felt the force of the attacks.
"Really? Didn''t you sayst time you had a tough fight against a younger demon, how are you so easily able to deal with this one?" Knowing that Yoze was right that she couldn''t cut off his head, Jewel put down her sword but didn''t sheath it just in case something happened.
"I''m that good," Yoze answered honestly.
He had collected many talents over the years and these talents oftenplemented other talents allowing his progress in many fields to be incredibly fast. What Yoze could achieve in a few months was more than what others could do after years of training.
This included spiritual body cultivation training, Yoze had three different grade 9 spiritual body cultivation talents thatponents with each other. Also due to the fact they conflicted with each other due to colliding in certain areas, Yoze''s spiritual energy never settled instead due to the collisions his spiritual energy was always increasing.
At the moment each of his spiritual energies had more spiritual energy on their own than the Elephant demon and just like they did with the Elephant demon his spiritual energies would often work together to deal with external threats. That allpounded to make the current situation for the Leopard demon even worse as it struggled toe to terms that it could be witnessing a creature having multiple spiritual energies.
ording to what the Leopard demon knew no creature could have multiple spiritual energy since spiritual energy was unique to each person. It couldn''t be changed at all much less could one have multiple spiritual body cultivations.
The best thing that could happen from having multiple spiritual energies was that they would tear each other apart while the creature''s body got destroyed and if lucky they will die quickly so they don''t suffer any pain.
For Yoze to have three different types of spiritual energy scared the Leopard demon as it couldn''t imagine how powerful a demon had to be to have multiple types of spiritual energy. What made it fear even more was that it couldn''t tell which one was Yoze''s main spiritual energy but it couldn''t find it.
All three types of spiritual energy seemed to have as much intelligence and control as a regr demon would have with their spiritual energies. It was like the Leopard demon was fighting against multiple demons at the same time, it was being overwhelmed. It also feared that there could be a hidden fourth spiritual energy that was waiting to ambush it.
"He must be using a special technique to have imnted other demons'' spiritual energies into his body. But he can only control them as long as his spiritual energy is intact." The Leopard demon''s mind raced as the thought of Yoze having the ability to turn it into a spiritual puppet terrified it.
"Fight me, coward!" The Leopard demon knew that its chances of surviving were low and the only hope was to kill Yoze''s main spiritual energy so it roared hoping to grab his attention.
Chapter 100 100: Im Taking You Down With Me!
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The Leopard demon''s challenge was ignored and it continued to face the attacks and ambushes of Yoze''s three spiritual energies. After enduring the unfavorable situation of having to defend its life for some time, the Leopard demon knew it had to take the initiative.
"Pop!"
With a determination of surviving the Leopard demon abandoned the protection that its blood gave it in favor of the increased movement ability that its pure spiritual energy form would allow it.
However, the Leopard demon wasn''t going to abandon its blood without making Yoze pay the price. Once the Leopard demon left it caused the pool of blood to explode inside Yoze''s body and dealt a heavy blow to Yoze''s right leg. Even with how heavy his flesh was, the explosion was so strong that it created a hole in his calf.
"d it didn''t have enough force to destroy my bones and it wasn''t anywhere near my head or heart." Looking at the damage that the Leopard demon''s sacrifice caused Yoze couldn''t help but be grateful it had done it while it was not near any vital organs
However, the Leopard demon''s sacrifice had sealed and sped up its death since the protection from the blood had been giving his spiritual energies a headache. Other than the few times the Three-Headed Fox demon was able to sneak attack the Leopard demon and take a small chunk of its spiritual energy they weren''t able to harm it much.
However, while its sacrifice did do a great amount of damage to Yoze''s physical body it wasn''t able to do much to damage the spiritual energies. The Elephant demon spiritual model even sealed up the hole using its spiritual energy to make a barrier that the Leopard demon couldn''t escape from unless it was willing to be ripped to pieces by the Serpent demon and Three-Headed Fox demon.
With the hole blocked and three spiritual demons lusting to tear it apart the Leopard demon gritted its teeth and searched every inch of Yoze''s body. After facing several painful attacks and losing a majority of its spiritual energy the Leopard demon came to the painful realization there was no main spiritual energy.
At least it couldn''t find a trace or even a lick of spiritual energy other than the three spiritual demons attacking it.
"Damn you, I concede! I''ll be your puppet I just want to live." The Leopard demon was wise enough to know that it lost this battle so it conceded, hoping that Yoze''s desire to have another demon spiritual puppet was greater than his desire to kill him.
Unfortunately, the Leopard demon''s misunderstanding of the situation and overestimating how much control Yoze had over his spiritual energies during these attacks only allowed the Elephant, Serpent, and Three-Headed Fox demon to get deep bites into the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy. The pain of being eaten alive made the Leopard demon scream in pain andsh out.
The moment the Leopard demonshed out at the three spiritual demons, they dodged the attack before going in for another bite. With the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy mostly consumed by the ravaging spiritual demons the Leopard demon felt fatigued and weak and could only watch helplessly as it grew weaker and his enemies became stronger.
"Fine, I''ll take you down with me!"
Understanding that Yoze must not be interested in making it his spiritual puppet, the Leopard demon decided to end it all and self-detonate. Gathering thest remaining spiritual energy it had the Leopard demon became a brown spikey ball that radiated death.
With the brown spiked ball so close to his heart Yoze could instinctively feel the danger it posed to his life. Even the Elephant, Serpent, and Three-Headed demon seemed to also sense the danger that the spiked ball had to their existence and went berserk.
The three demons transformed back into the spiritual energy state and formed a threeyer barrier separating the Spiked ball from Yoze''s internal organs. The Armored Elephant demon on the bottomyer for its stronger defense capabilities and the heavy pressure it had on the ball.
The nextyer was the Serpent demon as it helped to increase the pressure on the spike spiritual bomb. Lastly, was the Three-Headed Fox demon who formed thestyer to prevent any rogue energy from dealing significant damage to Yoze.
Just as the threeyered barrier was formed the spiked ball detonated as the previously neat and orderly brown spiritual energy became chaotic. From the inside out it was ripped apart as it rapidly expanded before slowing down. The external pressureing from the Armored Elephant demon and Serpent demon greatly slowed down the explosion however it wasn''t enough to stop it from colliding with the firstyer of defense.
Due to the Armored Elephant demon''s blocking a good chunk of the spiritual energy and allowing the weakened energy through for the Serpent demon to deal with. The Serpent demon used the oppressive and sharp nature of its spiritual energy to destroy some of therger waves of explosion before passing the weaker ones to thest barrier.
By the time the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy reached thestyer and the Three-Headed Fox demon had to deal with it, the remaining energy didn''t have enough power to escape thest barrier and waspletely blocked.
With the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy no longer having the ability to act in a coherent manner it was easily devoured and absorbed by the Elephant, Serpent, and Three-Headed Fox demon. After the Leopard demon''s death, Yoze shook his head as he could sense that his spiritual energies were getting ready to fight once more.
More powerful than ever, the war in his body was even stronger, and were more unforgiving of each other trying to rip each other''s throats. Knowing that this was temporary Yoze just waited it out and by the time it ended, he was covered in his blood as this war didn''t simply make him unable to move but caused flesh wounds to appear on his body.
"It''s finally over," Yoze sighed as he felt his spiritual energies peacefully return to their paths.
"What do we do now?" Jewel asked.
"You can stay here while I go find the Leopard demon''s main body." Yoze''s eyes shined as he looked at the Leopard demon''s panel.
[Name: Leaka Tily]
[Age: 5 years old]
[Talents: Spiritual Sensing (Grade 5), Spiritual Speech (Grade 7), Swamp Diving (Grade 7), Swamp Leopard Body Cultivation (Grade 10), Hunting (Grade 9), Wisdom (Grade 3)]
Since he was still able to see the Leopard demon''s panel meant that even though Yoze killed the Leopard demon spiritually as long as its body was still alive he could copy its talents.
Thinking about it more Yoze felt like he understood why this was the case since for demons their bodies still contained their spiritual energy. So in theory as long as they kept collecting more spiritual energy they coulde back to life.
Chapter 101 101: Just A Few Days
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Feeling relieved of hosting a deadly demon in his body, Yoze was ready to collect the Leopard Demon''s body. Just when he stood up he heard Jewel protest about the oue.
"Nope, I''m not staying here." Jewel stepped in front of Yoze and crossed her arms in protest.
There was no way she wanted to stay in the valley by herself with no protection when there was a possibility of running into demons. Without Yoze, Jewel knew she would die without even having a chance to scream for help if she ever ran into a newborn demon much less the demons on the same level as the Leopard demon.
"Alright," Since Jewel wanted toe along Yoze wasn''t going to deny her. So he picked her up and headed back to the Grand Swamp while looking for any signs of any demons.
He paid extra attention to the ground since he felt that there could be more demons that could swim in swamps or the underground. Once Yoze and Jewel arrived back to where the Leopard demon dug underground they saw that there was a wide hole that led straight into the ground.
Since there was a higher probability that the Leopard demon kept its body underground than in any other location Yoze and Jewel looked at each before jumping right in.
[Grade 6 Swamp Diving has been added.]
As Yoze was falling inside the hole he felt as if he could sense the soft spots in the dirt. By the time they reached the bottom of the hole their surroundings were nearly pitch ck.
"I can''t see anything," Jewel spoke out.
"Same, but I can smell the Leopard demon''s body around here." With his enhanced smell from his scent-tracking talent and the recently added Swamp Diving talent Yoze was able to pick up a slight hint of the Leopard demon''s muddy scent and was able to distinguish it from the earthy smell of the ground.
There weren''t any clear holes that could have hidden the leopard demon''s massive body but Yoze could tell that the smell wasing from in front of him. cing his hand on the wall he felt a small hole the size of his palm near the bottom.
"Jewel, I need you to wait here so I can crawl inside."
"Fine, " Jewel gave in to Yoze''s demand since she didn''t want to help him expand the hole and crawl inside the small tunnel.
Since he didn''t have any digging tool with him Yoze resorted to using his hands bit by bit to expand the hole until he could barely fit inside by crawling. Once he got it to a suitable size Yoze entered the small tunnel and could feel how little space he had to wiggle forward.
His big body frequently shifted the dirt asionally triggering a mini cave-in on himself but never enough to stop him from moving forward. As Yoze continued wiggling his eyes began adapting to the low levels of light and allowing him to see a bit of the cave.
What made him happier was that as he continued in he got better at not shifting the dirt surrounding him as he moved, decreasing how frequently the tunnel caved in.
As Yoze crawled deeper inside the tunnel he could smell the Leopard demon''s scent better and soon was able to find the source. It was a thick worm-looking creature that was at least 10 feet long, and it was wrapped around an underground boulder.
The worm-looking creature seemed to be slowly growing bigger, pushing the earth surrounding it outward. Sensing a foreign creature the worm-like creature shivered as it clumsily tried to run away but was quickly caught by its tail.
"You''reing with me," Grabbing the weird worm, Yoze could smell the scent of mud on it so he used his spiritual energy to suppress it before dragging it out.
The moment Yoze tried to drag out the worm he could feel how heavy the worm-like creature''s body was and couldn''t help but be surprised. Even though the Leopard demon''s body was full of holes it was nearly 80 tons and it took him nearly half an hour to drag it back to the entrance where Jewel was.
"You found a worm?" Seeing Yoze crawling out with some thick string in his hand, Jewel couldn''t draw a connection between the long worm-looking creature in Yoze''s hand and the terrifying Leopard demon that was covered in holes.
"This is the Leopard demon but it''s all squished up to look like a worm. But it should still be alive." Yoze said.
"Let''s go, we should get out of here and meet up with Timothy and River." With a live demon in hand, Yoze was excited to get all the talents he could before selling it for a profit.
"Okay, carry me." Looking up at how they were tens of feet underground, Jewel jumped on Yoze''s back and held on tight to make sure she didn''t identally plummet to her death.
With the Leopard demon in hand, Yoze activated the full potential of his Mindless Legs and jumped out of the hole with the Leopard demon. Once they were out, Yoze and Jewel looked around to see if anything remotely simr to demons and monsters were near before making their way out of the Grand Swamp.
With the constant threat that more demons could be waiting to ambush them, Yoze and Jewel felt as if they were walking on eggshells. However, once they made it past the first geological barrier to get out of the Grand Swamp territory and were confident that they were not going to be ambushed by demons, they both breathed a sigh of relief.
They didn''t know if the demons in the Grand Swamp didn''t care for the death of their colleague or if the Leopard demon was telling the truth about it being the sole demon preparing the Grand Swamp for the demon summit. In any case, Yoze and Jewel looked at each and could see that they didn''t care to find out the reason and they were just interested in having a good meal.
"Yoze, I have a question. Are you nning on keeping the Leopard demon alive for a few days as you did with the Serpent demon?" Suddenly being reminded that the Leopard demon was still alive Jewel couldn''t help but ask Yoze if he nned to keep it alive.
"Just a few days so I can investigate its body and see if I can use it to further my martial arts training and ask Dreyer if we can use demon meat for witchcraft."
"Just to investigate its body? Aren''t you going to suck its blood or torture it for information? You demons are supposed to be cruel and crafty, why are you still pretending that you aren''t."
"That''s because I''m a human. Plus what kind of information would I be able to get when the leopard demon''s mind is burned to a crisp." Yoze said calmly and interrupted Jewel when he saw that she was going to continue asking questions.
"But stop asking questions or I''m going to ask my dad to give you less demon meat."
"Mr. Thunder would never be so cruel to me. Plus, you can''t threaten me, I''m your employee." Jewel shook her head at Yoze''s poor attempt to hide his secrets from her.
Chapter 102 102: Weapon Manuals
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"I''m not threatening you just reminding you that we might have a limited amount of demon meat in the future. So we might have to cut down your benefits." Yoze said calmly.
"Fine, I won''t ask anymore." Satisfied that she got something, Jewel quickly agreed.
As they traveled onward, Yoze and Jewel continued to chat as they didn''t pay any mind to the demon he was dragging behind. After an hour of traveling at afortable pace that wouldn''t make Jewel sick, they eventually made it to a small town known as Widow Creek.
"Jewel, can you go to the meeting ce that we discussed? I should stay outside of town, to keep this guy in check."
Understanding that Yoze had to stay outside so that the demon they were keeping alive temporarily from scaring the people, Jewel agreed. Just as she was about to leave, she heard Yoze give her a request.
"Oh, can you tell them to wait for five days toe meet with me? They should use this time to collect the books I wanted and the money."
Once again nodding her head, Jewel took on the journey of meeting with Timothy and River and acting as Yoze''s messenger. By the time Yoze saw her again, five days had passed by and she was followed by River and Timothy who had two bags with them.
"Schr Yoze, it''s nice to see you again. You seem to have gotten quite the catch. I need to thank you for your service and for getting revenge for the fallen people of Deepshed town." River said with admiration in her voice.
Timothy and River felt a deep respect for Yoze since he was incredible.
It seemed like every time they met he was like a different person. He also seemed capable ofpleting things that seemed impossible. Even without having reached the Blood Master realm yet he was already ying demons, an act that should only be for Martial Grandmasters.
Simply standing beside Yoze made them feel as if they were looking at a prime example of what they could achieve in the future. Their admiration for Yoze ran so deep that they wanted to be his student so they could learn how to be as strong as him.
Just the gaping holes that went straight through the Leopard demon''s head and heart showed how strong he was. In their minds, they felt he could defeat anything, even immortals would have to be wary of his existence.
"No problem, I''ll do it again at any time I have spare time. But did you bring the things?"
Seeing that Timothy and River were in good condition Yoze smiled but he knew that they were ready to start with the transaction.
"Yes, history books, three body cultivation manuals, two fist martial art techniques, two movement techniques, three weapon martial art techniques, and of course 80,000 silver. 40,000 for the flesh and another 40,000 for the demon''s skeleton. Of course, you can convert that into gold." As Timothy listed out all the items he took them out of the bags and handed them to Yoze.
Taking a look at the books'' titles and their brief descriptions, Yoze noticed that all the martial art books were all limited to the peak of a first-rate martial artist. The history books were not under any restrictions going over New Swampscott City''s history and information about the four regions surrounding the Charred region.
However, Yoze didn''t mind that the City was being a bit selfish and stubborn right now. It was their first transaction and If they gave him everything he wanted in one go, who could say he wouldn''t change his mind and start doing business with the martial art sects.
"This is good, but I don''t see the advanced version of Iron Skin in the books you gave me."
However, there was one book he had requested but it wasn''t in the pile of books Timothy had passed to him, Iron Muscles. After fighting three demons Yoze knew how much of an urgent need he had to increase his defenses.
He had even held off on trying to break the limits of the Iron Skin body cultivation method since he wanted to just use the advanced version. But if the City wouldn''t give it to him it would be best for him to break through Iron Skin on his own.
"About that Schr Yoze, Iron Skin is a body cultivation that is found in most regions but the advanced versions like Iron Muscles are usually only found in the Jade region. The City has sent people to go buy it from Jade City it would take some time and extra demon meat. I hope that you understand." River apologizes to Yoze.
She knew that one of Yoze''s few specific requests was for the advanced versions of Iron Skin. And she, Timothy, Jewel, and Yoze all knew that it was bull crap.
While it was true that the most advanced versions of Iron Skin were found only in the Jade region, that was only for Martial Grandmaster versions and the alternative versions of it. The City could easily bring out a Blood Master version of Iron Skin, much less Iron Muscles, and give it to Yoze.
Yet the City was willing to y this small trick to dy giving Yoze what he wanted because they feared he was already too strong. It was known to many in the government that Yoze wasn''t a Blood Master yet he could kill demons.
Once he became a Blood Master how strong would he be? Would demons be just a joke to him or could he start to threaten the Immortals themselves?
These were questions that the top officials didn''t have answers for yet and didn''t want to deal with it yet. So they could only dy the inevitable as much as they could until they figured out how they should respond.
"Forget it, the Leopard demon corpse weighs around 80 tons. You can take the skeleton and the flesh, just leave me 10 tons." Understanding the City''s point of view Yoze didn''t make a scene.
He might be working with New Swampscott City at the moment but Yoze wasn''t loyal to them. He would reach the Blood Master whether they helped him or not.
As for the rest of the books he was mostly interested in history books and weapons techniques. The history books were for Yoze to increase his knowledge and understanding of this world.
As for the weapon techniques, he wanted to make use of his other weapon talents and use them to supplement his future breakthroughs. Yoze then pulled up his system panel and noticed that it had added more talent categories since thest time he pulled it up.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 23 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension, Art, Physical, Martial Arts, Spiritual, Crystal Talents, Weapon, Hunting, Other]
[Technique Categories: Martial Arts, Blood Arts, Spiritual Arts, Crystal Arts]
[Talent Mark: 1]
Yoze''s eyes immediately snapped to the weapon talent section, and he pulled it up to check how many talents rted to weaponry he had collected.
[Weapon Talents]
[Sword Art (Grade 7), Spear Art (Grade 2), Axe Arts (Grade 7), Shield Arts (Grade 3), Stick Arts (Grade 9), Shoe Arts (Grade 9), Spearmanship (Grade 6), Swordsmanship (Grade 4)]
After noting that he had collected six different talents rted to weapons, Yoze saw that the books he received covered the spear, axe, and shield but not any sword techniques. The spear technique was called Spear Archer, the axe technique was called Tree Chopper, and the Shield technique was given the title of Defender.
"They are even not willing to give me more sword arts because they know I''m practicing the Armor Swordsman martial art set." Yoze looked at the three weapon books and felt that they were incredibly basic.
Chapter 103 103: Eating Demon Meat
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Noticing Yoze looking through the weapon techniques manuals, River and Timothy awkwardly smiled knowing full well that there weren''t any sword techniques in there.
After trying to collect more talents rted to swords and sword arts, Yoze was able to get two of them and even was able to speed up his Armored Swordsman training even further. At the moment he was a few weeks away from reaching level 3 of the Armored Swordsman and being able to produce Armored Swordsman inner vigor.
Yoze was looking forward to this progress since it would be his third type of inner vigor. How many martial artists could im to have the title of having three types of inner vigor?
But he wasn''t satisfied with only having three types of spiritual energy, Yoze wanted to have experience having many types of inner vigor. Inner Vigor was the first type of special form of energy that he hade in contact with and the one he had trained the most.
Yoze could use his Big Golem inner vigor to make himself heavier and even allowed him to be ridiculously heavy. Being over 2 thousand pounds should have been impossible, never mind being 2000 pounds of pure muscle.
With that much weight and with how much muscle mass Yoze had he could kill nearly first-rate martial artists with ease and even Blood Masters if he could manage to hit them. That was when he didn''t use his martial arts skills to take his battle prowess to another level, once he started using his martial arts Yoze could handle Martial Grandmasters.
There was also Iron Skin inner vigor that floated inside his skin at all times giving his skin a permanent boost in defense. However, when he activated his Iron Skin inner vigor gained extra defense and made it difficult for even iron swords to cut him.
Just these two types of inner vigor were critically important assets to his strength, this went double from his Big Golem inner vigor. Since he had the chance to get more body cultivation methods Yoze decided to wee all types of inner vigor.
He wasn''t picky about what kinds of inner vigor he would train in so when he saw the body cultivation methods that were provided to him Yoze didn''t flinch seeing that they didn''t have crazy effects.
"The Boneless Man body cultivation method would allow me to move my body like I was a piece of string."
"Sinking Swamp body cultivation makes my body sticky that a single touch of my skin would be as harder to escape from than quicksand."
"And the Turtle Shell body cultivation method at its peak would allow me to make my back harder than a diamond. These two aren''t too shabby, I''ll take them." Yoze felt a bit better seeing that the City had given him another defensive body cultivation method instead of Iron Muscle.
"That''s good that you are fine with these," River and Timothy breathed a sigh of relief seeing that he was satisfied with the books that the City had given him.
After taking a nce at the descriptions of the martial art techniques that he received and seeing that they weren''t too outstanding, Yoze put them away to take a better look at them when he got home.
"Do you need help cutting up the Leopard demon?" Once Yoze packed away the books and money, he asked whether River and Timothy needed his help cutting the Leopard demon.
Even though what he got wasn''t the best in the world or the best the City could provide Yoze was satisfied and wanted to head home as soon as possible to start training. With an additional 20,000 silver in his pocket, Yoze nned to buy a lot of crystals to speed up his and Tiki''s immortal cultivation as well as his and Deryer''s witchcraft.
"We would be grateful if you could help us."
Even when dead, demons had tough defenses that couldn''t be cut with normal weapons. If Yoze had brought his sword along with him to fight the Leopard demon it would have split itself in half before it could cut the Leopard demon''s skin.
However, for others, this was a serious problem but for Yoze he could easily cut through their defenses. As long as he used his spiritual ws he could act as if he was a thousand-degree knife cutting through a marshmallow.
"We should get a few wagons to help carry the meat and bones." Realizing that there was no way for them to carry all the flesh and bones, Timothy ran back to town and grabbed giant bags made to specifically store meat along with five wagons.
With everything prepared Yoze began to dissect the Leopard demon and handed the meat and bones to River and Timothy to pack up. Once everything was stored in bags and on the five wagons, Yoze and Jewel took the smallest wagon that had 10 tons of demon meat.
"Timothy, River, do you want to travel together or are you staying here?" Yoze noticed that while Jewel got on the wagon to drive it back to the city, Timothy and River didn''t seem to be preparing to leave.
"Since this cargo is so valuable the City wants to have other soldiers help escort it to the city," Timothy exined.
"In that case, the next time we meet I''ll have broken through into the Blood Master realm." Waving goodbye to Timothy and River, Jewel drove the wagon that was under an immense amount of stress toward New Swampscott City.
A weekter Yoze and Jewel made it back to New Swampscott City. Even though it had taken them a week to make it back with 8 tons of demon meat. Yoze and Jewel were glowing since they didn''t have to suppress their appetites and simply ate as much demon meat as they could stomach.
After a week Jewel had managed to eat a whopping 150 pounds of demon meat and was very impressed with herself. However, when she turned to look at Yoze who was walking beside her she felt that she needed to pick up a body cultivation method that increased her stomach size.
Chapter 104 104: An Immortal Sect Is Comming
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Whenever Jewel and Yoze ate during the trip back Jewel always ended up having to watch as he ate hundreds of pounds of meat every day. To feed this man she had to pick up the ck and make him more food as he was eating.
The funny thing was Yoze was responsible for making the food since he copied his father''s talent for cooking. While he still has quite a long way to go before catching up to his father''s cooking, Yoze''s food was quite delicious.
So every breakfast, lunch, and dinner Yoze would cook a giant meal that could feed more than 20-40 people. And every time the food would be finished in less than 30 minutes.
With two hungry martial artists, this amount of food was not enough, especially when you added a monster like Yoze. And due to how delicious the demon meat was, they always cooked more after.
Yoze would make her more food while she focused on eating and digesting the demon meat and vice versa. Initially, when she had agreed to this arrangement Jewel didn''t think Yoze''s stomach was going to be a nearly bottomless pit.
To satisfy how fast he was eating, Jewel had to resort to just simply cooking the meat above the campfires without adding any seasoning. However, Yoze didn''t mind having to eat less vorful demon meat, he was more focused on getting as much benefit as he could from the demon meat.
This was the only time he could let loose and eat as much as he desired while also getting to eat as much demon meat as he could. In the end, Yoze ate nearly 2 tons of the Leopard demon''s meat, surprising even himself.
[Big Golem (Level 6: 100%)
However, the benefits of eating demon meat were showing as Yoze put on an additional 500 pounds of muscle and his progress was so swift he reached the peak of Big Golem within that week. He even made a lot of progress in Twin fists and Mindless Legs helping shorten the time he needed to reach their peaks.
Not forgetting about his spiritual energy, Yoze sensed that the amount of spiritual energy that he had gotten from eating the demon meat alone had increased his spiritual energy storage by 5 percent. He predicted that if he had kept the Leopard demon''s body and eaten everything he could have tripled his spiritual energy pool.
Yoze wasn''t the only one who made rapid progress during this trip, Jewel had deepened her rank as a second-rate martial artist and knew she was halfway to reaching the peak of a second-rate martial artist. She also felt that her physical power had dramatically increased.
If she fought with her physical body alone she felt could win against third-rate martial artists, which she felt would have never happened to her.
"We are finally back after nearly two weeks," Yoze said, feeling relieved to be back at home.
"Yoze, Jewel you two are finally back. What took you so long?" Drew smiled as he asked his question.
"Dad, we went demon hunting and caught a good one. We have about 8 tons of demon meat so it shouldst us a while longer."
"That exins the piles of bags on the ground. Come put them inside so we can start the process of preventing it from going bad."
With a whole new supply of demon meat, Drew couldn''t help but be happy since every time he ate some of his son''s demon meat he felt as if he could live a little bit longer. Understanding his father''s excited mood, Yoze and Jewel hurried to put the demon meat inside since they wanted to eat his father''s cooking as soon as possible.
"Dad, when did you say Yoze wasing back? Wait, why are there so many bags?" Rushing into his father''s room, Dreyer was stunned by the mountain of bags of meat on his father''s floor almost forgetting why he was in such a hurry.
"Yoze and Jewel brought some more demon meat. Also, he is right behind you if you need him." Drew shouted out as he focused on cooking.
"You wanted to see me?" Yoze tapped on Dreyer''s shoulder, curious about why he was in such an urgent need to find him.
"Yes! We just heard rumors that an immortal sect is going to arrive within the next 6 months to recruit the students!" Remembering what he wanted to say, Dreyer said in excitement.
"An immortal sect ising to visit? That sounds kinda suspicious, where did you hear about this?" Even though Yoze didn''t want to make it seem like he didn''t trust Dreyer he couldn''t help but question his information source.
Even though Yoze was still learning about the immortal world he knew that real immortals disdained mortals. They even purposely withheld thest and most important realm, the Crystal Brain realm, to prevent any rogue immortal cultivator from bing immortal on their own, so he didn''t view them in a positive light
"I can''t tell you since I promised to keep their identity secret but I am sure that this information had an 80 percent chance this is real." Dreyer could understand Yoze''s suspicion since he had the same attitude about immortals as he did.
"Okay, I''ll believe you but what does their visit to recruit mean for us?" Yoze asked curiously why Dreyer had brought it up.
"Are you thinking we should try to get recruited by the immortal sect? I''m not opposed to the idea but it would be dangerous for us to enter the sights of the murderous crazy immortal cultivators." As Yoze thought about immortalsing to his doorstep his eyes began to shine.
He could only imagine the talents they could have, maybe they could have some unique talent that only immortals have or some high talents inprehension talents. How he would be able to easily stand at the top of the most talented immortal cultivators simply by visiting the recruitment drive for a few days.
Chapter 105 105: Tikis Breakthrough
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"What? No, none of us have the talent required to be able to join the sect anyways." Dreyer quickly dismissed Yoze''s dreams.
"This is important because we need to hide even more since all the rogue immortal cultivators that feel they have a chance to seed will undoubtedly be bloodthirsty and try to cut down theirpetition," Dreyer continued.
"We are fine, no one knows that any of us have Crystal Nerves. And unless a real immortal shows up I have confidence that I can deal with anything thates our way," Yoze said calmly.
"We know your strengths but the cunningness of immortal cultivators is terrifying. The further one goes on the path of immortality the more intelligent and crafty one bes." Dreyer quickly said.
"Okay, Where''s Tiki she is usually with you?" Seeing that Dreyer was being stubborn, Yoze switched the conversation and secretly nned to find that immortal sect.
After figuring out that he could still take talents from spiritual dead creatures, Yoze nned to try and develop a skill like this on his own. Once he seeded he would be able to have much more flexibility when he dealt with enemies.
"Right now Tiki is attempting to break through to the third level of Nerve umtion." Dreyer''s attention was diverted as he smiled with pride.
"That''s great news! But I thought she said she still had a way to go. Like she still needed nearly 30 crystals, but I only bought 20. You guys didn''t buy more with your own money right?"
"No, we just used some of the money you handed Dad to keep safe. I hope you don''t mind." Dreyer patted Yoze''s shoulder and he straight-up told him the truth.
He didn''t feel a lick of guilt from using Yoze''s money since after all this time they had gotten ustomed to using their rich sibling''s money. They also got to know him more from their time together and knew that he wouldn''t have approved if they used their own money.
"That''s fine, that money is for everyone to use without having to ask me. Also,e help me and Jewel put these bags of demon meat inside." Yoze said not minding Tiki and Dreyer using his money to improve themselves.
Dreyer simply nodded and helped move the bags over to the giant pile before following Yoze''s and Jewel''s lead and bringing the rest of the demon meat inside.
"Yoze, what is all this meat? Like what kind of animal are you hunting to have such good meat?" As they were putting the bags of demon meat inside Dreyer turned to face Yoze and asked.
He and Tiki have been wondering what kind of meat Yoze had been feeding them, however, they couldn''t figure out what kind of animal could have meat that made them feel as if they were capable of fighting a herd of lions. They had asked their father but the only answer they got from him was that it was some type of demon meat that Yoze had hunted.
"Yoze said it came from an elephant demon he had killed before we reunited with each other," Drew said with confidence, he didn''t doubt that Yoze could kill a demon since he had seen with his own eyes how Yoze easily handled one.
Of course, Tiki and Dreyer knew it couldn''t be real demon meat since it was impossible to kill demons for mortals, only Witches and Immortals are capable of that feat. So for them to consider that Yoze was able to kill a demon was only an impossibility.
Since they felt that their father either confused a strong beast or monster for a demon, Tiki and Dreyer didn''t ask further questions about the matter. But seeing how Yoze had gone out and returned with literal tons of mysterious meat, Dreyer couldn''t contain his curiosity.
"This is meat from a Swamp Leopard demon. I don''t think you believe me when I say this is demon meat right?" Yoze said seeing a look of doubt appear on Dreyer''s face.
"Can you me me? You''re iming to have killed a demon but that is only possible for immortals and witches." Dreyer said, making his doubt clear.
"You are wrong, Martial Grandmasters are capable ofpeting with the demons that aren''t too old or have just been born. As long as you surrounded one of those newborn demons with Martial Grandmasters they would be able to kill it." Yoze retorted.
He had plenty of experience when fighting demons and had a good understanding that the age of the demon was extremely important. Demons that are just born or within their first few months of life are not used to wielding spiritual energy and haven''t worked any attacks with it yet.
Meaning that as long as a Martial Grandmaster had sharp weapons and was strong enough they could sessfully kill a demon. The saying that Martial Grandmasters couldpete with the weaker demons referred to these demons that haven''t learned how to use spiritual attacks.
However, once a demon starts to learn how to use their spiritual energy Martial Grandmasters would go frompeting with them to struggling to keep their lives. And once the demon learns to suppress other creatures'' spiritual energy it was simply a death wish to fight them.
Take Yoze for example, It was likely that there were Martial Grandmasters that were faster, stronger, had a tougher defense, or were simply better at martial arts. However, once Yoze used his spiritual energy no Martial Grandmaster could win against him.
[Spiritual Arts]
[Spiritual ws (Level 1: 70%), Spiritual Suppression (Level 1: 50%)]
Yoze pulled up his Spiritual energy techniques and saw that his progress in his Spiritual ws and Spiritual Suppression had once again increased. With these two spiritual techniques that he had only learned recently he could defeat nearly every martial artist without having to lift a finger.
"Bang!"
Just as Dreyer was about to say something to Yoze they heard the door being kicked open before hearing Tiki''s excited voice.
"Dad, Dreyer, Jewel, Yoze, guess who reaches the third level of Nerve umtion and is one step closer to immortality."
Chapter 106 106: Become Martial Artists
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Tiki stepped into the room filled with bags of meat and felt excited. After so many years she had finally created her third set of Crystal Nerves. She could feel her mind rapidly processing information and her new innovative ideas and thoughts popped into her mind.
"Congrattions on your breakthrough," Yoze said earnestly.
"Thanks, having money makes things so much easier. If we met 6 years ago I''ll most likely be in the fifth level of Nerve umtion." Tiki smiled as she imagined what would have happened if they had this family reunion sooner.
The only oue she could think of was that she would be in a much better situation. The resources that Yoze was providing were making everything easier to achieve.
If she and Dreyer had met Yoze earlier she could have reached the second level of Nerve umtion in less than 2 years and the third level in the fourth year and the fourth level in the sixth year. That was her prediction if they had met but only used Yoze''s money.
However, that certainly wouldn''t have been the case so she might have gotten better resources that could improve her cultivation speed. As for Yoze''s battle prowess, Tiki felt that she had a deeper understanding of how strong he was and how lucky they were to have gained his protection.
"I heard you guys talking about demon meat," Tiki asked.
"Yoze is still insisting that the meat ising from demons, but as we know that is impossible," Dreyer told his sister, expecting she would agree with his sentiment.
"I wouldn''t lie to my family. That''s why I''m telling you directly that this is high-quality and fresh demon meat. If you insist that it''s impossible I can show you that even the city government has demon meat." Yoze said calmly and logically.
He was trying his best to convince them that what they were eating was demon meat so he could tell them the benefits without them not taking it to heart. He wanted to tell them all the benefits and for them to acknowledge his advice on the best way to take advantage of it.
Such as eating demon meat increases their spiritual energy, extends their lifespans, and makes it easier to train in martial arts. Yoze wanted to convince them to start practicing martial arts as that would allow them to be much stronger than they were right now.
Just take Jewel for example she had previously been stuck as a third-rate martial artist for years. But within a year of eating demon meat regrly, she had been making rapid progress.
Martial Arts isn''t just about having talent but also how many resources the martial artist can consume to further their training. For Yoze he had less of a need to consumerge amounts of resources since he could just simply be more talented and reduce the bottlenecks in his path.
However regr people and beings only have a limited amount of talent in a certain field and once they became aware of all their talents then that was it.
They can''t reduce their future bottlenecks by bing more talented. For them having high-quality resources inrge enough quantities bes even more important.
For Jewel it was no longer a question of whether she could be a Blood Master but when she would reach it. And in the future, Yoze would help her be a Martial Grandmaster and even help her break past that limit once he figures out how to do it.
Yoze wanted to have Tiki and Dreyer also be martial artists so they could fully use the benefits of demon meat and the resources that Yoze provides for them. He could also put his teaching talent to good use and help Tiki and Dreyer progress even faster.
"Dreyer after thinking about it, Yoze is right, he doesn''t get any benefits from lying to us so he is probably telling the truth. And there must be a reason why you keep insisting this is demon meat, right?" Unlike what Dreyer expected from her, Tiki thought that Yoze''s logic was sound.
"Sis?" Dreyer said with a surprised voice, he didn''t expect that Tiki would change her mind about this matter so quickly.
"Tiki you''re right, I''m trying so hard to convince you so you can better understand and value that demon meat will have on you. For example, demon meat is great for the body and will make practicing martial arts easier."
"You want us to practice martial arts?" Tiki''s eyebrows frowned. She had a feeling that he was going to bring up something simr but she didn''t expect to hear the words martial arts.
"Yeah, you''re not very strong in my opinion, and are too easy to kill. How long is it going to take for you to reach the next level of Nerve umtion? How long is it going to take you to be immortal even with my support?"
"At least by practicing martial arts you will be able to have better self-defense capabilities and maybe be a formidable force like me. Just think about it." Yoze said.
He knew that Tiki and Dreyer looked down on martial artists and they had a good reason to because they were a strong force on their own. With Dreyer''s witchcraft he could form nt soldiers, and in theory, create his own personal army of Blood Masters level nt soldiers. As for Tiki, her magic techniques could cut through a Blood Master''s defenses and melt their bones. However, there were clear limitations on what they could do with their current abilities.
Dreyer could be a strong force if he created a nt soldier army however that takes arge number of resources and time to aplish at that scale. Something that Dreyer didn''t have before he had met Yoze and was able to enjoy the benefits of having a rich schr as family
Dreyer and Tiki are also restricted by how much crystal energy they could utilize for their attacks. Dreyer needs to use crystal energy to manipte his nt soldiers and Tiki needed crystal energy to use her magic.
Once they ran out of crystal energy they would be helpless against even third-rate martial artists. Even when they haven''t run out of crystal energy they both were limited by their physical abilities.
If Tiki can''t hit her target then how powerful her attacks were didn''t matter. If Dreyer can''t react to his opponent''s speed or trap them then his army of nt soldiers bes less useful.
In Yoze''s mind, Dreyer and Tiki were simply ss canons that could be killed if a martial artist is powerful enough. However, they still had the attitude of an immortal without the strength of one.
In a few words, they were arrogant. When someone is arrogant then the likelihood of them underestimating their enemies and ending up killed is much higher.
Yoze knew he couldn''t always be there to protect them so he wanted to help them as best as he could to make them stronger.
Chapter 107 107: Drews Spiritual Energy
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"I see your point but from my perspective, martial arts require the same level of talent as immortal cultivation and are just as time-consuming. However, It wouldn''t be bad to at least practice some martial arts to get better physical abilities." Tiki thoughtfully said.
She could see Yoze''s point of view of how she and Dreyercked certain capabilities that martial arts could fill. However, she also knew how important it was for her to continue her cultivation too as not only was it her core strength but it also was helping keep her body young.
Tiki didn''t know how gifted she and Dreyer could be in martial arts and it felt that there was a good possibility that they were not talented enough to be even third-rate martial artists. In her point of view, martial arts would only ever act as a supplementary addition to her arsenal, she would still ce a majority of her focus on her immortal cultivation.
"That''s all I''m asking for, you don''t need to put too much time into training your martial arts and you can just focus on a martial arts technique and body cultivation method that suits your needs." Yoze smiled seeing that Tiki at least understood his point of view.
"Since Tiki is fine with it, then it wouldn''t be the worst thing to do. I probably need it even more than she does." Dreyer wasn''t a stubborn person and could see that ever since Tiki had gotten a boost in her intelligence she felt Yoze''s ideas were morepelling.
If she felt that Yoze''s ideas werepelling then there wasn''t much reason for him to continue to deny it. Even though he still had his doubts about the authenticity of the demon meat, Dreyer felt that practicing martial arts would be a good thing for him as well.
"That''s great, the martial arts could be confusing if you are just starting so I can act as your teacher to help you get started," Yoze sincerely offers his services.
"That''s great," Both Tiki and Dreyer agreed that having Yoze as their martial arts teacher would be a good idea for them.
"Perfect, we will begin training next week so you can prepare yourselves mentally," Yoze said while making a note to himself to visit New Swampscott City''s Martial Courtyard to get additional talent in teaching martial arts.
After settling their dispute everyone felt the air be less tense and they all enjoyed each other''spany. Since Tiki and Dreyer had made their decision to practice martial arts they were excited to ask Jewel questions about her first martial arts training experience.
After an hour, they were able to get all the bags of demon meat inside and prepared them so they couldst for months without rotting. Everyone could smell the delicious smell of cooked demon meat and many other delicious foodsing from the kitchen and couldn''t wait to eat.
"After a long day of travel and work, you and Jewel must be hungry so make sure to eat till you are full," Drew said as he put down thest te of demon meat mixed with veggies and spices on the table.
He had prepared enough meat to feed everyone until they were full even with Yoze at the table there was enough food to make him satisfied. After setting down thest te and seeing that everyone else was beginning to eat, Drew started eating his meal with haste as he appreciated the delicious demon meat.
Feeling the familiar sensation of warmth filling his belly as his mind seemed to be a little clearer with each bite. Drew wanted to sigh from satisfaction and knew that his son had once again done something that humans have considered impossible.
As Drew, Jewel, Tiki, Dreyer, and of course, Leah ate their dinner, Yoze secretly observed their spiritual energies and took note of how their spiritual energies were changing from absorbing the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy. Looking at his father''s spiritual energy made Yoze the happiest as he could see that his n of using demon meat to extend his father''s life was working.
After eating demon meat for so long his father''s green me spiritual energy stood up for itself and recovered about 20 percent of the spiritual energy that had been corroded by the Death spiritual energy surrounding it. Yoze also predicted that his father could now live a year even without taking the medicine that Leah had been creating to extend his life.
Turning his attention to Jewel, Yoze saw that her orange cloud of spiritual energy had nearly doubled in size ever since she started eating demon meat. He knew that the reason she had such a dramatic increasepared to his father was that her spiritual energy wasn''t facing the constant corrosion of Death spiritual energy and could simply grow unhindered.
Turning his attention, Yoze noted that Tiki''s green spiritual energy that took the shape of a halo had simrly shown amazing growth but to a much lesser extentpared to Jewel''s. Dreyer''s spiritual energy was in the same situation as Tiki''s but reced the green color with blue and took the shape of a me.
However, the spiritual energy that interested Yoze by far was what was urring with Leah. Having absorbed three different types of demon spiritual energy, Leah''s spiritual energy that took in the form of red gas was still the same except it had nearly tripled in size.
Leah had also experienced physical changes as his body had nearly doubled in size and asionally had a strong aura simr to a weak newborn demon.
"Just from Leah''s aura alone, he has to be close to a second-rate martial artist." Yoze thought to himself and felt that he should also try and unearth Leah''s hidden talents.
He had a hypothesis in the past that Leah and demons had some connection with each other since both of their spiritual energies affected their bodies. To this day Yoze had never found another person or animal whose spiritual energy wrapped around their body like Leah''s spiritual energy.
The closest thing that he had found to this phenomenon was the spiritual armor that demons are capable of generating. The only difference was that Leah''s spiritual energy didn''t seem to offer any of the protection of spiritual armor ideally brought.
Ever since Yoze noticed that people needed to have awareness of their talents for him to copy them, he wanted to see if he could awaken those hidden talents by helping people be aware of them. The first step of his n was to see if he could help Tiki and Dreyer awaken their hidden talent in some kind of martial art and see how aware did his target have to be about their talents to be shown to him.
The next part of his n was to see if he could get them to awaken some type of spiritual energy talent. However, he was less confident since he didn''t even know how to start to make them aware of their spiritual energy.
So Yoze nned on focusing on just martial arts before adding spiritual energyter on. As for now, he nned to head to the martial courtyard to acquire some talents rted to teaching martial arts.
Chapter 108 108: Accidentally Find A Spy
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After eating dinner, Yoze and Jewel traveled to the Martial courtyard to digest their meal by training. In addition to that Yoze had another agenda and that was to find a Martial Arts instructor and copy their teaching talents.
If he wasn''t able to find anyone that met his requirements he would find a school and visit them to get a better teaching talent. As they were walking to his training ground he found his target and was happy to find that he was the most well-known martial arts instructor in the courtyard.
Martial Artist Instructor Greyhound, was a tall man that always had a frown on his face and liked to snarl at martial artists who made mistakes during their training. For someone who was only a second-rate martial artist himself, he was more well-knownpared to stronger martial arts instructors and was considered to be the best instructor for beginners up to second-rate martial artists.
Yoze nodded his head in approval, he thought to himself that Greyhound should have a teaching talent of some sort to be able to teach so well.
"nt a talent mark on Greyhound,"
[Name: Levi Green]
[Age: 80 years old]
[Talents: Gardening (Grade 7), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 3), Disguise (Grade 5), Martial Arts Simplification (Grade 5), Liver Punch (Grade 2)]
"That''s interesting," Yoze was surprised to find that Greyhound was hiding his identity.
Even though Yoze had only heard rumors and casual information about Martial Arts Instructor Greyhound he knew that his name wasn''t Levi Green, but Leo Hound. To also be in his 80s yet look and im to be in his mid-40s meant that he was purposely hiding his age and doing it very well.
It was also unlikely for a second-rate martial artist to look so youngpared to his age with being at least a first-rate martial artist or Greyhound was using a disguise which Yoze felt was the more likely case. The knowledge that a person who had deep connections with the martial courtyard was lying about their identity would make anyone wonder about their intentions.
Was Greyhound hiding his identity because he had offended someone and was hiding from them or was he a spy from cities greatest rival martial art sects?
Yoze didn''t know which one was the case but he was willing to ce his bets that Greyhound was a spy for a martial art sect. It could only be with the help of a strong organization that Greyhound could hide his identity for decades and not be suspected at all by the city.
"What did you find interesting about that middle-aged martial arts instructor?" Jewel asked, noticing that Yoze had a surprised expression on his face.
" I''m just surprised that his understanding of martial arts can be so deep but he can talk about it in such a simple way that it''s easy to understand. I think I might have to hire him to teach Tiki and Dreyer." Yoze said casually.
He knew that they were not in the right ce to be discussing this information and just kept it to himself. Jewel had her suspicion that Yoze was holding back some information from her but she didn''t push further since she understood that this wasn''t the time or the ce.
After watching Greyhound instructing some martial artists for a few minutes Jewel and Yoze left to continue walking to their courtyard. As they walked back Yoze copied Greyhound''s Martial Art Simplification talent and enjoyed the feeling of all his martial arts knowledge being turned into simpler expressions.
Once they arrived at the courtyard and noticed that it was exactly left the same way they left it previously, Jewel and Yoze didn''t waste time and began their training. Jewel jumped on the spiked machine and gritted her teeth as she pushed her skin to its limits.
Yoze on the other hand walked over to the stand that held his spare training armor and sword. He was nning on reaching the fourth level of both the Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle tonight.
He would be a second-rate martial artist ording to the Armored Swordsman body cultivation method and also acquire the Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor. He would also be able to understand what was so special about this inner vigor that it could allow the usage of other inner vigors once he reached the Blood Master rank.
Putting on his armor, Yoze got into his sword stance and skillfully swung his sword drawing up powerful gusts of wind. He also trained the Armored Swordsman shuffle at the same time and moved around in a manner that allowed him to dodge and attack at a moment''s notice.
Hours passed by in a blink of an eye as Jewel and Yoze were focused on their own training. Suddenly, Yoze felt a cold energy being squeezed out of his muscles and floating to the top of his skin.
[Armored Swordsman (Level 4: 2%), Armored Swordsman sh (Level 4: 2%), Armored Swordsman Shuffle (Level 4: 6%)]
Being familiar with the production of inner vigor, Yoze continued to train while his body was producing Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor and examined its unique properties. As more of the cold Armored Swordsman''s Inner Vigor floated to the top of Yoze''s skin he noticed that it started to form a thinyer of inner vigor that stuck onto his armor.
Already having a somewhat understanding of what this type of inner vigor should do, Yoze focused his mind in an attempt to activate it. However, he found that there was no reaction even after he tried to activate his inner vigor multiple times since he couldn''t activate the Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor, Yoze stopped his fruitless attempts.
Once he sensed that his body stopped producing inner vigor, Yoze stopped training and took off his helmet. Just as he expected the instant he took off his helmet all his Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor retreated into his body without hismand.
"So Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor increases the defensive capabilities of my armor. But it only activates when I''m wearing aplete set of armor."
"Which is very differentpared to my Big Golem and Iron Skin inner vigor." Yoze raised his eyebrows as he wondered how his inner vigor could sense when he wore aplete set of armor.
Did it work based on his senses? Was there some quality of the Armored Swordsman''s inner vigor that is attracted to the tightly enclosed metal space within the suit of armor?
Yoze also noted that when he fought against the Blood Masters of the Blood Swordsman Sect they didn''t wear any armor when they fought him. Their blood poured out of their pores and transformed into their armor and even covered their swords with their blood.
"If I have to wear armor to activate my inner vigor until I be a Blood Master, then I''ll just always wear armor." Figuring that this was a special property of Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor, Yoze decided that he would make it a habit to wear a suit of armor.
At Yoze''s current strength, wearing armor wasn''t adding as much protection as he would have liked and could easily be made irrelevant when spiritual energy was involved. However, to reach the Blood Master level as soon as possible he decided to wear a suit of armor whenever he had the chance.
When Yoze thought of this idea he figured that if he always wore armor he would always be able to train. He could also take advantage of the Armored Combat talent that he had gotten from River.
If everything went on as he predicted, Yoze felt he would reach the peak of his Armored Swordsman Body cultivation in a couple of months. Then he would be able to train the Blood Swordsman body cultivation method and be an official Blood Master.
Chapter 109 109: Reaching The Peak Of Boneless Man
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The thought of bing a Blood Master made Yoze smile as he could sense that he should be able to reach the fifth level of Armored Swordsman within a few months and reach the peak of a sixth level in a year. As he collected more talents rted to swords and weapons he expected that he should be able to cut that time down further.
Noticing that Jewel was still focused on her training and that there were a few more hours until nightfall Yoze put on his helmet and thought about what he should train next.
After thinking about it for a moment Yoze decided to train using one of the new body cultivation methods he had recently gotten from the city. He had thought about training one of his martial art techniques like one of his weapon techniques or one rted to movements but decided against it.
Yoze held the belief that he would be able to make faster progress in training in body cultivation methodspared to martial art techniques ever since he experienced his rapid progress in Iron Skin. Especially when he ounted for the fact that hisrgest collection of talents was physical talents followed closely by his martial arts talents.
For most body cultivation methods, Yoze would have been able to make great progress even if hecked a specific talent for it.
"I''ll start with the Boneless Man body cultivation method. I have several talents that increase my talent rted to flexibility so I should be able to improve quite fast." After making up his mind to train in a body cultivation method, he picked the Boneless Man body cultivation method.
After remembering the training method for the Boneless Man, Yoze decided to start right away, not even bothering to take off his armor. While wearing his full suit of armor, he tried his best to follow each Boneless stretch while wearing his bulky armor to the best of his ability.
[Boneless Man (Level 0: 40%)
At first, each one of the Boneless stretches made Yoze feel ufortable but after a few minutes, he was able to adapt and perform each one perfectly. Twenty minutes didn''t even pass by before he noticed that he had reached 40 percent of the Boneless Man.
[Boneless Man (Level 1: 1%)
An hour passed by when Yoze suddenly heard cracks run through his body as his height grew by a few centimeters. He felt his movements be looser and felt like he was a caterpir that had crawled out of his cocoon.
"At this rate, I''ll reach the peak of Boneless Man by tomorrow morning." Clicking his tongue in satisfaction at his rate of improvement and soaking in the feeling for a few seconds Yoze returned his focus to training.
Two hours passed by in a blink of an eye when Yoze felt a shiver run down his spine. Snapping out of his focused state he watched as he grew a few more centimeters and he felt his muscles be looser.
Another three hours passed by and the sky had be pitch ck while the full moon lit up the courtyard. In the midst of fully focusing on his training, Yoze didn''t notice how strange it was that an armored giant was moving around as if itcked anybody inside.
If there was anyone who identally stepped into his courtyard and watched this scene they would have thought that a ghost had possessed a suit of armor. Suddenly the ominous noise of bones popping in and out of joints rang from the suit of armor as it grew a few centimeters.
"Are you done for tonight?" Noticing that Yoze had stopped training, Jewel walked over to ask him if he was ready to leave.
"Yeah, I''m done and ready to go. Do you have a rmendation for a shop where I can get another suit of armor?" Yoze asked casually.
Having just reached the peak of level 3 of Boneless Man, Yoze lifted his hand and activated his Boneless Man inner vigor. The activated inner vigor seemed to act as a lubricant for muscles and bones allowing them to be so flexible that he could move as if his bodycked bones.
However, even though Yoze reached the peak of Boneless Man the boost in his battle prowess was only equivalent to bing a second-rate martial artist. From what he read reaching the peak of the Boneless Man body cultivation method would only allow someone to be a second-rate martial artist.
Boneless Man wasn''t a body cultivation that allowed one to reach the peak of a first-rate martial artist since it was created to be a supplemental body cultivation method. It was supposed to pair up well with other martial arts and body cultivation methods instead of being fantastic on its own.
Even though he didn''t have arge increase in his strength or defensive prowess, the drastic increase in body movements and flexibility did wonders in improving all his martial art techniques. This was one of the reasons Yoze wanted to train in this body cultivation as soon as possible.
Yoze also sensed that his evasive ability has grown by a decent amount making it harder for anyone tond a single hit. As for Twin Fists, Yoze felt that he could start concentrating more force on other parts of his body such as his elbows and heels.
Currently, Yoze predicted that he was only able to match around 20 percent of the power that he could achieve using Twin Fists in his fingers. However, Yoze believed that once he was able to concentrate the full force of Twin Fists anywhere in his body he would have reached the peak.
"There aren''t that many ces that would have your size. I think it would be better to find a cksmith to resize this armor instead of getting a new one." Remembering how long it took them to find Yoze''s current suits of armor and not wanting to go through the hassle again, Jewel proposed another idea.
After witnessing Yoze grow more than 4 inches in a matter of a single day and how he casually had reshaped and expanded his armor Jewel felt that it would be better to take it to the cksmith for it to get strengthened and resized. It would not only allow them to not face the hassle to find another suit of armor but it would allow Yoze to have a customized suit of armor.
" That sounds like a good idea, but it will take some time to get this armor expanded. So we should get another suit of armor in the meantime."
Yoze agreed with Jewel''s proposal to get his suit of armor to get resized but didn''t want to not have a set of armor while he was waiting for it to get resized.
"Okay, " Jewel nodded her head in agreement and thought about all of the shops that could potentially have suits of armor that suited Yoze''s stature.
After a few seconds of thinking Jewel had eliminated almost all the shops near them and only could think of one shop that could have the armor he needed.
"You can hand over the suit of armor to a famous cksmith known as ck Dragon. He is known for being a man with a ferocious temper and loves a challenge."
"He should have the skill and willingness to fix your armor but he''s pretty pricey." Jewel nced at Yoze to check if he was alright with her suggestion, after seeing that he was interested she continued.
"ck Dragon also works for the Underground Forgery and they are one of the few shops that should have armor that fits you. But your size is already reaching its max so if you grow any bigger there might not be any armor that can fit you."
"That''s fine, I''ll have you lead the way tomorrow. " Yoze understood where Jewel wasing from and knew that he would continue to grow in the future.
However, he didn''t care that it was going to be a nuisance to find anything his size because this was the main reason he chose Big Golem to be his first body cultivation method. Yoze wanted to be big and strong so that he could bulldoze and crush anything that was in his path.
Chapter 110 110: Blood Soaked River
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"Knock knock knock!"
Waking up to the sound of urgent knocking at his door, Yoze realized that he was going to have to put the idea of going to a fixing his armor on pause as he noticed that River''s spiritual energy was behind his door.
When Yoze opened his door to greet River he was stunned to see that she was bruised and heavily wounded. She was bleeding so much that she created a small puddle of blood on his doormat.
"What happened to you?"
"I need your help, we were ambushed," River hastily said.
"Why did youe to me instead of the military? They are important goods after all but they aren''t rted to me anymore." Yoze gestured for her toe inside while asking for more details.
For her to be this injured as a Blood Master, meant that whoever ambushed them must have been strong. Yoze also felt a bit worried since he didn''t see Timothy with River.
"I already contacted the government but it will take some time for them to send out a strong enough counterattack, however, by that time Timothy and the others might be dead. That''s why I rushed over here to ask for your help."
"Sit down and rub this medical paste over your wounds. It should help lessen the pain and stop the bleeding. Also, how far away from the city were you ambushed? And how many people were there?" Yoze grabbed some sealed containers of the paste that Leah had used on him when they first met.
"With your speed, it should only take you about 20 minutes to get there. As for how many people there were around 20 Blood Masters all from Martial Art Sects, and I suspect that a few Martial Grandmasters are hiding amongst the crowd." Opening one of the containers, River felt her eyes begin to water due to the bad smelling from the paste.
The smell was so bad that reasoning told her that there was no way that something that smelled so bad could have been good for her. But River''s trust in Yoze made her follow his advice and carefully rubbed some of the paste on a wound across her cheek.
It didn''t take long for the River to feel her cheek be itchy and how the paining from her cheek quickly disappeared. She even noticed that the wound had stopped bleeding and was slowly healing.
"This paste is incredible, did you make it yourself Schr Yoze? It''s much betterpared to the other medicine that I could afford. The only downside is that it''s smelly and makes one itchy." Fully convinced that Yoze was a miracle worker, River used all of the paste to cover herself in a thinyer of the smelly paste.
"Not quite, Leah over there helps me make this special paste by stomping on them with his hooves," Yoze answered honestly since he didn''t think River would try to steal Leah away from him.
The paste might have been smelly but for Yoze he felt the smell was worth it since within each one of the paste was years of hard work and knowledge of herbs that a medicine goat could provide. He and Jewel even made sure to use this paste after every one of their training sessions to get rid of their sore muscles and get some relief.
"But let''s focus on what matters right now, how do you know there might be a Martial Grandmaster?" Yoze asked seriously.
He had decided the moment River asked him for help, to rescue the soldiers. It wasn''t just because he viewed River and Timothy as close acquaintances but also because he wanted to fight some martial artists.
Even though he couldn''t confirm that these ambushers were sent out by a martial art sect, Yoze didn''t feel that it mattered much. For a force to send out more than 20 Blood Masters and maybe even several Martial Grandmasters signaled to him they were powerful.
Yoze felt his heart race as he was excited at the prospect of being able to fight Martial Grandmasters. All this time he was only able to specte how strong Martial Grandmasters were.
Now that he had an opportunity to meet not just one but several Martial Grandmasters Yoze took this incredibly seriously.
"While none of them made a move, I have been lucky to have been a student for a Martial Grandmaster before and got a good sense of the uniqueness of their auras."
"At first, I didn''t notice them but Timothy and the others made a n to create a path to allow me to escape and inform the city. I sensed that right beside me was the unique aura of a Martial Grandmaster." River said cutting out a lot of unnecessary information from her story.
"With your predicament at that time, it should have been easy for that Martial Grandmaster to have stopped you, did you think of a reason why he let you go?" Yoze felt that something was up with this ambush.
If it was he who organized this massive ambush to steal something so life-changing he would have killed everyonest one of the soldiers to stop any information from leaking to the city. He wouldn''t have wanted the city or the world to know that he was the cause for making the tens of soldiers and tons of pounds of demon meat disappear without a trace.
For the ambushers to let River go so easily meant that they had more objectives than just stealing valuable goods.
"Yes, when I had told the government about this they also came up with several ideas about why I was allowed to escape. The first reason was to paint a target for the city to unleash its anger and energy on."
"I should tell you that while I was running away one of the ambushers raised a ck g that had a blood-red crossbow on the corner. That was the g of the Blood Hunter gang and is well-known to be connected to many martial art sects."
"By painting the Blood Hunter gang as the main face of the ambush, it would give the city hope that they would be able to recover the demon bones and demon neat."
"With hope, they would not want to publicly dere that they had been robbed and what valuable items were stolen, to not increase the number of people and forces that they were in the possession of legendary demon meat." River took a deep breath before continuing.
Chapter 111 111: The Armored Giant
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"By not publicizing it, it not only saves the City from embarrassment but also helps cover up the martial art sects involved not having to worry about getting attacked by other martial art sects."
"Second, by painting a target the city willunch an attack on the Blood Crossbow gang instead of the martial art sects. Even if the Blood Crossbow gang was destroyed it wouldn''t do much to harm the martial art sects."
"Lastly, if the city did announce that the martial art sects did steal the legendary demon corpse, it would increase the fame and appeal of martial art sects to the martial artist that hasn''t yet joined a martial art sect." River finished her thought process.
Yoze felt that River''s and the City''s thought process of the situation made sense. It also exined why the martial art sects didn''t feel an urgency to kill everyst person to stop information leaking.
He also thought that it was also because the martial art sects believed that even if there was no evidence that they were involved they would have been the City''s main suspects. They would have to face the City''s attacks regardless and with no possibility of getting any of the demon bones and meat back the City wouldn''t have anything to lose so they would publicize it without a doubt.
When news breaks that a legendary demon corpse was involved then the martial sects that weren''t involved in the ambush would try to find who stole it. There was a much higher possibility that the martial art sects would find out the sects involved.
Once the identity of the martial art sects is found out, they will either have to face the coordinated attacks of dozens of martial art sects or they would leak the information to the City. In the end, they would have to face the attack of the City''s army directly if they decided to hide their identity.
"Okay, I understand now. Let''s go before we are toote."
After understanding the thoughts of the city and the martial art sects Yoze was ready to fight against this powerful group of ambushers. As he went over to put on the armor that he had forcefully expanded when he was training, Yoze remembered that River was heavily injured and most likely didn''t have the strength to travel at her top speed.
"Are you able to walk yourself or do you need me to carry you?" Yoze asked.
"I can walk and even run but I run at my fastest speed or I''ll reopen my wounds. So you''re going to have to carry me if you don''t mind." River said politely.
"That is not a problem, you''re just going to have to deal with motion sickness and sharing some space with Jewel. You cane in." Yoze turned toward his door and could see Jewel''s orange spiritual energy cloud standing outside it so he beckoned her toe inside.
River didn''t look surprised to see Jewel since she had also sensed Jewel''s presence at the door when she sat down. But she didn''t mind that Jewel was spying on them since Jewel was already involved in the case.
"If you already knew I was listening, why didn''t you let me in?" Jewel opened the door and mumbled to herself.
"I''m ready to go when you are," Jewel said aloud to inform Yoze and River.
She had already gotten ready after she heard the knocks on Yoze''s door so she was wearing her leather armor and ready to go. Yoze nodded his head in appreciation at her readiness and quickly got ready himself.
After putting on his armor and taking his sword, Yoze picked up both Jewel and River and quickly left in the direction River pointed at.
After 15 minutes of jumping at his fastest speed, Yoze was able to see a giant blood mist had formed. For a blood mist to be thisrge meant that the number of Blood Masters activating using their full strength was astonishing.
"That Blood cloud is definitely where we were ambushed. I don''t want to be a burden so drop me off here so you can focus on fighting."
"You can also drop me off here."
After dropping off River and Jewel a few miles away from the blood mist, Yoze rushed directly into battle. He was nning to attack the first enemy he found and make it known that reinforcements had arrived.
Within seconds Yoze arrived in front of the Blood mist attracting the attention of the martial artists inside. Even with the thick blood mist blocking his vision Yoze noticed that many martial artists inside the blood mist weren''t fighting
Instead, they were waiting on stand-by while at the center was a battle between five Blood Masters. Yoze recognized two of the five to be people he knew, Timothy and another Blood Master they traveled with when they fought the Elephant demon.
Noticing the arrival of arge man in armor sent the remaining ambushers on high alert causing them to draw out their weapons. Many of them cursed under their breath as they had just finished fighting for their lives and now needed to deal with a random person.
However, Yoze was not interested in fighting these injured Blood Masters as they wouldn''t give him much of a challenge. He didn''t even draw out his sword since he wanted to rescue Timothy and the other soldier first before anything else.
He simply activated all his inner vigors and stormed straight through the crowd of Blood Masters. Yoze was nning on forcefully creating a path forward by using his immense body weight and speed.
The Blood Masters that watched Yoze approaching them at high speeds felt a chill run down their spines as they noticed he didn''t draw out his sword and continued charging at them. What made it worse was in Yoze''s excitement his aura, which was created by having four different spiritual body cultivations, ran rampant.
Before all the martial artists'' eyes they watched as Yoze transformed from a human-sized armored giant to a three-storied armored demon that stared at them as if they were ants.
Chapter 112 112: Creating A Bloody Path
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The few seconds that separated the ambushers and Yoze seemed to have expanded in their point of view. From a few seconds, time seemed to pass by 10 times slower as they watched Yoze break through the limits of his human form and showed the demon deep within him.
Yoze transformed into a six-headed demon that had a body created by the fusion of a Fox, Elephant, Snake, and Leopard demon. It was an abomination that shouldn''t have existed but the mere existence foretold that they were simply creatures to be eaten.
They might have been the elites of the human race butpared to a demon they were just the same as regr humans. Breaking out of the illusion the ambushers realized that it was toote to dodge and instead fortified their positions.
The ambushers activated their strength causing blood to pour out of their pores and formed centimeter-thick blood strings that pierced into the earth. With only five ambushers making these blood strings, Yoze counted that they created at least several hundred of these centimeter-thick blood strings.
Each one of these blood strings seemed to have a mind of its own as the blood strings that didn''t bury themselves into the ground seeking out the blood strings from Blood Masters. With hundreds of blood strings seeking each other, they quickly tangled up to form blood ropes. The blood ropes continued to seek out more blood strings and blood ropes before in a blink of an eye arge blood was formed.
"The Tree Sect''s specialty, Blood Entanglement." Yoze''s mind quickly remembered the information that River had told him on the way.
"The ambusherse from a variety of martial art sects but the one that you should be most careful of is the Tree Sect. They have a technique that is custom-made for this body cultivation method called Blood Entanglement."
"Blood Entanglement can mix the strength of martial artists to form a giant blood that is extremely tough to break out of. Not only that it doesn''t have a limit to the number of martial artists that can use the join, meaning the Blood Entanglement can be increasingly stronger."
"While they individually are not as strong as ordinary Blood Masters from martial art sects they are terrifying to escape from when they join hands. It has even been documented that ten Blood Masters from the Tree Sect were able to capture a Martial Grandmaster with Blood Entanglement."
"If the ambushers didn''t want to let me escape to inform the City there was a high possibility that I would have been captured." River shivered as she thought about how lucky she was to have escaped from danger.
She could not tank as much damage that her brother could take even though she was a battle God on the battlefield. With her having to fight so many strong opponents she would do good in the short term but long term she wouldn''t be able to keep up.
Even though so much happened in reality only a fraction of a second had passed by the time the group of five Tree Sect members reacted and created a wall of blood that was more than ten feet tall and an inch thick. Being so close to the blood made Yoze feel his stomach churn as the smell of blood was incredibly pungent to the point that it would have caused people with weak willpower to faint from the smell alone.
Without much time to think about what was the best option Yoze let his heart take over and he increased his speed. He wanted to see if the Tree Sect''s famous blood could stop his mad charge.
In less than a blink of an eye, Yoze crashed into the blood which seemed to act like an organism wrapping around his body to stop his movements. The blood increasingly tightened its grip on his body trying to suffocate him to death.
The Tree Sect''s blood was astonishing as it even could slightly slow down Yoze''s charge but that was it. The blood was flexible, sturdy, and could make a Martial Grandmaster take it seriously but just like it needed ten Blood Masters using the technique to capture a Martial Grandmaster, five was never going to be enough to stop Yoze.
If more than 10 Blood Masters or several Martial Grandmasters used Blood Entanglement then they could have tried to capture even young demons. At that level, they could even have had a possibility of slowing down Yoze to a stop but that was only an if.
Yoze kept charging as the blood tried stopping him only to end up being dragged alongside him. Being attached to the blood the five Tree Sect members were dragged across the rough ground for several feet and they were helplessly dragged along until they heard a crisp snapping sounding from the blood strands that were buried underground.
The blood strands couldn''t handle the stress of being pulled by Yoze''s charge and being stuck to the ground and snapped in half causing a chain reaction that destroyed the blood. Just as the blood was formed in less than a blink it was destroyed in less than a secondter.
All the blood that formed the blood seemed to lose its liveliness and each of the blood ropes and blood strands melted back into regr blood and soaked the battlefield in blood. The sudden destruction of their Blood Entanglement didn''t allow the Blood Masters an opportunity to retrieve their blood before it was toote and all five copsed to the ground.
Judging from thepleteck of movementing from the five Tree Sect members, the remaining 6 ambushers felt their hearts drop as they assumed that they had died instantly or were about to. To see so many of their allies be defeated in less than a second, made the rest know that the City''s reinforcement was incredibly strong, very likely a Martial Grandmaster.
Luckily, they had brought along a Martial Grandmaster themselves in case such a circumstance had urred. Knowing that they had their own Martial Grandmaster protecting them, the rest of the Blood Masters split into two groups.
The first ran toward the wagons that stored all the demon meat and bones while the second group joined in the other ambushers that have been trying to kill Timothy and the remaining soldier for the past twenty minutes. However, even with the increased pressure Timothy and the other soldier held on strong.
Completely soaked in his enemy''s blood, Yoze felt his mind racing as he lost control of his body, he watched as his body fell to the blood-soaked earth like a goat and charged forward deeper into the battlefield. Just as Yoze''s body left his spot, a sh of white light flew above his head at a speed several times faster than the speed of sound.
"Boom!!!"
"A spear?"
As the white light shed above his head, Yoze''s eyes saw that within the white light was a silver spear that had white electricity surrounding it. For such a deadly weapon Yoze tracked down the ambusher who threw the spear and noticed that he was very differentpared to the other ambushers.
The man was an elderly man with a face full of wrinkles, hair that had turned gray, and eyes that had turned a murky white color. However, for how old his appearance made him, the elderly man stood up with a straight back showing off his height and the muscles underneath his silver armor.
"You must be Swampscott City''s Armored Giant. You are muchrger than your description." The elderly man''s murky eyes glittered with light as he looked at Yoze with interest.
"Who are you?" Yoze wasn''t surprised that the ambushers had some knowledge of him since they had nned this ambush; they must have had a way to find important information.
With how much power the silver spear contained, Yozs was more interested in the elderly man''s identity. He wanted to know if his hunch that this elderly man was a Martial Grandmaster was correct.
"Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder or Martial Silver Thunder for short. I''m a senior member of the Blood Crossbolt gang. After all my years of practicing martial arts, there are not many people who could be said to be as talented and full of potential as you."
"So I''ll offer my support and recruit you to be a member of the Blood Crossbow gang. You will get massive benefits that will allow you to fully utilize your talent." Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder smiled as he extended his invitation.
Martial Silver Thunder''s unhurried voice and his pride in being a martial artist made Yoze''s eyes widen as he didn''t think he would meet Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder. In the past, he had heard countless stories about Silver Thunder''s adventures from starting as an orphan that had been bullied all his life to standing on top of the food chain.
Every child had heard of Silver Thunder''s achievements but Yoze never thought he would meet the man behind the stories. Yoze didn''t hide his admiration for Martial Silver Thunder as he was someone that he had looked up to in the past.
But times had changed and Yoze wasn''t listening to a story but was in a life-and-death battle with him and wasn''t going to allow it to cloud his judgment. He only focused on the fact that not only was Martial Silver Thunder strong but his unique lightning martial arts were both shy and deadly.
"Unfortunately, I''m not interested at the moment." Yoze shook his head, rejecting Martial Grandmaster Sliver Thunder''s invitation.
While Martial Silver Thunder''s invitation was incredibly valuable for most martial artists, it wasn''t for Yoze. He could reach the Martial Grandmaster realm on his own and he was more powerful than most Martial Grandmasters in his current state.
That was simply the truth as his Spiritual energy techniques such as Spiritual Suppression could incapacitate Martial Grandmasters easily. With Yoze''s current proficiency at Spiritual Suppression, he could suppress more than 10 people at the same time.
So he was able to deal with not only Martial Silver Thunder but every single one of the ambushers. But Yoze didn''t want to do that unless it was necessary since it would turn the situation where he couldn''t test how powerful Martial Grandmasters could be.
Even though he was attracted to the thought of learning a Martial Grandmaster''s martial techniques and body cultivation methods. Yoze didn''t think he would have been able to acquire them easily due to simr reasons as to why the New Swampscott City was holding back on giving Blood Master body cultivation methods to him.
"That is unfortunate," Martial Silver Thunder sighed with regret before staring at Yoze with eyes that shone bright white light.
A wave of danger gripped Yoze''s heart as his body jumped away from where he previously stood as quickly as possible. Just like before, the moment he had left his spot Yoze saw the white sh caused by the white spear rush right past him beforending gently on Martial Silver Thunder''s hand
If he was a second too slow that spear would have pierced right through the back of his chest. Yoze predicted that his current physical defense would have done almost nothing to stop that attack. The silver spear would have destroyed his internal organs, including his heart, before exiting his chest and making a giant hole
"I''m in urgent need to upgrade my physical defense," Yoze frowned as this battle was making him realize how fragile he was.
Yoze could kill demons and fight Martial Grandmasters with his speed, and strength, and with the help of his martial art techniques and body cultivation methods. He could even kill demons without evennding a single physical attack if he learned to invade demons'' bodies with his spiritual energy.
However, while Yoze had strong physical defensespared to first-rate martial artists and Blood Masters he was simplycking whenpared to Martial Grandmasters and Demons. If he doesn''t fix this, there is bound to be a time when his Mindless Legs isn''t able to dodge an attack and he bes heavily injured or even dies without knowing the reason why.
"I need to break through the limits of Iron Skin as soon as possible while I search for more defensive body cultivation methods and martial art techniques." Making a mental note to himself, Yoze watched as the Martial Silver Thunder lifted his spear.
"You might be strong but you still have some way to go before you can challenge a Martial Grandmaster." Martial Silver''s murky eyes became brighter as they started to create white trails whenever they moved.
As soon as Martial Silver finished speaking hisst word, he vanished into a white pir of light that sped right to Yoze. The white pir was so fast Yoze wasn''t able to react himself and even Mindless Legs failed to react fast enough.
That was when Yoze felt everything begin to slow down as Mindless Blood Legs activated at full force and tookplete control over his body.
With all his energy focused trapped in his mind Yoze''s eyes saw the pir of light slowed down enough to a point that he was able to see Martial Silver Thunder''s body covered in white light that cracked from time to time.
By the time Martial Silver reached the spot where Yoze was standing, Yoze had already escaped from this range of attack and was rushing toward the center of the blood fog. Realizing that the fight with Martial Silver was going to be a much bigger problem to deal with, strengthens Yoze''s resolve to rescue Timothy first before going back to deal with Martial Silver Thunder.
"Come to me!" Yoze said loudly to get Timothy''s attention.
Suddenly hearing Yoze''s voice through all the sounds of fighting, Timothy turned his head to see a nearly 7-foot-tall giant wearing armor soaked in blood rushing toward him. At first, his heart jumped as he mistook Yoze for the ambusher ally before feeling a weighte off his shoulders when he saw it was Yoze.
"Follow me!"
Understanding that Yoze wanted him to meet him halfway to prevent them from being surrounded by the ambushers and being cut off from one another. Timothy told the soldier behind him to follow him and disengage from their battle.
With his blood boiling Yoze took control of his body and the full force of Mindless Blood Legs to rush to Timothy. Yoze felt a tingling sensationing from his back as a wave of heat tried to catch up to him.
"Boom!"
Yoze stomped on the ground hard creating a massive hole to give himself enough boost to reach Timothy and the remaining soldier just before the heat wave caught up to him.
Chapter 113 113: Class A Threat
The intense heating approaching his back at rapid speed produced a sound simr to sizzling lightning which became deafeningly loud just as the heat was at its strongest. Having caught up to Yoze, Martial Silver Thunder stabbed straight at Yoze''s back, using his spear that sizzled with lightning, to pierce through his heart and kill him in one fell swoop.
However, just as the tip of the spear was about to touch Yoze''s armor, Yoze''s body bent in an unnatural manner that should have broken his bones to avoid the spear attack. It was like he was made out of a piece of flexible string being able to easily move out of the attack path of the spear.
At the same time, Martial Silver Thunder felt an intense sense of danger gripping his heart, making him forcefully cancel his attack to escape. Just as he retracted his spear he saw Yoze''s arm fly toward him like a whip.
Jumping backward to avoid the danger, Martial Silver Thunder suddenly remembered that they were there to rob them of their demon meat and demon bones and not to kill everyst person. And since he noticed that Yoze wasn''t nning on retaking the cargo, Martial Silver Thunder decided to stop following such a dangerous man.
Even if Martial Silver Thunder wanted to chase after Yoze and Timothy they had already long escaped the blood fog by the time he had made a decision. It would have been not only difficult for the ambushers to try and catch up to him but it would have put their entire n in jeopardy.
The only way it was possible for them to catch up and surround Yoze was if he greatly slowed down his speed so that the Blood Masters could catch up. If Yoze didn''t slow down with his current speed it would be impossible for him to be surrounded and be forced to fight.
The only person that could keep up with his speed and have the possibility to catch up was Martial Silver Thunder. And one person wasn''t enough to stop Yoze or force him to do anything.
Even though they only had a brief encounter with each other and exchanged a few attacks, Martial Silver Thunder was able to create a profile of his threat level. In Martial Thunder''s mind, Yoze was only a ss-A threat and not the more dangerous ss-S threat.
Yoze was strong, fast, had incredible reaction speed, and had powerful attacks that were at the utmost peak of the Blood Master realm or early stages of the Martial Grandmaster realm. Not only that Martial Silver Thunder mistook he was at the peak of the Blood Master level and was going to be a formidable Martial Grandmaster when he broke through.
However, to Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder Yoze wasn''t at the top of his danger list the ss S dangers. This included Martial Grandmasters, demons, and monsters who he thought were the only beings on his level.
"Hurry up and pack up everything, we need to leave before the City sends more reinforcements!" Martial Silver Thunder yelled out to the ambushers who stood watching Yoze''s retreating figure in a daze.
Meanwhile, Yoze was rushing toward Jewel and River who had hidden behind a few boulders so he could escape with them until he felt they were safe from harm. By the time he made it to the location where Jewel and River were hiding, he saw that they had switched their hiding spots when they noticed someone was approaching their hiding spot.
"Jewel, Riveres out it is me Yoze. I was able to safely rescue everyone that was still alive when I got there. That includes Timothy, so you don''t have to worry about mourning for your brother." Yoze called out hoping that they would quicklye out so that could leave.
As he expected to hear his voice, Jewel and River both stepped out of their hiding spots. Once they got out of their spots both of them breathed a sigh of relief seeing that even though Timothy was heavily injured like River was. He was better able to endure it and didn''t need immediate help to deal with his wounds or he would die.
Unfortunately, the other soldier wasn''t so lucky, just from the wounds that they could see at first nce they saw they were much deeper and longerpared to both Timothy''s and Jewel''s situations. If they didn''t do some basic immediate care there was arge possibility that the wounds would be too severe and he either loses his life or his ability to ever do martial arts again or die from blood.
"Just ignore my wounds, we should get home as safely as possible." The soldier said, gritting through his teeth.
He knew his situation the best and could tell that there wasn''t a high chance that he would make it to the City in time to save himself from death. Much less make it back and be able to save his ability to continue to practice martial arts.
"Both of you quickly rub this paste onto your wounds. This should stop most of the bleeding and even begin a slow recovery before we make it to the City to take better care of you." Prepared for something like this to happen when he nned to rescue Timothy and the other soldiers, Yoze brought along a few jars of the same paste that he gave River.
Even though it wasn''t enough to stop their bodies from healing the extensive damage done in the battle, it would keep them well enough that they would be able to acquire proper treatment before it was toote.
"This kinda reeks of a powerful odor, but seeing that River is wearing it must be good." Both the Soldier and Timothy were both caught off guard by the intense smell but seeing that River had it all over her skin they immediately put the paste on their wounds.
The moment the paste touched their skin, all the pain faded away and was reced with an itch sensation but what made them the most surprised was that they could sense that the paste was slightly increasing their regeneration ability.
"This paste is amazing," Timothy looked at Yoze and felt his admiration for this schr increase by another notch.
Not only was he a schr which meant he had more knowledge than themon man but he was also a powerful martial artist. Just that brief profile of Yoze was enough to draw his admiration but now he was using his valuable medicinal paste to heal them.
"Yoze, how much did this paste cost you? I''ll pay you back for it," Timothy said.
He made up his mind that he wasn''t going to let this debt go unpaid so he asked for the price. Even if the price was something he couldn''t afford he wanted to at least know how much he needed to repay this debt.
"Don''t worry about the price, just focus on hurrying on putting it on so we can get a safe distance away from the ambushers." Yoze shook his head as he casually dismissed Timothy''s question
It wasn''t as if Yoze didn''t care about money and was willing to spend his valuable items on them without repayment. It was just that he didn''t know how much this paste would cost on the market since it was handmade.
He could charge them for the cost of the ingredients but that wasn''t muchpared to how much money he had at the moment. So he was more willing to find out the market price for a simr product and use that price for future repayments.
Turning his attention, Yoze noticed that the ambushers including Martial Silver Thunder were not following them and instead haven''t tried to follow them at all. Which surprised him for a bit before he realized that it made sense.
Just like how the ambushers were willing to let River escape so she could inform the City that showed how they favored the results more than the process itself. The ambushers shouldn''t be hellish on killing every singlest person.
Once Yoze escaped with Timothy and thest remaining soldier and made it clear that their attempt to try to kill him was too time-consuming and even risked them losing their main objective. Should have made the ambushers give up on trying to go out of their way to try to follow him and kill him simply due to the fact his death wouldn''t result in their wanted results and could even put it in jeopardy.
"If you aren''t nning on going after us, then this should be a good enough distance away to be safe, and I can go back to finish my battle with Martial Silver Thunder."
"Or I can use this distance to try and see how far my Spiritual Suppression ability can travel and how it affects a Martial Grandmaster."
Yoze''s thoughts raced as he thought about whether he should rush over to pick a fight or if he should use this opportunity to test how his Spiritual Suppression worked on a Martial Grandmaster.
However, it seemed that the ambushers had made his decision for him. Yoze noticed that Martial Silver Thunder''s spiritual energy was rapidly getting farther away and if Yoze didn''t act immediately he would lose this valuable opportunity.
Chapter 114 114: Prove It To Me
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Yoze''s eyes glimmered with colorful specks as he made his decision. He wasn''t going to let this opportunity go and miss the chance to focus on fighting a Martial Grandmaster.
Who knows he might be inspired by the fight and be able to break through to the Blood Master realm immediately.
"Take a break," Yoze said softly as he focused on directing his spiritual energies out of his body and toward Martial Silver Thunder''s spiritual energy.
"Did you say something?" Jewel asked since she heard Yoze mumble something softly.
"Nothing, I''ll be back in a little bit. We should be far enough from the ambushers that you should be able to take a break. But to make sure, I''ll go back to distract them for as long as possible and draw them away from this area." As soon as Yoze finished speaking he jumped up into the air and rushed to where the ambushers were.
Even though spiritual energy traveled at incredible speeds, the distance plus Martial Silver Thunder''s speed when it came down to its tool was longer than he expected. But at the end of the day trying to escape a spiritual energy attack with physical speed alone was nearly impossible.
Within less than two seconds Yoze''s spiritual energy reached the main group of ambushers who had finished packing and were about to head out. Just as they were about to follow Martial Silver Thunder''s path, they all felt a heavy pressure weighing down on their minds.
It was as if they had just woken up, still groggy and mind filled with fog, to an Elephant made out of gold sitting on their head. They felt as if they had a harder timeing up with ideas and their awareness of the graveness of their situation had vastly decreased.
Their minds had slowed to such an extent that all of them didn''t realize that they couldn''t move their bodies at all for some time. By the time some of them did realize they were stuck, they saw that the blood giant that had gone toe to toe with a Martial Grandmaster had reappeared before falling unconscious due to a quick neck chop.
"You all should have quite a good range of talents." Yoze didn''t spend too much time dealing with these ambushers as he had bigger fish to fry.
He also didn''t want this big fish to escape when his spiritual energy caught up to Martial Silver Thunder who had gone so far. With a majority of his spiritual energy focused on suppressing the old man, Yoze had some expectations of how Martial Silver Thunder would have reacted to the suppression of his spiritual energy.
Just like how a Blood Master could resist falling unconsciouspared to a regr person who fell unconscious immediately upon impact. What Yoze expected was that since his spiritual energy was strongerpared to the Elephant demons he could have made at least one Blood Master faint and he could paralyze Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder.
The World was filled with surprises as not only did Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder not faint but he didn''t even be paralyzed. Martial Silver Thunder gritted his teeth as sweat dripped down his face to justplete the game but kept moving forward even when he had to start crawling.
The other ambushers didn''t fall unconscious as soon as Yoze''s spiritual energy forced them to be unconscious. They even were able to withstand the pressure and stay conscious.
After knocking out thest ambusher, Yoze took a deep breath before turning off the spiritual suppression acting on Martial Silver Thunder. It was his goal to fight against Martial Silver Thunder so he could practice and refine his martial art skills not bully Martial Silver Thunder while he was suppressed by Spiritual energy.
Once Yoze got rid of the Spiritual Suppression on Martial Silver Thunder he noticed his spiritual energy quickly rebounded and rapidly got smaller. Martial Silver Thunder had decided to run away as fast as possible.
However, Yoze had already thought about the consequences of suddenly using his spiritual energy to suppress Martial Silver Thunder. Before Martial Silver Thunder fully recovered Yoze had already raced toward him as fast as he could.
"Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder wait! I want to talk with you for a little bit!" Yoze yelled out to grab Martial Silver Thunder''s attention.
His sudden call out for Martial Silver Thunder seemed to have worked as Martial Silver Thunder stopped leaving and instead even ran back toward Yoze. With both of them approaching each other they were able to close the gap between them rather quickly.
But unlike the battle that Yoze was looking for, he saw Martial Silver Thunder appear haggard like he hadn''t slept for days. As soon as Martial Silver Thunder saw Yoze he seemed to be relieved.
"Did you experience it too? There must be an anomaly nearby so we need to get out of there as soon as possible."
"For you toe to me as soon as it leaves means that you think that it is too difficult to get out of the anomaly''s range by yourself. You came to the right person."
"Not only could I still move when the anomaly came but I have experienced different types of anomalies for as long as I lived." Martial Silver Thunder said with confidence.
Yoze appreciated that he had gotten some talents that were rted to body control and the fact that he was wearing armor to cover his facial expressions. If he didn''t have these things he was afraid that he would have been exposed due to how shocked he was.
He didn''t think his use of Spiritual Suppression would have been mistaken for an unnatural event. But after thinking about it for a split second Yoze figured out that this was the best conclusion someone could make from a little bit of information.
Simply because if it was a real demon that used spiritual suppression then the only oue would have been that both Yoze, Martial Silver Thunder, and the ambushers would have been killed not long after it appeared.
This was because Yoze never had the intention of using his spiritual abilities to gain an absolute advantage in a battle with Martial Silver Thunder. After all, it would have made it too easy.
Yoze wanted to test his martial arts skill and not his spiritual abilities. He wanted to know if he was going the right path of focusing on a breakthrough in a few martial art techniques instead of getting a wider range of techniques.
And he wanted to test this out through a trail of fire and fight against one of humanity''s stronger fighters. He wanted to know if the strength of his body and the pure destructive ability of his few martial art techniques could go up against it or even defeat a Martial Grandmaster who has so many different types of martial art techniques at his disposal that he would never run out of techniques to use.
That was why he had canceled his spiritual suppression before he made contact and entered visible range with Martial Silver Thunder. Yoze didn''t want Martial Silver Thunder to instantly surrender or hold back in fear that he would use his spiritual energy to suppress him again.
But it looks like he had worried for nothing since Martial Silver Thunder''s exnation had gotten rid of any suspicion that he could have been the cause. Yoze still wanted to fight against Martial Silver Thunder even if there was a mimunication.
So Yoze''s mind raced as he tried to think of a solution to both use this opportunity to get rid of all suspicion and still fight against Martial Silver Thunder. It didn''t take long before Yoze responded to Martial Silver Thunder with a n.
"That''s right, but I''m not foolish enough to just trust that you will be a good partner to escape this anomaly with, you need to prove it to me."
"Why should I prove it to you? Not only am I a Martial Grandmaster but I have decades of experience in dealing with anomalies so if I wanted to I could escape on my own." Martial Silver Thunder retorted.
"You need to prove it to me because just because I find it more convenient to work with someone doesn''t mean I can''t escape on my own. Plus, from the way you look, you must have experienced the anomaly much worse than me."
"Much less trying to help me escape you might instead slow me down and you might even require more of my help than I need yours. So I will take someone who could be a burden." Yoze said calmly while waving his empty hands to show that he has abandoned hispanions due to viewing them as a burden.
"... Fine, how do you want me to prove it to you?" Martial Silver Thunder eventually relented to the fact that he was the one that needed to prove his worth.
He had long noticed that Yoze didn''t have thepanions that he had worked so hard to save by his side. For him to work so hard to save their lives but abandon them as soon as his life was in real danger showed how ruthless Yoze was.
Chapter 115 115: Inner Vigor Clones
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"As someone willing to abandon your friends at the drop of a hat, doesn''t do much to increase my trust in you. Regardless, working with you should have some benefits." Martial Silver Thunder mused to himself.
He was interested in what kind of challenge Yoze would ce upon him, was it going to be a battle of wit, knowledge, taking one of his attacks, or doing something to gain his trust?
"That''s fine that you don''t trust me much, I don''t trust you at all either. If you weren''t a Martial Grandmaster I would have killed you a long time ago." ying up his role as a ruthless man, Yoze simply told the truth.
If Martial Silver Thunder wasn''t a Martial Grandmaster who is incredibly good at martial arts and could be a great practice partner Yoze would have killed him as soon as he got in his way. He wouldn''t have even bothered to learn his identity just like how he bulldozed through those five Tree Sect Blood Masters.
The Tree Sect Blood Masters were strong but at the end of the day they were still Blood Masters and he could have easily killed them with a single finger. However, they still have a good possibility that they have great talents that he would like to copy which was why Yoze didn''t end up killing them after they fell unconscious.
If Martial Silver Thunder wasn''t the first Martial Grandmaster that Yoze had met and wasn''t strong. What happened to those five would have been what happened to him. Even if Martial Silver Thunder was as strong as a Martial Grandmaster, he wouldn''t have been so reluctant to use his spiritual energy.
However, while Yoze was telling the truth, Martial Silver Thunder wasn''t bothered by what he said. Instead, he fully believes that Yoze meant what he said because he would have done the same thing if Yoze was any weaker than he was right now.
"Okay stop trying to act tough and tell me this challenge so I can prove myself and we can begin working together." Martial Silver Thunder said.
"It''s quite simple, we will resume our fight from earlier if you can defeat me then that is all the proof you need." Yoze smiled under his helmet as he watched Martial Silver Thunder immediately turn into a pir of white light as soon as he finished speaking.
Without having to think at all, Yoze dodged Martial Silver Thunder''s rapid attacks that filled his vision with white bolts of lightning. The deep crackle of electricity made Yoze excited as he finally found his chance to strike.
Clenching his hand around his sword, Yoze shed at Martial Silver Thunder''s neck, cutting it right open. The sh was so fast and clean that not even a single drop of blood got stuck on the de.
This sessful strike should have ended the fight immediately with Yoze as the winner. But not only did he not feel like he won, he instead felt uneasy as everything seemed too easy.
It was like he wasn''t fighting Martial Silver Thunder but a weak clone of him. With this odd feeling and noticing that Martial Silver Thunder was simply ignoring the cut on his neck and continued to act as if he was never cut.
"I didn''t even cut him. Something is wrong with my senses."
Noticing that something was wrong wondered if there was something wrong with his senses as he had felt the sensation of cutting through flesh.
In an attempt to figure out if his senses were truly tempered, Yoze focused on Martial Silver Thunder''s spiritual energy and noticed that at some point his spiritual energy had been transferred into one of the dozens of spear attacks that was covered in thick white lightning.
"Found you,"
Yoze''s eyes immediately turned toward a thunderbolt that had a Green Thunder Cloud floating above it and attacked it ignoring the others. The full-powered sh of the Armored Swordsman sh drew up a windstorm that threatened to tear the thunderbolt to shreds.
"ng! Boom!"
The moment the sword touched the thunderbolt the loud ng of metal colluding with metal erupted before being overpowered by the explosion that came from their powerful attacks. The force of the explosion was so powerful that it sent Yoze and the Thunderbolt flying in opposite directions.
As Yoze was flying in the air, his eyes glowed with colorful lights, as hended on the ground safely. By the time he recovered, he saw that Martial Silver Thunder had recovered and was looking at him with surprise.
"You are extremely powerful, that strike alone could have killed the majority of Martial Grandmasters if they were not guarding themselves." Martial Silver Thunder''s murky white eyes smiled as heplimented Yoze.
"But your technique is just too poor. Are you even trying? How could you use a martial art that hasn''t even reached the Blood Master level to challenge a Martial Grandmaster?"
"Anyways, that''s enough ying around. I''m going to use everything I got so be careful not to die." Martial Silver Thunder lightly tapped the ground with his spear five times.
With each tap, thick silver lights exited Martial Silver Thunder''s heart and entered his silver spear before heading straight into the earth. After all five taps were done Martial Silver Thunder grabbed his spear with two hands and use the same silver light topletely cover his spear.
"What is this energy that Martial Silver Thunder is releasing in suchrge quantities? It seems familiar. It must be his inner vigor but I didn''t know Inner vigor could act so freely outside of the body." Yoze''s mind spun as the revtion that inner vigor could leave the body cleared up many things in his mind.
Memories of him walking through Jade City''s martial courtyard quickly shed by as countless books of martial body cultivation manuals that seemed to have magical effects seemed more reasonable and were giving hints of what a martial artist could aplish when taking to the limit.
"Sr Illusion Set, thisplete martial arts technique set has three Fists techniques, one leg technique, and force distribution techniques. Once users master all techniques in the set they will be able to form life-like after images with just pure speed."
When Yoze remembered the sr Illusion Set that imed to have the ability to make the users do so fast that they could form life-like afterimages he felt that he could predict what that set of martial arts could do once taken to the limit. Once used and practiced by a Martial Grandmaster it might be able to allow them to make clones out of inner vigor.
His mind wasbining multiple concepts, sightings, books, and experiences to form the idea that all martial art body methods lead to the user eventually using inner vigor outside of their bodies. The martial artist realm is what starts the production of inner vigor and creates a solid foundation for the Blood Master realm.
During the Blood Master stage people will integrate their inner vigor into their blood which they could use as a medium to use their inner vigor outside. The Tree Sect was the most prominent in Yoze''s mind as they were able to create this mystical trap with just their Inner vigor controlling their blood.
However in the end using your blood to hold your inner vigor and use that to fight wasn''t a good idea against peers and stronger opponents. Just like what happened with the Tree Sect members due to not being able to retract their blood in time they ended up falling into a deep unconscious state.
From what Yoze could tell from his brief encounter with Martial Silver Thunder, it seems that the next step was to bring Inner Vigor outside of the body. It was almost as magical as crystal energy or spiritual energy.
It could be possible that in the future or at higher levels inner vigor would be just as magical as crystal energy and spiritual energy. However, Yoze wasn''t able to think further as the ground below him began to shake as a deep rumble came from the earth.
"Rumbling"
The deep rumblinging from the earth reminded Yoze of a sleeping giant in the earth''s core that was beginning to wake up. The earthquake became worse with time as everything began to shake, from the sheer scale of the earthquake Yoze was worried that it would be something he wouldn''t be able to handle.
He wasn''t someone who liked to stand idly doing nothing so Yoze took the initiative andunched dozens of shes at Martial Silver thunder who simply blocked or dodged every single one of his attacks with ease.
"Ding Ding Ding"
Each sh of his sword was met with a spear attack that sent electric shocks into his arms causing a numbing sensation to spread across his arms and chest. Even though Yoze seemed to be in a disadvantaged position he wasn''t feeling anxious but felt thrilled.
With every hit could feel himself improving hisbat skill and his Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle were rapidly improving at the same time. He started to adapt to the electric shocks and the numbing sensation was slightly relieved.
An hour passed by quickly as the rumbling had grown to an unbelievable state of electric linesing out of the ground an inch thick. Each one of these electric lines could have stopped the heart of any animal but Yoze was experiencing the shock equivalent to 10 of those at a time and was able to continue to fight.
Chapter 116 116: Naked But Not Afraid
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The electric shocks were making Yoze''s heart pound chaotically. Still, the shockscked the strength to stop his heart to Martial Silver Thunder''s dismay.
He was feeling frustrated that he had to deal with an opponent who was bing increasingly familiar with his fighting style and martial arts. Whether it was his spear attacks, his leg technique, fists, elbows, or even his movements, Yoze was always quickly adapting and improving himself to better counter every technique.
It was as if he wasn''t fighting a martial artist but a puppet that was learning how to mirror all his movements and techniques before finding their ws to defeat him. What made Martial Silver Thunder feel more frustrated was that he had been using his full strength but wasn''t able tond a single solid strike.
And it was bing more and more difficult for him tond an attack as the more he used a technique the lower the chances it would be able to hit Yoze. It was not only because Yoze was adapting but his body was too hard tond a hit on even if he wasn''t aware he was being attacked which was thanks to Mindless Legs and Boneless Man body cultivation.
"How strong is your body!? Are you some demon in human form!?" Martial Silver Thunder growled.
"This is thrilling, I hope that you can still keep this going or I will just kill you." Yoze truthfully said his true feelings.
While he was giving out the same threats to Martial Silver Thunder it sent a chill down his spine. He had taken Yoze seriously before but Martial Silver Thunder had only felt he was a strong Blood Master that couldpete with weaker Martial Grandmasters for only a short period.
But after fighting Yoze for so long Martial Silver Thunder could sense that Yoze''s stamina was still high. If anything it had barely dropped at all while his constant usage of his White Lightning Inner Vigor was rapidly drying up his storage.
He could only keep this up for another five hours before he ran out of gas while Yoze felt like he could never run out of steam.
"What terrifying stamina," Martial Silver Thunder''s thoughts turned towards recognizing that Yoze''s main strength must have been his inhuman endurance.
His martial arts skills were basic and simple but his ability to never tire and his learning ability made it so that unless one could defeat him quickly they would eventually lose.
At the end of the day, Yoze''s martial art techniques were too simple so their ws were easily recognizable by seasoned martial artists. Being a Martial Grandmaster it only took an hour before Martial Silver Thunder had analyzed the core of Armored Swordsman sh.
He had memorized every single variation of Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle and every possible move he could make in manybat situations. He could predict Yoze''s moves before he made them with an uracy of 90 percent.
All Martial Silver Thunder had to do was wait for the perfect time to strike at Yoze''s heart to end this battle once and for all. There was only one problem, how was he supposed tond a hit when Yoze seemed almost impossible to hit?
Regardless of if heunched a silent attack from behind, Yoze would always find a way to escape. However, the key interest for Martial Silver Thunder to solve this problem is to get rid of any possibility that Yoze could escape his attacks.
"Countless Whirlpool," Finding the perfect opportunity, Martial Silver Thunder immediately acted as he said the name of his attack, hoping to draw Yoze''s attention from the real area of his attack.
"Crack"
Martial Silver Thunder forced arge amount of his White Lightning inner vigor into his spear causing it to explode with blinding white light at the cost of the surface of the spear forming shallow cracks.
At the same time, he tossed his Silver Spear in the air before covering his fists with inner vigor and sending a flurry of punches to the ground.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Within less than a second Martial Silver Thunder let out countless punches that shook the earth and turned the ground beneath Yoze''s feet into a deep sandpit. This dangerous sandpit triggered Yoze''s Mindless Legs causing Yoze''s body to be sent flying in the air to avoid the danger of getting trapped in the sand.
But this was all a part of Martial Silver Thunder''s n topletely leave Yoze trapped and without any options. For this n to beplete there was only the final step of breaking Yoze''s sword and piercing right through his body.
Martial Silver Thunder extended his hand toward his spear causing it to instantly fly into his palm before unleashing his signature attack, Twelve Lightning Strikes of God.
Twelve spear attacks that held an extreme amount of inner vigor simultaneously struck Yoze''s sword, shattering it instantly. The twelve strikes continued the path through the sword andnded on Yoze''s chest armor.
With the addition of Yoze''s Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor, the armor held up for a few seconds before helplessly being pierced through as if it was made out of paper.
Unfortunately, that was all the damage Martial Silver Thunder could do as Yoze''s body used the force of the strikes hitting his armor to help him tear himself out of the back of his armor which left himpletely naked.
Beingpletely nude and traveling his powerful and burly body was packed full of muscles as his short ck hair spiked up due to the electricity-filled air. Being on the verge of crossing into the realm of being 7 feet tall, Yoze easily dwarfed many people including Martial Silver Thunder.
"Dang, you broke both my armor and sword. Now I can''t practice Armored Swordsman body cultivation anymore until I get my recements." Yoze said feeling a bit frustrated that he couldn''t continue improving Armored Swordsman at such a rapid speed.
"That should be enough to prove I''m more than enough to be your partner." Even though Martial Silver Thunder wasn''t satisfied with only destroying Yoze''s sword and armor he decided to not go further since he still wanted to use Yoze to deal with the anomaly.
"Partner up? I''m going to be honest with you that I''m still going to kill you since you attacked River and Timothy." In a bad mood, Yoze emotionlessly stared at Martial Silver Thunder as if he were a test subject.
"I can still train my Twin Fists but I don''t think he wouldst long if I started a chain of attacks. He could keep up with me when I was holding back but going all out will wear him out too quickly."
"I might even identally kill him before even getting a chance to improve Twin Fists. From the stories, Martial Silver Thunder must at least be 100 years old. He must be reaching the limits of how long humans are biologically able to live and can''tst much longer."
"Since I can''t train my martial arts with you then it would be better if I tested my spiritual energy technique. I need to see if I can send my spiritual energy into someone else''s body." Yoze looked at Martial Silver Thunder with interest.
As he knew that it was finally time to see if he could defeat a Martial Grandmaster with just Spiritual energy attacks alone. And test out if his theory of being able to hijack other creatures'' bodies and turn them into puppets was possible.
Chapter 117 117: Defeating Silver Thunder
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Martial Silver Thunder frowned as he felt his intuition telling him to run. That there was something wrong here, especially since Yoze was confidently speaking gibberish-like about spiritual energy.
Being a Martial Grandmaster, Martial Silver Thunder always trusted his intuition and immediately turned around to escape. Noticing that Martial Silver Thunder wanted to escape, Yoze clicked his tongue and sent his spiritual energy out to suppress Martial Silver Thunder.
Being so close in distance meant that Martial Silver Thunder nearly instantly felt as if his mind was stuck in a thick swamp and he had a mountain pressing down on him. The pressureing down on him was so high that his knees buckled causing him to roll to the ground.
"You-you are the anomaly! Please spare my life!"
Martial Silver Thunder felt death grip his heart the moment Yoze''s spiritual energy pressed against his own and a terrifying revtion crossed his mind. He never would have thought that the person he had been fighting with was an anomaly, an unnatural creature.
"I''ll do anything to live, I''ll do anything. Do you want money, martial art books, knowledge, treasures, or anything you can think of, I''ll get it for you." Martial Silver Thunder knew that he had run out of luck and could only hope that he could tempt Yoze into letting him live a bit longer.
Yoze however didn''t bother to respond as he had ced his entire focus on trying to manipte his spiritual energy to enter Martial Silver Thunder''s body. However, the results were not very encouraging as he was having trouble with cutting off a small piece of his spiritual energy away from therge clump that was pressing Martial Silver Thunder.
Whenever he tried to split his spiritual energy either three oues woulde about, the first was that he simply would fail to split apart his spiritual energy. This was the mostmon oue where 18 out of 20 attempts ended up with him not being able to extract his spiritual energy.
In the two attempts he seeded in splitting his spiritual energy before he could even celebrate they would fail for various reasons. During one of the moments he sessfully split a small piece of his spiritual energy away from the main body, it was immediately destroyed from exposure to the outside.
The third oue came right after his first sess when he tried to solve the issue of his spiritual energy being destroyed by the environment from being too small. Instead, he tried to split apart arger clump of his spiritual energy but it was even more discouraging.
Not only was it harder to control thatrger chunk of spiritual energy but it was a bone-piercing pain that came from deep within Yoze''s mind and forced him to stop halfway. Yoze''s body was covered in sweat as trying to split his spiritual energy was both mentally and physically draining.
"Maybe I should try to copy what the Leopard demon and Elephant demon did and use a majority of my spiritual energy on his body." Yoze thought to himself before shaking his head.
"I am not going to risk my life and send a majority of my spiritual energy into Martial Silver Thunder''s body. That was exactly how those two ended up dying in my hands.
"Their demon bodies were much stronger than mine and they could have easily escaped if they had tried but they instead chose to risk it all. In the end, they ended up dying and survived so I can''t make the same mistakes."
"If I do try to do it then my target must bepletely at my mercy andpletely unconscious for me to attempt that much risk." Yoze looked at Martial Silver Thunder and noticed that he still was gripping his spear and decided not to take the risk.
"Next time I meet a demon and they have the talent of Spiritual Maniption I am going to copy it first." After realizing how incredible having some talent in the art of manipting his spiritual energy could be, Yoze decided to grab one for his own.
He had the chance to copy the Elephant demon''s Spiritual Maniption talent but in the end, he decided not to take it. Yoze didn''t regret his choice as the Elephant demon''s Armored Elephant Spiritual body Cultivation talent had been incredibly invaluable up to this point and even further into the future.
After doing a few dozen more attempts to split apart his spiritual energy Yoze decided to stop for now. He would try again at ater date when his target wasn''t someone that could kill him in a split second if he had the opportunity to.
Instead, Yoze wanted to confirm that he could devour other creatures'' spiritual energy even though it wasn''t inside his body and they were still alive. With that thought, Yoze created a spiritual w with the remaining spiritual energy circting in his body and shed at the green cloud while avoiding his spiritual energy.
"Ahhh!" Martial Silver Thunder screamed from the sudden sharp pain that tore apart his mind.
The pain was unlike anything that he had experienced and made him drop his spear. The sensation felt like his soul was being ripped apart by thousands of tiny ants and he could feel every single bite and piece of flesh being torn from his body.
In his entire 105 years of living in this world, he had never experienced such horrifying pain and almost wanted to die but noticing that Yoze had a happy look on his face made his pain even more unbearable.
Luckily, for Martial Silver Thunder Yoze wasn''t going to let him suffer for too long. As once he confirmed that his spiritual ws could cut apart and even devour spiritual energy directly he immediately allowed his spiritual energies to run wild and devour all of Martial Silver Thunder''s spiritual energy.
Once thest lick of Martial Silver Thunder''s spiritual energy was devoured and assimted, Yoze watched as Martial Silver Thunder''s body dropped to the ground with no movement.
Chapter 118 118: Where Do I Hide The Bodies
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"What do I do about my clothes?" After killing Martial Silver Thunder, Yoze then turned towards his immediate other needs.
After losing his armor Yoze had no other clothes he could wear as the clothes he wore inside his armor also ripped apart when he escaped Martial Silver Thunder''s attack. He didn''t mind if Martial Silver Thunder saw him naked since they were enemies.
Now that it was over Yoze felt it would have been strange for him to return to Jewel, River, and Timothy without any clothes and carrying an old man in his arms. Also, he couldn''t enter the city without any clothes on, as that would get him banned from ever entering the city again.
"I should put my spiritual speech to good use and ask Jewel to get him some spare clothes." Thinking of a solution, Yoze grabbed Martial Silver Thunder''s body and his cracked silver spear and rushed over to where he left the unconscious ambushers.
As he was arriving in the area that the Blood Fog had previously covered, Yoze saw that it had mostly dissipated leaving only remnants of its existence by the bloody smell of iron in the air and the ground that was muddy with blood. As he got closer and closer to the main battle area where the Blood Fog took ce the ground became mushier and bloodier, almost turning the area into a blood swamp.
When Yoze arrived he noticed that some of the Blood Fog was still hovering around lowering visibility but with his sharp vision he was able to figure out the general situation. Out of all the ambushers that Yoze had knocked unconscious only the five Tree Sect members remained with the rest of the ambushers having long escaped.
They even had the decency to take a few pouches of demon meat and bones along with them as they made their escape to avoid another encounter with Yoze. Luckily
Before he left he had a feeling that the battle with Martial Silver Thunder would not conclude before they retained consciousness and took proactive measures
He destroyed all the wagons full of demon meat and bones and the carts that the ambushers had brought with them to prevent them from easily taking everything. Instead, they could only take as much much demon meat and bones as they could physically carry
With the amount weighing up to 90 tons of demon meat and bones, they were destined to be able to take much back. But when Yoze saw that there was still arge pile of meat left, he was pleasantly surprised to see that the ambushers didn''t take as much as he initially thought.
From a nce, Yoze saw that they had only taken around one ton of demon meat and bones. It couldst a long time for normal people but for a martial artist a single ton of demon meat was not enough since most martial artists will have their appetites increase as they practice martial arts.
This ran especially true for martial art sects since they had hundreds if not thousands of martial artists that would love to sink their teeth into demon meat. Even with a single ton of demon meat missing Yoze didn''t show much interest in helping the City get it back.
How much demon meat and bones were taken by the martial art sects was not a major concern for him since it wasn''t his food anymore. He sold it to the city so whatever was stolen was their loss and he had already done them a favor by not only saving some of their soldiers but even a majority of their demon meat and bones.
"What do I do with their bodies?"
Turning his attention to the five unconscious Tree Sect Blood Masters, Yoze realized that he didn''t know how he was going to deal with them. He had wanted to copy their talents but with five blood masters and a martial grandmaster in his care, it would take a long time for him to copy all their talents.
If each of them had five talents then he would have to spend at least a full month, before hepletely copied all their talents. That was a massive timemitment that Yoze wasn''t particrly interested in giving while also being forced to not get other talents as it would only extend the time he had to take care of them.
The main problem that he had to solve was where he was going to find a ce where he could imprison five expert fighters for a long period of time and have easy ess to food and other essential items to keep them alive.
The location could also not be too in the open as it would draw too much suspicion from all his possible enemies. It was too suspicious to have any good reason as to why he would imprison these 6 fighters for so long.
Yoze was also worried that other people might also form crazy theories about what he was doing. If Jewel coulde up with the conclusion that he was a demon simply from him keeping the Serpent demon alive for a few extra days.
What would people think if he kept several people in his basement? Would they think he was some kind of pervert that loved torturing people?
Yoze shook his head at the idea before also dismissing the idea of just killing them. It was such a waste for such talented individuals if they died without having the chance to pass on their legacy to a worthy sessor like himself.
"If I can''t kill them or take care of them I might as well let the government deal with them. I''ll just ask for special ess to visit them in jail or the hospital in Martial Silver Thunder''s case." Making his decision, Yoze used spiritual suppression on the five unconscious blood masters so that even if they woke up they wouldn''t be able to escape.
After suppressing them, Yoze jumped toward where hest saw the group before stopping a good distance away and hiding behind a tree for cover.
"Jewel, could you do me a favor and get me some spare clothes? During my fight with Martial Silver Thunder, my clothes were destroyed alongside my armor. "
"Yoze? Where are you?" Jewel''s ears perked up when she heard Yoze''s voice ringing in her ears.
However, looking around she didn''t see him at all before remembering the contents of Yoze''s message.
"Did you three hear Yoze or am I going crazy?" Though she was confident that she had heard Yoze''s voice she still wanted to confirm that everyone else had heard it and she wasn''t getting tricked by a demon.
"Yeah, I heard him."
"Schr Yoze has some incredible means to send his voice such arge distance away and still make his voice sound like he is talking right beside us."
Timothy and River both confirmed that they heard Yoze and both felt impressed by his means ofmunication. They had been on the lookout for any traces of Yoze returning but they hadn''t found a single trace of him.
They concluded that he was either hiding nearby and they simply couldn''t sense his presence or he had stopped quite a distance away from them before transmitting his voice using a unique method. Either way was impressive enough in their view that the thought of asking Yoze to be their teacher resurfaced and became more solid.
Unaware of the thoughts that were going through the other''s heads, Yoze sent them another message to tell them more information about the matter.
"I have already defeated the Martial Grandmaster who was protecting the group that ambushed you. While also capturing five more Blood Masters and rescuing a majority of the demon meat and bones."
Chapter 119 119: Returning Home
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After exining the situation to Jewel, Timothy, and River they all breathed a sigh of relief before traveling back to grab some clothes. By the time they returned with his spare clothes, Yoze noticed that they had more security by having a few more Blood Masters with them.
Once they arrived back, Jewel ced his spare clothes behind a tree so that he could put them on in peace.
"That is better," After putting on his clothes Yoze felt morefortable and walked out from behind the tree where the others were waiting for him.
"Schr Yoze, we asked the city for your request for special ess and we are d to inform you that the city has epted your request," River told Yoze the moment she saw him.
"That''s good, "
"There is better news, that the city is going to give you the upgraded Iron Skin body cultivation method and a few items at your demand," River said as she handed Yoze a book with the words Iron Muscle and a picture of a muscr grey stick figure.
"Perfect this is exactly what I wanted, " Yoze couldn''t help but nod his head as he was nning on focusing on upgrading his defense.
"Can I also get a few more defensive body cultivation books and techniques?"
"That should not be an issue, is there anything that you want? You did a massive service to the City and you could request more and the City should be happy to ept."
"In that case, I''ll like to meet a Martial Grandmaster," Yoze said.
"I''ll ask when we get back but you should be able to meet one soon." River nodded her head as this was the kind of request that she expected from Yoze.
After chatting a bit more with Timothy and River, Yoze and Jewel decided to leave ahead of time as the trip was going to be slower since they needed to carry six people back. Hearing that Yoze was going to leave them behind, Timothy and River felt a bit reluctant, they were both injured from the ambush and many of thepanions had died.
After such a terrible experience they wanted to feel the safety and peace that Yoze brought them. They just couldn''t feel the same amount of safety from being protected by other Blood Masters as they could from getting protected by someone who could defeat Martial Grandmasters and y demons.
However, there was nothing that they could say to ask Yoze to take them with him when they were not far from the city. Luckily, at thest moment, they heard Jewel advocate for them.
"Wait, let''s at least take River with us. She made the trip much morefortable and I didn''t have to worry about the wind or getting sick." Jewel looked at Yoze''s back with reluctance as she remembered how sick she felt after thest time she rode it alone.
Yoze looked at River and Jewel and could understand her concerns since he found out how Blood Masters were able to carry a regr person at travel at their full speed and not make that person extremely sick or die during the travel. The reason was abination of a better movement technique and using the blood to create a barrier that prevents the wind from wreaking havoc.
Since Yoze''s movement technique was derived from a movement technique that had less of a focus on traveling much less traveling with people, the experience for anyone was bound to be terrible. He also wasn''t yet a Blood Master so he couldn''t improve the experience for Jewel unless he slowed down and made sure that she was alright from time to time.
With a terrible traveling experienceing her way, he could understand why she wanted to travel with River since she had made traveling on his back not only tolerable but fun.
"That''s fine with me, what''s your opinion on the matter River?" Yoze turned toward River since her opinion mattered.
"I would love to but can you also take Timothy with us, with himing along we can block out more wind and make the trip even morefortable. " River said, trying her best to convince Yoze and Jewel that taking her brother along with her was worth it.
Of course, if she failed she still nned on going along since at the end of the day Timothy was a Blood Master that could survive an ambush of Blood Masters so he should be fine. Knowing that his sister was trying her best to convince Yoze and Jewel, Timothy felt touched.
"Yeah, that''s fine by me. Carrying you three is easy, so you have to pick where you sit."
Yoze didn''t mind taking all three of them with him since it wasn''t an inconvenience instead he preferred taking them along since it allowed him to have a conversation during the trip and not have to pay much attention to making the journeyfortable.
After picking up Jewel, River, and Timothy, Yoze hopped away at lightning speed leaving the remaining soldiers to deal with transporting the five Tree Sect members and Martial Silver Thunder''s body. By the time they arrived back home, they smelled the delicious smell of cooked demon meat and knew that his father was making breakfast.
The moment the smell mmed into Timothy and River''s noses they heard their stomach growling, urging them to eat whatever was making such a delicious scent. Also hearing their stomachs growl Yoze smiled as he loved the fact that his father''s cooking was not only rapidly improving but he could also see the smile on his face whenever he cooked.
"Would you two like to join us for breakfast?" Yoze asked Timothy and Jewel.
"You don''t mind that we smell terrible, wouldn''t it ruin the mood?" River looked at her wounds had the smelly paste and felt worried that it would not be respectful to intrude while smelling terrible.
"Nonsense, it doesn''t matter if you smell one one is going to mind. Plus, you only stink since you are using my paste so how can I reject you because of that?
Chapter 120 120: A Friendly Old Man
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River and Timothy felt their eyes itch as they resisted the urge to leak out tears. They felt they felt that Yoze was being too nice.
They had barely met each other yet he was treating them like he was their friend. Even though they admired him for his strength, his kindness and openness toward them were also why they felt sofortable with him.
Not only had he given them his special paste without asking for anything in return but he also was offering them to eat precious demon meat with his family.
"If you don''t mind, we will dly join in," Timothy said after secretly wiping some tears
"Good, I''ll ask my dad if he could make some extra food. If not, you can have some of mine, which should be more than enough to feed both of you." Yoze knocked on the door and without waiting too long, the door opened to reveal a friendly old man with a smile on his face greeting.
"You must be Yoze, it''s a pleasure to finally meet you. Your father has told me a lot about you."
"Ah silly me I forgot to introduce myself, I''m Regil Regil, but you can call me grandpa Regil. Come in,e in, your father is making a fantastic breakfast." The friendly old man gestured for them to step aside to let them inside.
Yoze and the others stepped inside when they noticed Tiki and Dreyer sitting at the table waving them inside.
"Yoze, Jewel where did you two go so early? We knocked on your doors but didn''t realize that you two had left by then." Dreyer looked at them with curiosity.
"Timothy and River here had gotten attacked when they wereing back to the city so they asked me if I could help get their stuff back from the thieves," Yoze said casually lowering the severity of the ambush.
While he didn''t want to lower the severity of Timothy''s and River''s ambush because he didn''t want his father to worry about his safety but also because he felt a bit suspicious about the old man that suddenly appeared unannounced and seemed to be good friends with his father.
While it wasn''t his business who his father made friends with or not, especially now that they were in a foreignnd it was good that his father was making friends. Given how old Regil Regil looked and acted, Yoze had assumed that he would be seeing death spiritual energy or smelling the scent of death corroding Regil''s spiritual energy.
However, he didn''t sense any death spiritual energy around Regil which was a sharp contrast to his father being covered in spiritual energy. Even if Regil Regil wasn''t going to die in the next year from old age there should have still been a bit of death spiritual energy corroding his spiritual energy.
Not only was there no death spiritual energy corroding the red flower-shaped spiritual energy it seemed like it was thriving instead. Like it was not only a healthy red but it waved side to side as if there was a gentle wind creating a peaceful scene.
"It''s better to be careful than to regretter on." Yoze thought to himself as he listened to his father talking about the day they met.
"You won''t believe it but Regil and I both were looking for the best spices in the market nearby before we just bonded like glue. We met from time to time before I just invited him to breakfast." Drew exined.
"That''s cool dad, did you find some good spices?" Yoze asked.
"Of course! Regil is an expert on spices having spent more than 60 years of his life finding the perfect spices. Last month my cooking showed great improvement thanks to his rmendations."
"The meal in front of you is all made using his spices so give him an honest review." Drew patted his friend''s back as they watched the others eat.
"This is delicious, the spices are enhancing the vors which is making it even more mind-boggling," Dreyer let out before going in for another bite.
The same happened with Tiki, River, and Timothy as they couldn''t stop themselves from eating. As usual, Yoze started eatingst and felt an explosion of vor on his tongue making him want to stuff his face full of more food.
"Fantastic," Yoze said the only word he coulde up with while stuffing his face full.
"Looks like we finished breakfast early today," Drew smiled when he saw all the food was eaten faster than before he used the secret spice recipes that Regil Regil provided him.
"Grandpa Regil, may I ask you if you are nning on joining us for lunch and dinner?" Yoze asked, wondering if he should use his talent mark on Regil Regil.
It would allow him to find out more information about an elderly man that seemed too healthy to be old. He could also get a chance to get the spice-rted talent that Regil Regil could have.
Yoze smiled to himself as he thought about how he was willing to risk a talent mark that only refreshed 24 hourster for a way to improve the way his food tasted when he cooled himself. But after thinking about how there could be information that Regil Regil was a monster in disguise Yoze felt it was a better option.
"Luckily, I was not nning to eat at a restaurant tonight and will happily Intrude if given the opportunity." Regil continued to smile as he slowly finished his te.
A few hours quickly passed by as Yoze and the others carefully listened to the story that Regil was telling with pride.
"That was when I defeated five bandits that had ambushed me. It was quick and brutal but that''s just how you could survive the next time you get attacked by robbers." Regil continued.
"Send a talent mark to Regil Regil." Yoze thought to himself when he noticed that his talent mark had refreshed.
Chapter 121 121: Rouge Immortal Cultivator
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[Name: Regil Regil]
[Age: 105 years]
[Talents: vor Selection (Grade 3), Spice Mixing (Grade 2), Crystal Veins (Grade 4), Water Spells (Grade 3), n Maker (Grade 5)]
"..."
Yoze looked at Regil''s age and felt astonished by how incredibly old he was. It should have been possible for him to be so active with him being so old.
His father is in his 60s but he didn''t have as much energy and capability to move so easily as he was decades younger. Turning his attention toward the talents Yoze was able to guess how this could be possible.
Regil must be an immortal cultivator and someone who has reached a high level as well. Just like how practicing martial arts could make people look younger than they generally are and live a little longer the same went for immortal cultivation.
Immortal cultivation below the crystal brain stage doesn''t add much to a person''s lifespan generally only allowing them to increase their natural lifespan up to 50 years. So if a person would naturally live to when they were 100 years old then by reaching the peak of the Crystal Skull realm they could live to 150 years old.
However, this was the least important benefit for immortal cultivators as it didn''t matter if they could live for so long if they couldn''t stop their muscles and brains from degenerative decline. They would slowly lose their ability to move and think so for immortal cultivators the increased lifespan was good but not worth it without the other benefits that immortal cultivation brought.
One of those benefits was increased control of their muscles and flesh and this was possibly the most significant. As a person progressed in their immortal cultivation their control over their body would increase but the most significant barrier was the Crystal Spine realm where they gain the ability to stop their muscles from degenerative decline.
That meant that regardless of how long they lived they could have their bodies at peak condition like they were still in their younger years. As for brain decline, it was a lot harder and couldn''t be fully stopped, only slowed down.
For Regil to be still so active at his age meant that he was at least in the Crystal Spine realm and possibly even in the Crystal Skull realm nearly bing immortal. Yoze put his caution up even further and hid his facial expressions so that Regil couldn''t tell if something had changed with him.
With how much of Regil''s intelligence must have been boosted, it was difficult for Yoze to figure out what could happen if Regil figured out his identity. So he did what he could and copied a talent to make the danger a bit more worth it.
[Grade 4 talent Crystal Veins has been locked on. Grade 3 Crystal Veins has been added.]
As soon as Yoze saw that his Crystal Veins talent had been upgraded he felt a warm tingling sensation all over his body as he felt as if he could think and process things much faster. He couldn''t help but savor the sensation of his intelligence increasing by anotherrge margin and wanted to try cultivating with this increased speed.
"Yoze as a schr what do you do?" Regil asked suddenly.
"What do I do? I''m a schr who is working at the Martial Courtyard so I just advise the martial artists who are running the ce. But I haven''t been called in for quite some time, which is normal, so I have spent a lot of my time studying and practicing martial arts." Yoze responded.
"I can tell that you ce more importance on martial artspared to studying from how big you have gotten. Drew said that just a few years ago you were not nearly as big before you became a martial artist." Regil smiled as he looked at Yoze''s strong body with interest.
"That''s what happens when the money from being a schr is used to support my hobby as a martial artist. I could eat as much food as I want and be able to get martial art books much easierpared to before." Yoze continued.
"Grandpa Regil, you should help me convince Tiki and Dreyer to practice martial arts. I have been wanting to convince them but they are reluctant." Yoze said as he looked at Tiki''s and Dreyer''s skinny bodies.
"You two should listen to your younger brother, having a strong body is very important. It allows you to have a lot more opportunities to improve your lives."
"If I could go back to my youth I would have definitely tried to practice martial arts. You three would most likely be calling me Muscle Grandpa if that happened." Regil chuckled at his own home as he agreed with Yoze.
"I don''t know, why do we need to work so hard to train our bodies when we can just study and be a schr like Yoze? Plus I don''t want to be as big and muscr as Yoze." Tiki waved her hand to dismiss the idea.
"I agree with Tiki, why work so hard ande back sore every day when we can just mooch off of Yoze instead," Dreyer said right after Tiki.
"Hahaha, I guess that''s true," Regilughed, hearing both Tiki''s and Dreyer''s responses.
The atmosphere lightened up as everyone felt morefortable with each other and chatted. River and Jewel bounded over talking about their travels and their experiences, to River''s surprise she found out that Jewel seemed to have traveled everywhere.
"How do you have so much time to be able to travel around so much? You not only have visited three different regions but even seemed to know more about the regions than locals?"
"That''s the perk of being a travel guide, I get to have people pay me to travel with them. The more I travel, the more people will want to hire me, and the more expensive I get."
"That''s how I tricked Yoze into hiring me since I was the only avable person who was familiar with both regions. Of course, I made sure to make him pay a premium for my services." Jewel smiled as she showed River her money pouch that was filled with money.
Meanwhile, Dreyer and Timothy bounded over the fact that they both loved to fight when they were younger. Dreyer even asked Timothy to show him some moves to take down people.
"You can try a move like this if you are fighting someone smaller than you. Or this move if they are around your size. Or this if they are much bigger than you." Enjoying his time showing Dreyer some takedown methods, Timothy didn''t notice that Dreyer was rapidly tapping the ground to show that he gave up.
Chapter 122 122: A Host Spiritual Energy
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As everyone grew closer and formed bounds, Yoze sneaked out to return to his room as he couldn''t wait to continue trying to fuse his spiritual energy with his blood. He had been attempting this fusion ever since he fought the Leopard demon but till now he had made little progress.
He had been experiencing the same difficulties with manipting his spiritual energy as when he tried to enter Martial Silver Thunder''s body. He could manipte his spiritual energy to dobasic movements like moving it to cause spiritual suppression or form spiritual ws
But doing moreplex and intricate movements and techniques was incredibly difficult to do without a wave of pain being inflicted on his mind. There was also the issue that Yoze couldn''t figure out how to solve and that was the conflicting nature of his spiritual energy.
Having multiple types of spiritual energies from his demon spiritual body cultivation talents had given Yoze some incredible benefits ever since had gotten his second spiritual body cultivation talent. Such as greater protection against external spiritual energy, each type of spiritual energy was almost entirely independent from Yoze allowing him not to focus on controlling them, and due to their conflicting nature, they produced a constant stream of new spiritual energy.
But it also made it more difficult for Yoze to control any of them as they frequently went berserk, damaging his body more than some demons do.
There was also the need to divide up any spiritual energy Yoze gained meaning the more spiritual body cultivation talents he had the more the spiritual energies Yoze produced were split up. This led to some reduction in the fact that while Yoze had the advantage of always producing spiritual energy it had to be shared, meaning that all his spiritual energies grew stronger at a slower rate.
The conflict between his spiritual energies was increasing the difficulty that Yoze had when trying to fuse his spiritual energies into his blood since whenever two spiritual energies got too close to each other, Yoze would lose the small bit of control he had over them as they went at each other''s throats.
"Slow and steady wins the race, as long as I''m making progress no matter how small it is going to be worth it in the future. And it''s not all bad. My control over my spiritual energies has been improving."
"This is especially the case with how easy it is bing for me to visualize the paths that are being created from the spiritual body cultivation talents." Yoze wasn''t discouraged about the fact that he was making slow progress instead it made him even more excited for the day he seeds.
As Yoze was observing the paths of his spiritual energies he noticed that a bit of Armored Elephant spiritual energy and Swamp Leopard spiritual energy got absorbed into the same area of his flesh.
When this happened he felt his body be a bit heavier and his body felt morefortable at the idea of being underground.
What made him more interested was the fact that his instincts told him that once the spiritual energy in his body reached a certain saturation something major would happen to his body. He didn''t know what kind of change this could be, whether it was good or bad but he was looking forward to it.
Another interesting thing he observed was the fact that his spiritual energies didn''t experience any conflict with each throughout the process. It was as natural as breathing and it was as if a pact had been made to not cause trouble in his flesh.
"Why don''t they conflict with each other when they enter my flesh but do when they enter my blood?" Yoze raised his eyebrows with interest.
He felt that it was interesting that both spiritual energy and inner vigor both interacted with the body and that both experienced difficulties when attempting to enter his blood. They both could enter his flesh without much trouble but they needed a moreplex and unique method to enter his blood.
As Yoze was thinking about the simrities of inner vigor and spiritual energy he suddenly had a wave of inspiration as he remembered that bing a Blood Master using the Blood Swordsman body cultivation method allows him to use multiple types of inner vigor.
"Maybe I can use the Blood Swordsman body cultivation as inspiration." Yoze closed his eyes as he remembered the words in the Blood Armored Body Cultivation manual.
He quickly found a passage that suited his needs and tried to put it into practice.
"To be a Blood Swordsman I need to use my Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor as a container or main controller. This will allow me to support multiple types of inner vigor since they all be subordinates to the main inner vigor."
"I can try to do the same and make one of my spiritual energies my main spiritual energy but which one do I choose? They all are equally as powerful." Yoze''s mind raced as he mulled over what spiritual energy he should attempt to be his main spiritual energy.
Yoze''s first thought about making his first demon spiritual energy, the Serpent demon, the host. It had a great amount of destructive power and could oppress other spiritual energies.
However, he shook his head and turned his focus toward the Armored Elephant spiritual energy. Unlike the oppressive and sharp nature that the Serpent spiritual energy had, the Armored Elephant spiritual energy was pure heaviness and defense.
It was an effective spiritual energy to use as suppressive spiritual energy and it could also give him incredible defense against spiritual energy attacks. The Armored Elephant''s spiritual energy attributed towards heaviness alsoplemented Yoze cultivating the Big Golem body cultivation method.
Yoze shook his head again and turned toward the Swamp Leopard demon''s spiritual energy. The attributes that this spiritual energy has over others are that it is a lot less noticeable and full of brute force. It might even allow Yoze to better emte the Leopard demon''s ability to survive lethal injuries by creating holes in his body.
Yoze shook his head once more and focused on thest spiritual energy type he had, the Three-Headed Fox demon. The only demon that Yoze hadn''t killed and was able to sessfully integrate with the human world without exposing its cover. There was also a high chance that the Three-Headed Fox demon was a part of the Demon Union.
The Three-Headed Fox demon''s spiritual energy was illusory and seemed to cause hallucinations. It was very different from the other spiritual energies as it didn''t seem to have any increases in offensive strikes but more towards ambushes and sneak attacks
They all had their pros and cons but Yoze could only try this experiment with one of them. If he seeds then he wouldn''t have another chance to change his host spiritual energy.
If he failed then there was nothing he could do but try again and fix the past mistakes. As Yoze mulled over his choices he felt that none of them were right for him. He also had a persistent feeling that he had overlooked something incredibly important for him to seed with this idea.
"Knock knock"
Suddenly drawing Yoze''s attention away from his spiritual energies was a knock on his door. Yoze turned to look at his door and noticed that spiritual energy in the shape of a red flower was standing behind his door.
Chapter 123 123: Crazy For Muscles
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Figuring that it was Regil, Yoze became cautious and wondered what Regil, an immortal cultivator, would be standing at his doorstep.
Still, Yoze stood up and went to open the door since he hadn''t yet figured out if Regil was truly his father''s friend or if he was a threat that he needed to get rid of. Until he figured that out he was going to act as if he didn''t know he was an immortal cultivator and just a friendly old man.
"Hello?"
"Are you Yoze? My grandfather wanted me to meet you?"
When Yoze opened up the door he was surprised to see that standing in front of him wasn''t a friendly-looking old man who always had a smile on his face but a beautiful young woman in her early 20s.
The young woman had vibrant short red hair and blood-red eyes. Her body was incredibly strong as her muscles were visible even though she was wearing a looser style dress. What made Yoze more impressed was the fact that he could smell the metallic scent of blooding from her pours signaling that she was a Blood Master.
"I''m Yoze, but who are you?" Yoze frowned as he couldn''t understand who this young woman could be.
What made him most suspicious of her was the fact she had the same type of spiritual energy that Regil Regil had. No, it was Regil''s spiritual energy inside this girl''s body.
Yoze briefly nced at his father''s room and noticed Regil''s spiritual energy was gone leaving only River''s, Timothy''s, Tiki''s, Dreyer''s, Jewel''s, and his father''s spiritual energies inside the room. What made him even more suspicious was the fact that he could still hear from the door the faint sound of Regil speaking to his father.
"Pardon me, I''m Winter Regil the granddaughter of Regil Regil the old man that your father has made friends with."
"I came to visit my grandfather after learning that he hade to this inn to meet up with your father. But he told me I should meet you and ask you for some advice since he said we had a lot inmon."
"Seeing you in the flesh certainly is very impressive. You are like a solid wall of muscle that couldn''t be taken down even with the attack of an army. Personally, that is exactly what I would like to be myself but I have trouble building muscles so if you have any advice I would really appreciate it." The young woman, who calls herself Winter, eyes glowed with passion as she reached out to grab Yoze''s arm to feel his powerful muscles.
Yoze could have dodged the young woman''s grab but since he didn''t feel any danger or ill intenting from her he decided to allow it. And he had the sneaking suspicion that this young woman might be Regil in disguise since he had a hard time believing that two people could have the same spiritual energy.
It also didn''t help the young woman''s case at all when she nced at his father''s door as if trying to hint that Regil was still inside. Instead, it only raised his suspicion that the young woman standing in front of him was Regil.
"Incredible, your muscles are perfect. Their volume, strength, weight, presence, and appearance are the best I have ever seen in my life. I have to ask you for your secrets. I need to know how I can be like you." Winter looked at Yoze as if she was meeting her idol.
Her hands didn''t stop groping Yoze''s arms but moved to touch his face, chest, stomach, legs, and she even asked if he could turn around so she could touch his back muscles. If it was a body part that had muscles she wanted to touch it and examine it as if she was a crazy muscle enthusiast.
"Winter it is not that I don''t believe you. It''s just that I still can''t confirm if you are Grandpa Regil''s granddaughter since he never mentioned that he had one. "
Being drawn out of her examination, Winter looked as if she was devastated that she couldn''t touch Yoze''s muscles. She even had a re in her eyes that she resented the fact he wouldn''t let her touch his muscles.
"I truly am his granddaughter but if you insist we can just go ask him. If he confirms that I''m his granddaughter can you let me touch your muscles some more?" Winter sighed to herself before walking to Yoze''s father''s door without waiting for his answer.
"Knock Knock"
It didn''t take long for Dreyer to open the door and show some surprise at Winter before looking at Yoze standing at his door.
"Yoze, I guess you met Grandpa Regil''s granddaughter already?"
"Yeah, but is she his granddaughter? I didn''t hear anything about Grandpa Regil having a granddaughter," Yoze asked Dreyer.
"Yeah, it surprised me too when she visited today but it seems that she doesn''t live in the city which is why he doesn''t mention her all the time," Dreyer answered.
"See, I''m his granddaughter. So can you let me touch your muscles now?" Winter sighed with relief and turned back to Yoze with sparkling eyes.
"No, I''m still training my martial arts so I''m going to have to focus on that." Yoze directly rejected Winter.
"Martial arts? I''m a Blood Master myself so we can exchange some insights with each other." Winter''s face became disappointed at his rejection before turning her attention to the fact that Yoze was going to practice martial arts.
"Okay, follow me inside. I''m currently a first-rate martial artist and trying to be a Blood Master so your advice will be very helpful." Seeing that Winter wanted to give him some advice, Yoze decided to invite her in.
"Hold on, you are still only a first-rate martial artist? Looking at you and how much pressure you''re giving me I thought you would be a Blood Master." Winter looked at Yoze with genuine looks of surprise when he mentioned his rank as a martial artist.
Chapter 124 124: Upgraded Armored Swordsman
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"Yeah, I have been trying my best to reach the Blood Master realm for a while but I feel that I can reach it within a month or so," Yoze said to Winter.
"Incredible, not only are you a strong man but a talented martial artist as well." Winter smiled as she tried to sneak a pinch of Yoze''s arm.
Moving his arm away from Winter''s attempt to grope him, Yoze went inside his room with Winter and showed her his Armored Swordsman body cultivation method. To his surprise, Winter began giving him the advice to improve his Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle.
"Your shes are quick and full of power but they are just too predictable. If you fight against an opponent for too long they will learn how to counter it." Winter grabbed Yoze''s sword in his hand and copied his stance.
"This might look like I''m doing the same stance as you but once I change a few things I can go from being predictable to being unpredictable." Winter changed her stance slightly, suddenly giving off a powerful and wild aura that leaked out pure killing intentions.
It was incredibly overbearing so much so that Yoze fell in love with Winter changes. Yoze felt something tingling in his hands as his mind thought about all the moves that were not possible before magically bing viable.
"That''s amazing, something like this?" Yoze copied Winter''s stance with perfect uracy.
Winter looked at Yoze with amazement and said, "That''s perfect, your stance is exactly like mine. With this slight change, you don''t have to worry about people easily dodging your attacks."
[Armored Swordsman sh (Developing)]
[Armored Swordsman Shuffle (Developing)]
Yoze suddenly saw his system panel pop up with information about the Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle with an updated version. There was no longer a level or progress percentage instead the word developing took their ces.
Startled by the sudden change, Yoze turned to look at Winter with renewed interest. He didn''t think that a casual change would have such a drastic change on his system.
"Luckily, this change doesn''t seem to affect my Armored Swordsman progress negatively." Noticing that his Armored Swordsman body cultivation level and percentage progress hadn''t disappeared but grown, Yoze smiled.
"Winter this is fantastic, I''ll do anything for you to teach me more about swordsmanship."
"Then I''ll teach you everything you need. Just let me touch you as much as I want to during our teaching sessions." Winter handed Yoze his sword and confidently made her demands.
"That''s fine but you need to know your limits. Don''t think that I fully trust you yet." Yoze didn''t take the swords as he and Winter made a pact.
She would teach him to improve his swordsmanship which indirectly affected the way Yoze practiced the Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle and he would give up some of his pride. In the few hours of the beginning of their pact, Yoze''s Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle had gone through arge shift.
From being an elegant sword master wielding a beautiful sword, Yoze became more barbaric and wild. He resembled more of a red-eyed mad bull that wanted to destroy everything in its path.
shes of inspiration whirled in Yoze''s mind as he took his experience with Twin Fists, Mindless Legs, Big Golen, Iron Skin, and Boneless Man, adding them all into developing his crushing sword style.
Watching from the sidelines, Winter''s eyes twinkled as she watched Yoze''s rapid improvement. In her eyes, he went from being extremely predictable to being an unstoppable and unpredictable shredder.
If someone identally got too close to Yoze while he was in the midst of his training they would be turned into a blood mist before they even got a chance to scream. There were even asions when Winter hallucinated that Yoze was her bringer of death.
"Terrifying but also the most perfect man on the. I need to have him." Winter''s eyes drifted toward Yoze''s muscles and instinctively retraced his body structure with her fingers.
"Soplex, he is going to be a tougher projectpared to the others." Winter smiled as she thought about the next step of her n.
Not knowing that she was helping a monster be more monstrous, Winter lived in her own mind as Yoze felt he was reaching a tipping point. He was incorporating so much of his life experience, talents, and techniques that the Armored Swordsman sh and Armored Swordsman Shuffle were beginning to not resemble the original at all.
"Why should I just use a sword when I can use other weapons?" Yoze looked at the sword in his hand and could feel that it wascking something.
He wanted to have a heavy axe in his hand to chop things to pieces, a spear to skewer creatures, a bow for long-range, a stick to beat people with, and even use his own hands.
He wanted to hunt down prey and kill them with overwhelming power. He wanted his blood to boil from the excitement of the hunt.
Due to his desires, Yoze constantly tweaked and changed the Armored Swordsman sh and Shuffle until he got a new message from his system panel.
[Armored Swordsman sh has been updated to Armored Weapon Juggler.]
[Armored Swordsman Shuffle has been updated to Armored Weaponer Shuffle.]
[Armored Swordsman has been updated to Armored Weapon Handler.]
Receiving several updates in quick session snapped Yoze back to reality and caused them to disregard the more unrealistic aspirations he wanted to incorporate. After calming down and thinking about what had happened, he pulled up his status panel.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 23 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension, Art, Physical, Martial Arts, Spiritual, Crystal Talents, Weapon, Hunting, Other]
[Technique Categories: Martial Arts, Blood Arts, Spiritual Arts, Crystal Arts]
[Talent Mark: 0 (Time Remaining: 22 hours)]
[Martial Arts]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 5: 40%), Big Golem(Level 6: 100%), Iron Skin (Level 3: 100%), Mindless Legs (Stage 6: 30%), Armored Weaponer Handler (Level 4: 60%), Armored Weapon Juggler (Level 4: 60%), Armored Weapon Shuffle (Level 4: 60%)]
Chapter 125 125: The Staying Over The Night
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"I never thought of adapting my martial art techniques to suit my needs and strengths," Yoze said, clenching the sword in his hand.
This discovery was like a light bulb lighting up a dark room full of treasure. It was fine if it remained dark and one never knew about the hidden gems inside as what you didn''t know couldn''t tempt you.
But now that he had discovered that he could adapt his techniques and body cultivation methods to suit his talents. Thereby allowing him to use more talents in the same technique and boost his progress to immense degrees.
Take Armored Weapon Juggler, which was formerly Armored Swordsman sh, it had been incorporated to include Axes, Spears, his fist, and some fancy movements that allowed everything to flow together neatly. It would allow any of his talents that were rted to any of these to y a part and boost his progress.
Just from his predictions alone, Yoze predicted that he could reach the Blood Master realm in one week if he only trained for a couple of hours a day. If dedicated more time he could reach the peak of the Armored Weapon Juggler in a few days.
This was incredible. It had drastically reduced the time that he had to put into training which would allow him to focus more effort on training his witchcraft and immortal cultivation.
However, it wasn''t all perfect as Yoze figured that he could no longer directly practice the Blood Swordsman martial art set. He would have to adapt it better to suit the changes he had made.
To Yoze that was worth it as he already had several talents that could help him adapt and change the Blood Swordsman martial art set much easier and quicker. He had talents such as Martial Art Comprehension, Body Cultivation, research, Martial Art Adapter, and both Swordsmanship and Spearmanship.
Just these talents alone would allow Yoze to quickly change the Blood Swordsman Martial Art set to better suit his needs. He predicted that would add only two additional weeks before he reached the Blood Master realm.
It seems long but Yoze knew that two weeks was a conservative estimate as he had more talents that could bring that number lower. He could also copy more talents that had a high chance of boosting his progress.
"Yes, adapting martial arts to one''s strengths and weaknesses is something that takes a long time and talent. As you started this road I rmend you be patient since you''re going to have to make slight changes and test it for a few years." Winter smiled and walked over to Yoze to give him some advice.
Not realizing that Yoze had already adapted and changed his martial art so much it was considered in its own league.
"Thank you for your advice, you should grab some meat when you and your grandfather are nning to leave." Even though Yoze knew that Regil had unknown motives and was creepy he still wanted to thank him for his help.
"Actually I was nning to stay over tonight?" Winter coughed and looked at him with hopefulness.
"No, we don''t have enough space for you to stay. Plus, I''m sure Grandpa Regil would want his granddaughter to stay with him." Yoze instantly rejected Winter''s request.
He didn''t want to sleep with a person that had unknown motives and could have a high chance of being a hundred-year-old man in disguise.
"Cold-hearted man, I''ll visit you tomorrow." Winter frowned and shook her head with frustration. After making her intention to visit clear she left the room making sure to m the door on her way out.
Even though Winter had left, Yoze continued to track her through her spiritual energy and noticed that she first visited his father''s room before leaving the inn. After she left, Yoze pondered why Winter or Regil would want to stay over the night.
But even after mulling it over for an hour, he couldn''t think of anything concrete since he had too little information. He didn''t know what kind of magical abilities Regil might have from his immortal cultivation.
He was also interested in how Regil was able to transform into a young woman that was at the Blood Master level. None of his talents gave Yoze a clue about how he could have done it either so he could only wait patiently to gather more clues.
The next couple of days after Regil in the form of Winter frequently visited Yoze with a te of piping hot food that was well seasoned. It was delicious and didn''t set off his instincts that it contained poison so he ate everything just in case he was wrong.
Over these past few days, Winter climbed to his body like a baby and frequently massaged his muscles. At first, he felt ufortable with her level of physical contact but he grew used to it.
Now Winter just climbed on his back as Yoze was training his new Armored Weapon Handler martial art set. She said the reason was she liked the view since it made her feel like a powerful god looking down at her subjects.
Even though it was strange, Yoze had long confirmed his suspicion that Winter and Regil were the same people but interestingly his system did something unique with her.
[Name: Winter Regil (Regil Regil)]
[Age: 19 (105) years old]
[Talents: vor Selection (Grade 3), Spice Mixing (Grade 2), Crystal Veins (Grade 4), Water Spells (Grade 3), n Maker (Grade 5)]
For the system to make an exception to Regil''s and Winter''s identities made Yoze more curious about him. Why did Regil deserve to have an additional identity but not others?
It was a curious matter but Yoze temporarily put it aside as he was getting close to reaching the peak of the Armored Weapon Handler body cultivation and being able to start his attempt to be a Blood Master.
What Yoze loved about the Armored Weaponer Handler martial art set was that it had gotten rid of the pesky requirement to wear armor to train it. Now as long as he used multiple types of weapons instead of just a sword before he improved his skill.
[Armored Weapon Handler (Level 5: 100%)]
[Armored Weapon Juggler (Level 5: 100%)]
[Armored Weapon Shuffle (Level 5: 100%)]
Chapter 126 126: Hidden Spiritual Energies Everywhere
As Yoze reached the peak of his Armored Weapon Handler body cultivation method he felt a rush of Armored Weapon Handler Inner Vigor formerly known as Armored Swordsman Inner Vigor form ayer under his skin. It was like he had anotheryer of skin or ayer of armor under his skin waiting to be activated.
After enjoying the sensation of reaching the peak, Yoze put down the sword, axe, and spear in his hands as he was done with training for now. Since he reached the peak of the body cultivation method there were only two paths he could take to improve himself.
The first was to break through the current limits of the Armored Weapon Handler just like what he did with his Big Golem body cultivation method. The only problem that Yoze had with this method was that breaking through the Armored Weapon Handler was moreplicatedpared to Big Golem.
Meaning that it would take him much longer to break through since he needed to first break the limits of the Armored Weapon Juggler and the Armored Weapon Shuffle techniques before he could do the same with the body cultivation method.
The second path he could take is creating and training in the modified version of the Blood Armored Swordsman. However, Yoze hadn''t started the process to modify the Blood Armored Swordsman yet first needed to create the modified version.
"Thank you for your help Winter, I appreciate your help." Yoze put his thoughts aside and thanked Winter for her help.
"That is no problem at all," Winter said, enjoying getting a piggyback ride from Yoze.
"Now if you excuse me, I have somewhere I need to be so I''ll end today''s training early."
"Fine," Winter pouted her lips in sadness. She then got off of Yoze and left early for today.
After confirming that Winter had truly left the area surrounding the inn, Yoze walked out of his room and knocked on Jewel''s door. It was finally time to visit Martial Silver Thunder to check to see what kind of talents his body holds.
After being dyed for several days, Yoze felt that it was a good day to visit the martial artist that he had asked the City to deal with. He had been too focused on reaching the peak of Armored Weapon Handler and making sure that Regil wasn''t spying on his family.
Now that he reached the peak of the Armored Weapon Handler he was ready to check out his prizes from his hard battle against ambushers.
"Yoze, what do you need?"
When Yoze saw the door open he noticed that Jewel was infortable clothes and had a giant mug of beer in one hand and a piece of bread in the other. From how flushed red her face was he could tell that she was drunk.
"Nothing, just wondering if you had ordered the customized armor for me?"
"Of course, I made the order. It will take a few more weeks before they are finished. Just make sure not to grow anymore." Jewel said as she took a sip from her mug.
"That was all I wanted to ask, I won''t bother you enjoying yourself." Yoze nodded his head and left without inviting her.
He wanted to invite her to the prison that held Martial Silver Thunder since he thought she would want to join in the fun but seeing her drunk changed his mind. Yoze didn''t want to bother taking care of a drunk person in one of the most dangerous ces in the entire city.
"Goodbye," Watching Yoze leave, Jewel waved her hand in a drunk manner.
....
When Yoze arrived at the address that held the most dangerous criminals, he noticed that the building in front of him was abnormally small. It was a small bar whose logo was a cartoonish tiger in a ck and white prison uniform.
He frequently saw travelers stumbling and slurring their speech as they left the building. If Jewel was here she would have been shocked to see that the most popr bar for travelers was a disguise for the City''s most secure prison, The Tiger Den.
However, after thinking about it she would have concluded that everything strange about the ce made sense when she thought of the hundreds of individuals that if they escaped could cause havoc. To prevent them from causing too much damage during their escape, the bar was conveniently near the Western Gate.
It was also thexest in its security when it came to drunk crimes. That was one of the reasons this bar was so popr with travelers.
It was not only easy for travelers entering the city to get drunk but also the easiest way for travelers to get drunk before they left the city.
Unfortunately, Yoze didn''t know that information and could only wonder why the Voty would ce such a dangerous ce below a public area. The prison might have looked like it didn''t have much security around at a first nce but Yoze noticed that at least twenty spiritual energies were hiding in various ces around the prison.
As Yoze turned his focus to the underground prison he saw that hundreds of different spiritual energies were inside. But what truly got his attention was that he recognized the spiritual energy that belonged to Martial Silver Thunder.
It was one of the lowest spiritual energies and seemed to be surrounded by four other spiritual energies.
''It seems that they are cing a lot of attention on an old man who is spiritually dead." Yoze thought to himself as he went inside the bar and ordered a special drink.
"Can I get the Tiger''s Original?"
"Sorry sir, we don''t serve that drink anymore. Can I get you anything else?" The young waiter said.
"Then get me a Red Ginger but don''t add in the ice." After finishing the secret code, Yoze ced the menu down and looked at the waiter''s gold ne of a watchdog.
"Coming up sir," The young waiter nervously chuckled and left to go grab the drink.
A few minutester the young waiter came back with a red drink and handed Yoze a handful of napkins. While sipping on the Red Ginger and enjoying the sweet taste, Yoze read the secret note to meet inside the man''s bathroom.
Yoze finished his drink at a leisurely pace before using the napkins to dry his mouth, secretly ruining the message, before heading to the bathroom. Once he made it to the bathroom he saw a man covered in tattoos waiting for him.
"Yoze?"
"Yes, who are you?" Yoze asked the man back.
"Follow me," The man covered in tattoos didn''t bother to answer his questions but instead knocked on the bathroom a specific number of times and at a specific rhythm.
After the man finished knocking on the wall one of the walls opened to reveal a set of staircases that led underground. The man continued to say nothing and walked down the stairs without hesitation causing Yoze to follow suit.
"There are people everywhere," Yoze''s eyes widened with surprise as he noticed that as he went deeper underground he saw more and more hidden spiritual energies.
The number had tripledpared to when he was above ground and the number was still increasing. Yoze predicted the number of people inside the prison was more than five times as much as his initial guess.
"Does the City know how to hide people''s spiritual energy?" Yoze felt that he might have been underestimating the strength of the City.
Even though this method seems to only work better, the further one was from the people and Yoze was able to see through it. It didn''t mean that the City was weak in this regard.
Now that he knew that the City could interact with spiritual energy, Yoze didn''t feel asfortable and at ease as he was before. He could see many more spiritual energies but he didn''t know if there were more hidden spiritual energies that he couldn''t see through
There was also the chance that the City could see a person''s spiritual energy. If they could, Yoze would not know how to exin why even though he was human that his spiritual energy was inside his body.
If they could detect his spiritual en then there was a high chance that the City would also notice that Martial Silver Thunder was killed by him by devouring his spiritual energy.
Yoze suddenly shook his head to clear his mind. He felt that was bing too paranoid and needed to calm down.
It was to be expected that a major city would have a few tricks up its sleeves if that could survive both the threats of martial art sects and prevent humanity from bing a meat and spiritual energy farm for demons.
Even Dreyer who was still a noobie which and only knew some basic witchcraft was able to influence his spiritual energy. If Dreyer was able to aplish such a feat with his abilities then surely more experienced Witches, Immortals, and the City that has plenty of resources and connections were able to do the same.
As Yoze was busy thinking about how he needed to be more cautious, they arrived at the prison cell that was sealing up the formerly mighty Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder.
"You have thirty minutes, you are not allowed to. touch anything or anyone." The tattooed man said once he opened the door for Yoze to enter.
Even before entering the cell, Yoze saw Martial Silver Thunder''s body lying on afortable medical bed with both his hands and feet tied up. Unlike what he initially thought to be guards or secret assassins preventing Martial Silver from escaping.
He saw that he was surrounded by four middle-aged doctors that were doing their best to keep him alive. Each one of the doctor''s faces looked at Yoze with caution before focusing back on whatever they were doing before.
Chapter 127 127: Inner Vigor Manipulation
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Yoze felt even though the doctors seemed to have ced their entire focus on Martial Silver Thunder, he still felt several pairs of eyes on his body. He tries to find where these eyes came from but even after looking around, he couldn''t find where any of them could being from.
Since he couldn''t find the people looking at him, Yoze decided to stop trying and focus on getting talent from Martial Silver Thunder and leaving as soon as possible. As Yoze stepped closer to Martial Silver Thunder''s body, one of the doctors moved his gaze away from Martial Silver Thunder and looked at him with unfriendly eyes.
Understanding that he couldn''t get any closer, Yoze stopped and sent out his talent mark.
[Name: Silver Falmy]
[Age: 101 years old]
[Talents:Lightning Stab (Grade 8), Spear Arts, Spearmanship (Grade 10), Inner Vigor Maniption (Grade 6), Body Cultivation (Grade 9), Martial Art Comprehension (Grade 9), White Lightning (Grade 10), Martial Art Adaptation (Grade 8)]
"As expected from a Marital Grandmaster," Yoze secretly nodded his head with approval.
"Martial Silver Thunder only has top-grade talents. Two grade 10s, two grade 9s, two grade 8s, and one grade 6 talent. This is probably the best quality of talent I have ever seen." Yoze felt that the stories of Martial Silver Thunder''s rise must have been true since only someone with this much talent could have a legend about them.
After examining the various talents that Martial Silver Thunder had to offer, Yoze eventually decided to take Inner Vigor Maniption. He didn''t know exactly what this talent could do but just the name was enough for Yoze.
[Grade 6 Inner Vigor Maniption talent has been locked. Grade 5 Inner Vigor Maniption has been added.]
After receiving the system message Yoze felt his body tingling. It was subtle but he felt that he could sense his various inner vigors a bit morepared to before.
This was especially true for Yoze''s Big Golem inner Vigor as he could sense how the inner vigor was randomly floating inside his body.
"I''ll take my leave, " Yoze whispered before stepping outside of the cell.
As he expected the same tattooed man was standing outside waiting for him to be done with his visit. Just like before the tattooed man didn''t speak and walked up a different flight of stairs.
As they walked Yoze concluded they were not going toe out of the bar but a few blocks away from it. Once they stepped into another inside of a random home the tattooed man finally spoke.
"ording to my instruction, this is as far as I can amodate you. If you ever want to visit Martial Silver Thunder again just follow the same steps. If you want to visit the Tree Sect members you''re going to have to choose between five separate prisons."
"I have been informed by Timothy and River. The five prisons should be the North, South, West, East, and Central prisons right?"
"That''s correct, you just have to follow the steps of someone visiting them to see them. Now I''ll take my leave." The tattooed man nodded his head and left without another word.
Once the wall that hides the secret staircase closed, Yoze walked back home to test out his new talent. He had some hope that it would allow him to put his inner vigor into external objects like a sword or axe.
But he could only see the exact effects once he tested them out. Unfortunately, Yoze''s good mood was ruined as before he got home he was surrounded by several men dressed in ck robes.
Each other the men dressed in ck robes was a dense wall of meat as they filled out their loose ck robes. If it wasn''t for the fact that each of the men wore an eye mask to cover their identities he would have thought they were only interested in asking him for exercise advice.
Something that unsettled Yoze was that he couldn''t see the spiritual energy of any of these men dressed in ck robes. They allcked a hint of spiritual energy above their heads that a human should have.
"Hand it over," One of the men suddenly spoke stiffly as if this was the first time he spoke in years.
"Hand what over?" Yoze asked, genuinely confused, what these men would want from him.
"Are they trying to rob me of my money?" Yoze thought to himself.
"Hand over the Witch and rogue immortal cultivator," Another one of the men answered with the same stiffness
"Are these the crazy rogue immortals hunting immortals cultivators that Tiki and Dreyer were worried about?" Yoze deeply frowned when he heard that these men were interested in Tiki and Dreyer.
"Who are you?" Yoze asked, ready to subdue these men dressed in ck.
"You don''t need to know, make sure to hand over the witch and immortal cultivator by midnight tonight or there will be consequences." Another one of the ck-robed men answered.
After giving out their warning, the four ck-robed men turned around and tried to leave. However, the moment they tried to leave Yoze''s eyes glittered with ominous colorful specks.
"You are not going anywhere," Yoze used Spiritual suppression on the four men and raced to capture them.
Another surprise happened when Yoze''s spiritual energy failed to suppress the four men dressed in ck robes. His spiritual energy went right through their bodies like it didn''t exist.
Sensing Yoze''s goal to capture them the four men dressed in ck robes split up and ran off in four directions.
"Fast!"
Yoze was once again stunned at the raw speed that these men showed and this was a speed that Blood Masters could only achieve after giving it their all. Yet these men were capable of reaching these speeds by being Blood Masters.
While they were fast, Yoze was faster and he was able to capture three of the men dressed in ck robes. He was also on the hot tail of thest men when suddenly another burly man dressed in a ck robe stepped out of a corner and grabbed the escaping men in a bear hug.
Just as Yoze caught up to the two men dressed in ck robes, they exploded. Their blood, flesh, bones, and brain matter stter the entire surrounding.
The alley reeked with an intense and disguising smell of blood that seemed to be heavily mixed with the smell of herbs and spices. The sound of the explosion paired with the bloody smell alerted the ordinary people that something terrible had happened.
Knowing that he didn''t have much time until the authorities arrived and since he figured he couldn''t get anything from the two ck-robed men that exploded, Yoze left the scene. With screams of panic and fear filling the streets, Yoze was able to make it back to the inn without being caught.
Unfortunately, just as Yoze arrived in his room another two of the men dressed in ck robes decided it was better for them to die than be captured by him. However, the misfortune was for the ck robes men as Yoze had been paying extra attention to them just in case they felt the desire to explode.
So he quickly broke all three of the limbs and sent them into different corners of his room to prevent them from helping each explode.
"What is going on today? Who is crazy enough to be willing to kill themselves for a low-level witch and an immortal cultivator whose talent isn''t even that good." Yoze eyes glowed with anger and confusion.
"What''s confusing is if they were truly after Tiki and Dreyer then there was no need for them to approach me. They could have just attacked them directly when he wasn''t home to protect them."
"Unless they were not confident in being able to capture them, themselves. But from these men''s physical abilities, they should have some capabilities in either witchcraft or immortal cultivation."
Yoze''s mind raced as he tried to think of what these people''s motives could be to approach him than their supposed targets. However, as he thought about it more the more suspicious he was that their targets weren''t his siblings but himself.
He just couldn''t make sense of why they took the option that had the least chance of working in their favor. For them to approach him meant that they had detailed information about him and his family.
So they should have known that he was protective of his family members and would never hand them over. He would rather deal with their terrible consequences than even entertain that idea.
"I should tell Tiki and Dreyer about this matter to see if they have any clues of anyone or some group that seems to have a blood feud with them." Yoze shook his head as he walked over to one of the men nning to see their identity.
Even though he doubted that this group was really after Tiki and Dreyer, he still felt it was good to inform them. After informing them, Tiki and Dreyer should be more prepared to defend against any attacks that their enemy has.
"Hey if you tell me who you and your group are and why you want my siblings then I''ll think of letting you go," Yoze lightly pped the ck-robed man in front of him to grab his attention.
However, not only did the ck-robed man not respond but his skin was abnormally cold. It was like the ck-robed man had just gotten out of the freezer.
Yoze''s frown deepened and he decided it was time to take off the ck-robed man''s mask. When he did, knew he had reached a dead end.
Chapter 128 128: Spiritually Dead
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Beneath the man''s mask was a middle-aged man with long ck hair that stuck to his face due to sweat. What made Yoze shake his head was the man''s eyes were dull andcked any signs of life.
He had seen eyes like these before when he had spiritually killed Martial Silver Thunder. That meant that this man was essentially dead and Yoze wouldn''t be able to get any information out of him.
Not giving up yet he checked the other two men dressed in ck robes and found that all three of them were spiritually dead but their bodies were still alive. Meaning he could get information about their identities through his talent marks.
"I''ll see if those detectives could help me find out more about these people. If lucky I might find a clue about the person or group that did this." Yoze muttered to himself.
Seeing that there wasn''t much more he could do at the moment, Yoze sat down to rx his nerves. With unknown enemies in his footsteps, he shouldn''t panic lest he makes a mistake that could cost him everything.
Right now, Yoze knew that he needed to do things one step at a time. First, he nned on waiting until his talent mark recovered to figure out the men dressed in ck robes'' identities. After that, he would take the information to an investigator to figure out who these men were.
The second step was that he needed to focus on bing stronger but he also needed to start Dreyer''s and Tiki''s training in martial arts today. Yoze even nned to start training Jewel as well. She was making good progress on her own but he wanted to see if his coaching could help her get stronger faster.
As for himself other than remaining vignt for a few weeks in case of surprise attacks he needed to get stronger. Bing a Blood Master is going to take some time as well as immortal cultivation and practicing witchcraft.
The only thing that Yoze could think of that could get him immediate improvement was breaking through one of his current techniques. He had three that he could reasonably attempt: the Big Golem, Iron Skin, and Boneless Man.
"Let''s start with breaking through Big Golem first. It has been at its peak for a long time and has been extremely useful."
"Iron Skin can be broken through after, andstly Boneless Man." After deciding on the order in which he was going to break through, Yoze stood up and took off his shirt.
He then activated his Big Golem''s inner vigor and kept it spread out throughout his body. The moment he activated his inner vigor Yoze immediately felt a difference between when he didn''t have Inner Vigor Maniption talent and now.
He could sense the existence of each frozen strand of Big Golem''s heavy inner vigor in his body releasing a heavy pressure from their sheer weight alone. It was a pure and simple force that held immense destructive ability.
It wasn''t only the Big Golem''s heavy inner vigor that roamed his body. There was also Iron Skin''s metallic inner vigor, Boneless Man''s stretchy inner vigor, and Armored Weapon Handler''s thick inner vigor floating around randomly in his body.
Even though they all had reached the peak of their method they all had different quantities and even seemed to have a certain location in his body that they liked to stay around. The inner vigor with the highest quantity in his body was Big Golem and it was not even close.
There was more than double the number of heavy inner vigor strands in his bodypared to the other strands of inner vigorbined. It was so numerous that most of the heavy inner vigor couldn''t move around and was stuck in ce.
Only less than half of it was able to float around in his body. So numerous that left very little space for the strands of inner vigor to move around.
The inner vigor that came second was the Armored Weapon Handler''s thick Inner Vigor which was colorless and twice the thickness of the other strands of inner vigor. The thick Inner Vigor seemed to have a favorite location as a vast majority of the inner vigor was just beneath his skin.
The inner vigor that came third was surprisingly Boneless Man. The strands of Boneless Man inner vigor were much longerpared to other inner vigors and gave Yoze the impression that they were slick and flexible.
"With how big my body is, it makes sense that I have more Boneless Man Inner Vigor to lube me uppared to Iron Skin which seems to be stuck inside my skin itself." Yoze thought to himself.
Iron Skin was a body cultivation method that allowed martial artists to reach the peak of first-rate martial artists. However, it only covered a person''s skin and not their muscles, bones, organs, or sensory organs like the eyes.
Even though it could help someone not get cut by a sword it wouldn''t do much good at stopping all the force behind the attack. That ring weakness was one of the reasons that Iron Skin had numerous variants.
Just like how Yoze was able to see the ws and limitations of the method early on, thousands of other martial artists noticed the ws and took their ideas on how to fix them. The most famous of course was Iron Muscles which attempts to solve one of the issues that gued Iron Skin.
Extending the area where Iron Skin was located to not only include the skin but also muscles as well it was predicted to drastically increase the overall defense of the individual. This hypothesis worked well and it was agreed upon that Iron Muscles was just better than the original.
That was why even Iron Muscles still didn''t allow one to break the barrier between first-rate martial artists and Blood Masters. It was ced a floor higher than Iron Skin on the same level as the basic Big Golem body cultivation manual.
If Iron Skin was considered to be on the weaker side of peak first-rate body cultivation then Iron Muscles would be considered to take its upper middle rank. Since Iron Muscles also built upon the foundation of Iron Skin it was considered the natural progression for martial artists that trained in Iron Skin to improve their fighting abilities
As Yoze thought about Iron Skin and Iron Muscles he felt a wave of inspiration hit him. On the spot, he changed his mind to breakthrough Iron Skin and deactivated Big Golem, and activated Iron Skin.
Chapter 129 129: Finally Reaching The Next Level
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As soon as Yoze activated Iron Skin his skin turned a light gray metallic color causing him to resemble an iron giant. His muscles seemed to hold a hidden power to be capable of defending against even the strongest weapons.
Taking a deep breath and exhaling a stream of hot steam Yoze activated his modified Blood Fist that pushed his body to its limits.
"Crack crack crack"
The sound of Yoze''s body cracking from his body being forcefully expanded due to his blood boiling was even audible through his walls. If it wasn''t for the fact that no one lived in any of the rooms near his except for Jewel and his father then he would have had to do some exining.
Due to his body temperature reaching so high that he could cook an egg in his hands, the light gray metallic color on Yoze''s skin began to be overwhelmed by a red hue. After ten minutes the resemnce of an Iron Giant was gone and he looked more like a burning giant or a pir of red hot steel.
The temperature of his room grew so hot that the air twisted and the floor that was made out of extra-strong concrete began to melt.
"Yoze! What''s going on?" Being alerted from his nap Leah woke up feeling as if he was inside a sauna.
"Don''t worry about it, just training. I''m almost done." Yoze said calmly.
The intense pressure and heat that his body was generating were sending his Iron Skin body cultivation into overdrive. He was trying to create more Iron Skin Inner Vigor to increase the density of inner vigor in his skin.
This way the defense of his skin increases and if it went the same way as when he broke through Big Golem his control over Iron Skin Inner Vigor should increase.
After several minutes Leah looked at Yoze with horror on his face. He had just remembered why he didn''t like hanging out with Yoze for too long since it was a danger just being around him.
Leah ran to the farthest corner away from Yoze and the coolest in the room and waited until Yoze was finished. Eventually, between his muscles and flesh new tough metallic Inner Vigor was squeezed out.
The moment this Iron Skin''s metallic inner vigor was created all the metallic inner vigor in Yoze''s body went into chaos. The gray color on Yoze''s skin quickly faded and was reced with his regr skin color.
Yoze didn''t panic however and knew that he had made the correct step. He kept stressing his body and kept up his intense body temperature to keep creating more of Iron Skin''s metallic inner vigor.
[Iron Skin (Level 3: 110%)]
With every strand of tough and metallic inner vigor, his body produced the remaining became more chaotic, and each strand increasingly crashed into every nook and cranny of his body with more and more violent force.
[Iron Skin (Level 3: 175%)]
Eventually, the amount of metallic inner vigor inside his body grew too much for the metallic inner vigor to handle and one strand of inner vigor entered his skin.
With a strand creating a path to solve this metallic inner vigor crisis the rest of the inner vigor followed suit. From one strand entering his skin to five strands entering his skin every second.
At such a fast pace of Iron Skin inner Vigor fusing with his skin, Yoze noticed that underneath his skin was a metallic shine. Even without the gray color following suit, he could tell that his skin was just as strong and able to defend against attacks as when he activated Iron Skin at full force.
[Iron Skin (Level 3: 190%)]
Soon thest strand of Iron Skin''s metallic inner vigor fused with Yoze''s skin but he knew that he wasn''t finished yet. To reach the next level he needed topletely saturate his skin before he could replenish his storage.
So he kept up the heat and started the process toplete a Blood Fist. By the time Yoze reached halfway topleting the Blood Fist his arm began to swell. His arm nearly doubled in size and threatened to produce so much destructive force that it would destroy the entire Ten Ton Inn.
However, he wasn''t worried about destroying the Inn since he never nned toplete the Blood Fist in the first ce. He was merely using it to stimte the production of Iron Skin''s metallic inner vigor.
Just as he expected the pressure and the drastic increase in temperature inside his body ramped up the number of strands of metallic inner vigor his body produced by nearly triple the quantity.
It didn''t take long before his skin waspletely saturated with metallic inner vigor. Once the saturation process had beenpleted it meant that every new strand would be the inner vigor that he could activate to increase his defense.
[Iron Skin (Level 4: 5%)]
"See I told you it wouldn''t take too long. I don''t understand why I didn''t just do this earlier. It took me less than two hours to take Iron Skin to the next level." Yoze turned around to face Leah who had hidden in a corner.
"Stay away from me, I don''t want to identally be turned into burned meat." Leah shook his head and tried to turn Yoze away since he was making everything unbearably hot.
"Fine, but you are going to be staying with my Dad for the next few days to protect him and alert me if anyone attacks him." Yoze stopped in his tracks and said to Leah.
"Is it because of the people that are in the other corners of the room?"
"Either way, I was nning on staying with him since there is no way for me to rest in this hot room." Leah stood up before sitting back down when he noticed that the floor near Yoze was melting and decided to go to Drew''s roomter.
Chapter 130 130: Witch Glass Cannon
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Once Yoze''s body cooled down to a normal temperature, he and Leah went over to his father''s room to discuss the arrangements.
"Yoze, what''s the matter? Are you feeling hungry?" Drew asked.
"Hi Dad, I just wanted to talk to Tiki and Dreyer about starting their training in martial arts and some other stuff," Yoze said.
"Alright then, they are in their rooms. Come in and get them, I''m going to go take a nap." Drew yawned to show how tired he was and went back inside to sleep.
"Goodnight,"
Knowing how old his father was getting, Yoze didn''t say anything except to wish him a good nap. Walking toward Tiki and Dreyer who were both together, he opened the door to find that both of them were in the middle of absorbing crystals.
Hearing the door open, Dreyer stopped absorbing the purple crystal in his hands and looked at who arrived. When he saw that it was Yoze he nodded his head before he took a look at Tiki who was deeply immersed in her cultivation training.
Dreyer looked at the crystal in his hand being 50 percent absorbed versus the dark blue crystal in Tiki''s hands that was nearly absorbed. They had started with simr talents but the rate at which they absorbed crystals was not close at all.
A weary smile grew on his face as he knew that the gap between their absorption speed was only going to continue growing in the future. Even though they have simr talent grades with Tiki''s crystal nerves and his dead crystal nerves.
Their cultivation speed was simr at the beginning but it all started changing when Tiki created her first crystal nerves. And when she had reached the first level of nerve umtion.
That day was when Tiki saw her crystal absorbing speed increase by nearly double, while his crystal absorbing speed stayed the same. The main reason was that the extra set of crystal nerves helped her absorb crystals faster.
And her crystal absorbing speed once again got boosted after shepleted her third crystal nerves set. Even though she was absorbing crystals faster it didn''t mean her cultivation speed also increased.
Instead with her increased number of crystal nerves she needed more crystal energy to navigate around all her nerves when creating another set of crystal nerves. Meaning that she needed to absorb more crystals alongside her increased crystal-absorbing speed.
As a witch, Dreyer didn''t get the leisure to have a cultivation system created by the past generations. So he had no standard measurement for where he stood in witchcraft except for themon definition of skills.
At the moment he considered himself a novice witch which meant he had low proficiency in even basic witchcraft. His Potato soldiers and Blood nt soldiers were considered to be basic witchcraft and he had a few more witchcraft techniques that were also basic.
Above Novice, the ranks for witches went like this, Cursed Witch, Titled Witch, Grand Witch, Disaster Witch, and Immortal Witch. Each rank was considered much stronger than thest but how one determined which rank they belonged was either by asking a fellow witch or meeting the widely considered basic requirements.
For example, anyone can be considered a Novice Witch if they are capable of using at least one basic witchcraft technique. Even if one had low proficiency in using that basic witchcraft technique or extremely high proficiency they would still be in the Novice rank.
To be upgraded to a Cursed Witch one needed to be able to use a curse technique. Curses were the next level of witchcraft and were much more difficult to perform and much harder for anyone to get their hands on one.
Taking himself as an example, Dreyer would never be able to be a Cursed Witch because he didn''t know any curses. He either has to risk his life trying to create one or find some way to gain a curse spell from somewhere.
Above a Cursed Witch was a Titled Witch, and these witches are known for the excellent usage of basic witchcraft and curses. But what made them different was that they were so good at particr witchcraft that they gained a title from the witchmunity.
The titles a witch could gain were endless but difficult to get. For example, there was a witch known as the Blood Witch because her Blood witchcraft was top-notch. But there was already a titled Blood Witch so to gain control of the title the Blood Witch killed the previous Blood Witch using Blood witchcraft.
She also made the previous Blood witch''s death public for all to see so she could im the title for herself. There were many stories of witches killing other witches to im their titles which made Dreyer''s heart covered in fear at the thought of how evil and brutal Titled Witches could be.
After Titled Witches, the requirements for advancement became so vague and mysterious that he didn''t know about them. All he knew was that Grand Witches were stronger than Titled Witches, Disaster Witches crushed Grand Witches, and no one stood a chance against Immortal Witches.
"With my talent alone it''s going to take me years, maybe decades to even be a Cursed Witch so I can ignore the higher ranks."
"So Yoze and Tiki are right that practicing martial arts and making my body stronger will only do me some good."
After calming down and having a lot of time to think for himself, Dreyer had grown to be thankful for Yoze''s suggestion of teaching him martial arts. He had gotten cocky at his status as a witch to think that martial arts were a waste of time.
But that could not be further from the truth since he was a witch and didn''t receive any body-strengthening methods; he was always going to be a ss cannon. He could have an army of nt soldiers but still be killed by a first-rate martial artist because theyunched a sneak attack.
However, if he could learn martial arts that increased his physical ability and gave him both defensive and offensive capabilities. Then he would have a better chance of surviving those sneak attacks and get an advantage when fighting other witches.
As Dreyer thought about how learning martial arts could save his life one day, he gripped the purple crystal in his hand and stood up with determination in his eyes. He was going to ask Yoze to stop stalling their training and teach him martial arts.
Just as he stood up Tiki also opened her eyes and saw Yoze leaning up against her door. She then noticed that he had a serious expression written on his face as if he was facing a powerful enemy.
Before she and Dreyer could say anything to Yoze, he said, "I have something to show you two."
"Oh, and we will be starting your martial arts training now."
Seeing that he didn''t need to ask about martial art training, Dreyer felt curious about what Yoze would want to show them. He had the impression that it was going to be rted to their martial arts training.
Tiki on the other hand felt that whatever Yoze wanted to show them must have been extremely important for him to call them over to his room. But when Tiki and Dreyer arrived at Yoze''s room both of their minds became nk.
Right in front of them were three middle-aged men who seemed to have be corpses with all their limbs broken. Tiki and Dreyer looked at each with confusion and tried their best to understand why Yoze would bring them over to see these three dead people.
"Are these our enemies?" Tiki asked cautiously.
She wanted to say if these men were Yoze''s enemies but held back at thest moment since she felt it would be better to draw herself and Dreyer to Yoze''s side.
"That''s right, these men came to me today and asked me to hand you two over to them by midnight." Yoze smiled seeing that Tiki felt that her enemies included his own.
"They wanted us!?" Tiki''s and Dreyer''s eyes snapped open as they turned to ask Yoze for further exnation.
"The story is pretty simple. When I was walking back home four of these men dressed in ck robes and eye masks surrounded me. Demanding I hand both of you over to them by midnight tonight."
"They then tried to escape to which I captured these three and was about to capture the fourth but another man dressed in ck robes made a sudden appearance. That neer grabbed the escaping man in a bear hug before exploding them both into arge amount of blood and guts."
"When I arrived back here with these three I saw that they all seemed to have be vegetables. So it''s going to be impossible to extract much information about who made this n and what they want." After retelling the events that happened to him, Yoze waited to see what Tiki and Dreyer had to say.
Chapter 131 131: Starting Training
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"It seems that the group was using these people as puppets."
"It should be possible to achieve with a certain immortal cultivation manual or witchcraft but that doesn''t help us narrow it down at all." Tiki frowned. She wasn''t happy that the leisure lifestyle she was getting used to was getting interrupted.
She also had no clue who would want to capture them or the reason why. Other than rogue immortal cultivators trying to cut down thepetition there didn''t seem to be much reason.
"It doesn''t seem like their main goal is us. Must have something to do with Yoze since they seemed to be interested in him more than they are interested in us." Dreyer added in his thoughts and felt that something was off.
"That makes sense, they could have attacked us directly instead of asking Yoze to bring us in. But they didn''t and specifically stated for him to bring us at midnight."
"We might be able to catch them if we pretend to follow their order. They must have some way to spy on us." Thinking about it more, Tiki said as her eyes darted to the walls and windows of Yoze''s room.
"After killing and capturing three of their men and forcing two tomit suicide there is a low chance for our enemy to fall for such a simple trick. There is also the problem that they never told me where to meet up with them in case I followed their ''advice''."
"That''s another reason why capturing you two isn''t their main goal. It must be just a means to an end. If they capture you two that''s great for them but if not it doesn''t harm the process of their real n."
"As for the idea that they were after me, it''s possible. But it doesn''t exin why they would send such weak puppets if I was their goal."
"I n on drawing their faces and asking an investigator for help with discovering these three men''s past. What do you think?" Yoze told them his thoughts on finding an investigator.
"Sounds good," Tiki and Dreyer nodded their heads in approval.
Thinking that Yoze nned on hiring a professional drawer or painter to collect an urate image of their faces before sending it to an investigator. What they didn''t expect was that he had a slightly different n as he didn''t trust anyone else finding out about these men.
So he nned to draw their appearance on his own since he had some talent in painting and color mixing, each respectively grade 5 and 9. He might not be any good at the moment but as long as he spent some time and collected more talent rted to art then he should be able to get a good drawing.
There was also another benefit that once he increased his skill in painting and drawing he would have the skills whenever he needed them again. It also prevents unnecessary information from leaking.
Since they didn''t know how their enemy was spying on them it was better to take the initiative to hide some information to see if their enemy could know about it. If he got ambushed during his attempt to take the pictures to investigators then not only did it mean that their enemy was actively spying on them.
But they could not stay in the Ten Ton Inn any longer since it waspletelyprised. However, at the moment Yoze didn''t think that their enemy hadpletelypromised the inn and got all their information about them since they didn''t mention handing over Leah or their demon meat.
One of them was an animal that can talk to humans and even the ability to create fantastic medicine. The other is meat from legendary demons and has the potential to increase a person''s lifespan and even physical abilities.
These two were incredibly valuable and should have been on the top of the list to steal. If it was up to him, Yoze would have kidnapped Tiki and Dreyer and used them as hostages to get the demon meat and Leah.
If he was interested in killing them when he got the demon meat and Leah he would just kill Tiki and Dreyer before finishing the job by killing the rest of the family. It was a more easy and convenient way to get what his enemy said they wanted.
"Since we are dealing with possible immortal cultivators I''ll contact my sources to see what the current situation is in the immortal world," Dreyer added.
"Be safe when you contact them, take Tiki or Leah with you when you meet with your contacts," Yoze advised Dreyer hoping that he would consider it.
Dreyer nodded his head in agreement but didn''t say anything further.
"Since we have a n, we will get started on training you in martial arts. You have ten minutes to get changed into attire that you feelfortable with doing martial arts in and to meet me in my room." Yoze inly said before heading to his room.
Nine minutes soon passed before he saw his door open and both Tiki and Dreyer walked in with their clothes changed. They both had changed into simple ck T-shirts and shorts.
Tiki had also tied her hair up into a bun to prevent her hair from getting into her eyes during the training. While Dreyer used a hair clip to keep the front part of his hair in ce for the same reason.
"Ready?" Yoze stood up and asked one more time.
"Ready as we can ever be," Tiki and Dreyer took a deep breath and looked at Yoze with determination.
"Good, right now your bodies are just too weak to start any martial arts that you might feel are useful. So we are going to start your martial art training by strengthening your body with body cultivation."
"Since this is the first day of your training I will only be training you on the Boneless Man body cultivation method. After this, you two can decide what martial art body cultivation out of my collection that you find useful."
"Got that?" Yoze asked if they understood his reasoning.
Chapter 132 132: Becoming Boneless
Tiki and Dreyer nodded their heads in their understanding but Tiki raised her hand to ask a question.
"Yes,"
"Can you exin the differences between body cultivation methods and martial art techniques? I thought that martial techniques trained the body."
"Great question. The basic difference between martial art techniques and body cultivation methods is that body cultivation strengthens the body while martial art techniques are a way to get more power out of your body."
"For example, when I cultivated Twin Fists it allowed me to send out my punches faster and stronger so I could deal more damage to my opponents."
"But it would never let me suddenly gain the strength to beat an elephant in a contest of strength because even if it squeezes out all the strength my body could muster it was not enough to beat an elephant."
"Body Cultivation on the other hand is simr to exercising. It builds up muscles and makes you stronger in some way. It can make you faster, stronger, and even gain special abilities. In general, it increases your overall physical ability and increases the amount of physical potential in your body."
"An example of this is my Big Golem body cultivation, it increased my body weight but also my strength as well. Now when I punch or charge at someone with this extra muscle mass and weight I will be able to do more damage with the same attack." Yoze looked at Tiki as he finished his lecture.
"So body cultivation focuses on increasing the maximum potential that the body has while martial art techniques focus on increasing the person''s maximum output." Tiki looked at Yoze to see if she understood correctly.
"That''s exactly correct." Yoze nodded, d to see that what he said made some sense.
Yoze waited for a second to see if another question arose, and when he saw that they didn''t have a question he decided to get started with their Boneless Man training.
"First of all, Boneless Man is a body training method to make you more flexible and able to move your body in a more fluid and coordinated manner. It is a great body cultivation method that is suitable to use with most martial techniques and other body cultivation methods."
"Right now, I want to see how flexible you two are so try your best to copy what I do."
After saying that, Yoze twisted his body in the first style of Boneless Man in a wless manner. It was simr to the yoga pose Eka Pada Koundinyasana 1 and 2bined on steroids.
Even though this pose was the beginning style of Boneless Man it was thought to take more than a year to master. So Yoze didn''t have much expectation for Tiki''s and Dreyer''s first attempts.
What he didn''t expect was that both of them were not only able toplete the pose but also stayed in the pose for nearly an hour before their muscles gave out and almost fell unconscious.
"You two did amazing on your first attempt. If you keep this up you will be able to reach the peak of Boneless Man in two to three years."
"In a few years, we will be able to be some of the strongest first-rate martial artists. This doesn''t seem too hard." Dreyer managed to squeeze out as he took a deep breath after every single word and his shirt was drenched in sweat.
"I don''t mean to burst your bubble but even after mastering Boneless Man you will only be a second-rate martial artist and be ranked near the bottom."
"As I mentioned before, the Boneless Man body cultivation method focuses on increasing flexibility and body coordination. It doesn''t offer much in increasing your fighting ability by itself. That is why it''s often paired up with other body cultivation methods." Yoze passed Tiki and Dreyer a big cup of water to help them recover some strength.
The moment they got the cup of water they drank it all as fast as they could. They felt as if they had been in a desert without water for days and had suddenly encountered a freshwater source.
Even though the water was ordinary it tasted better than anything that they had ever tasted in their lives.
"We will call it for now. After we eat we will continue with training again." Noticing that Tiki and Dreyer weren''t recovering their strength fast enough to move, Yoze decided to temporarily end the training until they regained most of their strength.
"Thank you," Dreyer said gratefully since he felt as if his entire body was made out of lead.
"Yoze, can you get me a crystal? Since I can''t move I might as well absorb a crystal while I am at it." Tiki said slowly as she forced each word out feeling as if she was going to pass out.
"Sure, I have a crystal or two here. If you want to continue with immortal cultivation and witchcraft." Yoze quickly got our three crystals and handed one each to Tiki and Dreyer, keeping one himself.
After handing them out all three of them began to absorb the crystals not minding the strange sight of how Tiki and Dreyer were in the starfish position with a crystal in their hand.
An hour passed by before Tiki and Dreyer regained the strength to move again but they were so hungry that they ate everything that they could eat raw. Even then they still felt hungry so Yoze took them to a nearby restaurant to fill up before dinner.
By the time they returned home, Tiki and Dreyer felt their sore muscles had already begun to heal. They felt that by the time they were having dinner, they would havepletely recovered their strength.
"The demon meat seems to be helping you recover, in that case, forget about taking three years to be a second-rate martial artist you can be one in a year."
Noticing that the healing process was faster than expected Yoze remembered that Tiki and Dreyer are demon meat today. Meaning that their recovery speed was much faster than normal and would be able to increase the number of times they could train in a day.
"We will now have you train at least four times a day. One in the morning, afternoon, evening, and night to speed up the process."
Chapter 133 133: Feeling Slugish
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Since today was Tiki''s and Dreyer''s first day in learning martial arts and were still mentally exhausted Yoze decided to call it early. They would begin once again after dinner when it was closer to nighttime.
After sending Tiki and Dreyer home, Yoze went out to buy some art supplies and begin his art journey to be the best artist in the world. Since it was his first time doing art in this world he decided to start slow and made a few easy drawings of cats and dogs.
The result was that he ended up with muddy and dirty stick figures of a monster between a cat and a dog. Seeing his art abomination Yoze ced down his paintbrush and wondered where he went wrong.
"I made the dog and cat too close and the color on the brush was too runny and messy."
After finding the problem, he picked up his brush and tried to do it again. This time he increased the space between the dog and cat and made sure to only use a light drop of color.
The result was much better with a thick stick figured red dog and a curvy stick figured green cat. Feeling that this was much better, Yoze decided to just get started with creating the pictures of the three men''s faces and see how much he could improve in a short period.
A few hours passed by and Yoze''s entire room was littered with crumpled-up paper. While he was focused on drawing his painting of one of the three men''s faces he didn''t notice that someone had knocked on the door until the second time.
"Who is it?" Yoze looked away from his painting and noticed Dreyer''s spiritual energy was standing outside his door.
"It''s me, Dreyer. Just came to say that dinner''s ready." Dreyer''s slightly muffled voice came through the door, reminding Yoze about dinner.
"Alright, I''ll be right there," Yoze said, using his spiritual speech tomunicate clearly with Dreyer through the door.
"Cool,"
Getting the message, Dreyer''s spiritual energy walked toward Jewel''s door and tried to remind her about dinner. But even after trying several times, he didn''t get a response so he left.
"Jewel, it''s time for dinner." Yoze shook his head and used his spiritual speech to wake Jewel up from her sleep.
Luckily, she quickly got up and went to his father''s room to eat. Seeing that everyone else was now waiting for him, Yoze decided to call it a day for his art career.
He took one final look at his painting of the man''s face which looked like an art a person that had been drawing for a year could aplish. It was good and had enough detail that it would impress ordinary people but for the standards that Yoze needed it wasn''t enough.
The drawing had to be nearly indistinguishable from the real thing so that the investigation into their exact identity could be found. To be able to achieve that kind of result he predicted it would take another 20 hours of work.
After 20 hours his paintings would be so good that artists would mistake him as being a well-known professional artist that had been in the field for years. As for now, Yoze scrapped the pieces of paper and tossed them in the trash.
He only returned to his room after filling his stomach with fantastic food and having trained Tiki and Dreyer for an hour. Watching them practice he felt his drive to break through another body cultivation re up. In the mood, Yoze went to his courtyard in the Martial Courtyard and wanted to see if he could break through to level 7 of Big Golem.
"Let''s see if I can aplish it in one night." Yoze''s eyes shined as he felt motivated.
Yoze decided to push his body once again to its limits to drive up the production of Big Golem''s heavy inner vigor. He first activated the full potential of Mindless Blood Legs to push his entire body into overdrive.
Yoze felt his blood boil and his mind became locked inside his head. Even though Yoze wasn''t moving his body, extraordinary heat leaked out of his body and he felt a lot of internal pressure.
"First it was my flesh then it was my bones. What''s next? My muscles, tendons, or organs?" Yoze asked curious about the next step Big Golem could take.
He had already evolved Big Golem and had gained the ability to push his inner vigor into his body parts and use them as projectile weapons. Would he be able to send his Big Golem into weapons?
Or would he be able to do the kind of stunts that Martial Silver Thunder did during their fight? Being able to send out his inner vigor directly to deal damage to his opponents.
Either way, Yoze was excited at the prospect of the future of his Big Golem body cultivation method. So when he started to feel the familiar sensation of heavy inner vigor being created, his mind immediately entered a focused state of mind.
[Big Golem (Level 6: 101%)]
Unlike previous times, the heavy inner vigor didn''t enter a chaotic state once the new strand of inner vigor was produced. Instead, everyst strand of heavy inner vigor began to glow, they all activated at the same time.
In an instant, Yoze''s weight increased to more than 3000 pounds which created cracks to form on the tiled floor. Not minding the cracks, his mind raced and he felt that this shouldn''t be happening.
"Is it because there is no space in my body?"
He shook his head as he felt that shouldn''t be the case. He had trained in the Big Golem body cultivation method and other body cultivation methods for years now and there seemed to always be room for more inner vigor.
So this time shouldn''t have been much differentpared to when he broke through to the sixth level. Other than Big Golem activating his other inner vigor had not activated.
If his body had reached its limit then all the inner vigor in his body should have been activated as well or he just wouldn''t have been able to produce any more inner vigor. While Yoze was thinking about what was happening he didn''t stop the pressure from continuing to produce more heavy inner vigor.
Instead, he actively encouraged it by doing various bodyweight exercises that promote muscle growth and development. Soon, before he knew another strand of heavy inner vigor was squeezed out of his muscles and flesh.
[Big Golem (Level 6: 102%)]
"Did I get more sluggish?" Yoze''s eyebrows frowned as he felt that not only did he be heavier but he felt his body being weighed down.
At first, he thought that this might have been an illusion but once the third strand of heavy inner vigor was produced. He felt a bit more weighed down which alerted him to the fact that he could feel the weight of every strand dragging him down.
"Hold on."
With this revtion, Yoze stopped his training to get more information about what was happening. He needed to make sure that what was currently happening would not start affecting his fighting ability.
Stopping the constant pressure created by Mindless Blood Legs, Yoze closed his eyes to visualize the inner vigor in his body. With his eyes closed he imagined a ck figure that has a body shape filled with all types of inner vigor
However, the type of inner vigor that was the most numerous was glowing with a heavy light. Yoze''s heavy inner vigor was still active even when he wasn''t producing any more inner vigor.
With his current weight, the few pounds that were added weren''t muchpared to how much he weighed. But what was different was that he could feel the weight acting on his body as if he had gained a few pounds of muscle or fat.
Previously whenever he had gained strands of heavy inner vigor whenever he gained strands of heavy inner vigor he felt the weight they added but never was hindered by it. So even though he had weighed 3000 pounds before he could move as if he was still only a few hundred pounds.
[Big Golem (Level 6: 103%)]
"Let''s take it slow for now. In an unknown situation like this, I should try to avoid anything that can temporarily lower my fighting ability."
With an unknown enemy lurking around Yoze decided to be cautious about anything that might endanger his family. Including any training that might make him temporarily slower and less able to react to sudden changes on the battlefield.
"This is unfortunate, if this happened at any other time or ce I would have just continued with training and kept going until it reached the next level."
"It''s even possible that once I make it to level 7 this would naturally solve itself and I would not have to worry about having to move with a couple of thousand pounds everywhere I go."
Chapter 134 134: Maxing Two Body Cultivations
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Even though Yoze didn''t n to continue training his Big Golem, he still wanted to train. Since he was there he nned to focus on learning another body cultivation method and martial art technique so he could better teach Tiki and Dreyer tomorrow morning.
"Let''s start with the Sinking Swamp body cultivation method," Yoze recalled the contents of the method in his mind.
The Sinking Swamp body cultivation method focuses on making the body extremely sticky to the point that nothing could escape once contact has been made. It also had an effect simr to quicksand such that the more an enemy tried to escape the more stuck they would be.
Unlike the Boneless Man body cultivation which didn''t allow its hosts to reach the peak of first-rate martial artists, Sinking Swamp allowed it. It had a total of five levels and each had a unique way to train the person''s skin and muscles so they could grab a hold of anything.
The first level was the Coin stage where Yoze could have a coin stuck anywhere on his body without effort. The second level was the Gum stage where he was able to make his body as sticky as gum.
The third level was when Yoze created the sticky inner vigor of the Sinking Swamp body cultivation method. In this stage, he would transform his body to be as sticky as glue and make it difficult or even downright impossible for ordinary people to escape his hold.
The fourth stage was the swamp stage where he would be so sticky that peak second-rate martial artists will find it difficult to escape his hold once contact has been made. The fifth and final stage was the Sinking Swamp stage where even peak first-rate martial artists will be stuck to him.
It was thought that if everything went smoothly a person would reach the peak of Sinking Swamp after a decade. Thus reaching the peak of first-rate martial artists and being one step away from being an elite martial artist.
"Grade 8 Body Cultivation, grade 5 Muscle Maniption, grade 7 Grip, my grade 9 flexibility talent might apply as well."
However, Yoze predicted that it wouldn''t take him a decade to reach the peak of Sinking Swamp. Instead after taking a look at some of the talents he had, that might apply to reduce the time he predicted it should only take him 4 hours.
But that was based on the few talents that Yoze felt had the highest chance of being applied to his training speed. In reality, his training speed was most likely going to be faster.
"Let''s just get started and see if I can reach the peak in one go."
As expected once Yoze began training, his progress was rapid and he reached the peak of the first level in 10 minutes. The second level took him some time to reach the peak but it only took 30 minutes.
The third level was when he expected to start producing the sticky inner vigor that came with the Sinking Swamp. When Yoze felt his body release the first strand of sticky inner vigor he could sense that it had some natural stickiness to it and became even sticky once he activated it.
The third stage only took Yoze 30 minutes to reach the peak and the fourth stage took another thirty minutes. By the time he reached the peak of the fifth stage, less than three hours had passed.
As Yoze stood in his courtyard, his skin wiggled like waves in the ocean which would have sent a shiver down the spines of ordinary people. After stopping the maniption of his skin and muscles, Yoze looked at his clothes that were stuck to the surface of his skin.
"Luckily, I can deactivate the stickiness of my body anytime I want. If it was like Mindless Legs, beingpletely passive then I wouldn''t be able to take off my clothes without ripping them." Yoze muttered to himself as he pinched his shirt and saw how it immediately became taught, almost ripping.
"Now for the Turtle Shell Body Cultivation method."
Recalling the body cultivation method, Yoze noted that it only had one level which was simply training your back to be even harder than a diamond. Even though it only had one level and only protected the person''s back it also increased the person''s endurance and pain tolerance so they were not afraid of closebat.
"I just need something to whip my back. "
Recalling that the method needed a strong whip, Yoze looked at the various equipment that was around his courtyard before finding one that he could train with. It was a machine that with a click of a button would either hit someone with whatever is attached to it.
After finding a whip and attaching it to the machine, Yoze took off his shirt and took the stance that the Turtle Shell body cultivation rmended.
"Bang!"
With a simple button press, Yoze heard the sound of a whip slicing through the air before hitting his flesh. Other than letting out a grunt, he ignored the pain and continued to press the button.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!..."
Not knowing how many times he pressed the button and had gotten whipped, Yoze finally rxed and ced his shirt back on. His skin wasn''t damaged in the slightest even after all that whipping but he was still able to reach the peak of the Turtle Shell body cultivation method.
Just in time as the sky had a glimmer of red lighting from the rising sun. Seeing that the sunrise wasing soon, Yoze decided to end his training and went home to catch some sleep before breakfast.
After eating breakfast with the family, Yoze noticed that Tiki and Dreyer were already dressed for today''s training. Even throughout breakfast, they had serious expressions written on their faces as if they were heading out for war.
"Hey, where are you going to be required to dress and look like this?" Noticing the uniqueness of how Tiki and Dreyer were dressed, Jewel couldn''t help but ask where they were going.
As she asked she took a big bite of the demon meat on her te and felt relieved as she could feel that her headache from drinking was subsiding.
"We are getting trained by Yoze for martial arts today. So we have to be prepared to be sweating our butts off." Dreyer said.
"You two are getting trained? Can I join?" Jewel turned to Yoze as she hoped to get trained as well.
"Of course, I wanted to invite you yesterday but you were drunk so we just left without you," Yoze answered.
"Oh, and I would like to ask you if you know any investigators that could find out information about people using a name and picture."
"I know a few and I can get in contact with them. If you are looking for information about someone and you''re not afraid of someone finding out I rmend hiring multiple investigators to increase the chances of important information being noticed." Jewel thought about some investigators she had recently contacted and gave their information to Yoze.
"These people are fine. " Looking through the information that Jewel had written down, Yoze suddenly noticed a familiar name.
"Detective Dave? I thought that they only worked on cases for tracking people down."
"Yeah, but I figured that since you''re looking for information about someone they might extend their services with enough money. In any case, we know that they are good at finding people since they helped us find these two." Jewel replied.
Yoze nodded his head in understanding and finished eating his breakfast and had Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer follow him back to his room.
"Jewel since you already are practicing your body cultivation method there isn''t much I can help you with. If you are willing you can pick another body cultivation method to train just like Tiki and Dreyer."
"This way I will be able to help you out and give you some advice," Yoze exined to Jewel.
Already understanding the situation, Jewel nodded her head in agreement with Yoze''s n since she had expected this. Unless she was willing to give Yoze her body cultivation method there was no way for him to give her very detailed advice.
"Okay, since today is the second day I will show you the other two body cultivation methods that you can choose to train in. The first is the Sinking Swamp body cultivation method and the second is the Turtle Shell body cultivation."
"Of course, if you want you can also choose to practice the Big Golem or Iron Skin body cultivation. If you feel that Boneless Man is great for you then you don''t have to change." Yoze said, exining all their options.
With all the different options avable to them Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel discussed what they felt was more useful to them. After a bit of discussion, Jewel was the first person to decide on what she wanted to train in.
Chapter 135 135: Restless
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"I''ll take Boneless Man. It''s not simr to my current body cultivation and it offers something I''m interested in, increased mobility and flexibility."
Yoze nodded in understanding and handed her the Boneless Man body cultivation manual.
"I''ll show you how to do the first position after Tiki and Dreyer make their choice," Yoze said to Jewel.
Jewel nodded her head in understanding and opened up the book that Yoze had handed her. After a few minutes of reading, she frowned as she was having a difficult time understanding how exactly she was supposed to aplish the various poses that the book wanted her to take.
Jewel''s martial artprehension talent wasn''t the best but neither was it terrible. She was able to learn most body cultivation methods and martial techniques in a few days.
In particr, Jewel was able to learn Jade Armor immediately after she was old enough to practice martial arts and was handed the method. However, that was more because she had been taught by her parents that had trained in the same body cultivation method. So she was able to ask numerous questions about the body cultivation method and even saw them train it before.
So when Jewel picked it up herself she was able to understand it quickly and even was able to start training on the first day. However, it was different this time around since she had only seen Yoze train in the Boneless Man body cultivation once but was too focused on her training to learn from him.
Because of that Jewel couldn''t immediately do the poses that Boneless Man required in the right way, stalling her progress until she figured it out. As for Tiki and Dreyer, while they didn''t have martial artprehension as a talent when Yoze used a talent mark on them they didn''t need to figure out the poses of Boneless Man by themselves.
They had Yoze leading by example and any mistakes they made with the form would be corrected by him, meaning that they didn''t need topletelyprehend the Boneless Man''s method themselves.
Tiki and Dreyer were able to skip the difficult period of figuring out what most martial artists had to go through. For most martial artists, if they didn''t understand how to train or do what their body cultivation or martial art techniques required then they wouldn''t be able to move forward with their martial arts.
Yoze on the other hand was simply an anomaly. He had gone through the same difficulty that most martial artists had to go through when his martial artprehension talent was low.
But since he had trained in Twin Fists and Big Golem which were both incredibly simplepared to other martial arts he didn''t face the situation of having to spend numerous days to understand or practice before he could move forward.
As time moved on, the problem of understanding martial art techniques and body cultivation quickly became a nonissue for Yoze. As his talents increased his ability to quickly understand andprehend also improved.
With his current talents alone numbering close to 200 Yoze was able to learn any subject quickly.
Luckily, Jewel didn''t have to go through this difficulty since she would be able to receive the same help that Tiki and Dreyer were able to receive from Yoze. At this moment she only had a Yoze few questions about the Boneless Man poses before she would be able to aplish it.
"I decided to take the Sinking Swamp body cultivation."
Snapping out of her thoughts Jewel saw that Dreyer and Tikin were deciding what they wanted to train in. Dreyer had stepped up and grabbed the Sinking Swamp body cultivation manual from Yoze''s hands and opened it up.
Just like Jewel expected, a frown appeared on Dreyer''s face as he read the book. After reading the first few pages, he handed the book to Tiki who also frowned as she read the same pages.
"I''ll also stick to Boneless Man for now. The additional control that it gives my body is amazing and pairs well with immortal cultivation." Tiki said with calmness on her face.
"That''s fine with me. Since you three are doing two different body cultivation methods it makes it easy for me. " Yoze smiled.
"First off, Tiki just do the pose I showed you yesterday and do it for as long as you can. Meanwhile, Dreyer, to train in the Sinking Swamp method you''re going to need a coin to help with your training."
"Here is the coin. The first step to training Sinking Swamp is quite different from Boneless Man since it is not about keeping a single pose as long as you could. Instead, it focuses on training to have precise control over your skin and muscles."
"Do this simple exercise with your hands until you feel confident then do it with the coin."
Yoze tossed Dreyer a copper coin to practice before showing him how to train his skin and muscles using the method prescribed by the Boneless Man book. Once he showed Dreyer a few times practicing with the method he showed him, he turned his focus to Jewel.
"Is there anything you don''t understand?" Knowing that Jewel was already experienced in martial arts Yoze wanted to ask her what she needed help with.
If she needed only a bit of help then that was all he would provide since it would do more harm than good to give her too many instructions.
As he expected Jewel only had a few questions about the various poses of Boneless Man, which were solved either with an answer or a quick demonstration.
After helping them out, Yoze suddenly found that he had nothing to do while he waited for them to finish their training.
"Might as well keep improving my painting skills." Yoze thought to himself and walked into his bedroom where he moved his art supplies.
Just as Yoze was getting ready to start painting he saw from the corner of his eyes a Dark Blue spiritual energy in the shape of a whirlpool standing outside the inn through the walls. Usually, he would have ignored that random spiritual energy since many different people checked in and out of Ten Ton Inn he couldn''t stop people from using the inn nor did he want to.
However, the moment Yoze caught sight of this dark blue whirlpool his eyes couldn''t move away from it. His intuition gave him a warning that this particr spiritual energy was going to put his family in danger.
"If there is one danger, there could be two or three more," Yoze muttered to himself.
He looked around and noticed that there were more spiritual energies surrounding the inn with no intention ofing inside. Understanding that they might be part of the group of immortal cultivators that imed to want to capture Tiki and Dreyer Yoze felt annoyed and angry.
"Good thing they didn''te with puppets this time or else I wouldn''t be able to gain anything even after capturing them."
"How do I make sure that I will be able to capture them all?" After taking a minute to think of a n, Yoze soon figured out the best possible way to capture them all without worrying about them escaping.
Making sure that everything was in ce, Yoze secretly left his room without Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer knowing and walked straight to the dark blue spiritual energy whirlpool. As he walked closer and closer to the entrance of the inn, Yoze ced his attention on seeing if his enemies reacted to his actions.
However even after he entered the range where he could hear the owner of the dark blue spiritual energy whirlpool breathing. They didn''t react at all, instead, it seemed to Yoze that they didn''t have a way of knowing where he was inside the building or what he was doing.
"That makes things easier," Yoze thought to himself.
He raised his hands and looked at his fingers with focus. After a few seconds, Yoze was able to create spiritual ws made out of the Armored Elephant''s and the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy forming multi-colored ws.
Then Yoze waited for the four immortal cultivators to make their move. He was going to strike the man with the dark blue spiritual energy first as he used spiritual suppression on the other three.
As long as they didn''t have a special method to conceal their spiritual energy or protect it then Yoze felt his n had a high chance to seed. He also hoped that he could rope in other immortal cultivators that might be hiding amid the people.
As Yoze was waiting for them to make a move while he took them out of the darkness he didn''t know that each one of the people he was targeting had no idea of the existence of the others and felt uneasy.
"Brother, are you sure that the information that the immortals are inside this inn is correct? Isn''t it ridiculous for their test to kidnap one of their people?" a young boy''s voice came out from a wooden doll wearing a suit and tie.
"Drax, I told you that the information came from the Masked Immortal Cultivator himself so there was a high likelihood this was true. But I''m not dumb enough to believe this information either." The man holding the wooden doll looked down and reassured it.
Chapter 136 136: Ancient Immortal Cultivators
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"With the Masked immortal cultivator spreading this news to everyone, war ising. All we need to do is wait for the most desperate rogue cultivators to make the first move and take advantage of the situation." The man holding the wooden doll, eyes shed with a cold light.
Even while standing in the middle of a public street with hundreds of people passing by, the young man seemed to be invisible as people ignored his crazy rants.
"Brother, it can''t be that easy. We are not dealing with mortals. We are dealing with other rogue immortal cultivators. There are bound to be others with the same n as us."
"They might even be stronger than us. Just the fact that the Masked immortal cultivator has been spreading out the news using his puppets all over the city means he is interested in the situation."
"That means that we are not justpeting with the crazy immortal cultivators and the new immortal cultivators but also the ancient immortal cultivators who are extremely strong." The wooden doll wearing a suit warned the young man and didn''t seem as confident with their chances.
The young man wasn''t perturbed by the wooden doll''s doubts. He simply looked around for any immortal cultivators.
"Drax, you''re right as usual but you''re forgetting the fact that in front of immortals all of us immortal cultivators are desperate. We are desperate ourselves which is why even though I know this is dangerous we still showed up."
"But that also means that the Masked immortal cultivator is also desperate. He and the other ancient immortal cultivators are the most desperate since their life spans are nearly all gone."
"They are the ones that need to get the method to cultivate the Crystal Brain stage. If they miss their chance to join an immortal sect then they will just be waiting to die."
"The Masked immortal cultivator should know his chances are slim are low if he attempts this on his own but he definitely can''t resist the temptation."
"He is waiting by the sidelines for an opportunity to ur but knowing this means that we can take advantage of the situation ourselves."
"If we can find where all the immortal cultivators are hidden then we can deal with those threats ahead of time and bide our time." The young man smiled with confidence as he asked the wooden doll a question.
"How is the progress of finding the immortal cultivators?"
"So far, I found 10 immortal cultivators around the inn but it seems most of them decided to wait and see since they are incredibly far from the inn."
"With 1 immortal cultivation inside the inn. This immortal cultivator has a high chance of being the target that the immortals want us to capture." The wooden doll speaking with a young boy''s voice answered when suddenly it shook and reported the situation.
"One of the detected immortal cultivators had made a move. It seems to be
the ancient immortal cultivator, Spice." The wooden doll reported.
The young man didn''t look surprised and took a step away from the inn, nning to lie low until his time arrived. Before he took a single step his wooden doll reported a drastic change in the situation.
"Four more immortal cultivators jumped out of the hiding spots and are running towards the inn at full speed. The Spice immortal cultivator suddenly gave up and escaped, even giving up his current body."
"Spice immortal cultivator''s will to abandon his body seemed to have inspired more crazy immortal cultivators to join in as three more immortal cultivators have left their spots and are running directly to the inn." The wooden doll reported to the young man in a quick and emotionless manner as if it was just a radio broadcast of the news.
"Drax, continue to keep an eye out for the Masked immortal cultivator. Also, give me a list of the immortal cultivators who are making a move." The young man said as he retreated inside a cafe he had chosen earlier.
"The list of immortal cultivators is the Dragon, Swampy, Stench, Fire Stick, Eternal Lake, Berserk, and War God."
"Four ancient immortal cultivators couldn''t wait huh? " The young man couldn''t help but click his tongue in astonishment as he was impressed that four ancient immortal cultivators were willing to be in the first round of this war.
As ancient immortal cultivators, they had all reached the limit of what rogue immortal cultivators are allowed to reach, each one being at the peak of the Crystal Skull realm. While they were the strongest rogue immortal cultivators, they are also extremely old and near the end of their lifespans due to the poor quality of their crystal nerves.
The young man had expected that these ancient immortal cultivators would show up due to their desperate situation but he didn''t expect that four ancient immortal cultivators would make a move so soon. Since they were the strongest and had the most to lose, none of them wanted to be in the first wave as that jeopardized their chances of sess.
Just taking the Spice immortal cultivator, who was an ancient immortal cultivator, as an example of what these ancient immortal cultivators would have to do to survive the war if they entered too early. But if they joined in the war toote then they would lose their only chance of surviving.
That was why the young man and the wooden doll didn''t flinch when they heard that the Spice immortal cultivator gave up his body. What surprised them more was how he made this mistake and if this was all part of a secret n.
But the young man wasn''t given enough time to consider whether it was the Spice Immortal cultivator''s n. He had to focus on trying to find an opportunity between the other immortal cultivators who had made a move.
He was particrly interested in the War God immortal cultivator and Berserk immortal cultivator as they were both famous crazy immortal cultivators. They had only entered the city for at most 2 years yet they had killed more than 20 immortal cultivators each.
It was also rumored that they were as strong as the ancient immortal cultivators such as Swampy, Fire Stick, and Dragon. From how fearlessly they charged forward it seemed that they also thought the same.
He was almost looking forward to seeing the battle between these strong immortal cultivators. But the young man''s heart suddenly froze as he heard the strange report that came out of his wooden doll.
"Dragon, Swampy, Stench, Fire Stick, Eternal Lake, Berserk, and War God have all dropped dead."
"Drax, what are you saying?" The young man asked his wooden doll with confusion and concern.
"Sorry, brother, I made a mistake." The wooden doll suddenly regains his personality before apologizing to his brother.
"That''s okay just be..." Before the young man could continue speaking his wooden doll continued.
"All the immortal cultivators that I had reported have all dropped dead simultaneously, except for two. Those two are, the immortal cultivator that is inside the inn and the second Spice immortal cultivator who had abandoned his body to escape." The wooden doll looked at his brother with worry.
"Brother, I rmend that we leave this ce immediately. For this kind of mass death to happen simultaneously could only be caused by a real immortal."
"The situation is too dangerous if the immortals are willing to get involved in the test. The only result is our death if we try to get close to the inn." The wooden doll that went by Drax shivered with fear and clenched his brother''s suit with fear.
"You''re right, this is too dangerous. This is definitely what the Masked immortal cultivator wanted to happen. He wanted to use the immortals themselves to cut down on hispetition." The young man gritted his teeth in anger and felt ashamed at how he had so easily trusted the Masked immortal cultivator''s message.
But he didn''t dwell on it for long and got rid of any shame and anger he had in his heart as that would only lead to future mistakes. Right now, he had to get as far away from the immortal''s inn without triggering the immortal''s attack.
The young man held his brother tight and looked around his pocket for a few items. After looking around for a while he eventually pulled out a long recorder made out of green crystal which had beautiful patterns of flowers and trees etched into the instrument.
The young man ced the recorder on the cafe table and searched his pockets for a bundle of ck string that was also made out of crystals. Once the young man ced the bundle of ck sting on the table he picked the recorder back up.
After taking a deep breath the young man ced the recorder in his mouth ready to y his way out of this terrible situation he found himself in.
Chapter 137 137: Zeak And Drax
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Just as the young man was about to y the green recorder, he suddenly felt heavy and oppressive pressure m into his mind. His thoughts slowed down at the same time his body became frozen, unable to move a muscle.
"What is this?" The young man thought to himself.
"Drax, are you okay?" The young man''s slow mind shifted towards worrying about the safety of the wooden doll on his chest. But when he eventually was able to turn his sights down he looked down and found that his wooden doll brother was missing from his chest.
"Are you looking for this?" The young man suddenly heard a deep voicee from in front of him.
By the time he looked up, he saw that sitting in front of him was a giant man with an extremely strong body holding his brother like a rag doll. A wave of anger slowly built up in the young man''s heart as he hated how his brother was being treated.
He hated the giant man when he noticed that his brother was so terrified that he couldn''t move and acted like a real lifeless doll. It might have been because of his slow reaction or maybe the fact that his eyes were spitting out fire, but the giant man nodded his head with approval and ced his brother on the table in a sitting position.
"It seems you have a strong connection with this doll you call your brother. As long as you answer my question I''ll let you two go free." The giant man calmly said.
It took a few seconds for the young man''s mind to catch up to what the giant man said but once it did the young man calmed down and used his eyes to express his agreement.
"Good, I''ll take you to a new location so we can discuss this." The giant man made out of muscle stood up and picked up the young man''s brother and himself as if they both weighed nothing.
As he lifted Drax and the young man, the giant man took their green recorder and the ck bundle of string into his pouch. Even though it was a strange sight for the giant man to be dragging a grown man and a wooden doll outside, no one in the cafe seemed to care or even notice the young man or wooden doll in his grasp as he walked out.
The giant man dragged them into the inn that they had been spying on and took them to an empty room. Once inside the giant man ced them on the carpeted floor and allowed the pressure that was preventing the young man from speaking to be lifted somewhat.
"Ha," The young man felt relieved as some of the pressure on his mind was lifted causing him to let out a soft sigh of relief.
"Tell me why you and other rogue immortal cultivators decided to attack where I lived." The giant man asked softly as he ced his hands in the young man''s pockets.
"We were told by another rogue immortal cultivator that you and the other immortals wereing over to the city to recruit some immortal cultivators."
"But we fell for his schemes and trusted the information about you wanting to capture an immortal cultivator in your group was part of the test to be epted into the sect." It took over three minutes for the young man to spit out a response as even though some of the pressure was lifted off his mind was still slow.
The giant man, who the young man assumed to be the immortal who took down the ancient and strong immortal cultivators, didn''t look surprised by this revtion. Instead, he nodded his head and continued to ask the young man numerous questions.
The questions started quite simply and even surprised the young man with how simple they were. However, as time went on the questions became harder to answer and more personal.
Even though the young man was ufortable he answered all of them with great honesty. It was frankly surprising even to the young man how much information he gave to the giant man.
From his monstrous stature and immortal status the young man felt he should have been wary and less willing to spill all his secrets to a stranger. But other than the initial scare when they first met, the young man quickly felt as if the giant man wasn''t his enemy but his protector.
The strange mixture of auras and pressureing from the giant man''s body seemed to take on a soothing, rxing, and protective feeling that the young man couldn''t escape. The longer he was in the giant man''s presence the more he came to view him as an older brother that was protecting and defending his interests.
By the time the interrogation had ended, the young man had given the giant man not only what he wanted but his entire life story. So much information that the giant man knew him better than his real family.
"Zeak and Drax, it was incredible to meet you two. I''m finished asking you all the questions I can think of for now."
"Since you were so cooperative I won''t kill you but I want you toe here every day to report what you have been up to and what is happening in the city. Oh, and also look for information about the Spice immortal cultivator and Masked immortal cultivator." Yoze looked at the young man in front of him with interest.
The young man was strange as his appearance was simply abnormal for a human. He had the body of a young man in his early twenties but his head was weird. The young man''s eyeballs came from a human-sized lizard. He had five teardrop tattoos on his face in the outline of an upside-down pyramid. His skin was abnormally smooth as if it came from a doll.
From what the young man told him, all these strange features on his body were the result of his ex-teacher trying to convert him into a war doll only to be killed in the end by his student. As for the doll that he called his brother, it was his real brother that he had converted into a doll to save his life.
The young man''s story was incredibly interesting and would have been a grand story of an ordinary human rising to the top of the world to find a solution to turn his brother back into a human. Unfortunately, it seemed to him that he had unintentionally scrambled this young man''s mind.
It was all the three-headed fox demon''s spiritual energy''s fault as it created an invasive aura and illusion that made his mind crumble. Abination of the three-headed fox demon''s illusion, Zeak''s mind being oppressed, and slowed, and his mental defenses being lower than normal resulted in his mind scrambling.
Even though Yoze didn''t do it on purpose, he was happy with the results and nned to try to replicate this in his future interrogations. As for now, he wanted to see how long it would take Zeak''s mind to recover and how long he could make use of him.
So he asked Zeak and his brother to investigate the Spice immortal cultivator that had made his escape early and the mysterious Masked immortal cultivator. Yoze hoped that he could find either of them so he could kill them immediately.
Especially that Spice immortal cultivator since he had the same flower spiritual energy as Regi Regi and Winter. For that flower to show up again during this fight cemented in Yoze''s mind that they were up to no good and were his enemies.
As for the Masked immortal cultivator, he wasn''t sure if he was also Regi''s alter ego or someone else. But it didn''t matter to Yoze since had put his family in danger, he had to die.
"Umm, may I call you my big brother?" After getting most of Yoze''s spiritual pressure off his spiritual energy whirlpool Zeak asked.
"No, just call me... Golem." Yoze shook his head, rejecting Zeak''s request.
"Alright, I''ll call you Golem." Zeal sighed before he picked up his brother and walked towards the door.
"Before I forget Golem, can I have my recorder and bundle of string back?" Suddenly remembering that Yoze had taken his things, Zeak asked if he could get his most valuable possessions back.
"Not at the moment, I want to use them for something." Yoze shook his head as he never nned on giving Zeak anything back.
"Okay," After nodding his head in eptance, Zeak left with his brother in tow.
[24 hours have passed. Talent mark has been refreshed.]
After confirming that Zeak and Drax had left the area around the inn, Yoze walked back to his room to find Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer copsed on the ground. Hearing the door suddenly open startled the three of them causing them to snap their heads toward the door only to find that it was Yoze.
"It seems that you three had a great workout."
"..."
Whether it was because they were too tired to respond orzy, all three of them didn''t respond and focused on recovering their strength. Seeing that they were busy, Yoze went into the room where he stored his art supplies and ced the three men that had been turned into puppets.
Not particrly picky Yoze tossed his talent mark at one of them and examined their information.
[Name: Lio Spring]
[Age: 56 years old]
[Talents: Martial Art Comprehension (Grade 7), Body Cultivation (Grade 8), Swordsmanship (Grade 5), Fist Art (Grade 4)]
Chapter 138 138: Missing Blood Master
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"Hmm, so he was a martial artist before he was turned into a puppet. That exins why his physical ability is so high." Yoze noticed that all of Lio''s talents were realized in martial arts and understood why they were so difficult to capture.
"There is a high chance that he was a blood master before he was captured and turned into a puppet." Remembering the speed that the men in ck possessed, Yoze felt that the Masked immortal cultivator or Regi targeted martial artists.
It also exined why he seemed so interested in his body since he could have seen him as a good candidate to turn into a puppet. Just Yoze''s body alone was able to put Martial Grandmasters to shame. If Regi was sessful in turning him into a puppet he would gain the power to kill Martial Grandmasters and kill demons.
Yoze shook his head and decided to sit down and draw Lio''s portrait. With the name, age, and a decent drawing of his appearance Yoze felt that was enough to send to an investigator. He nned to use the time that it took Jewel to recover from her training to draw the portrait and fix some details to make it more urate.
An hour passed by and Yoze ced his paintbrush down as he felt he had gotten a good enough picture of Lio Spring that would be recognizable to anyone. At the same time, he also sensed that there was also movement on the other side of his room.
Standing up Yoze rolled up his painting and tied it up with a string. After tying it up, he put away his art supplies and helped the three men dressed in ck get intofortable positions before leaving the room.
"Jewel, are you feeling much better now?"
"Yup, I finally recovered enough energy to be able to move my body. Seeing the paper in your hands you want me to take you to the investigators." Jewel said as her eyes drifted toward therge roll of paper in Yoze''s hand.
"Yup, I''m ready to leave as soon as you are," Yoze said.
"Okay, let me go put on fresh clothes then we can leave."
"Alright," Yoze nodded his head in agreement.
After briefly talking with Jewel and waiting for her to get ready, the two of them left for the closest investigator whom she knew was good at collecting information on people. Once they arrived at the building they found a sign saying that they were temporarily closed to not being in town.
"Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do."
After discussing how poor their timing was, Yoze and Jewel visited another one of the investigators only to find that it also had a sign that they were out of town.
Yoze and Jewel looked at them with clear frowns on their faces. They felt that this was too much of a coincidence to have two investigators that they had chosen to both be out of town the moment they wanted to meet with them.
"This is too much of a coincidence, "
Even without having proof, Yoze felt that either Regi had paid these men off to deliberately close their offices or that he had chosen this particr time to attack because he knew that something was going on such that numerous investigators would be out of town.
"Let''s check out a few more investigators first before we head back home. There is bound to be at least one investigator that hasn''t left the city." Jewel said.
Yoze nodded his head agreeing with Jewel and decided to go visit all the investigators she had written down on her list. He felt that there was no harm in trying to get in contact with all the investigators even though it would take up some time.
He only hoped that by finding additional information about the identities of Regi''s puppets that he could figure out his true motive. As Yoze and Jewel went from investigator to investigator they found that every investigator they visited had left a sign that they had left town.
"There is only Detective Dave left." Jewel looked down at the list of names and addresses of ten investigators.
Nine out of the ten names on the list were crossed out, leaving only one name that Jewel and Yoze were familiar with. Understanding that this was theirst chance to have an expert investigator look for the identity of the Regi''s puppets.
They walked over to Detective Dave''s office hoping that they would be able to meet him. When they arrived they saw that the building where the detective resided was more or less the same as thest time they visited him.
What made them happy was that there were no signs that said that he was out of town. Yoze even noticed Detective Dave''s spiritual energy was inside the building.
Feeling relieved that they had found someone, Jewel knocked on the door to grab Detective Dave''s attention.
"Oh, you two are back."
Yoze looked at the small child whose spiritual energy was in the form of a dog and noticed that it had changed a bit from a few months ago. There were more brown spots on the dog''s fur and it looked even more realistic as its face became more detailed.
"Hi, we are here because we want to hire you three for another investigation." Jewel cheerfully said with a smile on her face.
"Okay,e in. The detective and Jasmine are waiting at the desk." The small child seemed to be more alert as his eyes darted from ce to ce as if he was looking for something.
"Thank you,"
After they entered the building Yoze and Jewel saw that Detective Dave was sitting at his desk reading the newspaper with a stern look on his face. While Jasmine was sitting on a small couch that had been added to the room ying with a small cube with multiple colored squares.
Just like what Yoze experienced previously he was unable to see Jasmine''s spiritual energy unless he saw it unobstructed. However, what made him excited was the fact that her spiritual energy which was in the form of multi-colored sses had gotten thicker and even gotten a new hue.
"Incredible, I need to know if she has awakened a new talent rted to spiritual energy in thest few months." Yoze thought to himself, making a mental note to visit the detective''s office tomorrow.
Yoze then turned his attention to Detective Dave and was a bit disappointed to see that there was no change in his spiritual energy. It was still the same orange triangle as thest time he had visited.
"Yoze, Jewel it''s good to see you two again. I''ll be honest, the past few months have been slow so seeing two high-paying customers is good." Detective Dave chuckled to himself before continuing.
"Anyways, why is it that you are here today?"
"We are here to see if you are willing to take a case to collect information on someone," Yoze said as he unrolled his drawing of Lio Spring.
"This is a man named Lio Spring and I would like to hire you to collect information about his past and who he met in thest few years."
"Hmmm, interesting" Detective Dave took a nce at the newspaper in his hand before looking at Yoze''s picture of Lio Spring.
"Normally, I wouldn''t take this case since we are not in the business of collecting information on people. We focus more on finding people like how we tracked down your siblings."
"But I will make an exception this time since he has been ssified by the government as a missing person." Detective Dave said.
"When did he disappear?" Yoze didn''t expect that he would get information about one of the puppets so soon and couldn''t help but ask a follow-up question.
"Let me start at the top. Lio Spring is the name of a well-known Blood Master. He was known as the Bloody Tornado as he could transform into a tornado of blood that could tear people to shreds. "
"Even though he was cruel and a bastard to ordinary citizens, the city didn''t care since he was a great asset to deal with the martial art sect''s Blood Masters. However, a few years ago he suddenly went missing without a trace and the only clue to his disappearance was that he had been visiting an old man in thest few months before his disappearance."
"As thest person to be visited by Lio, the government had sent numerous people to get clues from the old man but they ended up concluding that had known nothing. So they only sent out a search request in hopes that someone could find him but after months passed with nothing they closed the case andbeled him missing." Detective Dave finished his speech and looked at Yoze, noticing that he looked very satisfied with his knowledge of the issue.
"Since Lio Spring is considered a missing person I am willing to take your request." Detective Dave said.
"No need. You just gave me all the information I needed. Thank you, Detective." Yoze smiled as he didn''t expect to get everything he needed on the first visit.
"What do you mean? Can I ask what part of the information you wanted to hear?" Detective Dave looked surprised as he didn''t expect his rambling to cause him to lose a high-paying customer.
"I just wanted to know who he had been visited by before he went missing. And I already have a good idea who the old man is and can find him on my own."
Chapter 139 139: An Offer
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"Well, I think that old man will be finding me soon so it shouldn''t be too difficult in the end," Yoze added, feeling that with how he had interacted with Regi and his alter ego, Winter, he was going to see him soon.
"I see," Detective Dave felt like he understood what Yoze meant.
Yoze wasn''t really interested in looking to collect information about the missing Blood Master. He just wanted to confirm if Bloody Tornado had been hanging out with his enemy.
"Yoze must have known that Blood Master Bloody Tornado was missing or he wouldn''t havee here to find out information about his enemy." Detective Dave''s eyes slightly widened as he looked at Yoze with suspicion.
"Since you have helped me with what I want I''ll still pay my dues. " Yoze took out his pouch full of silver coins and took out 100 silver coins.
"Detective Dave I also have a request that I believe will benefit both of us."
"Hmmm," Detective Dave nced at the pile of coins in front of him and dly took the money.
However, he was hesitant to ept Yoze''s request without knowing the details so he waited for him to speak first.
"You said that the Bloody Tornado had been missing for years and even has a missing posture for him, right? Does that mean there is a reward for finding him?"
"Yes, 500 silver to be exact."
"What if I said that I found him, would you be willing to deal with the trouble of turning him in and getting the reward money? For the trouble, you would of course get 50 percent of the total reward." Yoze graciously offered.
"Jasmine, Adame here and tell me your opinion on Mr. Thunder''s offer." Detective Dave turned to his two young assistants for their opinion.
Jasmine stood up from the small couch on which she sat and ced the small cube in her hand down. While she and Adam walked behind the desk that Detective Dave sat behind and stood next to him.
"I''ll go first, " Jasmine looked at Detective Dave for permission before turning to look at Yoze with clear suspicion.
"In my opinion, he isn''t just offering us to get some additional money from bringing the Blood master back. He must have a different intention that he will only reveal after we ept his offer." Jasmine confidently said.
"She hit the nail on the head." Yoze thought to himself.
Jasmine was correct to assume that Yoze wasn''t only offering to give Lio Spring to the Detective for some extra money. He wanted to give all three men that Regi had used puppets to the Detective to deal with.
He also wanted to use this opportunity to tell the Detective about all the rogue immortal cultivators that were turned into vegetables around the inn. It had been some time since Yoze had spiritually killed all of the rogue immortal cultivators that tried to invade his home.
Unfortunately, just like how he had to somehowe up with a way to deal with the Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder''s body he had to do the same with the immortal cultivators. Yoze wanted to use this rare opportunity to collect rare talents and improve his Crystal Nerves talent but he didn''t want to keep their bodies inside his room.
Just the upkeep in trying to keep all 10 people alive for months was not something that Yoze was interested in and he didn''t want to deal with the legal ramifications if he was caught. So for the past few hours, he had thought about a few ways to deal with a good way to deal with their bodies.
After some time he settled on just handing all that responsibility over to the city government to deal with. And just like the deal he had made with them over the Tree Sect members and Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder, he hoped he could get the same deal.
Yoze hoped that by going through this route he would be able to collect the various talents from these immortal cultivators without having to take care of them. Unfortunately, there was also the issue of how he was supposed to convince the government to keep these immortal cultivators'' bodies alive when they looked like ordinary humans.
It wasn''t difficult for Yoze to convince the city about keeping the Tree Sect members alive for Yoze to visit since they were still alive and had their minds intact so they had valuable information that the City could gather from them. There was also no issue with keeping the body of a Martial Grandmaster alive since all Martial Grandmaster bodies could be valuable research material.
The bodies of immortal cultivators are different from the bodies of martial artists since most immortal cultivators don''t strengthen their bodies. They only focused on cultivating the path to immortality.
However, until theypleted the Crystal Brain realm they were no different from regr humans in general. Since most of their special abilities came from them using their crystal energy.
So it would be harder for Yoze to convince the City to keep all these rogue immortal cultivators alivepared to when he only had to offer the opportunity when he captured martial artists.
That was why he wanted to see if he could use the Detective and his connections to convince the City without getting too involved in the matter. As for getting ess to each one of them, he would figure that outter.
Detective Dave slowly nodded his head before he turned to the small child beside him.
"I don''t like him. He''s got a dangerous smell to him." Adam shook his head as he quickly made it clear that he felt that Yoze was too dangerous to work with.
"I see," Detective Dave looked at Yoze and saw that his face didn''t flinch at how both his assistants felt they shouldn''t work with him.
"Adam, I didn''t ask for your opinion about our client but his offer. But since you mentioned how dangerous he seems, Jasmine, what is your opinion about our clients?" Detective Dave asked not at all afraid of upsetting his client.
Chapter 140 140: Yoze Is Too Dangerous
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"My pleasure," Jasmine perked up hearing that she had the opportunity to show her dislike for Yoze.
"In my opinion, working with this client is too dangerous. Just from the few times I have met him he has always given me the feeling that he is hiding something."
"Normally that''s fine since everyone has secrets but the secret that he has must be enormous and incredibly dangerous. It would be too dangerous for us to continue working with him."
"If he felt that we were encroaching on his secret he would probably think of shutting our mouths by killing us."
Yoze was stunned at how Jasmine and Adam both mentioned how dangerous he was. He wanted to disagree with Jasmine''s thoughts that he would kill them. But when he thought about what she said about him being willing to kill them if they found out his secret he couldn''t refute it.
If there was a chance that they figured out that he had the Second Best System that allowed him to copy other people''s talents he would be forced to either make sure that they were on his side or kill them.
However, Yoze didn''t feel that there would ever be a time when he had to make that decision when rted to his cheat. Simply because he left too little evidence for someone to ever figure out what his cheat could do.
Just like how Jewel had thought that the Serpent demon had taken over his body and was nning to use his body for some kind of grand scheme. Yoze was confident that others would have other simr misunderstandings and didn''t care if they misunderstood the nature of his cheat.
"From his bodynguage, powerful body, attitude, and mindset he is fine with killing as long as it doesn''t bring him trouble. He also has plenty of blood on his hands." Jasmine continued.
"What makes me the most nervous is how he shows that he is someone that tends to focus on one thing and everything else takes a backseat. We are obviously not a priority in his mind and that wouldn''t change even if we began to work with each other closely."
"Once we be an inconvenience for him, he would be more than willing to drop us at the drop of a hat. He might even try to extract as much value from us before leaving us dry." Jasmine crossed her arms as she felt herself on a roll.
Yoze on the other hand felt that once again he couldn''t refute her ims since it was true. He did focus on martial arts and his family and pushed everything else into a secondary position.
There were both personal and external factors as to why he had such a focus however the most important was the fact that Yoze felt this world was dangerous. The world was filled with unimaginable dangers that put him and his family in peril.
To protect his family and allow them to have a great life, Yoze ced a lot of importance on making himself stronger. As long as he was strong he would be able to protect his family and extend their lives by hunting demons.
Yoze also knew that having money was also extremely important to not only allowing his family to havefortable lives but also giving them financial freedom. Anything that Yoze couldn''t solve himself or couldn''t do in a fast and convenient manner could be solved with money.
The money that came with being a schr was one of the reasons that the whole family was brought back together. It was also why he could support Tiki''s, Dreyer''s, and his father''s passions.
Having both strength and money was extremely important to him since it represents that his family is living well. However, this was only possible because Yoze had gotten the Second Best System when he did.
If he had never gotten his cheat or had gotten it after the schr exam it was guaranteed that his father would have died a long time ago either due to his sickness or from his old age. If his father had died there was little chance that he would have been able to reunite with Tiki and Dreyer.
In the end, the family would have been broken and scattered.
With the possibility that he would be alone in this world without family, Yoze wanted to do everything that would keep that possibility low. Even if he had to ditch his friends and business partners, Yoze was willing to do that.
Yoze secretly nced at Jewel toward his side and saw how she was passionately nodding her head in agreement with everything Jasmine said. He couldn''t help but think if there was a future where he would have to abandon her.
"Lastly, he just gives me a feeling that he isn''t human." After saying herst point, Jasmine ran behind Detective Dave as if she feared that Yoze would retaliate.
"I agree with Jasmine, it''s like he is barely human. Just look at how big he is, a human can''t grow to such a size." Adam also ran behind Detective Dave as he agreed with Jasmine.
"I also agree, Yoze really shouldn''t be human," Jewel added.
"Jewel whose side are you on?" Yoze was speechless by what Jewel let out.
He knew clearly that she felt that he wasn''t human so why was she agreeing with them if she felt it was true? It was as if an enemy team used them of a crime and then their teammate exposed the fact that they didmit said crime.
Was she not scared by the fact that as a demon he would just kill her and everyone inside this building?
"What I''m on the side with the cute kids. If you want me to side with you, pay me more money." Jewel smiled at Yoze as she put out her hand signaling him to give her money.
"Forget it then, I''m not paying you even a single copper coin." Yoze shook his head and clutched his money pouch tightly showing his resolve.
Noticing that Yoze didn''t care about the fact that his two favorite assistants had just badmouthed his character, Detective Dave sighed as he knew that Jasmine was right. Yoze didn''t care about them at all and only wanted to use them for his own benefit.
Chapter 141 141: Blood Weapon Handler
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Detective Dave''s eyes shifted below his desk and saw his empty money pouch. He sighed and looked at Yoze.
"After considering it, we are willing to work with you on this matter. However, I will be answering the City''s questions with honesty. As long as that''s not an issue, we can work together just fine."
"It''s nice to work with you, Detective. I''ll tell you directly then, I rescued three missing Blood Masters from a battle with my enemy. Unfortunately, they are not well mentally."
"I also would like you to report a few more people to the government while you are at it." Yoze smiled as he told Detective Dave some basic information about what he wanted him to do.
Detective Dave nodded and gave Yoze a sign for him to leave, which he obliged. When Yoze and Jewel returned to the Ten Ton Inn, they saw Tiki and Dreyer waiting for them in the hall.
"Yoze, you got a letter from Grandpa Regi. We already looked through it. And found that it was his birthday invitation for his birthday that''sing up in a few weeks and hopes that youe and bring the family to New Swamp Town for the celebration." Dreyer said, handing an open white envelope with a piece of paper in mind.
Yoze grabbed the white envelope and read the birthday invitation, finding that Dreyer''s analysis was correct. Even though Yoze had a letter in his hand from Regi he didn''t believe a word of it.
"That''s nice of him. If you guys want to go, we can leave a few days before his birthday to visit." Yoze handed the envelope back and said.
He knew that his father, Tiki, and Dreyer still viewed Regi as a friend. So he didn''t tell them about his hypothesis that Regi was their enemy. If possible he wanted to kill Regi without his father knowing that Regi had it out for them.
"Alright, I''ll go ask Dad if he is interested in going," Dreyer said knowing that their Dad was most likely interested in visiting his friend''s birthday.
After chatting more, Yoze asked them to go get changed as it was time for their next training session. Tiki and Dreyer sighed as they were still sore from their morning training session but they still went to their rooms and got changed into new training outfits.
As all four of them grew used to the training sessions, Yoze found himself once again with some free time. Last time, he was able to spend his free time improving his painting skills.
Now that he had gotten the information that he wanted, improving his painting skill was once again not a high priority.
"Let''s continue adapting the Blood Swordsman body cultivation method to fit my needs. The sooner I be a blood master the less I have to worry about not being strong enough to deal with any situation."
Having made his decision, Yoze took out the Blood Swordsman body cultivation manual and quickly found himself engrossed in the book. Each time he read the Blood Swordsman body cultivation method, Yoze was able to find small areas of the method that he could change to fit his needs.
In such an engrossed state, an hour quickly passed by before Yoze had to temporarily stop so they could eat. However, even as he ate lunch and dinner Yoze kept thinking about how he could adapt the Blood Swordsman body cultivation method.
Before long, a few days passed by rtively peacefully, other than Detective Daveing over with his assistants and a few men dressed in metal armor to take away the three men in ck as well as the immortal cultivators'' bodies everything was peaceful.
In these few days of peaceful Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel found themselves improving in their respective body cultivation methods quickly. Even though Tiki and Dreyercked talent in martial artprehension, body cultivation, and other talents rted to martial arts they still made rapid progress with Yoze''s instructions.
Not only that, he was able to confirm his hypothesis that by teaching others new skills he could make them unlock their hidden talents. For example, even though Tikicks talent in martial arts she had a grade-5 talent in flexibility and a grade-7 talent in pain tolerance.
Dreyer himself likewise gained a grade-8 talent in multitasking due to his training in the Sinking Swamp body cultivation method. With thebination of Tiki and Dreyer gaining new talents and receiving Yoze''s teachings, they quickly improved.
However, their training speed was nothingpared to a talented martial artist like Jewel. With her talents alone and a bit from her parents, Jewel became a peak third-rate martial artist in her teens.
If it wasn''t because she had gotten bottlenecked and chose to travel for a few years, she could have be a second-rate martial artist a long time ago. However, that didn''t matter to her as her current progress swiftly made up for her temporary break.
Due to her constant eating of demon meat, she broke through her bottleneck and became a second-rate martial artist. Now that she was getting help from Yoze, she reached the first level of Boneless Man swiftly.
With her current progress, she was confident that she could reach the peak of the first level in a month and break through to the second soon after. What made Jewel more satisfied as she was making such fast progress withoutpromising on her training in her body cultivation method.
That meant she was now one of the few rare martial artists who have trained in multiple body cultivation methods. If it was a few years ago, before she met Yoze, she would not have never dared to dream that she could join their ranks.
While Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer were focusing on improving themselves, Yoze quietly closed the book he was reading with a small smile on his face.
Yoze smiled to himself as he had justpleted adapting the Blood Swordsman body cultivation method to the new and improved Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method.
The name was a mouth full but it embodied the next level of his journey to the top. If Yoze was correct in his assessment of his body cultivation method then it could be considered to be one of the best Blood Master body cultivation methods in the world.
Yoze predicted that if an ordinary person trained in his body cultivation method they would be capable of challenging Blood Masters above their level. However, as for whether they could beat someone above their level he didn''t know since he had not trained in the Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method yet.
But he was confident that other Blood Martial artists would hate being the target of someone who trained in the Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation because they would feel like they were fighting against multiple Blood Masters.
What Yoze was the most satisfied with about his new body cultivation method was the fact he no longer needed to wear armor to train. He didn''t even need to have weapons on hand as they were required because anyone who trained in this body cultivation method was the weapon.
Yoze was so excited aboutpleting his new body cultivation method that during dinner he asked his father to cook him a hundred more pounds of demon meat. Knowing full well that he was going to need it when he began his training.
After helping Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer with their training for the rest of the day and eating dinner as the sun went down. Yoze sneaked out of the inn and left the city to find a ce he could focus on breaking through to the next level.
It didn''t take long before he found a small hill that was covered in a thick nket of trees that extended miles high, bushes, and additional wildlife. If this ce was found back on earth it would have been made into a national park.
Unfortunately for this small hill and its nt life, Yoze felt that this ce was perfect for his breakthrough. If anything he felt that this ce resembled the forest that he had initially used as a training ground back at Jade City.
Just stepping inside the beautiful forest and smelling the crisp cold fresh air make Yoze rx for the first time in a long time. Yoze decided to appreciate the forest for its beauty for a few minutes to carve its existence into his heart knowing that he was about to destroy the ce.
After a few minutes passed, Yoze pulled up his stat window to get a better understanding of where he was and for him to be able to checkter on if any changes would happen once he broke through.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 23 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension, Art, Physical, Martial Arts, Spiritual, Crystal Talents, Weapon, Hunting, Other]
[Technique Categories: Martial Arts, Blood Arts, Spiritual Arts, Crystal Arts]
[Talent Mark: 1]
[Martial Arts]
[Techniques: Twin Fists (Rank 5: 20%), Big Golem(Level 6: 103%), Iron Skin (Level 4: 5%), Mindless Legs (Stage 6: 30%), Boneless Man (Stage 3: 100%), Turtle Shell (Level 1: 100%), Sinking Swamp (Level 5: 100%), Armored Weapon Handler (Level 5: 100%), Armored Weapon Juggler (Level 5: 100%), Armored Weapon Shuffle (Level 5: 100%)]
Chapter 142 142: Blood Master Yoze
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"Not bad, it has changed a lotpared to when I started." Yoze looked through his long list of martial art, blood, spiritual, and hunting techniques.
He felt pleased with the fact that he was able to have so many martial art techniques maxed out. He even had a decent amount that had broken through their limits, reaching new levels.
What attracted his gaze, in the end, was his Armored Weapon martial art set. That included a body cultivation method and two techniques.
"Let''s get started," Yoze took a deep breath and exhaled.
He picked up a stick off of the ground and began to wave it like a sword. Each sh whirled up a sharp gust of wind.
With every sh, Yoze felt a bit more pressure in his veins. It was a pressure that he was familiar with but also different. The pressure didn''t cause his blood to boil and raise his body temperature. Instead, it felt as if it caused his blood to circte a bit faster every cycle.
After swinging the stick in a sword-like fashion for a while Yoze suddenly lifted the stick above his head. Even though the stick was almost weightless to Yoze his arms looked as if they were carrying a mountain.
They were turning blood red as his veins expanded to take the form of thick snakes coiling around tree trunks.
"Boom!"
Yoze swung the stick down as if he was trying to cut the earth with a mighty axe strike. Before he was even able toplete the strike the stick in his hand could no longer handle the pressure.
In an instant, it exploded to tree dust but the force that it carried didn''t disappear. A long line that was 12 inches deep and 6 feet long carved the earth.
Afterpleting his axe sh, Yoze looked at his arms and noticed that his thick veins had spread across his entire body. If anyone saw Yoze their hearts would stop at the sight of such a terrifying monster.
Even though he saw his veins nearly popping out of his skin, Yoze didn''t mind instead he felt that it wasn''t nearly enough. He walked over to a tree that was three people thick and tore a thick branch off its trunk.
He wanted a stick that couldst a little longer. After doing some test swings, Yoze did the same routine of swinging the thick tree branch like a sword and axe.
"Boom!"
This time the tree branch held up and carved a 20-foot-long and 20 inches deep line into the earth. Satisfied that the tree branch held up, Yoze switched his style to stabbing with the stick as if he held a spear.
After aplishing nearly 100 spear attacks, the veins on Yoze''s body had doubled in size alongside the rest of his body following suit.
"Badum! Badum! Badum!"
Yoze''s heartbeat thumped in his chest so hard that it was audible to the forest creatures and resembled drum beats. With each thump of his heart, Yoze felt more blood being produced in his body.
"Badum! Badum!! Badum!!!"
"Crack! Crack!! Crack!!!"
With every thump of his heart, the pressure on his body increased to the point and drew him closer and closer to bing a Blood Master. With each thump of his heart, the crisp sound of cracking bones echoed throughout Yoze''s body.
With each thump, his bones healed and his muscles expanded, and he grew slightly. The pressure was so enormous that Yoze automatically began to train his Big Golem body cultivation method producing a steady stream of heavy inner vigor in his growing body.
[Big Golem (Level 6: 109%)]
[Big Golem (Level 6: 112%)]
[Big Golem (Level 6: 115%)]
Even though Yoze was quickly improving his Big Golem body cultivation, he didn''t pay any mind as he was engrossed entirely inpleting every sh, stab, and swing in the best technique he could.
Before long Yoze''s skin had turned dark red as it triggered a reaction out of his Armored Weapon Handler Inner Vigor. The inner vigor suddenly began pouring into his heart and began to fuse with every drop of his blood.
Before long thest strand of Armored Weapon Handler Inner Vigor was fused into his blood but Yoze didn''t feel like it was enough. That was when he felt his body begin producing more Armored Weapon Handler''s thick inner vigor.
The newly produced inner vigor was sucked into his heart as if it was a ck hole. Every strand was absorbed into his blood causing Yoze to feel an unknown power and link to his blood.
He felt as if he could summon his blood outside his body and manipte it to take the shape of armor and deadly weapons. This fusion process continued until all of his blood contained the thick inner vigor.
What surprised Yoze, even more, was how his blood had gained the ability to interact with his other types of inner vigor. As the most prominent, Big Golem''s heavy inner vigor seemed to be forcing itself into his blood just like Armored Weapon Handler''s thick inner vigor.
Unfortunately for the heavy inner vigor, it seemed like it couldn''t be the dominant position inside his blood being forced into a subordinate role inside his blood. It wasn''t just Big Golem''s inner vigor but all his inner vigor tried to enter his blood only to be subordinate to thick inner vigor.
[Blood Weapon Handler (Level 1: 1%)]
Just in time, Yoze received a notification from his system about his advancement which made him smile. He felt a burst of power inside his 8 feet tall body and felt the urge to unleash it.
"Come out!" Yoze shouted at the top of his lungs.
With his about, he activated his new body cultivation method causing a burst of blood to pour out of his pours. Within seconds he was coveredpletely in a thickyer of blood that took on the shape of a suit of medieval knight armor.
Even with it being madepletely out of blood, it had a metallic shine and hardness to it that made one certain that it could withstand even the sharpest des.
Complementing the appearance of his blood armor a thick blood mist began to form around him. The blood mist gave a sense of heaviness that made one''s heart and soul feel pressured.
Chapter 143 143: Finding My Original Spiritual Energy
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The blood mist grew thick and expanded until it touched the forest nt life. What ensued next was the destruction of everything that came in contact with Yoze''s blood.
With the slightest touch, the blood mist poked holes through the nt life causing it to be torn to shreds. With nothing capable of blocking its rapid expansion the blood mist transformed into a blood fog that covered the forest that covered the hill.
A thick scent of blood entered Yoze''s nostrils, bringing him an excited feeling. A significant feeling of power covered his entire body making him want to fight someone.
With no one here to test his battle prowess, Yoze decided to stick to testing his new ability on the poor destroyed hill. Without bothering to grab a stick or a weapon, he lifted his arm in the same position as if he had an axe.
"Axe,"
With a single thought, Yoze''s blood crawled up his arm and took up the shape of arge sharp battle axe that weighed over a ton. Lightly swinging his blood axe, Yoze utilized a small percentage of his power allowing the power of weight to rule.
"Axe sh!"
"Boom!!!"
The mere force generated by his battle axe hitting the ground caused a mini earthquake to gue the hill as an enormous crack in the earth formed. The crack was so deep and massive that anyone who arrived back at this hill would assume that a truly massive earthquake had done devastating damage to the hill and the environment.
"Spear Stab!"
"Boom!!!"
Yoze wasn''t satisfied with only unleashing a single attack to test his power. He quickly molded his battle axe into the form of a spear and stabbed the air.
A thunderous sonic boom came from the explosion that urred when his spear pierced the air. Looking at the results of the air and blood fog being split apart all the way through with only destruction following it, made Yoze smile under his blood armor.
"Incredible, is this the power of bing a Blood Master," Yoze said, feeling that all the difficulty he faced reaching this point was all worth it.
"If only I could be the equivalent of a Blood Master for spiritual energy then I''ll predict I could kill demons that are hundreds of years old without much trouble." Yoze licked his teeth as his desire to solve his talent conflict reignited.
"The issue is that I''m not talented enough with manipting spiritual energy so it takes a longer time than I hoped. But the harder it is the more benefits thate with it."
"Just imagining being able to survive lethal injuries like they''re nothing sounds magical. I might even be able to create spiritual puppets."
As Yoze was thinking about all the magical techniques and abilities he had seen demons perform he suddenly remembered that both the Armored Elephant demon and the Swamp Leopard demon both had ways to add consciousness to their spiritual energy.
"Even though the Leopard demoncks talent in spiritual energy maniption it was able to have fantastic control of its spiritual energy once it was added to it. It is simr to a cheat code to increase your spiritual energy control."
As Yoze''s mind wandered back to his experience with the Leopard demon he recalled how fiercely it tried to find his spiritual energy even to its detriment.
"What happened to my spiritual energy? If demons, humans, and other living creatures all have their spiritual energy, where is mine?"
Yoze recalled that even as far back as when he took the Serpent demon''s body cultivation talent he seemed to have lost his human spiritual energy. It was as if it was reced with the serpent demon''s spiritual energy.
Initially, he didn''t pay much mind since he always assumed that it either converted into new types of spiritual energy or was just hidden in his body. However, Yoze was certain that his spiritual energy shouldn''t have been converted into the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy or any of his demon''s spiritual energies.
The reason why he was so confident was that he bore witness to what happened to his existing spiritual energies when he gained a new spiritual body cultivation talent. What happens is that his existing spiritual energies are split apart to create and feed the new spiritual energy.
With his thought process, he had a bold idea of why he couldn''t find his original spiritual energy. He believed it all started when he copied the Serpent demon''s spiritual body cultivation talent.
The moment he copied the Serpent demon''s talent his original spiritual energy was dragged into his body and split apart into two parts. The first part was transformed into the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy while the second part was still his original spiritual energy.
Right as the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy was born it was fed by the Serpent demon''s own life spiritual energy. Causing the two spiritual energies that were of simr size to no longer be proportional to each other.
Instead, it caused the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy to dwarf his original spiritual energy in size and strength. That was why he couldn''t see his original spiritual energy above his head when he checked.
As well as had a hard time sensing his original spiritual energy which had shrunk by at least half.
"Wait, does that mean as I got more spiritual energy talents it became harder and harder for me to sense my original spiritual energy?" Yoze''s eyes widened as he felt enlightened.
If his thoughts were correct then his original spiritual energy was even weaker than he initially imagined. If all his spiritual energies had to contribute some of their spiritual energy to the neers then didn''t that mean his original spiritual energy had been split at least four times?
His original spiritual energy had been split apart for the Serpent demon, Three-Headed Fox demon, Armored Elephant demon, and the Swamp Leopard demon.
"With how much my original spiritual energy contributed, how am I going to find it? It might have be just a single strand of spiritual energy by now."
Chapter 144 144: Human Spiritual Body Cultivation
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"I either need to forget about ever finding my original spiritual energy or I''m going to spend arge amount of my time trying to find it."
"It''s going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. It''s going to be troublesome but why would I give up on what is mine?" Yoze shook his head as he made up his mind.
He looked up at the night sky with glittering stars before recalling back his blood armor. Just as quickly his blood formed his blood armor and created a forest-wide blood fog. It all returned to his body allowing him to witness the true destruction he had left behind in his wake.
Looking around he saw that there wasn''t a single tree, bush, grass, or any nt life around him. There were only the corpses of the nts he had killed and the scars that he carved into the hill.
"I didn''t think the blood mist that I formed was this destructive. I might need to be careful with where I activate it and who is around me or I''m going to identally kill someone."
Yoze clicked his tongue with surprise but he was even more pleased with the results of his reaching the Blood Master realm. After marveling at his work, Yoze sat down on the ground and took a deep breath.
Calming himself down, he closed his eyes to allow his remaining spiritual senses to be enhanced. Very quickly he found himself back in the ck void that contained his spiritual energies.
He easily saw the towering and oppressive body of the Serpent demon. The Serpent demon''s ck scales and strong body did little to hide theplex structure of the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy body cultivation path.
Just as impressive were the other three demons that ruled this space. The Three-Headed Fox demon roamed around with an aloof attitude mixed with a devilish cunningness. The Armored Elephant demon was a towering metal mountain that made everything seem small inparison. The Swamp Leopard demon as the new member seemed to take a more cautious attitude but the strength of its body couldn''t be hidden.
Each one of these demons showed their spiritual energy body cultivation paths to Yoze. Allowing him to see how every one of them shared amon straight of being weaker in certain spots where they all collided.
The sight of these demons would have always been his main focus every time he came to this space but now he was here to find another. Walking around the ck void, Yoze found that if he stopped thinking about where he was going he would end up in front of one of the demons.
It was simply because their presence was too strong and overwhelmingpared to everything else. Even with Yoze''s sharp senses, it was difficult for him to see through the fog.
But he wasn''t willing to give up so easily just because he kept failing. Even as time flew by like the wind, he kept looking and searching the ck void, and inside his body.
After an unknown amount of time, something eventually caught one of Yoze''s senses. It was faint, weak, and very differentpared to his other spiritual energies.
"Let''s go, I need to grab this opportunity."
Feeling exhrated at his discovery, Yoze''s mind snapped to focus on the small traces of this new spiritual energy. Following the faint trail, he eventually found it.
Right in front of him was a ball of gray spiritual energy. The ball of spiritual energy was so small that it was only made up of five strands. It was too weak to even take up a shape or form that normal human spiritual energy could aplish.
"Hahaha, after all this work I finally found my original spiritual energy. I was even able to find it before it had be a single strand." Yozeughed seeing his spiritual energy.
If someone looked at his original spiritual energy alone they would assume that he was about to die. He couldn''t even risk bringing his spiritual energy outside his body because the outside world would instantly destroy it.
"Okay, now that I found you. I need to test if it is easier to manipte my original spiritual energy or if it is just as hard as the others." Yoze pped his hand to make him focus on manipting the clump of five gray strands.
After a few experiments, Yoze concluded that manipting his original spiritual energy was just as difficult as his other spiritual energies. The only difference was that due to his original spiritual energy being so real it made it easier to move it around his body.
"That is expected. Technically all these different types of spiritual energies are my spiritual energy with no difference between each other."
"Since there is no difference between my original spiritual energy and the spiritual energy that was createdter on. I wonder if I can use this spiritual energy for spiritual body cultivation."
"If I can this would solve the issue of my original spiritual energy being too weak to be of any use."
"If not then I''m going to need to find a way to prevent my other spiritual energies from devouring the spiritual energy I absorb to allow my original spiritual energy to grow." Yoze looked at his original spiritual energy and began making it follow a path around his body.
At first, nothing happened but suddenly he felt a slight shock follow through his body when he moved his original spiritual energy through one of the conflict zones. The shock wasn''t him losing control or pain but a feeling of being refreshed.
Yoze tried passing his spiritual energy through the other conflict zones and found that he got the same shock and refreshed sensation.
"Let''s try forming a path that goes through all the conflict zones."
After connecting all the conflict zones in his body using his original spiritual energy, Yoze shook as he sensed that he was on the right path. It just wasn''t perfect yet, as long as he found the remaining spots in his body that his original spiritual energy needed to pass he would form the perfect spiritual body cultivation path.
However, he stopped there as he didn''t need to go any further at the moment since he had gotten what he wanted and more.
[Human Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 0)]
Chapter 145 145: 2 Talent Marks
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"I didn''t know I could unlock talents of my own. I thought I was supposed to be talentless from the Second Best System standards." Yoze licked his lips with expectations as he pulled up his status window.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 23 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension, Art, Physical, Martial Arts, Spiritual, Crystal, Weapon, Hunting, Other]
[Technique Categories: Martial Arts, Blood Arts, Spiritual Arts, Crystal Arts]
[Talent Marks: 2]
[Crystal Talents (Recent Changes)]
[ze Immortal (Grade 3), OverKill immortal (Grade 4)]
[Spiritual Talents (Recent Changes)]
[Human Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 0)]
[Other Talents (Recent Changes)]
[Rock Collector (Grade 3)]
[Martial Arts (Recent Changes)]
[Techniques: Big Golem(Level 6: 200%), Blood Weapon Handler (Level 1: 1%)]
"There are a lot of changes this time." Yoze was surprised and happy that his cheat had improved by quite a decent margin.
After spending some time figuring out the changes, he figured out that his system had gone through three updates. The first update was rted to how his panel disyed itself.
Previously whenever he wanted to view any of the categories, the system would pull up all the items that were in that category. This wasn''t a problem when the categories were small like his Crystal talent category.
But for any category that had more items, it became difficult to see the new additions and changes that ur inside each category. While getting a notification about the changes was helpful these notifications only happen once before disappearing.
Forcing him to check the massive talent categories to see what new talents he had to acquire that week. Now every time he pulled up his status window he would see the most recent changes in each category.
The second update allowed him to now view a brief description of anything inside his system. All he needed to do was think about viewing a description of something and it would open in a small window.
[Grade 0: Grade 0 is the most recent addition to the Second Best System grades of talent due to the user acquiring a talent that hasn''t been unlocked by humanity. Grade 0 means that the user receives a 0 percent bonus when ites to a certain talent.]
"I''m the first human to unlock our talent to train in Spiritual Body Cultivation? That''s surprising but it makes sense why I haven''t met any human who is talented in anything connected to spiritual energy."
"Also a grade 0 talent doesn''t get a bonus? Can''t I get a founder bonus or something?" Yoze sighed seeing that he wouldn''t be getting any help when it came to Human Spiritual body cultivation.
After sighing, Yoze checked the description of his new talents, hoping to see if he could get a better sense of how to make use of them.
[ze Immortal Talent: This talent is rted to the immortal cultivation system of a particr method. Receive a bonus for anything rted to the ze immortal cultivation manual.]
[OverKill Immortal Talent: Receive a bonus for anything rted to the OverKill immortal cultivation manual.]
[Rock Collector: Receive a bonus for anything rted to learning and collecting rocks.]
Looking at the talents he collected from the rogue immortal cultivators, Yoze wasn''t particrly excited about any of them since they didn''t provide much use at the moment. Yoze practiced the Fire Immortal cultivation manual since that was the only manual he has gotten from Tiki.
Since he didn''t have the Overkill or ze Immortal manuals there wasn''t much he could gain from these talents. There was also the Rock Collector talent he had gotten from one of the rogue immortal cultivators.
He had hoped that it might have been like the other two talents where it was rted to an immortal cultivation method since this was the second rogue immortal cultivator with this talent. Unfortunately, it was just as he feared the talent was pretty basic and would only be useful in certain situations.
"Since they all have impure quality-level talents their Crystal Nerve talent doesn''t go above grade 4. I already reached the limit that rogue immortal cultivators could give me." Yoze hoped that the rumors that real immortals were arriving were real so he could improve his immortal cultivation talent.
After clearing his thoughts about the usefulness of his talents, he turned his focus to the third change. He had gotten an additional talent mark allowing him to have two talent marks at a time.
This was extremely useful as he could now more easily acquire talents without having to spend weeks on one talented person. What made him even more excited was the possibility of him being able to get more talent marks in the future.
"I might get another talent mark once I reach the Martial Grandmaster realm meaning I can copy three talents every 24 hours." Yoze smiled at the thought of having a third talent mark, lifting his mood.
After making sure that there weren''t any other hidden changes, Yoze stood up and was about to head back home when he suddenly felt a cold breeze touch his skin. Looking down, he noticed that he had ruined his clothes because of how much he grew during his breakthrough.
Even though he purposely wore looser clothing in case he grew he didn''t think he would have increased his height by a whole foot. He was now 8 feet tall and was packed with nothing but muscle.
Even with his clothes being more flexible the rapid increase in height was too much. It was like an adult trying to put on kid clothes. The only thing that would happen are those clothes being ripped to shreds.
Not only that, he had gotten more muscles in proportion to his increased height. Allowing him to keep his good proportion strong physique but also resulted in his clothes ripping even more.
At the end of his breakthrough, he had no clothes on, leaving him butt naked. To save himself some decency, Yoze tied one of therger patches of his torn clothes and wrapped it around his waist.
Once he made the piece of cloth secure he began walking back to the city while appreciating the sunrise.
Chapter 146 146: The Giant Scholar
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Back at the New Swampscott City West gate, a long line of people had already turned hoping to be able to get into the city. Travelers, schrs, martial artists, and ordinary people had lined up all night to not lose their spots in line.
This was an ordinary sight to the guards at the West gate. At each gate were two guards who wore leather armor with the symbol of the City engraved on their chest te and shoulders.
As a high-paying job, many guards signed up were martial artists that had given up on reaching higher levels. Whether it was due to ack of talent, not enough resources, or a simple unwillingness to keep up with the harsh training requirements numerous martial artists choose to simply give up.
Jack was one of the many guards who were ex-martial artists but unlike others, he didn''t give up on training as a martial artist because he wanted to. He simply couldn''t after losing his arm due to a battle with his rival.
With his arm gone, he couldn''t practice his famous five-armed body cultivation method and technique. He couldn''t even switch to another set of martial arts because he had made a promise to his brother that he would only practice this one martial art.
With his future limited as a martial artist, Jack became a city guard to help make ends meet. After yawning and briefly chatting with his fellow guard he expected that today was going to be another ordinary day of letting people into the city.
"Tell us why you are here to-"
Just as Jack was cueing another person he suddenly felt his entire body freeze as an intense prickling sensation covered his body. Instantly bing alert to his sense of danger, Jack grabbed his battle hammer and got into his Five Armed Hammer God martial art stance.
It wasn''t just Jack, the other guard behind him also felt the same sensation of danger but due to him not having experience as a martial artist he didn''t know what to do to such an intense feeling of danger.
"Wait wait I didn''t do anything!" The fat merchant in front of Jack instantly put up his hands when he saw Jack grab his hammer.
Jack ignored the fat merchant and looked around to see where the threat wasing from. It didn''t take long before he found the source of what was triggering his danger senses since he stuck out like a sore thumb.
It came from a giant muscr man, around 8 feet tall, who only had a piece of cloth wrapped around his waist. The giant man would gently smile and nod his head every time someone would give up their spot to allow him to move forward.
He would even wave at the kids of families whenever he passed by. What made Jack speechless was the fact that the fearful faces of the kids quickly vanished, reced by curiosity and admiration after the giant man smiled and waved at them.
He even heard a mother and her child near the front of the line talking about the giant man.
"Mom, who is that? Can I grow to be so tall?" The child who looked like he was three years old looked at his mother with sparkling eyes.
"I don''t know, but he must be a famous martial artist. As for you growing so tall, of course you can, as long as you eat healthy and exercise." The mother smiled as she lectured her child.
"A martial artist? The people who fight the bad guys in the stories, wow. I want to be a martial artist." The child turned toward the giant man and waved his hand to draw his attention.
Jack almost wanted to jump out of his post to stop the youngster from drawing the giant man''s attention to them but it was toote as the giant man noticed them. The giant man smiled at the small child and waved back as he continued to walk uninterrupted to the front of the line.
When the giant man arrived in front of the mother and child he asked the child''s mother for permission to pick up the kid. The child''s mother gave her approval which resulted in the giant man cing the child on his shoulder and whispering something in his ear.
After whispering something he ced the child down and tried to wait in line. But the mother and child had moved out of their spot to allow him to go forward.
"Thank you,"
After moving forward, Jack smelled the faint scent of blooding from the giant man instantly bringing up the two words he dreaded.
"Blood Master,"
Before Jack recovered from his shock, the giant man had reached the front of the line where he and his fellow guard stood there stunned. It was only when they saw the giant man right in front of them with nothing blocking their sight did they truly understand how massive this giant man was.
Jack himself was a tall man but he was only 6 feet tall, standing next to the giant man made him feel like he was a child standing next to an adult. The silence between them and the giant man was deafening and was worsened by the fact that every person in the line was watching in silence.
"Please state if you are a resident of the city or visiting?" Jack snapped himself out of his daze and asked the giant man the required questions.
"I''m a resident." The giant man answered quickly, making it obvious that he was familiar with this process.
"Please state your name, age, and profession," Jack asked.
"My name is Yoze Thunder, 23 years old, and I''m a schr working as an advisor for the Martial Courtyard," Yoze answered.
"Bullshit you''re a schr!" Jack''s fellow guard bluntly shouted out what everyone was thinking.
There was no way that there was an 8 feet tall, absolutely jacked, Blood Master realm schr that they never heard about. If there was, he would be the talk of the whole city.
Chapter 147 147: Level 3 Twin Fists
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"Come on, how are we supposed to believe that you are a schr?" The guard beside Jack continued to express his disbelief.
Jack looked at Yoze and saw that he wasn''t angry or annoyed at being doubted. There was nothing but a smile on his face as if he didn''t care about this trouble.
"I also train in martial arts which is why my body is so big. But here is my information to prove I''m a schr." Yoze said, taking out an updated version of the slip of paper he used to prove he was a schr at the city hall when he first arrived.
Jack grabbed the piece of paper to confirm the seals were authentic. As he read the paper his eyes were attracted by two pieces of information.
The first was the line ''Practices the Big Golem body cultivation method increasing height and weight.'' This line helped somewhat exin why Yoze''s height could have been higher than normal.
For Jack, he felt that Yoze was too big to exin with just a mere body cultivation method. But there was no better exnation for how he could be so big, humans aren''t supposed to be thisrge.
The second line was more interesting as it was about him practicing a martial art technique known as Twin Fists. As one of the most ordinary and basic fist techniques, Twin Fists was learned by many martial artists when they first started martial arts.
This included Jack himself, but just like many other martial artists who learned the technique once they obtained the opportunity to learn a more advanced martial art technique they would abandon it.
For a man like Yoze to spend time mastering Twin Fists was rare. But it was exactly how rare mastering Twin Fists was that it was a great marker for confirming someone''s identity.
"It says here that you have mastered Twin Fists, as long as you show us then we will let you in."
Seeing that all he needed to do was perform a peak level 3 Twin Fists, Yoze felt relieved by how easy it was. Yoze nodded his head in confirmation and stepped out of the line.
After feeling that he was a good distance away from the people and allowing the guards a good view, Yoze got started on creating a chain of attacks. One after another he threw out Koi Fists at an invisible opponent and imagined he locked him in abo.
"Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh,"
Even though Yoze was holding himself back, due to how fast a peak level 3 Twin Fistsbo chain was it resulted in gusts of strong wind being created. As he got to the end of his Koi Fistbo, his attacks were so quick that his final attack destroyed the sound barrier.
"Boom!"
Luckily due to Yoze taking extra precautions none of the people were hurt and other than their ears ringing from the sonic boom they were in good condition. Afterpleting his presentation, Yoze returned to the front of the line and waited for Jack''s decision.
"Well, that was certainly abo that only a person that reached the peak of Twin Fists could do. So congrattions you are allowed in the City but I rmend getting your height updated on this paper so you don''t have to do this every time." Jack handed back the slip of paper to Yoze and kindly gave him a suggestion.
"Thank you, I''ll make sure to do that when I''m passing by next time."
After giving one final nod and wave to all the people that let him cut the long line, Yoze stepped into the City and walked home. When he arrived at Ten Ton Inn, he couldn''t help but appreciate this inn even more than he previously did.
Not only was this the only ce that could house someone who weighed as much as an Elephant but almost as tall as one. It allowed him to not have to worry about finding a new ce every time he improved his Big Golem body cultivation.
Unfortunately, the concern about his weight and height was resurfacing as he was getting too big. Even though he personally didn''t mind the trouble it caused he didn''t want to burden his father.
So he needed to figure out a way to make himself weigh less. The number one reason why he felt that this was the situation was because of Big Golem''s inner vigor.
Previously the majority of his weight only came from the inner vigor that was permanently activated in his flesh and bones. However after trying to break through to the next level of Big Golem, he found that all his heavy inner vigor was being activated.
He couldn''t even deactivate his inner vigor to drop his weight resulting in him now weighing around 7 thousand pounds. Still a way to go before he reached Ten Ton Inn''s weight limit but it wasn''t too far either.
"I need to break through to level 7 tonight so I can deactivate my inner vigor," Yoze said muttering to himself as he passed by the room he had invited Zeak and Drax to meet with him.
ncing at the empty room, he shook his head in disappointment. He had hoped that after messing with Zeak''s mind he would get his own secret informant.
Unfortunately, the result was that after he left with his brother they never came back. He predicted that Zeak fixed his mind with his brother''s assistance.
Assuming that his experiment had failed, Yoze put the matter of Zeak and Drax in the back of his mind. After putting that matter behind him, he went inside his room to find that Jewel was sitting on a chair facing the door with wine in hand.
"Your back. Your father was worried sick after realizing that you were gone because you didn''te for breakfast." Jewel looked at Yoze with dissatisfaction when she realized he hade back.
Chapter 148 148: Big Golem Level 7
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"After realizing that you were gone, he made me stay in your room until you came back home while they went shopping. Do you know how boring it is to hang out with a goat all day?" Jewel took a sip of her wine as sheined to Yoze.
"Not only that, you even grew again. What about that custom-ordered full suit of armor that you ordered? We are going to have to cancel and ce another order." Jewel said before drinking another sip of wine.
"You even left without telling me anything. How am I going to make a profit if you keep leaving your human guide at home while you go on adventures." Jewel went in to take another sip of wine before realizing that her cup was empty.
"I didn''t go anywhere interesting this time. I just went to a forest to break through to the Blood Master realm."
"As for leaving you behind, how does 20 silver coins sound?" Seeing that Jewel was drunk, Yoze made an empty promise to give herpensation.
Just like he expected the moment she heard about getting paid her face lifted into a smile. She even pulled out her money pouch and began counting her money.
"20 silver coins will bring me one step closer to having some peace of mind. You should know how stressful it is to work for a demon so the least I can do is exploit you as much as I can for humanity." Jewel said as she opened her money pouch signaling him to put the coins inside.
"You wouldn''t need to be so stressed if you admitted the fact that I''m not a demon." Yoze relented seeing that Jewel was prepared and handed her 20 silver.
"I would like to believe you but how do you exin everything that we have been through? That Leopard demon seemed convinced that you were a demon." Jewel replied quickly.
Having been around Yoze for so long they had this same conversation so many times that both of them could discuss this without thinking. Knowing that this conversation wouldn''t do anything or change their rtionship Yoze just changed the subject.
"As you can see I don''t have any clothes that can fit me, do you have any rmendations?"
"The MMF store should have a thing for you. It''s just two blocks to our right. It''s the shop that has a big snake at the front." Jewel waved her hand as she gave Yoze directions not nning on leaving the inn.
"Thanks,"
Not expecting Jewel to think of something so quick, Yoze forgot to ask her what kind of clothing this store had. It was only when he walked out of the shop wearing the new clothes that he felt that he had been ripped off.
The clothes that Yoze was wearing could have been considered more a costume fit for spooky holidays like Halloween than everyday clothing.
He was wearing what resembled a bloody hospital gown that had gold hoops at the edges of the fabric. The pants that he wore were also bloody and wrinkly giving others an ufortable feeling. He even had to wear a mask that covered his mouth because the people that owned the shop insisted.
They said that the clothes he was wearing were forst year''s 7 Ghouls and 7 Spirits festival. The costume he was wearing was for the Sickness Ghoul and the mask was essential to making him look exactly like the Sickness Ghoul.
Even though he was wearing a costume in broad daylight and frightened the kids he passed by, he didn''t mind too much since he at least was covered.
"Now that I have clothes, let''s go break through to the next level of Big Golem."
With clothes on his back, Yoze walked to his courtyard in the Martial Courtyard ready to begin his training. Just as he was about to get started he remembered what happenedst night when all his clothes were destroyed.
"I''ll just train with fewer clothes this time, just in case."
After stripping off the bloody gown and mask, Yoze began by putting pressure on his body. He activated the full force of Mindless Blood Legs and Twin Blood Fists.
An intense pressure covered his entire body causing more of Big Golem''s heavy inner vigor to be produced. The addition of this new inner vigor in his body caused an instant reaction of chaos.
[Big Golem (Level 6: 240%)]
Noticing how his progress had jumped up by 40 percent at once, Yoze knew that he was taking things in the right direction. He even had an instinct of where this chaotic inner vigor needed to go.
Starting from his flesh to his bones, it was now time for his heavy inner vigor needed to enter his organs. His heart, guts, eyes, and brain would be much heavier than their ordinary counterparts.
With the chaotic and random spread of his inner vigor, he found that none of the heavy inner strands became stuck inside his organs. Even after 10 minutes of waiting, not a single strand of heavy inner vigor went inside his organs.
There were several times during the period when a strand almost fused with his organs but at thest minute, each strand quickly left afterward. Feeling frustrated, Yoze poured all of his attention and focus on one of these opportunities.
At first, it seemed like it was going to be another failure but at thest moment, it was absorbed into his heart. That single moment triggered a chain reaction of all his heavy inner vigor where they all entered all of his organs.
Just like when he reached level 5 where he needed to saturate his bones before he could move forward. Yoze saw that he needed to saturate his organ before he could move on to the next stage.
[Big Golem (Level 7: 1%)]
Luckily, he had produced enough heavy inner vigor already so his organs were quickly saturated allowing him to reach Big Golem level 7.
Chapter 149 149: Thorn Rose Sect
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"Sigh"
Yoze felt a deep resonance between his flesh, bones, and organs when his heavy inner vigor fully saturated his organs. Every strand of heavy inner vigor inside exploded with a bright light before swiftly deactivating.
That short burst of bright lighting from his heavy inner vigor transformed his perspective of the world as he began seeing invisible spheres covering everything. From fruits to training equipment, even the walls of the courtyard had their own invisible spheres of various sizes.
What made him excited was that he saw his invisible sphere begin to rapidly expand until it was 6 feet wide. Once it reached its max size, he sensed that the air around him felt heavier as if everything was 700 pounds heavier.
Unfortunately, just as he was beginning to understand what he was seeing it all disappeared when his inner vigor deactivated.
"What was that?" Yoze scrunched his eyebrows as he recalled everything he saw in that short period.
"Was that the gravitational force that mass generates?"
After remembering what he saw he noticed that heavier objects tended to haverger invisible fields around them. But that size difference tended to be small and even the wall''s invisible sphere didn''t stick out more than 10 centimeters.
For his invisible sphere to break through its previous size limits should have been due to his inner vigor all activating at once. To test his theory, Yoze activated all of his heavy inner vigor strands.
The result led to his heavy inner vigor exploding with a much dimmer lightpared to the previous explosion. This dimmer light seemed to make it harder for him to sense the invisible spheres of others.
To see them required him to focus all his attention to see the invisible field around one object. What made him more excited however was the fact that he saw his invisible field expand to six feet once more.
He even sensed that the air around him quickly became heavier but it was to a much smaller extentpared to before. If his hunch was correct it was only one percent of the original.
After experimenting for a while, Yoze found that activating his heavy inner vigor allowed him to create a field around that increased the weight of objects around him. He was able to figure this out by taking a regr apple and letting it hit a table from a certain height.
After which he activated his Big Golem Inner Vigor and dropped that same apple. The results were that the apple broke a hole through the table while also getting squished by its weight.
"Not only did I gain the ability to control other people''s weight. I also can deactivate all my Big Golem Inner Vigor allowing me to drop from 7 thousand pounds to my true weight of 1 thousand pounds." Yoze smiled as he was excited by his new ability.
Feeling light on his feet Yoze hopped around his courtyard for a bit before taking out a book. This was a book he had been anticipating for a long time.
Iron Muscles might have been an ordinary body cultivation book but it meant a lot to him. One of Yoze''s few weaknesses was the fact that his defensive capability was not on par with his offensive capability.
When it came to destroying and killing capabilities there weren''t many who couldpete with him. But he wasn''t able to endure the same amount of damage he could dash out.
That made him have to focus on dodging whenever he faced a demon or a Martial Grandmaster. Even when he could kill them with one punch he had to focus on not getting hit since they could deal serious harm to him.
That was why he wanted to increase his defense as much as possible. He had Iron Skin, Turtle Shell, and even Armored Swordsman to increase his defensive capabilities.
But they all did nothing to protect his muscles, bones, and organs from internal attacks which were why he had set his eye on Iron Muscles since the beginning. With this body cultivation method, he hoped to be able to protect his internals.
Yoze didn''t even want to look for any other body cultivation method to protect his organs as he wanted to break through Iron Skin and Iron Muscles continuously until they alone were enough.
"Let''s not wait anymore, I need to reach the peak of Iron Muscles tonight or I''m not going home until I do."
Yoze nced at the training method of Iron Muscles and saw that its training method was simr to Iron where he needed to take a bath of medicine water. Looking through the list of herbs needed, most of them were identical to what Iron Skin needed so he knew where he could buy them.
There were only a few herbs that were different but each of them made him frown as he didn''t know where he could acquire them.
"Iron Lettuce, Crimson Ginger, five types of Tilog herbs, and even Steel Ivy. These are all rare and hard to find in regr shops. I would need to contact a specialist to get all these in bulk." Yoze sighed to himself before putting on all his clothes.
He had to temporarily put his ambition on pause to grab Jewel and ask her to find someone to get these herbs. He hoped that she already knew where to go or he would have to experiment with substitute herbs.
"Hmmm, speaking of the devil, why is Jewel running to the courtyard? I thought she was enjoying her wine." Yoze suddenly noticed Jewel''s spiritual energy was rapidly approaching his courtyard.
"Yoze, Yoze, the Rose Thorn Cultivation sect has arrived!" Jewel busted into the courtyard covered in sweat as she shouted to Yoze.
"The Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect? The martial art sect that the Blood Master Scarlett was in." Yoze was surprised to hear that name.
He had nearly forgotten his encounter with Blood Master Scarlett at the Gail Vige. To hear the name of her sect after so much time passed was incredible.
Chapter 150 150: Doing Manual Labor
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"Yes, not only did the Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect elders have arrived but even Blood Master Scarlett and Blood Master Steel havee too."
"They wanted to meet you so I rushed over as fast as I could hear. Don''t worry your father is still out shopping with Tiki and Dreyer so he isn''t in any danger." Jewel added after catching her breath.
She had known Yoze long enough to know that he cared deeply about his father''s safety. If he thought that she had left him alone with a bunch of Blood Masters that could be hostile would have made him angered him more than the Blood Master showing up.
She even knew that while he was fine with her scamming him out of some money and demon meat from time to time he would be pissed if she tried to do the same thing to his family. So she made sure to add that his father was safe and sound before continuing further.
As she expected even though he didn''t ask yet he visibly rxed hearing his father wasn''t in any immediate danger.
"That''s good that he isn''t in danger. Did they say what they wanted from me?" Yoze asked.
"They only said they wanted you to help them settle a dispute. As for what kind of dispute and how they wanted you to solve it they wouldn''t say even when I asked them." Jewel shook her head.
"That''s fine, what kind of shopping is my dad doing?"
"He is getting food, spices, and some other things."
"So it is going to take him all day then. That is good, before we head back I wanted to ask you if you knew where I can find these herbs." Hearing that his father was going shopping for food, Yoze knew instinctively that it was going to take a while before he returned home.
As a food and spice lover, his father loved to shop for the best food possible and made sure to buy tons of it since Yoze needed to eat a lot. Whenever his father went out for food he only returned home when the sun was beginning to set.
Since his father wasn''t in danger and there wasn''t an urgent need to go back, Yoze wanted to see if he could gather the required herbs for Iron Muscles before he went back.
"Uhh okay. Let''s see Iron Lettuce, Crimson Ginger... These are rare but not too rare to buy in bulk as long as you know the ce."
"We can get everything by visiting threerge herb shops but they are spread around the city so it is going to take at least 3 hours." Jewel''s eyes twitched seeing how little he cared about Blood Masters wanting to see him.
But knowing that everything was secondary when it came to his family and martial arts she wasn''t surprised. Even though she had seen him kill a demon without suffering from major injuries it still took her some time to get out of the mindset that Blood Masters were extremely strong and important.
Since Yoze didn''t want to meet them yet, she wasn''t going to try and persuade him otherwise since she knew it wouldn''t work.
After knowing that Jewel did know where to get these herbs quickly Yoze nodded his head and asked her to take the lead.
A few hourster, Jewel was dumping buckets of boiling medicine water on Yoze''s body. The blood-red water that reeked of iron was quickly absorbed into his muscles as he performed exercises that tore his muscle fibers.
After sshing the 20th bucket on Yoze, Jewel wished she had tried harder to convince Yoze''s father to take her shopping with him. If she had known that she would be doing hard manualbor to help Yoze train because he had grown too big for any tube she wouldn''t have easily relented.
Dumping another bucket, Jewel looked at Yoze''s slightly red skin returning to its original color and felt amazed to see that he had once again broken through. This was the fourth time in less than two hours and if it wasn''t because they were running out of medicine water she felt he would continue to break through.
"That''s enough, the remaining water isn''t enough to allow me to continue training." After breaking through, Yoze pulled up his system window.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 23 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension, Art, Physical, Martial Arts, Spiritual, Crystal, Weapon, Hunting, Other]
[Technique Categories: Martial Arts, Blood Arts, Spiritual Arts, Crystal Arts]
[Martial Arts Technique (Recent Changes)]
[Iron Muscles (Level 4: 2%)]
[Talent Marks: 2]
Reaching the fourth level of Iron Muscles made Yoze lick his lips as he had already surpassed the limits of Iron Muscles twice in such a short amount of time. This was in part to his talents but also the fact his Iron Skin had reached level four.
Cultivating Iron Muscles required a martial artist to already have reached the peak of Iron Skin. Only then could they train to make their muscles tougher than steel.
But Iron Muscles could not surpass the limits of what a peak first-rate martial artist could achieve since it wasn''t a Blood Master body cultivation method. So it didn''t take users of Iron Skin long to reach the peak of Iron Muscles, only 5 years or so was enough.
Yoze''s Iron Skin on the other hand had surpassed its limit and was much strongerpared to its old peak. So when he started to train in Iron Muscles he immediately reached the peak of level 1.
Shortly after he reached the peak of level 2, Iron Muscles''s supposed limit. Not satisfied with how easily he reached the limit of Iron Muscles and still had tons of resources to train, he decided to surpass Iron Muscles''s limits until he couldn''t.
That resulted in him reaching the fourth level of Iron Muscles and now his muscles without inner vigor activated were four times stronger than normal versions. When he activated his inner vigor he could stop an attack from a Blood Master without suffering too much.
Chapter 151 151: A Tempting Offer
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"Okay, that''s enough for now. We can head back to see what the Thorn Rose Sect wants from me." Yoze said as he stretched his muscles and got dressed.
"Okay, " Jewel nodded her head and tossed the empty bucket on the ground.
When Yoze and Jewel got back to his room inside Ten Ton Inn, they saw that there were five people inside. Four of whom wereplete strangers to Yoze but he could see that there was a clear divide between them.
The first group consisted of two men and one woman, all of whom looked to be in their early sixties. Though their appearance was old, Yoze knew that underneath their loose robes were powerful bodies that could destroy an entire town.
Even though this was the first time he had met them he immediately knew these old men and women were Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect elders since they all were peak Blood Masters. It also helped that all their clothes had the word ''Elder'' embroidered on them.
As for the other two Blood Masters in the room, one of them was Blood Master Scarlett who Yoze had met a long time ago. Different from thest time they met she was no longer wearing a long blue dress but simple red clothes that looked simr to the Thorn Rose Sect Elders.
The moment she sensed a presence entering the room, Blood Master Scarlett''s mouth slightly curved up into a half smile before she swiftly hid it. Her reaction speed was so quick that none of the Blood Masters presents noticed her sudden change except one, Yoze.
He saw everything as clear as day and wondered why she felt the need to hide it from even her sect elders. Were they not on the same side or was there more to this than he first thought?
Across from Blood Master Scarlett was a middle-aged man with a thick beard and a face covered in scars. For someone to have this many scars but still be alive was a testament to how strong he was.
The first name that came up in Yoze''s mind was Blood Master Steel. What drew his attention the most was Blood Master Steel''s fists since he saw traces of what seemed to be the result of training a technique simr to Blood Fist.
Just as Yoze was examining them, the sect elders, Blood Master Scarlett, and Blood Master Steel were examining him as well. The moment the sect elders looked at Yoze they felt surprised to see how massive he was.
This was their first time seeing a human that was so tall and muscr that they felt he was closer to an elephant than a human.
"What did his parents feed him to make him so big?" A collective thought flew across their heads.
Blood Master Scarlett on the other hand didn''t flinch when she noticed that Yoze was way bigger than when they first met. But she did show an appreciative smile and nodded as if they were good friends.
Blood Master Steel''s eyes glowed with a bloody glimmer when he saw Yoze and caught the smell of blooding from his body. That was a scent that could onlye from a Blood Master or someone who bathed in blood every day that it had seeped into their skin.
Whichever one was the case, made Blood Master Steel heavily interested in him. Especially after hearing all the good things about him.
"Good Afternoon, I was told that you wanted to see me?" Yoze said with politeness.
"Yoze, do you remember me? I''m Scarlett NewBorn, I wanted to take you as a student but you were too busy at that time."
"Anyway, that was in the past right now. I wanted to ask you for your help. Please teach this man a lesson."
"He beat me up when you left and has been bullying me and my sect. So I could only bring him to you." Blood Master said with sadness and guilt as if she felt terrible for troubling her friend with her problems.
Yoze looked at Blood Master Scarlett''s act and didn''t feel very impressed. They didn''t even have a close rtionship with each other. Not only that, she warned him that Blood Master Steel woulde after him right after he rejected her.
So for him to fight for her sake was impossible in his book.
"Sorry, but I''m not interested." Yoze shook his head denying her request.
"We will pay you 100 thousand silver as well as allow you to be an elder of the Thorn Rose Sect."
"We might only be a mid-sized sect but the resources that you can utilize would be much more than what the City is offering you." A short male elder with graying hair spoke up and offered Yoze.
Yoze turned his attention to the man and noted that while he was dressed the same as the other elders they all looked at the male elder with respect. They all were silent and only allowed that one man to speak.
This elder was the only one whose clothes were embroidered with a different title from the rest with his title being ''Supreme Elder''. Just that title alone showed that he held much more power than the other two elders.
Hearing the Supreme Elder''s offer made Jewel''s heart skip a beat from shock. 100 thousand silver was more money than 90 percent of people would never get a chance to see in their lifetimes and it was just offered right in front of her as if it was nothing.
What was even more important was the offer to be an elder of the sect without first bing a student of the sect. This was extremely rare for martial art sects to offer as this position was usually only given to the sect''s disciples.
For them to offer Yoze not only an extravagant amount of money but even let him skip the process of first bing a student and then an elder was huge. Especially when one considers the fact that it was almost categorized as an evil sect.
She had some basic knowledge of the Thorn Rose Cultivation sect and knew everyone in that sect was cold-blooded. Just like how Blood Master Scarlett tended to murder her disciples, it was rumored that many teachers in the sect did the same.
There were even some calls from the martial artmunity to ssify them as an evil martial sect. But that never came to materialize due to rumors that they had connections with the Martial Rose Sect. Which was considered to be a contender for entering the top 10 martial art sects.
Jewel nced at Yoze and saw that even he was moved by the offer. She couldn''t help but wonder if he was more interested in the money or the position as an elder.
Chapter 152 152: Corrupted Supreme Elder
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"That''s a lot of money, I could use it to build a house that is strong enough that I can grow and weigh as much as I want. While still being able to live with my family."
"I could even build a training ground so I don''t have to travel to a forest or the Martial Courtyard to train." Yoze''s mind rapidly thought of all the ways he could improve his and his family''s lives.
However, as much as Yoze wanted to take up the offer he knew that the more they were willing to give up, the more troublesome the request was. Even though beating a Blood Master wasn''t hard for him he didn''t want to be used without knowing what he was getting into.
What made him more suspicious was the fact that they knew that he was a schr working for the city but they still waltzed right to him. If Yoze was a normal schr there were only two possibilities that could happen in this scenario.
The first was that the City would immediately send a group of soldiers to apprehend them. The second was that he would have been ced under investigation and possibly arrested for the crime of colluding with the City''s enemies.
For normal schrs, this noticeable visit was nearly a death sentence and would have pushed them to join the martial art sect. Yoze was not a regr schr and thus this high-profile visit from a martial art sect wouldn''t result in the City immediately cutting all ties with him.
After thinking more closely, he realized that the price of working for them wasn''t as extraordinary as he thought. It was a lowball that gave the Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect much more than he would gain.
He would get 100 thousand and be a regr elder for the Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect. But the Thorn Rose Sect would have only spent 100 thousand to buy him into their ranks.
He was someone who could easily kill Blood Masters and Martial Grandmasters. For him to be an elder of a martial art sect was almost a joke. If he wanted to he could create his own martial art sect that would instantly be ranked in the top ten simply because he was in it.
There was also the fact that these elders couldn''t even beat Blood Master Steel themselves. That meant that they weren''t a strong sect, to begin with, so the resources that were in abundance were not as much as arge sect, and even more sopared to the City.
He might have been getting undercut by the City but as long as he wanted to he could simply jack up the price of demon meat to 100 thousand and the City would still buy it with a smile.
"Next time I n to sell demon meat to the City, I need to charge them a premium." Making a mental note to himself, Yoze looked at the elder who spoke and gave out his answer.
"I''m sorry I''m not interested in joining your sect as an elder. If you can give me 5 Blood Master martial art sets and a Martial Grandmaster martial art set then I''ll ept."
After thinking about what he wanted and needed, Yoze spat out his price. The five Blood Master martial art sets were to improve his move set.
While he wanted to get the Martial Grandmaster martial art set to avoid the situation of reaching the peak of a Blood Master and not having a Martial Grandmaster body cultivation method to break through.
He also felt that it was reasonable to assume that the Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect had at least one Martial Grandmaster martial art set that they could give him. For three of their elders to have reached the peak of the Blood Master realm signaled that their Sect Master should have reached the Martial Grandmaster realm.
Hearing Yoze''s demands made the Supreme Elder''s face grow cold. The other elders noticed the male elder''s expression and lightly coughed to lighten the mood.
They understood that Yoze asking for their Martial Grandmaster martial art set was too much. It was fine for them to hand over the Blood Master martial art sets since they had plenty to spare.
But asking for a Martial Grandmaster martial art set from a mid-sized sect like theirs was too much. They only had one which was firmly in the hands of their sect master. Making it impossible for them to decide to hand it over to a stranger without the Sect Master''s permission.
Yet their attempt to warm up the atmosphere failed miserably as the Supreme Elder''s face grew colder and more furious. He even stood up and pointed at Yoze as if he hadmitted an unforgivable sin.
"You deserve to die for your arrogance!" The Supreme Elder gritted his teeth in anger beforeunching an attack straight at Yoze''s vitals.
The other elders were stunned at the Supreme Elder''s sudden outrage as they knew that the Supreme Elder was never this reckless and easy to anger. It even went against the fundamental code of the Thorn Rose Sect of controlling one''s emotions.
"Supreme Elder Jasper stop!" The two remaining elders of the Thorn Rose Sect jumped up from their seats to stop the outraged elder.
Unfortunately, they were a step toote as the outraged Supreme Elder Jasper was an arm''s length away from his target and threw a powerful punch without hesitation. Within an instant, his fist collided right with the spot Yoze''s liver was located.
"Thud!"
A deep thud resounded from the impact of Supreme Elder Jasper''s punch and Yoze''s body. Before anyone could react to the sudden change in the situation, Yoze grabbed Supreme Elder Jasper''s throat and spiritually oppressed him into submission.
He then lifted Supreme Elder Jasper and looked straight at his eyes to see that they were turning ck. Even as he was suppressing Supreme Elder Jasper, he wed at his eyes.
"Witchcraft," Yoze looked at Supreme Elder Jasper with surprise as he didn''t expect to see someone who had been corrupted by witchcraft.
Chapter 153 153: Scarlett Witch
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Yoze could see that the whites in the Supreme Elder''s eyes were bing overtaken by ck. As the Supreme Elder was taken over Yoze could feel his struggle grow stronger and stronger.
"The Supreme Elder is possessed!" The other two elder''s faces turned stern as they recognized that their Supreme Elder had beenpromised.
"Yoze, we apologize for what happened today. We didn''t realize that we had beenpromised by a witch until this happened."
"If you want revenge you can kill Elder Jasper without any retaliation from the Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect."
The two elders gave each other deep stares before the female elder with gray hair stepped forward. What shocked Yoze was the fact that after that brief stare-down with the other elder, the female elder''s face became neutral as she sentenced their Supreme Elder to death.
"Don''t you want to cure him?" Yoze asked curiously why they would give up on their Supreme elder so quickly.
"It is too troublesome to cure him and for him to bepromised means that he isn''t strong and cautious enough to be our Supreme Elder. Even if you let him go, we will kill him anyway so you would be doing us a favor." The female elder calmly told Yoze.
Yoze turned his gaze toward Blood Master Scarlett and saw that after the initial shock, she showed. She also looked at the Supreme Elder like a dead man. She even gave him a slight nod as if he gained her approval.
"I''m not in the business of cleaning up someone else''s loose ends. So you can take care of him." Yoze shook his head and tossed the struggling elder to the female elder.
After learning the basics of witchcraft from Dreyer, he knew that for a witch to curse someone required that they either nned this through a long period or were in the realm of a Curse Witch.
He wasn''t in the mood to deal with the Thorn Rose Sect''s problems for them. He also had little interest in gaining the ire of a Curse-level witch.
"We understand," The female elder nodded her head in understanding before grabbing the suppressed Supreme Elder.
With him in hand, she briefly examined him to see if he truly was cursed. Once it was confirmed she threw a quick and soft palm strike at his head causing him to immediately stop moving.
"Anyway, our offer still stands. If you are interested in joining a martial art sect or interested in dealing with Blood Master Steel here we will be staying on the third floor of the Regal Inn." The female elder said with a smile before quickly leaving with her male counterpart.
Strangely even though her sect allies had left, Blood Master Scarlett and Blood Master Steel both stayed behind looking at Yoze with interest. When he looked at them closely he felt that they seemed to be closer allies with each other than Blood Master Scarlett was with the Thorn Rose Sect.
Seeing how these two reacted to the Supreme Elder''s situation and howfortable they were around each other to the point that neither of them had their guard up. Yoze felt suspicious about what they truly wanted from him.
"Is there something that you want to talk to me about?" Yoze asked, noticing that the two Blood Masters weren''t making the first move.
"I wanted to thank you for your assistance with dealing with Supreme Elder Jasper. I also didn''t want you to think that this was a conspiracy against you."
"This was a conspiracy that the sect had conjured up to get rid of Supreme Elder Jasper due to him being an informant for the Dark Devil Sect. After finding this out the sect wanted to get rid of him as effectively and efficiently as possible."
"Thus the contacting of a witch known as Lady Bat. She is quite famous around here for being willing to curse individuals for money and resources." As Scarlett''s face began to smile she lowered her head to make it look like she was apologizing before lifting her head once more.
"The n was for Lady Bat''s curse to slowly erode his sanity and decision-making skills over the next few days. Once he lost his sanity like he did today Blood Master Steel would fight him to the death."
"This could result in two oues. The first is that Blood Master Steel''s and the Supreme Elder''s battle is intense and frightening. Each of them trades blow for blow resulting in both of them perishing. "
"If one of them does survive, the two elders are supposed to kill whoever remained. For example, if Supreme Elder Jasper manages to kill Blood Master Steel then those two would strike to kill Supreme Elder Jasper."
"The second oue is if Supreme Elder Jasper fails to kill Blood Master Steel and ends up getting killed. That''s fine too, it merely saves them the trouble of having to kill Supreme Elder Jasper themselves."
"As you can see from my exnation, the Supreme Elder was destined to die no matter what, so I hope that you don''t feel responsible or feel the need to be involved."
"Before you ask, no the Supreme Elder was not supposed to lose his sanity against you. I think it was because you unexpectedly rejected his offer and the constant anxiety guing him during this trip that caused him to snap."
"For that, I will apologize on the sect''s behalf." Blood Master Scarlett bowed her head to apologize to Yoze.
Even though Blood Master Scarlett looked sincere in her apology Yoze felt that there was something off about this whole endeavor. If they truly wanted to have their Supreme Elder Jasper fight Blood Master Steel why would they decide to visit him?
What made him the most suspicious was the fact that Blood Master Steel seemedpletely unfazed with the n to kill him. Even as Blood Master Scarlett revealed everything he seemed unfazed.
Why would he not care about having the Thorn Rose Sect use him to deal with their Supreme Elder? Was he just a battle manic that was willing to do anything for a thrill or did he have some other motivation that made him want to follow this n?
Yoze had many questions about the entire situation and felt that it was a bottomless pit of mud. The more he knew the more it would try to swallow him into the messy mud.
Not wanting to be involved in this mess he decided to forget about the matter concerning the Supreme Elder and just focus on what he liked to do. He was going to see if there were talents that he might find useful from these two.
He had previously checked Blood Master Scarlett''s talents back at the Gail Vige and copied her Martial Art Comprehension talent. He wanted to see if she had gotten some new talents and if she didn''t that was fine too he was interested in her rapid calction talent.
With his new desire to customize his martial arts techniques and body cultivation methods, being able to calcte them quicker would make the process go faster. With this talent, it wouldn''t have taken him a few days to create the Blood Weapon Handler martial art set.
As for Blood Master Steel, he wanted to see what this strong Blood Master''s talents could be to be able to defeat not only Blood Master Scarlett but even several elders from the Thorn Rose Sect.
"Send a talent mark to Blood Master Steel and Blood Master Scarlett." Yoze thought to himself hoping to see some information.
[Name: Scarlett Grave [NewBorn]]
[Age: 57]
[Talents: Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 7), Body Cultivation (Grade 7), Thorny Rose Cultivation (Grade 5), Rapid Calction (Grade 4), Emotion Control (Grade 9), Witchcraft (Grade 6), Dead Crystal Nerves (Grade 6), Memorization (Grade 4)]
[Name: Grave Grave]
[Age: 37]
[Talents: Map Reading (Grade 4), Digging (Grade 5), Value Prediction (Grade 7), Trap Defusion (Grade 7), Martial Art Comprehension (Grade 5), Body Cultivation (Grade 5), Unknown (Grade 9), Blood Breaker (Grade 2), Investigation (Grade 3), Unknown (Grade 7)]
Yoze''s eyes sparkled seeing the two panels in front of him and almost began salivating. He felt as if he had just hit the jackpot when it came to talents.
There were a few things that drew Yoze''s eyes and a majority of his attention. The first was the change in Blood Master Scarlett''s name. Besides, herst name was reced with Blood Master Grave''sst name giving some indication that these two might have gotten married.
The second was Blood Master Scarlett''s three new talents, most importantly the addition of a grade 6 Dead Crystal Nerves and Witchcraft talents. She was the second person he had met that had Dead Crystal Nerves and was a witch.
Not only that she was simply way more talented than Dreyer was in this field. That could exin why she felt so assured of the reason for Supreme Elder Jasper''s sudden snap.
There was also the chance that Lady Bat and Blood Master Scarlett have some type of connection with each other. Blood Master Scarlett could be Lady Bat''s student or maybe her secret identity.
Chapter 154 154: Blood Heart
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The person that Yoze was the most concerned about and interested in was Blood Master Steel. Compared with the news that Blood Master Scarlett had be a witch after a year.
Yoze was more interested in the two unknown talents in Blood Master Steel''s talent panel. For him to have two talents that couldn''t be identified by his cheat made Yoze immediately focus his attention on him.
This was the first time his cheat had not been able to identify talent before. The Second Best System had even been able to detect talents rted to Spirituality and Crystal Nerves before he was even aware that they existed.
For his cheat to not be able to detect them meant that Blood Master Steel might have a cheat on his own. The possibility of meeting another person with a cheat or possibly another system made Yoze''s heart speed up in excitement.
Countless thoughts raced through Yoze''s mind before he calmed himself down and focused on what other possibilities could result in his cheat not being able to identify talents.
"It might not necessarily be another cheat-like talent or ability like mine. It might just be a new talent that has never been acquired by another human or creature in this world."
Yoze thought about how he had gotten his Human Spiritual body cultivation talent. If he hadn''t been the one to awaken this talent would his system have been able to identify it?
"Let me check what these unknown talents are first before I decide that he is just like me." Yoze cleared his mind before sending talent marks to target Blood Master Scarlett''s grade 6 Dead Crystal Nerves and Blood Master Steel''s grade 9 Unknown talent.
[Grade 6 Dead Crystal Nerves talent has been locked on. Grade 5 Dead Crystal Nerves has been added.]
[Grade 9 Unknown talent has locked on. Grade 8 Unknown talent has been added. Analysis of talent is being made...]
[Unknown talent has been identified and the name has been changed to Blood Heart talent.]
"Blood Heart?" Yoze was surprised to see the unknown talent didn''t seem like much of a cheat.
Still, he didn''t underestimate this ability since it could be an extremely useful talent that could help in the future. He mentally pulled up a description to see what it could help him do.
[Blood Heart is a talent that had been acquired by Grave Grave (Blood Master Steel) during grave digging. His heart was reced by an abnormality with a new heart that produced a new type of blood that changes properties. Blood Heart is the talent that influences all matters of heart blood production.]
Yoze''s pupils contracted when he read that this talent came from an abnormality. He didn''t think that someone else could have gotten talents from abnormal events other than himself.
But after reading the description further he felt that this recement of a heart wasn''t exactly done with Blood Master Steel''s permission. Even he wouldn''t allow anything to take his heart away from him even at the promise of recing it with a better one.
That was too much trust to ce in anyone much less an abnormality that was created by the rules of the world being broken. Just imagining the Undead Baby attempting to offer him eternal life sent a shiver down Yoze''s spine.
"Fight me." Suddenly Blood Master Steel stepped in front of Yoze seeing that he wasn''t asking why he was there.
It was a simple two-word but Yoze could tell that Blood Master Steel wasn''t nning on taking a no for an answer. The look of fire in his eyes was obvious and he could tell that he would attack him right away if he denied his request.
"Fine, you practice the Blood Breaker martial art set right?" Knowing he couldn''t refuse, Yoze epted the challenge.
He still wanted to confirm if Blood Master Steel trained in the Blood Breaker martial art set. He had seen that he had talent when the Blood Breaker talent so he wondered if he had trained in the martial art.
As he expected, Blood Master Steel shed a look of surprise before he calmly answered in a deep and rough voice.
"That''s correct."
"Great if I am going to fight you I need to gain something. And that something is yourplete Blood Breaker Martial Art Set." Yoze said his request.
"That''s fine."
Blood Master Steel looked at them with an odd face and took a thick book out of his pouch. On it had a highly detailed person whose blood vessels were popping out of their skin.
Taking the thick book, Yoze briefly looked over its contents to make sure this was Blood Breaker before cing it on the table. He then tilted his head toward the door, to signal to Blood Master Steel they should fight outside.
"Jewel, do you want toe along?" Remembering that Jewel wanted to be more involved, Yoze tossed her an invitation.
"Uhh, I''ll stay home today. I don''t think anything is going to survive after you two fight. And I don''t want to risk my life being around this conflict." Jewel scratched her head and left the room with haste.
Just as Yoze noticed that Blood Master Steel and Blood Master Scarlett''s rtionship wasn''t as simple as being enemies. Jewel noticed that they were close as well and knew that this fight wasn''t going to be fair.
Once Yoze crushed Blood Master Steel Jewel didn''t want to worry about her safety if she was taken as a hostage. Not only that there wasn''t going to be any benefit in going along with him like when they went hunting demons.
It was just putting her life in unnecessary amounts of danger. So Jewel decided that she would simply wait at home for Yoze toe back home victorious.
"Alright," Seeing that Jewel didn''t want to go, Yoze took Blood Master Steel and Blood Master Scarlett to the same hill he had wrecked during his advancement to the Blood Master realm.
"What is this ce?"
The moment they arrived and Blood Master Scarlett saw the level of destruction that he had left behind she showed a bit of concern on her face. She had already known that with Yoze''s strength, he would be a tough opponent to beat even for Blood Master Steel.
That was one of the reasons she had told Yoze that he would be targeted by Blood Master Steel when they first met. As a martial artist that trained in the Blood Breaker martial art, he needed to find strong opponents to fight.
The stronger they werepared to Blood Master Steel the easier it would be for him to break through his limits. When he went after her he had wanted to use her as an opponent to break through to the third level of the Blood Master Realm.
Then he fought the Thorn Rose Sect''s elders to break through to the fourth level in a short period of a few months. This kind of speed was demonic and was impossible to achieve by normal means even by the talented.
However, there was a clear problem that Blood Master Steel had to deal with and that was once he reached the peak the opponents he could fight shrunk.
As he grew strong it became harder to surpass his limits forcing him to seek them out by any means necessary. As a peak Blood Master, there were only two groups of people that he could fight that could allow him to break through.
The first group was the next step for martial artists, Martial Grandmasters. But finding Martial Grandmasters to fight was difficult. Even after beating up multiple elders of the Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect, the Sect Master didn''t show his face.
Blood Master Steel could have tried to find another Martial Grandmaster to provoke but he knew that he had to be careful of who he tried to fight. If he wasn''t careful the only oue of the fight would have been his death, not a breakthrough.
With the difficulty of finding Martial Grandmasters with the right amount of strength and essibility being extremely low, he could only turn to the second group of people. That second group of people was abnormally strong martial artists that didn''t fit their martial art realm.
In Blood Master Scarlett''s knowledge, she only knew two people that fit this category. The first person was Blood Master Steel himself and the second person was Yoze.
When they met, Yoze was still only at the peak of first-rate martial artists but he could kill Blood Masters easily. As for his ability topete with Martial Grandmasters, she didn''t know.
But with nowhere else to go for an opponent to fight, she helped guide Blood Master Steel to him by using her sect''s connection. What she didn''t expect to see was that Yoze himself had broken through to the Blood Master realm.
That made her bothforted by the fact Blood Master Steel found someone worthy of fighting as well as worried that this fight would turn into a tragedy. At first, she hadplete confidence in Blood Master Steel winning since she had seen him ovee almost impossible odds before.
But ever since saw Yoze in the flesh her heart began to pound and her mind raced as seeds of doubt were nted and rapidly growing.
Chapter 155 155: Dark Blood Vapor
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She thought about how if Yoze could kill Blood Masters as a First rate Martial artist couldn''t he kill Martial Grandmaster with the same ease?
What if he had trained in a body cultivation or martial art set simr to the Blood Breaker martial art set? That would exin why he could break through so fast.
What made Blood Master Scarlett worry the most was just how massive Yoze''s body was. If Blood Master Steel was a monster then just from the impression that Yoze gave her then he would be a Demon King.
With those thoughts guing her mind, Blood Master Scarlett almost wanted to cancel the fight after seeing the strange battlefield that they had been taken to. There was nothing but destroyed scraps of nts that littered the ground and deep cracks prated the earth.
If it wasn''t for the thick smell of blood still lingering in the air, she would have assumed that the hill was wrecked by a natural disaster. Seeing this disaster-stricken ce made Blood Master Scarlett panic as she secretly began to unleash her witchcraft in secret.
She wanted to prepare just in case something unexpected happened to her and Blood Master Steel. As long as she had her trusty basic witchcraft spells she felt that would be enough to guarantee that they would be able to escape.
As Scarlett''s emotions rapidly shifted she expertly hid them away to appear as if she was calm andposed. Unfortunately, for Scarlett, she didn''t notice that Yoze had been secretly watching her from the side.
He also found that as time passed on he was getting better at reading the quick but subtle changes in her face. She might have talent in controlling her emotions but it seemed that she wasn''t as talented in controlling the subtle changes in her facial expressions.
She had to frequently take control of the muscles on her face to match the emotions that she wanted to show. Even though this slightg wasn''t enough for most people to notice, it was enough for Yoze.
Especially after receiving a boost to his intelligence from his upgraded Dead Crystal Nerves. He was able to rapidly learn how to decode what emotions Blood Master Scarlett was controlling.
"This ce should be a good ce to fight. Everything is dead so we don''t have to worry about destroying the nts and killing the animals in this ce." Yoze said casually.
Since he was the one being challenged he felt it was only right that he was the one that picked the location of the fighting spot. And he felt that this hill was the perfect ce for him to test Blood Master Steel''s capabilities.
With the level of destruction that he had caused when he activated his Blood Armor, he didn''t want to cause another natural disaster at another beautiful location. Until he got control over the full scope of his abilities this hill will be the only ce he could truly go all out.
Yoze turned to look at Blood Master Steel and saw that his face was as stern as steel. Not a single bit of fear could be seen in his eyes, if anything the desire to fight ande out victorious had grown since they left the inn.
"Blood Master Steel has reached the peak of the Blood Breaker martial art set but how many actual techniques does it have? Using Blood Fist takes a huge amount of my stamina to use and I could only imagine how much the original uses."
Yoze''s basic understanding of the Blood Breaker martial art set came from his understanding of the Blood Fist which was based on one of the techniques in the set. Even then the creator''s watered-down version still was incredibly difficult to use.
So he could imagine that the upgraded version of the Blood Fist would be even more taxing on the body. However, the power that it could allow one to unleash must be extreme to warrant that can of surpassing the limits of ideology.
Anyone who trained in the Blood Breaker body cultivation and its apanying techniques should be mentally insane and had no better option. And someone who had been chosen to inherit a heart from an anomaly should fit both of those check marks.
To see a martial artist using the Blood Breaker martial art set made Yoze excited. He wanted to see what the potential upgraded versions of his Blood Arts could be.
He wanted to see if it was better than his Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method. To test how much his defensive capabilities had grown since he reached the fourth level of Iron Muscles.
"Blood Master Steel, you can throw the first strike. I''ll just stand here and take it as best as I can." Yoze''s face turned serious as he took off his bloody hospital gown exposing his bare chest.
He took a deep breath and activated Iron Skin and Iron Muscles bringing his physical defense to its strongest form. As Blood Master Steel and Blood Master Scarlett watched Yoze prepare they saw his skin seemed to turn into a deep gray metal.
"You should use your full power." Blood Master Steel looked at Yoze with disapproval seeing that he didn''t activate his blood.
"Show me what you can do first, if you are strong enough then I''ll show you my blood armor. That way I don''t have to worry about identally killing before the fight starts." Yoze shook his head, as he told the truth to Blood Master Steel.
"If you have a death wish that is fine by me,"
Just as much Yoze was confident in his abilities Blood Master Steel was confident in his. But he was never someone who liked to whole back so he immediately activated the full scope of his Blood Breaker body cultivation.
"Badum! Badum! Badum!"
The sound of Blood Master Steel''s heart ranged across the battlefield resembling the beat of war drums. In an instant, a gush of dark red blood came out of his pour before immediately turning into hot blood vapor.
Chapter 156 156: Blood Breaker Fist
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The dark blood vapor rose in the air to form a dark red mist that covered every inch of Blood Master Steel, concealing his expanding body. The sound of cracking bones and ripping muscles and skin rang out from the dark blood mist.
"Crack crack crack!"
"Roar!"
With the final sound of bones cracking and bones healingpleted, the dark blood vapor quickly reentered Blood Master Steel''s body. Exposing his body that had gone through massive and monstrous changes.
Blood Master Steel had grown to be more than 7 feet and 10 inches from his original height of 6 feet. His skin seemed to have be a dark red leather that gave out a demonic feeling to everyone.
Even the Blood Master''s hair and eyes transformed into a demonic bloody red color that made him seem like he transformed into a rage-filled monster. If it wasn''t for the fact he maintained his human form and had torn his clothes, no one would have been able to associate this giant blood monster with Blood Master Steel.
Seeing Blood Master Steel''s transformation, Yoze''s eyes widened with shock. He almost couldn''t believe that someone practicing martial arts could transform to such an extent.
Yoze licked his lips in anticipation as he could only imagine the amount of power that Blood Master Steel could hit him with. He was even contemting if he should activate his Blood Weapon Handler Armor to better tank the blow.
"..."
Not bothering to speak further, Blood Master Steel stomped the ground hard causing the ground to sink in several feet, and propelled him so fast that he disappeared in Blood Master Scarlett''s eyes.
Yoze on the other hand saw Blood Master Steel charging towards him like a missile as he cocked his arm to throw a punch. Yoze immediately recognized that the punch had simr elements to the Blood Fist as it expanded to three times its size in less than a blink of an eye.
With how much power was inside that single punch, Yoze predicted it could have killed if not gravely injured a Martial Grandmaster. Even though Yoze knew eating Blood Master Steel''s punch was going to hurt as hell, he still didn''t activate his Blood Armor and took it.
Just when Blood Master Steel was a few centimeters away from Yoze his arm grew one more size and was covered in thick dark-red veins that gave out a feeling of pure power. With his Blood Breaker Fist at full power, Blood Master Steel threw his punch straight at Yoze''s heart.
The moment his punchnded on Yoze''s chest, Blood Master Steel felt as if he had just punched a steel wall. The pain that came from his fist was so unbearable that he knew that he had broken a few bones.
But to him, that was all worth it as he heard a deep powerful thude from Yoze''s body before he sent it flying.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The force of Blood Master Steel''s punch was so powerful that Yoze''s flying body smashed into the ground three times before being able to stop.
"Did you win?"
Noticing that Blood Master Steel was now standing where Yoze was previously standing alongside the body that was sent flying, Blood Master Scarlett couldn''t help but assume that the fight was over.
"Unless he has better defenses than a Martial Grandmaster, he should be dead if not too injured to continue fighting." Blood Master Steel took a brief look at his fist and saw he had broken three finger bones from that one attack.
But looking at the dust cloud that covered Yoze''s body and seeing that there was no movement, Blood Master Steel felt a bit disappointed. He had a feeling that if Yoze had gone full power at the start they would have been more even.
There was even a good chance to get closer to breaking through his limit and bing a Martial Grandmaster. He even thought that the sound of Martial Grandmaster Steel had a good sound to it.
"Badum! Badum! Badum!!"
Just as he was about to leave he and Blood Master Scarlett suddenly heard a sounde from the dust cloud. It was simr to his war drum-like heartbeat but was significantly slower.
Even still it quickly grew louder as they began to see movement in the dust cloud.
"That hurt like hell, luckily it probably only fractured a few of my ribs, nothing that can''t be healed in a day or two."
Hearing Yoze''s clear voiceing out of the dust cloud and saw his giant figure standing up. Blood Master Steel smiled as he knew he had finally found a worthy opponent.
Yoze stepped out of the dust cloud with his pants a bit torn and dusty but no visible damage was done to his skin and muscles. Feeling that was enough testing of his defensive capabilities, he decided to end this fight quickly.
After reorienting himself, Yoze activated his Big Golem Inner Vigor and quickly regained his weight of 7 thousand pounds. What made him happy was that he didn''t feel sluggish doing so, meaning that it wasn''t affecting his speed any longer.
After slightly adjusting himself, Yoze immediately hopped toward Blood Master Steel, disappearing in Blood Master Scarlett''s eyes. Before she could understand what happened saw Blood Master Steel''s tall figure get sent flying tens of feet into the air like a rag doll.
"Boom! Crunch!"
When Blood Master Steel''s body crashed into the ground she heard a sickening crunching of bones. And unlike Yoze who was able to easily shake off the hit, Blood Master Steel''s body began to shrink and revert to his regr human form.
"Grave!" Scarlett looked at Blood Master Steel''s bloody body and ran up to him to see if he was alive.
Meanwhile, Yoze nodded his head with pride as he looked at his fingers. After using the finger version of Bull Fist again after so long, Yoze realized that he liked battling with his hands the most.
Chapter 157 157: Black Blood
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Lying in a pool of his own dark blood, Grave sat there speechless, in pain, and questioning the world. He had never lost a battle ever since he had met the Anomaly so many years ago when he was just a simple grave robber.
Even though he could see the look of concern in Blood Master Scarlett''s eyes as she looked at him he couldn''t hear a word from her as his thoughts drifted to his memories. He quickly found himself standing inside a giant tomb of an emperor.
There were countless bits of gold and jewels spread around the emperor''s coffin. So much so that if he had taken it he would never have to worry about money again. Seeing such vast levels of wealth didn''t make Grave''s heart flutter as it used to when he was in deep need of money
What attracted his gaze was that standing in front of the emperor''s casket was a young man dressed in dusty clothes and various types of gear needed for robbing graves. The young man''s innocent face was filled with a mixture of feelings of sadness, regret, hope, and desire.
Grave remembered that he had lost all his grave robber friends in this tomb one after another but even though they knew many of them would still lose their lives they continued forward. There was just too much for them to lose if they went back.
Grave himself had a little sister that was incredibly sick and needed many expensive treatments to survive. Even though he knew that taking on this job was dangerous he didn''t want to be alone in this world.
In the end, he was thest one to survive and reach the emperor''s tomb. He should have been excited at the time as he had reached the goal that countless of his friends wanted and could finally save his sister.
Grave felt his face curly up into a smile as he saw his younger self shivering in fear as he was fixed on the giant bloody heart that was within the emperor''s coffin.
"Badum! Badum! Badum!"
Every heartbeat that came from the giant bloody heart made his past self clench his heart harder and harder. As his face lost more and more blood became pale.
With every heartbeat, Grave felt his own heart start to grow closer to the giant bloody heart''s rhythm. He could feel a strong yearning to drink blood quickly building up inside him.
"Badum!! Badum!! Badum!!"
Eventually, the heartbeats were too much for his past self and his unconscious body smashed heavily into the ground. Meanwhile, the giant bloody heart in the emperor''s coffin stopped thumping and went silent.
Grave who was watching all of this happen in his memory felt confused. If this was all just a memory he was having in his mind why didn''t it end when his past self fell unconscious?
"Badum!!! Badum!!!! Badum!!!!!"
Suddenly as Grave was having doubts about what he was witnessing, the Giant Bloody Heart exploded with new activity and sent waves of emotions to him.
Grave could feel that the Giant Bloody Heart was excited, angry, hungry, and longing for something, yet he had no idea what it was. He could only watch in helplessness as the Giant Bloody Heart thumped with increasing strength.
The Giant Bloody Heart thumped with so much power that he could feel that he was losing grip of control of his body. It was like the Giant Bloody Heart in his memories was trying to gain control of his body through his heart.
"No, you don''t!"
Noticing that he was losing control, Grave clutched his heart and used everyst bit of resistance that his body, will, and soul could produce. Even then it wasn''t enough to ovee the Giant Bloody Heart''s power and Grave quickly found himself falling unconscious just like his past self.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Blood Master Scarlett watched in horror as ck blood started gushing out of Grave''s heart. The ck blood was extremely thick and had an overwhelming scent that was almost indescribable.
"Grave, wake up!"
"Shoot!"
Having her sense of danger ring out warnings, Blood Master Scarlett gritted her teeth and jumped away from Grave. She quickly ced her palm on the ground and muttered a few words.
Soon after she muttered a few words the ground below her began to rumble as ten giant mounds of dirt grew. The dirt mounds grew taller and taller as they curved inwards to create an imprable barrier around her.
"Boom"
With the sound of her dirt barrierpletely closed from the outside world, Blood Master Scarlett breathed a soft sigh of relief. After she regained control of her emotion again, she reached into her pouch inplete darkness to grab out an eyeball.
She then whispered a few words to the eyeball before controlling her dirt barrier to form a small opening enough to let the eyeball out. Once the opening form she quickly threw the eyeball outside and ced her hand together as if she was reading a book.
Magically on her palm, she saw the outside world from the eyeball''s perspective and saw Yoze kneeling next to Grave who was bleeding out ck blood.
"Incredible, this man''s blood heart is so strong. In such a dangerous situation, it had transformed his blood to be even more potent and have better healing properties." Yoze said out loud, noticing that there was a floating eyeball staring at him.
"If there was any doubt before that he wouldn''t survive before now it was certain that he would not only survive bute out stronger."
"Even breaking into the Martial Grandmaster realm is a possibility," Yoze said calmly as he watched Grave''s motionless body slowly being covered in this ck blood.
What Yoze didn''t say was that he had the desire to take this ck blood for himself to allow his own blood heart to absorb and transform his blood. He also was heavily interested in what would happen to him if he was in Blood Master Steel''s situation.
Would his blood heart also start producing a new type of blood to save him? Would he get the same kind of ck blood as this or would his blood be different?
He had many questions that he wanted the answers to but would only get in the future.
As for now he only had two goals in mind, the first is to collect some of this ck blood. The second is to make sure Blood Master Steel stays in his control until he copies the second unknown talent.
Chapter 158 158: Blood Cocoon And Bloody Transformation
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Having decided to take some blood for himself, Yoze followed his instincts and ced his finger in Grave''s ck blood. The moment his finger touched the flowing ck blood it seemed to be attracted to him as it flowed up his finger.
It gave Yoze the sense that this ck blood was alive and wanted to eat him alive. Fortunately, his own blood heart that his cheat had created the moment he took the Blood Heart talent activated and started beating hard.
With each thump of his blood heart, a bit of the ck blood was absorbed into his body giving him a sensation as if he was injected with warm water into his veins.
After a few seconds of thumping Yoze pulled his finger away from the ck blood to its disagreement due to a full feelinging from his blood heart.
"I have a blood heart and my regr human heart. Making me one of the few people in the world with two hearts." Yoze thought to himself with amusement before stepping away from Grave''s body.
Since he had collected his fill of the ck blood, Yoze was simply going to watch what happened to Grave as the ck blood took over his body. He hoped to gain a better understanding of what his new blood heart could do and its impact.
As an object gained from an anomaly that breaks the rules of this world, he could only imagine what kind of effects it would have on someone''s body.
As Yoze peacefully waited and Blood Master Scarlett watched protected inside her barrier they watched as Grave waspletely engulfed in the ck blood. Once every inch of his body was covered by so much ck blood that it resembled a cocoon.
Once the ck blood cocoon was formed, not a single drop of ck blood was produced causing the ck blood to quickly dry. After a few seconds, all the ck blood had dried and hardened into a true cocoon.
"Is he going to hatch into a superhuman?" Yoze thought as he saw that the ck blood cocoon began to shake from the inside.
The shaking was weak and happened slowly but it quickly began to shake vigorously as if a monster was trying its best to escape its prison.
"Rip!"
"Roar!"
A deafening roar followed quickly after the ck blood cocoon was torn open revealing the monster inside. The monster was a man in histe twenties with long dark red spikey hair. The man''s skin was covered in red tattoos that flowed like blood as an incredibly powerful bloody aura emitted from his body.
The bloody aura was nothing like Yoze had ever seen as it wasn''t the aura caused purely by inner vigor or spiritual energy but a mixture of the two. The moment the young man stepped out of the ck cocoon Yoze felt his blood start to slow down but picked up its speed once his blood heart started beating.
"Rematch, winner takes, heart."
The young man who looked like a younger version of Grave spoke with a demonic voice that didn''t seem possible toe out of human vocal cords. After making his intent clear the young man ran toward Yoze with a speed that only could be matched by a Martial Grandmaster.
"Give me your heart!" The transformed Grave yelled as a bloody threw out a simple w toward Yoze''s heart.
Even though Grave''s attack wasn''t powered up with a martial art technique, Yoze could tell that it was much more lethalpared to Grave''s previous full-power punch. Seeing that he was going for the kill immediately after waking up, Yoze''s face fell and he lost his desire to fight with Grave.
Before Grave could touch him, Yoze gathered all his spiritual energies and suppressed Grave''s spiritual energy that had taken the form of a green shovel with blood stains. The moment Yoze''s mmed into Grave''s spiritual energy it nearly crushed his bloody green shovel t.
With such an overwhelmingly oppressive spiritual energy pressing down on his spiritual energy the transformed Grave immediately fell to the ground unable to move at all. The moment he was suppressed Grave''s bloody aura raced back into his body to reinforce his spiritual energy.
Not in the mood to watch the transformed Grave attempt to free himself from being suppressed. Yoze allowed some of his spiritual energy to devour all the new blood-red spiritual energy that came out of Grave''s body while ignoring the rest of the suppressed spiritual energy.
The moment Yoze allowed his spiritual energies to devour, they went wild and ate everyst strand of blood-red spiritual energy until there was nothing left to help him escape.
The pain that Grave felt from his spiritual energy being devoured was so immense that after thest bit of blood-red spiritual energy was devoured he fainted. After losing consciousness for the second time, Grave''s body shook as he began to revert to his middle-aged appearance with a pained look still on his face.
"Finally, I just need to wait until he wakes up to confirm he isn''t a threat. Does that sound fine with you?" Yoze turned to the Blood Master Scarlett''s floating eyeball hoping that would convince her not to try and take Grave''s body away for the time being.
Yoze stared at the eyeball for a minute and seeing it not move or change at all he just shook his head and waited. He didn''t know if it was because she couldn''t hear him or if she didn''t have a way tomunicate back.
But he hoped that she wouldn''t think that he wanted to kill Blood Master Steel and attempted to rescue him. He didn''t want to fight a witch and deal with her tricks to get a new talent when it would do them both good to just wait.
An hour quickly passed by and Yoze saw that Blood Master Steel still had no signs of regaining consciousness soon so he took out a movement technique book he had gotten a long time ago and read it.
Chapter 159 159: Should I Be A Martial Artist?
"This Centipede Steps movement technique is pretty good. It should shore up my weakness of speed and reduce my reliance on mindless legs to battle."
From what Yoze knew after reading the book, Centipede Steps was a movement technique used forbat purposes. Its main focus was providing the user with the ability to change directions at the drop of a hat without their opponents being able to predict their movements.
The movement technique was divided into three stages corresponding to each level of the martial arts stage. The first level was the Four Legs stage where he would be able to move so fast that it would look like he had two pairs of legs.
At this stage, he would be able to move freely in four directions. The second stage was the Eight Legs stage where his speed would double and he would be able to move freely in eight directions. Thest stage was the Sixteen Legs stage and his speed would once again double.
At that speed, the book said that every time he activated this technique it would look like he had 16 legs each allowing him to move in one of 16 Cardinal directions. It was a great way to be able to move around the battlefield unhindered and impossible to hit.
"Okay, let''s see how far I can progress before Blood Master Steel wakes up." You muttered to himself.
He quickly moved a few feet away from Blood Master Steel''s unconscious body to give him some room and he began to follow the steps of the Centipede Steps movement techniques. Following the steps made him look awkward and clumsy but after falling a few times he was able to quickly begin to feel the rhythm of the steps.
It didn''t take him long before he could casually use Centipede Steps to walk around even though he was slow. Once Yoze had gotten a good feeling of how Centipede Steps movements worked he began to speed up.
A few hours quickly passed by as Yoze was fully focused on his legs as he had 8 legs below him moving below him. From left and right, forward and back, and abination of the two Yoze was able to swiftly change his direction at the drop of a hat without having to slow down at all.
While Yoze was focused on training his movement technique a floating eyeball was watching him from afar. Behind that eyeball was a shocked Blood Master Scarlett who had been watching Yoze.
"There is no way a person can learn a movement technique so fast right? Maybe he had already learned it many years ago but decided to go back to the basics and start all over?" Blood Master Scarlett shook her head in defeat as she knew that what she said was nonsense.
She had been a martial artist long enough to tell when someone was just starting to train in new techniques and an expert who was going back to the basics. The two were not simr at all as a newbie would always look clumsy and ufortable when they first started regardless of what they were practicing in.
She had gone through that experience countless times and could see that Yoze had been at that stage just a few hours ago. Yet she still found it hard to believe that he could go from having no foundation in this movement technique to being extremely well-versed and practiced.
His speed of progress could be said to have been abnormal and shouldn''t have been possible regardless of how talented a martial artist was. Any martial art technique needs years of constant practice to be able to reach the peak yet Yoze seemed to be able to do so in less than a day.
Blood Master Scarlett felt both marveled and horrified at how much talent Yoze had shown her.
"No wonder Blood Master Steel lost so easily, there was no way he could win against someone that is this talented in martial arts. A decade of training and progress had beenpressed to less than a day for Yoze."
"Mine and Blood Master Steel''sbined years of progress probably pales inparison to how much progress he has made in less time." Blood Master Scarlett muttered to herself behind her dirt barrier.
Blood Master Scarlett always viewed herself as being talented in martial arts even if she wasn''t the best. But what she saw today made her feel that she was too proud of herself.
If there were people as talented as Blood Master Steel and Yoze then her talent in martial arts wasn''t very high. She could even be considered to be talentless.
She had given up decades of her life to practicing martial arts but was only able to be a Blood Master. If Yoze had that amount of time he would have be a Martial Grandmaster a long time ago.
"Luckily, I found out that I am talented in witchcraft or my confidence in myself would crumble." Blood Master Scarlett sighed with relief knowing that she had something that Yoze would never be able topete with her in.
After reassuring herself, Blood Master Scarlettposed herself and watched Yoze train with a renewed calm. No matter how much he progressed it would not affect her since she had decided to focus on bing a witch.
A few hours passed by as Yoze had stopped training in Centipede Steps since he had reached its peak an hour ago. He had thought about trying to surpass the limits of Centipede Steps but he decided to hold back since he was being watched by someone that could be his enemy.
Luckily for Yoze and Blood Master Scarlett just as the sun was setting, they caught signs of Blood Master Steel beginning to regain consciousness. Noticing that Blood Master Steel was starting to wake up, Yoze prepared himself to use his spiritual energies to suppress him if he tried to attack him.
"Should I devour his spiritual energy?"
As Yoze watched Blood Master Steel wake up he contemted whether he should spiritually kill Blood Master Steel so he could just take his body and copy his talents.
Chapter 160 160: Lets Work Together
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Eventually, Yoze shook his head and decided to not kill Blood Master Steel just yet. He felt that the benefits of killing Blood Master Steel were not as great as the cons.
For example, while he would get his body and be able to copy his talents he would lose the opportunity to ask him where he had gotten his blood heart. From the description of the Blood Heart talent, it didn''t sound like Blood Master Steel was the abnormality nor was the blood heart.
That meant the abnormal entity that imnted Blood Master Steel''s blood heart in his body was still running amuck in the world. Losing the chance to be able to find that abnormal entity would be a huge loss.
As there was a good chance he could get incredibly rare and mystical talents on the same level as Spiritual energy talents. Just his sole encounter with one abnormal entity like the Undead Baby had given him a great talent such as his Life Attraction talent.
Even though he only had a grade 4 in his Life Attraction talent it still yed a very valuable part in his strength. Not only did it allow him to have great endurance and stamina but it made it harder for him to diepared to regr humans.
The most important thing was that he had gotten his Life Attraction talent from the undead zombies that the Undead Baby had identally created when it tried toe back to life, not the Undead Baby itself.
Just imagining what kind of talents he could get from another unnatural event made Yoze drool. He especially looked forward to finding the abnormal entity that seemed to have enough awareness to imnt a blood heart into a host.
That meant the abnormal entity might have been aware enough to know it had talents, talents that Yoze''s cheat should be able to copy. Just thinking about having the talents of an abnormal entity made Yoze lick his lips in anticipation.
"Uh,"
Hearing a painful groane from Blood Master Steel, Yoze turned his attention toward him. Seeing that Blood Master Steel had regained control of himself, Yoze temporarily put away his n to use his spiritual energy to suppress Blood Master Steel.
"Are you feeling better? That abnormal entity is not controlling you right?" Yoze said with a calm expression on his face.
"What!?" Blood Master Steel''s face looked at Yoze with shock before he realized that he had just exposed himself.
"How do you know I was being controlled by an abnormal entity?" Regaining hisposure Blood Master Steel stood up from the ground and asked Yoze.
"As someone who has dealt with an abnormal entity before it isn''t too difficult to figure out when you transformed into its reincarnation." Yoze continued talking as he tried his best to make it look like he knew what he was talking about.
"..."
Even though Blood Master Steel stayed silent Yoze could see that a whirlwind of questions popped into his head but since Blood Master Steel didn''t outright deny his im meant he believed him somewhat.
"What do you mean you dealt with an abnormal entity before?" Eventually, Blood Master Steel asked another question trying his best to get more information from Yoze.
"It''s quite simple. I had fought and killed an abnormal entity known as the Undead Baby. As you can guess this abnormal entity was a baby that tried toe back to life and as a result, it ended up wiping out an entire town."
"Not only did it wipe out the entire town but it had transformed them into undead zombies that could easily kill living creatures with a single touch."
"Before you ask, I think you would want to know why I am so confident that the abnormal entity you encountered is trying to turn you into its reincarnation, right?" Yoze smiled as he gave all the information that Blood Master Steel wanted.
Blood Master Steel nodded his head telling Yoze to continue.
"That is also simple, abnormal entities or unnatural events are things that break or attempt to break thews of this world. And the mostmon attempt is to break the barrier between life and death."
"The Undead Baby tried to break the barrier between life and death itself but other abnormal entries try more clever ways to undermine the world rules. One of the ways is for these abnormal entities to try to reincarnate through the body of another person." Yoze calmly said to Blood Master Steel telling a mixture of lies and his own assumptions.
Yoze only told Blood Master Steel things that made sense and someone could logically follow. For example, it made sense for creatures to desire toe back to life after they die.
There were also plenty of sources from books and history that talked about undead monsters like zombies. So it wasn''t hard to assume that abnormal entities would too want to break thew of life and death.
However, Yoze straight up lied saying that reincarnation was amon path for abnormal entries to take to undermine world rules because he had no experience if this was true. He also didn''t know if the abnormal entity that had given Blood Master Steel his blood heart even wanted toe back to life.
But seeing Blood Master Steel not challenge his im gave Yoze the sense that he still believed him. Because what he said didn''t sound wrong and couldn''t be proven to be wrong.
"Why are you telling me all this?" After staying silent for a few seconds to digest all the information Yoze had told him, Blood Master Steel couldn''t help but feel suspicious at why Yoze was helping him so much.
"I will be honest with you, I am telling you all this because I want to convince you to team up with me to kill that abnormal entity."
"What do you gain from this?"
"Peace of mind that your abnormal entity is not going to suddenly appear in front of me one day and take my heart," Yoze said with a weary smile.
Chapter 161 161: Second Unknown Talent
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"You make a convincing argument but I will stick to dealing with my own problems and you can deal with yours." Blood Master Steel said to Yoze.
"That is fine with me but at least stay here for a few more hours at least so we can be sure that the abnormal entity doesn''t try to regain control."
"Unless you are a hundred percent confident that you can either suppress the abnormal entity''s attempt to take over your body or you are certain it won''t try to take over your body then you can feel free to leave," Yoze said to Blood Master Steel with a deadpan face.
He knew that it was going to take some convincing and time to get Blood Master Steel to trust him enough to reveal the location of where he met his abnormal entity so he wasn''t going to force it. However, his talent marks were still on cooldown and he didn''t want to miss his chance to get that second unknown talent from Blood Master Steel.
"A few hours is fine," Blood Master Steel looked deeply into Yoze''s eyes and sat down on the floor with his eyes closed.
Seeing that he had convinced Blood Master Steel to stay for a few hours, Yoze turned his gaze to the floating eyeball that revealed everything that happened to Blood Master Scarlett.
He hoped that she was able to hear everyst word he said because if his assumption that her close rtionship with Blood Master Steel was as true as he imagined then the moment she heard that Blood Master Steel was in danger she would look for sources to help deal with the danger.
And he hoped that one of those sources would include him so he could maintain a constant link with Blood Master Steel. However even if Blood Master Scarlett couldn''t hear what they were talking about or didn''t view him as a source to help them solve Blood Master Steel''s abnormal entity problem he would still be an option in Blood Master Steel''s mind.
[Talent Marks: 0 (Time Remaining: 10: 30: 21)]
Checking how much more time he had before he got his talent marks back and seeing he had 10 hours left Yoze decided to take a small nap to pass the time.
A few hourster when Yoze woke up from his nap he saw that Blood Master Steel had moved from the spot he sat in and was currently fighting against a made-up enemy. Even though Blood Master Steel threw basic punches Yoze was able to see that a bright red light flew out of his fists like a cannonball.
"Boom, Boom, Boom"
These sts of red light hit the ground and caused small explosions as they found small craters. Completely focused on his training Blood Master Steel didn''t notice that Yoze had woken up from his nap and continued to test out his new powers as a Martial Grandmaster.
"Blood Master Steel''s inner vigor is quite destructive." Yoze thought to himself as he watched Blood Master Steel train.
Yoze continued to watch Blood Master Steel continue to train and get used to his new powers for two hours before he grew bored and began his own training. Taking out another movement technique that he had at his disposal, Yoze briefly read the book before immediately getting started.
As Yoze and Blood Master Steel became absorbed in their own training regimens, Blood Master Scarlett watched the two of them withposure. After she had her initial shock after watching Yoze she wasn''t affected by either of them anymore.
What she was impressed by was the fact that Blood Master Steel had been able to turn a devastating defeat into a way to break through into the Martial Grandmaster realm. He had evenpletely healed all his wounds in such a quick and easy fashion that it didn''t seem possible for a human to be capable of such a thing.
It was already extremely impressive for Blood Master Steel to use fighting other martial artists as a way to quickly break through realms. Before he needed to have his opponents be slightly stronger than yet now even losingpletely was a way to quickly grow stronger.
That meant that there simply wasn''t a way to stop him from rising at an even faster rate as he could simply just battle Martial Grandmasters that were much stronger than him. As long as he wasn''t outright killed by his opponents then he would always be capable ofing back stronger.
"I wonder if Grave can transform back into that younger version of himself. If he can control that transformation he should be unstoppable by most Martial Grandmasters. Only Martial Grandmasters that were at their peak would stand a chance of fighting him." Blood Master Scarlett muttered as she watched Blood Master Steel''s red inner vigor st holes into the ground.
"This is going to be a hard century for all martial artists in the world with these two monsters running around. But at the same time if these two monsters are in this region then doesn''t it mean that other regions of the world also have their own monsters."
As Blood Master Scarlett pondered about what she would see in the future, thest few hours on Yoze''s talents marks had passed.
[Talent Marks: 2]
"Toss one talent mark to Blood Master Steel and target his grade 7 unknown talent." Yoze turned his gaze over to Blood Master Steel who had escted his training and was using the full power of his blood.
[Grade 7 Unknown talent has locked on. Grade 6 Unknown talent has been added. Analysis of talent is being made...]
[Unknown talent has been identified and the name has been changed to Blood Adaptation talent.]
"It seems that his second unknown talent is still rted to that anomaly he encountered. I wondered what it means by blood Adaptation." Yoze thought to himself as he quickly pulled up the brief description of Blood Compatibility.
Chapter 162 162: Blood Adaptation
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[Blood Adaptation is a talent acquired by Grave Grave after receiving a blood heart from an abnormal entity. Blood Adaptation is a talent for allowing the special blood to adapt to the changes and conditions of the body that it is inside. Blood Adaptation talent covers anything rted to blood changes and adaptation of produced blood.]
"Does that mean without this talent there was a chance that the blood produced by my blood heart might trigger an adverse reaction from my body?" Yoze''s face turned grim as he quickly understood that his life could have been in danger if he hadn''t taken the chance to grab the second unknown talent.
"Forget it, no need to think about what would have happened if I didn''t get this talent from Blood Master Steel. Since I have it I don''t need to ruin my mood about an unknown fate."
After sighing at how he needed to be careful when it came to acquiring talents from abnormal entities and unnatural events Yoze''s mind quickly turned towards the question of whether he should grab the Blood Breaker talent.
"Since I have the Blood Breaker martial art set, having the rted talent would be useful. But at the same time, I would miss the chance to get Blood Master Scarlett''s witchcraft talent." Yoze thought to himself before he eventually decided to acquire Blood Master Scarlett''s talent in witchcraft.
His reasoning was simple, Blood Master Steel''s Blood Breaker talent was too low grade and he had plenty of talent when it came to martial arts and body cultivation. While it would have been nice for him to get a talent directly rted to Blood Breaker he didn''t need it to make quick progress with the martial art set.
On the other hand, Yoze''s talent when it came to witchcraft and immortal cultivation was too low for his liking. He wanted to add more talents to make these two categories of talent better but he didn''t have many chances when it came to witchcraft.
While there wasn''t much chance for Yoze to copy many immortal cultivation talents he still was able to upgrade his Crystal Nerves talent as well as gain some talents in certain immortal cultivation methods. However, he never had a chance to do the same for witchcraft or his Dead Crystal Nerves talents until he met Blood Master Scarlett again.
Now that he had this opportunity to get a boost to his talent in witchcraft he needed to take it as he didn''t know when he would meet a witch with such high talent in witchcraft. After making up his mind, Yoze turned his attention to therge dirt mound that was concealing her body.
"But to get her talent I need to be able to see her body to use a talent mark on her. I have to wait for her to put down her barrier." Looking at the barrier concealing Blood Master Scarlett''s body, Yoze was reminded of the few limitations of his cheat.
He had to be able to see his targets before he could use his talent mark. If his target went behind a wall before he had targeted them then his talent mark wouldn''t be able to target them until he saw them again.
However, the more he thought about how he had used his cheat over the years he realized that he had never tested if he could use his target''s spiritual energy as a recement for seeing their body. It was true that before he could sense spiritual energy from individual people he couldn''t use his talent mark on people he couldn''t see.
But just as his cheat had been evolving alongside him, Yoze was now able to sense and distinguish spiritual energies between people. So there was a need for him to test to see if he could now use spiritual energy as a way to rece his sight.
"Let''s see if I can use Blood Master Scarlett''s spiritual energy to target her." Curious about how his experiment would go, Yoze turned his focus to Blood Master Scarlett''s spiritual energy.
Looking past the dirt mound, Yoze was able to see that there was a purple egg-shaped gathering of spiritual energy that he was able to identify as Blood Master Scarlett''s spiritual energy. Focusing his gaze on her spiritual energy, Yoze threw hisst talent mark at the purple egg spiritual energy.
[Name: Scarlett Grave [NewBorn]]
[Age: 57]
[Talents: Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 7), Body Cultivation (Grade 7), Thorny Rose Cultivation (Grade 5), Rapid Calction (Grade 4), Emotion Control (Grade 9), Witchcraft (Grade 6), Dead Crystal Nerves (Grade 6), Memorization (Grade 4)]
[Grade 6 Witchcraft talent has been locked on. Grade 2 Witchcraft talent has been upgraded to grade 5.]
The moment Yoze upgraded his Witchcraft talent he felt his connection to his Dead Crystal Nerves deepen and his control of the crystal energy surrounding his Dead Crystal Nerves felt as if it became much better.
"The feeling of acquiring talents and upgrading talents will never get old. " Yoze thought to himself as he stopped training and turned towards Blood Master Steel who was still absorbed in his training.
"Blood Master Steel how are you feeling? From how active you are, I am guessing you are not feeling that you are losing control of your body, right?" Yoze said, trying to get Blood Master Steel''s attention.
"I am in control." Blood Master Steel stopped his training and said to Yoze.
"That is good since you are doing alright. I am going to leave. If you want to contact me you know where I am staying."
"One more thing, since I did fight you I consider that to be epting andpleting the Thorn Rose Sect''s request. So if you could do me a favor and inform Blood Master Scarlett to help me get the 100 thousand silver from the sect." Remembering the Thorn Sect''s tempting offer, Yoze quickly asked to get his payment for his service.
"Don''t worry since you fought me and even helped me regain control over my body then I will return the favor." Blood Master Steel calmly said as he walked over to Blood Master Scarlett''s dirt mound and knocked three times.
The moment Blood Master Steel did his third knock the dirt mound crumbled to the ground revealing aposed and calm Blood Master Scarlett.
Chapter 163 163: Buying A House
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"Blood Master Scarlett, can you get the reward money from the Thorn Rose Sect and give it to Yoze." Blood Master Steel said to Blood Master Scarlett.
"Of course, I''ll get the money as soon as possible." Blood Master Scarlett nodded her head.
"Thank you, I will bid you two a good day."
Hearing that he would be getting paid for his service, Yoze bid Blood Master Scarlett and Blood Master Steel goodbye as he went home. When he arrived he saw the worried look on his father''s face melt like butter.
"Yoze,e eat," Drew said to his son with a smile as he prepared a big breakfast.
Just as Yoze was eating his breakfast he heard a knock on the door and noticed that it was Blood Master Scarlett.
"She works fast," Yoze felt a bit surprised seeing how Blood Master Scarlett had so quickly gathered the reward money.
When he opened the door he saw Blood Master Scarlett wearing the same clothes that he saw her wear earlier with some added blood stains that weren''t there previously. In her hands was a thick pouch that jingled with metal shing into each other from her slight movements.
"As promised I have gotten you 100 thousand silver as quickly as I possibly could. I hope you don''t mind that a majority of it is in the form of gold coins." Blood Master Scarlett said with a calm expression as she handed the money pouch to Yoze.
"That is no problem at all, you just saved me the trouble of having to convert it myself," Yoze said as he opened the pouch to check its contents.
Inside the thick pouch was just as Blood Master Scarlett mentioned as there was almost nothing but gold coins inside the money pouch with only a few silver coins inside.
"That was the money, as part of the reward I am supposed to hand you our elder robe but we currently don''t have one in your size so here is an elder coin. As long as you show this to any martial artist that knows about martial art sects they will know not to mess with you." Blood Master Scarlett reached into her pocket and took out a red coin with the image of a spiky rose.
"I said previously that I am not interested in joining the Thorn Rose Sect so there is no need for either the robe or coin." Yoze shook his head as he denied grabbing the coin from her.
"I understand, but I still rmend taking the coin as you can sell it or give it to someone else at any point. That means you can give someone the position of being an elder in my sect which can earn you some favors."
"And don''t worry we won''t be iming that you are a sect elder for the Thorn Rose Sect as the coin merely allows anyone who holds it to be treated as a sect elder. Receiving all the benefits of being one with plenty of flexibility." Knowing that Yoze was greatly opposed to the idea of bing her sect elder Blood Master Scarlett quickly added the special quality of the coin.
"In that case, I will take it." After thinking about the possible benefits, Yoze eventually took the red coin from Blood Master Scarlett''s hand.
"Is that all?"
"Yes, I hope we talk to each other soon." Blood Master Scarlett smiled before swiftly leaving.
As Yoze watched Blood Master Scarlett leave, he looked at the pouch of money in his hands and wondered how he should spend it all. To this day he still hadn''t spent all the money he earned from the City.
Now that he had much more money he wanted to spend it as quickly as possible to convert it into useful resources like crystals and food. After making a quick n he called Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer over as he wanted to discuss what he was thinking of spending his money on.
"Jewel as you can see I have quite a bit of money now so I would like it if you could help me contact all the people I need to build a house near the city."
"Tiki and Dreyer, I am going to be buying arge number of crystals so that we can focus on cultivating and less time on bit crystals," Yoze told the three his general n for what he wanted to use the money for.
With 100 thousand silver in his hands, Yoze wanted to focus on buying the two most valuable resources he could. After he took some time to think about it he eventually settled on buying a house.
Even though the Ten Ton Inn had been their home ever since they arrived at New Swampscott City and the inn''s weight limit was still high enough for him. He didn''t feelfortable with staying in a location where arge number of people knew where he lived.
After the incident with the inn being surrounded by rogue immortal cultivators, Yoze felt less and lessfortable leaving his father there. And there was the issue that he was the only person that could stop an attack since Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel were weak.
Even though they had been training and their progress had been quick it wasn''t quick enough for them to stop a crazy rogue immortal cultivator or a Martial Grandmaster. Just the fact that the Thorn Rose Cultivation Sect could walk up to his door and demand to see him was stepping on his red line.
There was also another danger that he was worried about and that was abnormal entities. Before he had assumed that if an abnormal entity showed up it would also conjure up a noticeable unnatural event.
But Blood Master Steel''s existence showed Yoze that not only were there the danger of monsters, immortals, demons, and unnatural events but also abnormal entities that could appear without anyone noticing. After Blood Master Steel lost control and transformed Yoze had even less faith that this inn was a good ce for his near-death father to reside in.
Having a house near the city but not inside it would solve some of those problems when it came to external threats. With his own house, he could customize the weight limit to be even higher than the Ten Ton Inn and provide himself with more space to train indoors.
Since his house would be outside the city he could also have his own training courtyard so he could practice his more destructive martial arts without worry. That would mean that he would have to leave his father alone less often and be here in case anything dide.
Chapter 164 164: Skyrocketing Crystal Price
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The second most important resource that he could buy was crystals. Crystals were an important cultivation resource for Tiki, Dreyer, and even himself.
They needed to use crystals to progress in their immortal cultivation and to practice witchcraft. As the main source of strength for Tiki and Dreyer, Yoze didn''t want them to face any hurdles that would slow them down.
And the most important hurdle that Yoze was able to get rid of was theck of crystals. Before he had even received the money from the Thorn Rose Sect Tiki and Dreyer didn''t have much to worry about when it came to the number of crystals since he had enough money.
But Yoze still felt that it was better to buy a huge amount of crystals now for a few reasons. The first was that buying the crystals now would not negatively affect them and instead would allow them not to worry about buying crystals in the future when they needed them.
The second reason was rted to the first and that was he worried that other rogue immortal cultivators would also want to increase their strength before the immortals from the immortal sect arrived. That would lead to a drastic increase in the price of crystals and drastically decrease the supply.
That would make it more difficult and dangerous to go outside and buy crystals as rogue immortal cultivators would be hyper-focused on acquiring as many as they could. Buying arge amount of crystal as soon as possible would not only allow them to beat the traffic but also allow them to spend less money.
As for the possibility of a rogue immortal cultivator tracking them down and trying to steal the crystals, Yoze hoped they tried. Not only would that allow him to easily copy talents from immortal cultivators but also allow him to decrease thepetition that might arrive.
The third reason was that he was interested in focusing on his own immortal cultivation for the next few months. He had put his immortal cultivation on the back burner for a long time as he felt his progress would have been too slowpared to his martial arts progress.
The biggest issue was that he needed to spend five hours absorbing one crystal. That was much fasterpared to the amount of time Tiki and Dreyer had to spend when absorbing crystals but he felt that time was too long.
In that same amount of time, he would have been able to make incredible progress in any martial art technique that would improve hisbat power much higher. But now that his Crystal Nerves and Dead Crystal Nerves talents have greatly improvedpared to when he first started, Yoze felt it was time to truly start his immortal cultivation journey.
From his predictions, he would be able to break through into the first level of Nerves umtion before the Immortals arrived. That would give him enough time to train in his style of fighting using immortal cultivation techniques.
"I am fine with that, do you want Tiki and me to help you get the crystals?" Dreyer asked, fully supporting Yoze''s n.
"Yeah, if you need our help getting enough crystals we know quite a few shops that sell crystals." Tiki nodded her head as she offered her help.
"That would be great, I would like to get as many crystals as I can. Hopefully, enough so that we won''t have to worry about buying crystals for the next few years." Yoze said calmly.
"Then we will have to visit quite a lot of shops to get that amount," Tiki said as she started to write down all the shops they could visit.
"Yoze, for the house do you already have a ce in mind or designs that you would like to have," Jewel joined in the conversation and asked Yoze for more details.
"I would want the house to be big enough for me to easily live there and have plenty of space outside for me to train in. It would be best if it is also in an area that can have a house that has twice or triple the weight limit of the Ten Ton Inn." After thinking about everything he wanted, Yoze said his most important requirements.
"That narrows it down to a few areas outside of the city but because of how far they are, the price to build anything in those areas is much cheaper." Jewel racked her brain remembering the best locations that fit Yoze''s requirements before remembering a few.
"Perfect, since that is all settled. Let''s go buy the crystals before the shops make a lot of sales." Yoze nodded his head seeing that there weren''t going to be any major problems with getting what he needed.
After quickly eating their breakfast, Yoze, Tiki, and Dreyer went out to visit various shops all over the city to buy all their crystals. By the time they felt that they had gotten enough crystals tost them 2 years of cultivation, they had spent more than 10000 silver.
Luckily due to how much they bought they ended up getting a few discounts so they ended up spending less than they would have had to buy the same equivalent of crystals separately. With the three of them emptying several crystal shops over the next few days many rogue immortal cultivators would find out that the price of crystals had skyrocketed.
Even though he had disturbed the market and created waves in the rogue immortal cultivatormunity, Yoze didn''t feel an ounce of guilt as he was focused on improving his immortal cultivation.
Several weeks soon passed as Yoze sat in his room holding tworge crystals in his hands. Even though he wasn''t doing anything to those crystals they were shrinking extremely fast to the point.
It only took around 3 hours for the tworge crystals to go from beingrger than a fist to nothing. When Yoze sensed that he had absorbed thest bit of crystal dust from the two crystals he opened his eyes.
Chapter 165 165: Returning To New Swamp Town
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Yoze turned his attention to his empty hands and could no longer feel the weight of the crystal. But the feeling of the crystal dust being absorbed into his crystal nerves was still vivid.
He could sense that his crystal nerves were growing more and more saturated with crystal dust meaning he was getting close to reaching the next level. He couldn''t help but smile as the speed of his progress was even faster than his expectations
And the main reason for this unexpected speed was his discovery that he could use both of his hands to absorb crystals. His rate of improvement in his immortal cultivation doubled at the expense of slowing his rate of absorbing crystals a small amount.
Yoze was happy to make this exchange as that meant that he could go from taking four months before he could reach the first level of Nerve umtion to 2 months. Now that he had been using this new method for several weeks now he predicted that in a little more than a month, he would break through.
"Having two types of crystal nerves has its benefits. Not only did my rate of absorption of crystals increase but they also allowed me to absorb two crystals at the same time." Yoze smiled as he went to pick up another two crystals from therge crate in front of him.
"Knock Knock knock"
Suddenly hearing someone knocking on his door, Yoze turned his attention to the sound and saw Dreyer''s spiritual energy behind the door.
"Come in,"
The moment Yoze told Dreyer toe inside, Dreyer busted the door open with a birthday cake. On the birthday cake was a custom candle that disyed the number 106.
"Oh, Regi''s birthday ising up in a few days."
The moment Yoze saw the birthday cake''s candle he was reminded of the letter that rogue immortal cultivator Regi had sent inviting him and his family over to New Swamp Town.
"Yes, and Dad wants you to get ready so that we can get ready to meet up with Grandpa Regi," Dreyer said with a cheerful voice.
This was his and Tiki''s first time in years traveling outside of New Swampscott City. So they were excited to see how things had changed and check out all the cool sights that New Swamp Town had to offer.
"Alright, I should be ready in 30 minutes. Also, I''m guessing that Jewel had already taken care of the transportation." Yoze said in a calm tone not letting Dreyer hear how suspicious he was over this trip.
"Yup, she had already rented out a carriagerge enough to hold three peoplefortably. She also mentioned that we didn''t need a driver since she was going to be driving it."
"Great, that should be enough for you, Tiki, and Dad to befortable during the short trip." Hearing that everything had beenpleted already, Yoze stood up and went to get himself ready.
As he got ready for the trip his mind began to race as he thought about all the things that Regi could be nning. His greatest worry was that he was going to harm his father in some way when they arrived.
As an immortal cultivator who had reached the limits of what a rogue immortal could reach, Regi had arge bag of tricks up his sleeves. Just the fact that he seemed to be in control of several bodies of Blood Masters was already a strange trick that Yoze was weary of.
When Yoze remembered the fact that during the attack on his family, Regi had used his body to trigger the attack before quickly abandoning it. When he did get the chance to take a look at the body that Regi had abandoned he realized that it wasn''t Regi''s original body nor was it Winter''s body.
Instead, it was the body of another old man that was dressed head to toe in the same ck clothes as Regi''s three puppets. Just imagining the number of people that Regi had to kill to use as puppets or extra bodies sent a shiver down Yoze''s spine.
"I need to figure out a good time to quietly kill him," Yoze''s eyes glittered with colorful speckles as his desire to kill Regi grew as he thought about how much danger he had put his family in.
Even though Yoze felt he could easily kill Regi in a blink of an eye he didn''t want to upset his father who felt that he had made a great friend. Even though he knew his father would understand he didn''t want him to deal with that extra stress.
Instead, he nned to take out Regi in secret by devouring his spiritual energy. It would be best if he was able to kill Regi spiritually while they were leaving but Yoze was willing to kill him during the trip in case he felt it was getting too dangerous.
After making a few adjustments to his ns, Yoze went outside of the Ten Tin Inn to see that Jewel was on top of arge carriage, and right next to it was Leah. The carriage was made out of special smoothed wood and had gold engraved into the wood.
Just a single nce at this carriage would allow anyone to see that this was a carriage of luxury and must have cost arge amount of money to rent out. As Yoze walked closer to the carriage he saw his father''s, Tiki''s, and Dreyer''s spiritual energies inside the carriage already.
"Yoze are you ready to go? The others are already in the carriage so we can leave whenever you are ready." Noticing that Yoze had arrived, Jewel asked for confirmation of when they were leaving.
"Yup, we can go. " Yoze said with a nod to show that he was ready to go.
Being familiar with the route to New Swamp Town and the road not being unexpectedly blocked by a disguised martial art sect made the entire trip much smoother and they ended up reaching the town much quicker than they expected
As they grew closer to the town they were able to see tall buildings above the town''s walls reminding them of New Swampscott City. If it wasn''t for the fact that New Swamp Town was much smaller than New Swampscott City they would have mistaken that they were going to another city.
As the group got closer to New Swamp Town they were able to see the long line of merchants, travelers, and residents trying to get back into the town. Seeing this long line reminded Yoze of how he was forced to stay outside of town while Jewel, Leah, and his father had gone inside to process their paperwork.
Chapter 166 166: Meeting Immortal Cultivator Regi Again
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"Yoze you''re probably going to have to stay outside of town for a few more hours just likest time." Also remembering what Yoze had experienced thest time they came to town Jewel smiled as she joked around.
"Don''t you think I look more friendlypared tost time? Plus I am now a schr of New Swampscott City so it should be much easier for me to get through." Yoze smiled but he suddenly remembered that just as he had gone through arge number of physical changes so has Leah.
Leah was no longer the normal-sized goat that he was thest time they came to town. Instead, he had grown muchrger to about 3.5 feet tall and his physical body looked much more muscr.
If anything he was beginning to look like a demon goat even though he still had a long way to go. But his appearance would make it more of a hassle to bring him into town since he looked less like food and more like a wild beast.
"Leah you might have to stay outside with me this time," Yoze said as he patted Leah''srge body.
The moment Leah heard that he might have to stay with Yoze he shook his head in protest before looking at Jewel with a pleading look. As the person who kidnapped him and put him in extremely dangerous situations, Leah disliked following Yoze in any of his adventures.
He even had the suspension that if he was left alone with Yoze for this trip his life would be put in danger again. So Leah hoped that Jewel would see his distress and take him with her inside.
Unfortunately, Jewel onlyughed when she saw the look in Leah''s eyes as she said, "Yoze, it doesn''t seem that your pet goat likes you very much."
"He is just a bit nervous. I think he lost his taste for traveling after I took him in." Yoze said ignoring the fact that Leah was trying his best to escape from him.
As Yoze and Jewel chatted they arrived at the lone line of people and realized that by the time they got close to the gate, nighttime would fall. Meaning that regardless of what they did everyone would have to sleep out tonight.
As the hours passed by and the sun began to set, everyone in line started to prepare for nightfall. And many groups like them started cooking dinner so they have something to warm them up for the cold night.
"Dreyer, do you remember the address of the party on the letter?" As Drew cooked dinner over the campfire he turned to ask Dreyer for the details.
"Yeah, but I made sure to bring the letter with us just in case I missed anything. Jewel, can you take a look and see if you know where this is?" Dreyer quickly took out the letter from his pouch and handed it to Jewel.
"Let''s see, this ce should be close to the other side of town near the Flower church. It shouldn''t take us very long to get there by carriage."
"Might be a pain to find somewhere to put our carriage though,"
Looking through the letter Jewel quickly read the address and recalled the general area of town it was located in. She then took a sip from her water pouch to sate her hunger until Drew finished making dinner.
After they chatted a bit more and quickly ate their dinner, everyone went to sleep except for Yoze. After arriving at New Swamp Town he had been feeling as if there was something wrong and dangerous waiting for him.
This feeling eradicated any sense of drowsiness in Yoze''s body as he decided to stay up for the night and continue his immortal cultivation. Yoze grabbed one of his numerous extrarge pouches full of crystals and began to cultivate.
The night quickly passed by when they heard the New Swamp Town''s gate reopen and the line once again started to move. By the time they arrived at the gate, the sun had risen to its peak and the guards were alert as they asked Yoze and Leah to step to the side for an extra security check.
As for Jewel, Tiki, Dreyer, and Drew, they were all granted ess to the town and went inside as they nned to wait for him on the other side. Luckily, they didn''t have to wait long before a few soldiers appeared and took Yoze''s papers before letting him into town.
"You finally made it, congrats."
The moment Yoze stepped inside the town gate they had to deal with arge number of peopleing in and out of the town. In such a scenario it normally would have been difficult to find the person who called out to him.
But due to his height, Yoze was able to look over the heads of people allowing him to immediately see Jewel had an ice cream cone in her hand waving him down.
"Thanks, it seems that everything has been good," Yoze said as he walked over to Jewel before suddenly smelling the scent of spicesing from the carriage.
"Everything has been great, actually we don''t even need to find the party ourselves as Grandpa Regi had been waiting for us at the gate."
"He is currently inside the carriage right now talking with your father." Jewel calmly said to Yoze as she pointed to the carriage behind her.
"I see,"
Yoze turned his gaze toward the carriage and noticed that he couldn''t see any additional spiritual energy inside.
"So Regi decided not to control his main body, so where did he put his spiritual energy?" Yoze thought to himself as he split his focus on the carriage and tried to find any hints of where Regi''s spiritual energy was hiding.
As Yoze was looking around for Regi''s spiritual energy in the crowds of people something suddenly caught his eye.
Chapter 167 167: Garden Of Spiritual Flowers
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In the distance and hidden amongst the dozens of types of spiritual energies was a healthy red flower that waved in the air as if there was the wind. Even amongst the tens of other spiritual energies moving about Yoze was able instantly to recognize this flower to be Regi''s real spiritual energy.
What made Yoze both surprised and concerned was the fact that there were simr spiritual flowers of all kinds surrounding Regi''s spiritual energy creating a beautiful garden of spiritual energy flowers.
The colors of these spiritual energy flowers ranged in color, size, and type but something that tied them all inmon was the fact that they all peacefully swayed in the air in harmony.
After managing to track down Regi''s spiritual energy, Yoze looked in his direction to make note of his current body and puppet. Once he had gotten a good look at the puppet''s appearance he also turned his gaze to identify who were the people that had abnormally simr spiritual energies.
After he had gotten a good look, Yoze began to make note of what he noticed and couldn''t help but feel that things were bing more absurd. From what he noticed Regi''s current body had taken on the appearance of a blonde young man who looked to be in his early twenties.
The clothes that he wore were simr to a priest''s uniform with some minor changes such as the inclusion of various flowers and extra colorful fabric. Even though Regi seemed engrossed in the conversation his group was having Yoze couldn''t help but more the fact that he would frequently touch the flowers of the people beside him.
The young men and women who were beside Regi seemed equally as engrossed in their conversation and also were wearing simr outfits as Regi with some minor differences. Yet, just like Regi, they frequently touched the flowers embroidered into the colorful fabric of the other uniforms.
"Their spiritual energies are too simr to Regi''s to be a coincidence but it doesn''t look like they are his puppets. Even though they are talking about the same topic and are doing simr things I can see that they each seem to be different people." Yoze''s mind turned towards the multiple puppets dressed in ck robes that Regi had sent to him and couldn''t help but see the stark difference between the two.
Back then Regi''s puppets were incredibly stiff and could not act independently. Once one started looking for oddities in their appearance and actions it became obvious that they were human puppets.
Yet these people that were around Regi now were theplete opposite. They each had vibrant expressions and different habits and personalities which stood in stark contrast to the old puppets.
Even now that he was looking for any strange actions or speech patterns that they shared to see if they were being controlled he didn''t find many clues. The only thing he was able to gather was their strange obsession with someone called the Flower Lord, their habit of touching flowers, and their spiritual energies being nearly identical.
But that wasn''t enough for Yoze to feelfortable withbeling them as simple puppets since he felt that there was more to this mysterious feeling of danger he was sensing. Even though he was standing right in front of Regi the feeling of danger didn''t intensify as he got closer to either of Regi''s bodies.
So far the only time this feeling of danger has grown was the moment he stepped inside the town which gave him the feeling that the danger that he might be sending might not be connected to Regi.
As Yoze was secretly observing Regi''s new body he secretly listened in on their conversation in hopes of gathering more important information to solve why he was feeling in danger.
"Father Jackie has been upsettely since we haven''t been getting as many offerings asst year. We should think of something so that we can cheer him up because the Holy Flower Lord''s servants shouldn''t be upset with the lord''s presence." A young blonde woman let out a heavy sigh as she mentioned the plight of Father Jackie.
"That is a good idea but how are we going to raise the funds?" One of the men in the group suddenly perked up upon hearing the blonde woman''s idea.
"I have an idea we can throw arge event for the town that anybody cane to. The event should be grand and be covered in flowers that way Father Jackie will be happy no matter what. But of course, it would be best if people would be gracious enough to offer some donations during the event, making Father Jackie even happier." Regi suddenly spoke up with confidence as he offered his idea to cheer up Father Jackie.
"Regi once nned another event. What is he nning?" As Yoze listened to Regi''s conversation his mind raced as he tried to figure out the significance of that event to his family''s safety.
Unfortunately, before he was able to listen for further details of this event he heard Regi''s old voice from his old bodye out of the carriage to tell Jewel the directions of his party.
"We should get a move on since the party is starting in an hour. Just follow this road and make a turn to the left once you get to the bakery."
The moment Jewel heard Regi''s direction she began to guide the carriage through the crowds of people forcing Yoze to leave and go further and further away from Regi''s new body. As he followed alongside the carriage and went deeper into the town Yoze''s sense of danger rapidly became more intense.
"What is giving me such a dangerous sensation and why does it seem that Regi is directly guiding us straight toward the danger."
"Is he leading us to a trap?" Yoze''s mind raced as he tried to pinpoint the source of the danger he was sensing before he finally locked onto it.
Chapter 168 168: Flower Lord
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In front of Yoze was arge church with numerousrge colorful windows and a truly beautiful front garden of flowers. Each of the flowers was painstakingly taken care of by a young boy who looked to be only around 16 years only.
Even though the church itself and the garden were beautiful and gave off a refreshing feeling, what truly attracted his attention came from its roof. Sticking out from the roof was a giant flower with rainbow-colored petals made out of spiritual energy.
The giant flower made out of spiritual energy gently swayed simrly to the spiritual flowers that Yoze had seen before. But the scale between the flowers that hovered about Regi''s and his peer''s heads and this giant flower was simr to a toy airne versus a real aircraft.
The difference between them was truly massive and gave Yoze the feeling that all the spiritual energies he had previously seen were mere toys. Even after hepared the amount of spiritual energy that he had in his bodypared to the spiritual energy required to build this flower he couldn''t help but see that there was a difference of more than 20 times.
And that was taking into ount that the amount of spiritual energy that Yoze had in his body was trulyrge. If the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy was equivalent to five years'' worth of spiritual every then Yoze had around 12 years'' worth of spiritual energy.
That meant that this spiritual flower floating above the church had more than 240 years'' worth of spiritual energy. Nearly three centuries worth of spiritual energy meant that it could easily crush any opponent and demon that Yoze had fought in the past even if they all joined hands to fight together.
The moment Yoze noticed the giant spiritual flower above the church his eyes twitch as he could sense his instincts telling him that there was extreme danger inside that church. Even though his instincts were telling him that this flower was dangerous Yoze couldn''t help but look at the giant spiritual energy flower with anticipation.
He could only imagine the strange and overpowered talents a person would need to have to be able to develop their spiritual energy to such an extent. Even though Yoze was tempted to see the person or creature that had owned this giant spiritual flower he knew that it was too dangerous.
However, even though it was too dangerous to enter the church and meet the entity it didn''t mean he couldn''t copy the entity''s talents. He simply needed to use one of his talent marks to check what kind of talents are avable and have his pick.
"Use a talent mark on that giant flower." Seeing such a great target Yoze immediately used one of his talents marks to gather information on whoever had this spiritual energy.
[Name: Flower Lord]
[Age: 6 months]
[Talents: Speed Reading (Grade 2), Martial Arts Comprehension (Grade 2), Literature Compression (Grade 2), Belief Healing (Grade 4), Spiritual Gathering (Grade 3), Negotiations (Grade 3), Spiritual Type Influence (Grade 2), Photosynthesis (Grade 4)]
"So this is the Flower Lord." Yoze thought to himself as he temporarily threw out the idea that the Flower Lord was an abnormal entity.
From what he knew so far about abnormal entities they would have at least one unknown talent that his cheat couldn''t analyze. But from this single talent mark, he knew that whatever the flower lord was, it couldn''t be an abnormal entity since he could see all its talents.
He also threw out the possibility that the Flower Lord was a demon since a demon''s spiritual energy was inside their bodies. The only time it would be outside of their body was in the forms of spiritual armor, spiritual attacks, and the creation of spiritual models.
However, it was obvious to him that demons would never keep their spiritual energy outside their bodies permanently. The reason was that if a demon could keep their spiritual energy outside their bodies permanently then there wasn''t much difference between them and regr creatures.
Not only that they would see the control of their bodies decline as well as their spiritual energy would now face the constant erosion of the outside environment. Resulting in them bing weaker with time instead of bing stronger.
Of course, there was still the possibility that this could be the spiritual model of the Flower Lord which would mean that the Flower Lord would be some type of flower demon.
However, there was one ring issue with the idea of the Flower Lord being some type of demon, and that was itsck of a spiritual body cultivation talent. Theck of spiritual body cultivation talent immediately ruled out any possibility that the Flower Lord was some kind of demon.
"So the church is the main source of danger?" Yoze frowned as he felt that he was missing something.
As Yoze''s mind raced he began to recall the first time he arrived at New Swamp Town and realized what he was missing. He had crossed this road before and even the church but since he was in a hurry to leave for New Swampscott City he had forgotten about it.
"I crossed through New Swamp Town not too long ago but not only did I not sense even a lick of danger. I didn''t even sense the Flower Lord''s existence at all."
"Even though my ability to sense spiritual energy back then was worse than it is now, I should have been able to spot this huge gathering of spiritual energy. Yet not only did I not sense the Flower Lord''s existence I didn''t even feel any danger."
"The Flower Lord is only 6 months old so that means that whatever had caused this change must have happened in thest 6 months. Hopefully, as long as my family and I don''t step inside the church we should be fine." As Yoze thought about the Flower Lord his eyes drifted toward the carriage that was holding his father, Tiki, Dreyer, and Regi.
Chapter 169 169: Belief Healing
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Yoze looked at the carriage before moving his gaze back to the Flower Lord''s spiritual energy. Since they were nearing the location of the party, Yoze quickly searched for a talent he found would be a good addition to his own collection.
He eventually decided upon getting the unique spiritual talent of Spiritual Gathering and Belief Healing. Even though he was interested in copying the grade 2 Spiritual Type Influence talent and grade 4 Photosynthesis talent he decided to copy thosest since he felt he might get more use with Spiritual Gathering talent and Belief Healing.
[Locked on to grade 3 Spiritual Gathering talent. Grade 2 Spiritual Gathering talent has been added.]
[Locked on to grade 4 Belief Healing talent. Grade 3 Belief Healing has been added.]
The moment Yoze copied these talents he felt strangely relieved as if something that had been influencing had been reduced. The moment he felt relief Yoze instantly went into alert as he quickly pulled up a description of these talents.
Throughout his entire experience of having his cheat, the sensation that he had felt was too strange from the usual sensations, he got from copying other talents. It was as if he was being followed by something in the unknown darkness and he had just gotten a shlight.
Even though he still couldn''t see what was following him, the shlight itself and the few feet he could see gave him some reassurance. This was too strange to be the sensation created by the Spiritual Gathering talent so he opened up the description of Belief Healing.
[Belief Healing is the talent that any great leader should have. This talent covers anything that has to do with reassuring and strengthening beliefs.]
"The description is pretty broad and doesn''t give me any more clues to what the Flower Lord is but..." Yoze looked at the giant spiritual flower above his head with suspicion.
"If this thing has talents for reassuring and strengthening a person''s beliefs then it should be possible for it to strengthen a certain belief in a person that it bes distorted."
"Like someone who is fine with executioners killing but this belief gets strengthened so much that they start to believe that executioners are the gods of death and one should kill in their steed." As Yoze read the description of Belief Healing he quickly realized that this talent was a great way to brainwash people and create cults.
"Taking that a step further with the help of spiritual talents and abilities it might be even more potent and form a religion that goes from loving nts to viewing nts as their gods."
As Yoze''s mind raced at the many possibilities that the talent of Belief Healing opened up he also felt why he began to understand why his instincts were telling him that he was in danger. It wasn''t only because the Flower Lord was extremely strong, he had faced strong opponents before but never felt they were this dangerous.
Thinking about it further when he first met the 20-year-old Three-Headed Fox demon he was much weaker than it. If he had challenged the Three-Headed Fox demon back then there was a high possibility that he would lose and maybe lose his life.
Yet he didn''t feel that the Three-Headed Fox demon was as big of a danger as when he currently faced the Flower Lord.
"Thinking about the ratio of spirituality between me and the Three-Headed Fox demon was around the same as me and the Flower Lord. I had barely a year''s worth of spiritual energy and the Three-Headed Fox demon should have had more than 20 years'' worth."
Even though Yoze knew that facing the Three-Headed Fox demon and the Flower Lord were very different circumstances he knew that there was more to the Flower Lord that made him more dangerous. And he felt that difference was rted to this talent of Belief Healing.
"What if the Flower Lord is influencing my beliefs? Thinking about it, why was I so tempted to meet the Flower Lord face to face?"
"The only times I cared about meeting people who have great talents was back when I needed to see them. Now that I can just use their spiritual energy to copy talent instead of meeting them, that desire and belief has greatly diminished."
"Over these past several weeks I had never met anyone of my targets in person. For example, I haven''t visited Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder, the Tree Sect Blood masters, and the rogue immortal cultivators since then."
"I simply came close enough to find their spiritual energy and used his talent marks before leaving. Throughout that whole transaction, he hadn''t felt motivated to see them at all."
"That brings up the question of why I wanted to see the Flower Lord so badly that I was tempted. If how intense the danger was and my high vignce I might have just gone inside for just the hell of it."
The more Yoze thought about it the more he began to recognize he was being influenced by the Flower Lord. If it wasn''t because he had only been around the Flower Lord for such a brief period of time and him gaining his own talent in Belief Healing he would have only grown more attracted to the idea of entering the church.
"I need to trust my instincts more and be more cautious. I need to trust..." Since Yoze realized he was being influenced he repeatedly thought of phrases that reassured him of his decision to not enter the church.
Even though it was a slight feeling, he felt that his repeated reassurances were working as he felt increasingly less interested in meeting the Flower Lord. Instead, he felt his belief in being cautious and trusting in himself being reinforced.
"I need to get Dad out of this town fast or he might get influenced to enter the church. Once that happens I don''t know what would happen but if I sense the Flower Lord trying to convert his spiritual energy into one simr to its own or anything at all."
"The only thing I can do to save him is enter the church and escape with him." Yoze clenched his fist with determination as he and the others slowly moved past the church.
Chapter 170 170: Start Of The Plot
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"Here is my humble abode and what do you know? It seems that everyone has already arrived and the party is about to begin."
Regi''s old body stepped outside of the carriage revealing himself to Yoze for the first time since he arrived at New Swamp Town. Immediately Yoze noticed that Regi''s old body seemed to have aged a bit since a few weeks ago.
His wrinkles had deepened and his steps were shakierpared to when they first met. He even began to use a walking stick to move around.
Noticing that Yoze was examining him, Regi''s old body smiled at him before continuing to walk into the three-story house where the party was located. The house was covered with birthday decorations and had paintings of when Regi was younger and filled with energy.
Not only that Yoze noticed that many of the paintings had Regi as a skinnyd and always sickly pale until there was an unexpected jump to when he was no longer sick or skinny. No, he went from a weak person to a powerful martial artist whose body radiated both health and strength even through the paintings.
"Winter, Summer, and Spring you three didn''t need to make such arge cake for my birthday. I would not be able to finish all this even if you gave me several months." Regi''s main body said to the three puppets who were all Blood Masters.
Yoze turned to the three Blood Masters and noticed that none of them had spiritual energy meaning that they were simply puppets. However, it seems that Regi''s control over them was much higherpared to the puppets before since their faces were a bit stiff but not enough to make people notice it.
They even had various kinds of body types from Winter''s strong and muscr body to the fat male puppet which Regi called Summer, and the skinny male puppet which was called Spring. The moment Regi finished his sentence his three puppets stood up and helped him sit down at the table that had a trulyrge fiver-tiered birthday cake.
"Nonsense, we of course had to get the best cake possible for your 106th birthday," Winter said as she expertly put on the birthday boy hat on Regi''s main body.
"Plus, just look at how many guests havee to this party. We should be able to finish not only this cake but even the cake that they brought along as well." Summer said as he patted his belly before grabbing the cake in Dreyer''s hand and cing it on the table.
"Come take a seat," Spring quietly muttered to himself as he grabbed a few more chairs and ced them around the table.
The disy seemed almost so natural that Yoze want to apud for such good acting. Everything from the birthday boy to the family members was puppets yet Regi controlled everything from the background with such uracy and control that he seemed to be a great puppet master.
If this didn''t show how much time and skill Regi had done to create a masterpiece then nothing would. Even though everything was fake Yoze had to admit that the party itself was fun.
If it wasn''t for the fact that Regi was out to get him by using his father, Yoze wouldn''t have been so determined to kill him since his father truly saw him as a friend.
"Yoze since you are so big you should eat more to help bnce everything out." Winter pped Yoze back as she encouraged him to eat more cake.
"I currently am on a strict diet for a body cultivation method I am training in so I can''t eat too much," Yoze said as he quickly denied Winter''s encouragement.
"I see, " Winter looked at Yoze with surprise before giving him a final pat on the back as support before she went to chat with the others.
"This is the third time I was encouraged to eat more, is there something wrong with the food?" Yoze thought to himself as he ced the empty te in his hand on the table.
As the party progressed, the atmosphere became warm as everyone except Yoze grew morefortable with each other and chatted with each other. However, at the same time, Yoze felt himself bing more alert as he felt that theck of Regi''s spiritual energy throughout the party meant that something big wasing.
"Knock Knock knock"
Suddenly, Yoze heard a knocke from the front door which drew his attention. When he looked at the door he immediately noticed Regi''s spiritual energy behind the door with several others he didn''t recognize.
"Knock! Knock! Knock!"
This time the knocks on the door were more forceful and snapped the other''s attention out of their conversations. Dreyer, Tiki, Jewel, and Drew turned to Regi''s main body with confused looks in their eyes.
"Did you invite more guests?" Regi''s main body also disyed a confused look on his face as he asked Winter.
"No, I didn''t invite anyone else but let me check to see who is knocking," Winter frowned as she got up from her chair and walked to the front door.
"Bang!"
Just as she was about to open the door to see who it was, the door shattered due to being mmed open by a heavy kick. Before Winter seemed toe to her senses she was assaulted by the smell of blood and was covered in a blood mist.
The blood mist rapidly spread throughout the house and covered everyone under heavy pressure. The pressure was so high that Yoze saw that his father had fainted while Regi''s main body pretended to faint as well.
As for Tiki and Dreyer even though they hadn''t be third-rate martial artists yet their strengthened bodies and extrarge amount of spiritual energy as the support they managed to remain conscious.
Jewel on the other hand managed to resist the heavy pressure from the blood mist with no issues. If anything she seemed to be asfortable as when the blood mist wasn''t there.
Seeing that Regi had finally started his plot, Yoze immediately went to take action as he quickly stopped his father''s body from copsing to the ground and held him close.
Chapter 171 171: Bodies Dropping
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As the blood mist spread throughout the house Yoze thought about activating his own blood armor to shield the blood mist''s pressure from his father. However, just as he was about to activate his blood armor to drive away the blood mist''s pressure he thought about using this cover as an opportunity to just kill Regi.
If Regi was dead this entire plot woulde crumbling down without him having to do anything else at all. Making up his mind, Yoze quickly sent out his spiritual energies to devour Regi''s spiritual flower whole and not leave a single petal behind.
It didn''t take long for the hungry spiritual energies in his body to rush out of his body and surround Regi''s spiritual energy like a pack of hungry demons. Even though his spiritual energy was in mortal danger Regi had no idea and tried to continue to further his plot to take over Yoze''s body.
"Officer, this is the house where-" Just as Regi began to speak he felt a heavy crush on his mind followed by unbelievable pain.
The pain that he felt was something he never had experienced before in his long life as an immortal cultivator. Even the pain of being stabbed a hundred times seemed to pale inparison to the pain he was feeling.
Yet even though the pain was immense and he wanted to scream for help from his allies, he couldn''t control his body at all and could only experience endless pain until his spiritual energy waspletely devoured.
Just as Yoze, Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel heard the voice of one of the invaders saying something, they suddenly stopped talking midway through their sentence. After which they heard a solid deep thud m into the floor which surprised not only Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel but also the invaders as they stoppeding inside the house.
It wasn''t too long after the first thing that another three solid thuds mmed into the ground which sent everyone on high alert. Jewel, Tiki, and Dreyer immediately tried to find Yoze to get protection from whoever was causing those thuds while the invaderspletely stopped in their tracks as a tense bnce was formed.
As the only one who knew what was going on, Yoze felt those thuds were magical as he had wanted to hear those for a long time. Seeing that everything was in a tense bnce between them and the invaders Yoze decided that it was now time for him to bring out his Blood Armor and get rid of this blood mist.
"Finally," Breathing out a quiet sigh of relief Yoze allowed his body to rx as he urged his Weapon Handler Inner Vigor to control his blood to leave his body.
As soon as his Weapon Handler Inner Vigor received his urging it controlled his blood to move his blood outside his veins and pour out of his pores. The blood that gushed out of his pores took on a slightly darker red as a heavy pressure seemed to radiate from his blood.
The slightly dark red blood quickly formed into a full suit of blood armor that had a clear metallic shine on its surface. As soon as the blood armor surrounded Yoze''s body the clear sound of bones cracking rang out of his body as he grewrger and taller.
By the time he stopped growing, he had grown to a height of around 9 feet forcing Yoze to bend his body slightly so his head didn''t break through the ceiling. The soft sound of Yoze''s beating blood heart echoes through the house creating a strange atmosphere simr to a horror movie.
After several weeks of practice of repeatedly activating his blood armor, controlling his blood mist, and making further progress in his Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation Yoze gained the ability to bring out his blood armor without immediately killing everything around him. Not only that he had begun to train in the Blood Breaker Martial art set and had broken through to the third level.
Now with his further control, Yoze released his dark red blood mist to counteract the invading blood mist. As soon as his dark red blood mist came in contact with the blood mist it immediately pushed it back. As his dark red blood mist pushed back the foreign blood mist back to its owners Tiki, Jewel, and Dreyer were able to see what had caused the thuds that they heard earlier.
Lying on the floor were Winter''s, Summer''s, and Spring''s bodies who seemed to have tried to get closer to Yoze before they fell. When Tiki and Dreyer saw the three bodies on the ground they immediately tried to find their father and only breathed a sigh of relief when they saw he was in Yoze''s arms.
Meanwhile, when the blood mist reached the invaders it began to clear up allowing them to see and reveal their enemies. Located by the door were ten soldiers who each wore the symbols of New Swamp Town imprinted on their metal armor.
Each of the soldiers had a look on their faces as if they were facing the strongest enemy in their lives and were prepared to die with iplete bodies. And once they had gotten a good look at the 9-foot giant covered head to toe in dark red blood staring at them their faces paled but they stood their ground with determination.
The only exception was an older soldier whose hair had turned gray and the wrinkles on his face were starting to deepen showing his age. Even though the soldier was growing in age the powering from his body didn''t show any signs of diminishing.
From the long sharp wsing out from between his knuckles this old soldier was a strong Blood Master who had taken more lives than most martial artists. That old soldier looked at Yoze with the same serious look of determination as the other soldiers before he seemed to recall something.
"Yoze?"
Chapter 172 172: Hired To Destory Sects
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"Yes, that would be me. Is there an issue with officers? We had just arrived in town to visit my father''s friend''s birthday party before you all showed up." Yoze said politely while still keeping his blood armor activated with caution.
"I am General Blood Stone. I and my soldiers received information that a martial art sect was nning to attack the town from the inside. However, we had received several locations for where the attack was starting so we could only split up our forces."
"As you might have guessed by now, this was one of the suspected locations. So we apologize if we interrupted your father''s friend''s birthday party." General Blood Stone said in an apologetic tone as he retracted his blood mist and blood ws.
"That''s fine but what are you going to do with the six people who fainted," Yoze said as he deactivated his blood armor.
Figuring that they were tricked by Regl to use for his n, Yoze didn''t feel any urge to kill them since that would only make the problem worse. And from what it seems there weren''t going to be any issues with being able to leave.
"You can take your friends to the hospital to get checked up and don''t worry about paying any of the fees just tell them I sent you. As for our friend here, he is going to be sent to jail once he wakes up for giving us the wrong information at such a crucial time." General Blood Stone looked at the priest''s body with a cold light as he signaled his soldiers to take him away.
"Thank you," Yoze thanked General Blood Stone as he nned to take up his offer.
Even though he had killed Regi, Yoze was still interested in collecting not only Regi''s talents but also his puppets. Since Winter, Summer, and Spring were also Blood Masters their talent in martial arts must have been good before Regi had turned them into his core puppets.
"I heard from reports that you might be interested in doing missions for pay, is that right?" General Blood Stone''s face rxed as he saw Yoze had deactivated his Blood Armor.
Even though Yoze wasn''t intentionally putting pressure on his men, just the mere sight of a giant covered in blood armor was intimidating. So once he took off his blood armor and shrunk back to his original 8 feet tall body they couldn''t help but feel a bit more relieved.
"What do you have in mind?" Yoze asked curious about what kind of mission General Blood Stone would want him to do.
"Attack these sect headquarters. For every one of them, you decide to attack. We will pay you 50 thousand silver for everyone you attack."
"Of course, everything you get from the sect will be yours." General Blood Stone said with a grin on his face as he took out a sheet of paper with a list of martial art sects and their locations.
"It would be best if you could wipe them off the face of the map but if you are not interested in that, damaging them is fine too."
Yoze grabbed the piece of paper and noticed that a majority of these martial art sects weren''t known to him, meaning they weren''t very strong. At most, they would be considered to be mid-sized martial art sects that had a few blood masters and at the very peak have a sect master who was at the peak of the Blood Master realm.
They were strong enough to gain the town''s attention but not strong enough to be an immediate threat. Now that there were rumors that the town was going to be attacked, the town''s desire to get rid of these martial art sects exploded.
However, since the town needed to keep its forces near the town in case of a real attack, they couldn''t send their army to these sects. That didn''t mean that New Swamp Town was powerless and could not do anything; instead, the town had plenty of ways to harm these sects.
One of those methods was hiring external forces to attack the sects in the town''s steed. These external forces could be mercenaries, other towns'' and viges'' armies, or other powerful martial artists who would be interested in taking advantage of the chaos.
Judging from how prepared and willing General Blood Stone was to hire him, Yoze assumed that others like him were offered the same incentive. While the offer was extremely good for most people it wasn''t as tempting for Yoze since he wasn''tcking money.
Especially when he had gotten paid 100 thousand silver by the Thorn Rose Sect Yoze felt that he needed to increase how much he got paid to do work for New Swampscott City and by extension New Swamp Town.
"I would like to take you up on that offer General Blood Stone but your offer just isn''t enough to buy my services. If you can offer me at least 100 thousand silver for every sect I destroy then we can have a deal." Yoze said with confidence.
"I saw how about I increase my offer to 100 thousand silver but you have to at least target one of the sects that I mark. After that, you can target any other sect for a simr amount." General Blood Stone closed his eyes as he thought about Yoze''s offer before epting.
Even though the price was high, General Blood Stone knew that there weren''t many people in this world who were as strong as Yoze. Even though he was confident in his strength when he saw Yoze''s blood giant form his instincts told him that there was no way for him to win and should focus on escaping.
With someone this powerful targeting these martial art sects there was a high possibility that they would be destroyed. That would be the best result that the town would hope for and dly would pay more money to get rid of as many of these sects that were possible since they knew that the benefits outweighed the price.
It wasn''t only the cities that wanted to expand their territories by taking over the areas controlled by martial art sects. Since these martial art sects were close to New Swamp Town majority of their territory would be integrated into the town which would be a big boost to the town''s power.
Chapter 173 173: Martial Wheel Sect
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"That sounds like we have a deal,"
Yoze didn''t bother to think much about General Blood Stone''s offer and just nodded his head in agreement. He then handed the list to General Blood Stone for him to circle the sects that he wanted him to target first.
"Anyone of these sects could be your target. I''ll just give a brief description of what and who these sects are so you can decide for yourself."
"First one on the list is the Martial Wheel Sect. It has been one of the sects that have been most active in pretending to be bandits and robbing our merchants. So the Town would love to get rid of them for good."
"Then there is the Fast Swamp Sect which is one of the leaders of these small sects. They even have three peak Blood Master experts so they are quite strong for a small martial art sect. Which makes it hard to dislodge them from this area."
"Lastly is the Flood Water Sect. This sect is not a major threat to the Town but I have a personal grudge against them so I would like to add them to the targets list." General Blood Stone said as he circled the three sects on the list with his blood signifying their importance before handing the list back to Yoze.
"These are fine," Yoze said as he looked at the names on the list and found that two of the martial art sects selected were some of the stronger ones. Especially the Martial Wheel Sect as the information on them showed that they were the strongest sect.
They had five peak Blood Masters in their ranks and if it wasn''t for their small number of students they could have been ranked as a mid-ranked sect. What interested Yoze the most about the Martial Wheel Sect was their history of being robbers.
They might have been annoying for the town and merchants but that also meant that they had arge amount of wealth that other small sects simply couldn''tpete with. There was even a chance that if he looked around he would be able to find some rare treasures and martial art books that even the New Swamp Town or New Swampscott City wouldn''t want to give up.
"The Martial Wheel Sect will be my first target and I will see how that goes before going to attack the other sects," Yoze said as he put the list of sects in his pouch.
"Good, since we got that settled we will be leaving. We hope that your travels go well." General Blood Stone gave Yoze a heavy nod as he ordered his soldiers to head out.
After giving Yoze onest goodbye General Blood Stone left, leaving Yoze, Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel alone to deal with Regi''s bodies.
"Let''s go get Father checked up first before I head out to destroy those sects."
"What about Regi and the others?" Dreyer asked Yoze, noticing that he didn''t mention helping out Regi or the others.
"They are already dead so there is no rush to take them to the hospital to get checked out. Plus there is no point in trying to help our enemies." Yoze said casually.
"So he is the one who sent those human puppets." Tiki caught onto what Yoze was trying to say and realized that what happened today must have been a plot against them.
"That''s a shame, his food was quite good." Jewel sighed as she softly kicked Spring''s body.
After understanding that everything had already been settled, they went to a nearby hospital named Swamp Health, and after mentioning that General Blood Stone had sent them there they quickly got room to put Drew in. It wasn''t long before they got a diagnosis that their father would be back to peak health after a day''s rest in the hospital.
"Alright, you two can stay here to watch Dad while Jewel and I go out to destroy the Martial Wheel Sect."
"I think I''ll stay with Tiki and Dreyer to watch over Mr.Thunder." Jewel coughed as she realized she had just gottenfortable.
"Weren''t youining not too long ago that I didn''t bring you along for my adventures? What changed?"
"You know, after meeting all those Blood Masters several weeks ago. I had realized that until I be a Blood Master it would be safer to stay home than travel with you since your enemies keep getting stronger."
"Also, the majority of the reason I wanted to stick to you like glue was to be your student to figure out how to live forever. But I kinda am already so I will just wait in luxury until you are ready to make it immoral." Jewel said with rxation.
"Of course, if you want me to go, I don''t have a choice in the matter since you are my boss. But today I would like to use my vacation days to skip out on today''s adventures."
"That is fine by me but I''m going to change the way I pay you. From now on I''ll pay you 5 silver whenever you do something useful for me." Yoze casually mentioned as he left the hospital, not bothering to wait for Jewel toin about the unfairness.
Once Yoze had left town he took out the list of martial art sects and took another look at the locations marked down on the list. After reading the details of how to find the Martial Wheel Sect''s headquarters he realized that if he went at his full speed he would be able to get there in less than two hours.
"I haven''t gone full speed in such a long time. But it allows me to test out my new movement technique to see if it''s better than just hopping with Mindless Legs." Yoze smiled to himself as he activated his Blood Armor.
After taking a deep breath Yoze focused his mind as he used his new Movement technique known as Skipper. Unlike Mindless Legs, Skipper wasn''t passive and needed Yoze to intentionally use it every time.
However, it was fantastic for traveling long distances quickly due to it focusing on saving all the energy possible. At its peak, it said it could allow a first-rate martial artist to save more than 50 percent of their energy while running at full speed.
After breaking through the limits of Skipper over these past several weeks Yoze had now made it so he could now save more than 70 percent of his energy while running at his fastest speed. When paired up with his abnormallyrge amount of stamina and endurance Yoze predicted he could run at his fastest speed for a week straight without having to rest.
Chapter 174 174: Sect Destroying Blood Giant
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Yoze quickly rxed his muscles before letting out a huge burst of energy through his legs causing a huge amount of dust to follow behind him. Meanwhile, Yoze focused on quickly increasing his speed until he reached around 50 percent of his full speed before he let out another burst of energy to reach his full speed.
By then he was traveling so fast that even Blood Masters couldn''t see him with their eyes. It would take a Martial Grandmaster''s eyes to see a red blur running past them at extreme speeds.
Once Yoze reached his full speed he once again rxed his muscles and allowed the muscle memory in his legs to carry him along while he focused on maintaining his energy and changing directions.
Around 2 hourster Yoze had traveled so far that he had arrived at a t grassy region that had nothing but small hills around. If anyone identally found themselves here their minds would have never guessed that just below their feet were more than 30 martial artists that could end their lives before they knew what was going on.
Even though the list didn''t mention which hill the Martial Wheel Sect''s entrance was located on, Yoze didn''t need it as he could see the spiritual energies of the Martial Wheel Sect members underground.
All he needed to do was force them out of the underground so he could kill the elders and sect master. As for every else Yoze didn''t mind killing if they tried to attack him but as long as they didn''t cause any trouble for him he would spare their lives.
However the elders and sect master had to die since Yoze nned to destroy the Martial Wheel Sect he needed to make sure there was no hope for anyone strong enough to act as a recement. And since the elders were strong enough to take the sect master''s ce after they died then Yoze had to kill them too.
However, if they were stubborn and refused toe out of their sect Yoze decided he would simply cut his losses and cause their entire sect to copse with everyone inside.
"This looks like a gathering spot,"
Yoze quickly found arge area where many spiritual energies gathered together and unleashed a restricted Bear Fist on the ground below him. Even though he had held back to prevent it frompletely copsing on everyone below him, the power behind his Bear Fist was so enormous that it caused a miniature earthquake causing the people inside to panic.
"Boom!"
The loud explosion of his fist colliding with the ground caused the ground below Yoze to form a small crater. Even though he overestimated his attack power Yoze saw that he still had the desired effect since the people underground were leaving in droves.
He watched their spiritual energies twist and turned through their underground tunnels before escaping their hidden hole in one of the dozens of small hills. More than 40 people ended uping out of the ground and almost all of them were covered in a thickyer of dust as their faces were full of panic.
"What the hell caused that earthquake!? I was just getting started!" A middle-aged man with a strong body and thick ck mustache screamed in anger as he fixed his clothes.
Yoze''s eyes immediately targeted that middle-aged man as he recognized him as the Triotre Whed also known as Blood Master Demon Wheel, the Sect Master of the Martial Wheel Sect.
From the information that the list had provided, he was also the founder of the Martial Wheel Sect and the main reason it was able to recruit four more Blood Masters who had reached the peak.
Yoze looked beside him and saw that the other Blood Masters of the Martial Wheel Sect were all there and ounted for meaning he didn''t have to worry about missing anyone and doing an iplete job.
While Yoze was examining his targets Sect Master Demon Wheel and the other four Blood Masters of the Martial Wheel Sect also noticed him and couldn''t help but be shocked. They were wondering why they were seeing a 9-foot-tall giant covered head to toe with blood armor staring at them like they were prey.
"Who the hell are you? Are you the one who caused that earthquake? You could have killed people so pick another training ground next time." Sect Master Demon Wheel''s heart began to heavily pound seeing the almost demonic stareing from Yoze''s eyes.
Out of instinct, he tried his best to not make Yoze upset since he just assumed that he was only here to train his martial arts. As a fellow Blood Master, he knew how hard it was to find a ce to train without having to worry about destroying everything so his mind went toward thinking it was only an ident.
Because who in their right mind would attack their sect so boldly? They might have been a small martial art sect but they did have five martial artists who have reached the peak of the Blood Master Realm.
So unless that person was a Martial Grandmaster no one sane would attack them so boldly and in such a crazy way that forced all five Blood Masters out of their sect. It might have been possible to defeat one of them but defeating all five of them was too much of a herculean task for any Blood Master to aplish.
Unfortunately, they were aware of the fact that they weren''t facing a normal Blood Master but one who could y demons. And since Yoze had set his eyes on them could only result in their swift deaths.
After confirming that all five of the Martial Wheel Sect''s experts were here, Yoze didn''t want to stall any longer so he used his blood to form a long sword. Before anyone from the Martial Wheel Sect could react Yoze had disappeared in the eyes before reappearing with five heads in his hand.
Chapter 175 175: Collecting Books And Iron Body
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After getting rid of the Martial Wheel Sect''s top echelons Yoze looked at the remaining people and said to them.
"You can spread the word that the Martial Wheel Sect has been destroyed. You guys can go unless you want to try fighting me."
The moment Yoze mentioned that they could leave the people scattered like flies as they tried their best to avoid being anywhere near the blood giant that had just wiped out their strongest leaders in one fell swoop. Most of them even gave up and didn''t bother to take any of their belongings to prevent them from being mistaken as trying to steal from the dead sect.
After watching the rest of the former members of the Martial Wheel Sect leave, Yoze deactivated his blood armor and found the entrance where they came from, and went inside. Luckily the inside of the cave system was well-lit and even had signs that pointed to where everything was.
Which included the library and its storage rooms which were his targets. The only thing that he wasn''t pleased with was the fact that they made their ceiling too low.
They had only made them 7 feet and 5 inches tall which might have been enough for most people but Yoze''s current height simply wasn''t enough. This left him with two options: the first was to deal with it and bend over as he navigated through the winding tunnels.
The second option which was his favorite was to expand the tunnels he was moving through so he didn''t have to crouch the entire way. Even though it required more effort on his part Yoze didn''t mind since he had just destroyed a sect so he had hours to spare.
It wasn''t like someone was going to try to explode the entire cave system with him inside it to avenge the Martial Wheel Sect. And even if there was someone crazy enough the only thing that it would do was inconvenience him since it was difficult for him to be buried alive.
As for the person who exploded the tunnels, they would die before they even had the chance to celebrate their aplishment. So Yoze didn''t have many worries about spending an extra hour just underground, instead, he found it strangelyfortable like being in a second home.
"So this is their library, at least they were kind enough to make the cells at least 10 feet tall for the library."
The moment Yoze reached the library he was met with a wide open dome room that had tall shelves full of various kinds of books ranging from basic novels to martial arts and even medical books. The books were even categorized which made it easier for Yoze to find what he needed.
"Iron Bones body cultivation method and even Iron Organs body cultivation method are here. With these two I can make a full iron body and make my physical defense even stronger than demons."
Immediately after he started his search for books Yoze''s eyes found two body cultivation manuals that caught his eye. The first manual had the cover of a gray skeleton and the second manual''s cover disyed the variousrge organs of the body covered in a gray metallic coloring.
These two books were Iron Bones and Iron Organ respectively and each took on different interpretations to solve the Iron Skin body cultivation manuals problems.
As two of the many different interpretations of the Iron Skin family line these two methods were less poprpared to Iron Muscles. Due to their ignoring the fact that it didn''t matter if your bones or organs were strong and durable if your muscles and flesh were torn to shreds. Though these two methods were less popr that didn''t mean they were any less useful.
The moment Yoze saw them his mind wandered to creating an iron body bybining all four body cultivation methods. This wasn''t the first time a martial artist had this idea to create an indestructible body cultivation method bybining the various Iron body cultivation methods.
But the majority of martial artists would stop that idea in its tracks due to one simple reason, they would die long before they would seed. Most people simply didn''t have enough talent and resources to be able to fulfill this theory.
People that gave it a try anyway soon found out that by the time they had reached the peak of three body cultivation methods they had spent decades of their life trying and still had many more Iron body methods to go.
There were so many interpretations of Iron Skin that one could turn any part of their body as hard as iron. For example, if a martial artist had a finger technique that required their nails they might prefer to train in the Iron Nails body cultivation method since it suited their needs.
The task of just collecting all the various variations of Iron Skin was nearly impossible, much less attempting to train in all of them before they reached the end of the human lifespan. To Yoze however, that wasn''t much of a problem as he had the talent and could get some more if he needed more talent and with his current finances he could afford any herb required.
There was also the fact that Yoze didn''t intend to train in all the Iron Skin variations just the major ones he has at hand. He already felt that he could create an incredibly strong body with just Iron Skin, Iron Muscles, Iron Bones, and Iron Organs.
Not only that he was going to break through each of their limits so that his overall defensive capability would truly be demonic.
"From now on my defense will no longer be my main weakness." Yoze smiled as he didn''t think he would already find some good books so soon.
He then turned to all the remaining martial art books and went through everything he felt would be worthwhile to keep and ced them in a crate he found lying around. After searching every nook and cranny of the Martial Wheel Sect he was able to find many books that he found would be useful.
"Devilish Finger technique makes it so that the moment the user touches their opponent with this technique the battle would have already been won. This is also known as the Touch of Death by many martial artists throughout the world."
"Martial Wheel martial art set contains only 1 body cultivation method that functions as an offensive, defensive, and evasive technique. At its peak, the user would be able to create their own Martial Wheel and incorporate various other techniques to increase its offensive and defensive capabilities."
"The Quick Mind Slow World technique is a method to increase the user''s thinking speed by performing certain breathing exercises. At its peak, the user would be able to think around 20 percent faster."
Yoze looked at the few dozen books in his crate of books and felt his harvest was truly great. With the number of books and martial art manuals he had collected, the need to buy books from New Swampscott City drastically reduced.
Unfortunately, he wasn''t able to collect any techniques or body cultivation manuals that could reach the Martial Grandmaster realm but he had already expected that so he wasn''t disappointed. During his investigation, he also found where the Martial Wheel Sect kept all their treasures and took what he thought was valuable.
After taking everything he wanted, Yoze decided to take all his current belongings back to New Swamp Town before heading back out to ravage through another martial art sect. Even with the extra weight, Yoze made it to town in around 2 hours before jumping over the wall to get inside.
He couldn''t be bothered to wait in line for several hours to a whole day just to get back into the town. He just found a part of the wall where there weren''t any guards or people and jumped over before cing his stuff in Regi''s home.
After making sure that no one had tried to get inside Regi''s house while he was gone, Yoze snuck out once again to go target a different sect. This time he was aiming for a sect known as the Beast Hunter Sect which from the information that was provided to him trained animals to be their battle partners.
"From the fact that their sect master was able to train an ordinary dog to be as strong as Blood Master is extremely impressive and should be quite useful for me. Maybe I can train Leah in this way so he could be my battle beast." Yoze''s mind raced at the possibility but what intrigued him more was how they trained those animals.
He hoped that they had a method to quickly understand animal behavior and their physical bodies so he could use it to advance his Mindless Legs. Lately, he had reached the limit of his current version of Mindless Legs and needed to start incorporating another animal to improve further.
Chapter 176 176: Beast Hunter Sect
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After confirming the directions to the Beast Sect Yoze quickly made his way over and was able to see therge multi-story buildings integrated within arge forest. From the information provided to him and what he saw on maps, this forest was the Green Branch Forest.
It was known to hold more than 10 thousand different types of animals and the amount of flora was extremely diverse. Not only that it shared a small connection with the one Grave''s region''s Grand Lines, The Endless Forest.
The Endless Forest was widely considered to be the hardest Grandline to cross in the Grave Region and widely considered to be impossible. From the stories of countless merchants and martial artists disappearing forever once they step deep inside the forest seemingly never making it to the other side.
There were even hundreds of Martial Grandmasters who made it their goal to cross the Endless Forest only to disappear without a trace. Whereas even other regions never saw anyone cross the other side and anyone who had gone inside disappeared forever, never to be found again.
As the branch of the Endless Forest other than the wide variety of different types of nt life and animal life, it was widely considered to be much safer than its parent. As a ce that thrived with animal life, the Beast Hunter Sect took up an incredibly small section of the Green Branch Forest yet their massive headquarters shows how integrated they were with the forest.
Their building was partially hidden from in view by using the natural cover of the trees and even from a distance, Yoze could see numerous wild animals casually walking inside the buildings, sleeping on the roofs, using the bridges between the buildings to move around the forest itself. Treating the Beast Hunter Sect headquarters as part of the forest itself.
"What a beautiful ce. If I didn''t know it belonged to a martial art sect I would have believed that it was the hidden home of forest elves." Yoze said as he looked at the Beast Hunter Sect with admiration and felt that his decision to visit the Beast Sect was the right decision.
As Yoze got closer to the Beast Sect Headquarters he saw numerous martial artists walking around with the pet animals. What he found incredible was that some of these animals seemed to have inner vigor.
From a nce, he saw a second-rate martial artist whose arms seemed to be covered in ck metal. Beside him was a giant white leopard who was close to 6 feet tall and 8 feet long that had its limbs covered in the same ck metal.
Showing that both the owner and his pets both trained in the same body cultivation and thereby extension also had the same inner vigor that seemed to have changed their limbs to have the properties of metal. If what he thought was correct Yoze didn''t feel that the reputation of being a small sect suited the Beast Hunter Sect.
If he added their beast partners to their numbers of martial artists then the Beast Sect would easily be ranked as a middle-ss martial art sect. Not only that their headquarters was much more defensiblepared to the Martial Wheel Sect which should have made them a bigger threat to New Swamp Town than any other small martial art sect.
"How about I just investigate them and see if I can find out their secret to taming these beasts and all the information that they collected over the years? If I can''t then I''ll wreak havoc."
After seeing how integrated the Beast Hunt Sect was with the forest, Yoze changed his approach to a more undercover method. He promised that other than destroying the Martial Wheel Sect he would just cause trouble with the other sects and he had no time limit toplete his promises.
So he had plenty of time to investigate the Beast Hunter Sect from the inside and then cause trouble or destroy the sect if he needed to. After making up his mind, Yoze deactivated his blood armor and walked the rest of the way to the Beast Hunter Sect.
Now that he was walking toward them, he was quickly discovered by the Beast Hunter Sect members who sent out a small squad to meet him. The small squad had three members of the Beast Hunter Sect along with their beast pets bringing their total number to six.
As the small squad got closer Yoze noticed that while these three Beast Hunter Sect Members seemed to be randomly chosen they were all quite strong and each of them was a first-rate martial artist. Their beast pets themselves also radiate an aura of first-rate martial artists.
The one that caught Yoze''s eye was the giant white pr bear that one of the members rode on. This pr bear was massive being around 9 feet tall even when standing on all four feet.
Not only that while it was still in the first-rate martial artist stage its aura was much stronger than that of its counterparts. Based on its aura alone it was even stronger than its master.
"Halt, you are approaching the Beast Hunter Sect headquarters. Identify yourself and your purpose." The young man with snow-white hair and crimson eyes shouted at Yoze from on top of the pr bear with a clear sign that he was its owner.
"My name is Geo and I''m interested in joining your sect," Yoze said casually.
"So you are interested in joining our sect, why didn''t you say so? Can I ask you what realm you have reached?" Hearing Yoze wanted to join their sect made the young man with snow-white hair face rx as he changed his tone to be more friendly.
"I have recently reached the Blood Master realm, I hope that isn''t a deal breaker to joining the sect."
"Deal breaker? Of course not,e with me I am sure that we can ept someone with your status to join quite quickly."
"By the way, my name is Luvi. I am the grandson of the founder of Beast Hunter Sect so if you have any questions feel free to ask." The snow white-haired man said as he rode his pr bear back to the forest.
Yoze followed along and felt his luck was pretty good to be able to meet the grandson of the founder of the Beast Hunter Sect and felt he might be able to get an answer to how they were able tomunicate with their beasts. Or at least find out if they have some book that has a list of animals with their traits, habits, and other core information that he could use to improve his Mindless Legs.
"Can I ask you how you can tame such powerful beasts as your pr bear? From the way I see it, I feel that this pr bear could kill most first-rate martial artists by itself, much less when you and it fight together." Yoze asked politely.
"Hahaha thank you for thepliment. I don''t want to admit it but I didn''t tame Pear by myself."
"She and I have been together since I was a kid and she was only a tiny bear cub. So we had a strong rtionship before we started to train together in the Beast Human body cultivation method." Luvi chuckled to himself as he looked at the pr bear below him with warmth.
"But yes, we can tame the beasts first by gaining their trust and then using the Beast Human body cultivation to get an almost symbiotic rtionship with each other."
"As a Blood Master, it will be quite easy for you to tame a powerful beast at the start. But I will warn you about the process of using the Beast Human body cultivation is extremely hard, time-consuming, and requires a lot of talent to even get a footing into the martial artist realm."
"Everyone in the sect right now has not only been able to tame a beast but also disyed enough talent, and dedication to be able to remain in the sect and progress in the martial art path," Luvi turned to Yoze to show the stern look in his eye as he continued.
"I hope that you don''t think I am being harsh but we have strict rules here and if you break them or stop making progress on Beast Human martial art for a significant period of time you will be kicked out."
"Of course, we aren''t monsters so you can still train in the Beast Human body cultivation method with your beast but it would be better for your future to stay in the sect." Luvi turned his head around after speaking, allowing silence to engulf the rest of their journey.
While they walked in silence, Yoze''s mind raced as he felt that he had made the right decision to go undercover. Not only was he able to easily get the body cultivation method that the Beast Hunter Sect gave all their members but he should be able to look through their library to gather more information.
Chapter 177 177: Beast Human Body Cultivation
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"As for the extreme talent required, I believe I have it and if I don''t there is no harm in staying for a few extra days to gather some talent." Yoze thought to himself while they arrived at a small building that was wrapped up in vines and pink flowers.
Inside the building was a sign that had the word "Registration Counter" written on it and there was an old man with gray hair sitting behind the counter ying with a gray-haired monkey.
"Hello, this gentleman would like to join our sect," Luvi called out to the old man while he went inside.
Suddenly noticing Luvi and Yoze, the old man stopped ying with the gray-haired monkey and coughed in to make himself seem more professional. Before the old man even asked him any questions he pulled our two thick books that seemed to be made from crocodile leather.
"Our registration process is quite simple, just take these two books. The one on top is the Beast Human body cultivation method which will help you on your journey. The second is a basic collection of information on a wide range of animals, it should help you decide what animal you would like to tame." The old man handed the two books to Yoze before continuing.
"Once you have decided on what animal you want to tame, go to the Beast Taming building and inform them of your decision. Depending on the animal they might provide you with additional help."
"If you want your animal to train in martial arts you can go to the second floor of the library. As for anything else you want to know, just go ask around people who are quite friendly." As the old man finished his speech he turned to his monkey friend and fed him a banana slice.
"Thank you," Yoze said, trying to show his appreciation toward the old man.
"Since you got the basics material, I''ll tell you all the rules that you must follow. After which I''m going to have to leave since I''m still on duty." Luvi quickly said to Yoze before going over the basic rules of the Beast Hunter Sect.
"Thanks, " Yoze said to Luvi as he rode off.
Yoze then found somewhere to sit on the ground while he opened the book that had information about various types of animals. As he read through the book he confirmed his hypothesis that the Green Branch forest seemed to contain animals from all different types of environments.
From creatures that lived in the deserts such as camels to animals that live in the extreme cold like penguins could be found somewhere in the forest. Not only were there animals of all types of environments that shouldn''t have existed in a forest but there were even creatures that were specific to this forest.
"The information is quite good but still too basic for what I need. I should try to find the library once I test out the Beast Human body cultivation method." Yoze said as he began to read the Beast Human Body Cultivation manual.
As Yoze read on he found that this manual was quite differentpared to other body cultivation manuals as it had three levels but they would each require his rtionship to reach a certain stage with his beast to reach. For example, before he could reach the first level after his rtionship with his beast had reached the Beast Pet stage.
To reach the second level required him to be at least Beast friends, and the third level required their rtionship to reach the Battle Friend stage before they could further train their bodies and martial arts.
What was also unique was that the type of inner vigor that was produced when a person reaches the second level depended on the species of the animal. For example, if Yoze had tamed a species known for speed such as cheetahs then the inner vigor that the Beast Human body cultivation method would produce between them would increase his speed.
If he chose a species such as a turtle then the type of inner vigor that was produced would be more defensive and even focus on increasing the defensive capabilities of his back. Once he reached this level he would be considered to have be a second-rate martial artist but depending on how strong his Beast partner is they might be unbeatable by other second-rate martial artists.
Once they reached the stage of Battle Friends and crossed over to the peak of level three they would be peak first-rate martial artists. However, everything passed the first-rate martial artist stage such as how to cross over to the Blood Master realm wasn''t included.
Yoze wasn''t surprised to see that the Blood Master Realm wasn''t included in the Beast Human manual since he knew they weren''t going to hand over something so valuable to people who might never have the possibility of reaching that stage. As for those who did have the potential the sect wanted to lock them in higher positions such as Elders before allowing them to continue their martial art path.
"I should only need to train with a beast up to the first level or the Beast Pet stage before I can copy their animal talents."
From what Yoze knows about how his cheat works he needs his target to have some awareness of their talents before his cheat would be able to disy on their talent window and allow him to copy it. If they were not aware of their talents then they wouldn''t be able to copy them.
While the level of awareness required was vague Yoze felt that the Beast Pet stage of the rtionship between him and the animals seemed to reach the required awareness that should trigger the appearance of their rted species'' talent. The book mentioned that at this stage the animal would be more sentient and intelligent regardless of their species so that they could understand orders.
Even though that wasn''t enough to be able to fight together effectively against other martial artists, for Yoze that was enough. He didn''t need his pets to fight for him since they wouldn''t be strong enough without him dedicating a long time to strengthen them.
Even then they might not be useful against demons who could just suppress them using their spiritual energy. So Yoze didn''t n to make any ordinary animal his battle friend but that didn''t mean they would not have their uses.
Being able to copy their animal talents would be a huge boost to his improving his Mindless Legs which would give him better instincts and the ability to adapt to any environment. Since he had the Beast Human body cultivation method in his hands Yoze went deeper into the forest to find a wild animal that he could tame.
Eventually, he found a wild animal that he felt would be a good target to tame and test to see if his body cultivation talents would be transferred or if he needed to copy a few talents from talented individuals.
The moment Yoze saw the giant serpent hiding amid the forest vines he used his spiritual energy to freeze the giant serpent in ce while easily taking it in his hands. He loosens the restriction of his spiritual energy allowing the giant serpent to wiggle around and put up some resistance.
Once he felt that it was enough Yoze began to use the Beast Human body Cultivation method by using his fingers to massage the giant serpent''s body. Usually, beginners of the Beast Human body cultivation would struggle to hit and apply the correct pressure on the animal''s nerve points causing the animal to feel pain.
But this wasn''t a problem for Yoze who had talents rted to his fingers and even had trained his finger and body control as he learned how to paint and practiced his martial arts. So even though it was his first time his technique was almost wless.
"Hisss,"
Under his almost perfect massage, the giant serpent''s resistance dropped to zero as it hissed infort. As Yoze continued to massage he felt a mysterious connection begin to form between the two of them.
The connection was small and fragile but this was an important sign that Yoze had broken through to the first level of the Beast Hunter body Cultivation method.
[Beast Human body cultivation (Level 1: 4%)]
"Good, looks like everything is progressing at a fantastic pace." Yoze smiled as he noticed that the giant serpent was no longer trying to escape but trying its best to cuddle with him.
What was surprising was that the giant serpent''s eyes shined with an almost human-level intelligence from just reaching the first level of the Beast Human body cultivation.
"If I continue improving our rtionship and continue to progress in this body cultivation method are you going to be as intelligent as Leah? Will you be able to be a demon if I try to teach you how to control your own spiritual energy?" Yoze''s eyes shimmered with excitement as he felt that this Beast Human body cultivation method might exceed his expectations.
Chapter 178 178: Beast Human Level 4
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"Since my talent marks are still on a cooldown let''s see how far I can take this." Yoze looked at the giant serpent in his arms and patted its scaly head.
The small connection between them made him feel like he could understand what it wanted. So he continued to massage the giant serpent as he followed everything that the Beast Human body cultivation method needed to strengthen the giant serpent.
Following this method he heard cracks ring from the giant serpent as its body began to expand twice fold. At the same time, through his fingers, Yoze sensed a few strands of inner vigor enter his body.
"Hisss!"
"Level 2 reached." Yoze smiled as he saw the giant serpent expanding before suddenly shrinking and returning to its original size.
"It''s good that your body is still holding up through these continuous breakthroughs. Can you continue?"
"Hisss!" The giant serpent let out an annoyed hiss and red at Yoze as if telling him not to underestimate it and continue.
"Good," Yoze smiled as he found that his connection with the giant serpent had deepened once again allowing him and the giant serpent to understand each other''s intentions better.
Since it desired to continue to progress Yoze didn''t stop training his Beast Human body cultivation method. His fingers blurred as he poked, scratched, pulled, and rubbed every inch of the giant serpent''s body promoting it to release more inner vigor.
As Yoze continued he could sense that for every strand of inner vigor that was created by the giant serpent''s body half of it would be absorbed into his body. This method of body cultivation was quite effective and seemed to be able to bypass the need for humans to have talent in body cultivation.
As his connection with the giant serpent grew, Yoze was able to sense that the giant serpent had reached the peak of second-rate martial artists. But just as he thought that it would be the end of their training the giant serpent broke through its barrier with ease.
The storm of inner vigor inside the giant serpent''s body was intense as strands of inner vigor of various sizes crashed into the giant serpent''s sh and bones. At this stage, the Beast Human body cultivation method is highly suggested that he stepped away to allow this transformation to happen on its own.
"You are one talented serpent since stepping away is just a suggestion I will help you create more inner vigor so that you are stronger than your peers." Yoze''s eyes shimmered with colorful lights as he didn''t slow down his usage of the Beast Human body cultivation method and instead sped up.
"Hiisss!!" The giant serpent''s eyes shimmered with a simr glow as it didn''t resist Yoze''s adjustment.
As the giant serpent''s body began to expand and contract as more and more inner vigor entered its flesh and bones. With every expansion, the giant serpent grew a bit past its previous peak, and with contraction, the giant serpent base form remained slightly bigger than the previous contraction.
With the rapid production of inner vigor and the giant serpent''s ascension to join the realm of first-rate martial artists, Yoze sensed that the giant serpent had reached full saturation in its flesh and bones. When he looked at the current size of the giant serpent he couldn''t help but lick his lips as the giant serpent''s base form was close to 32 feet long and almost 2 feet thick.
Knowing that the giant serpent could now grow up to five times its base form, Yoze knew he had identally created a super predator. His giant serpent was simply unrivaled in the martial artist realm and kill most first-rate martial artists in its base form.
Only once his giant serpent went up against Blood Masters would it even face a challenge but that was only if the Blood Masters didn''t get crushed first before they used their full power. In other words, the giant serpent was almost as strong as he was when he first became a first-rate martial artist.
"Hiss!" The giant serpent let out a monstrous hiss as it looked at Yoze with expectation.
"You want to continue? Sure, let''s take this as far as possible. Not only are we going to reach the peak of the Beast Human body cultivation but we will surpass its limits." Yoze smiled as he stood up to continue training the giant serpent.
With the giant serpent''s urging Yoze began to massage the giant serpent''s body while injecting some of the giant serpent''s inner vigor that was in his body back into the giant serpent. With Yoze''s perfect movements and massage the giant serpent''s body began to let out cracking sounds as itsrge body grew once more to be 33 feet long.
"Crack crack crack"
Several minutester the giant serpent grew to 35 feet long before reaching a peak of 39 feet long and close to 3 feet thick. After reaching the peak of his current Beast Human body cultivation method Yoze felt that this body cultivation method was amazing.
Even though he still nned to break through his current Beast Human body cultivation methods limits, his desire to obtain the Blood Master version had increased. Before if Yoze only cared about obtaining the Blood Master body cultivation method of the Beast Hunter Sect simply to increase his collection of Blood Master body cultivation methods.
Now Yoze saw that there was a possibility that the animals he raised could be valuable assets that could fight with him in battle. As long as he continued to break through both the Beast Human body cultivation and the Blood Master version then he could not only strengthen his beasts but also himself.
What made Yoze''s blood boil at the mere thought was how he could adapt the Beast Human body cultivation into a new and better version. Just like how he adapted the Armored Swordsman and Blood Swordsman martial art sects to better suit his needs and abilities.
"Why couldn''t I use the Beast Human body cultivation method with another human? All I have to do is adapt it and find a suitable human target then I''ll be able to test how to best change it." The thought of being able to use the Beast Human body cultivation method excited Yoze as he almost couldn''t wait to get started.
"As for you, let''s work together to make you as terrifying as any demon, monster, or immortal. This way I don''t have to worry about my father''s safety if I want to travel."
"Especially since both the Demon Summit and the immortal secting to New Swampscott City I might have to leave for a long period of time."
"You and a few other beasts I cultivate can hold down the fort and protect everyone while I''m gone." Yoze rubbed the giant serpent''s soft but tough scales as his mind began to wander at how crazy his life might get in the next few months.
"Hisss!" Feeling Yoze''s warm touch on its scales caused the giant serpent to let out a soft hiss.
"Alright, let me figure out how I am going to surpass the limits of the Beast Human body cultivation method. Let me just test things out until something works so just hang on it might hurt." Yoze gave the giant serpent onest soft pat before he began to massage the giant serpent''s body once more.
Not feeling that any changes were urring Yoze switched his method and began to p the giant serpent''s body instead of poking. After sensing that it triggers a small change Yoze continued for an hour before he and the giant serpent heard a soft rumblinging from between every cell of both the serpent''s and his body.
[Beast Human body Cultivation (Level 3: 199%)]
Every one of Yoze''s ps carried arge bundle of the giant serpent''s inner vigor into its body causing the giant serpent''s body to continue to produce even more inner vigor. With the continued input of inner vigor, the giant serpent''s inner vigor went wild as it crashed into every piece of its body before being forced into the giant serpent''s skin and organs.
As its body was absorbing the inner vigor, the giant serpent''s body grewrger andrger until it surpassed its five-times limit and its body grew eight timesrger. From a base length of 40 feet long and 3 feet thick, the giant serpent became 320 feet long and 24 feet thick.
If it wasn''t for the giant serpent''s quick reaction of moving its body around trees and animals it would have destroyed arge area of forest. Even though it was careful, the mere auraing off the giant serpent''s body scared away all the animals leaving only Yoze and the giant serpent alone in this part of the forest.
[Beast Human body Cultivation (Level 4: 2%)]
"We can stop for now. If we continue I don''t think you can continue growing and not destroy everything in the forest." Yoze patted the truly gigantic serpent as he wondered when he would be able to grow so big.
Chapter 179 179: Third Floor
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"Crack crack crack"
Understanding that they weren''t going to continue with their training the giant serpent shrunk its body to its base form. Its eyes glimmered with a sharp light as it continued to shrink its body until it was only the size of a medium-sized snake and wrapped itself around Yoze''s arm.
"You can even shrink your body?" Yoze looked at the previous giant serpent with surprise as he didn''t think that its transformation went both ways.
However, he shrugged his shoulders as he felt that since his serpent could change his size both ways it was just more convenient for him. With everything done and still having some time before his talent marks refreshed Yoze went over to the library to take a look at the various martial arts.
After asking around he eventually reached a tall tree that was more than 300 feet tall and 90 feet wide. The inside of the tree had been hollowed out to be turned into the Beast Hunter Sect''s martial art library.
When Yoze entered the library he saw hundreds of martial artists inside with their beasts. Each of the martial artists had serious faces written on their faces as they read books on their specific animals.
While their owners read their books on how to best take care of them, many of the animals ran around and explored the library themselves. From what he gathered from asking around even though the library was based in such arge tree it only had four floors.
And each floor had taken up a huge amount of space in the tree to make sure that any animal would be able to go inside and move around freely. The first floor was the floor where all the information about animals, nts, and other information was stored so this floor was always the busiest.
After looking around for a bit, Yoze could tell that the information on the animals was much more detailedpared to the book he received. Each book only went over one animal at a time and after reading the books on giant serpents and goats there wasn''t much else he currently needed.
After nning to take as many books as he could when he destroyed the Beast Hunter Sect, Yoze turned his attention to the second floor. Remembering that the old man at the register said that the martial art techniques were on the second floor, Yoze decided to ignore the first floor and went upstairs to the next floor.
When Yoze arrived on the second floor he noticed that there were fewer people and animals around. And even the animals in this behaved very differently from the ones on the bottom floor.
The animals on this floor were more well-behaved and stayed near their owners while their owners tried their best to understand the martial art techniques in their hands. From a nce, Yoze could tell that these animals were the ones that had been sessfully turned into beasts.
Knowing that he had arrived at the right ce, Yoze walked around the second floor and picked up techniques that he found interesting. As he walked around he noticed that, unlike the Martial Courtyard of the cities that kept only brief descriptions of their body cultivation manuals and martial art techniques.
Both the Martial Wheel sect and the Beast Hunter sect kept theplete versions of the body cultivation methods and martial art techniques inside their libraries to allow free ess. He chalked it up to the fact that martial art sects had less worry about their martial art techniques and body cultivation manuals being stolen by other martial art sects or the cities.
While this difference wasn''t that important for other people since many people would only train in one body cultivation method and a few martial art techniques in their lives. Yoze on the other hand felt that this difference was much better since having this open and easy ess allows him to quickly add variety to his fighting style.
As well as gives him more experience in a wide range of techniques and body cultivation so he could more easily adapt future techniques and body cultivation methods to suit his needs. As Yoze walked around he noticed that many of the martial art techniques were either solely for beasts or were techniques for both the beast and the hunter to fight together.
Even though it was strange he felt that it was logical since for most martial artists who trained in the Beast Human body cultivation method their beasts were stronger than them. So most martial artists preferred their beasts to do most of the fighting for them instead of the other way around.
Themon thought was what would be the point of having a beast that was trained to battle for them if they did all the fighting. Of course, some martial artists didn''t want their beasts to fight alone while they were standing on the sidelines.
So there were plenty of martial art techniques where both the beast and martial artist fought together but it was still a minority of the books avable. For Yoze, neither of these two types of martial art techniques were very attractive to him.
For starters, martial art techniques that were customized solely for beasts weren''t attractive since his beasts were most likely not talented enough to push these techniques to new levels so they could challenge stronger opponents. While the martial art techniques for both of their use also weren''t very attractive since the speed at which he could train in these techniques would no longer be at his learning speed.
Since these martial art techniques were dependent on the slower learner which would always be his beasts. The thought of having to slow down his training speed almost made Yoze frown and almost ruined his good mood.
Since both the martial art techniques were solely for beasts and the ones where they both fought together were unappealing to him, Yoze decided to check what was I''m the higher floors. As he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor he noticed that, unlike the previous two floors, there was a giant door blocking the entrance to the third floor.
In addition, there were two peak first-rate martial artists acting out as guards on the third floor. The moment the two guards noticed Yoze walking towards the third floor their faces turned stern as their beasts growled at him.
"Stop, this floor is only for elders. You must turn around immediately." One of the guards said as he couldn''t help but gulp in nervousness after seeing Yoze''s stature.
"Oh, I apologize I just recently joined the sect so I didn''t know that the third floor was only for elders. But if it is alright if I ask what is inside the third floor that ain''t elders are allowed inside." Yoze smiled apologetically as he asked what was behind the door to the third floor.
Hearing that Yoze had recently joined their sect and had made a mistake made the two guard''s shoulders rx.
Once they heard his question one of the guards said casually, "There really isn''t anything of much use for us, just the sect''s Blood Master realm body cultivation manuals. So unless any of us are about to cross the boundary and officially go through the elder ceremony on this floor we wouldn''t be able to use anything inside."
"Oh, then I will be going to the third floor then." Hearing that he could easily grab the Beast Hunter sect''s Blood Master Realm body cultivation methods, Yoze''s eyes glimmered with colorful sparkles.
Before the two guards could understand what Yoze meant by they felt a sharp pain in their minds before their bodies copsed. As their bodies hit the ground their eyes rolled behind their heads as they lost consciousness.
Once both the two guards'' bodies hit the ground Yoze arrived at the door to the third floor and pushed it open. The door was heavy even though it looked like it was made out of wood and normally required two peak martial artists and their beasts working together to open.
But with Yoze''s strength pushing open the door wasn''t too hard and he was able to open it enough to let his body walk inside. Once he opened the door Yoze saw that there was a bald young man covered head to toe in blue tattoos of mythical animals.
Besides the young man a 16 feet tall white tiger whose eyes had a bored look to them. Coming from both of their bodies was an intense aura of wildness and brutality that was paired up well with the intense smell of blood radiating from the bodies.
The moment Yoze stepped inside both the bald young man and the 16 feet tall white tiger turned to look at who entered. Once they saw it was Yoze their eyes sharpened as the bald young man drew out his long sword and his beast pulled out its sharp ws that glinted like polished metal.
"Who are you?" The unfriendlinessing from the bald young man showed that if Yoze didn''t answer this question right then he would attack without hesitation.
Chapter 180 180: Blood Beast
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"My name is Golem, I''m here to take a look at the body cultivation manuals," Yoze said casually.
Yoze had long known that the young man was behind the third floor''s door from his spiritual energy which was an orange ball. However, he didn''t mind since he wanted to quickly test his pet serpent''s abilities on a Blood Master level opponent.
Since he had already nned to use the young man as a training dummy, Yoze didn''t put much thought into finding an excuse to be inside the third-floor room. Instead, he used his time to look around the third floor and see what it offered.
As he scanned the room he noticed that, unlike the previous two floors, there were only three books on the third floor. Each of these books was inside a ss box on top of a podium. The only exception was the book in the young man''s hand.
The bald young man sighed as he ced the book in his hand back into its ss box and locked it with a golden key. Once he secured the book back into his resting ce he turned to Yoze with fire in his eyes.
"Since you aren''t giving me a valid reason I am going to assume that you are an enemy of the sect that has intruded into our sacred territory." The bald young man said as his intense aura of wildness and brutality grew strong.
"Take care of him, Darling."
"Roar!"
The moment the bald young man said the word "Darling" the giant white tiger let out a heavy roar that was filled to the brim with bloodlust. The white tiger immediately charged at Yoze at an extremely fast speed that would have been difficult to track by any Blood Master.
But for Yoze the white tiger''s speed wasn''t that special and once it got close he sent an order to his serpent through their special connection. As soon as Yoze gave the order, the serpent hidden behind his sleeve jumped out and expanded its body while trying to swallow the white tiger alive.
"Hiss"
Before the bald young man could react to the sudden change in the situation he found that the white tiger that he had always been with was inside a giant serpent''s mouth. What made him speechless was that the auraing off its body was extremely strong.
So strong that it gave him the impression that it was as strong as a peak Blood Master yet that shouldn''t have been possible since the bald young man couldn''t sense a lick of blooding from the giant serpent. Meaning it hadn''t been trained using a Blood Master realm body cultivation method.
For a serpent that was still in the first-rate martial artist stage to be capable of swallowing his white tiger shouldn''t have been possible. After the initial shock, anger overwhelmed the bald young man as he looked at the giant serpent as if it had killed his parents or lover.
"Spit out Darling, you giant worm!" The bald young man yelled out in anger as his eyes transformed into two deep blue crystals and his mythical tattoos began to tremble on his skin as if they were alive.
"Hmmm,"
Yoze''s eyes locked onto the bald young man with interest as he could sense that the bald young man''s aura was getting stronger. Not onlying from the giant serpent''s mouth the same aura leaked out with rage.
Sensing that his giant serpent was beginning to lose control of the white tiger in its mouth, Yoze decided to end this battle. He turned his attention to the bald young man who stared at him as if he was his greatest enemy.
"You''re going to die!" The bald young man charged at Yoze with a speed that only peak Blood Masters could reach and formed sharp blue ws using his inner vigor.
As he nned to tear using his bare hands before he freed his beloved white tiger due to his trust that she could escape on her own. Before the bald young man could take a few steps he suddenly felt extreme pain simr to the sensation of being eaten alive mmed full force into his mind.
"Thud"
Just like that Yoze devoured the bald young man''s spiritual energy and killed him spiritually. As soon as Yoze devoured thest bit of the bald young man''s spiritual energy he watched as the bald young man''s body hit the floor with no signs of consciousness.
"So your boost in strengthes from the bald young man. I wonder which body cultivation method or technique did he train in to be able to boost his strength so much in such a short amount of time." Yoze looked at the giant serpent''s mouth and could sense that the white tiger''s aura was previously rapidly increasing, and began to return to normal intensity.
After taking care of the bald young man, Yoze walked over to the three podiums that held the Beast Hunter Sect''s Blood Master body cultivation manuals. As he got closer he noticed that all three of the ss boxes were locked by different sets of keys.
The box that contained the body cultivation manual that the bald young man was reading needed a golden key while the other two boxes required a silver key and a bronze key. Since he didn''t n to return any of the Beast Hunter Sect''s body cultivation manuals he just waved his p with his hand after making it weigh thousands of pounds using his heavy inner vigor.
The moment Yoze''s hand came in contact with any of the ss boxes they all immediately shattered making a loud sound that would have alerted the guards if he had taken care of them. After picking up the books and wiping off the broken ss, Yoze read their titles in hopes to get a clue about what he could expect inside.
"So there is the Blood Bond body cultivation manual, the Blood Beast body cultivation manual, and the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation manual."
"Just from the names alone, I can tell that each one of these takes a very different pathpared to the others. But let''s look at the Blood Beast body cultivation first since it seems to be the continuation of the Beast Human manual."
After picking up the Blood Beast body cultivation manual, Yoze ced the other two books in his pouch. As he read through the Beast Body cultivation manual Yoze couldn''t help but nod his head in satisfaction.
From what he had gathered from the Blood Beast body cultivation method, it was the continuation of the Beast Human body cultivation method. After reaching the peak of the Beast Human body cultivation method, it encouraged the users to further their connection with their beasts by giving them a mixture of their blood and another beast''s blood.
It was said that continuously feeding this blood mixture to the user''s beast for several months would transform it into a Blood Beast. After transforming into a Blood Beast, the user''s beast would be almost as intelligent as an adult human and be as strong as a Blood Master.
"This must be what the bald young man and the white tiger trained in as the description of a Blood Beast in the book almost perfectly matches the white tiger. I wonder if I can tame the white tiger and get a Blood Beast without the hassle." Yoze''s eyes shined with excitement as he immediately wanted to test out his idea.
"Spit the white tiger out, I want to see if I can tame her." Yoze patted the giant serpent with pride as he asked it to spit the white tiger out.
Even though the giant serpent was a little disappointed that it wouldn''t get to eat the white tiger, it still spat the white tiger out. As for the white tiger, it didn''t immediately attack Yoze as it felt that something was wrong.
It couldn''t sense its connection with its master anymore which had never happened before. After looking around for a little bit its eyesnded on the bald young man''s body that was lying on the floor with no signs of regaining consciousness.
"Roar!"
Not understanding that its master had just been killed spiritually, the white tiger jumped to protect its master while looking at Yoze with a look that could kill.
"Sigh,"
Seeing the white tiger''s reaction almost made Yoze feel bad but he strengthened his resolve and walked over to the white tiger with friendliness. As Yoze walked closer to the white tiger it growled with hostility and jumped into the air, nning on cutting Yoze to pieces.
Unfortunately, before it could use all its strength to jump, Yoze suppressed it with his spiritual energy causing the white tiger''s body to only jump a few feet in the air before crashing down. With its spiritual energypletely suppressed the white tiger couldn''t think at all or move its body at all.
Chapter 181 181: Stealing White Tiger
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Yoze looked at the helpless white tiger with interest in his eyes. He looked at its white fur and could see specks of blue tattoos simr to the bald young man''s tattoos.
"You two must have been close."
After examining the white tiger''s body Yoze began his experiment of attempting to establish a connection with the Blood Beast. Even though just a few minutes ago he had killed the White Tiger''s master, Yoze still felt he had a good chance at being able to seed.
The reason for his confidence is that the Beast Human body cultivation method never mentioned that there was a limit to how many animals or beasts someone could tame nor did it mention anything about not being able to tame Blood Beast. It only mentioned that the stronger the animal the harder it would be to tame.
But for Yoze the difficulty of taming a Blood Beast shouldn''t be that much harder than taming a regr animal like the giant serpent. And as long as he was persistent he should be able to form a connection with the white tiger.
"Let''s get started."
After hepleted his examination Yoze began to poke the white tiger''s body rapidly and with perfect form. It didn''t take long before Yoze sensed the white tiger''s body begin to rx so he lifted some of his spiritual energy suppressing the white tiger allowing it to start to think.
The white tiger''s body continued to rx as Yoze continued his poking but by the time hepleted the entire poking massage the Beast Human body cultivation had he still didn''t sense that a connection had been formed between him and the white tiger.
Seeing that one massage sensation wasn''t enough Yoze tried again and again and again while at the same time lifting the spiritual suppression on the white tiger bit by bit until hepletely removed it. Even though the white tiger was no longer being suppressed spiritually or under any physical suppression that prevented it from moving away from Yoze it found that its body refused to listen to it.
It was toofortable.
Under the perfect and fluid massage, the white tiger felt as if the hidden strength in its body was surfacing and making it stronger. The pleasure of getting stronger from a simple massage was soforting that its mind began to wander by the time the bald young man tamed it.
Back then it was not the powerful and noble white tiger that it currently transformed into. Back then it was just an ordinary tiger with orange and ck stripes that roamed around the forest not knowing what its next meal was going to be or if it would survive past the next day.
That was until it saw the bald young man walking towards it with his mesmerizing blue tattoos. Even though the bald young man simply sat down and waited for it to walk over on its own, it could sense deep down in its bones that if it wanted to rule over the forest it needed to walk towards the bald young man.
When it walked over to the bald young man he just smiled and began to massage its body in a simr manner as Yoze. At that time, it felt like it was magical, and could feel its body growing stronger by the hour and its mind slowly bing clearer with time.
Several yearster, it suddenly felt a weak connection with the bald young man and one that it had made the right decision that day. With time its pride at being chosen to be the bald young man''s beast grew and as it became stronger it felt that nothing could defeat its master.
But today it found that the world has been flipped upside down. Not only has its connection with its master been cut but now thisrge human was doing the same massage that its master did back then.
The problem was that even though they were the same massage, they weren''t the same. If aparison was made between its master and this human then it was like drinking a sip of warm water every day versus having a wholeke of cold refreshing water that one could partake in.
They were just two different magnitudes offort and even though it wanted to stay loyal to its master it found that its body had already betrayed it. The only thing stopping it from fallingpletely under this human''s rein was its mind which was subconsciously rxing its guard.
"Finally a connection had been formed."
Suddenly the white tiger felt that a new connection had been formed and to its sadness, it was to the human right next to him. But at the same time, it felt that bing the beast of the human next to it wasn''t as bad as it initially thought.
After Yoze felt the same connection with the white tiger that he had with the giant serpent he felt that he was going in the right direction. So he didn''t stop after forming, reaching the first level of the Beast Human body cultivation method with the white tiger and tried to push it as far as he could.
Unlike the giant serpent who he had to help produce inner vigor, the white tiger already had an abundance of inner vigor in its body. So Yoze found out that the vast majority of the produced inner vigor went into his body instead of staying inside the white tiger''s body.
As the stands of inner vigor went into his body Yoze found that they radiated a sharpness that seemed capable of cutting through anything. And as more inner vigor went into his body he felt that he could gather sharp inner vigor inside his hand to cut steel as if he was a thousand-degree knife and the steel was butter.
"It was a good decision to tame this white tiger. Now I can increase my offensive ability to a whole different level."
"Especially the weapons that I can create using my blood. They all will now have an increased ability to cut down anything standing in my way." Yoze smiled as he patted the white tiger that had now be his beast.
Chapter 182 182: Failed Body Cultivation Method
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As Yoze continued to improve his connection with the white tiger he could feel that once he reached level three of the Beast Human body cultivation method he could now feel that there was arge improvement. Copying what he did with the giant serpent, Yoze continued to make the white tiger''s body continue to produce inner vigor while its internal inner vigor went into chaos.
In the chaos,rge bundles of sharp inner vigor untangled and were forced into the white tiger''s bones. More and more inner vigor was absorbed into the white tiger''s bones, making the white tiger''s teeth and ws noticeably sharper.
From what he predicted the white tiger''s ws and teeth at the base form now were as sharp and deadly as when it inputted inner vigor into them. Before, the white tiger needed to use everyst drop of its inner vigor to cut through steel, but now it no longer needs inner vigor to cut steel.
Not only that once the white tiger used its inner vigor Yoze was confident that it could even cut through the defenses of Martial Grandmasters without much trouble. If anything breaking through the defenses of Blood Masters who focused on defense was no longer an issue for it.
Once Yoze sensed that the white tiger''s skeleton had beenpletely saturated and that his connection with the white tiger had improved once more, he knew that they had now reached the peak of level three Beast Human body cultivation. So he immediately began to implement his improved Beast Human body cultivation method and pped the white tiger''s body with perfect technique.
[Beast Human (Level 4: 3%)]
"Nice to see that I can still improve even when I do it with different beasts." Yoze gave the white tiger a nice p as he felt its aura grow stronger.
"But that''s fine for now, I still want to take a look at the other Blood Master realm books that the Beaster Hunter Sect has to offer. As well as what is inside the fourth floor of the library." Yoze gave the white tiger another p before taking out the Blood Bond body cultivation manual.
Realizing that Yoze wasn''t going to continue to make it stronger, the white tiger looked at Yoze with dissatisfaction before lowering its head and waiting patiently. It didn''t take long before Yoze was able to understand the gist of the Blood Bond body cultivation method.
For starters, it was a very different methodpared to the Blood Beast body cultivation. Unlike the Blood Beast body cultivation method which had three levels, Blood Bond had a total of eight levels.
The highest amount of levels that Yoze had seen in his entire martial art journey. What was interesting about the Blood Bond method was that it not only rmends the user to have multiple beasts but requires it to be able to move on to the next levels.
To be able to reach the first level one needed to have tamed two beasts of different species. After which the user needed to drink and bathe in their blood for several months for them to reach the peak level one.
The second level requires three beasts and the third requires four beasts and so on until that person reaches the peak of the Blood Bond body cultivation method. Once the user has reached the peak their physical body would be seen as the most terrifying beast and could even kill Blood Beasts with their bare hands.
"The Blood Bond body cultivation is much more selfishpared to the Blood Beast body cultivation method. But the physical power that it grants its users is undeniable."
"Luckily, it doesn''t require the user to kill their beasts. It is already hard enough for most martial artists to tame more than 44 different species of animals so this would nearly be impossible for anyone to achieve if they had restarted every single time."
After reading the Blood Bond body cultivation method, Yoze put the manual away since he didn''t want to start training it in enemy territory. So he turned his attention to thest Blood Master realm body cultivation manual, the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation method.
"This book is too suitable for human-to-human body cultivation to a coincidence." The moment Yoze read the first few pages of the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation manual he immediately saw through the hidden desires of the author.
The start of the first line of the book told the user to murder their beast and find a suitable humanoid creature to tame them. Even though the author didn''t mention what kind of humanoid beast was suitable most people would assume monkeys, goris, or other kinds of apes.
But Yoze felt that the author didn''t even want to use the word humanoid, instead, he wanted to use the word, human. So instead of just killing the user''s beasts that they had for years or even decades, the creator wanted the user to abandon the path of beasts.
It might have been due to his high talent in literature and martial artprehension but as Yoze read through the Blood Beast Twins he felt he could see more and more of the creator''s intense desire to body with another human. If his interpretation was right then Yoze felt that the creator of the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation method hated beasts to his core.
"No, that can''t be right. Is this not the same author who made the Blood Beast body cultivation method?"
"Why does it feel that he loved animals and beasts when he was writing the Blood Beast body cultivation method but now he hates them so much he doesn''t even want to be near one?" Yoze looked at the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation manual and felt confused at the extreme jump from love and hatred.
Even though Yoze felt confused at the author''s shift in perspective, he knew why even though the author hated beasts this method still required animals. It was because the author failed to create a body cultivation method that worked.
"Well it isn''t like he didn''t seed, it just wasn''t the way he wanted it. He wanted to make humans have a rtionship as strong as a beast with its master while also wanting them to be equal in the rtionship."
"From what I could tell he definitely was a martial artist that has always fought with beasts or he wouldn''t have tried to use a simr body cultivation method that worked with beasts with humans."
"Plus, it isn''t like there aren''t any body cultivation methods that two humans trained together. Many martial art sects have body cultivation methods where two humans trained together and progressed together like partners."
"But this author from the very start treated one of the people like an animal that needed to be tamed so, of course, it would fail and just ended up being forced into switching it to humanoid beasts." Yoze shook his head in disappointment and decided that he wouldn''t train in this failed body cultivation method.
He would rather take some extra time to fix the ws and adapt the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation method so that it would not only be much closer to what the creator wanted but much morepatible with him.
He also felt that he could easilybine the three different body cultivation methods into one that wouldbine all their best attributes.
Just thinking about creating a body cultivation method where he trained dozens of beasts that were as strong as demons, gave his physical body the physical ability of all his beastsbined, as well as allowing him to help his family get stronger made Yoze''s heart race.
If it were for the fact he had created the body cultivation method yet, he would have ignored the fact he was in enemy territory and started training.
"Okay, now let''s go check out what is on the fourth floor since we are here," Yoze said as he began to walk up the long flight of stairs to the fourth floor.
Even though he was inside the Beast Hunter sect''s library Yoze knew that he had been here for quite some time as he only had less than 10 hours left until his talents marks were refreshed. He couldn''t help but feel satisfied with what he has harvested so far.
The only thing that could make this trip even better was once he could confirm that by training animals in the Beast Human body cultivation method he acquired their talents. That way not only would his strength increase greatly by taming more beasts but he would also get a whole new world of talents that he could acquire.
As Yoze was nning what he was going to do after he destroyed the Beast Hunter sect, the white tiger and giant serpent that had recently be his new pets looked at each with curiosity before following behind him.
Chapter 183 183: Fourth Floor
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As Yoze walked up the stairs to arrive at the fourth floor, he noticed that, unlike the previous floor, there weren''t any guards or people anywhere on the floor. Meaning that there wasn''t any extra security blocking this room from being essed so Yoze felt he should be able to go through this floor quickly.
When he arrived at the two giant doors that were his final obstacle to entering the fourth floor, Yoze didn''t slow down and push the two doors open. By the time he was able to open a gap big enough to get through, Yoze felt disappointed at his discovery.
The floor was empty with not a single trace of any books, shelves, or even podiums. There was just nothing. The fourth floor was just an empty floor.
"Since I''m here there is no point in going back outside. I''ll just cultivate until my talent marks refresh."
With only a few hours left on his talent mark cooldown and seeing that there was nothing new inside the library, Yoze sat down on the floor and took out two crystals, and began to cultivate. The moment Yoze closed his eyes he could sense the bits of crystal dust being absorbed into his body and flying toward both his crystal nerves and dead crystal nerves.
Two streams of crystal dust, one thin stream and one thick steam, formed as they flew at two different targets. The thin stream of crystal dust flew toward Yoze''s crystal nerves like fireflies attracted to light.
As the stream of crystal dust made contact with the crystal nerves, they were quickly absorbed into the nerves and slowly but surely filled them to their limits. While the thick stream of crystal dust flew toward Yoze''s dead crystal nerves faced a different scenario.
As they got closer the crystal dust could even touch the surface of his dead crystal nerves as it waspletely covered up by previous crystal dust. There was crystal dust from types of crystals that varied in shape, size, and color which created a scene of a branch of nerves being colored like rainbow bridges.
Unfortunately, this beautiful scene would never be a scene in the outside world but the journey of the thick stream of crystal dust didn''t end after reaching the dead crystal nerves. Instead, due to how thick theyers of crystal dust covered his dead crystal nerves, a majority of the crystal dust from the thick stream became attracted to the nearby crystal nerves.
After changing their final destination location to the crystal nerves, another stream of crystal dust flew toward the crystal nerves filling it even faster. With two sources of crystal dust flying their way, Yoze''s crystal nerves filled up at astonishing speed.
With his speed with immortal cultivation boosted, Yoze quickly fell into a trance of grabbing crystals and rapidly absorbing them. Time quickly flew by as Yoze cultivated in peace, he only broke out of his cultivation trance when he saw a familiar panel pop up.
[Talent Marks: 2]
"Finally," Yoze smiled as he looked at the 18 feet tall white tiger and the giant serpent that sat down beside him.
"Serpent, I''ll take a look at your talents first."
[Name: Slezro Slither]
[Age: 6 years old]
[Talents: Body Cultivation (Grade 6), Giant Vine Serpent (Grade 10), Thermal Vision (Grade 4), Flexibility (Grade 8), Movement Tracking (Grade 3), Rapid Calction (Grade 3)]
"It worked, I can now finally be able to get talents from animals and advance Mindless Legs. And your talents aren''t that bad." Yoze smiled as he quickly copied the giant serpent''s talents.
As soon as Yoze copied the Giant Vine Serpent''s talent he felt his mind begin to wander as he imagined a goat staring down at a giant serpent. The goat wasrge and had a murderous look in its eyes as it stared the serpent down as if it was watching an enemy step into its home.
Meanwhile, the giant vine serpent grinned before wagging its strong tail at the goat trying to provoke it. Just as the goat was about to lose its mind both of them suddenly changed their minds and disappeared in his blood.
Yoze shook his head to get rid of his vivid imagination, even though he had a feeling that there would be a conflict in his talents. Luckily, it seemed to him that having multiple talents rted to animals wasn''t going to cause a conflict in his body.
He only felt that his connection with the giant serpent was now steadily growing even without his assistance. Yoze felt that the reason for this growth was that even without him actively trying to use his Giant Vine Serpent talent just the mere presence of and connection with the giant serpent made his talent active.
"Having my connection with my beast pets grow constantly should allow me to push through the levels of the Beast Human body cultivation method even faster."
"If my thought process is correct this would even allow me to cut down on the number of animals I need to reach the peak of Mindless Legs." Yoze felt his mind racing with new ideas and the possible benefits of his discovery.
"I save myst talent mark just in case something interestinges around today. As for now, it''s time to destroy the Beast Hunter Sect and collect the books and treasures." Yoze stood up with a stretch before walking downstairs to leave the library.
Noticing that Yoze was leaving and getting ready to wreak havoc, the giant serpent''s eyes glittered with excitement while the white tiger let out a deep breath before preparing itself to test out its new power. When the three of them made it back to the third floor, they noticed that the young bald man''s body had turned into a puddle of blood.
The only thing that was left of the young bald man was his clothes and a strange blood red crystal that radiated intense heat and light.
"That bald young man was an immortal."
Chapter 184 184: Beast Hunter Gathering
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Yoze was able to put two and two together and was able to figure out that he had encountered a real immortal. He had 90 percent confidence that he wasn''t wrong about that fact either as only real immortals and demons could survive after having their spiritual energy devoured.
While Yoze had never met a real immortal and not an immortal cultivator, he had seen real demons. He had long had a theory that as long as a demon still hadn''t been eaten to its very bones and had some spiritual energy flowing through their bodies it would be able to regain all its spiritual energy by killing creatures and trulye back to life.
From his experience with the Armored Elephant demon and the Leopard demon who he had devoured their spiritual energy, he knew that their bodies could still move and fight even after devouring the majority of their spiritual energy. With their powerful bodies and instincts remaining he was confident they could still destroy viges, and towns, and possibly wreak havoc in cities.
That meant with time every demon coulde back to life and be a nightmare for all their enemies.
However, immortals were not demons who had taken control of their spiritual energy so there was very little possibility that immortals came back to life using that method. Even though Yoze himself was an immortal cultivator he didn''t have much knowledge of how immortal cultivators became immortal.
Since that knowledge wasn''t passed down to rouge immortal cultivators with terrible talent in immortal cultivation. Not only that, the rogue immortal cultivator''s realms were even restricted as they were forced to remain stuck in the Crystal Skull realm, unable to proceed to the Crystal Brain realm where the path to immortality could be unlocked.
That didn''t mean that Yoze waspletely clueless about immortals since he could infer that immortals must have some way to protect or regenerate their spiritual energy just like demons. If they didn''t then immortals simply couldn''tpete with a demon, immortals would even face difficulty facing witches.
Just from his experience, Yoze had seen multiple incidents of witchcraft influencing spiritual energy. From the time Dreyer was able to reduce and hide the presence of his and Tiki''s spiritual energies and how the New Swampscott City prisons could hide spiritual energy from being detected from a distance.
Even abnormal entities are capable of manipting spiritual energy such as the Undead Baby who created a ck pir of death spiritual energy and eradicated an entire town turning them into its army of undead. There was also the abnormal entity that imnted a blood heart into Blood Master Steel.
When Blood Master Steel was on the brink of death and revived as a stronger version of himself he showed capabilities of using a mixture of spiritual energy and inner vigor as an attack method.
Just like how even powerful rogue immortal cultivators could do nothing but be vegetables when they faced Yoze''s spiritual attacks, immortals would simply be immortal vegetables. Against opponents like these, it would be difficult if not impossible for immortals to be able to im the title of being immortal without a way to deal with spiritual energy.
Seeing that there was a glowing blood crystal right in front of him instantly alerted Yoze that he was dealing with an enemy that must have some means of surviving having their spiritual energy devoured or at least being able to alert others of their demise.
"I finally met a real immortal. The fact that this crystal is here means that there is a high chance that the young bald immortal wille back. And that I can finally get talents from a true immortal." Yoze grinned as he looked at the blood-red crystal and felt his heart face with excitement.
"But first let me deal with the Beast Hunter sect''s upper echelon so I can focus on the fight with the bald immortal and not worry about them running away."
Not wanting his previous targets to escape during his intense conflict with his first immortal, Yoze decided to kill the Beast Hunter Sect''s elders and Sect master beforeing back. So he raced down the stairs of the library and walked outside to see that many of the Beast Hunter sect''s members had deep frowns on their faces.
"Excuse me, but why does everyone seem to be in a bad mood?" Yoze walked up to a random martial artist with a fox and asked why it seemed that worry had prated the sect.
"You must have not heard but just yesterday the Martial Wheel Sect had been destroyed." The martial artist''s frown deepened as he pet his pet fox tofort himself.
"Before you ask what that has to do with us, I''ll tell you that it was done by a single person. From the rumors, the person was a Martial Grandmaster who just killed all the Martial Wheel Sect elites without a word before leaving."
"Do you know what that means? It means that he must have been hired to deal with the Martial Wheel sect and who is the most likely hire. It is the New Swamp Town!" The martial artist''s pats became heavier as he became more nervous.
"That means that we could be next on the list. Because of that, all the small martial art sects are gathering all their members to make some kind of announcement." The martial artist sighed as he stopped patting his pet fox.
"Does that mean all of our elders and the sect master are also going to be at the gathering today?" Yoze asked casually.
"Most likely, the only ones that might not join are the elders who are too far away to be able to make it back to the sect headquarters. I hope that whoever destroyed the Martial Wheel sect doesn''te after us." The martial artist was about to continue when he felt Yoze''s hand touch his shoulder.
"Don''t worry about it, even if he shows up he won''t kill you since you are too weak to even have a chance to revive the Beast Hunter Sect."
Chapter 185 185: Beast Hunter Destroyed
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"How would you know that? The Martial Wheel Sect could have just gotten off easy." The martial artist that held his fox gave Yoze an unconvinced look as he asked him where he got his confidence.
"Don''t worry about it, just tell me where we are gathering so I don''t identally miss it." Yoze didn''t bother to answer the young man''s question and asked where he needed to go for the gathering.
"We are gathering at the entrance of the forest so just head out and you''ll see plenty of people waiting for the sect master to give his speech." The man said.
"Thanks,"
After getting the information he needed Yoze decided to head to the gathering location to finish off his task. Just like the martial artist who owned a fox said, the moment Yoze stepped outside the forest he saw arge crowd of people together with their beasts gathered together.
With such arge concentration of martial artists, Yoze could imagine that if they worked together they would be a force to be reckoned with. As he got closer to the crowd of people he saw that many of them had the same worried look on their faces but when they talked about solutions to solve their problems they seemed excited to try out the craziest ideas.
One of the craziest ideas he heard was that the Beast Hunter Sect should temporarily tell the world that they dissolved while they all hide inside New Swamp Town. Once the coast was clear and the big bad sect destroyer lost interest in destroying their sect, the reform I''m the Beast Hunter Sect in secret.
This n was crazy for many reasons and the possibility that it worked was close to zero. However, the biggest w in all these martial artists'' ns was the fact that the big bad sect destroyer was already in their midst.
Yoze was just standing in the middle of the crowd of people listening to the crazy theories, nicknames for himself, and wed ns as he waited for his targets to arrive.
If Yoze had decided to allow his White Tiger to follow him he would have gained more attention but he felt that having the White Tiger by his side served no benefit and just told it to go back to the library to watch the immortal corpse.
Now that he was at the location Yose just waited for his targets to arrive and after an hour they finally came. The moment the Sect Master and the Sect elders arrived the loud crowd immediately fell silent.
An intense and nervous atmosphere covered the whole sect as they waited for the Beast Hunter''s Sect Master to make his speech. With so many people gathered together a small makeshift stage was made to lift the group of three so that they were visible to everyone.
When Yoze turned his attention to the stage he saw three old men wearing thick clothes made out of exotic animal fur standing on stage. The first old man that drew his eyes was quite tall and stood around 7 feet tall and was extremely muscr.
He had a long white bread that reached the middle of his chest and a full head of gray hair. Beside the old man was his beast pet who was a giant gori that was more than 10 feet tall, muscr, and had the same tough look on its face as its master.
That old man was Juju Gor, the Sect Master of the Beast Hunter Sect. What made Yoze interested was that the Sect Master of the Beast Hunter Sect was practicing the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation method.
A failed body cultivation method whose author hated beasts and wanted to switch patterns to cultivate with humans. But as Yoze thought about the name of the sect he felt that the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation method suited the aspect of hunting beasts.
When Yoze turned to the two other elderly men that stood beside the Sect Master, he recognized them to be the Sect Elder Tilo and Sect Elder Lilo. Just from the simrities of their names, one could tell that they were siblings.
But when Yoze took note of their appearance he noticed that they were not just siblings they were twins. Even in their old age, they looked nearly identical, and if it wasn''t for the two blood beasts standing beside each of them no one would be able to tell who was who.
"No one here trains in the Blood Bond body cultivation method but that makes sense trying to tame 44 beasts is already a difficult task. So having to bathe in their blood for several months at a time with no guarantee that they would be able to break through to the next made the Blood Bond body cultivation method very unpopr."
"That should be everyone in the Beast Hunter Sect that has the potential to rebuild the sect. It''s time to make a move."
The moment Yoze decided to make his move he created six blood spears using his blood andunched them directly at his targets. Even though Yoze made his move everyone around him failed to perceive any of his movements due to the mere fact that Yoze simply was too fast for their senses to keep up.
So they watched as their Sect Master opened his mouth to begin his long-prepared speech before his and the two sect elders'' heads exploded into blood mist along with their beasts. The blood from all six of the headless bodies covered the martial artists closest to them while they stood there in a daze.
By the time everyone was able to process what had happened the martial art sect that they had been a part of for years was destroyed with no chance of recovery. Even if they all joined hands to stick together and rebuild the Beast Hunter Sect they knew that it would fail.
Simply because without any Blood Master realm martial artists to defend them they were easy pickings for any martial art sect, organization, and or slightly powerful individual. The Beast Hunter sect waspletely eradicated in an instant.
Chapter 186 186: Arrival Of The Bald Immortal
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As the Beast Hunter members were starting to realize that their sect was destroyed, Yoze returned to the third floor of the library after making sure that the entrance to the library was blocked. He even made sure that no one had the idea of trying to loot the library by making the giant serpent stay on the first floor and release its powerful aura.
And with an extremely powerful and dangerous aura leaking through the doors of the library, the few looters that had realized the situation and decided to take advantage of this opportunity got rid of any thought of attempting to enter the library.
So while the entire Beast Hunter Sect was in chaos, Yoze simply watched the blood-red crystal releasing more intense heat and the blood-red light emitting from the crystal grow brighter andrger. As he watched on, Yoze felt his guess that this crystal was some sort of beacon more and more likely.
And the chances that this blood-red crystal was some sort of revival device or bomb decreased the more time passed by. Just taking the time since Yoze killed the young bald man and when he found the crystal into ount made this crystal a terrible revival device or bomb.
With how long it took Yoze to return down the stairs to check on the bald immortal had plenty of time to revive and escape without anyone noticing. As for the possibility of the blood-red crystal being some type of bomb or cursed device it was even smaller.
It was well known that the best time to use bombs and curse devices was when they were near their targets and when they were unprepared. So the best time would have been when Yoze had first killed the young bald man since he would not have been prepared to face any crystal bomb or curse device.
Even if there was some reason why the young bald immortal couldn''t set off the bomb or curse device the moment Yoze killed the young bald immortal, the second best timing would have been when he first approached the young bald immortal''s body. Yet even when the blood-red crystal had several instances where Yoze was near it nothing had happened.
That just showed that even the small possibility that the bald immortal had revived and just nted this blood-red crystal to attract his attention to ambush or kill him by exploding it was extremely small. And became nearly impossible after Yoze swept the entire library for any spiritual energy signatures and wiped out everything that was still alive.
"If this is a beacon that only leaves the question of how far away that bald immortal is from the Beast Hunter Sect. It doesn''t seem likely that the immortal to be in a whole different region or too far away or this beacon would be nearly useless."
"Since any animal or person who identally steps on it could break the beacon much less the immortal''s enemies who would never want to deal with the possibility of being tracked. If I was the bald immortal I would at most befortable with being a day''s worth of journey away."
After figuring that it might take a while for the bald immortal to arrive, Yoze decided that it would be in his best interest to boost his fighting capabilities as much as possible in the time he had left. Even though for the past several weeks he has been putting his immortal cultivation first he had never stopped practicing his martial arts nor did he stop trying to improve his skill in his spiritual energy.
With how much he had improved in that time frame Yoze was confident that he could kill the Three-Headed Fox demon with ease and most demons that were around the age of 30 years old. However, even though he was confident in his ability to deal with demons Yoze was much less sure how he would deal with immortals.
Their ability to cast extremely powerful spells and abilities was much less of a concern for himpared to their rumored ability toe back to life. While Yoze wasn''t sure about how the bald immortal''s immortality worked he felt the need to be prepared to be under the constant threat of retaliation.
"Come out!"
Just as Yoze was about to begin his training he heard a shockingly loud and angry male voice that was identical to the young bald man''sing from outside the library. Hearing the voice of the dead young bald man made Yoze''s heart race from excitement as he used his spiritual senses to lock onto the young bald man''s spiritual energy.
It didn''t take long before Yoze found a rapidly approaching orange ball of spiritual energying toward him from inside the forest. Seeing that his theory of the blood-red crystal was almost confirmed, Yoze grabbed the blood-red crystal to see if the bald immortal reaction changed.
Just as he expected the moment Yoze picked up the blood-red crystal it began to release its blood red Light even faster while he heard the bald immortal shout again.
"Found you!"
After confirming that the bald immortal could sense that he had picked up the blood-red crystal, Yoze decided to meet the bald immortal head-on. Even though most people who would have been in his position would have decided to wait inside the library for additional time to prepare, Yoze felt that it wasn''t in his best interest.
For one any additional time that he gained would also be gained by the bald immortal. So just as he prepared for the bald immortal to arrive at the library, the bald immortal would also get time to figure out the best ways to kill him and possibly deal with the problem of Yoze devouring his spiritual energy.
Not only that there wasn''t much he could have done to prepare to fight against an immortal. Even though Yoze had been training his skill in his witchcraft he imagined that all the basic spells and techniques that he had learned wouldn''t bring as much value to the fightpared to how much time he would need to prepare it.
Chapter 187 187: I Apologize
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The most important reason however was that the battle between the bald immortal and him would most likely destroy the library causing him to lose all the books inside. Even though Yoze didn''t value the martial art books inside the library as much as the animal records since they both were in the same location he already regarded them as his property.
He didn''t want his new property to get destroyed the moment he had just acquired them and still wanted to take some of them home. For those few reasons, Yoze punched a huge hole in the wall on the third floor that faced the direction of the bald immortal.
The st from his punch created such a loud explosion that it attracted the bald immortal''s attention while alerting the Beast Hunter sect members who had just figured out the situation. With thebination of an angry scream and the deafening explosion many of the sect members knew that they had to escape before they got caught up in the crossfire.
After creating therge hole Yoze leaped directly toward the bald immortal''s spiritual energy and in an instant he covered the distance between them. Landing right in front of the supposed bald immortal.
"Boom"
Even though Yoze wasn''t trying to make a scene the moment his feet touched the earth, the ground beneath his feet was crushed and cracks formed around him due to his weight.
"Hmph! You decided to show your face, which saves me the effort of having to do it myself before I teach you a lesson."
Hearing the young bald man''s voice, Yoze turned his attention toward the bald immortal and was surprised to see that he had apletely different appearance. He was no longer the bald young man that was covered head to toe in blue tattoos.
The bald immortal now had a full head of blonde hair that waved around in the air as if there was the wind. He was quite shorterpared to his old body being only around four feet tall meaning that Yoze simply dwarfed him.
If he wanted to, Yoze imagined that he could simply step on the bald immortal and wouldn''t even notice. In the bald immortal''s right hand was a sharp sword that was as long as he was and seemed to be made out of some type of animal bones.
The moment Yoze''s eyes fell on the sword he had a feeling that the bone sword was alive as the mere aura that it unleashedpletely overpowered the immortal''s presence. Instead of feeling that the immortal had chosen and wielded this bone sword, it felt to Yoze that the sword was the real master.
Even though Yoze felt that the bone sword was extremely strange he turned his attention back to the short immortal. As he sensed an intense heat radiating from the short immortal''s body and was rapidly increasing.
The hotter the short immortal body became the more the blue tattoos that covered every inch of his skin moved around and shifted. To Yoze it seemed to him that the mythical creatures that had been tattooed to the immortal skin seemed to being to life.
What astonished him the most was that soon after he started to pay attention to the blue tattoos they quickly spread on top of the immortal''s bone sword acting as if they were always there.
"Send a talent mark to that man."
Not wanting to stall any longer, Yoze immediately sent out his remaining talent mark hoping to be able to acquire a fantastic talent.
[Name: Welse me]
[Age: 200 years old]
[Talents: Crystal Nerves (Grade 7), Immortal Tattoo (Grade 5), Swordsmanship (Grade 3), Harvesting (Grade 2), Rapid Calction (Grade 2), Love Making (Grade 4), Crystal Absorption (Grade 5), Toxic Speech (Grade 4)]
If there were any doubts left in Yoze''s mind that the young bald man was not immortal was immediately tarnished the moment he looked at his age. Just looking at the impossibly old age while maintaining such a youthful body could only be aplished by immortals and demons.
As Yoze looked at the wide range of talent that was within immortal Welse''s arsenal he almost couldn''t help himself but be excited when he saw the grade level of his Crystal Nerves. They had surpassed the impure realm of immortal talent and reached the top of the pure realm.
Not only that there was also the fact that immortal Welse also had an additional talent for absorbing crystals which would be incredibly useful in elerating his immortal cultivation. As Yoze examined Immortal Welse''s talents in silence while ignoring what he had said before, Immortal Welse couldn''t help but curse his luck.
He couldn''t believe that he had just lost his body to a martial artist. Not only that even though he had brought his true body along this time he still felt an incredibly strong pressureing out from Yoze''s body.
What made him even angrier was the fact that not only was Yoze ignoring him but Yoze was looking at him like he was a fat piece of meat that was going to be eaten up. If it wasn''t for the fact he was still in the middle of unleashing his entire power then he would have attacked Yoze immediately.
"Can we settle this over a hot cup of tea or maybe some coffee if you prefer it?"
"What?" Immortal Welse looked at Yoze with confusion as he couldn''t understand why he chose to suddenly try to diffuse the situation.
"You see I am a schr of New Swampscott City and I was sent here to destroy the Beast Hunter Sect. Since I was tasked to kill all the upper echelon of the sect I mistook you as one of their elders so I attacked you."
"If I had known that you were an all-mighty immortal that has been protecting humanity from the shadows against those terrible demons I would have abandoned my mission immediately. So I apologize not only on my behalf but to all the people of New Swampscott City and New Swamp Town." Yoze said, trying his best to disy a saddened and regretful look on his face.
"Hmph! You think I''m so stupid that I''ll let you go with a simple apology. You must be delusional."
"Wait a minute, are you thinking that I''ll take you in as a disciple and teach the ways of my immortality just because you are a smart schr? If so then I''m afraid to tell you that the chances of me taking you in are close to zero." Immortal Welse said as he could feel that he was reaching the peak of his powers.
Yoze looked at Immortal Welse and felt disappointed that his effort to get Welse''s immortal cultivation method failed. But he didn''t let his disappointment get to him since he expected this result and only wanted to test the waters before the fight began.
"In that case allow me to make the first move." Sensing that the intense heating from immortal Welse''s body continued to increase, Yoze immediately activated his blood armor.
Chapter 188 188: Red Flame Dragon
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Since Yoze was fighting an immortal he finally felt he had the opportunity to go all out. He was going to see how his strengthpared to a 200-year-old immortal.
With his excitement at full strength, Yoze immediately activated his blood armor without holding back. Within an instant dark red blood gushed out of Yoze''s pores covering his body while the blood mist spread at rapid speeds.
The expanding blood mist concealed Yoze''s body while expanding towards immortal Welse as if trying to devour him whole. As the blood mist approached Welse his face turned pale as he had never seen a blood mist this terrifying in all his 200 years of living.
Without waiting for the blood mist to touch him, Welse''s blue tattoos released a blinding blue light that covered him in a blue cocoon, protecting him. Just as the blue cocoon wrapped around Welse''s faint cracking sounds could be heard from inside but were easily drowned out by the loud sounds of metal hitting metal as the blood mist crashed into the blue cocoon.
"Bang Bang Bang Bang"
After every hit the blue cocoon''s light became slightly fainter and fainter until it became nearly transparent allowing Yoze to see what was happening inside the cocoon. Inside the blue cocoon was no longer immortal Welse''s body but a terrifying pale red dragon-like creature.
The dragon-like creature was covered from head to toe in scales, had sharp ck ws that glinted like metal, long white horns that looked like they were made out of marble, and a long snout that revealed the horrifying three sets of shark-like teeth. The dragon-like creature that Welse had transformed into sharply opened its eyes as it sensed that its cocoon which wouldn''t have been damaged from a Martial Grandmaster attack was on the brink of copse.
"Thud Thud Thud"
Suddenly the dragon felt a wave of fear strike its heart as it heard several heavy thuds that resembled footsteps approaching it. Even though its transformation wasn''tplete the dragon-like creature decided to get out of its cocoon to avoid the intense danger.
"Boom!"
"Whoosh"
Just as the dragon-like creature busted out of its cocoon it saw a giant blood sword that seemed to weigh several thousand pounds m into what remained of its blue cocoon. What happened next made the dragon-like creature feel relieved that it hadn''t stayed the extra few seconds toplete its transformation since all that was left of its blue cocoon was arge hole.
Unfortunately, just as the dragon-like creature breathed out a sigh of relief it noticed from the corner of its eye a blood spear flying towards its head. Reacting quickly the dragon was able to dodge the spear before it pierced through its skull but the flying blood spear still cut open a wide gash across its chest.
Feeling enraged, the dragon-like creature''s eyes became bloodshot as it scans its surroundings to find Yoze. Unfortunately, thebination of the entire environment around it being covered in blood mist that constantly mmed into its scales trying to turn it into blood mist, and Yoze''s Three-Headed Fox''s spiritual energy, it struggled to find a single trace of him.
"That''s it, this ce can turn into ash! Roar!"
With its life threatened and with an unknown enemy lurking around waiting for it to lose it to drop its guard, the dragon-like creature screamed to the sky with anger and took a deep breath. The breath was so strong that it caused wind currents so strong that it could drag a human into its mouth.
While at the same time, the intense heat radiating from the dragon-like creature''s body drastically increased so much that the temperature of the air outside its body reached 400 degrees. Not only that, the more air that the dragon-like creature sucked into its body therger it grew.
From being only 6 feet tall the dragon-like creature grew to more than 20 feet tall in barely a few seconds and it was still growing at a rapid pace. Even though the dragon-like creature was going tounch an extremely powerful attack it couldn''t help but tremble from the pain of being cut up inside.
Just as the dragon-like creature was sucking in air Yoze''s blood mist flooded into its mouth at the opportunity to tear it apart from the softer insides. Yet, even though its insides were being torn to shreds the dragon-like creature didn''t stop its attack since it knew that it could always regenerateter.
As Yoze watched the dragon-like creature continue to expand and grow he felt his dangerous sense of rm go off as the temperature of his surroundings continued to rise. He already had an idea about what kind of attack the dragon-like creature was attempting and knew that if he didn''t want to be severely injured and not have all his books in the library turned into ash he needed to stop that dragon.
Without pause, Yoze gathered all his spiritual energies andunched topletely suppress and devour the dragon-like creature''s spiritual energy. At the same time, Yoze sent out the multi-colored spiritual energy attack he charged directly at the dragon-like creature''s stomach.
With his speed and the small distance between the dragon-like creature and himself, Yoze instantly reached the dragon-like creature''s pale yellow stomach. Just as he reached the dragon-like creature, it wanted to retreat to gain some distance between them but Yoze wasn''t going to allow it.
His spiritual energy shes with the dragon-like creature''s human-sized orange spiritual energy and instantly suppressed it. With its spiritual energy suppressed the dragon-like creature''s body was immobilized and forced to take Yoze''s attack head-on.
"Blood Breaker Blood Bull Fist!"
As Yoze threw his entire power into a single fist bybining the limit-breaking power of the 200 percent Blood Bull Fist in addition to the Blood Breaker Fist. The amount of stress that was imposed on his body for that punch was unbelievable.
Before Yoze''s fist even reached the dragon-like creature''s stomach all of the blood that covered his arm evaporated as his arm expanded nearly 10 times its size. Everyst drop of his potential in his powerful body was used before his body got drained further.
"BOOM!!!!"
Chapter 189 189: Immortal Spiritual Energy
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The moment Yoze''s fist came into contact with the dragon-like creature''s scales he could feel how hard they were and predicted that even Martial Grandmaster would have a difficult time trying to damage them. Not only that they seemed to have some kind of special transformation property as the moment his fist came in with it molded around it trying to distribute the force.
Even with the strong defenses of the dragon-like creature and its physical special properties drastically lowering the damage it had taken from Yoze. This one punch was too much for its immortal body to handle and arge hole went through its body before it was sent flying through the forest, destroying anything that tried to stop it.
"Boom!"
After crashing through itsst tree, the dragon-like creature''s body created a gigantic crater due to howrge its body had grown just during the time it was sent flying through the air. Knowing full well that he hadn''t killed the dragon-like creature, Yoze stayed close behind the dragon-like creature to make sure to finish the job.
He even used his spiritual energies to devour the dragon-like creature''s orange spiritual energy to make sure that it couldn''t get up without reviving. When Yoze arrived at the gigantic crater that contained the dragon-like creature''s body he couldn''t help but frown.
Even though the dragon-like creature seemed to bepletely motionless due to losing its spiritual energy, Yoze was able to sense that his spiritual energy wasn''ting back to him. When Yoze looked at the dragon-like creature''s head to see what was happening with his spiritual energy he saw that the demonic spiritual energy seemed capable of devouring everything and simply couldn''t finish consuming the dragon-like creature''s spiritual energy.
For every chunk that his spiritual energies took out of the orange spiritual energy, it would regenerate everything it lost in an extremely quick fashion. Not only that he sensed that even if he wanted to retreat and take his spiritual energies back he found that he couldn''t since the dragon-like creature''s spiritual energy was stopping it.
"Is this how immortals deal with the threat of spiritual energy? Not only are their bodies immortal but so is their spiritual energy." Yoze looked at the dragon-like creature and felt his desire to be immortal grow.
If he was able to get immortal spiritual energy would that mean he would be the perfect counter to demons? The moment that any demon tried to devour his spiritual energy they would encounter a trap where they would never be able to leave.
And depending on how his spiritual energy regeneration worked he might be able to fatten up the demon''s spiritual energy before devouring them so he could increase his spiritual energies even more. If that was the case then the amount of spiritual energy in his body could quickly catch up to the demon and entities who have an extraordinary amount of spiritual energy.
He would be physically and spiritually unkible and can use spiritual energy as a lethal weapon for any of his opponents. In Yoze''s view,bining the strengths of demons and immortals almost seemed too good to be true.
As Yoze''s mind raced at the near-infinite possibilities he suddenly noticed that even with arge hole going through its torso the dragon-like creature''s body continued to expand uncontrobly. It had already grown to be more than 60 feet and the heating from its body had reached more than 600 degrees.
" I need to kill this thing,"
Knowing that he needed to figure out a way to end this quickly, Yoze jumped into the gigantic crater and proceeded to throw a Blood Breaker Blood Bear fist at its head to destroy its brain. Yet just before his arm, which had expanded to nearly ten times its size, could obliterate the dragon-like creature''s head, he found that the dragon-like creature''s body suddenly shrunk and transformed into a giant ck bear.
"Boom!!!"
Even though Yoze was quick to adjust the angle of his punch he still missed destroying immortal Welse''s head only turning half of it to dust. While the remaining power created an extremely deep hole in the ground that seemed to be the entrance to hell.
"Ahhh Roar!"
The shock of the unimaginable pain of losing half of his head, brain, eyes, mouth, nose, and everything on the left side of his head snapped Immortal Welse out of his daze. He struggled to understand how a normal human could be so strong.
He was a human that had spent more than 40 years to be an immortal that could make Martial Grandmasters his ything. He even fought a few demons and the fight against any of them wasn''t as difficult and one-sided as his fight against Yoze.
What made his mind numb was the fact that for some reason Yoze was able to use spiritual attacks that were on the same level as those demons he fought. No, his spiritual attacks were even more ruthless as it seemed to him that his spiritual energy had more than one effect.
If it wasn''t for the fact that he was still confident in his ability to survive even this brutal battle he was sure that he would have tried his best to escape. Instead, all he felt was rage and a bloodthirsty desire to kill Yoze using any means.
"Go to hell!"
Knowing full well that he had picked the wrong opponent to fight head-on and there was no longer any chance for Immortal Welse decided to explode his body to cause as much damage to Yoze beforeing to finish him off in another body.
"Boom!!"
Having decided that even if he had to give up this body he was going to turn Yoze into dust. Immortal Welse instantly gathers all the remaining energy that he generated into the center of his mouth. In less than a second all the energy in Immortal Welse''s body was condensed in a red pearl that was covered in blue marks.
Chapter 190 190: Bone Swords Reapperance
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Yoze''s danger sense ran wild the moment the red pill with blue marks formed and knew that he had to get as far away from Welse as possible to escape being turned into chunks of bloody meat. Already witnessing the durability of immortals that wereparable to the demons and even more so, Yoze felt that he needed toe up with a better way of dealing with them.
Physically killing the immortals he met was not the smartest thing possible and neither is trying to kill them spiritually like regr humans and demons. Immortal Welse was already a pain for Yoze to deal with since he had blown up the majority of his body yet Immortal Welse still maintained enough energy and mental awareness tounch devastating attacks.
"Great, I thought that my physical defense was no longer my weakness but now it seems that I still need to improve it massively and increase my speed as well in case I need to escape."
Making a mental note to himself, Yoze gave up on trying to finish off Immortal Welse and instead focused on escaping. The only thing that he regretted was that he had to temporarily give up on arge amount of his spiritual energy.
If it was a demon who encountered Immortal Welse and sent such arge amount of spiritual energy only to lose it, they would be not only devastatingly heartbroken. They might also die spiritually due to losing such a high percentage of their spiritual energy.
But for Yoze this loss was not that bad even though he would be set back by quite a lot. He would have preferred to keep everything he had but losing so much of his spiritual energy only made him feel bad.
He didn''t have to worry about dying spiritually due to a high loss of spiritual energy due to his body having a much higher amount of spiritual energy circting in his spiritual body cultivation pathways. For ordinary demons, they would only have one spiritual body cultivation talent and thus only be able to have one pathway for their spiritual energy.
With only one pathway that was filled with one type of spiritual energy demons quickly found that their spiritual energy would be stagnant forcing them to either devour spiritual energy from other creatures or find some other means to get more spiritual energy. So every time they use spiritual attacks with a majority of their spiritual energy they run the risk of losing it all.
Once they lose their spiritual energy they die spiritually and are forced to rely on their body''s instincts to get enough spiritual energy to revive. But like the case with the Leopard demon and the Elephant demon, once they lose the majority of their spiritual energy they be easy targets for Yoze and other demons.
For Yoze he would never run into that problem because even if he sent everyst drop of spiritual energy he could his body would always have enough to allow him to survive spiritually. Not only that due to the conflicting nature of his spiritual energies his body was always producing spiritual energy giving him a strong safety.
So to Yoze he could recover from this loss after a few months and a few demon hunts. Right now his main concern was surviving this battle without having his body blown to smithereens which would not give him the chance to revive.
The moment Yoze made his decision he immediately used his Skipper movement technique to reach his full speed and cover arge distance away from Immortal Welse.
"Boom!!!"
Before Yoze could even hear the explosion he felt an immense amount of heat m into his back. Already prepared to take the strong st, Yoze activated the full force of all his inner vigor and his blood armor on full force to increase his defensive ability as much as possible.
Even with his defenses at their strongest, Yoze still felt immense pain as he endured the powerful explosion. He could only see a bright red light around him even with his eyes closed.
Yoze could sense his blood armor being destroyed over and over again as it struggled to defend against the explosion that surrounded his entire body. It didn''t take long before his blood armor couldst and Yoze felt the force of an immortal''s self-explosion firsthand.
Luckily due to thebination of his Iron Skin and Iron Muscles that had both been upgraded to level 5 during the past several weeks, several of his other defense body cultivation methods, and his body just being incredibly strong and durable Yoze dealt with the remaining st better than he initially thought.
By the time the explosion had beenpletely extinguished, arge chunk of the forest was turned into ck ash, and all that was left was a giant and deep crater that is half of the Beast Hunter Sect. Meanwhile, Yoze was lying in the outer ring of the craterpletely soaked in his blood, and seemed to have lost 30 percent of his body mass.
"Does that immortal still have a body after that explosion?"
Even though Yoze was seriously injured he didn''t ce much thought on the damage to his body since he could always heal with time. What he was worried about was whether Immortal Welse was able to keep enough of his body to continue the fight.
Though Yoze is confident in his fighting abilities, he felt less confident in being able to continue to fight against Immortal Welse in his current state. Especially if Immortal Welse was able to keep his body intact or maybe he had revived as soon as his body had been destroyed allowing him to fight with full strength.
"Is that Immortal Welse''s bone sword?" Yoze''s eyes opened wide as he suddenly noticed that the bone sword that Immortal Welse had been carrying when he first arrived was flying toward him.
What surprised Yoze was that the bone sword was flying toward him with murderous intent leaking out of its body. It was shaking and trembling clumsily in the air as it approached him.
Chapter 191 191: Devouring The Bone Sword
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Yoze watched as the bone sword flew through the air like a drunk fly where after moving a few inches forward it would uncontrobly fly in a random direction or stop entirely. The whole situation was both concerning and relieving for Yoze.
He was concerned that the bone sword that could eclipse its owner''s aura was still capable of targeting him even after its owner lost their body. Not only that, Yoze was able to see that the bone sword was covered in a thickyer of orange spiritual energy.
Showing Yoze that his feeling that the bone sword that Immortal Welse carried gave him an odd sensation of being alive was reality. It was just that he didn''t expect that the reason for the bone sword to be alive and have spiritual energy was that Immortal Welse was capable of using inanimate objects as a host body.
Yoze''s fears that Immortal Welse would take action to finish him while he was still badly injured werergelying true. Immortal Welse didn''t even bother to check if his physical body was even salvageable as he wanted to make sure that he didn''t miss the opportunity to kill this demon-like human.
He had too many experiences of almost losing his life due to enemies, that he had let go either due to pity or not confirming their death, that had reappeared decadester. And with someone like Yoze who was so strong that he had lost two bodies in a short time frame, Immortal Welse didn''t want to take the risk of thising to bite him in the future.
However while Yoze was concerned about Immortal Welse trying to kill him in the body of his bone sword, he also felt quite relieved. He didn''t even feel threatened anymore since he knew that Immortal Welse wouldn''t be capable of killing him in his current state.
From the observation of the bone sword''s random movements and how surrounding the bone sword''syer of orange-colored spiritual energy was devoured and torn apart from four different types of spiritual energy. Each one of the spiritual energies gave off the sensation that they were starving demons that hade across a fat and plumpmb that waspletely defenseless.
Over such an easy delicious target the four demons tore into the fatmb''s flesh with impatience as they tried to eat as much as they could to get strongerpared to the other demons. While themb wailed in pain from the sensation of being alive while still trying its best to escape.
Yet no matter how much themb struggled to escape, and no matter how far it was able to move it wasn''t able to escape. Instead, it dragged along the four demons that had sunk their teeth into its flesh.
That was Immortal Welse''s situation as Yoze''s spiritual energies continued to devour and tear into his spiritual energy. Forcing him to regenerate it over and over again while having to bear all the effects impacting his mind and dealing with the pain of being eaten alive.
If Immortal Welse wasn''t immortal and had a strong mind he would have copsed long ago and turned into nothing more than an immortal vegetable. And due to his experience with fighting other demons, he knew that this was the best time to kill them while the majority of their spiritual energy was tied up, their physical bodies were at their weakest.
So even though he was weakened by the fact his spiritual energy was under constant attack and his mind was under heavy pressure, Immortal Welse still went forward with his n to kill Yoze. Unaware that by going straight to Yoze in this weakened state he was handing himself over to Yoze.
When Yoze first thought about the threat of Immortal Welse attacking him, he had thought that by giving up his body Immortal Welse would be able to get rid of his spiritual energy and start anew. If that was the case then he would be incredibly dangerous even if his body was weak since he would no longer be under the pressure of Yoze''s spiritual energies.
And have an easier time creating a new body and casting powerful spells and abilities that only immortals would be capable of. But seeing that even though Immortal Welse had taken over the Bone Sword as his main body he couldn''t get rid of Yoze''s spiritual energies made Yoze grin.
With both of them being injured and unable to use their full potential at the moment, Yoze felt much less worried about being on the losing end. Instead, he nned on using Immortal Welse''s assumption that he was critically injured tounch a surprise attack.
So Yoze immediately took action and deliberately made his blood heart spurt out more blood and slowed down to make him look to make his wounds even more deadly. Yoze didn''t stop at that as he used his insane amount of control over his body to make his act even more unbelievable.
With Yoze cing arge amount of his attention into making himself look as weak as possible while making it believable his life signatures quickly dropped to critical levels. In Immortal Welse''s point of view as he got closer to Yoze he could tell with his years of experience that Yoze''s body was rapidly getting closer to the brink of death.
"From the way that he was able to use spiritual attacks on me, he might also have a strong ability to survive. Even if you turned into a corpse I''ll still tear your body to pieces to make sure." Immortal Welse thought to himself as he watched Yoze get closer and closer to death just as he was on the edge of death.
After waiting to see if Yoze''s life signatures would suddenly make aeback and seeing that there were no signs of recovery, Immortal Welse decided to make his move. Just as the thought of attacking crosses Immortal Welse''s mind a vast andplex set of blue tattoos covered the bone sword''s body.
asionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 192 192: Crystal Sword
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The blue tattoos covering the bone sword wiggled and twisted to formplex 3-dimensional Images of various animals on the bone sword''s surface. The animals that were created by the swords were simple animals at first like dogs and cats.
But within a blink of an eye, the 3D models of animals created by the blue tattoos became more mythical. Various types of dragons, Werewolves, and even creatures that Yoze had never heard of appeared on the bone sword.
Yet even though the bone sword''s blue tattoos had constructed extremely strong creatures, it ignored them in favor of the construction of a 3-dimensional model of a ball of fire. After constructing the model for the fireball, the blue tattoos rapidly turned to a zing red color as they left the bone sword''s surface to form the fireball.
Just as the blue tattoospletely left the bone sword''s surface Yoze started his counterstrike. Even with his body in terrible condition, Yoze''s physical prowess was nearly demonic as he focused the power of multiple Blood Bear Fists into his right hand''s fingers and grabbed the bone sword.
The prating power in his fingers was so high that Yoze was confident that they could easily pierce through a demon''s bones. And just like he expected his swift and unexpected attack didn''t give the bone sword enough time to put up proper defenses, being only forced to use his remaining crystal energy to create a basic force field.
The moment Yoze''s finger touched the surface of the bone sword he felt the hard barrier that was swiftly created by the bone sword. But to Yoze there simply wasn''t enough power to slow him down at all as he pierced through the barrier with ease.
Once the barrier was cracked Yoze went straight for the bone sword''s real body and expected it to be crushed.
"Crunch"
The moment of contact between Yoze''s powerful fingers and the bone sword''s surface led to the sickening sound of bone crunching and cracking. In a short period, cracks covered the surface of the bone sword with chunks of bone falling to the ground.
What surprised Yoze was that he couldn''t go a single millimeter deeper as he could feel that there was a secondyer to the bone sword. And thisyer''s defense was even more powerfulpared to its bone surface so even though Yoze''s fingers could crush demon bones he couldn''t damage the bottomyer at all.
Even though he couldn''t further damage the bone sword''s interior, Yoze maintained his death grip on the bone sword''s de, not allowing it to escape. While Yoze quickly picked up one of the falling bone shards and manipted his blood to cover it before throwing it to the rapidly approaching 3 feet wide fireball.
As the bone shard flew above the fireball Yoze activated the inner vigor inside it as well as the additional heavy inner vigor he had poured inside to give it extra power. The light-bone shard instantly became extremely heavy, weighing several hundred pounds, and instantly dived the fireball.
"Boom!"
Being attacked by the blood-covered bone shard the fireball exploded prematurely resulting in the residue effects barely damaging Yoze. The air from the explosion even removed the remaining bone exterior of the bone sword allowing Yoze to see its true appearance.
From what Yoze saw underneath the bone exterior was a small sword that was made of translucent blue crystal and had a truly enormous amount of lines inside the crystal sword. Even though this was his first time seeing this crystal sword Yoze already knew what type of material was used to make this sword.
"Crystal Nerves,"
"Did you use your own Crystal Nerves to create this sword? Is this the source of your immortality?"
"As long as this sword of your entire set of crystal nerves exists you will never truly die and can always create a new body for yourself." Yoze''s eyes sparkled as stared at the beautiful crystal sword that struggled helplessly in his hand.
He felt like he wasing closer to the true method of how immortals were able to revive regardless of the situation. All he needed to know was how they were able to extract their crystal nerves outside of their body without killing themselves.
He also understood that this method was most likely tied to the Crystal Brain realm and why no rogue immortal was allowed to learn about how to reach the Crystal Brain method in their immortal cultivation manuals. Yoze''s desire to get aplete set of immortal cultivation methods drastically increased as he no longer wanted to wait for the immortal sects to arrive.
With an immortal trapped in his hands, Yoze was determined to extract everyst value he could from him. That included not only his talents and his immortal cultivation method but even his sword body which was made from his crystal nerves.
Yoze wanted to make this crystal sword his own and use it as his official sword so that he would fight against other immortals and demons. Just the fact that this crystal sword could remain undamaged even after taking his attacks showed him that he would no longer have to worry about breaking his weapons.
Not only that with the enhancement of his blood armor created from his Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method, Yoze was confident that its lethality would dramatically increase.
"I am sure that you can hear me so don''t pretend otherwise. I''ll let you go if you give me your immortal cultivation method."
"And of course, you also have to stop trapping my spiritual energy so that I can get it back." Yoze stared at the Crystal Sword that held Immortal Welse''s mind withplete seriousness and caution.
Even though Yoze had Immortal Welse trapped he still split his attention to watch over his surroundings and the subtle details of the crystal sword to make sure he didn''t get sneak attacked. Yoze also no longer suppressed his blood heart and allowed it to create as much blood as possible to heal him.
Chapter 193 193: Crystal Brain Realm
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The crystal sword in Yoze''s hand trembled with rage as Immortal Welse screamed inside his head.
"You dog shit m********!"
After letting out his anger at being defeated and his true body having been captured, Immortal Welse couldn''t help but be more afraid of Yoze. He already knew that his mind had beenposed of Yoze''s spiritual energies making him make subpar decisions.
He first became aware that spiritual energy attacks from demons messed with the mind and could paralyze a person''s movements by applying pressure through their spiritual energy. He also knew that these attacks could have additional effects such as making the person feel like their mind was getting burned by a hot me.
The effects of these spiritual attacks varied but from his experience, they usually only had one special effect. Yet Immortal Welse felt his mind in constant pain from having his spiritual energy eaten, he felt as if his mind was being suppressed by several mountains made out of pure iron.
His thought was not only getting suppressed but he felt his mind slow down significantly as it felt as if every single one of his thoughts were going through a thick swamp. What was concerning was that there seemed to be an additional effect that affects his perception of danger.
After thinking about their recent battle, Immortal Welse recognized that there were a few incidents where he made the wrong choice by assuming Yoze was weaker than he was. The most significant was when he still came over to check if Yoze was killed by his self-explosion and got too close that he was captured.
Even though he maintained a distance away from Yoze''s body in case there was retaliation. Thebination of being spiritually eaten alive, the pressures from the spiritual energies and their effects, and Yoze''s incredible control over his own body made it so that the distance that he thought would be safe was simply not enough.
So now that his true body was trapped in Yoze''s hands he could only try his best to survive while also knowing that there was no possible way for him to trust Yoze. As enemies, he recognized that Yoze was trying to collect as much value from him as he possibly could.
And if he gets everything he wants he might go back on his words and decide to continue trying to kill him. What made Immortal Welse sigh from unhappiness was that he knew that the chances of trying to escape on his own were slim.
Without his physical body made out of flesh, he couldn''t transform into any of his animal forms using his immortal tattoos. Forcing him to only rely on using spells and his other techniques that didn''t rely on his body.
But he had a feeling that these spells wouldn''t have much effect even if he used them to escape since Yoze would be aware of every time he used them and take precautions.
"Abination of giving him what he wants and buying some time to think of an escape n is the best thing I can do right now." Immortal Welse thought to himself as he calmed himself down, reduced his trembling, and decided to partially cooperate with Yoze.
After brieflying up with a general n, Immortal Welse took action and used his remaining crystal energy to recreate some of his blue tattoos. Compared to his previous blue tattoos which were thick, long, and seemed to be alive, the blue tattoos that Immortal Welse created were thin and short.
They seemed tock the essence and energy to createrge andplex 3D models of various creatures. Without waiting for Yoze to consider that he was attacking him, Immortal Welse reformed his blue tattoos into a book that had hundreds of pages and a cover of a Wolf with ten pairs of eyes, the wings of an eagle, and a tail of a whale.
After creating the book on the crystal sword''s surface, Immortal Welse sent it out and gave it to Yoze who dly took it.
"Let''s take a look,"
Yoze opened the book made of blue tattoos and quickly read it from start to finish and was disappointed to find that much of the beginning pages were identical to the Fire immortal cultivation manual he had gotten from Tiki. Much of it described the method of gathering crystal dust and turning it into crystal energy to get through the various stages of immortal cultivation.
From using the crystal energy to create new crystal nerves until one umted enough nerves to undergo the crystallization process in the Nerve Crystallization realm. From the description in the book the process of turning one''s nerves into crystals without identally destroying them was extremely difficult, time-consuming, and energy intensive.
After onepleted the crystallization process their information processing speed would skyrocket and allow them to continue to the next stage without worrying about not being able to handle the amount of information needed toplete it.
That realm was called the Crystal Spine realm and focused on turning all the individual crystal nerves that were crystallized andbining them into a second spine that was encased in extremely strong crystals. The next realm was the Crystal Skull realm which continued on the path set by the Crystal Spine realm and focused on creating a second skull made out of the same hard crystal.
However, what Yoze cared about the most was the Crystal Brain realm and what came after it. ording to this manual, the Crystal Brain Realm made its users create a second brain made out of crystal.
This process was extremely long and dangerous due to it allowing the users to improve or fix their brain structures. Many fell into this temptation and made subtle changes that ended up causing massive problems down the line.
Due to the changes they made in their crystal brains, they might develop two different personalities, have two different ways of processing information and thus couldn''t sync, and could lead to the creation of a new human mind that wants to be the main host.
Numerous problems could ur in this realm and the death toll of immortal cultivators trying to get through the realm was more than a third of immortal cultivators deaths.
Chapter 194 194: The Two Paths
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Even though the process was dangerous the benefits were true immortality. The immortal cultivators would no longer be forced to rely on their physical bodies to survive.
They would be capable of restoring their bodies to their prime and maintaining it forever while still keeping their brains sharp. Not only that even if their heads were blown off their shoulders they could survive as long as their crystal brain was intact.
So once the crystal brain was fully formed and synced with the user''s original brain they were presented with a choice. They could follow the path that the Immortal Welse followed and actively remove their crystal brain, skull, and spine from their body.
This would allow them to not have to worry about what happened to their body at all. Even if every single one of their atoms were torn apart they could alwayse back.
What was more important however was that it allowed for there to be an infinite amount of possibilities of what they could do with their crystal brain, crystal spine, and crystal skull. They could use them to create extremely powerful weapons, split them up then bury them deep underground all over the world so their enemies couldn''t kill them, or even form a second body that can act as their clone.
There were arge number of options for those immortals who took this path. But there was a serious consequence for removing it from their original bodies.
The first was that their improved information processing ability was drastically reduced and their ability to continue improving their immortal abilities would slow down. For many immortals that chose this path, they felt that these consequences were not enough to make them change their minds but for many others, they couldn''t bear it.
So they chose the second option which was to keep their crystal brain, crystal skull, and crystal spine all inside their original body. This allowed them to continue their pace of improving rapidly while still maintaining their improved information processing speed.
This gave them strongbat abilities and were often much more clever and trickypared to their counterparts which lead to the book calling those who followed this path Plot Immortals and those that followed the other path Living Immortals.
"So Immortal Welse is a Living Immortal as he had separated his crystal brain, crystal skull, and crystal spine to create this Crystal Sword." Yoze thought to himself as he flipped the page to continue reading hoping to get more information.
"The rest of the book is nk,"
The moment Yoze turned the page he was greeted by nk pages and understood that this was most likely Immortal Welse trying to stall so he could think of a way to escape. So Yoze simply decided to signal his spiritual energies to devour Immortal Welse''s spiritual energy faster and cause more pain.
As Yoze watched his spiritual energies take out chunk after chunk of spiritual energy away from Immortal Welse while each one continued to grow stronger he could see the Crystal Sword''s trembling grow stronger as well.
"As long as you just give me the rest of the immortal cultivation manual and stop trapping my spiritual energy then I''ll let you go. I don''t have an interest in staying here for decades in a fruitless attempt to kill you." Yoze sighed as he tried to convince Immortal Welse again.
Immortal Welse violently shook as he felt his rage boiling up again after Yoze once again mentioned that he was trapping Yoze''s spiritual energy. He had already gotten rid of his spiritual self-defense which had stopped Yoze from retrieving his spiritual energy.
Now Yoze was still asking him to stop trapping his spiritual energy when he could easily retrieve it. Feeling that the paining from his mind increased Immortal Welse''s desire to not give Yoze anything increased.
But he knew better than anyone that he couldn''tst more than ten hours at this rate and needed to figure out a way to escape. Or at least figure out a way for Yoze to stop his spiritual energy attacks from damaging his spiritual energy.
So Immortal Welse quickly creates a few more blue tattoos and sent them into the pages of the book. The first blue tattoo simply asked Yoze to stop his spiritual attacks while the rest added a few more pages to the Immortal Tattoo cultivation manual.
"See that wasn''t so hard. All I need is the rest." Yoze said with a smile as he ordered his spiritual energies to slow down their devouring.
Yoze quickly read the added pages and was happy to see that they included spells and abilities that could be used in the Nerve umtion realm. After reading them and etching them into his memory, Yoze reapplied the pressure of his spiritual energies to force Immortal Welse to spit out more.
Even though Immortal Welse''s anger and hatred continued to increase he continued to give Yoze a few pages of his immortal cultivation manual every time Yoze ordered his spiritual energies to increase their devouring speed. What made him the most helpless was the pressure of the spiritual attacks was increasing with time along with the speed of devouring spiritual energy.
So his medication of being able tost 10 hours of the constant bombardment of spiritual attacks was cut down to only 5 hours and was rapidly approaching.
What he hated the most was that he could see that even though Yoze seemed to be under the impression that his spiritual energy was endless and wouldn''t be able to spiritually kill him, Yoze wanted to keep him trapped forever. Immortal Welse knew that he could take the rest of telling Yoze that he was reaching the limits of his ability to regenerate spiritual energy but that would lead to him losing the bit of leverage he had.
Losing the bit of leverage he had would instantly put him in an even more dangerous position. From how much ruthlessness Yoze had shown him for the past few hours Immortal Welse did not doubt in his mind that Yoze would devour his spiritual energy until he was barely a single lick from dying.
Chapter 195 195: Black Fog
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Immortal Welse trembled as he felt as if his mind had been taken out again. He then released another small section of his immortal tattoo cultivation manual bringing up the percentage known by Yoze to 97 percent.
With such a high percentage Yoze should have no longer cared about retrieving everything from Immortal Welse. He had plenty that he could reconstruct whatever was left.
Unfortunately, Yoze was well aware that thest three percent that Immortal Welse was keeping from him was extremely crucial for the practice of immortal tattoos. And with all the information he was able to get from Immortal Welse so far, Yoze was excited to try and cultivate it himself.
From what he could gather the main usage of the immortal tattoo cultivation method is to allow its users to transform into any creature possible. The only limit is that the user needs to be capable enough to create an urate and detailed 3D model of the creature while also possessing enough crystal energy.
That was how Immortal Welse was able to transform into the dragon-like creature and the giant bear with ease. Creating detailed and urate enough 3D models of the dragon-like creature required a lot of information processing.
Since Immortal Welse had chosen to take the path of Living Immortals he needed assistants when creating such a strong and mythical dragon-like creature.
One of the ways he figured out how to still get his dragon-like form was by splitting the development stages on a smaller scale before sizing it up. Just like how Immortal Welse took on the egg form of the dragon-like creature before rapidly transforming into its adult model.
That meant that theoretically, Yoze could use his immortal tattoos to transform into demons and other legendary creatures. Yoze knew that this immortal cultivation manual had immense potential much more than his fire immortal cultivation manual.
Even though he didn''t have theplete version of the Fire Immortal manual either, just based on the number of unique spells that the Immortal Tattoo manual hadpared to the Fire Immortal manual showed their difference. Other than the Immortal Tattoo manual Yoze was quite pleased by the strong regenerative ability of immortal spiritual energy possessed.
Not only was he getting benefits directly from Immortal Welse but there were also the benefits of having his spiritual energies plumped up. In these short few hours, he had allowed his spiritual energies to consume Immortal Welse''s spiritual energy, they had grown more than twice their size.
If Yoze had to guess as to how much spiritual energy he had gained he would guess that he had devoured more than 18 years worth of spiritual energy. When added to his 12 years'' worth of spiritual energy, Yoze now had more than 30 years'' worth of spiritual energy.
Which had allowed him to easily dwarf the Three-Headed Fox demon he had met in the past and got him much closer to the Flower Lord. Yoze almost felt that it was more profitable for him to hunt and devour the spiritual energy of other Immortals than demons.
Compared to demons who became more proficient with manipting their spiritual energy and became more dangerous in the Spiritual energy realm. Immortals seemed to be like fat puppies who were simply unable topete at all in the realm of spiritual energy when it came to demons.
Even though they could trap spiritual energy that attacks them which would allow them to focus on killing the attacker''s body, Yoze felt that it wasn''t enough. Demons didn''t need to send out a majority of them to deal serious damage both spiritually and physically.
The most effective use of their regenerative spiritual energy is to act as a detergent from demons going all out to kill immortals spiritually. But it did little to stop them from using their spiritual energy from tearing their physical body into pieces.
As long as Yoze was able to capture the immortal''s true body then the process of hunting immortals was more profitable but he would lose out on the chance of getting demon meat and getting their talents.
After Yoze memorized the added few pages and once again applied pressure on Immortal Welse to give him the final pages of the Immortal Tattoo cultivation manual. He was surprised and alerted by the fact that Immortal Welse decided to no longer stall and produced more than a dozen pages.
Each one of the pages was filled with a dense amount of information that described in detail how to transform crystal energy into immortal tattoos and how to manipte them. The amount of information that was added was immense and Yoze noticed it was also mixed with in gibberish.
At the same time, a soft click came from the hilt of the crystal sword as Yoze watched from the corner of his eyes detach from the rest of the crystal sword. As soon as it detached from the rest of the crystal sword several thick blue tattoos appeared before evaporating into an inky ck gas that blocked all sunlight.
Within a radius of a few dozen feet, Yoze only saw pure darkness and he quickly realized that it wasn''t just his sense of sight that was being affected. The rest of his senses were being drastically hindered to the point that unless someone screamed into his ears Yoze wouldn''t be able to hear them.
Not trying to waste this opportunity that he had created for himself, Immortal Welse who ced most of his attention on controlling the hilt of his true body immediately took action. Though he had separated his crystal brain from the rest of his true body, Immortal Welse could still sense Yoze''s spiritual energies going berserk as they rapidly consumed his spiritual energy.
Knowing that he didn''t have much more time, Immortal Welse took drastic action and cut off 99 percent of his spiritual energy. Even though this left him with a small sliver of spiritual energy to survive, Immortal Welse felt that this was a better option than turning into an immortal vegetable.
The pain from cutting off his own spiritual energy was incredibly painful and felt even worse than being eaten alive. To Immortal Welse he felt as if arge chunk of himself had died leaving only a sliver of his old self.
What made the pain worse was that he could sense that his crystal skull and crystal skeleton both quickly lost their activity meaning they were rapidly bing vegetables. Hisputational ability was also taking a rapid dive as he could no longer ess his crystal spine that held all his crystalized nerves.
With his information processing speed in rapid decline and him losing the perfect synchronization that having a full set of a crystalized true body, Immortal Welse knew his ability to manipte his immortal tattoos had declined. There was a high probability that he would no longer be capable of quickly creating 3D models.
In the worst oue, he might not even be able to even transform into any creature. Since he would only be capable of having enough information processing speeds to only create models for his spells.
Even though the pain was terrible, Immortal Welse held on since he knew that with time he would recover. Once he had recovered from the pain, Immortal Welse used his immortal tattoos to create dozens of spears made out of crystal energy and hurled them at Yoze.
At the same time, Immortal Welse used this time to gain some distance for him to escape while also manipting the crystal energy spears to turn Yoze into Swiss cheese.
"Something is attacking me,"
Even though Yoze couldn''t sense anythinging his way, when he sensed his Mindless Legs swiftly taking over his body Yoze let it take over. Yoze felt his body twist and turn, duck and weaved, and even rxed all his muscles to be more flexible.
While Yoze didn''t know what exactly he was dodging, Immortal Welse was feeling increasingly frustrated and shocked that even after blocking Yoze''s senses he was still able to dodge his attacks like they were nothing. His body resembled a piece of string in the wind that always took the perfect shape and route to escape.
What made Immortal Welse more frustrated was that it seemed that his attempt to block Yoze''s sense to use as an escape opportunity wasn''t going to n. Every inch that he moved back, Yoze''s body would move forward to maintain a safe distance.
If he charged forward tounch a brutal attack, Yoze''s body would take several steps back before twisting and turning the body into a pretzel. Yoze even maintained a strong line of sight with his crystal brain without blinking meaning that he was still aware of his location.
Chapter 196 196: Breaking Through The Bottleneck
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With Yoze locked on him, Immortal Welse felt an increasing headache as he was at a loss for what he could do. He was rapidly using up his crystal energy, and he couldn''t get any more distance away from Yoze.
With his information processing speed reduced, Immortal Welse knew that he couldn''t transform into any creature that would give him the boost needed to escape. As for the animals that he could transform into, they were not strong enough or fast enough to deal with someone like Yoze.
Not only that, after creating the ck fog, Immortal Welse also needed to maintain it by spending even more of his crystal energy while also having to start within the confines of the ck fog. However, the restriction of having to remain in the confines of the ck fog usually wasn''t a problem since the hindered senses of his opponents usually took a few minutes to recover fully.
But Immortal Welse didn''t know how long it would take Yoze to recover his senses and suspected that if he didn''t do his best effort to escape when he stopped sending crystal energy to ck fog, he would die very quickly. This predicament of needing to escape soon due to his dwindling crystal energy and theck of opportunity and ability to do so made Immortal Welse realize that he wouldn''t survive this encounter.
Meanwhile, as his opponent lost hope, Yoze was peacefully training his Mindless Legs movement technique. Even though his senses were hindered to the point that he was blind, deaf, and couldn''t smell or feel anything, Yoze was able to keep a positive attitude.
He had already realized that even without the help of his physical senses, he could rely on his powerful spiritual sensing ability to keep a lock on Immortal Welse''s location. And this allowed Mindless Legs to use that bit of information to better move in the environment.
At first, Yoze truly couldn''t sense his surroundings at all and felt like he was in a ck void in space. He couldn''t even sense the tiny sliver of spiritual energy that Immortal Welse had left.
He was trulypletely blind in all senses forcing him to rely on his own instincts and the enhanced instincts of Mindless Legs. Even when handicapped to this level, Yoze was pleasantly surprised with how urate and strong the instincts that he had developed with a level 6 Mindless Legs.
He had not gotten injured in the slightest throughout this entire period and instead, he was able to rx his mind and focus on breaking through the ck fog blocking his senses. It was during one of his attempts at trying to sense his environment that Yoze suddenly smelled a pleasant scent of peaches mixed with oranges.
Knowing that this wasn''t his physical smell, Yoze was able to figure out that even though it was faint he could smell Immoral Welse''s spiritual energy. Not letting this opportunity go, Yoze tried his best to figure out the direction of the smell and the distance between him and Immortal Welse''s spiritual energy.
To help his search Yoze made sure topletely devour thest remaining spiritual energy on the crystal sword to reduce the odds that he mistakes the scenting from Immortal Welse for the crystal sword in his hands. As time passed, with his constant focus, he was able to lock onto the tiny sliver of orange spiritual energy that belonged to Immortal Welse.
The range spiritual energy did everything it could to try to escape, whether it was zig-zagging, flying dozens of feet in the air, or attempting to bury itself deep underground.
Unfortunately, for immortal Welse, once Yoze had locked onto spiritual energy, Yoze''s Mindless Legs ced most of their energy on maintaining a safe distance from it. Even with the reduction in the information that he was able to collect, Yoze''s Mindless Legs had already made Immortal Welse''s spiritual energy the central point to base its movements.
With Immortal Welse as the center of its world, Yoze''s Mindless Legs quickly divided everything into dangerous and safe territory. From everything that Yoze experienced, not only was the safe area small, but it frequently changed depending on what dangers Mindless Legs sensed.
With the unique situation that he was in and with his connection with the giant serpent, Yoze could feel that his progress in Mindless Legs was improving again. Since Yoze no longer worried that Immortal Welse would escape, he focused most of his attention on incorporating more of the giant serpent''s movements and instincts into Mindless Legs.
With his talents and excellent training grounds was able to make quick progress in Mindless Legs, being able to increase it by five percent in a short period of time. From his bottleneck of reaching 30 percent of stage 6 Mindless Legs Yoze had reached 35 percent and was still improving.
With an excellent training environment being created for him, Yoze didn''t want to end the battle as soon as possible any longer, even though he had a way to end the fight in one move. After Yoze had locked on to Immortal Welse''s spiritual energy using his spiritual senses, Yoze could have sent his spiritual energies to Immortal Welse without having to worry about missing or having it trapped any longer.
Yoze only needed to suppress Immortal Welse spiritually to end this battle. Since Immortal Welse had given up on most of his spiritual energy when he disconnected from the rest of the crystal sword, he was even more vulnerable to spiritual energy suppression or attacks. However, doing so would ruin the excellent training environment created for him.
So Yoze only ced enough attention on Immortal Welse to guarantee that he wouldn''t escape from him and focused the rest of his attention on improving Mindless Legs. After putting his attention on training paired with his reduced senses, time quickly passed by for Yoze.
Only when he noticed that the ck fog surrounding him was rapidly disintegrating, allowing him to regain his sight and other senses, did he ce the majority of his focus back on Immortal Welse. When he turned his attention back to Immortal Welse, Yoze was surprised to see that the crystal hilt was on the ground.
The beautiful crystal clear color on the hilt had darkened and no longer gave Yoze a powerful feelingpared to when he first met Immortal Welse. After collecting all of the information inside the Immortal Tattoo manual, Yoze no longer wanted to deal with the struggle of dealing with an immortal.
So he sent just a bit of his Serpent Demon''s emerald spiritual energy to finish devouring thest sliver of spiritual energy that Immortal Welse had. The moment Immorral Welse senses that something was interacting with his spiritual energy, he shook with fear but could do nothing to stop it.
He had already used thest drop of his crystal energy to maintain the ck fog and his unfruitful attacks on the hope of living just a bit longer. Immortal Welse couldn''t keep his body afloat in the air any longer, only being able to crash on the soft forest ground waiting for his fate.
Now that his fate had arrived, Immortal Welse wasn''t able to resist and had thest sliver of his spiritual energy devoured by the Serpent Demon''s spiritual energy. After confirming that Immortal Welse was genuinely dead and hadn''t secretly split his spiritual energy further, Yoze grabbed the crystal hilt on the ground and wiped off the dirt on its surface.
"Do the two pieces want to connect?"
Feeling a slight tug in his handsing from the two pieces of the crystal sword, Yoze realized that even though Immortal Welse''s true body had spiritually be a vegetable weapon, the two pieces still had a strong instinct to reconnect and be whole again. Interested in how the two pieces of the crystal sword would react when he ced them back together again, Yoze reconnected the two pieces together.
"So Immortal Welse''s crystal sword still has a strong regenerative ability even after dying spiritually and even being purposely disconnected."
Yoze watched as the two pieces of the crystal sword slowly but visibly reconnected. It only took the two pieces an hour for them topletely reconnect as if they were never disconnected in the first ce. After witnessing that even an immortal''s crystal brain, crystal skull, and crystal spine have strong regenerative abilities he wondered how normal immortals were supposed to kill each other.
"Even if someone destroys an immortal''s physical body and shatters the immortal''s crystal brain, crystal skull, and crystal spine into a million shards there is still a chance that the immortal would be able to recover after some time."
"Of course, if the shards were small enough and were in tens of millions of pieces the chances that an immortal would survive would be close to zero."
After witnessing the power of a random immortal he had happened to encounter and how strong their regenerative ability was alongside their extra defense against spiritual attacks. Yoze finally understood why Immortals and demons were ced in the same tier.
Simply because both demons and immortals would be any person''s nightmares unless they were killed a thousand times and had been confirmed dead a thousand times. If even a single pound of flesh or a few shards of crystal brain remained both demons and immortals could revive and be nightmares for their enemies.
Chapter 197 197: End Of The Road
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Yoze shook his head as he got rid of his unnecessary worry. Even though it seemed that a demon''s and immortal''s ability to stay alive was robust, they could still be killed at the end of the day.
It just took special tools and required him to be much stronger than them. But, as long as he didn''t stop his training and continued his development, he should be capable of handling any challenges that came his way.
"Both the Demon Summit and Immortal Sect should be arriving soon, which doesn''t give me too much time to prepare. As for the Immortal Sect, I don''t have much to worry about now that I have acquired cultivation talent above the Impure realm.
"If my understanding is correct, then right now, my talent would be categorized as in the lower end of the Pure realm. Only when my talent reached grade 8 would I cross into the Crystal Realm. "
"Grade 9 should be in the Earth realm of talent, and grade 10 would be in the Heaven realm of talent. So theoretically, I can never get a Heaven-rank talent, but that doesn''t matter as long as I collect more talents rted to immortal cultivation and crystal energy."
"My cheat might not allow me to reach the peak of every talent category, but it does allow me to be the best with quantity. So attending the immortal sect''s arrival is paramount to increasing my talent in immortal cultivation."
"It would be best if I could join the immortal sect so immortal cultivators and immortals can surround me. The more I am surrounded with, the higher the chances that one of them will have a special talent that I didn''t know I needed to have."
"Immortal cultivation, spiritual body cultivation, and martial arts are quitepatible with each other. And having all three will just make me a nightmare for any of my opponents to deal with."
"Even though my immortal cultivation is far behind the other two, I believe that I can make it catch up with enough effort. Especially if I join an immortal sect and start collecting talents." Yoze''s eyes sparkled as he thought about much of a deadly force he would be once he created his first crystal nerve.
After calcting how much time he had left before the immortal sect was said to arrive, he predicted that not only would he be confident that he would have created his first crystal nerves, but he might even be able to create a second set. In the grand scheme of immortal cultivation, reaching the first or even the second level of Nerve umtion wasn''t impressive.
But for Yoze, this was an essential step in the path, and this small step would have massive implications for his battle prowess. Once he created his first set of crystal nerves, he would be able to use the spells that were listed inside the Fire Immortal manual and the Immortal Tattoo manual.
These spells were powerful enough to kill Bloodmasters even in the hands of ordinary rogue immortals. But in the hands of Yoze, their lethality was bound to increase drastically as Yoze broke their limits.
He especially looked forward to the spells that were inside the Immortal Tattoo manual since they would allow him to use mortal tattoos in recement of immortal tattoos. One of the many spells required Yoze to tattoo an animal or monster on his back.
Once the tattoo had been tattooed with enough detail to be nearly realistic, he could pump it up with crystal energy, and at a moment''s notice, he could summon that animal or monster. To Yoze, this was a great spell, but the hard limit to the size, strength, and other factors made it so that only Blood Master realm animals could be imprinted.
For immortals like Immortal Welse, having a Blood Master realm beast wasn''t much to improve theirbat strength, and it required extra attention to summon these creatures. So for them, it simply wasn''t worth the effort to continue using such a spell when they were stronger.
This was true even for Yoze. Having Blood Realm beasts didn''t increase hisbat strength much. But just like beast cultivation, he hoped that he could break the limits of this technique to the point that there was no limit.
As long as he tattooed a monster with enough detail would be able to summon them. With no limit, Yoze predicted that he could just tattoo an extremely powerful demon or immortal on his back and allow them to crush all his enemies for him.
There was even another spell called Blood Tattoos, where by using his blood mixed with a hundred different humans, he could create another body for himself. This body wouldn''t necessarily be a clone or have any conscious thought but paired with another spell known as Tattoo Transformation, it was pretty valuable.
Tattoo Transformation would allow Yoze himself to turn into a tattoo and imprint himself onto another person. Paired with the body he created with Blood Tattoos, he could just have another body to cultivate or see as a disguise.
As Yoze read through the ten spells listed inside the Immortal Tattoo, he couldn''t help but be excited at the prospects. However, as he looked over everything he had memorized, he realized that other than the method to create Immortal Tattoos for when the user became immortal, there was nothing else.
There were no other spells for once the user became immortal, there was no additional information about higher ranks above immortal, and neither were there any further details about what being an immortal might entail. There was only a single sentence that allowed Yoze to know that the road after bing immortal was only passing the first significant gate.
"Congrattions on bing Immortal and creating your Immortal Tattoos. From now on, there are no more paved roads for you to travel down, only a dense forest that you must clear yourself."
Chapter 198 198: New Swamp Towns Army
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"Is it saying that all immortal cultivation manuals have a hard stop once one bes immortal? If that is the case, it makes sense why a few of the spells that Immortal Welse used were not included in the Immortal Tattoo manual." Yoze said as he began walking back to the Beast Hunter Sect library.
In Yoze''s mind, he had doubted why he couldn''t remember any mention of the ck Fog spell that blocked and hindered all five of his senses. Not only was there no mention of how Immortal Welse was able to create these moreplex and powerful creatures by using an egg.
At first, he chalked it up to the fact that Immortal Welse didn''t want to give him everything even though he was in a difficult position since they were his most valuable techniques. However, with the oddity in the Immortal Tattoo manual, Yoze felt that the possibility of Immortal Welse holding back information was low.
Instead, there was a high possibility that those spells were his own creation. With hundreds of years of life experience, it made sense that the spells provided simply weren''t enough in certain circumstances.
Especially when Immortal Welse had to fight against demons and other immortals, being able to summon Blood Master rank monsters and being able to create a clone of yourself didn''t matter if your opponent could simply turn you to dust.
With no additional spells that were custom-made for immortals, these new immortals needed to work harder than before and make new spells and techniques from scratch. However, creating spells and immortal techniques was extremely difficult and time-consuming, to the point that even an immortal like Immortal Welse had only enhanced his known spells and created only a few techniques and spells.
With these spells not being a part of the initial Immortal Tattoo manual and Immortal Welse not wanting to give more than he needed to, he simply didn''t include them in the information he gave Yoze. So if Yoze wished to use the ck Fog spell or the egg technique, he would have to recreate them himself.
"Unfortunately, I am not going to be able blind my enemies yet, but that just means that every encounter I have with an immortal is going to be unique. Next time I have to ask them to give me all their spells and techniques instead of just their immortal cultivation manual." Yoze muttered to himself as he reached the Beast Hunter Sect''s library.
As he walked closer to the building, he noticed that his White Tiger and giant serpent were on the bottom floor of the library, trembling in fear. Knowing that they were most likely frightened by the explosion that ate up half of the sect''s territory, Yoze patted them on their heads.
"Don''t worry about what made that noise. I already dealt with it and got a new weapon out of it," Yoze said with a smile.
Understanding that Yoze had dealt with the thing that had caused the explosion, the White Tiger and Giant Serpent both nodded their heads. Then, after looking at each other and seeing the fear in both of them, they feltforted since if they were on the right side of the Beast Hunter Sect, they would not have existed anymore.
"It is time to collect my dues and go home, but first, I need to collect some books. Can you two go collect some crates and long pieces of straps and rope while I select the books."
After giving them somefort, Yoze asked them to grab crates and boxes so he could get as many books as he could. He was pleased to have therge beasts that could help him carry everything in one go.
With the help of the White Tiger and the giant serpent, Yoze nearly took all the books on the first and second floors before feeling that he had collected enough and traveling back to New Swamp Town. Knowing that there wasn''t any possibility of being able to move all the crates inside the town, Yoze ordered White Tiger and the Giant Serpent to hide them in a nearby cave so they could collect themter.
Once Yoze had blocked the entrance to the cave to prevent any from identally finding the entering the cave, they went back to their journey back to the town. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived back at the gates of New Swamp Town, Yoze had noticed a flood of new people trying to enter the city.
Most of these people were martial artists that were either a part of the Martial Wheel Sect, the Beast Hunter Sect or any more minor sect that had decided to temporarily disband until the recent sect destruction storm had passed. However, what drew Yoze''s attention was the massive army covered in dark brown armor lined up just outside the city.
Each one of the soldiers had a grim face as if they were going to war. As if they knew they would note back in one piece. Not only that, the atmosphere of the entire town was tense as they looked at the soldiers with pride, worry, and sorrow.
Even the martial artists that had traveled a long way to escape from the town''s purge had simr looks as they looked at the soldiers with gratitude. Yoze even recognized that Luvi, the grandson of the founding sect master of the Beast Hunter Sect, was patting the shoulders of the soldiers and giving them some words of encouragement.
"Even though I only knew you for less than half a day, I already treat you like my family. So regardless of what your mission entails, I will take care of your family for you." Luvi heaved as he gave his new friend a pat on the shoulder before walking away with his Giant Pr Bear.
As Yoze watched this all unfold, his curiosity to find out what mission would require New Swamp Town to send out their army peaked. However, it was only after listening to the conversations that the people around the soldiers were having did he lose interest in the whole thing.
asionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 199 199: Two Hundred Thousand
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"Sir, is it true that you heard a demon roar?"
Mixed within the crowd, a young child walked over to Luvi with curious eyes while holding onto a brown teddy bear. Looking at the young child, Luvi nodded his head slowly before saying.
"Not only did I hear the roar of a demon but a furious scream from an immortal. I had already left the Beast Hunter Sect''s territory when I heard them, but even then, I could hear them."
"The battle between the demon and immortal was intense as the forest was destroyed during their fight. In the end, I saw a huge explosion engulfing arge part of the forest and the Beast Hunter Sect."
"Kid, you don''t have to worry about these things since the town''s army will do everything in its power to make sure that demon is dead. Maybe they will even meet the immortal that is fighting the demon." Luvi said with a simple smile before walking to another soldier to give encouraging words.
Hearing Luvi''s conversation with the young child and listening to several simr conversations, Yoze had figured out that the so-called demon and immortal they were talking about was just an immortal Welse who he had killed. It made sense, given the level of destruction that urred in the Beast Hunter Sect''s territory, that New Swamp Town sent their army to check it out.
He could only imagine how terrified each of the soldiers, government officials, and citizens of the town must be feeling, knowing that not too far away from them, a battle that belonged to fairy tales had happened in reality. If he had heard the news that a fight between an immortal and a demon had almost wiped out the entire territory of a sect by ident, Yoze was sure that he would have had to consider carefully if he should go to the battlefield.
Since Yoze knew that this hold was caused by him, he had no interest in pursuing this matter any longer. He went around the town gate and jumped over the wall with his white tiger and giant serpent wrapped around his arm. After getting into the town, Yoze directly went over to the Town Hall to collect the money that he was owed for destroying two sects.
As he reached the town hall, Yoze noticed that the Town Hall was noticeably empty, with only a few people managing everything. There weren''t even any guards guarding the Town Hall, so Yoze walked straight to the counter where a young man with organizing the stacks of papers.
The young man, who looked to be in his early twenties, wore a simple ck uniform with the logo of a famous school on his shoulders. Paired with hisrge backpack filled to the brim with papers and textbooks, Yoze could tell that this young man came from a wealthy family and was trying to be a government official, potentially a schr.
To Yoze, the young receptionist''s mind must have been upied as he kept repeatedly stacking the same papers before taking them out. He didn''t even notice that Yoze was standing before him until Yoze rang the bell on the desk.
"Huh, is there something you need?" Then, snapping out of his distracted state, the young man looked at Yoze with confusion.
"I am here to collect the money that I was promised by a general in the army for destroying a few martial arts sects." Yoze calmly told the young man.
"Ahh, yes, you finally arrived. I was told that someone would being soon. We have already prepared the money. All we need are the names of the sects you have destroyed as a confirmation." The young man''s eyes snapped wide open as he looked excited and hastily asked Yoze to name the sects he destroyed.
"I destroyed the Martial Wheel Sect and the Beast Hunter Sect."
"That is two bringing the total to 200,000 silver. We have turned that amount into gold slips of paper, if you don''t mind. You can exchange them at any point for gold coins at any town or city hall." The Young man said quickly as he took out several piles of golden paper tied together with multiple leather straps.
"I don''t mind at all," Yoze said as he took the money and left once, he confirmed that nothing else was needed from him.
"Wait a minute, did he say he destroyed the Beast Hunter Sect? Wasn''t it destroyed by the fight between a demon and an immortal? How could he have destroyed it?" The young man stood up with a face of enlightenment and shock and immediately ran outside to catch Yoze.
Unfortunately, by the time he hade to that realization and ran outside, Yoze had long left the area and was on his way home to meet his family. When the young man saw that he had missed his chance, his bright mood quickly dipped as he lowered his shoulders in sadness.
"I am so getting fired for this mistake. Hopefully, they don''t make me pay it all back. Or I''m never going to be able to pay back and have to give my grandchildren to pay for it." The young man heaved a sigh and walked back inside to write a report on his mistake.
After writing his report, the young man packed up his bag and locked the town hall building to prevent any other person from being able to ess it until the morning. Then, making sure he didn''t identally make another major mistake again, like leaving the windows open, the young man ran urgently toward the city gate.
"Hopefully, Grandpa Blood Stone doesn''t get too mad when I tell him about my mistake. I don''t want to be forced to join him in another full-body exercise. But then again, it might be thest time I ever see him again." The young man heaved out another heavy sigh as his mood dipped further.
Chapter 200 200: Standing With Legends
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"Thank goodness they are still here." Breathing heavily, the young man wiped the sweat off his brow and walked towards a building next to the city gate.
Noticing that there were still heavily armored guards surrounding the building, the young man knew that he needed to hurry, or he would miss his chance. Fixing his school uniform a bit to not embarrass himself further, the young man walked toward the guards. He shed out a paper with his information on it.
"What is your name?"
One of the guards blocking the doorway grabbed the piece of paper and nced at it. He then asked the young man a question in a stern voice.
"Floyd Stone," The young man quickly answered and waited for the next series of questions he had long grown used to.
"Who are you here to see? And state your business." The other guard gave Floyd an annoyed face as he went on with the questioning.
"I''m here to see my grandfather, General Blood Stone. I was given an order by the general and the city and was told toe here as soon as the mission wasplete." Floyd answered with haste as he took out another slip of paper from his backpack and handed it to the soldier.
Knowing their patients were already low from dealing with the stress of going on an almost certain death mission, Floyd didn''t mind that he was not getting the fairest treatment. He only tried his best to make the process even easier for the soldiers so that everything could go smoothly.
"Okay, wait here. I will go into the room to inform the generals of your arrival." One of the guards calmly said to Floyd without any of the previous irritation.
Happy that his effort worked, Floyd almost wanted to celebrate his achievement but stopped himself when the guard who spoke walked inside the building. Twenty minutes passed as Floyd waited silently for the soldier to return and let him in.
"Follow me, and don''t make a single noise."
Finally, after another ten minutes, the soldier returned and signaled Floyd to be quiet and follow behind him. Knowing the severity of the situation, Floyd didn''tin and silently followed behind into the building.
"It reeks of blood,"
Floyd''s face paled as he instantly was mmed with the strong scent of blood, and the pressure inside the room made it difficult for him to even breathe. If it wasn''t for the sudden assistance that helped relieve some of the pressure, Floyd wasn''t sure if he could have maintained consciousness.
"General Devil Storm, what do you think could be the cause for an Immortal and demon deciding to fight so close by? This hasn''t happened in quite a long time?"
Suddenly hearing the voice of a mature and deep male voiceing from in front of him, Floyd''s mind snapped back into reality as he realized that standing in front of him were the 20 Blood Masters generals of New Swamp Town. Each of them had a stern and grim look as they all turned to look at one particr general.
That general had long ck hair slicked back with a shiny finish. Given his hairstyle alone, one would have assumed that General Devil Storm was a fashionable person with a care for his elegant appearance.
However, that couldn''t be further from the truth. Not only was General Devil Storm covered head to toe in scars, but he had sharp eyes that glinted with blinding golden light.
Known for his fierce appearance, General Devil Storm had plenty of rumors and stories about the ruthless methods he used on enemies. However, Floyd''s favorite rumor was where it was said that General Devil Storm was raised by a pair of baby demons and learned their demonic manners as he aged.
Even when he learned that he was human and left the safety of his demon parents to learn martial arts, General Devil Storm still loved to use the demon method of tearing their enemies apart with their hands, feet, and ws. So regardless of who he fights against, General Devil Storm uses his hands and feet to defeat his opponents.
He only wore ck leather armor to make himself look even more like a demon whenever he crushed his opponents into submission. Even though he was considered the youngest general inside the room, no one dared to underestimate him since he was extremely strong inbat.
"I believe that there is another treasure that had been born that had attracted the arrival of an immortal demon. Just like the one in the records when the Immortal Spinach had attracted the Gold Orb immortal and several other immortals to the grand line."
"The battle that had happened must have been glorious as the previously-existing mountain range was no longer found after. It''s a pity that we couldn''t get any sightings or witnesses of the scene." General Devil Storm sighed with regret as he took out a scroll and unraveled to scroll''s contents.
Inside the scroll was a hyper-realistic image of arge monster made out of leaves simr in shape and color to spinach. Each of the spinach leaf''s veins seemed to be made of crystal as rays of light passing through them turned into a dazzling rainbow.
If it wasn''t for the creature''s six legs that looked like spider legs mixed with an eagle''s talons and the bloodshot eyeballs covering each spinach leaf, the creature would have looked magical. Instead, these features showed that it was a monster, an abomination that could only be born from deep within the forest.
"Easy now, General, it was already extremely difficult and expensive to get that single image of the Immortal Spinach. We don''t want to risk it getting teared up now." The voice of a soft-spoken general spoke up, drawing the eyes of the room.
Floyd turned his attention to the general that had spoken with a clear unhappiness in his voice. The general that spoke was an old man with wavy white hair that was tied up in a bun. Paired with his well-groomed beard, skinny body, and white robe, the general gave everyone the impression that he was an elegant old schr that hade to preach to the new generation.
"General ck Snow," Floyd swallowed his saliva in fear when he saw the old man as he knew his terrifying reputation.
Floyd heard from stories and his grandfather that General ck Snow was ruthless and petty. Known for holding onto the slightest grievances for years before giving a disproportionate punishment to all those who opposed him.
There were rumors that once General ck Snow had waited for three decades to kill the family of a pig farmer that had denied him a b of meat back when he was poor and young. Not only that, he had found the extended family of the pig farmer and killed them all, except for a set of twins he had adopted as his own.
With such a dangerous man with a reputation even more feared than General Devil Storm being so close to him, Floyd didn''t dare breathe wrong, or else he knew he would find his entire family line exterminated decadester.
"Hmph! Of course, I know, and I have enough self-discipline to hold my desires in check. But what I am curious about is what you think is the cause of this mess, General ck Snow." General Devil Storm said with frustration as he red at General ck Snow.
"I think your reasoning is too simple and obvious to be the truth. Why would the immortal and demon fight one another in front of this treasure?"
"There is a clear possibility that it could be destroyed during their battle. The most obvious clue is the huge explosion that had happened."
"I think it is more likely that the demon and immortal had a feud spanning thousands of years and couldn''t resist battling to the death the moment they felt each other''s presence." General ck Snow gave General Devil Storm a cold stare before turning his head towards another general.
"General zing Phoenix, you have spent more time in the forest than any of us recently. Did you spot anything during your time there?" General ck Snow said harshly.
"General zing Phoenix? I thought that she had died in battle." Floyd''s heart began rapidly pounding as he turned to look at the general.
Standing across General ck Snow was a middle-aged woman with bright red hair and skin covered head to toe in tattoos of mythical birds. With bright orange eyes that sparkled regardless of the lighting and a body temperature so hot that she could give third-degree burns with a light touch, she gave off the impression of a Phoenix about to be reborn.
This middle-aged woman was the General zing Phoenix from the legends and could be argued to be the most talented soldier in the entire history of New Swamp Town. Her rise to fame was as glorious as her title and earned the respect of everyone in the town.
There were many versions of her story, but the one that was the most known was that she was the daughter of a poor couple in a rural vige. Since birth, she has struggled to survive and has had to mature quickly due to her parents falling deathly ill when she was only ten years old.
To survive, she created a small gang to rob other children in the vige to get enough food to take care of herself and her parents. By the time she was in her teens, her self-created gang had grown strong enough to control her vige and live a good stable life.
However, General zing Phoenix hated working for evil, so once she had be a young adult, she asked a group of soldiers passing through to take her along. What happened during that trip was when her story split into countless theories and rumors.
But themon end was that she became a soldier for New Swamp Town and rapidly rose to power through hard work, dedication, strong ethics, and talent to fight. In ten years, she went from a nobody to a Blood Master who no one in her rank could challenge.
It was predicted that if she hadn''t died six years ago when the townunched an attack on a martial art sect that was rapidly rising to be arge sect, she would have reached the Martial Grandmaster realm. To see her standing in front of him, not only alive but stronger than ever, nearly made Floyd''s mouth drop from shock.
"Did your dog give birth to an egg? The only thing I made a note of during my time there was how beautiful the forest had be under the control of the Beast Hunter Sect. Such a pity the sect is gone now." General zing Phoenix quickly replied as she adjusted her armor without care.
"The Beast Hunter Sect''s disappearance is not much of a concern for us. It was going to disappear soon anyway. In any case, I strongly rmend that we listen to the government''s orders and get a move on soon. We don''t know what could happen if we stall for too long."
Suddenly hearing his grandfather''sforting and deep voice, Floyd''s shoulders rxed as he turned to face his grandfather. Right away, Floyd noticed that while his grandfather still had the stern and powerful aura that he had grown familiar with,pared to the other generals, who could be considered to be in a league of their own, he seemed almost ordinary.
Yet when General Blood Stone spoke up with confidence andposure, the other generals looked at him with the same level of respect as a fellow peer, which filled Floyd''s heart with pride.
"This is my grandpa. He might be old, but he doesn''t fall short even when standing with legends." So Floyd thought with a smile as he clutched his rapidly beating heart.
Chapter 201 201: Comming Along For The Ride
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"General Blood Stone is right. We need to make a decision soon, even if weck information at the moment. Therefore, I propose that we immediately leave and charge directly into the forest to ughter whatever is inside the forest!" General Devil Storm said with a wide grin showing his excitement was clear to everyone in the room.
"I agree," General zing Phoenix replied quickly.
"Same here,"
"We can discuss this further when we arrive at the forest." General Blood Stone dered as he noticed they had finally reached an agreement.
Though the majority of the generals were dissatisfied with the simple n of action since they were not just ying with their own lives but the lives of thousands of people. So having to go with such a simple and reckless n made them all frown with dissatisfaction.
Nheless, they also knew they didn''t have much time to think of a better n that everyone was satisfied with, so they decided to push back the discussion until they had more information.
With all the generals in agreement, the tense atmosphere rxed a little, and the bloody smell in the room cleared up as the generals stopped releasing their auras. With everything settled, General Blood Stone turned his attention to Floyd and signaled him to meet him outside.
Understanding what his grandfather wanted to talk about in private, Floyd immediately left the building. He waited outside for his grandfather to meet him.
"Floyd, I heard that you had good news for me." General Blood Stone said to Floyd.
"Yes, Grandpa, a person came over to the town hall to collect the money that you had left for the man you talked about," Floyd quickly answered his General Blood Stone.
"That''s good. How many sects did he destroy, and which sects?" General Blood Stone''s eyes widened as he heard Floyd speak about all the details.
"The man said he destroyed two sects and thus took 200,000 silver. The Martial Wheel Sect and the Beast Hunter Sect were on his list." Knowing this wasing, Floyd took a deep breath as he went into detail about his transaction with Yoze, fully prepared to be punished.
"The Beast Hunter sect? That resolves a few strange things that I was confused about in the news we heard. That also takes care of my most important concern." General Blood Stone visibly rxed as he ced his hand on Floyd''s shoulder.
Surprised that his grandfather hadn''t lost his mind at his obvious mistake, Floyd was stunned as he could see that not only was his grandfather not angry but was relieved.
"Did I not make a mistake, and that giant man that had visited was the person Grandpa told me to watch out for?" Floyd thought to himself as he felt his mood quickly be better at the thought that he might not have made a grave mistake that would cost him his kidneys.
"Good work Floyd. I know this was a simple requestpared to your dream of bing a government official, but this is the first step of many that are toe."
"I know, Grandpa, I am taking every opportunity thates my way to make you proud." Feeling the affectioning from his grandfather, Floyd''s eyes began to tear up, but he wanted to stay strong, so he tried his best not to cry.
"I know that is why I am giving you another valuable opportunity. You will being with me to the Branch Forest to kill demons and immortals alike." General Blood Stone let out a wide grin as his hand on Floyd''s shoulder tightened into an iron grip.
"Grandpa, what do you mean?" Stunned at the sudden revtion, Floyd felt like he hadn''t properly processed what General Blood Stone had said and asked again.
"Floyd, you are a smart man, but you are physically too weak to aplish much. Not only that, your mind is too fragile to handle the stress of being a schr or a government official whose life will be threatened constantly."
"As my only living blood rtive, I won''t be able to die peacefully knowing that you can''t save yourself from danger. So while I am still alive to protect you, I will train you to be unstoppable." General Blood Stone said with a cold voice as he lifted Floyd''s frozen body on his shoulders and walked outside the gate.
Witnessing this all happening were the shocked soldiers who had let Floyd inside the building to meet his grandpa. Even though they were stunned by General Blood Stone''s sudden action, they became moved when they heard his heartfelt speech,
If it wasn''t for the fact that they weren''t allowed to leave their post and the children were too young, they would have followed General Blood Stone''s lead.
"General Blood Stone might not be the strongest or best general, but he has the biggest heart. To drastically increase his odds of dying a tragic death to give his grandson this experience truly shows his love." One of the middle-aged soldiers grabbed onto the golden heart ne on his neck as he looked at General Blood Stone with admiration.
"General Blood Stone reminds me of my father. I hope my daughter and son see me the same way." The other soldier heaved a sigh filled withplex emotions as he looked into the distance with a nk stare.
The two soldiers silently wiped the single water droplet that had umted in the corner of their eyes and felt their spirits burst with renewed energy. They didn''t know that in General Blood Stone''s eyes, this mission was no longer as dangerous as he had previously thought.
After hearing that Yoze had visited the Beast Hunter Sect, General Blood Stone connected the stories that his soldiers had gathered and Yoze''s appearance. The Beast Hunter Sect''s elders and sect master are killed just as they are about to give a speech to the library, being blocked by a terrifying aura.
General Blood Stone even connected that the angry shout that shook the Beast Hunter Sect must have been Yoze, who had spotted a demon. Though General Blood Stone knew that his guess wasn''t perfect, he still felt that he had gotten the general gist of the situation.
With his warped version of reality, General Blood Stone assumed that Yoze had killed the demon and returned to recuperate from the intense battle. However, with the serious threat inside the Beast Hunter Sect''s territory having been taken care of, General Blood Stone felt that this was the best time to instill martial art training in his grandson.
"The more I think about that young man, the less I can see him as anything other than a humanoid monster. There seems to be a limitless amount of power packed into his massive body that shouldn''t be possible." As General Blood Stone walked over to his post, his mind wandered toward his first encounter with Yoze.
He couldn''t help but feel a shiver run down his spine as he could imagine that if he hadn''t remembered that Yoze was an ally, his corpse would be in a thousand pieces, as the bottomless ck stomach would consume his soul fuels Yoze''s limitless growth.
Chapter 202 202: River Of Animals
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"Even though Yoze is strange, I would love for my grandson to be just like him one day. Even being half as strong and sessful as him would be enough to ease my heart." General Blood Stone nced at Floyd before turning his attention to his soldiers.
"Men, today we have an important mission! This deals with not only the lives and future of everyone in New Swamp Town but the entirety of humanity."
"Some of us will note back home from the mission, and others won''t make it back in one piece, but this is what we must do to secure our children''s future! As soldiers, we must hold our heads up high and dive straight into the mouths of certain death!"
"Only through challenging the impossible with fearlessness and zing anger to defeat anything that stands in our way can we clinch victory! Now follow me and the other generals as we march towards our mission!" General Blood Stone shouted with pride.
Floyd trembled as he could hear other generals giving simr brutal speeches that talked about certain death. If it weren''t for the fact that he didn''t want toin in front of thousands of soldiers putting their lives on the line to save his home, he would have already been trying to escape his Grandfather''s iron-d grasp.
"Why is Grandpa trying to bring me into the grave with him? I am as well as a chicken and a regr soldier could kill me with a single p, yet alone a demon or immortal."
"Does this have to do with that maning back from the Beast Hunter Sect territory?"
With no ability to move or talk with their Grandfather about cing him down, Floyd focused on figuring out why his Grandfather had such a change of heart. He recalled the moment his Grandfather had heard the news of the explosion. His Grandfather had rushed to him and told him to stay inside the town and not leave the town''s walls until he came back.
At that time, he could tell that his Grandfather had ced a lot of importance on his safety a few hours ago, but now everything had been flipped on its head. The only reason that made sense to him was if Yoze''s appearance meant that the Beast Hunter Sect''s territory wasn''t as dangerous as everyone first thought.
"To instill such confidence in Grandpa, thatrge man must be someone significant and powerful. Wait a minute, how could I be so blind that man was injured when he arrived." Sudden enlightenment pped Floyd in the face as he recalled the details of his short interaction with Yoze.
"He must have fought whatever monster had appeared in the Beast Hunter Sect''s area. Toe back alive and well meant that he must have either defeated the monster or made it run away."
"No wonder Grandpa switched up all of a sudden and forced me to go on this trip. Not only could the experience train him, but the government is going to give extra merit to anyone who went on the mission."
"Even if they found out there was no danger, the courage that every soldier showed not to abandon their duty when there was certain death in front of them needed to be rewarded. And since I am not a soldier, the only reward I would get is a low government position, but that is enough to get my foot through the door." Realizing this, Floyd''s eyes shined like a beacon as his terrible mood lightened up, making him feel pumped full of energy.
"Grandpa, I understand. Can you put me down? I won''t run away." Floyd whispered with conviction inside his Grandfather''s ear.
Sensing that Floyd had understood his intentions and would take full advantage of this rare opportunity, General Blood Stone ced Floyd down and told him to stand at the back of the army of soldiers. He even rmended that he try his best to keep up, or he would be left behind.
Understanding that this was an opportunity that his Grandfather had risked for him, Floyd straightened his back and walked to the back of the army line. When he arrived, Floyd felt as if he could feel the weight of responsibility that each soldier must feel going on this life-or-death mission.
Floyd''s eyes sharpened, and his back became as straight as an iron rod as he felt he bore the same responsibility. Even though he knew the chance that this mission would be dangerous was small, he couldn''t help but feel his respect for each of them grow.
While his heart grew more convinced about his decision to be a government official so he could remain off the battlefield, he just wanted an easy job that gave him a lot of money and was safe from danger.
"March!"
Suddenly hearing General Devil Storm''s voice shouting to move, Floyd snapped out of his daze and stepped forward with everyone else.
As New Swamp Town''s army marched through thend, it didn''t take long for them to encounter something odd. At one of the small viges they were passing back, they noticed that it was overrun with animals.
All sorts of creaturespletely took over the vige forcing the vigers to leave their vige. Even though this was a strange sight, no one in the army was surprised that some animals had escaped the forest.
If humans were smart enough to escape their homes in times of danger, animals would be even more capable. Many of them had begun their escape before the battle even began and left when Immortal Welse screamed with anger.
Most of them had escaped deeper into the forest, with only a small percentage of the animals having fled elsewhere. However, even though only a tiny percentage of the animals near the battle had escaped outside, it was still a significant number that the viges and towns near the forest were overwhelmed.
Even though helping out the vige wasn''t the army''s primary goal, they still deployed a small group of first-rate martial artists to scare the animals away from the vige and kill all the ones that refused to leave. Once the threat had been eliminated quickly, the small group of martial artists rejoined the main army as if nothing had happened.
"Aren''t there too many animals?" Floyd thought to himself as he noticed that they were seeing more and more animals migrating toward New Swamp Town and away from the Beast Hunter Sect''s territory.
It had gotten to the point that the army was forced to stop as thousands of animals from the forest slowly escaped, creating a river of colorful flesh. A river where predator and prey walked in harmony as they fled from their home to seek a better life.
Chapter 203 203: Scout Team Vs Forest
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"This isn''t a good sign," General ck Snow''s eyes gazed at the river of animals and muttered to himself.
"But we need to move forward, so all of you need to move." A ck glint spread across General ck Snow''s eyes.
With a quick wave of his hand and the flutter of his robe, a thin bloody gas spread throughout the surrounding, sending a chill down everyone present. The animals were frozen with fear staring nkly at General ck Snow before they obediently opened a path for him and the army.
With a path opened up, Floyd watched as the army went through with ease and was able to make up for the lost time. However, as they grew closer to the Beast Hunter Sect''s territory, they noticed that the number of animals that had fled the Branch forest and made it outside was more significant than they had imagined.
Instead of the thousands of animals, it seemed that tens of thousands animals were escaping rapidly. The sky had even turned as dark as the night sky as tens of thousands of birds of various species flew across the sky.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
"The Three-Eyed Fear Crows, Fire Hawks, and Flying Penguins are all extremely rare creatures whose appearance is said to be the signs of the beginning of the disaster. To see them all at once and in the thousands would mean the end of humanity." Floyd''s mind raced as he felt a deep unease fill his body as the army marched on.
Looking around, he noticed that other than him, the army''s strong will didn''t waiver in the slightest. If anything, a bizarre gloomy blood lust started to spread around, infecting every soldier.
He could see that some soldiers'' eyes became slightly bloodshot as their anxiety, will to survive, the weight of responsibility, and desire to be great grew at break necks speeds. Yet, in this strange atmosphere, Floyd felt his anxiety slowly reced with excitement and a willingness to face whatever danger with the army.
"Hahaha! Look at this! This is what we expect to see when seeing the aftermath of a battle of legends!"
"Soldiers, prepare your minds as what we are about to see will be life-changing. Those who survive will be death-deifying soldiers who are unbeatable!"
Amid the strange atmosphere, hystericalughter broke the air as the soldiers turned their focus and listened to General Devil Storm''s speech. Though his words were irrational, they did their job of lifting the army''s spirits, and even Floyd felt a bit better about all the strange things they were seeing.
Floyd looked around at the soldiers around him and felt he could guess their thoughts.
"Yes, this all makes sense. But, of course, the battle between a demon and an immortal would cause such a level destruction that countless animals would have abandoned their homes."
"If they didn''t see this level of chaos, then that would have been even more strange and concerning. Aren''t some grand lines rumored to be created by the battle between immortals and demons? So why should we be scared to see this small group of animals leaving the forest."
With the army''s mood given a slight boost, they continued on their way until they finally reached the final destination, a beautiful forest with thriving nt life. Even from the back of the army, Floyd could see the building structures that previously belonged to the Beast Hunter Sect being wrapped tightly in roots, moss, and rapidly growing vines.
"Is this what it would look like if all of humanity had died and nature was able to reim its lostnd?" A strange thought popped into Floyd''s head as he waited for the Generals to discuss what was next.
At the front of the army, the twenty Generals of New Swamp Town silently watched as the trees, bushes, and every nt from the Branch Forest used to pull their roots out of the ground to inseminate thend around them. Shortly after, new nts would rapidly mature before repeating the process, quickly expanding the forest''s territory.
"This is a bit different from how we expected to see, but this is a threat nheless. Therefore, I rmend that we send a small scouting team to try and enter the forest." General ck Snow calmly said to the others.
"I agree, but they need to be the best of the best since anything could happen when strange things like this happen. So we should send my elite team of scouts to deal with this." General zing Phoenix added, drawing looks of ire from the other generals.
They all could see that she wanted to send her own scout team to get the best information first before being able to report it to the other generals. But they couldn''t refute her offer since she did have the best scout team.
Even though she had the least soldiers on her team, everyone was an absolute elite that could challenge above their rank. In almost every category, her soldiers would rank at the top, including her scout team.
To get the most urate and valuable information from this scouting trip, they needed to send her elite scouts. So none of the generals refused General zing Phoenix''s offer and allowed her to call her elite scouting team.
The moment the generals nodded their heads, they saw five soldiers wearing dark blue leather armor and faces covered in masks step forward. Without speaking a word General zing Phoenix simply waved her hand toward the forest for these five scouts to understand her message.
Without waiting, these five scouts silently rushed toward the expanding forest and entered without a problem. Half an hour soon passed before the five scouts returned entirely unharmed.
In that short period that the scouts were gone, the generals and the army watched as the forest had expanded ten feet forward and showed no signs of stopping. Instead, the speed at which the nts were maturing and spreading their roots continued to increase.
It had gotten to the point that as the scouts made their way out of the forest, one of the scouts was suddenly blocked as a tree grew below him. Another scout even tripped due to a bush suddenly extending its roots, causing him to hit the ground with a solid thud.
"He''s dead," General Devil Storm said sharply as he watched the scout fall to the ground.
As if following his words, a newborn tree that had just finished maturing lifted its long thick roots out of the ground and mmed them into any avablend. Not caring at all that one of the spaces it had selected had been upied by a human body.
The scout knew that he needed to escape before the root pierced right through his body, he tried to stand up, but before he could even lift a finger, the scout felt the tree''s tough and sharp root pierce through his leather armor, bones, and organs as if it were paper.
Chapter 204 204: Living Root
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The scout knew instantly that he would die as his bones and organs had been crushed and turned into mush. But he gritted his teeth and broke the root off the tree that had pierced him and escaped.
Just as the scout reached General zing Phoenix, his knees crumbled to the ground from weakness. His deathly pale face became even more ghostly as the leftover root in his chest wiggled around in a frenzy.
It tried its best to enter the ground, but once it realized that even though the scout was on his knee, it was too far away from the ground, it turned around. Aiming straight for the scout''s head and ready to turn his brain into sludge.
"Don''t even think about it,"
Seeing how even after the root had been torn away from its main body, it was trying to desecrate her soldier''s body, General zing Phoenix''s face chilled as she waved her hand to send three blood droplets at the root.
The moment her blood came in contact with the root, it caught on fire and nearly instantaneously turned into ash. Once the root had turned to ash, the fire went out without leaving a single burn mark on the scout.
"Medicse over immediately and keep this man alive as long as possible. I don''t care if he is begging you to end his life due to pain. Just keep him alive until the Secret Medics can work their magic." General zing Phoenix said with clear anger in her voice.
If it wasn''t for the fact that thest remaining one of her scouts could escape the forest without any injuries, the generals knew that she would have started a wildfire with her temper. The only thing she hated more than her soldiers being killed was allowing it to happen right before her.
After sentencing the scout to his fate, several soldiers grabbed the scout''s body. They quickly took him to the back of the army, where the medics were located.
"What did you four find?" General zing Phoenix asked the four remaining scouts.
"The entire forest seems to be in the same state of rapid growth and expansion. Many animals struggle to survive by avoiding the nts, but just like what happened now, many of them are getting killed." One of the scouts calmly said with no fluctuations in his voice.
"We also visited the Beast Hunter Sect''s headquarters and saw that half of the building was gone or suffered severe damage due to what looked like an explosion. However, it has been taken over just like with the rest of the forest." The scout continued.
"Anything else of note that you have seen inside the forest?" General zing Phoenix asked.
"There was an instant where we five destroyed a few trees that had blocked our way. Other than destroying the trees into piles of sticks, we felt as if we became slightly more energetic and stronger." The scout answered without pause.
"Oh, why didn''t you mention this earlier? This is an important find!" General Devil Storm growled at the scout.
"We apologize General Devil Storm. We couldn''t be sure if it was an illusion, real, or something negative. So we decided to leave it at the end as extra information that has been verified." The scout answered in the same timeless voice.
"General Devil Storm is right next to spill out all your information at once but make it clear which ones have been verified or not. This is a special mission with dangers hidden everywhere. Even unverified information could prove extremely valuable." General zing Phoenix said to her scouts.
"Understood," All four scouts shouted with their hearts.
"If that is all, you may retreat to your positions." General zing Phoenix calmly said as she waved her hand back to the army.
Without saying another word, General zing Phoenix''s scouts nodded their heads and quickly walked back to the army in silence. Once her soldiers had retreated, General zing Phoenix turned to face the other generals and saw that they had looks of envy written on their faces.
She knew her scouts had left a positive impression on each of the generals even though the mission wasn''t perfect. The information brought over was urate to what they had assumed, and they even got additional information that could be extremely valuable without paying a high price.
"As you all have witnessed, the Branch Forest seems to have experienced a change after the battle between the demon and the immortal. Unfortunately, other than the forest nt life trying their best to expand their territory, we don''t have much information on whether a greater danger is inside the forest."
"I suggest that we have our army stationed outside of the Branch Forest and use any method to halt its expansionpletely. As for investigating the forest depths, I suggest that use generals and elite soldiers take turnsmencing an investigation that is two hours long."
"In those two hours, we need to enter the forest ande out. If there are any dys, we should consider them dead until proven otherwise, and we can consider what we do after such a situation urs." General zing Phoenix calmly proposed her idea to the other generals.
"I agree with General zing Phoenix''s n but would like to add that each of the investigation teams has to have at least two generals. We are dealing with an unknown threat that could be on the same level as demons and immortals."
"Sending one Blood Master realm general along with soldiers in the first-rate martial artist realm isn''t even close to enough to do this mission safely. Having at least two generals will increase the odds that one of them would be able to escape to tell us valuable information." Responding quickly to General zing Phoenix''s proposal was General Blood Stone, who felt that her proposal was too risky.
In his eyes, such a threat needed to be taken as seriously as possible, and every precaution needed a backup n. He especially felt like losing a general without gaining anything was too wasteful and could instead allow them to be taken out individually.
"It seems that I underestimated how dangerous this mission was going to be after hearing Yoze had returned safely. Hopefully, we will be able to contain the forest from spreading any further. If not, Floyd should be able to escape since he is in the backline." General Blood Stone thought to himself as he felt a headache forming.
Chapter 205 205: The Branch Forest War
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"I concur with General Blood Stone''s change." General ck Snow quickly added. He had enough experience dealing with abnormal events and monsters to know that they couldn''t be underestimated.
If they underestimated their enemy by even a slight margin or didn''t path to collect some additional information about their enemy, then their enemies would continually be operating in the dark while they worked in the light. But, even if they lost both of their generals, they would know that the forest had be too dangerous for a general like them to enter. Therefore, they needed to call for the assistance of Martial Grandmasters.
Seeing that the rest of the generals agreed with General Blood Stone''s addition, General zing Phoenix didn''t try to resist and epted it. Then, after finalizing some finer details of how they would ce New Swamp Town''s army to stop the Branch Forest''s expansion, each general went to their soldiers and gave their instructions.
"Soldiers, we will protect the far eastern path to the Gecko territory. Any nt life that tree extends its roots, branches, and tentacles towards that region, you have full permission to eliminate it on sight. " General Blood Stone told his soldiers that included Floyd.
"Gecko range? That''s quite arge space for us to protect. How are we going to reinforce each other?" Floyd''s eyebrows curled as he heard his grandfather''s instructions.
Even without an exnation, Floyd could understand how they were assigned to this range epassing more than 20 viges and five towns. The Branch Forest was toorge to blockpletely in its entirety, and even if they tried, they would be spread too thin to stop the forest''s growth.
So it was obvious that they needed to select the regions that were the most important and protected the most human lives. And after looking through his mental map, Floyd felt that only ten territories led straight toward New Swamp Town, so those needed to be protected at all costs.
As for the territories that weren''t directly linked to New Swamp Town, the generals had decided to temporarily abandon them for now and allow the martial art sects nearby to deal with them until they could get more reinforcements. It was a hard decision that could spell the death of many human lives, but as generals of New Swamp Town, they had to think in the town''s best interest.
The Gecko territory that General Blood Stone and his soldiers were assigned to was the far east territory directly linked to New Swamp Town. The region''s terrain was extremely rocky and had steep hills and valleys that made it difficult to travel but also made it difficult for the forest to expand.
With such an environment, they alone were assigned to this territory so the extra soldiers could be assigned to more critical areas. However, being so far away and distant from most of the army would make it challenging to get reinforcements in case anything happened.
"We just have to make do," Floyd silently sighed as he followed his grandfather''s soldiers as they marched away to the far East.
Back at New Swamp Town, Yoze was inside his father''s hospital room, wrapped up tightly in medical bandages. He almost looked like a giant mummy who had risen from his sarcophagus to rule his empire once more.
Also inside the room, Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel were trying their best not tough as they recalled what happened just an hour ago. Having been gone for a day, Yoze directly went to the hospital that his father was staying in to see if he had woken up.
However, the moment he arrived, the hospital staff nearly fainted due to how much blood Yoze had been covered in and the wounds he had incurred from Immortal Welse''s explosion. They were so shocked that they demanded that he had to get treatment right away or he would die.
They even refused to let him inside, fearing that he would spread a disease unless he epted their treatment. After ncing at his father''s spiritual energy still in his room, Yoze epted the hospital''s request.
That resulted in him getting wrapped tightly in Medical bandages and forced to look like a mummy before he could visit his father''s room. Only to find that his father had fallen asleep just as he arrived.
"So, how is Dad doing?" Yoze asked, ignoring that Tiki and Dreyer were trying their best not tough.
"He is doing quite well, and his recovery was faster than the doctors had expected. An hour after you had left, he had regained consciousness, and a few hourster, he was as energetic as he usually was."
"He was even able to make some friends at the hospital and lost around three copper coins due to a bet he made with one of the nurses and another old man inside the hospital," Tiki said after collecting herposure.
"That''s good. Did anything else happen while I was gone?"
"Nope, but it seems that you had quite an adventure yourself. So what happened outside that you got a pet snake?" Jewel added after noticing that a snake-like creature was slithering around Yoze''s arm as if trying to camouge itself as a part of the bandages.
"I got this little guy from the forest around the Beast Hunter Sect. Right now, this snake is so strong that all three of you would lose if you fought against it." Yoze calmly said.
"The Beast Hunter Sect? Wasn''t that sect destroyed by the battle between a demon and an immortal?"
As Jewel was speaking, she conveniently ignored that Yoze had said that even after all her hard work, she was still weaker than a snake only a foot long. Instead, she suddenly looked at Yoze with enlightenment.
"Wait, were you the demon in that scenario or the immortal?" Jewel asked with curiosity in her voice.
"I fought an immortal this time instead of a demon, so I wasn''t able to get any demon meat. But I got something better for my troubles, which is an immortal sword."
Already aware of what Jewel wanted to suggest, Yoze shook his head and showed them the crystal sword that he had wrapped up in leather straps.
Chapter 206 206: War Plant Witchcraft
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Unfurling the crystal sword from its mortal constraints allowed it to sparkle with a beautiful rainbow color that could only belong in fairy tales. The mere sight of the crystal sword made Tiki''s, Dreyer''s, and Jewel''s eyes snap wide open as their pupils dted to get as much detail as they possibly could.
In short, the crystal sword was a beauty and would be a dancer''s best friend.
"Very nice, right? It''s strong enough to take one of my strikes without taking damage and sharp enough to cut through demons like butter. This is simply a sword fit for ying demons and immortals." Yoze smiled as he raised the sword to his eyes.
"That sword is a beauty," Jewel said.
After giving Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel a good look at his crystal sword, Yoze wrapped the crystal sword back up in the leather strap, concealing its beauty again. However, even after wrapping the crystal sword up, Tiki and Dreyer couldn''t keep their eyes off it.
For them seeing such an immortal sword that came from an immortal was something they would never have seen in their whole life. Now they have been presented with the information that right before them was a sword from an immortal. Tiki and Dreyer wanted to ask for more details about Yoze''s battle.
Unfortunately, before they could ask him more questions, Yoze said, "Since Dad is sleeping, I am going to go and train. After that fight, I realize that I''m not nearly strong enough yet."
"Can wee with you? I haven''t done any training since we arrived at New Swamp Town. However, I feel that I am at the edge of bing a first-rate martial artist." Jewel said as she stretched her arm.
"Sure, anyone cane along but be prepared that I''m not going to focus much on helping you train." Yoze shrugged his shoulders.
Understanding that Yoze wasn''t someone who changed his mind when it came to training himself, Tiki and Dreyer made a note to themselves to ask for the detailster. But, for now, they decided it would be better to follow Yoze and do some training themselves.
After spending so much time training in their respective body cultivation methods, they felt they could beat their previous selves without even breaking a sweat. This was especially true for Dreyer, as he had been spending more of his time on training than Tiki.
If Tiki spent an hour training in the Boneless body cultivation method, then Dreyer would spend two hours training in the Sinking Swamp body cultivation method. Dreyer spent more than double the amount of time training in martial artspared with his sister for two reasons.
The first reason was that he didn''t have to spend as much time absorbing crystals as Tiki. Unlike Tiki, who could keep absorbing crystals like there was no tomorrow and, once her crystal nerves were fully saturated, could transform it into pure crystal energy to either cast spells or use for another set of crystal nerves.
Dreyer couldn''t absorb crystal dust into his dead crystal nerves, which couldn''t store any crystal energy either. Once his dead crystal nerves reached the limit of crystal dust they could attract, there was no longer any way for him to continue to absorb crystal.
To continue, he would need to transform his crystal dust into crystal energy and use it immediately by using it for spells or creating artifacts. However, after meeting Yoze, Dreyer no longer needed to keep a high reserve of crystal dust inside his body to turn into crystal energy for his spells.
Instead, Dreyer had been spending his energy on creating artifacts and treasures that would be useful for his survival and could protect his family. He used his crystal energy to make his nt soldiers, nt spies, Blood Sucking Totems, and Presence Hiding Wood.
Yet the creation of all these artifacts and treasures required not only a lot of crystal energy to create but also many scarce resources that are difficult to acquire by normal means. His progress in forming a war chest of treasures and artifacts took time to fill up.
The second reason Dreyer was spending more time was that he was weaker than he would like to be. He was falling behind Tiki, whose growth had increased due to having almost unlimited ess to crystals and money. Compared to Yoze, a demon in human skin, Dreyer knew he was on the same level as an ant.
With his progress in increasing his familiarity with his War nt Witchcraft steadily increasing and his war chest of treasures and artifacts being filled, Dreyer knew the only way he could improve further was by focusing his effort on martial arts.
Only by strengthening his physical body could he increase his battle prowess and his ability to survive sneak attacks from his enemies. In addition, Dreyer''s desire to not be a burden to his family continuously strengthened his resolve to train his martial arts.
What made Dreyer the most pleased was that his prediction that training in the Sinking Swamp body cultivation method was excellent for him proved more urate than he initially thought. Not only did it allow him to hold more of his treasures and artifacts on his body while hiding their existence, but the increased control over his body allowed him to create treasures faster.
With thebination of these two reasons, Dreyer felt the need to put more than double the effort into training his martial artspared to Tiki. So when Yoze mentioned that he wanted to train and offered to take him along, Dreyer instantly decided to go along.
Just as Dreyer was about to ask Yoze if he coulde along, he suddenly smelled the faint scent of sugary nectar mixed with otherplex aromasing from the right side of his ribs. Instantly knowing that the smell was caused by his nt spies sending him a message, Dreyer ced his finger over his mouth and told everyone to be quiet.
"Wait, stop talking for a minute. I just got a message."
After drawing Yoze''s, Tiki''s, and Jewel''s attention Dreyer closed his eyes as he rapidly decoded the message hidden behind the aromas. Then, after a minute, Dreyer''s eyes snapped open with shock as he blurted out.
"The immortals have arrived!"
Chapter 207 207: Passing On The Crystal Sword
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"The immortals are here?"
Yoze''s face turned toward Dreyer withplete seriousness as he asked for confirmation. Without missing a beat, Dreyer nodded his head and spoke to rify.
"The immortals have arrived at New Swampscott City and have called out to all rogue immortal cultivators that are interested in joining their immortal sect to gather outside of the city."
"This is surprising; I thought they weren''t supposed to arrive for the next few months. For them to suddenly decide to arrive early can''t be without a reason. And to gather all the rogue immortal cultivators outside the City gives me the sense that they have an ulterior motive." Yoze frowned as he could feel his instincts telling him that there was something odd about the immortal sect''s schedule change.
He was happy that he no longer needed to wait for several months before he could meet the immortals of the immortal sect. But he was also frustrated with the timing of this revtion, as it couldn''t get any worse.
Not only did he no longer have his talents marks since he had just used them to collect talent from Immortal Welse and the Giant Serpent. That meant that for the next 24 hours that the immortals were here, there was no way for Yoze to improve his Crystal Nerves talent or obtain any exciting talents.
Not only that, he had not even created his first crystal nerve set, so he hadn''t even stepped into the path of immortality yet. That meant that whatever test the immortal sect set to decide whether to take in rogue immortal cultivators could be detrimental to Yoze''s chances of getting into the immortal sect.
If the immortal sect test included his ability to cast spells or his ability to manipte crystal energy, then there simply was no way for Yoze to pass the test. He could only hope that his immortal cultivation talent, having crossed into the pure rank, would be enough to join.
What made Yoze concerned as while was the fact that as soon as he killed Immortal Welse, the immortals from the immortal sect arrived. His instincts immediately felt that there was a connection between their appearance and Immortal Welse''s death.
"Immortal Welse is an immortal whose Crystal Nerves talent had reached rank seven, so the likelihood that he was part of an immortal sect is extremely high. Furthermore, for Immortal Welse to appear in the Beast Hunter Sect''s territory while the Immortal Sect members were near New Swampscott City is too strange to be a coincidence."
"They are either from different immortal sects or from the same sect. If they are from the same sect, then that means that the immortal had arrived a long time ago and were waiting to dere their existence."
"If Immortal Welse and the immortals are from different sects, then that means something here is attracting their attention. Recruiting rouge immortal cultivators is an excuse to gather rouge immortal cultivators for some kind of goal."
"But at the end of the day, this is too good of an opportunity to give up. So I''ll go participate and see what benefits I can get before I decide whether to leave." Yoze''s mind raced at extreme speeds as he processed the information he had gathered and decided not to stall any longer.
"Thanks for the information Dreyer. I will head over to New Swampscott City now. Tiki, are you interested ining along?" Yoze asked Tiki after seeing that her eyes were sparkling.
"I would, but I have a feeling that I would only put my life in danger if I went with my current cultivation. Even with you around to protect me, there isn''t much I would get by going." Tiki heaved a heavy sigh of regret at herck of talent and shook her head to say she wasn''ting.
"That''s understandable¡here, hold this crystal sword for me. It''s only going to bring trouble if I bring it along."
Seeing no one else was interested ining with him, Yoze handed the wrapped-up crystal sword to Tiki. Even though the crystal sword made out of Immortal Welse''s crystal spine, crystal skull, and crystal brain was highly durable and sharp enough to cut through demons, he could only see himself encountering trouble if he held onto it.
If his intuition was correct and the immortals that arrived at the City were from the same immortal sect, then there was a high chance that his crystal sword would be identified as the True Body of one of their fallenrades. After the immortals confirmed that Yoze had killed theirrade, there was a high chance that they would attack him together to eliminate this threat.
In such a scenario of fighting against multiple immortals as strong as Immortal Welse, Yoze didn''t have much confidence that he would win that battle. Much less now that he was still heavily injured from his previous fight with Immortal Welse.
With his current injuries, there was a zero percent chance that he would be able to win that battle and a high chance that he would be killed even if he tried his best to escape their pursuit. With such odds, Yoze ultimately got rid of the thought of being the crystal sword with him, even if it strengthened the destructive power of his attacks.
After deciding the dangers of bringing the crystal sword along, Yoze felt that giving the crystal sword to Tiki was a much better decision because several hours after Immortal Welse''s death, the immortals hadn''t made their way over to collect the crystal sword.
This either meant that the immortal had a particr method to detect that Immortal Welse was dead but had no information of where he had died or the location of his True Body. Or they didn''t care to collect it due to various reasons.
Yoze also knew that Tiki would be able to make the most use of the additional firepower that having an immortal sword would bringpared to Jewel or Dreyer. Even though she wasn''t trained in any sword techniques, he was aware that there were a few useful spells in the Fire Immortal cultivation manual that would drastically improve with the involvement of a sword.
Chapter 208 208: The Immortals With Tattoos
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The moment the crystal sword fell into Tiki''s hands, she felt a hundred pounds of crystal m into her palms, shocking her and nearly causing her to stumble. Tiki looked at the crystal sword, almost shocked to her core since she had never expected to find it suddenly in her hands.
"Yoze, wait,"
Tiki looked up from the crystal sword and noticed that Yoze had already disappeared, leaving her without the opportunity to ask him what he wanted her to do with it. She guessed that Yoze must have concluded that it was safer to keep the crystal sword with them than to take it with him to New Swampscott City.
But she wanted to ask if there was anything about the sword she needed to watch out for. She had heard plenty of stories about mythical swords that only showed their true power to those who were worthy and consumed the souls of those unworthy, just like the Starving Ghoul Sword that was wielded by the legendary Whale Ghoul and created using the bones and souls of hundreds of evil ghouls.
It was said that in the hands of the Whale Ghoul, the Starving Ghoul Sword had unimaginable power in that it held the ability to not only repair itself but also strengthen itself by consuming anything. Regardless of the material, the sword could and would consume any substances to improve itself.
From metal, nts, and rocks to even the flesh and bones of living creatures. It was a mighty sword that could give its wielders extraordinary powers. Still, for those who were unworthy, their flesh and bones would be consumed as soon as they touched the de.
With stories simr to the Starving Ghoul Sword swirling around her mind, Tiki almost wanted to drop the sword in fear of being eaten alive. Yet, she couldn''t bear to let go. Instead, her grip over the sword became tighter and tighter as she felt a slight calling from the sword.
"Tiki, with the crystal sword in your hands, how about we test it? There is no point in having a sword that we can''t use, and since Yoze passed it onto you, he must think you could handle its powers." Jewel said with curiosity.
"Uhh yeah. Let''s go check out what it can do." Tiki snapped out of her dazed state and felt chilling calm, as if all her stress and worries melted away like snow.
Noticing that Tiki was acting strange as soon as she had touched the sword, Dreyer instantly went into alert as he leaned into Jewel''s ears and whispered. After hearing what Dreyer had to say, Jewel threw him a nce and calmly shook her head.
"Do you suspect that something is wrong with me?" Tiki said.
While Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel were discussing what they would do with the crystal sword, right beside a sleeping old man was the little serpent whose vertical pupils watched them with boredom. Finally, after watching them talking for a few seconds, the little serpent grew bored and cuddled into the sleeping old man and fell asleep.
Unaware that Tiki suspected that the crystal sword was some legendary weapon that bore a curse, Yoze was rushing toward New Swampscott City. With Yoze''s current top speed it didn''t take long before he saw the massive white walls surrounding the city to protect it from army invasions and demons.
Behind the massive ck walls the Leaning Library that he had witnessed when he first arrived in the city. Even though it had only been a few days since he left, Yoze felt as if he hade back home.
"The City is gathering its army as well?"
Yoze''s eyes twitched as he saw that more than a thousand soldiers were dressed head to toe in ck steel. They all radiated an intense pressure that only came from peak first-rate martial artists. On the shoulder of the soldier''s suit was a brown bird with three golden eyes, which showed that they were all part of New Swampscott City''s elite squadron, The Three-Eyed Golden Crow.
Even though the assembly of New Swampscott would have been Yoze''s main concern at any ordinary time, his attention was rapidly absorbed by the immortals standing on the other side of New Swampscott.
They were standing on top of a mini hill a few miles away from New Swampscott City, where five young people that looked to be in their twenties were standing by arge hill wearing strangely colorful clothing. Each of the five youths had confident looks as they looked down upon the dozens of men and women who ranged from their early teens tote 90s.
Some elders were so old that Yoze could smell and see a thick fog of ck fog of death spiritual energy consuming the small amount of spiritual energy they had left. While the five young men and women who stood next to the hill held confident smiles that radiated colorful light that matched their clothing, everyone else looked like peasants standing before their kings and queens.
Both hoped to be recognized and join the royals in thevish and privileged life, wanting to avoid gaining their attention in case they drew ire instead. But, for these rogue immortal cultivators, almost nothing could be worse than making a bad impression on an immortal.
Not only would their death be painful and horrifying, but everything they had worked for and everyone they loved would be at risk of having the same fate. So regardless of age, the immortal cultivation stage reached, or their status in the mortal world, all the rogue immortal cultivators hung their heads low and waited for their opportunity to shine.
"Those tattoos are nearly identical to Immortal Welse''s immortal tattoos." As Yoze made his way toward the group, he slowed down to attract less attention from the immortal, but when he noticed that out of the five suspected immortals, three had immortal tattoos on their bodies, his heart jumped.
One that attracted the most attention from Yoze was a young man who appeared to be in histe 20s. The young man was covered in ck tattoos in the shape of various weapons from the gods.
Yoze was even able to recognize a few of them, such as the Dark Queen''s Chains of Redemption, the Lightning Hammer of Injustice, and the Spear of Death. On the young man''s skin were hundreds of weapons that radiated their intense pressure and aura Yoze had a feeling that each one of those weapons could manifest into reality.
Simr to Immortal Welse''s tattoos which wiggled across his body as if they were alive, the young man''s ck immortal tattoos swam across his skin like fish. There were even a few times that Yoze was convinced that some of the tattoos that were in the shape of weapons tried to escape the confines of the blonde man''s skin but were trapped, unable to escape their container and unable tomit a ughter.
As Yoze was examining the blonde young man, he seemed to notice Yoze''s gaze and nced back at Yoze, which revealed the intrigued light in his eyes. Then, seeing that he was caught, Yoze shifted his attention to the other two immortals with immortal tattoos.
The first person that attracted Yoze''s attention was a young girl who looked to be in her mid-twenties. The young girl had long blue hair tied into a ponytail and wore a blue dress covered in shifting stars.
Matching the young girl''s style, her entire arm was covered in star shapes, blue tattoos, and circled arms in a hypnotic pattern. But unlike the blonde young man or Immortal Welse, whose tattoos moved across their entire bodies with little restrictions, the young girl''s immortal tattoos were strictly restricted to her arms.
"That young girl must still be in the stage of forming all her immortal tattoos, or else she would be in a simr boat as Immortal Welse." Yoze''s mind raced back to the Immortal Tattoo Cultivation manual and noticed clues that the blue-haired girl was still creating her immortal tattoos.
"While she still hasn''tpleted her immortal tattoos, she should still be capable of using immortal spells that use her immortal tattoos. " Even after finding out that the blued-haired girl was still making her immortal tattoos, Yoze didn''t dare underestimate her since just one strong spell or technique could kill demons.
Like the blonde-haired man, the blue-haired girl seemed to notice Yoze''s presence as she stared directly at Yoze''s eyes with her hazel-colored eyes as if she wanted to devour his soul. Knowing that he had to shift his attention, Yoze turned his focus on thest immortal to show visible signs that they had practiced the immortal tattoo manual.
Thest immortal appeared to be the youngest out of the three looking as if he had just reached adulthood. His clothes were simr to the clothing that government officials dressed their children. It was simple, elegant, and too expensive for any regr person ever to afford.
Chapter 209 209: Failing The First Trail
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The young man''s eyes had a nk stare as if he was always in a daydream. Surrounding the young man''s eyes were red immortal tattoos that pulsed at a regr pace like blood vessels.
Each immortal tattoo swam around his face and asionally took on the shape of several pairs of eyes. Even without the young man''s eyes turning toward him, Yoze could feel a sharp gaze on his neck.
Understanding that he was getting a warning, Yoze turned and observed the other two immortals who didn''t show any signs that they had practiced the immortal tattoo cultivation manual. Instead, the two remaining people took on a simr appearance and appeared to be twins.
They both had short messy blonde hair and crystal blue eyes that made anyone feel as if they were piercing through their souls. Their skin was pale white and seemed to be made of porcin.
If it weren''t for the fact that Yoze could see that each of the twin brothers had their spiritual energy, he would have suspected that they were dolls that were being controlled.
"I wonder if those two are also immortal and what kind of immortal cultivation manual they are practicing." Yoze thought to himself as he joined the crowd of rogue immortal cultivators.
As Yoze joined the crowd, he began to attract the gazes of everyone around simply due to his unique appearance. Not only did he dwarf everyone in height, making them look like childrenpared to him, but he was also covered head to toe in bloody bandages that reeked of blood and medicine.
However, other than attracting a few people''s curiosity, most rogue immortal cultivators turn their attention back to the immortals. For them, this was a matter of life and death, and they couldn''t afford to mess up this chance, so Yoze only took up a tiny bit of their attention.
The same went for the immortals themselves, who were not interested in getting to know a mortal who would be turned into dust due to time while they continued to live forever.
"Patty, I believe that we waited enough time for the rogue immortals to gather. Let''s give these people the opportunity that they desire." The immortal with the nk stare turned towards the young man covered in ck immemorial tattoos.
The immortal named Patty nodded as he stepped forward to address the crowd. Before he opened his mouth, the ck tattoos flew out of his body and transformed into legendary weapons.
"There are three separate tests, and passing either one of them will grant you automatic student rank of the Immortal Pce Sect. Pass two of them, and you will be entitled to a reward that will significantly benefit your immortal cultivation. "
"For those who have reached the peak of the crystal skull realm, this prize will almost guarantee you be immortal. For those who haven''t reached that realm, the prize will elevate you by one realm." Patty unhurriedly said as he watched twinkles of desire appear in the eyes of many of the rogue immortal cultivators.
Especially the rogue immortal cultivators who have long reached the pinnacle of the Crystal Skull realm and were on the verge of dying due to old age; their desire to live was much stronger than the young immortal cultivators who didn''t feel the threat of death every day.
Even Yoze felt his heart itch for the secret prize for passing both trails. Being able to skip an entire realm from a single prize was something Yoze didn''t expect but significantly desired.
If he could use the prize to skip the entirety of the Nerve umtion realm, he would save himself years and immediately be able to move on to the Nerve Crystallization realm. He could then begin to truly incorporate the spells and special abilities that the Fire Immortal and Immortal Tattoo cultivation manuals into his fighting abilities.
Patty''s face remained calm and emotionless even though he knew that he had grabbed the full participation of many of the rogue immortals regardless of the contents of the two trials. After waiting a few seconds to build suspense, Patty continued to describe the three tests.
"The first test is a trial of immortal cultivation talent. Each of you will select one of the weapons I have created. Once you grab the weapon, it will release a bright golden glow that will measure the quality of your crystal nerves."
"The higher the number disyed on the weapon, the better your talent. To pass this trial, you must have an immortal cultivation talent of 5 or greater to be qualified to join our immortal sect without any additional testing."
As Patty finished describing the first test, the atmosphere of the crowd of rogue immortal cultivators dropped as many of the rogue immortal cultivators let out heavy sighs. They already had guessed that such an incredible prize that could raise them by a whole realm couldn''t be given without being incredibly talented or paying a heavy prize.
However, they were hopeful that the immortals would allow them to choose which of the three tests to try their hand to im the prize, but they could only ept that they had no choice. From the beginning, the decision to ept rogue immortal cultivators into their immortal sect was just a front for the immortal sect to use them for something.
And now that the first test was about the appraisal of immortal cultivation talent, they knew that the other two tests were the actual tests they needed to pass to im the prize. The reason for their prediction was that they all knew they would be able to reach the required talent.
If they could pass that test, they would have already been taken to an immortal cultivation sect to go on their journey to be immortals. So why would they have to rely on these tests to enter an immortal sect?
All rogue immortal cultivators knew in their hearts that they were rogue immortal cultivators because they didn''t have enough immortal cultivation talent. Furthermore, their Crystal Nerves talents were all limited to the impure rank, so how would they be able to pass this talent test?
Chapter 210 210: Weapon Selection
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As the atmosphere turned cold from disappointment, Patty didn''t bother to address their concerns and continued to describe the second test.
"The second test consists of examining your immortal cultivation. This portion will also be done through the weapons that you have selected. "
"After the first test has passed, I will embrace each weapon with a Weapon Spirit who will bepletely wild. It will use any method, including attacking you, to try and escape from your hands."
"Your goal is to prevent the weapon spirit from escaping by suppressing it with your crystal energy. The longer you can suppress the weapon spirit, the deeper and stronger your immortal cultivation rank is."
"To pass this test, you must hold onto the weapon for one hour, which should be very easy for those who have reached the Crystal Skull realm," Patty said casually.
Even though it was only casually stated, many of the rogue immortal cultivators who had reached the Crystal Skull realm breathed a sigh of relief. Even those who had only reached the Crystal Spine realm breathed sighs of relief as they realized they could pass this trial easily.
Only those below the Crystal Spine realm faces turned grim as they felt heavy doubt about whether they could sessfully suppress the weapon spirit they were allocated. Those who had only reached the Nerve umtion realm knew there was no possibility that they would be able to pass this test.
They could only hope for a miracle to happen and that the Weapon Spirits didn''t suddenly take on hunger to eat human flesh. Otherwise, they would rather give up now and not take any tests.
Sensing that the atmosphere had risen to eptable levels, Patty continued to describe thest test and the test that contained their actual goal.
"The third test is quite simple. It''s called the Treasure Hunting Test. We will take all of you deep into the Branch Forest, where you must kill nts that have gained sentience and obtain their cores."
"The more cores you can collect within a week will not only increase your chances of getting into the immortal sect but also allow you toe in contact with the monsters that we immortals have to deal with. I''ll also throw in a bone for those who haven''t passed any test."
"As long as you can collect ten cores using any means and methods, you will be epted into the sect."Patty finished speaking as he read the thoughts of the rogue immortal cultivators.
"Are they interested in using us as herb collectors?" Yoze thought to himself.
Simr thoughts ran through the rogue immortal minds, but they didn''t bother to think further as they couldn''t be sure that after two tests, they would want to risk their lives. For them to try and kill monsters that Immortals had to hunt, the possibility of them collecting those cores or surviving at all was slim.
The only few people that had made up their minds to take the third test were extremely old rogue immortal cultivators who were on the brink of death anyways. For them, whether they died in the hands of a monster in pursuit of a better life was better than allowing their brains and bodies to rot with the morsel of time they had left slowly.
"As long as you understand these three tests, we will begin immediately. For those still interested in joining, grab a weapon in five seconds." Patty said with an calm cold tone.
As soon as the words left Patty''s mouth, all the rogue immortal cultivators rushed to select the weapon they felt had the best chance of passing the second test. All therge weapons and small weapons were ignored like they had the gue.
Only weapons like swords and one-handed axes were selected by the fastest rogue immortal cultivators. For the slower rogue immortal cultivators, they snapped up Two-handed axes, spears, and tridents.
Only Yoze and two other people didn''t join this mass race to collect a weapon. Instead, they waited two seconds once most of the weapons were taken and picked out the undesirables.
Yoze walked over to the weapon that had caught his eye. It was a giant two-headed axe whose handle alone was five feet long, several inches thick, and arge axe head that was as wide as his torso. The two-handed battle axe size alone made every other rogue immortal cultivatorpletely get rid of any thoughts of choosing this beast of a weapon.
It was toorge for them to wield properly, and they could only imagine what would happen to them when a weapon spirit took over the two-handed battle axe and tried to kill them. Without even trying, the weapon spirit could kill them simply by making the battle axe fall right on top of them, crushing them to death.
However, for Yoze, this massive battle axe,rger than some of the rogue immortal cultivators surrounding him, was nearly perfect. Not only was the size perfect, but he could make out that this axe used its weight as its primary power source.
Without even adding additional force, Yoze predicted that this battle axe would slice through a person like butter. However, for someone like him who had recently gained the power to manipte gravity, this battle axe would be an excellentpanion if he had to use it for hunting the monsters in the third test.
After deciding that the two-headed battle axe would be his selected weapon, Yoze didn''t waste any time and grabbed the axe''s handle with a single hand. The moment his fingers wrapped around the cold steel handle, the weight of the battle axe fell into his arm.
"This two-headed battle axe weighs around thirty pounds, so incredibly heavy by any weapon standard. Unfortunately, it doesn''t weigh as much as I hoped, but this will do." Yoze quietly thought to himself as he casually lifted the giant two-headed battle axe as if made of cardboard.
Chapter 211 211: Golden Pillars
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With the weight of the battle axe in his hand, Yoze took the time to look at what the other two people had chosen. The first person was a young woman wearing a long ck and white striped robe which paired nicely with her ck and white dyed hair.
Regardless of her appearance, the young woman was surrounded by a thick fog of death spirituality, showing her actual age was much older. Yet, to still be alive and keep a strong mind showed her strength as she picked up a giant bow and arrow with images of howling wolves.
Just swinging around the bow in the air made a terrifying howling sound that sent chills down the spines of rogue cultivators near her. Then, with such a unique weapon in her hand, the woman let out a wide smile as she ced the arrow in her mouth and drew the bow as if to fire a shot.
"To draw that bow, her strength must be quite high." Watching the woman easily draw the bow with her skinny arms showed that she wasn''t only experienced in drawing a bow but that her strength was almost disproportionate to her physical appearance.
From the bowstring''s thickness, the bow''s size, and many other factors, it could be seen that it took incredible strength that should only be possible if one practiced a strength-type body cultivation method. Yet, Yoze could tell the young woman didn''t practice body cultivation methods or martial art but still was able to disy so much raw strength.
After making a note of the woman, Yoze focused on the other man who had picked up his weapon after the rush. The young man, who appeared to be in his twenties, had spikey orange hair and orange-colored eyes and was only four feet tall.
Though the young man was very small, he was ripped out of his mind. Just looking at the young man, who seemed to have a body fat ratio below one percent and had muscles that made him look like a bull bred to fight, made Yoze nod his head with respect.
He was happy to see another person who appreciated the art of having a powerful body that only used muscles. He almost wanted to walk over to the young man and give him a pat on the shoulder, encouraging him on his journey.
When Yoze looked at the weapon the young man had selected, he couldn''t help but feel that he didn''t have to worry about the young man ever changing his path as he chose one of thergest weapons avable. A giant greatsword whose de was engraved with countless demons that were being struck by heavenly lightning.
Just from the design of the de, Yoze could see that it was supposed to be a near-identical copy of the Lightning Demon de. A sword wielded by a Martial Grandmaster a thousand years ago was said to be one of the few martial artists who yed a demon and used its bones, teeth, and ws to form the Lightning Demon de.
The Lightning Demon de was made to be the perfect weapon for the Martial Grandmaster, who was nearly 7 feet tall. So when wielded by most people, the great sword was toorge and heavy for them to use.
This became almostically ridiculous as the Lightning Demon Sword was around 6 feet long, which made it taller than the young man. Yet, in this young man''s hands, the Lightning Demon de seemed hollow as he easily swung it, causing bursts of strong wind.
"Now that everyone has selected their weapons, we will begin with the first test." Patty calmly said as he pped his hands.
Just as Patty gave the signal, Yoze felt his two-headed battle axe rapidly heating up in his hands as a golden glow began to emit from the weapon. The golden light spread throughout his entire body as it went into his pores.
As the golden light entered his body, Yoze felt as if he was dunked in warm water, and he felt extremelyfortable. Unfortunately, after a few seconds, the golden light left his body and was reabsorbed into the battle axe.
It wasn''t just Yoze''s weapon, but every rogue cultivator experienced the same thing with their weapon. Each of their weapons released an almost blinding golden light that invaded their bodies before being reabsorbed into the weapon''s body.
A few seconds after the golden light was being reabsorbed, one of the elderly men''s weapon, whose spiritual energy was on the brink ofpletely being eroded, released a golden pir of light. The golden pir reached almost 30 feet in height before stopping and showing three ck tattoo marks inside.
"Grade 3 immortal cultivation talent. You are in the impure realm and are thus unqualified to pass this test." Patty with a cold voice.
As soon as the first golden pir appeared, the rest quickly began to follow. One another after another, golden pirs rose into the sky with varying heights.
Very soon, people began to realize that the size of the pir was directly proportional to the person''s immortal cultivation talent. So, for every grade a person''s talent reached, the golden pir would grow another 10 feet allowing everyone to easily see who had the best immortal cultivation talent.
With the average immortal cultivation talent rogue immortal cultivators possessed being around grade 2 to 3, whenever a golden pir reached 40 feet in height, everyone knew couldn''t help but give them cautious nces. Even though everyone knew that they would all fail, this test still allowed them to see which one of them held the best talent and thus could pose a big threat.
It didn''t take long for Yoze''s battle axe to finish its evaluation of his immortal cultivation talent and release its golden pir. At this point, many rogue immortal cultivations had grown bored of the golden pirs. So they stopped paying attention to most of them.
But when they saw the oneing from Yoze, they couldn''t help but be curious about what kind of talent someone this freakishlyrge could have. Was his talent only average, below average, or would he have a grade-four talent?
In a blink of an eye, Yoze''s golden pir passed thirty feet and made many rogue immortal cultivators squint their eyes as they marked him as a threat. In another blink, it passed 40 feet, reached a height of 50 feet, and still showed signs of continuous growth.
This immediately sent rm bells ringing in all the rogue immortal cultivators'' heads as they watched with their mouths wide open as they saw what should have been improbable, if not impossible. Even the immortals looked at the golden pir with surprise as they never expected to find a rogue cultivator with enough talent to join an immortal sect on his own.
Chapter 212 212: Killer Weapon Spirit
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Once Yoze''s golden pir reached 60 feet in height and easily dwarfed all the other rogue immortal cultivators. After that, everyone from the rogue cultivators to the immortals looked at Yoze with shock and suspicion.
They felt that someone with a grade 6 talent in immortal cultivation would have been long picked up by an immortal sect. There was no other way for him to have discovered that he had crystal nerves without an immortal cultivator from an immortal sect contacting him and testing his talent.
It was widely known that only immortal cultivators epted into immortal sects would be allowed to learn the method to find and test the immortal cultivation talent in someone. The reason was simple: why would they give up their monopoly on recruiting talented individuals and allow the possibility that rogue immortal cultivators gather people who have the potential to be immortals?
If the gathering wasrge enough, then the restriction on not being able to reach the Crystal Brain realm would eventually be solved. It would no longer be a problem because, with all the knowledge they umted throughout their cultivation, they could form their own methods to crystalize their brains and be immortal.
The invention of immortal cultivation methods was all created by people with talent who were willing to risk their lives in pursuit of immortality. Unfortunately, countless people died trying, but a few people were able to have some sess in their research.
Creating several branching paths such as witchcraft, immortal cultivation, and body cultivation for martial arts. The immortal cultivation path was simply a method. As long as the conditions for creating another path or solving the mystery for their method were met, then there was a high possibility for it to happen.
So most immortal sects agree to not only not give rogue immortal cultivators the whole path to immortality but also not give them any method to identify who was talented in immortal cultivation. Under these circumstances, it was extremely rare for anyone with talent not to have been sucked up by an immortal sect.
"A grade 6 talent in immortal cultivation means that you have entered the Pure rank and thus have passed the test. Since you passed, you no longer need to continue with the rest of the tests unless you want to im the prize." Patty said swiftly towards Yoze.
"I would like to continue," Yoze said without saying anything further.
"Okay," Patty nodded and noticed that other than Yoze, who was an abnormality, the rest of the rogue immortal cultivators had talents below grade 5.
"For those who failed or want to proceed, continue to hold onto your weapons as the second test is about to begin," Patty said with a cold smile on his face as he pped his hands twice.
As soon as Patty finished his sentence, many rogue immortal cultivators felt a chill run down their spines as the golden light that formed the golden pirs turned ck. It was to their relief that the ck pirs of light were reabsorbed into the weapons they came out of.
"Ahhh!"
A blood-curdling scream suddenly drew everyone''s attention as they turned to focus on a young man in his twenties staring at his weapon with terrified eyes. His weapon was a giant pair of scissors whose sharp edges were covered in spikes, but oddly, the scissors were not only open but moving towards the young man''s neck.
"Stop, stop, I quit! I don''t want to keep going on with the test!" The young man screamed at Patty as his arm trembled in a helpless attempt to stop his scissor from beheading him.
Patty coldly looked at the young man and said nothing as he watched the giant scissor grow closer and closer until a quick snip took off the young man''s head, leaving only a blood stump where his head was previously located. Watching that scene made every rogue immortal aware that they needed to try their best to pass this test, or they would end up with their bodies mutted.
Simr scenes began to appear everywhere as rogue immortal cultivators who didn''t have enough crystal energy struggled to suppress their weapons from leaving their control. Yet many of them still found that it was simply not enough, and those below the Crystal Spine realm lost control of their weapons one after another.
Luckily some of the weapon spirits seemed kinder as they didn''t try to kill the rogue immortal cultivators and simply escaped their hands, others would knock out the rogue immortal cultivators, and some would just injure the rogue immortal cultivators without killing them.
This could have been because most rogue immortal cultivators who were on the brink of losing control instead reused the rest of their energy escaping from their weapons, resulting in fewer deaths. The rest of the rogue immortal cultivators continued their struggle to keep suppressing their weapons until an hour passed.
As Yoze watched this all unfold in less than half an hour, he couldn''t help but look at his weapon with curiosity as he barely felt any struggle to escape his grasp. Yet, even though he knew it was trying its best, Yoze couldn''t help but feel a bit disappointed as he hoped for a better fight.
Just then, as Yoze thought he would not have to worry about losing control of his weapon, Yoze noticed that a ck glow wasing from his two-headed battle axe and growing more intense by the second.
The ck glow grew as the ck light became dark until it was an inky ck that no light could pass through. Then, finally, the ck lightpletely engulfed his battle axe transforming it into its own shadow.
At the same time, Yoze could sense that the strength of his battle axe''s struggle rapidly grew stronger for 15 minutes before it stopped since it reached its maximum potential. With his hand gripped tightly around the ck two-headed battle axe, Yoze wanted to test if he could inject his inner vigor into the battle axe and use that as a substitute for hisck of crystal energy.
Chapter 213 213: A Special Connection
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Curious about how his inner vigor would react to entering an external weapon made from immortal tattoos, Yoze immediately tried to test it out. Then, taking a deep breath, he manipted his Big Golem inner vigor to try and enter the battle axe.
However, just as the heavy inner vigor was about to leave his skin, Yoze could sense that inner vigor reached a roadblock. No matter what he did, he couldn''t get his inner vigor to leave his skin and enter the weapon.
"As expected, simply having a talent for inner vigor maniption isn''t enough to allow inner vigor to leave the body. I have to break through the Big Golem body cultivation a few more times to gain this ability, or I need to reach the Martial Grandmaster realm."
Knowing that he hadn''t reached the stage where he would be able to have his inner vigor be able to enter foreign bodies just yet, Yoze stopped the fruitless attempts. Instead, he tried to use a more indirect method, such as covering the battle axe in his blood before filling it up with his inner vigor.
Even though this wouldn''t count as his inner vigor truly entering the weapon, Yoze viewed this more as practice for when he did the same for the crystal sword in the future. So he immediately took action and controlled the blooding from his wounds to cover the battle axe.
With a single thought, the blood stains on the bandages wrapped around his body shifted slightly as blood from his still-healing wounds began to flood outside his body while increasing his blood production levels to new heights.
Within mere seconds the mostly clean bandages became dyed with dark blood before swiftly moving to cover every inch of the ck battle axe. As soon as Yoze''s blood made contact with the battle axe, he felt a faint connection form between him and the battle axe.
"This feels familiar to the sensation that I got when I formed a bond with the giant serpent and white tiger. A bit different when I first tried it with other weapons, but this might be the case with any weapon that has a connection with life." Yoze thought to himself with curiosity, making a mental note to himself that he should test his hypothesis more in the future.
Still, this revtion didn''t stop Yoze from covering the battle axe with his blood to make it his blood weapon. Blood rapidly climbed the battle axe''s handle before covering the two des in less than a second.
As soon as Yoze''s bloodpletely covered the battle axe, he felt his connection with the battle axe strengthen further. As this connection grew, Yoze could feel his blood heart activating, causing the sound of his heart beating to be audible.
The sound of a heart beating immediately drew the five immortals'' attention toward him as they were curious about what could be causing that thumping sound. When they saw that the thumping sound wasing from Yoze''s chest while he was covered in bloody bandages and holding a version of the two-headed battle axe covered in blood.
Seeing that Yoze had to resort to using the pathetic abilities that practicing martial arts could give people, a single thought passed through all their heads.
"He must be struggling if he needs to resort to martial arts to try and keep his weapon in his control."
In their minds, using martial arts to try and suppress these legendary weapons created by Patty''s immortal tattoos was a fruitless endeavor. Only by resorting to the means of immortal cultivation could these weapons be suppressed.
Even though they looked at Yoze''s disy with disapproval, none cared enough to try and stop him from using martial arts. Since they knew that even if he had reached the Blood Master realm or even the peak of the Martial Grandmaster realm, there was no possibility that he could stop his head from being chopped off.
Only two exceptions looked at Yoze''s action with curiosity, Patty and the young man whose eyes had a permit nk stare. These two saw that not only was Yoze not in danger of not getting killed by his weapon but that he was suppressing it with pure physical ability alone.
The young man, whose eyes were nk, controlled his red immortal tattoos to enter his eyeballs as he whispered a few words rapidly. The red immortal tattoos quickly collided and tangled into each other to form a crude three-dimensional model of Yoze''s body.
As soon as the model was created, inside the young man''s mind, he began to see through Yoze''s bodyyer byyer until he noticed a strange heart thumping inside Yoze''s chest in addition to his normal heart. Even though the scene of a second heart was strange, the young man ignored it. Instead, he continued to peel away everyyer of Yoze''s body until he saw theyer out of his crystal nerves.
"Interesting," The young man muttered to himself, drawing the other four immortals'' attention.
"Patty and Scotty, did you detect if there was a problem with that young man? Is he from a different immortal sect trying to spy on us?" The blue-haired immortal asked casually.
"No problem that I can detect. It''s just that he hasn''t even created his first set of crystal nerves." Patty said.
"Are you saying that he hasn''t even entered the Nerve umtion realm yet? If so, is he suppressing your weapon spirit with pure strength alone?" The blue-haired immortal''s eyes widened slightly from shock, but she quickly readjusted herself to regain herposure.
"Yes, but that shouldn''t be a problem with whether he passes this test or not. I don''t want my weapon to be toyed with." Patty grumbled.
Even though he was unhappy that Yoze felt so rxed with suppressing one of his weapons created by his immortal tattoos, Patty didn''t care to y any tricks against Yoze since there was no benefit to doing so. The two-headed battle axe was simply one of the many low-level weapons he had created in his youth and hadn''t bothered to spend the time improving its design or power.
If he had done so, there wouldn''t be a need to even go through with this test, as not a single person here would be capable of suppressing one of his immortal-grade weapons. They would die simply from the aura of his weapon being brought to reality.
Chapter 214 214: Crystal Grapes
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"What do you have to say, Scott?"
Noticing that Scotty had activated one of his observation spells, Patty was interested in what he had found. Hearing that the others wanted to know what he saw, Scotty smiled as he confirmed what Patty had mentioned.
"I just checked to see if he truly never set foot into the realm of Nerve umtion. As everyone here knows, it''smon for other immortals to take control or create new bodies for themselves."
"So I wanted to confirm that not only had he never stepped foot into the realm, but he wasn''t an immortal or an incarnation of one. But what I found is much more interesting than any of that."
"Still, I can confirm with Patty that he is using pure physical prowess to suppress the weapon." The immortal that had red immortal tattoos calmly spoke as he had a look of amusement on his face.
"Are you going to tell us, or am I going to have to squeeze the information out of you?" Patty said not in the mood to y with Scotty.
"You''re wee to try. But, I will throw your lifeless body into the bottomless hole with that young man you called your best friend," Scotty sharply replied to Patty.
"Watch who you''re talking to, boy. If you weren''t Elder Dartmouth''s son, you would have been killed long ago."
"You are more than 150 years old, yet you haven''t even finished constructing your immortal tattoos. You are simply pathetic." Patty''s eyes seemed to have been set in a ze at Scotty''sments as the pressure from the immortal tattoos exploded.
The pressure was so intense that Scotty''s nk eyes opened wide with fear as his knees trembled as he struggled to keep his bnce. The blood drained out of his face as he could sense an invisible de, made out of crystal energy, on his throat.
He knew that his throat would have been shed open if he had made even the slightest movement. It took a few seconds before Scotty''s mind regained rity, and he realized that he no longer had to fear Patty and his death.
"I am an immortal dammit! So what if he slices my throat? I will regenerate ande back to life." Once Scotty understood that he was in danger and Patty''s threats were as empty as his soul, he stopped fearing for his life.
"Slice my throat, Patty. The only thing that will aplish is hastening your own terrible fate. Do it!" Scotty screamed angrily as he stared at Patty like he was his mortal enemy.
"Okay," Patty said coldly as he waved his hand.
Before Scotty could protest or attempt to save himself, his body was sliced into thousands of cubes, and he instantly died. Seeing the pile of flesh and bone cubes, Patty scoffed as he turned his attention back toward the crowd of rogue immortal cultivators.
While Patty and Scotty got into a fierce fight, the blue-haired female immortal and the twins watched everything silently as they didn''t want to be embroiled in their feud. They already had enough enemies that they needed to watch out for and didn''t want to add another one to their long lists.
It wasn''t only the immortals who witnessed the shocking scene of Scotty''s death. All the rogue immortal cultivators saw everything unfold and couldn''t help but be shocked. They knew that immortals were powerful, but they didn''t realize that there was still such arge gap between immortals.
To witness another immortal be diced up into thousands of cubes without even being able to let out a scream terrified them to their core. They knew that if it were them, they would be in an even worse position since, unlike Scotty, the immortal who could return to life, they would remain dead for eternity.
This revtion that they would still be cannon fodder even if they somehow became immortals at the end of this ordeal disturbed a small portion of the rogue immortal cultivators'' minds. Unfortunately, this slight distribution dramatically increased the death rate of many rogue immortal cultivators, resulting in only 60 remaining after the hour.
As soon as the time limit had been reached, Patty waved his hand, causing every rogue immortal cultivator to feel that the pressure from their weapons suddenly disappeared. Even Yoze felt a bit unbnced at the sudden disappearance of the small morsel of resistance that his battle axe provided him.
"Time''s up! Thirty-three of you have passed the test and have earned the ability to join our immortal sect."
"We will be moving on to the third test, which will take ce in the Branch Forest. So for those who want to continue, step forward." Patty calmly said.
Shortly after he called for those interested in continuing to the third trial, nearly all of the rogue immortal cultivators stepped forward with determination. Only those who failed the second test due to being below the Crystal Spine realm and weren''t killed didn''t dare step forward.
After these two tests, they knew clearly that the chances of them passing the third trail to enter the immortal sect had be even slimmer than the previous tests. Not to mention that the chances of them being killed had risen nearly one hundred percent.
So with those unbeatable odds, ten rogue immortal cultivators did not step forward as they sighed with regret. The only exception to that rule was Yoze, the only person who had already passed two tests and was qualified to get the secret prize.
Noticing that Yoze didn''t step forward, a glint flew through Patty''s eyes as he reached his hand into his pouch before eventually pulling out a translucent purple marble the size of arge grape. But, of course, what drew every person''s attention to the purple marble was the purple mist swirling inside that made every rogue immortal cultivator''s crystal nerves throb with hunger.
"Young man, as the only person who has passed two tests, you are qualified to get the Crystal Grape. By eating this while cultivating, you can drag out the crystal energy inside the grape and use that energy to reach the next realm."
"Regarding the remaining point of joining our sect, congrattions on bing a fellow student. We wille back to take you back to our headquarters after concluding thisst trial. Do you understand?" Patty said as he tossed the purple marble into Yoze''s hands.
"Yes, I will meet you back here a week from now." Yoze calmly said to Patty as he focused on the beautiful marble.
Chapter 215 215: Star Map
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As soon as the purple marble touched Yoze''s palm, he felt that the aching of his crystal nerves increased. He felt as if his body was seeing purified crystal blue water for the first time while in a hot desert.
Only by drinking the ss of water could his thirst be quenched and his strength be regained to continue on the long walk through the sandy deserts. But, unfortunately, Yoze could only swallow his saliva instead of eating the Crystal Grape inside his hands as he wanted to test a few things beforehand.
When Yoze resisted the temptation and looked up to see the hungry and hopeful looks in every rogue immortal cultivator''s eyes. Many of the strongest eyes with the strongest desires and hope came from the rogue immortal cultivators participating in the third trial.
Yoze knew those looks very well and knew that while they each knew of the danger that the third trial would have, they were all confident in their ability to survive. They each had confidence that only those who hadn''t truly faced the horrors of this world would have.
As someone who knew that there were simply things that were impossible to prepare for, he knew that whatever preparation or skill these rogue immortal cultivators had would be useless. Most of them are simply tossing their lives away for the irresistible temptation of skipping a realm.
For the older rogue immortal cultivators who were on the brink of death, they felt that this was their only chance to survive long enough to be immortal. While others feel that if they didn''t take this opportunity, they would be far behind the other students in the immortal sect.
After witnessing the brutal suppression that an immortal could face against another immortal, many wanted to obtain every opportunity to make them stronger and put them on par with the more talented immortal cultivators. As for whether or not they could sessfully pass this trial where they werepeting against other rogue immortal cultivators was less of a concern for them. As long as they survived, that was all that mattered.
While Yoze couldn''t fault any of them for trying their best to change their futures, he couldn''t help but view them all as future corpses. He already had a feeling that the arrival of the immortals was too suspicious. That feeling only increased further after that unexpected feud between the immortal called Patty and the immortal called Scotty.
He felt that conflict was nned and used to gather as much volunteer cannon fodder as they could before visiting their true goal in the Branch Forest. As someone who had most likely killed one of the students of the Immortal Pce Sect, Yoze had no desire to be part of their n and no desire to join a test that he would not benefit from.
Rather he knew that by skipping, not only was he saving himself the headache of having to deal with the possibility of being put in a dangerous situation, but it also allowed him time to recuperate and reach the Crystallization realm and begin to incorporate his spells into attack style.
"Now that the reward has been allocated, we will now leave to begin the third trial. Miessy can you please help provide transportation for these people?" Patty said with a gentle voice.
"That is why I am here," The blue-haired female immortal eyes glowed with a suspicious light as she knew that Patty was trying to lure her into his conflict with Scotty.
After Patty gestured for her to continue, Miessy stepped forward in her starry blue dress and lifted her arms into the sky. Then, without saying a singlemand, her immortal tattoos, which were in the shape of stars, began to spin around her arms at extreme speeds.
After allowing her immortal tattoos to reach the required speed, Miessy pped her hands together, forcing her immortal tattoos to fly off her arms in a random direction in the sky. With her star-shaped immortal tattoos in the sky, they blocked the light from the sun in a ten feet radius, creating an artificial night sky that only contained her stars.
"Miessy, your Star Map technique is truly getting better. I can advise you on how to improve the quality of your immortal tattoos if you want. I just need a favor." Patty bluntly said to Miessy.
"I am sorry, Patty, but I want to continue creating my own path. Plus, I prefer quantity to quality, so I apologize for not epting your offer." Miessy replied quickly before ncing at the pile of Scotty cubes that had yet to finish regenerating.
"No need to apologize, but my offer still stands if you ever find yourself in need," Patty said with a cold smile.
Miessy shook her head and could only silently sigh with regret from epting this mission. She had only just finished constructing her Star Map and even was able to upgrade it to include offensive means. However, when it came to pure killing power, she was still far behind a Plot Immortal such as Patty.
She still needed far more time to continue developing herself and didn''t want to make more enemies. She already had more than a hundred enemies that she needed to deal with, and adding Patty or Scotty to that long list would simply slow down her development.
So Miessy simply didn''t say a word to Patty and snapped her fingers toward the crowd of rogue immortal cultivators. With a crisp snap, all the rogue immortal cultivators that had stepped forward turned into blue beams of light that flew into her Star Map, bing small constetions.
As soon as thest person was added to her Star Map, Miessy retrieved her immortal tattoos and began to walk in the direction of the Branch Forest. After taking only three steps, her body began to crumble into blue specks of light that flew toward the Branch Forest at speeds up to several hundred miles an hour.
Chapter 216 216: Evolving Plants
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Watching the stars made up of Miessy''s body fly away, Patty''s eyes turned cold before he waved his hand to summon a long ck pole covered in blueish clouds and dragons. With the appearance of the long ck pole, a white fog with a faint smell of flowers appeared as it hid Patty''s body.
"Is that the Fog Dragon Pole that was said to belong to the legendary Fog Witch? This immortal must be interested in stories." Seeing that Patty had once again drawn out another weapon that Yoze had only heard about from fairy tales, Yoze felt his excitement of finally stepping on the immortal path.
He initially thought that immortal tattoos were limited to creating beast tattoos. Still, from just a limited selection of mortals, he had seen four different paths, the Path of Beasts, the Path of Weapons, the Path of Eyes, and the Path of Stars.
They each had interesting effects and spells that would help increase his battle prowess immensely. However, Yoze was more interested in the possibility that he could form his own path that wouldn''t lose to any other.
He could already break through the limits of martial art techniques and body cultivation methods and adapt them to fit his needs. So it wasn''t a stretch to assume that as long as he could collect more spells and talents rted to immortal cultivation, he would be capable of adapting and breaking the limits of spells just as easily as he does with martial art techniques.
At the moment, Yoze had been able to collect different sets of immortal cultivation manuals, the fire immortal cultivation manual, and the immortal tattoo cultivation manual. With just these two manuals, he was already filled with ideas on how to improve them further.
While Yoze was busy imagining his future, Patty threw his copy of the Fog Dragon Pole before jumping on top of it like a skateboard. However, the moment his shoes touched the Fog Dragon Pole, they seemed to fuse with its surface causing the Fog Dragon Pole to immediately stop its ascent and hover several feet above the ground.
With his feet attached to the pole, Patty looked in the direction that Miessy was traveling in and turned into a ck light that rapidly narrowed the distance between them. As for the twins, once Yoze turned his attention toward where they previously stood, he realized they were already gone without him even noticing.
"Impressive. If they can only still be considered students of the Immortal Pce Sect. How powerful are the elders and the sect leader? In my current state, I hardly believe I coulde out alive if I fought against the immortal named Patty."
"From just the brief glimpse that I had seen of his skills, Patty seems to have more spells under his belt than Welse. Not only that, the weapons that he is capable of producing are stronger than the weapons that Immortal Welse created, but Immortal Patty has more variety as well."
"But that is an unfairparison for Immortal Welse since his immortal tattoos focused on transforming into beasts. And in our fight, I only saw two of his transformations out of an unknown amount. Hence, it''s impossible to make aparison between them." Yoze sighed as he was once again reminded of too many dangerous things about this world that he had no information on and could only take his time and train until he could deal with any threat.
After ensuring he ced his Crystal Grape into his pouch, Yoze turned his attention toward the Two-Headed Battle Axe covered in his own blood. He felt it was odd that Immortal Patty didn''t bother retrieving his weapon back.
It made him ufortable at the thought that someone could be using this weapon as a spying device, so he reabsorbed his blood and tossed the Two-Headed Battle Axe next to Immortal Scotty''s body which had almost finished regenerating.
After which, Yoze quickly made his way back toward New Swamp Town to ensure his family would not be targeted by the immortals on their way to the Branch Forest.
Yoze even took a roundabout way to get to New Swamp Town to avoid being detected by the immortals. Even then, with Yoze''s speed, he arrived before the immortals made it three fourth of the way to the Branch Forest.
Back at the far eastern path side of the Branch Foresty the Gecko region''s territory. But, unfortunately, that had turned into a war zone where every valley, cliff, and behind every boulder was a soldier killing rapidly growing nts.
Each soldier dressed head to toe in metal armor was sending powerful strikes at the ever-expanding Branch Forest nt life shredding everything in their path. But, with the widespread invasion, Floyd and the other soldiers felt that the rocky terrain was more beneficial for them than they thought.
With the limited amount of space avable to nt their roots on the earth paired with the sometimes dozens of miles deepyer of rocks before the roots could hit anything that could help their growth, only a few sections of the Gecko territory had rampant forest growth. As for the territories that did, General Blood Stone ced himself and his elite soldiers to block those paths.
What surprised everyone was the rumor that destroying any of the nt life from the Branch Forest gave a refreshing and energetic sensation was true. Even Floyd felt the nearly addictive sense of having his mind cleared and his body filled to the brim with energy after finishing off a few roots cut off from their main body.
With this discovery, each soldier couldst even longer in this war before needing to retreat to rest than they first predicted. Yet, even with this discovery, Floyd felt that this was another ominous sign as such a strange urrence that seemed to benefit them could only be followed by another that would harm them dearly.
The only question was whether they even had a choice to reject this temporary blessing. At this moment, they could suppress the forest from expanding further and even push it back a few feet, but they could all sense that this was only the beginning.
Just a few hours ago, the nts attacked them only when they were on the path toward the ground where the nt''s roots nned to bury themselves. Now the nts seemed to have evolved as they attacked everything that was not nt life that entered the range of their roots.
This increased the danger of getting closer to the Branch Forest and signaled that the longer this war continued, the more dangerous and difficult it would be to suppress the Branch Forest''s expansion.
Chapter 217 217: Using A Rock To Fight
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"Bang!"
The sound of rocks crumbling snapped Floyd out of a possible future and returned to focus on the present. An active battlefield was undergoing, and right now, a thick root busted out of the wall from the valley he was in and wiggled around wildly, trying to find anything it could pierce through.
Noticing this, a tall soldier beside Floyd took action and stepped forward to deal with the four feet long root. The soldier took an audible deep breath and quickly grabbed the root with a single hand.
Taking another deep breath, the tall soldier swung his remaining hand in a chopping motion directly at the base of the root. With a harsh thuding from the source of impact, the tall soldier couldn''t help but feel pleased with himself as he had once again improved the power of his Earthly Chop.
Even though he only created a slight bend across the thickest part of the root, that was much betterpared to what he was capable of a few hours ago. If it took him ten chops to slice through this root a few hours ago, then now he predicted he had lowered the amount to only nine chops.
It wasn''t a significant difference for most people, but this was a great sess for someone like him who had been stuck on the same stage of the Earthly Chop martial art technique for years. While the soldier felt a bit better about himself, he didn''t stop his chops even for the slightest second as powerful chop after chop came right after another, not giving the root any chance to regain any ground.
Within only a few seconds, the root was utterly cut off from its main body and went berserk. It tried to pierce through the tall soldier''s body. Still, the tall soldier had plenty of experience dealing with other simr roots, so he quickly suppressed and chopped it into much smaller pieces before allowing others to finish it off while he dealt with other nts.
Knowing that this was his time to shine, Floyd immediately picked up arge rock, found a small root that was still alive, and mmed therge rock on top of it. Even with a 10-pound stone crushing it, the root held on for its dear life for three more strikes from Floyd before it died.
Just as Floyd sessfully killed the root, he felt his mind be slightly clearer and answers to questions he always had started to show themselves. He even began to understand some of the martial arts his grandfather wanted to teach him when he was younger.
Unfortunately, this sensation onlysted for less than a second before it disappeared. Being familiar with the process, Floyd didn''t bother stopping to think and walked to the nearest mini root and began to crush it with hisrge rock.
It wasn''t just Floyd, many of the weaker soldiers, such as the medical and scouts who don''t have much fighting power, resorted to dealing with the leftover pests or nt roots. But, of course, many of them didn''t need to resort to using arge rock like himself since they were familiar with martial arts.
Even though he was an oddball in the troops, no one bothered to tease him or doubted his ability to deal with the roots since most of the soldiers ced their trust in each other. The stronger soldiers dealt with therger roots and destroyed the central bodies of the nts. Inparison, the weaker soldiers took care of the leftovers.
As Floyd was dealing with his hundredth small root, he suddenly noticed something rapidly approaching from the corner of his eye. Curious about what he could be, he looked up and saw a beautiful array of blue stars alongside a ck light rapidly closing in on them from the sky.
As Floyd witnessed this strange phenomenon, a strange chill crawled down his spine as he could only think that this was an ominous sign. And possibly could be an asteroiding to strike them down.
"General Blood Stone, something has been detected in our sky and is quickly approaching us."
Hearing the voice of one of his soldiers from his scout team shouting at him, General Blood Stone temporarily stopped his massacre of the nt life and withdrew before looking into the sky. However, it didn''t take long before he saw a ck ray of light quickly flying over them and flying deep into the Branch Forest''s interior while also being followed by hundreds of blue stars.
The scene was magical and was imprinted not only in his mind but also in the minds of all the soldiers in the Gecko territory. Without even him having to dere it to his soldiers, many soldiers thought that this was the appearance of immortals and felt a bit more assured that they could sessfully stop this crisis from reaching New Swamp Town.
General Blood Stone and Floyd breathed a small sigh of relief as they had simr thoughts. However, if this appearance had been caused by a battle between an immortal and a demon, then that meant that there was nothing they could do to stop it.
They could only hold on until whatever was causing the nt life in the Branch Forest to spread and evolve rapidly stopped naturally, or they would have to find out the source causing this abnormal event. The issue came from the fact that there was a real possibility that this strange event wouldn''t stop naturally, and they would fail to deal with the source.
What all the generals were most afraid of was if the source of the anomaly wasing from the depths of the Endless Forest. If the source of this problemes from the Endless Forest, there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop the source.
If even an army of Martial Grandmasters, who were the peak of what humanity was capable of, couldn''t cross the depths of the Endless Forest and disappeared without a trace, then there was nothing that New Swamp Town or New Swampscott City could do about the source of the problem.
Chapter 218 218: Missing Welse
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The only ones that could deal with a threat deep inside the Endless Forest would-be immortals. While they couldn''t be sure that these immortals were here to help them, General Blood Stone still felt that their appearance was a good sign.
While General Blood Stone was starting in the direction that Immortal Patty and Miessy were traveling in, a strange bush with blue leaves and purple fruit on its branches went on a frenzy as it used its hundreds of thousands of thin roots to upynd faster than the nts around it.
Within less than a few seconds, arge percentage of the frontline became covered by the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of this single blue bush. Once General Blood Stone confirmed that the immortals had left his vision, he turned his attention toward the frontline that had nearly be a blue field.
"I could be an ultra-wealthy man that could feed three generations from this amount of Char Berry Bushes. But, unfortunately, they appeared here," General Blood Stone thought to himself after he saw the number of Char Berry Bushes on the frontline.
If this was in regr times, each Char Berry Bush would produce 100 silver worth of Char berries that were fantastic for many types of food and were frequently used as a recement ingredient for many medicines. Unfortunately, the growth of these Char berry bushes was slow, and they tended to die easily, so the number of farmers who could sessfully harvest this nt was small.
With the amount of Char Berry Bushes in front of him, General Blood Stone imagined that he could be wealthier than the richest man in New Swamp Town. After daydreaming, General Blood Stone took a deep breath and adjusted his thoughts.
Within an instant, an oppressive and bloody aura exploded out of General Bood Stone''s body, causing the rapid expansion of the frenzy Char Berry bushes to slow down as they found it difficult to move their roots. The previous blood ws that he formed between his knuckles quickly grew until they transformed into several feet-long blood des.
Without hesitation, General Blood Stone dived straight into the Char Berry bushes and began to spin rapidly. Then, at a speed that the naked eye couldn''t see, the long frontline of Char Berry bushes was shredded into pieces with no hope of revival.
After pushing the front line back a few inches, General Blood Stone retreated as he allowed his mind to experience the refreshing sensation that came from killing such arge amount of nts. Countless thoughts rted to the mission, his grandson''s future, the hatred he had in his heart, the promise he made so long ago, and improving his martial art techniques swirled around in his mind.
He couldn''t help but feel a deep regret covering his heart as he was reminded that he had so much more that he had to do. Not only to protect his family but also to satisfy his revenge and his heartfelt wish to be a Martial Grandmaster.
He wanted to experience more and want to do much more, but he knew that his time limit was approaching soon. Even without this battle that might take away his life at any moment, he knew that he only had a few more years ahead of him before he died.
"I might as well take out my frustration on this war."
Even as General Blood Stone''s mind became increasingly refreshed, his body became increasingly restless as he felt his emotions slowly overwhelming his cautiousness. Knowing full well that this was one of the signs that the refreshing and energizing sensation that gued the army was beginning to show its side effects, he suppressed his frustrations as best as he could.
"Inform everyone to take caution when killing the nts and animals from the Branch Forest! If they begin to feel the need to go wild or throw caution, tell them to retreat toward the backline even if they aren''t injured or tired!" General Blood Stone shouted towards all the soldiers that were nearby.
Understanding that their general wanted them to temporarily leave the battlefield up to him to inform every single soldier, all of the elite soldiers gave a stern nod to General Blood Stone before quickly retreating. Watching his soldiers leave, General Blood Stone sighed as he wished that this war be over as soon as possible.
While the war between humans and the Branch Forest continued and became more brutal, Patty and Miessy arrived at their previously chosen location for the third test. Afternding on the soft soil of the forest covered with trees, bushes, vines, and all sorts of nt life that were several hundreds of feet tall, they were given the impression that they were in the forest of giants.
"Patty, you must have noticed that massive crater back in the Branch Forest. That crater shows visible signs that it was left behind by Welse, meaning that he was here and was fighting something." Miessy said casually with no urgency in her voice to find Welse.
"Whether or not he died is none of our concern. He shouldn''t have been so greedy to try and get an early start on collecting materials." Patty said in a cold, emotionless tone showing that he genuinely didn''t care about Welse''s fate.
"He might have been greedy, but that doesn''t mean we can''t be concerned with what was powerful enough to destroy Welse''s body enough that he can''t even contact us after his death," Miessy said.
"Are you suggesting that instead of a demon, it was a monster from inside the Endless Forests that killed Welse?"
"I have a feeling that the monsters deep in the Endless Forest are getting ready to mate and expand their poption, so they went out to get some food. Especially when there was a fool dumb enough to enter the forest by himself." Miessy calmly exined to Patty while waiting for theirst three members to arrive.
"That is highly probable... Still, I believe that he may be only pretending to be dead and is waiting for us to do all the work before swooping in at thest minute."
"Nevertheless, it is still better to have him around than someone like Scotty. He will only slow us down and make this mission harder for us." Patty said with a friendly smile as he turned toward Miessy, trying to convert her to his side.
Chapter 219 219: The Rabbit
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"Stop trying to get her on your side, Patty. She knows how to bnce the game between you and me." Scotty said with frustration in every single one of his words.
"..."
Patty gave Scotty a cold nce before ignoring his presence and instead turning his head to look at the two twins who had mysteriously appeared. After confirming that everything was ready, Patty signaled Miessy to release the rogue immortal cultivators so they could begin the third test.
Without hesitation, Miessy lifted her arms into the sky and allowed her beautiful star tattoos to once again take over the sky. With hundreds of blue stars in the night sky, they formed dozens of small constetions that had a simr appearance to humans.
After creating her Sky Map, Miessy lowered her right arm until it formed a 90-degree angle with the ground. As soon as her right arm was in its ce, the dozens of small constetions of rogue immortal cultivators seemed to have been imbrewed with life.
In less than a second, the stars that made up the constetions fell out of the Star Map and crashed into the soft ground, and quickly reformed into the rogue immortal cultivators who had dazed looks in their eyes. After regaining their consciousness, all the rogue immortal cultivators regained their memory of the trials and looked around their surroundings with curiosity and caution.
"Wait, this isn''t the Branch Forest. This is the Endless Forest. We are in the inescapable Endless Forest!"
It didn''t take long before one of the older rogue immortal cultivators'' pupils contracted as they recognized that they weren''t inside anywhere in the Green Branch Forest. Even though the aged rogue immortal cultivator had been alive for nearly 140 years, he had never dared to enter the Endless Forest.
However, he couldn''t stop his younger self from being curious about the Endless Forest and its mysteries, so he frequently visited the edges of the Endless Forest that connected to the Branch Forest. Even from afar, he could tell that the Endless Forest held more dangers than the tame Branch Forest.
The mere atmosphere inside the Endless Forest wasced with hidden oppression and madness. Simply staring into the forest''s depths gave him a headache for days as he saw things he didn''t think were possible.
On his first day, he saw a small rabbit eat a six feet tall lion alive while licking its two front teeth with satisfaction. But, what struck fear in his heart the most was that he saw clear intelligence on a human level in the rabbit''s eyes when he identally met its gaze.
He couldn''t believe what he saw back then and even suspected that he had seen a demon. But after the years passed, he began to realize that what he witnessed in his youth had a minimal chance of being a demon.
If it had been a demon, he would not have been able to escape with his life even if he had been in the Branch Forest. Even a newborn demon had the nearly unspeakable amount of power to ughter everything in its path.
Only rogue immortal cultivators who had reached the Crystal Spine realm or a martial artist who had reached the Martial Grandmaster realm could evenpete with a newborn. And once a demon surpassed its newborn stage, only immortals could handle demons.
To have not only escaped with his body and life intact showed that the creature he saw before wasn''t a demon but something else entirely. Even when years passed by and he returned to the exact location he had seen the rabbit, he quickly realized that the entire Endless Forest seemed to have changed.
The forest seemed to have changed several times every time he visited the edge of the Endless Forest, giving him a hint at why it was frequently called the Inescapable Forest. Recalling all his memories from his youth, the old man felt his heart racing rapidly as if trying to escape his body.
Hearing someone scream that they were in the Endless Forest sent a terrifying chill down the spines of all the rogue immortal cultivators as they used every means possible to try and identify their location. Very quickly, other rogue immortal cultivators came to the terrifying conclusion that they weren''t inside the Branch Forest like the immortals had promised but the evil Endless Forest.
Watching the rogue immortal cultivators realize the depths of their situation, Patty, Scotty, and Miessy all looked at the rogue immortal cultivators with cold, indifferent eyes.
"This is the location of the third test. As I mentioned earlier, you will have to hunt sentient nts to collect their cores. Don''t be a fool and underestimate any of the nts, animals, bugs, or anything inside this forest since it''s more likely they will kill you than the reverse."
"After you have found a sentient nt and sessfully killed it, all you need to do is stab it with your chosen weapons and allow it to absorb them. Once the weapon lets out a golden glow, that means the absorption has beenplete, and you have gained one point."
"To have sessfully passed this test, you need to be in the top ten ranked based on the number of points that everyone has collected in a week. Does everyone understand what they need to do?" Patty said calmly as he carefully exined the process that each rogue immortal cultivator needed to follow to collect a nt core sessfully.
After finishing his speech, Patty noticed that all the rogue immortal cultivators had nervous faces, and theirck of confidence in their abilities began to show. Compared to how many rogue immortal cultivators thought they could survive this challenge when they were under the impression they would be in the Branch Forest, almost none of them kept those thoughts.
The only thing passing through everyone''s heads wasn''t to sessfully pass this trial but ways to survive not only the dangerous creatures in the forest but also the other rogue immortal cultivators.
Chapter 220 220: Understand The Mechanics
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Twenty-four hours passed quietly as Yoze waited, half expecting that the immortals would arrive at his door at any time. Finally, however, after a whole day had passed, he breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that he wouldn''t have to fight several immortal-level people at once.
He might have to deal with themter, but for now, all he had to worry about was using these six days as not only training days to improve himself but also to rest his damaged body. Even now, Yoze realized that the damage that Immortal Welse had done to his body from the explosion was more extensive than he initially thought.
He had initially predicted that he could heal all his wounds and be at peak condition in a few days, but now he had to extend that to two weeks. This was not only because his body was more damaged than he thought but also because he had overestimated his healing ability.
Ever since he had gained his grade 5 Regeneration talent paired well with his grade 6 Vitality Retention, his ability to heal from his wounds was constantly improving. Not only that, but with his Life Attraction talent and Blood Heart talent, his regeneration ability was outstanding, and Yoze knew he could heal most wounds that would cripple others in less than three days.
However, unlike his martial art, hunting, art, and other talents, Yoze never had a clear understanding of how he was supposed to use his fantastic talent at healing his body to its fullest potential and how he could train them like his other talents. He could only guess that once he found either a martial art or an immortal cultivation manual that focused on improving his regenerative ability, he could use these talents to their fullest potential.
For now, Yoze relied on his regenerative ability improving as his body grew more powerful. Still, because of this passiveness and the fact that he never really was seriously injured in battle, he overestimated how powerful his regenerative ability was. So now he was paying the cost of not having the ability to directly focus on improving his body''s healing ability with this long healing period.
Luckily, even though he was in the process of healing, he still could train in most martial arts and even could fight at his peak ability for a limited amount of time without further damaging his body. So, after sorting his mind and getting rid of all his distracting thoughts, Yoze decided to try to find a lizard or some other creature known for his regenerative ability so he could copy its talents and increase his own healing talent.
"For now, at least let''s see if the rumors of this Crystal Grape are as incredible as those immortals said it was."
Yoze lifted the purple translucent marble between his two fingers and marveled at the purple mist swirling inside. Simply holding the Crystal Grape made Yoze''s crystal nerves throb as they seemed to want to devour it whole.
"For something to be capable of inducing such a reaction from my crystal nerves, it had to be some kind of treasure or a trap. So let''s see if I can use my talent marks on it."
[Target has been locked on... A failure has urred when locking onto the target''s talents.]
"I least I know that this Crystal Grape isn''t anything alive, so I can rule out that it''s some parasite that will try to control my body. Forget it. I already wasted a talent mark on this Crystal Grape. Let''s just give it a go."
Having an idea of what his test results would be beforehand, Yoze didn''t feel much loss at the thought that he wasted one of his talent marks on testing the Crystal Grape. It wasn''t like when he only had one talent mark and every time he used it, he would have to wait 24 hours before he could use it again.
He could now be less cautious when using his talent marks since he had two, which gave him far more flexibility to who or what he used them on. Not only could he now take two talents from a single person, but he could afford to test out more of the finer details of his cheat.
Throughout the years of using his cheat and doing tests, he understood most of the mechanics of his cheat. For one, regardless of the results, once he selected a target for his talent mark, he would lose his talent mark.
That meant that if Yoze used his talent mark on a person who either had no valuable talents or all of their talents were of a lower gradepared to his own, then not only did he waste his talent mark, but he couldn''t search for another target. In Yoze''s eyes, it was okay if his target had no talents or talents that Yoze found particrly useful since that didn''t harm him.
What Yoze hated was when he encountered a person with talents that he already had but of simr or lower grades than his own. That was because he was forced to copy one of their talents, which was a guaranteed way to lower one of his own talents.
Back when the number of talents that he had was smaller and less diverse, this was not a concern for Yoze since the chances of him encountering someone who not only had the same talents that he had but at a lower grade were incredibly rare. There was always at least one talent he didn''t have or one that was at least one grade higher than his own.
Allowing him to not have to worry about degrading his own talents. Unfortunately, Yoze faced a much different situationpared to a year or two ago.
The number of talents he possessed was much higher and covered multiple different categories, drastically increasing the chances that he would encounter such a scenario. Just from Yoze''s recent experience, the likelihood of encountering this situation when he used his talent marks on a regr person was high.
asionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 221 221: Nerve Accumulation Level 1
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With the chances that he could end up downgrading one of his talents, Yoze had decided to increase his caution when selecting his targets. He would only send a talent mark to someone he was somewhat confident had a talent that he was either interested in or didn''t have.
Even though that restricted his choices and reduced his chances of encountering an exceptional talent out of nowhere, it would at least protect what he had. Furthermore, he still had plenty of choices to copy from, such as talents from animals, immortals, demons, and abnormal entities.
With the nearly unlimited talents in this world, Yoze knew that what was limiting everything was awareness. If everything in this world were hyper-aware of all the talents they possessed, then he would not need to worry about encountering this situation.
Instead, the number of options for talents he could collect from every single person would be immense as every slight difference from person to person could be considered a talent in the eyes of someone. Whether someone''s nails grow faster and longerpared to someone else, how tall someone grew, their bone structure, the pitch of someone''s voice, and every slight difference between people, animals, and every creature in this world could be a talent for the taking.
"I could transform myself into the ultimate entity that would be perfect for any situation I find myself in." Finding his mind wandering again, Yoze reeled in his thoughts again and swallowed the Crystal Grape without hesitation.
Just as the Crystal Grape reached the bottom of his stomach, Yoze grabbed two crystals and began cultivating. At first, Yoze found that his immortal cultivation went on as usual as the crystal dust from both the sparkling blue crystals in his hands found itself absorbed into Yoze''s crystal nerves.
Suddenly just as thest stream of crystal dust was absorbed into his crystal nerves, Yoze felt a warm energy radiating from his stomach and rushing toward his crystal nerves. Instinctively knowing that this was crystal energying from the Crystal Grape, Yoze immediately attempted to create his first set of crystal nerves.
Taking a deep breath, he cleared his mind. He remembered the instructions on how to manipte crystal energy to spur the growth of new crystal nerves. As Yoze went over the details, he realized that the instructions came from the view of using the crystal energy from his crystal nerves to create another set of crystal nerves.
The amount of control needed for creating crystal nerves was extremely high. It couldn''t be done unless he had near-perfect control over his crystal energy. Even though he could try to manipte the purple crystal energy from the Crystal Grape to create his crystal nerves directly, it would make the process harder and result in his crystal nerves forming defects that would weaken the quality of his crystal nerves.
The solution to this problem was quite simple: for him to absorb the crystal energy into his own crystal nerves and then use them as if they were his own. However, that would result in him having to convert all the crystal dust in his crystal nerves before absorbing the crystal energy from the Crystal Grape.
Only once he had absorbed enough crystal energy from the Crystal Grape so that it saturated his crystal nerves would he have enough to form a new set of crystal nerves. Then, understanding what he had to do, Yoze began to convert the multi-colored crystal dust into rainbow-colored crystal energy as quickly as he could to reduce the amount of wasted purple crystal energy.
With 80 percent of his crystal nerves saturated with multi-colored crystal dust, Yoze found that by the time he could convert all the crystal dust into crystal energy, the purple crystal energy had flooded his entire body with a constant stream of purple crystal energying into his body. Knowing that he had made it in time before the crystal energy began to leave his body and dissipate on its own, Yoze breathed a silent sigh of relief and allowed his crystal nerves to absorb the purple crystal energy.
It didn''t take long before the remaining 20 percent that he needed to be gathered and integrated with his rainbow-colored crystal energy giving it a more purple shade. Not bothering to wait any longer, Yoze began creating his first set of crystal nerves.
After an hour quickly passed, Yoze smiled as he could sense the existence of a second set of crystal nerves next to his first one. However, even though one of the crystal nerves was artificially made, Yoze couldn''t find any signs that pointed out a difference between the two.
If it weren''t for the fact that he had three times the number of nerves that ordinary people would ever have and the feeling of having his information-processing ability boosted still lurking in his mind, Yoze would have never guessed that any of his nerves were artificially created.
Even though he wanted to create his crystal nerves as fast as possible to reduce how much purple crystal energy he wasted, after an hour, Yoze predicted that he had potentially lost enough crystal energy to have created another set of crystal nerves from scratch.
Though there was wasted crystal energy, Yoze didn''t feel too bad as this was his first time creating crystal nerves. Even then, the time he spent creating his crystal nerve was less than the time Tiki spent creating her third set of crystal nerves upon reaching the third level of Nerve umtion.
Not only was his time shorter by half an hour, but that was when they considered the fact that not only was Tiki more experienced than Yoze in creating crystal nerves, but she also had help with three other crystal nerves boosting her information processing ability that she could better calcte the most optimal path to create her crystal nerves.
Knowing that the first time an immortal cultivator created their first set of crystal nerves was always the most time-consuming, Yoze had confidence that he would reduce the amount of wasted purple crystal energy with every new set of crystal nerves he created.
"One down, nine more to go."
asionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 222 222: Nerve Accumulation Level 6
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Nearly an hour passed as Yoze sat motionless inside a dark room before he suddenly shook, and his eyes snapped open, sparking with purple-colored sparkles. Then, with a single tremble of his skin, a faint purple mist leaked out of his body before rapidly disappearing into the room''s darkness.
[Nerve umtion (Level 2)]
"This time, it took only 50 minutes toplete this second set of crystal nerves even though theplexity of its creation had increased. At this rate, the next one should only take 40 minutes, which is quick enough to no longer have any waste."
"Once I reach level 4 and lower the amount of time to 30 minutes, I should begin to surpass the rate that the Crystal Grape is supplying me with crystal energy. I predict that when I reach level 5, I can create my crystal nerves so fast that I will only be slowed down by the rate of purple crystal energy entering my body." Yoze muttered under his breath before closing his eyes and restarting his immortal cultivation.
[Nerve umtion (Level 3)]
Another 40 minutes passed by when Yoze finished thepletion of another set of crystal nerves. Then, after sensing that the amount of purple crystal energy that had left his body had dropped to zero, Yoze smiled and continued to create another set.
[Nerve umtion (Level 4)]
Sensing that his intelligence and information-processing speed had again increased, Yoze adjusted his prediction of how long it would take him to create his next set of crystal nerves. From his initial 30-minute forecast, he reduced it to 20 minutes. He decreased the next set of crystal nerves after that to only 5 minutes which would be his limit.
The only reason he knew that he could drop it below 5 minutes was that theplexity of creating his crystal nerves inside kept increasing at the same way his information processing speed increased. Trying to create his crystal nerves tightly around one another in early preparation for the Crystal Spine realm, navigating the increasingly smaller amount of space, and having to deal with his Dead Crystal Nerves and regr nerves prevented him from lowering the time further.
After adjusting his predictions, Yoze created his next set of crystal nerves in record time, reaching precisely 20 minutes. Then, sensing that the amount of purple crystal energy floating in his body decreased to 50 percent of its previous max, Yoze knew that he had now passed the point where he had to wait until there was enough energy to continue.
Luckily with the fantastic treasure Immortal Patty handed him, the amount of time he had to wait was reduced to a mere few seconds. Once he sensed enough crystal energy inside his crystal nerves, Yoze went on to destroy his previous record and created his next set of crystal nerves in less than 5 minutes.
[Nerve umtion (Level 6)]
Even with the constant purple stream of crystal energy being sucked into his crystal nerves, Yoze still felt it simply was too slow. If he relied on the Crystal Grape''s constant stream of crystal energy alone, he would have to wait 5 minutes until he had enough to continue.
That was longer than the time he spent creating a set of crystal nerves. Not only that, the time that he would have to spend waiting would only increase as the amount of crystal energy needed to create each set of crystal nerves increases.
At first, Yoze didn''t understand why each of his immortal cultivation books mentioned that the amount of crystal energy to create each set of crystal nerves would increase. However, afterpleting multiple sets of crystal nerves, he realized that the increase in crystal energy was because each set of crystal nerves was slightly longer than thest.
This length increase was because each new set of crystal nerves needed to travel a longer path full of twists and turns, resulting in the increased length. At the same time, each time he created another set of crystal nerves, his proficiency in creating crystal nerves would increase, allowing its quality to increase slightly.
This increased quality was enough to offset the increased length that would have resulted in a difference in information processing speeds in his crystal nerves. But with improved quality and increased length, the amount of energy Yoze found himself using to create each set of crystal nerves kept growing.
"I now have multiple crystal nerves, so I can devote some crystal nerves to absorb crystal energy for the Crystal Grape and the rest to absorbing crystal dust and transforming it into crystal energy."
Not bothering to waste any more time, Yoze reached into his pouch, which was full of crystals, and dumbed everything out. Then, quickly counting that he had around 30 crystals of various sizes, Yoze sighed as he knew that this wasn''t nearly enough to make a significant difference in the time he spent waiting to have enough crystal energy to create another set of crystal nerves.
Still, he didn''t want to wait any longer to test out how much his absorption speed had increased after increasing his crystal nerve talent and reaching level 6 of Nerve umtion. So, cing his hand over multiple crystals, Yoze closed his eyes and selected thest set of crystal nerves he had created to be used as a storage location for crystal dust.
It didn''t even take a second before he sensed a thick multicolored stream of crystal dust flying toward his crystal nerves before being forced to make a slight adjustment to their flying path. With this slight adjustment, nearly all of the crystal dust was absorbed into one of his sets of crystal nerves in a matter of a few minutes.
By the time Yoze opened his eyes, he saw that he had devoured around ten crystals in less than 3 minutes and was still hungry for more. Seeing that his absorption speed had increased so dramatically, he couldn''t help but feel a bit stunned, but he regained his senses and converted the small amount of crystal dust he absorbed into crystal energy.
Chapter 223 223: Nerve Accumulation Level 10
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Converting the small amount of crystal dust into crystal energy allowed Yoze to slightly cut down the amount of time he needed to wait for his crystal nerves to collect enough energy. However, the small amount that was converted simply wasn''t enough to make any meaningful difference and he would need the crates full of crystals that he had purchased back in New Swampscott City to make a difference.
While he wanted more than anything to race over there and dive straight into the crates and absorb everyst crystal he knew that the amount of enough needed toplete that desire wasn''t worth the time traveling over there. He could call Tiki and Dreyer over to ask them to provide him with the crystals that they brought over but that would only give him an extra 40 crystals.
After calcting how many crystals he would need to absorb to create a set of crystal nerves at his current level Yoze knew that it was in the hundreds. While it was slower he ultimately decided to not bother collecting those 40 crystals since Tiki and Dreyer needed them more than he did.
At the moment the purple crystal grape was providing enough crystal energy that he should be able to create his tenth set of crystal nerves tonight. He might even have enough crystal energy to spare that he could begin the crystallization process of his crystal nerves.
With some time to spare, Yoze calmed himself down and decided to be patient and allow himself to absorb the Crystal Grape''s energy. A minuteter he sensed that he had umted enough crystal energy and began to create his next set of crystal nerves.
[Nerve umtion (Level 7)]
With his newly created set of crystal nerves boosting his brain power Yoze felt his senses dramatically increase and even found the sensation of being empty of crystal energy ufortable. Still, he didn''t bother to address the issue and simply waited for his crystal nerves to umte more crystal energy.
5 and a half minutester, Yoze decided to create another set of crystal nerves reaching the high number of level 8. It only took another 11 minutes before he reached level nine and was beginning to feel his heart race at the anticipation level 10.
[Nerve umtion (Level 10)]
The moment Yoze created the tenth set of crystal nerves, he felt a wave of stresse off his shoulders. Even though he was happy about reaching this stage he could not help but be more excited about the fact that the crystal grape still seemed to be providing him with quite a bit of crystal energy.
If his predictions were correct the amount of crystal energy that the Crystal Grape could provide him should be enough toplete his Crystallization process. Essentially allowing him toplete two whole realms in one go.
Yet at the same time, he couldn''t help but feel his suspicion over the Crystal Grape and his distrust of the immortal grow. They had clearly said that each Crystal Grape would only allow for each person to advance one realm.
But like he experienced each realm had different crystal energy requirements and the higher one advanced in immortal cultivation the more crystal energy one needed toplete the levels. The amount of crystal energy that reached the Crystal Skull realm from the Crystal Spine was much more thanpared to going through the whole Nerve umtion realm.
The additional fact that Yoze had wasted less of the crystal energy that was provided to him by the Crystal Grape meant that he should have a high abundance of crystal energy left to st through multiple realms. What he found suspicious was that he shouldn''t be the only case where this happens.
Even if someone with an Impure grade-level talent used the Crystal Grape they should have enough crystal energy to at least get started on the Crystallization realm. Much less people who were much more talented in this aspect of immortal cultivation.
That meant that Immortal Patty lies about the Crystal Grape being able to only raise the realm of a rogue immortal cultivator once.
"Unless there was some other factor that prevented others from continuing further."
As if on cue, Yoze felt the Crystal Grape in his stomach vibrating at an increasing rate as the constant stream of purple crystal energy that he had grown used to suddenly stopped. Before Yoze could get a sense of what was happening, his body instinctively felt that something dangerous was going to ur, and took measures of trying to expel the Crystal Grape from his body.
In less than a second, Yoze coughed up the Crystal Grape and allowed it to roll on the floor as he retreated a few feet away to have some distance in case there was an explosion. After which he observed the Crystal Grape and noticed that its entire surface was covered in ck tattoos that wiggled around wildly.
From time to time, the ck tattoos would gather together to form ck dots that shattered into smaller ck dots. Recognizing that this could be an animation of the Crystal Grape being turned into ash or a metaphor for what would happen to him if he tried to continue absorbing energy from the Crystal Grape.
"So this is a warning from Immortal Patty," Yoze whispered to himself wondering if Immortal Patty could hear him.
After the Crystal Grape repeated the animation, of ck dots turning into ash, a few times it froze before turning into a ck beam of light and broke a hole through the walls racing toward the Branch Forest. Staring at the small hole in the wall that allowed the red-orangish color of the setting sun into the dark room Yoze licked his lips as he couldn''t wait to be fully healed.
"Once I''m fully healed and I create my full-body defensive body cultivation method I need to figure out a way to take that Crystal Grape away from Immortal Patty''s hands. If I have that grape I can elerate my immortal cultivation immensely."
"Plus the fact that the Immortal Pce Sect was willing to allow one of their students to carry such a treasure without feeling any heartache means that they should have more treasures simr to the Crystal Grape. They might even have a way to allow regr people to live forever, just like an immortal."
Yoze''s mind wandered back to when he first met Tiki and Dreyer and heard of their plight about being hunted by rogue immortal cultivators that had gathered due to a magical treasure. He initially didn''t pay too much attention to that story since the treasure was long gone and should have been either taken by a rogue immortal cultivator or a witch.
Chapter 224 224: Basic Iron Body
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He realized that he should have paid more attention to the fact that a treasure that was so valuable had just appeared within the vicinity of New Swampscott City. Yet, it was only detected after it bloomed. With such an attractive treasure in their territory, Yoze would have thought that the City would have long seen its existence and set up barriers to harvest it in peace.
After the treasure was harvested, the City could use it for their means or even use the treasures they collected to hire rogue immortal cultivators and witches. This could exin how he had difficulty detecting the spiritual energy and presence of all the prison guards and prisoners when he visited the prison.
With the power of a whole City working together, there wasn''t a high possibility that rogue cultivators would be willing to challenge them unless they were confident about escaping without having their identity exposed and getting injured. But, as Yoze thought things through, he realized that he could make his life a whole lot easier by asking the City to pay him with the treasures they collected over the years.
With how much money he had in his pocket and the easy ability to generate more simply bypleting some tasks for various Towns and Cities, Yoze knew he didn''t have any trouble making money. The only problem now was that money was less valuable to him.
If he could exchange some of the money he earned from hunting demons for some treasures, it would be a fantastic trade, even if the treasures weren''t as valuable to him as the Crystal Grape. If he can''t use the treasures doesn''t mean they wouldn''t be helpful for Dreyer or Tiki.
"I need to go back to hunting demons soon. We could use more demon meat, and my progress has been slow in figuring out the spiritual human body cultivation technique. However, I am sure that if I get another demon''s spiritual body cultivation talent, I can make faster progress."
"As for now, I should digest the martial art books that I have collected and quickly create some new and better martial art techniques. Then, I can start with creating aplete Iron Body body cultivation manual that should be able to reach the peak of the Blood Master realm." So Yoze thought to himself as he grabbed a few martial art body cultivation manuals by his side and quickly read through them.
After an hour of reading twenty different body cultivation manuals that he had collected from the Martial Wheel sect, Yoze was able to create a basic version of aplete Iron Body body cultivation method. And with his increased information processing speed and intelligence his mind raced with ideas on how to make this basic version more suitable for him.
Even this basic version of his Iron Body, if trained by any other martial artist, would have given them a considerable advantagepared to other martial artists. This method had around 15 different levels that would provide the user with a massive boost in power.
The first five-level was simr to Iron Skin and Iron Muscles, where the user needed to be soaked daily in highly nutrition-dense liquid before attempting to do any of the exercises. Even though the users won''t be able to absorb all the nutrition inside the liquid, their bodies would get enough to be able toplete a few rounds of the intense training regimen that this method requires.
Of course, that was when one considered the users to be regr people with a limited amount of talent in martial arts and a limited ability to absorb nutrition through skin and digestion. However, for a monster like Yoze, the nutrition inside the liquid was more than enough to not onlyplete tens of rounds of the intense training regimen but also would allow his body to recover faster and stronger.
Justpleting the first five levels would allow one to stand at the peak of the Martial artist realm and could remain unchallenged simply by how powerful their bodies would be. The only thing that Yoze recognized would be an issue was that this body cultivation method was extremely time-consuming and would make it difficult for most martial artists to even have time to read and train in martial art techniques.
Though he recognized that he had gone too far in increasing the body training of his new body cultivation method that ordinary people simply wouldn''t be able to practice topletion, he didn''t care. He wasn''t nning on allowing anyone but people closest to him to know about this body cultivation method anyways.
The results from finishing the first five levels showed as the user would be impossible to injure from any damage created by First-rate martial artists. Even Blood Masters that had just entered the realm would have difficulty doing any damage to the user. Regardless if they tried to aim for weak spots on the body, such as the eyes, they would feel as if they mmed their fists against a metal wall.
This was because each level after the second level focused on sending the inner vigor created into the skin, then muscles, andstly, bones in equal portions. He was able to reduce theplete versions of Iron Skin to the third level, Iron Muscles to the fourth level, and Iron Bones to the fifth level.
Making every level simr topleting an entire martial art body cultivation method made each level take significantly longer topletepared to other body cultivation methods. For example, if a martial artist couldplete a level or stage of a body cultivation method in five years, then at a minimum, it would take ten years toplete one level for this body cultivation method.
This meant that unless one were extremely talented in martial arts and young when they started practicing, by the time they reached the peak of the fifth level, then they would be pretty old. However, the distance between going from peak First rate martial artist to a Blood Master would be shorter than other body cultivation methods since it focused simply on umtion.
One only needed to keep umting inner vigor until they no longer had space in their body, and their inner vigor went berserk. Once it has gone wild, some of the inner vigor would enter the user''s blood, allowing them to enter the Blood Master realm.
asionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 225 225: Upgrading Twin Fists
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Even though it was extremely tough to practice this version of the Iron Body body cultivation method for Yoze, this simply wasn''t enough. Even when hepared the following ten levels that included the Blood Master realm and even what he derived to be the entrance to the Martial Grandmaster realm, this wasn''t enough topete with demons.
If it wasn''t for the fact that his spiritual body cultivation talents were constantly strengthening his body, he would be much weaker than right now. At most, with the basic version that he had created, he could easily crush an expert Martial Grandmaster like Silver Thunder.
After envisioning how he would do against demons like the Armored Elephant demon and the Leopard demon, Yoze concluded that he would still lose. Not only because these demons had an unfair ability to use spiritual energy but also because their bodies were incredibly powerful even when they never focused on training it.
This simply was because the demon style of Spiritual body cultivation talent was simply overpowered. After running through multiple simtions, he couldn''t see much hope in beating a demon by himself.
Even if he had physical strength or a speed advantage, it would be difficult to do enough damage that the demon would stay dead for good before it ran away. As for intelligent demons such as the Leopard demon, he could forget about leaving alive or having his corpse intact.
The only demons he could reasonably defeat were demons that were just born within two months since they shouldn''t have gotten enough fighting experience or asfortable at using their spiritual energy yet. Their bodies also hadn''t been enhanced by their demon spiritual body cultivation talent for too long.
For Yoze, that simply wasn''t satisfactory, but this was already a great result for most martial artists. Most Martial Grandmasters couldn''t even achieve that, with most ending up dead as soon as they were alone with a demon.
At the end of the day, this was not only because of a limit in martial arts but also a stark difference in talent. Unless humans unlocked their own spiritual body cultivation talent, then humanity could only be left in the hands of immortals.
"I can''t give up on my martial arts now. I simply wouldn''t be as powerful as I am now without it."
"Even though this basic version of the powerful defensive ability that I wanted, it still doesn''t make my body indestructible. I need to integrate a few other body cultivation methods to make this even better."
"For example, while this Iron Body cultivation can endure a lot of force, it doesn''t work as well if someone can overwhelm me. If I canbine it with the Jelly Squid body cultivation, which focuses on force dispersion, my defensive capabilities are bound to soar."
"Taking it one step further, I can evenbine it with the Sinking Swamp body cultivation method and even the Boneless Man body cultivation method to upgrade the stickiness of my body and ability to absorb damage. Combining just these few body cultivation methods into the basic version of the Iron Body will allow anyone to be easily capable of easily tanking Blood Master realm attacks while still being in the Martial Artist realm."
"And if I wait a little longer and push these body cultivations a few levels beyond their limits, I can get a better picture of their future paths and better integrate them into my Iron Body method while receiving their enhanced effects."
"What is even better is that the more I train in these body cultivation methods, the faster I can train through the various levels of my Iron Body cultivation method." Yoze''s mind raced as countless thoughts ran through his brain as he tried to figure out the best path he should take to be the most efficient with his time.
He could start integrating all the external body cultivation methods while also practicing the basic version of Iron Body. Then, once hepletes the advanced version, he can immediately start and make quick progress.
Another path he could take was to temporarily pause practicing the Iron Body and only begin once hepleted the advanced version. This would allow him to focus more of his efforts on upgrading his martial art techniques which needed an upgrade.
His current strongest offensive martial art technique is Twin Fists. This basic technique only had substance due to being forced to break its limits multiple times. Even though it was powerful, it was mostly due to his absolutely high physical strength.
If another Blood Master user used Twin Fists on the same level as himself, they wouldn''t get as much utility. This was simply because, at its core, Twin Fists was a martial technique that focused on locking the opponent into an endless cycle of attacks and beating them to a pulp.
This was a strong technique once they were able to lock in their opponents since it would be incredibly difficult to escape the chain of attacks. Even if they began to escape, the users of Twin Fists could easily restart another chain because they could make a full-powered attack anywhere on their body. So at the level that Yoze had reached, this was a great technique.
But for regr Blood Masters, when they face opponents who are equally as powerful as them or even more powerful, it bes extremely difficult to start the devastating chain of attacks that was the core of its lethality. But, of course, these weaknesses could be easily offset by these martial artists practicing other martial art techniques to add variety to the battle style.
This would not only make their opponents have to deal with multiple attacks, but once the perfect opportunity arrives, Twin Fists would be in their arsenal to guarantee they win the fight. While Yoze nned on also adding more offensive martial techniques to his arsenal, he also wanted to upgrade Twin Fists further.
He wanted to expand Twin Fists from being a chain of fist or finger attacks; he wanted to develop it further to other martial art techniques. He wanted to make all his offensive martial art techniques have the option of bing an endless chain of attacks.
Chapter 226 226: Preparing For Future Troubles
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Yoze''s eyes twinkled with multi-colored sparkles as he could imagine how he could easily lock his enemies into his chain of attacks by adding variety to them. For example, he could start a chain of attacks using a leg technique before switching to a first technique in the middle of thebo and ending the battle with apletely different martial art technique.
By taking this approach, he could better solve the problem of his enemies getting toofortable with the chain of attacks and beginning to calcte the holes or patterns within the chain of attacks. In addition, he could still remember clearly how Martial Silver Thunder took advantage of the weaknesses in his Twin Fists and other basic martial art techniques.
He could easily imagine the result of that fight would have been drastically different if he and Martial Silver Thunder had simr physical prowess and he couldn''t use spiritual attacks. The result would be that he would have lost easily.
Not only was he able to poke holes in his attacks, but Martial Silver Thunder''s martial art techniques were incredible and powerful. Pairing up with his ability to send his inner vigor outside his body only enhanced the effects of each of his terrifying offensive martial art techniques.
While there wasn''t much expectation from Yoze that he would meet an opponent that not only was physically superior but also had better martial arts and was able to use spiritual attacks, he knew that it wasn''t impossible. In fact, the more he experienced, the more he felt that a day woulde when he would be at a heavy disadvantage.
His enemies could be demons who not only have powerful bodies but developed techniques simr to human martial arts or immortals who have spent centuries perfecting their martial arts techniques while also finding ways to make their bodies incredibly powerful. There was also a possibility that an abnormal entity could bring new or strange phenomena into the battle that could eliminate his advantages.
"I wonder how Blood Master Steel is doing? Is he still trying to be stronger by fighting Martial Grandmasters, or is he trying to figure out a way to deal with his abnormal entity?"
As Yoze''s mind wandered to abnormal entities, he remembered that Blood Master Steel seemed to be haunted by one. Even though he hadn''t seen what it looked like or its true abilities, he knew that the benefits it offered Blood Master Steel allowed him to make much quicker progress than he would have with his talents.
It wouldn''t be a stretch to assume that Blood Master Steel might not even be the only person affected by abnormal entities or events, as they are not umon. However, after doing some research, he found that many strange events happen every few years around New Swampscott City.
From strange rocks being suddenly given a breath of life, viges that seemed to be haunted by ghosts and ghouls, and the asional appearance of zombies that eat the living. A whole host of strange events urred that the City had to deal with before they became too problematic.
Even though Yoze suspected that many of these strange events were caused by demons and immortals, he still was extremely interested in the ones that seemed toe out of nowhere. One of the stories he found interesting was there was a witch who was plotting against a young woman who was known to be beautiful.
Every day she would talk about her scheme in front of a tree outside the young woman''s house. For more than three decades, the witch nned and nned before taking action, killing the young woman and burying her body below the tree.
Completely satisfied with the aplishment that she had dreamed of for many years, the witch visited the same tree every year during the anniversary of the day she killed the young woman. Then, one day while the witch was pouring boiling oil on the young woman''s grave, one of the tree roots came to life and grabbed the witch''s limbs.
Terrified, the witch''s heart nearly explodedfrom shock as she saw the young woman''s angry face imprinted onto the tree as it crushed and ripped apart her limbs from her body. If it wasn''t because a group of soldiers was happening to pass by and hearing the witch''s despair-filled screams, she would have died a brutal death that day, and this story wouldn''t have been known at all.
Though this was a decades-old story, it was verified by the City that this did indeed happen and that the tree that seemed to have been infused with the young woman''s spirit still hasn''t been caught and killed to this day. After reading this story, Yoze''s mind whirled with possibilities of how the young woman''s spirit could have fused with the tree.
The first thing he thought of was that the young woman''s anger towards the witch was so intense that it allowed her spiritual energy to endure the harsh outside environment and eventually allowed it to enter the tree for protection. Finally, after many years the tree and the young woman''s spiritual energy fused and allowed the tree to move.
After spending several hours thinking about it, Yoze eventually gave up since he knew that he would never get the right answer unless he encountered that tree and examined it. But it did remind him of the rule that once something was killed and guaranteed dead, it would no longer be able to cause problems for their enemies no longer was a hundred percent.
There coulde a day when everyone and everything he had killed mighte back as a ghost and make his life a living nightmare, so he had to make sure that his enemies had no possibility of evering back to life. And that abnormal entities and events are simply extremely difficult to guarantee would never be able to do him significant harm, so he had to figure out a better method to protect himself.
"That decides it. I will temporarily not train in Iron Body until I have created the advanced version as well as upgraded my martial art techniques. My body is currently powerful enough to deal with the enemies I currently have. Right now, I need to start preparing for the future." After making up his mind, Yoze wiped off the dust on his bandages and nned to go to Regi''s home to look at all the martial art techniques he had gathered from the Martial Wheel Sect.
As he walked downstairs, Yoze saw that Tiki and Dreyer were sword-fighting with the Crystal Sword in Tiki''s hand. Even though both of them had no experience in sword fighting, he could tell they were fast learners.
With a powerful sword in her hands, Tiki could easily knock back and even damage the iron sword in Dreyer''s hand while she looked for weak points in his stances to attack. Meanwhile, Dreyer was using his training in the Sinking Swamp body cultivation method to hold onto his sword and keep himself steady.
Paired with his talent to multiply tasks, he could keep up with Tiki''s attacks, focus on his footwork, and even examine Tiki''s fighting style to adjust his defense and counterattacks. If the outside world saw that a fierce battle was urring between a witch and an immortal cultivator with swords, they would be puzzled about their strange choice of attacks.
But Yoze knew that it was because they wanted to get used to using weapons before learning offensive martial techniques that use weapons. As for why Tiki was still in possession of the Crystal Sword even though he had returned, was because he didn''t need it currently.
After returning from the trials, he examined it and didn''t notice any spells or anything particr about the crystal sword. So there were no traces of evidence that suggested that the crystal sword would pose as a signal for the immortals or that it was dangerous.
Of course, he recognized that if an immortal wanted to hide that kind of thing, there wasn''t much he could do to detect any of the spells unless he became more skilled in immortal-level spells. But at the current moment, it didn''t make much of a difference if the crystal sword was in his or Tiki''s hands.
At most, the crystal sword would have some use in Tiki''s hand as she got better at fighting with the crystal sword and her various spells. He could also use her as a reference when he used his spells while in battle.
As Tiki and Dreyer were deeply absorbed in their practice battle, Yoze turned his attention to Leah, who was busy crushing a bunch of herbs into a paste with his hooves before putting the paste inside a pot to ferment. Recognizing that this was the beginning of making the medical paste that would cause his skin to itch while it helped him heal, Yoze couldn''t help but take a deep breath to savor the disgusting smell.
Chapter 227 227: Fulfilling A Promise
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The stench from the paste reeked worse than being on a farm filled with manure, yet Yoze knew it would be an excellent medicine in the future. He also knew that onceplete, the paste would have a hidden pleasant smell that only he and Leah could smell.
Even though he had promised back then that he was going to let go of Leah after making it to New Swampscott City but with his father still on the brink of death when they arrived and his desire to find out the secrets of how to make this special paste he stalled it till now. Finally, after so long, he had figured out how to make this special paste on his own, and his grandfather was no longer in mortal danger, so he nned to keep his promise.
After making up his mind, Yoze walked over to Leah, who was inplete focus on making his famous medical paste, and lightly tapped his head to draw his attention. Feeling the tap on his furry head, Leah snapped out of his focused state and looked at Yoze with curiosity in his blood-red eyes that held beautiful sparkles.
"Come with me for a second," Yoze said with a smile as he asked Leah to follow him upstairs.
Even though Leah was cautious that Yoze was trying to drag him on another dangerous adventure, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that they were only going upstairs, so he followed along. Once they made it to the same room Yoze waspleting his immortal cultivation, he closed the door and looked at Leah earnestly.
"Leah, how long have you been by my side since we first met?" Yoze asked.
"I don''t know, about two to three years. It''s been some time. Why are you asking?" Leah said slowly as he did the mental calctions about how long they had been together.
"It''s because it''s time for me to fulfill my promise to you back then. I will no longer hold you back and allow you to leave whenever you want."
"To make it up to you, I can also send you anywhere you would like to go. So, for example, if you want to go back to the Jade region and live in your old home, I will do my best to send you back even if I have to halt some of my ns for the future temporarily." Yoze said with a smile.
"Really!? You will let me go. There is no catch like giving you the recipe for all my medications or curing your father." Leah asked with caution.
Leah didn''t have a lot of trust in Yoze, to begin with, and it had never recovered ever since he had been kidnapped from his home. So even though it could be said that he had greatly benefited from being kidnapped by Yoze since he was able to eat demon meat very frequently as well as practice creating his medicines pastes almost as much as he wanted, Leah still felt that it was too dangerous to stay with Yoze himself.
From his perspective, whenever he traveled with Yoze, he would always get in trouble or some danger. He was still traumatized by the people in Emerald Town who had died horrible deaths and couldn''t rest peacefully in the afterlife as their bodies were forcefully turned into zombies.
The disgusting stench of death was so concentrated that he could barely see each person''s appearance behind the ck death. Simply recalling the events he had experienced sent a chill down his spine as he felt his knees be weak.
"You''re making it sound like I''m some kind of unreasonable viin holding you hostage or something. I just wanted to learn from a master back then and learn my craft. Still, as you know, some unexpected things came up one after another that forced me to temporarily not fulfill my promise."
"Luckily, through both your hard work and mine, we were able to save my father''s life and hopefully keep it that way. But with my discovery that demon meat can extend his lifespan, I don''t think it''s right for me to keep you here against your will." Yoze sighed as he didn''t think that Leah''s opinion of him still didn''t get better after so many years.
But he could understand his situation and knew that even with so many benefits, these could not be worth the cost of freedom in Leah''s eyes. He might be a much more powerful goat with improved skills and a leisurely lifestyle. However, he still wanted to live a life of helping anyone he happened to cross.
Even if that came with the cost of losing everything he had with Yoze and his family, it was all worth it for him. So Yoze didn''t me Leah at all for his poor opinion of him or the thought that staying with him was incredibly dangerous since it was possible that one of his powerful enemies would burst through his door and threaten his family''s lives.
"In that case, I would like you to take me to the Branch Forest. I heard that it is a magical ce that holds all sorts of different creatures."
"Not only that, it is attached to the Endless Forest and is known to hold all sorts of creatures, so my addition wouldn''t surprise anyone. I might even find another animal like myself that can talk." Leah''s eyes sparkled with hope as they were filled with his hopes and dreams.
Even though Leah could talk to Yoze whenever he was around, he still felt that it was too restraining to silence himself whenever anyone else was around. Having lived with Yoze''s family for two to three years, he still hadn''t spoken a single word to anyone else but Yoze since he was afraid that their opinions of him would change after discovering that he could talk and had human levels of intelligence.
Though he liked Yoze''s father, who was kind to him and treated him to fantastic meals, he didn''t want to be disappointed if he ever found out that Yoze''s father would treat him worse if he ever found out he could talk. So his desire to make a close friend he could talk to about anything became stronger over the years, making him want to find another goat or animal that could speak.
Hearing Leah mention the Branch Forest slightly surprised Yoze since he expected that Leah would have wanted to go back home. He even was calcting how long he would have to run to travel from New Swamp Town back to Jade City.
To find out that Leah wanted to go live in the Branch Forest, where he had just had a battle to the death with an immortal and even was the testing ground for the third trial for the Immortal Pce Sect immortals, was a bit surprising to hear. But after thinking about it more, he felt it made sense since there wasn''t much for Leah to go back to in the forest he previously lived in.
"I can do that for you, but I rmend choosing another ce since that location is temporarily upied by immortals and New Swamp Town''s army of soldiers. But, of course, if you insist, I''ll keep my promise and take you over there without another word." Yoze kindly suggested to Leah.
"Immortals and the army are there!? What the hell is going on in the Branch Forest? I thought that it was rtively peaceful." Leah said with shock in his voice as he didn''t expect the first location he would pick would be so dangerous all of a sudden.
"If that is the case, there is arge forest called the Flower Forest that I would like to go to instead. I heard Jewel mention before that the people that live near that forest are pacifists and don''t eat meat, so I don''t have to worry about being eaten if I am caught." Leah said after reconsidering his options.
"That is fine with me. We can leave whenever you are ready. After which, I will ask Jewel for the direction to Flower Forest and take you there." Before Yoze could walk outside the door to ask Jewel for directions, he heard Leah make his intentions clear.
"We can leave right now. I don''t want to have any second thoughts before we leave," Leah looked at Yoze directly in his eyes and said with determination in his eyes and voice.
"Okay, stay here, and I''ll be back in a few minutes, and we can head out." Yoze nodded his head in understanding as he walked outside the room.
A few minutester, Leah''s head snapped towards the door as he heard the door open to reveal Yoze. Seeing that it was only Yoze, Leah sighed with relief as he felt that if he saw anyone else, his resolve might not have held firm.
"I have gotten the directions to Flower Forest and estimated how long it will take us to arrive there. From what Jewel told me, Flower Forest was on the other side of the region, so even with me going at full speed, it would take us at least a few days to get there."
Chapter 228 228: Earthly Penguin Town
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"It''s that far away," Leah said with surprise.
When he was listening to Jewel having a conversation with Tiki, he felt that they were talking about closer locations. Even at Yoze''s immense speed, it would take days to reach the Flower Forest, meaning that this was a journey that would take a normal person months to travel.
"Do you still want to go?" Yoze asked Leah one more time.
"Yes, I still want to go to the Flower Forest and make it my new home." Leah shook his head with determination as he looked at Yoze with a wall of solid steel.
He was finally able to take his fate into his own hands, so there was no way he would give up this chance. All he needed to do was think more positively. For example, since it was so far away, that meant there were fewer chances that Yoze would reach out again and kidnap him.
"Okay, let''s go right now. I want to collect a few things before we leave town." Yoze said, nning on first collecting a few martial art techniques from Regi''s house so he could practice during their breaks and in the middle of the night.
"Okay," Understanding that Yoze was serious about helping him, Leah felt his heart be slightly touched and agreed to follow him along.
An hourter, two odd figures walked outside the southern gate of New Swamp Town when the sun was at its peak. With the cloudless day allowing the sun''s powerful rays to m into all creatures below it, the two odd figures stood out immediately from the many other travelers who had left.
One was a tall man with a long and thick dark green trench coat that struggled to cover up his powerful physical body. Only his tightly bandaged-up head with two holes located at his eyes allowed him to see.
Even though the sun''s intense rays tried their best to blind the tall man, they did nothing to affect the tall man''s sight, as faint multi-colored sparkles would asionally appear in his eyes. Besides that tall man was also a giant goat that easily dwarfed other goats in size and had a smaller amount of sparkles that seemed to be permanently inside its red eyes.
Tied to the giant goat''s back was a bundle of brown bags that seemed to contain books, water, and food that wouldst only a few days for these two abnormally sized individuals. The tall man turned to the goat and spoke to it as if he was chatting with another human being and was expecting a response.
"You ready?"
The giant goat looked straight into the tall man''s eyes and slowly nodded in a human-like manner. Then, seeing that the goat was still firm in its conviction, the tall man reached out and carried the goat, like one would hold a princess.
"Thud Thud Thud"
Faint deep thuds came out of the tall man''s chest as the freshly changed bandages covering his body quickly were dyed dark red before blood leaked out of every pore of the tall man''s body. The rapidly leaking blood covered every inch of the tall man''s body without a single drop of blood touching the floor.
The dark blood quickly transformed into armor made of flowing dark blood as a bloody mist hovered around the tall man''s body, encircling the goat into the blood mist. The goat shivered as it was surrounded by the ominous blood mist but calmed down when it realized that this was most likely the safest ce it had ever been.
Once the tall man''s transformation wasplete, he took one step and disappeared, leaving only a single footprint on the ground showing that the tall man and the giant goat were ever there. By the time the tall man and giant goat reappeared, they had reached a small town that was known as Earthly Penguin Town.
Deciding that this would be a good location to allow the giant goat in his arms to rest and regain its sanity, the tall man ced the giant goat down and said.
"We can take a quick break here to rest up your mental state. So would you like to eat or just lie down for half an hour?"
"I heard from Jewel that your rides are kinda difficult to get used to, and it all makes sense. I might not have to fight for my life against the wind, but seeing how fast the surrounding environment became a blur hurts my head." Leah fiercely shook his head as he felt slightly nauseous.
Even though ever since Yoze had be a Blood Master, he was able to use his blood to form a blood mist that could protect his passengers from the wind and make the whole experience more pleasant, he couldn''t do anything to stop others from getting sick from not being able to adjust to the high speeds he travels in. He chalked it up to the same experience as a passenger getting motion sickness after getting into a car, and the driver immediately pushed their car to 200 miles per hour.
While the passengers might have been protected from the wind and we''re already used to riding in cars, if it was their first time traveling so fast, they would still feel a bit sick to their stomachs. So he didn''t mind at all that Leah felt a bit sick at the beginning of their journey and had taken that into ount while nning this trip.
"So lying down is your choice. Let''s go find a tree outside of town to rest for a bit under the shade." Yoze softly said as he began walking to arge tree nearby that had enough space to allow him to fullyy down his body so he could take a short nap.
In the same mood as Yoze, Leah followed along and sat down under the cool shade of the tree and quickly felt himself dozing off to sleep. Unfortunately, he was only able to nap for twenty minutes before he heard a rough chirping sounding from right above him.
"What is that noise? I''m trying to sleep." Annoyed that his beautiful nap was interrupted, Leah looked up to find that a small baby bird was staring at him with curiosity.
The baby bird was covered in brown feathers, had jet-ck ws, and had a pair of red eyes. Even though the small baby bird was flying above Leah with curiosity in its eyes, it seemed to be avoiding Yoze, who had also woken up from his nap and was staring at the small baby bird.
"What an interesting fellow. To have animal-shaped spiritual energy is already rare. Not to mention having a bird-shaped spiritual energy as a bird, you must be an extremely talented bird." Yoze said to the small baby bird with fondness.
"Does it matter how talented this bird is? Unless it can talk, I don''t want to spend any of my brain cells thinking about its future." Leah muttered softly to himself as he felt a bit disappointed he couldn''t rest a little longer.
"What a shame. I already used myst talent mark on the Flower God back at New Swamp Town. But if you are still here by the time Ie back, I''ll take you back with me so you can help me protect my father." Yoze thought to himself as he stood up and prepared to leave with Leah.
They still had a long way to go, and he didn''t want to spend too long in one ce as he didn''t want to identally miss his chance to be a student of an immortal sect.
"Wait, catch that bird!"
Suddenly Leah and Yoze snapped their heads toward a young man and young woman dressed in colorful grabs running towards them with zing passion in their eyes. The young woman saw that she had gotten Yoze''s attention and waved her hands wildly as she screamed again.
"Don''t let our sacred bird escape! Catch it before it flies away!"
Yoze shifted his attention back to the small baby bird that had been flying around Leah and found that it was already escaping as soon as it saw the young woman and man. Interested in the fact that this small bird could be some type of sacred bird, Yoze decided to help these people catch it.
Tapping his foot lightly on the ground, Yoze''s body flew up into the air and quickly got in front of it, allowing it to softly crash into his chest before using one hand to softly capture it. Once he softly returned to the ground, he saw looks of shock on the young man''s and young woman''s faces.
"Sir, thank you for helping us catch our sacred bird. We had been looking for it for months and failed numerous attempts to capture it." The young man said with gratitude as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.
"I am happy to help, and I only have two requests before I hand over this beautiful bird," Yoze said with a smile.
"Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!"
The small baby bird chirped loudly as it fruitlessly tried to escape from Yoze''s grasp while looking at Leah for help. The look of trust in its eyes touched Leah''s heart as he turned his head away.
Chapter 229 229: Meeting The Saint
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"Two questions? Please ask ahead, sir. As long as I know the answer and it doesn''t cross our temple''s lines, I will be happy to help." The young man was shocked at first before calming down and letting out a charming smile to Yoze.
"My first question is, what kind of bird is this, that it can be your sacred bird?" Yoze asked.
"Donta, I can answer this one," The young woman said to the young man and stepped forward with a smile.
"First of all, we belong to the mighty Rainbow Phoenix Temple, which believes that the Rainbow God created the world. A being whose whole being is made out of all the elements that make up this world."
"We are all children of the Rainbow God, and thus is the Rainbow Phoenix, which is believed to be his first form when he descended into the world he created. Therefore, treating the Rainbow Phoenix with respect is the same as treating our all-mighty Lord with respect." The young woman''s eyes glowed with passion as she moved her body with grace, mimicking the movements of a bird.
"The bird in your hands is a direct descendent of an ancient ancestor closest to the Rainbow Phoenix, the Earthly Phoenix. With the Lord''s closest bloodline so close to us, we have protected the Earthly Phoenix bloodline for generations, and they have protected us as well."
"Unfortunately, as time passed on, the purity of the Earthly Phoenix bloodline became tainted with time. Leaving each generation of the Earthly Phoenix weaker than thest."
"The baby bird in your hand is one of thest five Earthly Phoenix in the world, so we have to do our best to protect her. So I beg of you not to harm her." As the young woman finished her story, her eyes turned slightly red as she held back her tears.
"There, there, Soma, we all have been through a lot over the years. But as fate has it, just as the Lord''s direct descendent was being rowdy and trying to escape, this gracious young man helped catch him." Donta patted the young woman''s back as he held her tightly in his arms.
"You are right, Donta. This is the Lord''s work. The Lord would never want to see any of his children hurt. Still, he must provide us with difficulty to encourage us to improve ourselves."
"To meet this strong sir at this time means that the Lord believes we are fated together, and we must help each other grow." Soma passionately said, easily oveing her sadness.
"..."
As Soma made her speech about being fated to meet Yoze, he could not help but notice that her eyes never left Donta. To him, it was obvious that she didn''t care about being fated with him but with the young man who had his arms wrapped around her.
"Thank you for the information. My second question is, where is your temple? I would love to visit it to make sure that this bird is truly being treated fairly." Squeezing out a soft cough to draw the two young couple''s attention back to reality, Yoze asked his second question.
"Sir, you would like to visit our temple!? Please, please follow us. We will take you directly there." Donta looked at Yoze with surprise as if he never believed that Yoze would ever be interested in their story. Still, once he recovered from his shock, he passionately encouraged Yoze and Leah to follow along.
Yoze looked at Leah and noticed that even though he was silent, he didn''t seem to be unhappy that they were getting detoured. But it also could be because this was simply a way for Yoze to figure out the directions to this temple so that he could directly visit once he returned.
They were not going to be staying long, and at the end of this, Leah wouldn''t have to deal with the aftermath since he wouldn''t being back. Seeing that he was fine with it, Yoze turned his head back towards Donta and Soma and nodded his head.
"Perfect, please follow us. It isn''t a long walk from here." Donta smiled as he regretfully let go of Soma and began to walk to their temple.
Ten minutes passed by as Yoze chatted with Donta and Soma to try and find out more about their identity and their faith. Luckily, they weren''t trying to hide anything, so in the short amount of time they were walking, he was able to find out a lot of information.
For one, the Rainbow Phoenix Temple was a small part of a much bigger temple called the Rainbow Temple. They were the guardians that the Rainbow Temple had entrusted for centuries to take care of the Earthly Phoenix.
Because it was their core duty to take care of the Earthly Phoenix family, which normally hated to be around people, the Rainbow Phoenix temple was separated from the main headquarters of the Rainbow Temple. Their separation was so thorough that many followers of the Rainbow Temple and the Rainbow Phoenix forgot that the two temples were originally one.
They often weren''t allowed to ess the resources that were supposed to belong to them to take better care of the Earthly Phoenix bloodline, which resulted in a steady decline in the maintenance of the temple and a reduction of followers, causing them to struggle.
When he asked them how they knew so much information, they simply told him that Soma was the daughter of the Temple leader and a candidate for the future saint position. In contrast, Donta was someone adopted by the time and raised there since he was a child.
"Just from this little bit of information, I feel that you two are the main characters of a fairy tale of two lovers. A princess with immense status has fallen in love with a normal man to the dissatisfaction of her Nobel family." Yoze said jokingly as he heard their story.
"Well... I never thought about it like that." Soma said with a stutter as her face turned bright red.
"Sir, does this story have a happy ending?" Donta let out a soft cough as he tried his best to hide his embarrassment but couldn''t help himself and asked Yoze for more details.
"Most of the time, they end up together and live a fantastic life." Noticing their reaction, Yoze pieced together that Donta''s and Soma''s rtionship must not have been approved by their family. Still, he didn''t want to let their dreams of being together be tarnished, so he just casually told them stories with happy endings.
"Fantastic! Before we forget what we brought you here for, that beautiful temple on the hill is the Rainbow Phoenix temple." Donta let out a wide smile as he pointed towards the temple in the distance.
Turning focus toward where Donta was pointing his finger, Yoze saw arge golden pyramid that had been painted with multiple colors to give it a rainbow pattern. Yet he was able to notice that there were countless scratches and clear traces of the paint being eroded by the weather over the years.
It fit perfectly with Donta''s and Soma''s story of their temple being cut off from the resources that the main branch had promised them. Being forced to rely on their followers'' support and to ration everything, they had to keep up with the high cost of attending to the needs of the Earthly Phoenix family.
"Your temple is quite beautiful even when you have been enduring hardships. I could only imagine its beauty when it was in its prime." Yoze said with seriousness.
He could easily tell that the amount of effort that was needed to upkeep a temple of this size wasn''t easy, especially when they had to deal with an increasingly tight budget and protect their sacred Earthly Phoenix bloodline.
"Thank you, my father, and everyone would appreciate your praise if they could hear it." Soma smiled when she heard her home being praised.
"Who said I can''t appreciate it right now," A hearty voice suddenly echoed from the Rainbow Temple as a tall figure around 7 feet and 8 inches tall walked outside the temple''s doors.
The figure took on the appearance of a middle-aged man with graying sideburns and a thick gray beard hinting at his age. Even though he was getting old, the middle-aged man''s muscr body and bright brown eyes showed he still had a long life ahead of him.
"Dad!"
"Saint Griffin!"
Both Soma and Donta before shouted in shock the moment they saw the middle-aged man walk outside the temple and ced their fists in the air. Seeing that they hadpleted the Rainbow Phoenix temple''s greeting, Saint Griffin also raised his fist in the air and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"The Rainbow Phoenix blesses all!"
The shockwave that came from his mouth was deafening and could be easily heard from miles away. Yoze could tell that from the mere power that came from Saint Griffin''s shout, his body could be as strong as a Blood Master.
Chapter 230 230: Forest Fire
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"To have such a strong body could mean that he is a practitioner of martial arts. And talented at that to be able to train his body to this extent." Yoze thought to himself and made another mental note to visit this temple and grab a few talents on his way back.
Afterpleting their greeting Soma and Donta seemed to have their personalities change as they both acted in a more refined and elegant manner. They no longer acted as close to one another as they kept an arm''s length distance away from each other at all times.
They barely looked in each other''s direction as they addressed Saint Griffin with their respective titles. From the way they were acting, Yoze confirmed that their rtionship had not only been not approved, but it seemed that Soma''s father didn''t even know about it.
Their acting was incredible, and if Yoze hadn''t seen how Soma and Donta acted around each other whenever Saint Griffin wasn''t around, he would never have guessed that they were together. He would have simply thought that they were two followers of the same temple, but their status and personality were too different to form a solid friendship, much less a rtionship.
"I apologize if our greeting shocked you, sir. Our temple believes that we must show our full support and energy in greeting others since we are all the children of the Rainbow Lord."
"And as the Saint of this temple, I, of course, have to put in as much effort as my old body will allow me to have. Which some say is getting stronger every day." Saint Griffin grinned, showing his pearly teeth underneath his thick beard.
Even though Saint''s smile was supposed to be non-threatening, the mere thought of seeing a nearly eight feet tall muscr man grinning at you was enough to give people some chills. While others felt that Saint Griffin was too tall to be considered a good Saint for the temple since his mere presence was intimidating, Yoze couldn''t help but feel a little sad.
He was saddened that Saint Griffin didn''t live up to his fullest potential and be a few inches taller. That way, he could have a friend who was as tall as him and push him to also get taller.
"Don''t worry about it. You didn''t scare me one bit. But I do want to know where you are going to be taking this little fe when I hand her to you." Snapping out of his slight disappointment, Yoze asked a question that had been bothering him and would determine whether he just took the small bird with him.
"Yeah, yes, our sacred bird is, of course, going to receive the best treatment that we can offer her. Outside our temple in a secret location is the main nest for the Earthly Phoenixes."
"That is where her family is currently living and where she will be staying. We try our best to fulfill all of their requests so they don''t have to forge for themselves or feel that they need to protect themselves." Saint Griffin calmly exined while not giving any hints as to where their secret location was located.
"May I ask how you are nning on stopping this little fe from escaping again? I would feel terrible if I heard that this little fe got injured after I had handed her over due to getting into danger while attempting to escape." Yoze asked a follow-up question.
"We have 24-hour coverage of the whole nest area and will increase the number of followers monitoring the area to prevent our sacred birds from leaving without our notice." Saint Griffin said in a quick and brief manner
Having gotten the basic information that he wanted and knowing that if he continued to ask for deeper and more sensitive information about the temple, he would probably face additional hurdles when he tried to visit, Yoze stopped asking questions and handed the baby bird to Saint Griffin.
"Thank you for your assistance, sir," Saint Griffin said as he mmed his chest with his fist.
"Chip! Chirp! Chirp!"
Meanwhile, the baby bird was continuously chirping at Leah as she struggled helplessly to escape. Seeing this scene made Leah feel his heart ache with pain as he knew that he was helpless to stop this.
Even though this was probably for the best for the baby bird to reunite with her family and not be wandering the world, not knowing of its dangers. He couldn''t help but feel that the baby bird had some reason to be so scared of going back to its main nest.
He couldn''t help but allow his mind to wonder about what he would do if he was stronger and could put his foot down and investigate this matter thoroughly. He would even demand that the Rainbow Phoenix temple put more effort into regaining its connection with its main branch and collecting the resources it had beencking over the years.
"If I was in Yoze''s position, I wouldn''t so easily believe what the Rainbow Phoenix temple says about the condition that the Eathly Phoenixes family lives in. If I found out that the Earthly Phoenixes were living terrible lives, I would take them back with me and support them." Leah''s mind thought about the many choices that Yoze had made and how he would have done them differently.
"Leah, are you ready to go?" Yoze asked Leah, noticing that he was still in his thoughts.
Noticing that the little bird had been taken away while he was stewing in his own thoughts, Leah nodded his head mechanically as he didn''t feel as excited to be heading to his new home. Seeing Leah nod, Yoze picked him up before throwing a nce at the rainbow temple and disappearing without a trace.
As Yoze and Leah were busy traveling across to the other side of the region, back at the edge separating the Branch Forest from a straight path to New Swamp Town, the town''s army, had been fighting for nearly two days.
With the constant struggle to suppress the rapidly expanding forest nt life, there wasn''t any time for breaks or rest periods to discuss their strategy. Soldiers'' bodies were starting to feel the stress of battling for numerous days as the constant rity of the minds being refreshed enhanced the feeling that their bodies were a prison.
A prison that was holding them back from unleashing all of their potential and allowing them the pleasure of bing war gods of destruction. With the fatalities of soldiers rising and the nt life rapidly evolving and bing stronger, the mood on the battlefield was ice cold.
The only expectation was a lone general who was grinning ear to ear as she read the letter in her hand. After reading the letter in its entirety, General zing Phoenix let out a heartyugh as he burned the letter to ash.
"Finally, those government officials finally understand the danger they are in. With their permission to use means necessary and withpletepensation, I can finally burn this entire forest to the ground!"
"Soldiers fall back! If anyone has not retreated in three seconds, the army will notpensate your family for your death!"
Shouting orders to all her soldiers, General zing Phoenix immediately dashed into the Branch Forest without caring for her own safety. Just as her body crossed over the boundary of the battlefield into the Branch Forest, she shouted.
"Times Up!"
Before General zing Phoenix even spoke, thousands of different sizes of branches, roots, and vines shot toward her, nning to use her body as nutrition for their growth. Unfortunately, they would never get the chance as her body was almost instantly covered in a thickyer of blood.
With an almost insane smile, General zing Phoenix spun her body to form a mini blood tornado that shot her hot blood to every single living thing surrounding her. The moment her blood touched the nts, they writhed from pain as they caught on fire, which rapidly grew out of control.
With thousands of nts simultaneously caught on fire, the blood-red mes seemed to fuel one another as the mes continuously expanded, causing a massive forest fire. With her entire surroundings on fire and every living thing surrounding her being turned into ash, General zing Phoenix felt that it was time for her to get serious.
With a single thought, she triggered all her blood that formed her blood tornado to ignite, forcefully turning herself into a 50 feet tall Fire Tornado that was sending blood-colored mes all through the Branch Forest. With the burning blood mes turning everything to ash for a moment, she overcame the regeneration speed of the Branch Forest nt life, creating a massive safe zone where nothing was allowed to enter.
With apletely safe territory for herself, General zing Phoenix breathed a soft sigh of relief as she issued another order to her soldiers.
"Activate Burning Sea n!"
Hearing her orders through the raging mes, numerous soldiers'' eyes twinkled with excitement as they dragged outrge metal crates filled to the brim with explosives.
Chapter 231 231: 21 Sword Style
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"Boom!"
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Sounds of explosions rocked the burning forest as each bomb that the soldiers threw acted as a starter to start another forest fire wherever General zing Phoenix''s blood-red mes had yet reached. With the forest set aze, countless nts from the Branch Forest that was near the mingo in region were set on fire and turned into ash.
With the Blood red fire tornado that General zing Phoenix created acting as a fuel source for all the fire, the multiple forest fires would reach each other andbine, allowing the forest fire to not only continue but to actively expand. For the first time, many soldiers were able to breathe a small sigh of relief and recuperate their bodies as they watched as the Branch Forest nt life was pushed back.
When the first piece of ground that had been charred ck by the fire was revealed, numerous soldiers'' faces turned grim as they returned to the battlefield and checked every inch to make sure nothing was alive inside the ground. Once their search for each inch of charred earth wasplete, they looked at each other and smiled.
"Everything is dead. Meaning that the method is quite effective."
Even though the soldiers were happy that their general''s n was working as predicted, they still didn''t allow their guards to loosen as they sent groups of soldiers every time a small bit of charred earth was revealed. Using this method, slowly but earthly, the territory that they could now start their battle expanded from 10 feet into the Branch Forest to 20 miles into the forest.
With miles and miles of forest that had been turned into ck ash, the earth was scorched, and a still raging forest fire in front of them, General zing Phoenix''s scouts scattered to send the news to the other generals so they could follow a simr but modified n.
One after another, the generals of New Swamp Town received the news that General zing Phoenix had run ahead of her n to burn the entire Branch Forest to the ground, and each made a decision on how they would proceed forward.
"General Blood Stone, what should we do? Should we follow a simr idea as General zing Phoenix and request explosives from New Swamp Town?" A soldier in brown metal armor covered in wood chips asked General Blood Stone.
"We don''t have much of a choice. After nearly 48 hours, we have barely pushed our piece of the Branch Forest back dozens of feet."
"Not only are our soldiers bing exhausted, but I suspect that if we don''t stop soon to recuperate, the side effects of this abnormal effect are going to do something predictable and take out our whole army."
"But we are not going to blindly follow General zing Phoenix''s lead in this matter since we will never be able to replicate her excellent results. Instead, request me bombs from the Town and make sure that they don''t have a strong explosion when activated."
"We don''t want to identally cave in some parts of the Gecko region unless we absolutely need to. This will also allow more air to fuel the raging forest fire and prevent it from extinguishing itself." General Blood Stone ordered one of his elite soldiers.
After fighting so long, he had been losing hope that they would be able to oust the Branch Forest''s abnormal growth and that the immortals would be able to take care of whatever was causing this strange event. They also weren''t able to find anything significant from the searches inside the Branch Forest, meaning that whatever had caused this event was either no longer present or was inside the Endless Forest.
Which was simply a death sentence for them if they had to enter themselves, even if they had the assistance of an army, they wouldn''t have been able to leave alive. Even after contacting Martial Grandmasters, New Swampscott City, and surrounding towns for help, General Blood Stone was still filled with anxiety that they would not be able to deal with this.
He was even beginning to regret bringing Floyd along to this mission as he could only imagine the amount of stress, exhaustion, and panic on his face. Luckily, General zing Phoenix''s strategy was temporally effective at eradicating the forest life faster than they could grow, or else they would not have had to deal with an expanding forest but also a forest fire that was expanding as well.
"Hahaha! Die you pieces of nt."
Floydughed as he fought against a three feet long and a several inches thick root that he suspected to havee from a Copper Maple Tree due to its red coloring and the apparent metallic defensive strength of its roots. He had been fighting this one root tentacle for ten minutes and had nearly died several times.
However, while he had nearly experienced death on several asions, he couldn''t help butugh as he could feel that he was rapidly learning and integrating the martial arts that his grandfather had taught him in the past. With the strength of rock no longer being of use, he had to resort to using a longsword that a soldier had given him to deal with this root.
For him to not die immediately, he had to resort to trying the sword technique that he had tried to learn several years ago. He had thought that with his skills, he would have had his throat pierced a long time ago, but what he didn''t know was he had unknowingly be more proficient in the technique.
"21 Sword Style: Repeated Hacking."
As Floyd called out the name of the technique he was using in his head, he dodged the Copper Maple Tree''s root from piercing through his heart and heavily shed the ce near the root''s tip three times before he missed. Even though he missed and allowed the Copper Maple Tree''s root to escape his attack, Floyd smiled as he could see that he was able to rip off an inch from the spot he had attacked.
Combined with his improved ability to use the 21 Sword Style and evenplete the first level of the technique with no problem, Floyd noticed that all the martial art techniques that his grandfather had attempted to teach him in the past had experienced improvements.
"I get it now. The refreshing sensation is allowing us to improve our martial art techniques at an extremely rapid pace. It might not just be martial art techniques but also body cultivation methods meaning that as we continue to fight the evolving nts, we are also improving."
"The only problem is that we are not nts, and this rapid improvementes with the effects of driving us mad or killing us much faster. So before any of us can use this effect to reach the pinnacle of the human body, we will have died, or the nts will have evolved enough to ughter all of us."
With this massive discovery, Floyd wanted to put down everything he was doing and observe what was happening to the soldiers around him. He wanted to see how fast the soldiers he was fighting with were improving their martial arts.
Unfortunately, he had his hands full dealing with this Copper Maple Tree Root before he could begin his observation n. As Floyd was staring at the root for any signs that it wouldunch another strike, he noticed it slightly move backward.
Knowing that this was a sign it was going to attack, Floyd increased his guard and widened his eyes to get a clearer picture of the root. Just then, the root struck at his throat and was an inch away before he was able to react and shift his body to the side, dodging the strike.
"It shifted its attack n,"
Floyd''s pupils contracted as he noticed that the root turned itself into a whip after missing its attack and went for his head. Knowing that he would lose his life if he let that whip attacknd on his head, Floyd quickly lifted his sword and used it as a shield to gain additional time.
"Bang!"
Just as he expected, the moment the tree root made contact with his sword, he heard the loud sound of metal shing against metal reverberating throughout his arms, making them turn numb. At the same time, the tree root twisted around his sword continuing its path toward his head.
"I got enough time,"
With the extra time he gained from blocking the whip attack, Floyd was able to duck his head below the root, making it miss and wrap around his sword. Having gone through multiple life-and-death moments, he was much better able to keep his cool under pressure which allowed him to make calm but swift actions.
With his weapon tied up by the Copper Maple Tree Root, Floyd mmed his sword against the cliffside wall near him.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Not allowing the Copper Maple Tree root to adapt to his action and try to escape, Floyd repeatedly mmed his sword against the sharp rocks on the cliffside wall as fast as he could. It was only after the twentieth m against the wall that the Copper Maple Tree root was able to untie itself from Floyd''s sword and escape the repeated smashes.
By the time it escaped, its body was so torn up and battered that it was on the brink of death. This allowed Floyd to only need to resort to using 21 Sword Style: Repeated Hacking once more to cut it into small enough pieces that it officially died.
Chapter 232 232: New Bloodmaster!
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With his first life-and-death opponent defeated Floyd wanted to breathe a sigh and could sense the hidden exhaustion rising. With the fatigue of battle mming into him, he almost fainted but luckily before he was overtaken by the exhaustion his mind was refreshed by the mysterious refreshing sensation that came from killing nts.
This time however the refreshing sensation was ten times as powerful as his mind was instantly refreshed to its peak state. Not only that, memories of his time training with his grandfather resurfaced with renewed rity.
Every single one of the 21 Sword Style''s attacks reyed in his head as the younger him practiced each one with more energy and passion than he did in real life. Without even having to put in much effort, in reality, Floyd knew that he had learned another sword technique in 21 Sword Style, known as sh Storm.
While his proficiency wasn''t the best with this new attack he had gotten a basic understanding and feeling on his to perform it. Alongside his proficiency in the 21 Sword Style: Repeated Hacking improved as well.
"Just as expected, the stronger,rger, and older the nt is, the more of this refreshing sensation gives the person who defeats the nt. That means that Grandfather and the other generals are getting sted with this refreshing sensation."
"They must be seeing a sharp increase in their fighting abilities or at least bing more proficient in the martial art techniques that they are using." Floyd thought to himself as he couldn''t help but be worried for his Grandfather.
While he knew that this refreshing sensation had some good effects he also could tell with a rough estimate that one could only survive to enjoy the benefits if they took the refreshing sensation in moderation. For the soldiers, this could be done by temporarily retreating from the battlefield to heal their wounds but generals couldn''t retreat from the battlefield at all.
The moment they retreated from the battlefields the army would quickly lose the bit of progress that they gained and even might begin to be overwhelmed. Just the fact that there were soldiers like himself who only had to deal with small pieces of nt life or the fact that a small percentage of them could temporarily retreat from the battle to recuperate showed how much effort his Grandfather was putting in.
"With the constant refreshing sensation bombarding his mind, is he going to notice the dangers hidden in the refreshing sensation? What if he mistakes his progress to only be good and pushes his body too far that he goes mad or dies from exhaustion?" Floyd wanted to check in on his Grandfather to see how he was doing but he simply was too far away from the main battlefield to see what was going on.
As the weakest soldier in the army, Floyd knew his ce was always going to be in the back line and never to move forward. Since the closer one was to the main battlefield therger the pieces of the nt became until he would have to deal withplete nt life that was trying to kill every living thing in their vicinity to suck up the nutrition from their body.
If he even attempted to reach his Grandfather the only result that would ur would be that his body would be pierced by hundreds of roots and he would turn into a dried corpse. All he needs to do is survive and hope that his Grandfather and the other generals can think of a solution to this problem.
"I understand! I understand! So this is how to be a Bloodmaster!"
While Floyd was worried about his Grandfather, he suddenly heard a soldier in front of him exim something. As he looked at the soldier, he recognized him as Whaly Cold an elite soldier from his Grandfather''s army and had been stuck at the Peak of the first-rate martial artist realm for nearly three decades
Many soldiers including himself had thought that he had long reached his potential and couldn''t advance further in his entire life. To suddenly hear him about gaining an understanding to break into the Bloodmaster realm instantly attracted Floyd''s attention
With his renewed focus on the Whaly, Floyd noticed that Whaly''s armor was heavily battered, full of holes, and bent out of shape. His hair was covered in wood dust and there were thousands of wooden chips on the ground around him showing a testament to his strength and his ability to act as a wood grinder.
Even a wood grinder eventually breaks from processing too much wood, so it was obvious to see the exhaustion in Whaly''s body but the bright rity and excitement in his brown eyes showed he wasn''t going to stop soon.
"Just a little bit more, I just need to be enlightened a few more times, and I can modify my body cultivation method to be capable of reaching the Bloodmaster realm." After shouting his lungs out, Whaly repeatedly insanely muttered to himself.
"Let me kill that vine for you,"
Suddenly after Whaly muttered to himself, he jumped at the opportunity to finish off arge oak vine that hispanion soldier was about to kill. Clenching his six-foot-long hammer that weighed nearly 100 pounds, Whaly jumped ten feet into the air to jump over the soldier and heavily smashed the ten-foot-long and nine inches wide Oak vine into green mush.
"Whaly, thank you for your assistance. I don''t think I could have killed that Oak Vine as effectively as you could have, which would have been a pain in my butt." The soldier that had his kill stolen wasn''t upset and instead looked at Whaly with gratitude.
He couldn''t believe how strong Whaly had be during this war. Even though Whaly was an elite soldier while a soldier like himself could only look up to him.
He never imagined that the gap between them would instead widen further. If he wasn''t mistaken he felt that the aura that Whaly was oozing from his body was the strongest he had ever felt from a first-rate martial artist.
While he was being praised by the soldier, Whaly closed his eyes and tightly clenched his hammer as his body twitched in strange ways. After a few seconds, Whaly opened his eyes and shook his head as he ignored the soldier and went to steal another kill.
"Boom! Bang! Crunch!"
It wasn''t difficult for Whaly to find some easy prey and quickly killed three more nts. After crushing a five feet wide tree stump into centimeter-long wooden chips, Whaly smiled as he finally figured it out.
He grabbed his hammer with two hands and ced it in front of his chest with the hammer head pointed at his chest. Taking a deep breath Whaly steeled his resolve as he heavily mmed his hammer against his chest.
"Thud!"
The moment his hundred-pound hammer head mmed against his chest, Whaly immediately coughed up blood as he felt his bones nearly fracture. Still, he didn''t give up and continued to m his hammer repeatedly.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
Each painful thud made Whaly cough up a mouth full of blood and caused his face to turn paler due to the blood loss yet with his determination he was able to reach his desired effect. The constant thuds soon formed a pattern simr to a heartbeat that helped assist him in forcing his pent-up inner vigor to enter his blood.
One after another strands of brown inner vigor entered his crimson blood allowing him to gain additional control over his blood. Once thest inner vigor strand entered his blood Whaly felt a burst of energy and power flow through his veins.
"I finally did it. I became a Bloodmaster." Whaly let out a crazy smile as he lifted his hammer which was covered in his blood.
The strange feeling of having deified his fate of being stuck as a first-rate martial artist for the rest of his life thrilled Whaly. As he felt an immediate urge to test out his new battle prowess and test his new limits.
Scanning the battlefield for a good enemy, Whaly eventually spotted a ten feet tall Burned Chestnut Tree in the distance trying to imnt ten of its thick roots into the cliff wall and grow sideways. With a good target, he forced blood to pour out of his hands to cover his hammer in a thinyer of blood.
Without backing up at all, Whaly simply swung his hammer and shot ten blood bullets the size of small coins at the tree. These blood bullets immediately reached the tree and poked giant holes through its main body.
"Boom!"
Before the Burned Chestnut Tree could react to Whaly''s attack it was crushed into dust by hundreds of blood bullets that Whaly shot out of his blood hammer. Seeing how easily he was able to take out an entire tree from a distance with ease, Whaly smiled as he couldn''t wait to return home and tell his family.
While Whaly was enjoying his new power from breaking through Floyd along with many other soldiers stared at him with shock in their eyes.
Chapter 233 233: Changing Tide
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Floyd couldn''t believe his eyes. He had just witnessed someone just enter the Bloodmaster realm in a blink of an eye. What was even more impressive was that achieving this feat required Whaly to modify the army''s Ground Storm body cultivation method, which only could support a first-rate martial artist.
For someone who never had the talent or enough experience to adapt or modify martial art body cultivation methods, to suddenly gain the ability to do so while also having enough foundation to break through was a miracle. Even though he had predicted that body cultivation methods could benefit from these refreshing sensations, Floyd never thought that someone could use this opportunity to break through a realm.
"Could Grandfather have a chance to break through to the Martial Grandmaster realm?" Floyd''s heart skipped a beat as he thought of the possibility of his Grandfather achieving the ultimate dream of all martial artists.
"Unfortunately, I still think that the chances are next to impossible for anyone to use this war to break through into the martial grandmaster realm. Not only would Grandfather need to be at the peak of the Bloodmaster realm, but he would either have to modify his Bloodmaster body cultivation method or get a Martial Grandmaster body cultivation method."
"Whether it''s modifying or getting a Martial Grandmaster body cultivation method, the difficulty level is much higherpared to doing the same with the Bloodmaster realm. Not only that, Grandfather is only a second-rate Bloodmaster and not even close to reaching the first-rate Bloodmaster stage."
"So it should be impossible for Grandfather to go from a second-rate Bloodmaster to a first-rate Bloodmaster, to Peak Bloodmaster, and finally breakthrough to the Martial Grandmaster realm. The difficulty is simply too great, and it would kill long before he even got close." Floyd reluctantly shook his head as he knew in his heart that his Grandfather couldn''t achieve his dream.
"The only generals that coulde close to breaking through would be General ck Snow, General Devil Storm, and General zing Phoenix. General zing Phoenix should have the highest chance of breaking through since she should be a Peak Bloodmaster." Recalling the strong pressure that he sensed from General zing Phoenix when he first met her, Floyd couldn''t help but wonder how much stronger she would be after reaching the next realm.
While Floyd was worried about his Grandfather, he knew that he couldn''t continue to just observe the soldiers around him and needed to go back and kill the leftover nts nearby. After looking around, he eventually found a six feet long and two-inch wide vine that was trying to bury itself underground.
Knowing that he had to stop it, Floyd rushed toward the vine using one of the movement martial art techniques that his Grandfather tried to teach him in the past, the Tiger Pounce. By crouching his body like a Tiger spotting its prey from the forest''s thick bushes and gathering all his strength into his legs, he was able to burst with immense speed and reach the vine in no time.
A few days passed, and the war against the nts from the Branch Forest was raging around as the world''srgest forest fire was consuming the forest. Floyd was busy assisting the medical soldiers in patching up the soldiers who had been injured in the battle against the ever-evolving nt life.
Luckily, after four days had passed, once the war began, Floyd noticed that dozens ofrge wagons carrying hundreds of bombs each reached them to assist in gaining a footing on the battlefield. While they weren''t able to get the Town or the City to send them any Martial Grandmasters, Floyd was happy to see that five more Generals from the City had arrived to help his Grandfather.
Now with the additional assistance from the firebombs wreaking havoc on the forest life and turning them into ash. As well as the five generals allowing his Grandfather to rest and regain his strength, Floyd''s hope that they could win the war skyrocketed.
"Floyd, you are pressing on this soldier''s wounds too hard." Suddenly hearing a tired voiceing from behind him, Floyd snapped out of his delusions and reduced the pressure on the chest wound.
"I apologize, Luka. I''m still getting used to this war and helping soldiers get better." Floyd sincerely apologized as he looked at the soldier next to him.
A young man around the same age as Floyd stood beside him, with the same tiredness and experience as that he had seen with many other soldiers. With his naturally blonde hair that had been shaved down to a buzz cut, his light green eyes, and his calming smile Floyd initially thought that he had been in the army much longer than he was.
Being only in his early twenties, Luka had been in the army for only two years as a medical soldier. Yet even with only two years under his belt, this war had forced Luka to act as guidance for numerous soldiers that had joined a year or two after him.
Not only did he have to deal with performing surgery and medical operations on soldiers on the battlefield, but he also couldn''t rest for a second. He needed to teach weak soldiers like Floyd how to perform medical check-ups and life-saving techniques to keep soldiers from dying before they got to professional hands.
The only person that gave him some time to rest was when he was teaching Floyd since he was a quick learner, and his experience in higher education as an inspiring official gave him additional knowledge on the body, which was crucial in learning how to effectively save someone''s life.
"Don''t worry about it, Floyd. The soldier is unconscious anyway, so he won''t remember a thing."
"Still, from your rapid progress in learning all the steps to save someone''s life while under pressure, I think that you have a lot of talent to be a medical soldier. What do you think? I can even continue being your mentor if you want."
asionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 234 234: Arrival Of Insanity
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Hearing Luka advise him to be a medical soldier, Floyd gave him an exhausted smile as he shook his head.
"I''m fine with my current position. I am not interested in pursuing the medical field."
"That''s a shame, that is one good medical soldier gone, and another powerful soldier gained. Still, you have a bright future ahead of you, and as long as you don''t die here, I believe you can be a Bloodmaster one day." Luka gave Floyd his signature calming smile and a pat on the shoulder to give him some encouragement before walking away to help another soldier.
Watching Luka walk away, Floyd silently sighed as he felt that it was surreal to see someone close to his age already used to the war. He didn''t even flinch when he saw a soldier nearly cut in half and blood gushing from his life-ending injury.
All he did was patch him up and pass the soldier to the special medical team that seemed so skilled that they could drag anyone from death''s fingers. As long as those soldiers weren''t dead by the time they reached the special medical team, they usually would be able to survive.
Floyd firmly believed that they would have long lost this war if it wasn''t for this special medical team. The value of drastically reducing the number of soldiers dying and allowing hundreds of soldiers to continue fighting was immeasurable.
He even wanted to get to know one of the special medical soldiers to figure out how they did it and ask if he could learn some of their skills. Unfortunately, it seemed that regr soldiers were not allowed to talk with these special medical soldiers unless they were approached first.
What Floyd found the most strange was that the special medical soldiers all wore white masks that had a thick smell of herbs and medicine. Their uniform was also unique as they were as white as snow and remained clean even as they rummaged through the mud and blood to help heal soldiers.
Though there was a thick mist of mystery for the special medical team, Floyd didn''t bother to try and unmask their mysteries as he only wanted to appreciate the help. He also didn''t want to gain the ire of the army simply because he was curious about something.
"If I be an official, I might be able to figure out why the special medical teams are so special. So there is no need to risk my life and future for them." Floyd thought to himself as he patched up the unconscious soldier and picked him up to ce him in one of the numerous resting tents.
"Hey, you need to rest your body. If you don''t rest, you''re going to die."
"Get off of me! I am so close to breaking through!"
"Luka?" Hearing Luka''s distressed voice, Floyd''s heart skipped a beat as he raced out of the tent to check out what was happening.
When he made it outside, he saw Luka trying to suppress a soldier whose body was covered with scars. Some of the scars were recent and still looked freshly healed, while the others were old and obviously were scars he obtained from past battles.
Yet even though the soldier was still healing from getting injured by the nts and even had some of his skin turning ck due to poison, his strength was too much for a medical soldier like Luka. Soon Luka couldn''t hold down the scarred soldier any longer and was pushed to the ground.
Now free, the scarred soldier began to punch his bleeding chest heavily as if he was trying to emte Whaly in his breakthrough. With each one of his punches to his chest, a clear sound of cracking bones was heard, but in the soldier''s insanity, he didn''t care or seem to notice.
"Someone stop him. He has gone insane! If he continues to try and forcefully breakthrough, he is going to copse his lungs and shred his heart!"
Knowing that he and the rest of the medical soldiers couldn''t stop the scarred soldier by themselves, Luka yelled out for one of the other soldiers for assistance. Unfortunately, even though they were surrounded by soldiers, most of the ones nearby to help were injured in their own right. They could barely keep themselves alive, much less stop another soldier.
While the soldiers that did possess the strength to continue fighting were all busy still fighting or throwing firebombs, which prevented them from leaving to help. Seeing that the soldier was only a few more punches away from death, Floyd gritted his teeth and ran toward the crazy, scarred man.
Once he got close enough, Floyd drew out his sword and stabbed at the scarred man, hoping to snap him out of his insanity. Luckily, his crazy n worked as the scarred soldier''s dazed eyes suddenly cleared up, as he stopped himself from continuing to pound his chest.
Instead, he changed the course of one of his punches to punch Floyd in the face. Unable to react to the fast instinctual attack from a soldier, Floyd wasn''t able to dodge and took the full brunt of the attack, causing him to fall on his back.
"Who the hell do you think you are to stop me from achieving my dream!? I''m going to kick your-"
Even though the scarred soldier snapped out of his delusion, the anger he felt from getting attacked didn''t allow him to realize the level of danger he was in. Fortunately for Floyd, before he was about to get beat up by the scarred soldier, therge amount of blood loss did the man in as he fainted mid-sentence.
"God damn, that hurts." With his life no longer in danger, Floyd could feel an aching paining from his nose.
Afraid that it might have been broken, he hurriedly touched it with his hand and felt his bones were intact, and there wasn''t any blood. Breathing out a sigh of relief that his face wasn''t disfigured due to his recklessness, Floyd stood up and saw that Luka was examining the scarred man with a grim face.
Chapter 235 235: Dego Mountain
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"Whoosh!"
In the dead of the night sky was a beautifulrge full moon that blessed its light across thend of the Dego people. As people who had lived in their isted viges for most of their life, they were not afraid of the darkness.
Instead, they had embraced the darkness in ways no other vige nearby had done, even after a thousand years. As they worshipped the Dego God, the God of Darkness, and the Monster Lord.
Which took up the form of a ck Three-Headed lion with crocodile scales as skin, green snake eyes, and a tail that was a fusion between a Blood Reaper Hawk and Purple Devil Slug. As the worshippers of this Dego God, the Dego people firmly believed that they were the Dego God''s children and, by extension, the children of monsters.
As the children of monsters, what did they have to fear in the darkness of the night? While others quivered afraid of what could be lurking in the darkness where light couldn''t reach, the Dego people made it a tradition to embrace the darkness every full moon to show their God that they still knew they were the children of monsters and followers of the God of Darkness.
Today was the Dego people''s most special day of the month as the night sky exposed the full beauty of the full moon. Not only was the full moon blessing the Dego people, but the clear night sky also exposed the expansive mountain range known as the Demon Crown mountain range.
With the Demon Crown''s centerpiece being the Dego mountain which held a special ce in the heart of the Dego people. Unlike the ordinary mountains surrounding it, Dego Mountain was unique as the nts on the mountain released a purple glow whenever night arrived.
When the rest of the mountains were consumed by the darkness of the night, the only sole exception would be Dego Mountain which looked like a demonic purple gem on a crown of darkness. Tonight the Dego people''s hearts were thumping out of their chests as they watched from a distance the nts of Dego Mountain waved hypnotically.
With their purple glow, their movements looked like each nt was doing its best to perform its most demonic dance for the Dego God. Paired with the deafening howling winding from the mountain, many of the Dego people believed that the time for the Dego God''s reincarnation wasing.
With their hearts and belief reinforced by the magical seen of Dego Mountain dancing, the Dego people cried tears of joy as they could finally be reunited with their God. Regain their monster bodies and souls and join their God in defeating the wicked God of light and its various gods and pets like the Rainbow Phoenix.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
"Yoze, I''m having trouble sleeping. Can you stop training tonight? You have been practicing all night." Leah looked at Yoze with frustration in his eyes and his eyes became a darker shade of red due tock of sleep.
"Just a few more hours. I have been working on trying to incorporate the Death Finger into the Twin Fists."
"Unfortunately, their core concepts are so wildly different that it is extremely troublesome," Yoze said, with his bandagespletely soaked in his sweat.
For thest few days, other than traveling with Leah to get to his new home, Yoze had been trying to find ces to train and develop his martial art techniques with a clear focus on improving and evolving Twin Fists to allow him to add other martial art techniques into his chain attacks.
Even though most of his time was spent running, eating, and sleeping, he was able to get a decent foundation for what he wanted Twin Fists to be. He whittled away most of the unnecessary actions that Twin Fists had that made it an offensive martial art technique.
Keeping only the essence of its chain attacks which was an attack pattern that allowed chained attacks that were impossible to block or escape from. While it sounded easy to get rid of the parts of Twins Fists that made it an offensive technique, for example, Koi Fists and Bull Fist.
In reality, trying to separate the two was extremely hard and required the person to have an extreme understanding of the martial art technique. Only someone like Yoze, who was extremely talented and had been practicing Twin Fists for a long time and broke through its limits on several asions, would have the skills necessary to perform a separation.
After doing something so difficult, Yoze had to do another impossible task of integrating other martial techniques into this foundation without it crumbling or making everything worse. So far, he attempted to integrate Death Finger, Martial Wheel Sphere, Wind Kick, and Shoulder Rush.
Each of these martial art techniques was unique in its way and were the one that Yoze wanted to integrate first. Death Finger focused on concentrating all the user''s power into one finger and sending all that power into their enemy''s heart to cause it to explode.
Martial Wheel Sphere was one of the few martial art techniques that were a part of the Martial Wheel martial art set. Even without the support of the Martial Wheel Sect''s body cultivation method, this was still a powerful martial art technique that allowed its users to create a 360-degree sphere of offense and defense.
Wind Kick was a martial art technique that was inside the Beast Hunter Sect''s library and was one of the few techniques that both the user and their beasts could perform on their own. Once used on an enemy, the user would kick them so hard that they would be sent flying tens of feet into the air, where they would be helpless to block the iing kicks.
Lastly was Shoulder Rush, which was an extremely simple martial art technique where the user gathered their strength into their shoulder and mmed into their enemies. While it was simple, Yoze felt that this would be a good addition to the basic version of the evolved Twin Fists.
With these four techniques nned to be the first additions to the new Twin Fists, Yoze wanted Death Finger to gain a good understanding of how to incorporate the other techniques. It wasn''t the hardest to incorporate, but it was extremely difficult as using the method that Death Finger suggested to gather all the power from one''s body into a single finger required the dedication of the whole body.
Having to dedicate oneself to a single attack before being able to even do another move was abo killer and needed to be changed. Unfortunately, his understanding of Death Finger wascking to be able to adapt Death Finger enough to be a single portion of a chain attack.
To make up for this, he had been dedicating some time to practicing Death Finger to the point where he had a simr level of understanding as Twin Fists. With The Death Finger beingposed of four levels that showed how much power one could focus on a single finger, Yoze had been able to reach the second level.
Meaning that if he wanted to, he could concentrate 50 percent of the entire power of his body into a single finger. If others used this technique, being able to send 50 percent of a person''s body into a heart was enough to make it explode.
Only if the person that this technique was being used was much stronger than the user of this technique would it fail to destroy the heart. But for most martial artists reaching the second level was enough and the limit most people could reach in their lifetime without dedicating their whole life to the Death Finger.
As for Yoze, he didn''t dare to use 50 percent of his body''s full power anywhere around Leah or close to anywhere near a mountain, as he predicted he would cause part of a small mountain to copse. If that copse was near a vige, hundreds if not thousands of lives would be lost in that disaster, so he only ever used 10 percent.
Yet even that ten percent was enough to cause fierce gusts of wind to travel down the entire Dego Mountain, causing all the nts to desperately hold onto their leaves, or they would be stripped naked. Not only was the wind generated strong, but they sounded like the howls of a devil awakening from its slumber, which scared all the animals in the forest enough to refuse to sleep the rest of the night.
"A few more hours? I don''t want to disturb your training, but in a few more hours, the sun is going toe up." Leah sighed with helplessness.
"The sun is going toe up? Was I practicing for that long?" Realizing that he had once again entered the zone and had unknowingly been training all night, Yoze decided to follow Leah''s advice and stop tonight''s training.
Chapter 236 236: Chaotic Dream
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Figuring that he should get some rest, Yoze stopped himself from performing the Death Finger one more time. Rxing his body from the tense state that the martial art technique required.
"Really? I''m going to get some sleep before anything else happens tonight." Seeing that he had convinced Yoze, Leah felt excited and quickly walked over to his makeshift bed made of leaves, grass, and branches from various nts.
Once he reached his bed, Leahy down and closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep as quickly as possible to get a few hours of sleep. Even though Leah had only been carried around by Yoze for thest few days, his body simply wasn''t as strong as Yoze''s.
Even as an animal who had been consuming demon meat daily, he couldn''t keep up with a monster like Yoze. However, it didn''t stop him from being much stronger than other goats, and as his presence was mixed with the spiritual energy of several demons, he didn''t have to worry about being killed by another medium-sized animal like himself.
Paired with arge amount of fatigue umted throughout the trip and his sense of safety, Leah easily lowered his guard rather quicklypared to what one would expect from someone as fearful and cautious as Leah. This bit of confidence was enough for Leah''s mind to rx and gently fall asleep as the smooth sound of a crackling fire and the smell of smoke filled his nose.
"Smoke?"
Leah swiftly snapped his eyes open as he sensed that something was wrong. When he opened his eyes, he saw a zing green fire under a giant pot cooking some kind of strange liquid.
The thick bubbles from the mucky and muddy liquid released the ck smoke that Leah had smelled in his dreams. Surrounding the giant pot were several men and women dressed head to toe in animals'' bones and dressed like Sharman from fairy tales.
Their skin was as ck as night, and the white powder stuck to them made thick lines all over their bodies. Blood constantly ran down their fingers, signaling that whatever they were clutching in their hands was recently alive.
"Mmmm, Ahhhhh, ohhhh, mmmm"
As the men and women moved around the giant pot and crackling fire, they sang a song that came straight from a fairy tale as their bodies twisted into shapes that should have been impossible for humans to perform. With every stomp they did on the ground, Leah could feel the earth tremble as if quivering from the demonic ritual these strange witches were performing.
Their constant dance and chants around the boiling pot of strange liquid were often followed by all six of the strange witches tossing animal limbs, herbs, and human skulls into the giant pot, feeding the mucky liquid that was slowly turning into ck sludge.
A chill crawled down Leah''s spine as he could only imagine the main ingredient these witches nned to use for their spell. Knowing that he had to get out of there before they realized he was awake, he tried to move his legs but found that a rope tied them up.
"Shit, Yoze?"
Unable to move and escape on his own, Leah turned his hope to the only person he knew could help him escape from the terrifying fate that was about to befall him. Not wanting to alert any of the strange witches, Leah secretly looked around only to feel his heart drop as he couldn''t find Yoze anywhere.
Even his bandages and the destroyed trees that he had left during his training were all gone. Even as he strained his eyes to look around for any signs of Yoze, he found that it was like everything rted to Yoze had disappeared.
What made his hope that he could survive this sudden encounter fall was that he noticed that none of the trees and nts were releasing their signature purple glow even though it was night. Instead, they released a beautiful light green which seemed to have been used as the fuel for the crackling fire under the giant pot.
"Was I kidnapped!?"
Leah''s mind raced as he tried to devise ways to escape this strange predicament he found himself in. In a scenario where he was tied up and would be a soup for some strange witches that had kidnapped him, he needed to think calmly and find a way to get rid of the rope.
"There aren''t many good options, but I need to take a risk when I''m on my own." Leah''s eyes glinted with colorful sparkles as he took a deep breath.
"Who are you to dare touch my godly body while I''m asleep!?" Leah said out loud with confidence.
"Mmmmm, Ohhh, Ahhhhh, Mmmmm"
Strangely even though Leah had finally gathered the courage to show his speaking ability to strangers for the first time in a long time, he noticed that none of the strange witches bothered to even look at him. They simply continued to throw ingredients into the giant pot that was near twice the size of the human body and could easily fit the entire body of a goat.
"I said, halt this ceremony now!" Leah said angrily.
"Mmmmm, Ohhh, Ahhhhh, Mmmmm"
Once again, the strange witches ignored Leah''s call and simply continued to perform their ritual. Even though Leah felt his blood boiling in anger from being ignored and even his attempt to act like a godly deity to scare them, he knew that something was really wrong.
As time passed, he felt incredibly dizzy, and the world around him began to spin. The shadows of the witches became even more twisted and demonic as they transformed into the shapes of various demons and animals.
The most popr transformation was a five-headed goat with a thick set of horns and eight goat legs. When he looked up at the strange witches, he saw that their bodies had also twisted and transformed into strange creatures that would have been enough to terrify an entire town of people enough to never leave their houses.
"Prince Leah, as the one with the spirit of the Mighty Demon Goat, you are the perfect instrument to test out our transformation spell. If sessful, we might be able to gain a powerful demon on our side and kill those immortals."
Chapter 237 237: Goat Demon Leah
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Suddenly the loud chanting of the six witches stopped as one of the transformed witches approached Leah. If he remembered correctly was a young man who wore animal spines as a skirt and had countless animal teeth as beautiful nes.
However, the young man had transformed into a terrifying six-eyed snake monster with a goat head, shark teeth, and the body of a ten feet long serpent. Even though the young man had been transformed into a monster, he didn''t seem to care.
Instead, his new pair of six eyes looked thrilled as he approached Leah with a clear sign of trying to impress him. The young man even twisted his body to show the scales still stained with the white powder from his human body.
"Why the heck would I care for your experiment? You tricked me into leaving my vige only to try and kill me. How could you, Laq!?"
Leah''s eyes instantly widened as he heard a childish voice filled with anger and injustice escape his throat and lips. He felt his body tremble as he felt that this voice was strangely familiar as if he had listened to this voice every day of his life.
"Could it be that I''m dreaming? Or is this a hidden memory inside my head?" Not knowing which one was better for him, Leah turned his attention back to the strange, which the childish voice calls Laq.
"What I am doing is fulfilling your dream, Leah. Imagine after you transform into the Goat Demon of the Swamp, you will be true royalty."
"You will no longer have to pretend to be what you are not and be what you are truly destined to be. As your current advisor, I hope that once you be all-powerful, you will remember who helped you grab on to your true potential."
"I, Laq, swear on my heart that I will remain loyal to the Goat Demon Leah. All my possessions and disciples will be yours, and in exchange, you must carry us to immortality." Laq''s goat head tried to perform a warm human smile but only ended up making himself seem more demonic and ghostly.
The other five witches, who had also turned into various misshaped and mismatched animals and demons, nodded their heads as they looked at Leah with hope. Their eyes shimmered as they looked at Leah like a piece of coal about to be a valuable gem that would satisfy the gods.
"No, no, no! I don''t want to. You can''t make me a demon!"
"I wanted to be a prince of the human race, not some twisted demon. I wanted to live in gold and a beautiful pce that all who look upon it will want to join me in a giant party."
"If I be a demon, that won''t happen. Instead, I will be surrounded by you ugly monsters!" The anger and fear in the childish voiceing from Leah''s mouth made Laq smile as he grabbed Leah like a baby.
"Don''t worry, my prince. Your dreams wille true soon. All you have to do is go into the pot and allow your body to adapt to your spirit."
"As for the pain that will follow, don''t worry about that since it will all be worth it in the end." Laq''s six eyes seemed to look straight into Leah''s soul as he casually threw him into the boiling ck sludge inside the giant pot.
"Ahhh! I''m going to kill you!"
The childish voice screamed one more time as the ck sludge poured directly into Leah''s mouth as he sank straight to the bottom of the sludge. The pain he expected from being boiled alive didn''te as Leah soaked in the warm liquid.
He didn''t know how much time had passed before he suddenly saw a green light fly across the darkness inside the back sludge. The green light movements were chaotic as they tried to escape Leah''s line of sight.
Not understanding what was happening, Leah simply tried his best to keep the green light on his sight as he hoped he would wake up soon. Eventually, the green light seemed to have be exhausted as it stopped moving and floated in the darkness to recover.
"Wake up,"
Before Leah could understand what the green light meant or if he needed to catch it, he heard a deep voice shake the surrounding ck space causing it to copse.
"Leah, are you okay? I was trying to wake you up all morning, yet I couldn''t get you to wake up." Noticing that Leah was finally waking up, Yoze sighed a breath of relief as he didn''t need to try his more direct method of attacking Leah''s spiritual energy to wake him up.
"I don''t know... I had a nightmare about me being tossed into a giant pot to be turned into a Goat demon." Leah said with exhaustion evident in his eyes.
"A Goat demon? Tell me all about it. Maybe it''s hidden memories of why you were able to talk since birth. Or why are you like this?" Yoze felt his interest pique as he asked Leah for all the details about his dream.
Even though Yoze knew that Leah could talk because he had a talent for spiritual speech, Yoze still wanted to know what kind of creature he was. Even from his current experience, he hadn''t met anything like Leah, who seemed to have some of the qualities of a demon yet was clearly much weakerpared to a real demon.
If he could learn what kind of creature Leah was, he could figure out how to meet other creatures like Leah and grab their unique talents. If possible, he would like to get a few simr creatures like Leah to be his pet so he could have a powerful beast to enter battle with.
Instead of having to find regr animals to tame, he could tame creatures like Leah, who were more likely to have a unique talent and even have the potential to be as powerful as demons. They might even be able to gain control of their spiritual energy and be able to kill immortals.
Chapter 238 238: Flower Forest
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Leah took a deep breath and told Yoze everything he experienced in his dream with vivid descriptions that could only be aplished if one lived through it. The sound of the fire, the atmosphere, the smell of the smoke, the individual voices of the witches, and their transformed bodies.
He described everything to Yoze, hoping he could find a clue on how to best deal with this situation. After saying everything he wanted to say, he looked up at Yoze and waited for him to digest all the information.
"Spirit of the Goat Demon? Is he talking about the shape of spiritual energy?"
Yoze''s mind raced as he went through the details of Leah''s dreams and analyzed everything he could. The clearest thing that he realized was that this was a hundred percent, not a simple dream and most likely a dream heavily influenced by a hidden memory.
The second thing was that from Leah''s description, the witches in his dream were much more powerful than a witch like Dreyer or himself. For them to be able to transform their bodies into a form that was part demon and animal showed that their level of witchcraft was easily in the Cursed Witch level.
There was a higher chance that this Laq character was even a Titled Witch if the rest of the witches in the dream were his disciples. So for Leah to gain the attention of a Titled Witch and be told that he could be a demon quickly attracted Yoze''s interest.
The first connection he could draw was that the spirit of a Goat demon could have been a reference to the shape of Leah''s spiritual energy. It would make sense that the form of spiritual energy would have some unique properties unrted to its color and size.
So far, when it came to demons, the only thing that seemed to matter was that specific colors seemed to have certain special properties. The amount of spiritual energy yed an important role as well. Still, it wasn''t something unique to each type of spiritual energy.
The only thing that Yoze didn''t know was how the shape of spiritual energy yed a part in the world of spiritual energy. Since only demons seemed to have substantial control over spiritual energy, he could only get a few clues on how the shape of spiritual energy yed an important role in the world of spiritual energy.
One of his theories was that the shape of spiritual energy gave a hidden quality or was an indicator of a hidden quality of the person. For example, when he met the child detective back in New Swampscott City and saw that his spiritual energy was in the shape of a dog, it could have been that his sense of smell was extremely advanced.
Or that any superior quality that a dog possessed over humans was given to that child detective. Or when it came to the teenage detective whose spiritual energy was in the shape of sses, her vision could be otherworldly.
There could be millions of qualities that each shape of spiritual energy could give or be an indicator for. But to be sure, he would have to experiment with whether people with certain spiritual shapes hadmon advantages over others.
"I should go ahead with that experiment when I get back to New Swampscott City. This could be a giant breakthrough in my understanding of spiritual energy."
"As for the other details of Leah''s dream, there isn''t much information we can use currently. The location of his dream, the appearance of the witches, and the mysterious green light that flew in front of him inside the pot were things they would have to investigate over time."
"However, if we were able to trigger this dream a few more times, Leah might recall more things about his past life."
"Leah, I have some good news and some bad news. Which one would you like to hear first?" Yoze said to Leah after thinking to himself for a few minutes.
"The bad news," Leah said nervously.
"Well, I still have no clue whether we can deal with this weird hidden memory of yours. And unless you have a clue on what triggered you to have this dream, you will likely have to figure it out step by step." Yoze said with a calm voice.
"That makes sense. What is the good news?"
"The good news is that you might be able to be extremely powerful in the future, or you might have a whole crew of powerful witches waiting for your return," Yoze said again.
"How is that the good news? I thought it would be that you might have figured out where the location of that dream was or that he knew someone who could help me." Leah felt his mood fall as he felt a heavy sense of pressure on his shoulders.
"Well, in any case, you are probably a failed experiment which is why you were tossed aside and not being worshiped as a Goat demon god right now. That should at least give you thefort that you probably are not being pursued right now." Yoze smiled as he gave Leah a bit more hope.
"I guess that I feel better knowing that I most likely can continue to live my life as I did before. But what about getting revenge for what had happened to my past life?"
"It will eat me from the inside, knowing I could have lived an entirely different life as a human prince. Living leisurely, eating as much as I want, and being able to do whatever I want would be amazing." Leah''s eyes sparkled with desire as he spoke about his potential to live the life of a prince.
"If you want to be a prince, you should not have resisted that witch''s offer to be the Goat demon. From the sounds of your dream, your past life was more likely a child of a poor town than royalty." Yoze quickly replied.
"I guess you are right,"
"Okay, thanks for helping me out, Yoze. But let''s hurry to Flower Forest so I can find a good spot to hide away from those witches." Leah said casually, recovering from his initial disappointment.
"Alright,"
Even though Yoze had thought that this experience would have signaled to Leah the importance of strength in this dangerous world, he couldn''t me him, seeing that Leah still preferred to remain hidden in a forest helping people.
With such a firm belief that helping people was more important than protecting his own life, Yoze couldn''t help but look at Leah differently. If it wasn''t for Leah''s help, his father would have long died without Leah''s medicine.
And if he never met Leah, his entire life would have been drastically different. His father would have most likely died due to age before he could have found out that he had siblings and thus would have never decided to leave Jade City.
If he never left Jade City, he would never have discovered that Emerald Town had been massacred and had be the home ground of his first abnormality. Nor would he have ever encountered the Serpent demon egg that allowed him to get his first spiritual body talent, bing the foundation of his power.
For better or for worse, his entire fate would have changed regardless. So Yoze made a mental note that even though Leah was nning on going on his own path from now on, he would still help him out whenever he could.
After making that decision, Yoze picked up Leah up him on his back before racing down Dego Mountain and continuing their journey. It was only half a dayter when they encountered arge strange forest that blocked their way.
In this strange forest, all the trees had been miniaturized to the size of flowers, while the flowers of this forest were hundreds of feet tall and took over the ce of trees. The pleasant scent of flowers overwhelmed the familiar smell of ordinary forests as a calm atmosphere loomed throughout the strange forest.
Sharing a single nce, Leah and Yoze knew that they had finally arrived at Leah''s new home. The beautiful Flower Forest where the Flower had overtaken to be the trees of this forest while the trees were this forest''s flowers.
Even though Yoze never expected that the Flower Forest would differ from what he imagined by such arge extent, he could believe that Leah was interested in living in this special forest. The forest seemed to be gued with a curse of peace, as it even seemed that all the animals in this forest were herbivores.
"Want to take a look inside?" Leah said to Yoze with disbelief in his voice.
"Yeah," Yoze replied to Leah with the same level of excitement in his voice.
Having decided that they would explore this strange forest, Yoze and Leah entered the forest. They could immediately notice that the pleasant smell of the flowers became more potent the moment they stepped inside. A st of aromas entered their nostrils, filling their lungs as they felt as if they had entered a forest for immortals.
Chapter 239 239: Encountering A Monster
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The pleasant smell of flowers paired with the golden rays of light passing through the petals of all the flowers was amazing. The soft green grassy fields of the forest lightly swayed in the wind turning the forest floor into a green ocean.
"So beautiful. Is this really a forest that exists in this world." Leah took a deep breath of the scent of the Flower Forest and looked at thend''s beauty.
He could feel his mind being soothed as if a luby was being sung by mother nature herself. He couldn''t help but think that Jewel has underestimated the beauty of this forest.
"I can understand why you want to live here. In such a beautiful forest, I wouldn''t be surprised to see a bear sleeping peacefully with a deer." Yoze said to Leah.
After the two of them soaked in the beauty, they continued to walk through the forest and explored the forest. They saw a wide variety of flowers that grew in this forest to a massive size, with each seeming to be perfectly adapted to rece the functions of trees.
Many of the flowers that Yoze saw had hundreds of petals that were incrediblyrge, but he noticed that all of them also had small petals on their stems that numbered in the tens of thousands. These petals not only added to the beauty of the flowers and the forest as a whole, but he even saw numerous animals eating the small petals.
There were also flowers whose small petals seemed to be lightly soaked in a simr sap that trees had, which from his predictions, could be used to rece the tree sap of some trees and be turned into maple syrup.
There were also flowers whose sap could be turned into rubber, recing the need for rubber trees. The most surprising of all was that Yoze and Leah saw a ten feet tall brown bear peacefully walking through the forest.
The brown bear''s brown fur looked as though it had been shampooed and cleaned repeatedly until it was perfect. Not a single stain could be found on the bear, and even its teeth were perfectly white as if it had been brushing its teeth every day of its life.
"Roar,"
The brown bear also noticed Yoze and Leah walking around and didn''t bother them at all. Instead, it softly roared as if to greet them before walking to a flower that was more than 300 feet tall and 30 feet thick.
Unlike the flowers surrounding it, this giant flower''s stem was full of color and resembled as if someone had randomly sshed buckets of paint all over it and let it dry. While its appearance was still beautiful, it was a stark contrast to the green stems that many of the other flowers had.
Interested in why this bear was approaching this flower, Yoze and Leah followed behind it to see what it was up to. What they saw was surprising as the bear opened its wide mouth that was filled with sharp teeth and bit the stem of the flower.
With the powerful strength of its jaw, the bear ripped out a chunk of the flower and swallowed it before licking the transparent blue liquiding out of the flower. After enjoying the liquid, the bear took a few more bits of the flower and drank the transparent blue liquid until it was full. The bear took a nap right next to the flower.
"I know bears are omnivores, but I didn''t think they had the capability of eating flowers, or at least they didn''t like the taste of flowers."
After seeing this scene, Leah couldn''t help but walk over to the giant flower and lick the transparent blue liquid. After licking it, his eyes widened with shock as the liquid tasted like sugar water with a hint of watermelon.
"This tastes really good. No wonder the bear liked to drink this." Leah said to Yoze.
As Yoze watched Leah lick the transparent blue liquid, he couldn''t help but feel that everything in this forest seemed to be perfectlypatible. It was as if everything had been perfectly engineered to be able to rece everything that trees provided and much more.
Not only did the forest seem to be engineered, but even the animals seemed to be modified somewhat. Even though Yoze wasn''t an animal expert, he was able to recognize that all the animals in this forest seemed to have had their aggression drastically reduced.
Whether it was the deer, bears, giant bees, wolves, insects, and rodents, none of them even bothered to take interest or guard against him and Leah. Some of them, like the deer, were even friendly as they walked up to Leah and him and tried to offer them a petal.
"Could it be that an immortal had created this forest? Or maybe it was the people in the town nearby that had developed this forest bit by bit throughout the generations." Yoze softly shook his head and removed the thought that regr people could have done this.
He couldn''t imagine regr humans having such high capabilities to gically engineer an entire forest worth of nts and animals and not using their abilities to modify themselves. And if they were truly capable of achieving such a feat, this technique would have been widespread and used by other towns and cities to produce perfect farms, animals, and powerful super soldiers.
Only two valid entities could have the power to transform an entire forest in Yoze''s head. The first were immortals, as they seemed powerful enough to do so and intelligent enough to make everything work in harmony with one another.
The other option could be that this entire forest was either a breeding ground or food farm for a family of demons. It would make sense if the demons needed a sufficientlyrge food source, so they created this forest to serve their needs.
"Either option should mean that Leah shouldn''t be in too much danger in this forest as long as he remained discreet. But I''ll help him find a good ce to stay before I leave. It''s the least I could do." Yoze''s eyes shed with colorful sparkles as he raised his guard in case whatever creature created this forest returned.
"Yoze, what about this hill? If you could hollow it out, it would be a pretty good ce for me to live."
A few hours had passed since they began exploring the Flower Forest, and they still were finding extremely interesting flowers in their search for a ce for Leah to make his new home. At this moment, Yoze and Leah were looking at a small hill covered in a thickyer of grass with numerous unique flowers that could act as easy food sources.
"This is pretty good, but with all this food, it might attract animals or people, so unless you want to make the entrance and exit camouge, this isn''t the best ce," Yoze said casually.
"You''re right, but this is the best ce so far. Even if people and animals show up asionally, I''ll just hide or pretend to be a crazy old man living in the forest to scare them off."
"Of course, the most important reason is that I just love this ce. I wouldn''t want to live anywhere else." Leah exined to Yoze as he felt as if there was a special connection between the hill and him.
"Alright, if you really like this ce, I''ll make it a home for you." Seeing that Leah was interested in this hill, Yoze didn''t deny his request and stretched his shoulders in preparation for a long period of digging.
After finishing his stretch, Yoze made his blood pour out of his body to form arge sharp blood shovel and began digging. With his immense strength, stamina, and excellent ability to create tools out of his blood, the project of creating Leah''s new home progressed quickly.
After only an hour, Yoze had hollowed out the entire hill and added reinforcements to ensure that the hill wouldn''t copse no matter how much weight was on top of it. Once Yoze felt that the hill was sufficiently ready to be designed from the inside, he walked outside to see Leah standing on a literal small hill of dirt and stone.
"Your new home is ready to be designed."
"Buzz!"
"Hmmm?"
Just as Yoze called out to Leah about designing his new home, he heard a soft buzzing noise rapidly approaching them. Recognizing that the buzzing sound was too loud to simply be a bee, Yoze couldn''t help but look into the distance to see if he could see the creature''s spiritual energy.
Unfortunately, by the time he could recognize that the sound wasing from a rapidly approaching gathering of purple spiritual energy in the shape of a star, the creature was only a few feet away from them.
"A monster!"
Noticing that Yoze was looking at the sky above him with curiosity, Leah couldn''t help but look up as well and felt his heart stop. Above him was a giant monster that had a faint resemnce to a wasp but was ugly to the extreme.
Chapter 240 240: Immortal Monsters?
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Leah could feel his heart thumping inside hard as if it wanted to escape his chest and run away as far away as possible from this monster. Even at the risk of having his body get eaten by this ugly monster.
Above him was a monster-like wasp nearly 12 feet tall and incredibly muscr. Its legs, which one would expect to be stick-like, were thick and seemed to be covered in muscles.
Its wasp-like body was equally as muscr and had at least six pairs of insect wings poking out of its back that had patterns that looked like pairs of eyes. The eyes seemed so realistic that they seemed to blink whenever Leah''s body moved slightly.
The monster wasp''s abdomen was extremelyrge and was nearly three timesrger than the rest of its body. With its all-ck covering, three sets of curved spikesing out of its behind, and the asional thick blood vein wrapped around its abdomen gave the appearance that no creature in the world would want to get stabbed by this thing.
If they did, they would rather it had pierced their hearts than deal with the venom that would be forcefully pushed into their bodies. What made Leah the most ufortable was itspound insect eyes that had red pupils that independently moved around as if they were all separate eyeballs.
"Buzz!"
While Leah feared that his body would be eaten by this monster, Yoze was instead looking at this wasp monster with interest as it didn''t appear to be a demon. With its spiritual energy outside its body and still in its initial shape meant that this wasp monster had no control over its spiritual energy.
Meaning that it wasn''t a demon.
"This is the first time I''m seeing a creature that so clearly takes on the appearance of a demon but isn''t. At the same time, you don''t seem to be an ordinary creature either." Yoze muttered to himself.
"Buzz!"
Strangely after Yoze muttered to himself quietly, the monster wasp''s blood-red pupils all immediately focused on him. What piqued Yoze''s curiosity more was the fact that it tilted its head to the side as if questioning why he wasn''t terrified by its presence.
He felt that he even saw the light of intelligence in its countless pairs of eyes, which made Yoze certain that this creature was nothing but ordinary. Not wanting to miss this unique chance to gain the talents of a unique creature like this monster wasp, Yoze used one of his talent marks on it.
[Name: Waz Petal]
[Age: 15 years]
[Talents: Wasp (Grade 10), Group Fighting (Grade 4), loyalty (Grade 7), Crystal Nerves (Grade 2), Dance Communication (Grade 6), Body Languagemunication (Grade 3), Venom injection (Grade 5)]
"This monster has crystal nerves?" Yoze said with surprise as he thought that crystal nerves were unique to humans.
However, as he thought about it more, he felt that other creatures being able to get crystal nerves wasn''t surprising. It wouldn''t make sense if humans were the only creatures in this world that could have additional nerves that had gained crystal-like properties.
"Since other creatures can have crystal nerves, does that mean that there are going to be some monsters that are immortal as well?"
"The chances of that are slim since even with the increased intelligence, monsters are more likely to have a harder time collecting crystals to be able to progress through their immortal cultivation." Yoze shook his head as he knew that it was going to be difficult for him to find a monster that became immortal through the same path that humans took.
He believed that since humans were able to create a path to be immortals on their own, then monsters should be able to do the same. The only difference in his mind would be that monsters would most likely try not to rely on having a constant source of crystals to cast spells.
"Buzz!"
While Yoze was silently thinking about the revtion that other creatures were able to have crystal nerves and thus develop them, the wasp monster finally became impatient and decided to go on the offensive. It immediately dived straight for Leah, hoping that it would be able to take out the easy prey first before moving on to the tougher target.
Unfortunately, just as it made a move, it felt a heavy pressure m into it, instantly making it fall helplessly into the ground.
"Thud!"
The moment the wasp''s heavy body touched the ground, it mmed into the ground with a heavy thud showing how heavy its body was. When the monster recovered from its fall, it quickly lifted its stingers and fired a blood-colored liquid out of them.
However, when it saw that its blood-colored venom ended upnding right in front of it, causing the grass and earth to be charred and corroded away like it was made out of paper, it knew that it had picked the wrong opponent this time.
"Buzz!"
"Are you trying tomunicate with me?" Yoze said casually as he noticed that while the wasp-like monster''s spiritual energy was pinned down by his Armored Elephant demon''s spiritual energy, it was trying its best to wiggle its limbs and body.
The movements weren''t anything special, and most people would have chalked it up to the Wasp monster''s helpless attempt to escape from the fate of being killed. Yoze figured that since this Wasp monster had talents realized tomunicate through the body, then it might try tomunicate with him.
Interested in what the Wasp monster wanted tomunicate with him, Yoze lightened up the suppression of his spiritual energy and allowed it to have more freedom in its movements. The moment he took away some of the spiritual pressure on the Wasp monster, he could tell from its bodynguage that it was relieved.
After regaining some of its confidence back, the Wasp monster began to wiggle its body randomly as if to get used to the new feeling of having most of its spiritual energy suppressed. Once it had gotten used to having simple movements feel as if they were being weighed down by a whole hill, the Wasp Monster began its dance.
It first lifted its head and pointed its antennas into the sky before creating unique shapes that bore a slight resemnce to other wasps. After which, it quickly turned its whole body around in a circle three times before throwing itself into the air to do abination of four backflips and three front flips beforending and looking at Yoze with expectation in its eyes.
"I don''t understand," Yoze helplessly shook his head as he barely understood what the Wasp monster was trying to say.
The meaning that he could figure out was that the Wasp monster might have wanted to tell him that there were other wasp-like monsters simr to it, as for whether it wanted to intimidate him into letting it go in a threat that itspanions would hunt him down, or if it was trying to betray them to get its freedom back, Yoze had no clue.
Even though he currently didn''t have a clue about the deeper meaning of the Wasp monster''s backflips and frontflips, Yoze knew that he could simply spend one of his talent marks to copy its talent for Dance Communications.
However, since he had already spent one of his talent marks on obtaining a grade 9 Wasp talent, he was less interested in spending hisst talent mark on this Wasp monster when there was a possibility that there was a more talented monster nearby.
There was still the problem of him having to learn or derive what each of the Wasp monster''s movements meant, which would be elerated with the Dance Communication talent but wouldn''t be something he could instantly learn. Instead, he preferred not having to go through all the effort of learning how tomunicate with the Wasp monster if there was a better way.
After some thinking, Yoze settled on using the Beast Human body cultivation method that he had gained at the Beast Hunter Sect. While this method would most likely also take some time to form a strong connection between him and the Wasp monster, Yoze figured that the benefit of gaining a loyal monster at the same time was more useful than finding out that the Wasp monster was trying to manipte him this entire time.
After settling on using the Beast Human body cultivation method on the Wasp monster, Yoze looked at the Wasp monster with clear expectations in his eyes, which sent a bone-chilling sensation down the Wasp monster''s body.
When the Wasp monster saw Yoze begin to move towards it with his hands pointed toward it and his fingers randomly poking the air, it felt an urgent warning from its instinct to escape. Unfortunately, now that he had set his eyes on making the Wasp monster his pet, Yoze didn''t n on letting it escape.
"Even though I haven''t had the time to create a better version of this yet, the Beast Human body cultivation method should help usmunicate better. It just might take a few hours for us to form a connection with each other."
Chapter 241 241: Level 4 Connection
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As Yoze approached the paralyzed Wasp Monster, he was able to see more details in the designs of its body and noticed the high amount of detail when it came to the patterns on its wings. The eye-like pattern on its wings was incredibly detailed and, even up close, seemed to follow Yoze''s gaze.
When he reached the 12 feet long Wasp Monster, he first ced his fingers on the Wasp Monster''s body and did some light pokes to get a better sense of its body structure. After doing a quick 360 around the Wasp Monster''s body, Yoze took a deep breath and began to use the Beast Human body cultivation method.
In a sh, his fingers seemed to disappear as Yoze rapidly poked around the Wasp Monster''s body, drawing a deep buzz of satisfaction from the Wasp Monster. Even though it couldn''t move, the Wasp monster could feel its own body slowly rxing every time Yoze''s fingers touched its body.
Though it tried to resist, it didn''t take long before its resistance broke, and it began to ept the Beast Human body cultivation method. The moment the Wasp Monster''s resistance broke, a slight connection between it and Yoze formed, stunning the Wasp Monster.
It hadn''t felt a connection like this ever since it was born from the Wasp Queen. Even then, the connection between them never felt as direct as the connection and a stranger that was just its enemy a few minutes ago. With this new connection, the Wasp Monster didn''t know how to feel and simply lowered its head, afraid to identally make eye contact with Yoze.
While the Wasp Monster''s mind was in chaos from its new connection with Yoze, it didn''t realize there was a reduction in the pressure of the spiritual energy suppressing the Wasp Monster. It allowed it more freedom in its movement, but this wasn''t noticed by it, and Yoze wasn''t going to remind it.
Instead, Yoze made use of this slight connection to try to understand and read the Wasp Monster while he continued to advance their connection through the Beast Human body cultivation method. After only an hour, he and the Wasp Monster were able to sense the first strand of inner vigor being produced in the Wasp Monster''s body.
Knowing that he made it to the second level of the Beast Human body cultivation method, Yoze, and the Wasp Monster felt their connection deepen. Making the Wasp Monster feel more conflicted and unconsciously began to show it in its movements.
With his strengthened connection with the Wasp Monster, Yoze was able to sense that it was struggling with something. Seeing that he could understand the intentions better, Yoze knew that he had made the right decision and continued to massage every square inch of the Wasp Monster, stimting more inner vigor to be produced.
Soon they were able to reach the third level of the Beast Human Body cultivation method, and the Wasp Monster felt the inner vigor in its body ravage its entire body before being absorbed into its flesh. With every strand of inner vigor that was absorbed into its flesh, it felt its body lighten up as if it was turning into a feather.
Even though its body hadn''t grown with its breakthrough, the Wasp Monster could sense clearly that it was much stronger than before. Due to its emotional rollercoaster earlier, it hadn''t paid attention to the fact that not only was it forming a connection with an enemy, but its enemy was making it stronger.
Even without testing its new powers, the Wasp Monster knew that if it had fought itself in the past, it wouldpletely win without much difficulty. The power of simply being able to move faster was already a boost to its power since it mostly focused on making quick moments and attacks to kill its enemies.
So for Yoze, who had just fought it was now making it stronger made the Wasp Monster sense that its loyalty to the Wasp Queen quickly eroded. If nothing was done, it wouldpletely fall into the clutches of Yoze and betray its old master.
Unfortunately, while the Wasp Monster knew that it shouldn''t betray its old master since it prided itself in its loyalty, it simply didn''t want to lose its connection with Yoze. Instead, it wanted their connection to be deeper, so it didn''t put any resistance to Yoze''s advances and tried its best to cooperate to make Yoze happy.
Sensing the Wasp Monsters had reached the third level of the Beast Human body cultivation method and had be even strongerpared to when he first became a first-rate martial artist, Yoze knew that if nothing went wrong that the Wasp Monster could kill Blood Masters with ease. From his predictions, the Wasp Monster should have been extremely strong before Yoze had helped it be even more terrifying.
Now that it has gotten a powerful boost in strength due to its inner vigor, it should be a tough opponent to beat, even for Martial Grandmasters. Of course, this was when he hadn''t been able to see the full range of fighting ability from the Wasp Monster, so there was a high chance that it was stronger than he expected.
"How does this feel? Do you want to continue to the next level to deepen our connection and be even stronger?" Yoze said with a smile as he rubbed his hand on the Wasp Monster''s fur, which had extremely tough armor underneath.
"Buzz! Buzz!"
The Wasp Monster immediately nodded its head and shook its abdomen side to side as it firmly showed its intention for Yoze to continue. With their connection deepening further, Yoze was better able to understand the emotions and thoughts in the Wasp Monster''spound eyes and knew that it wanted to continue.
Even though his understanding of the Wasp Monster''s dance and bodynguage had shown any signs of improvement, Yoze knew that he could work on thatter since he had now gained the loyalty of the Wasp Monster. After seeing the clear intentions of the Wasp Monster, Yoze smiled and began to p the Wasp Monster''s body and sent the majority of the inner vigor that he had gained from the Wasp Monster and sent it right back.
With each injection of inner vigor from Yoze, the Wasp Monster''s body produced more inner vigor to match each injection which instantly sent everything into chaos. After a few minutes passed, the Wasp Monster felt as if it had been reborn anew and couldn''t help but look at Yoze with fondness.
"There we go. We can continue to advance together in the future but right now. How about you show me what you wanted to tell me earlier?" Still curious about what the Wasp Monster wanted to tell him from its dance, Yoze asked the Wasp Monster.
"Buzz!"
Seeing that Yoze was still interested in what it wanted to show him before they developed a rtionship, the Wasp Monster jumped into the air before doing half a front flip and shaking its body. Though he wasn''t able to get all the details or much of it, Yoze was able to see that the Wasp Monster didn''t feel that they shouldn''t go.
"If you feel that it wouldn''t be beneficial for me to go, then I won''t go. I am mostly here to help Leah find a new home anyways, so if I don''t need to go on another adventure, that would be ideal." Yoze said, after remembering that Leah was still standing on the dirt hill, trembling from fear.
"Oh yeah, Leah, there is nothing to be afraid of anymore. I just tamed this creature, so I won''t try to eat you." Yoze tried his best to convince Leah that the Wasp Monster no longer had any interest in doing any harm. Unfortunately, the Wasp Monster seemed to have traumatized Leah so much that he made sure to keep a distance from it at all times.
"Are you sure? What if it is just pretending to have been tamed by you to lower your guard?" Leah said worriedly.
"Don''t worry. I guarantee that it is safe. Plus, even if it is, I can react faster than it can make a move. So even if it attacks me, it will only spell its doom." Yoze said casually, with the Wasp Monster strongly nodding its head.
"Forget it, I won''t say anything more about the Wasp monster, but can you add more defense to my new home? I don''t feel that this forest is as safe as I originally thought."
"Sure, I can add some powerful bear traps and hidden pitfalls near the entrance and exit of your home so that only people and animals that have the intention ofing for you will fall for them."
"Unfortunately, that''s the only thing I can do to your new home that won''t instantly set off an alert to people that this ce is base and not an ordinary hill." Yoze nodded his head as he looked at Leah to see if that was enough for him.
Chapter 242 242: Chased By A Tiger, Rhino, And A Vengeful Ghost
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"That''s fine, but make a few more exits so that I can escape if someone does try to capture me or, worse, kill me," Leah asked.
"I can do that. Anything else about the interior?"
"No, I''ll figure that out on my own since I haven''t figured out what I want to do yet." Leah gently shook his head before declining Yoze''s offer to design his new home''s interior.
Understanding where Leah wasing from, Yoze nodded his head and began to deal with the massive pile of earth that he had dug up from inside the hill. With such arge amount of earth, it would need to be spread out through a wide area to be thoroughly hidden.
Luckily, with Yoze''s speed and abilities, it wasn''t a problem for him to grabrge sections of the pile of dirt and rocks with his blood. After grabbing the dirt and rocks, he used his incredible speed to travel through the Flower Forest and spread out the dirt and rocks he collected.
Particrly he would dumprge amounts of dirt and rocks down every valley or hole he encountered. So after only an hour, he had removed the pile of dirt the size of an entire hill from Leah''s home to fertilize arge chunk of the forest.
Once he had gotten rid of the excess dirt, he went to work on creating numerous hidden traps for people trying to enter Leah''s new home. As well as dug two more exits that would allow Leah to travel arge distance from his hill.
One of the exits led to a small cave behind a waterfall near arge crystal-clearke miles away. While the second led to the entrance of anotherrge cavern that, from the quick look inside that Yoze performed, was nearly 100 miles long.
With numerous twists and turns that would confuse any creature that entered the cave would be unable to find its way back to the exit. This was incredibly useful for anyone trying to escape from pursuit but was also dangerous since there was a possibility that both the chasers and the runner could both be lost and die in the cave system.
To solve this issue, Yoze set up a hidden path for Leah to follow that could only be found by following the hidden bug nests that he hid behind the walls. Even though these bug nests were near impossible for most people to find, and even if they did, they wouldn''t understand the hidden meaning behind them.
But people like Leah and Yoze, who had spiritual energy-sensing abilities, would be able to see the thin traces of death and life spiritual energy that would form fromrge amounts of death and births from the bug nests. This was something that Leah ended up helping Yoze discover due to the creation of his special paste.
During the process of creating the special paste, Leah needed to add arge number of eggs from various bugs into the paste. And due to therge number of bugs that would begin to hatch, their tiny amounts of spiritual energy would be enough for someone with low talent in spiritual sensing to be able to sense through either smell or sight.
The majority of the time, whenever Leah created this paste, he would be able to smell the refreshing smell of life and spiritual energy and know that the development of his paste had beenpleted. Yoze decided to use this same logic and process to develop this hidden path of life and death spiritual energy for Leah to follow.
After cing thest batch of bug nests into hidden crevices inside the cave walls, Yoze made sure that notice was missing and went back to Leah''s new home to give him a detailed tour of the two hidden exits. After traveling down each hidden exit twice, Leah was able to imprint all the things he needed to keep in mind to find his way back into his brain.
"Well, that is everything. Are you sure that there is nothing else you need my help with?" Yose said with a smile, wanting to help out as much as he could.
"I''m good. As long as you take that Wasp Monster with you, I should be fine. Plus, this isn''t the first time I have lived alone. I have been doing this on my own for the majority of my life." Leah said to Yoze calmly.
"I understand. I wille to visit you in a month to make sure that everything is still going well for you."
"If not, you are always free toe live with us again. We could always use your help with creating more medication." Yoze said jokingly.
After saying hisst goodbye, Yoze jumped on top of the Wasp Monster and allowed it to carry him into the sky, and flew toward New Swampscott City. Even though the speed wasn''t as fast as he could travel by running by himself, it was still fast enough that he predicted that they should be able to arrive just in time for the immortals to return from the third trial.
While Yoze was making his way back, five rogue immortal cultivators were running for their lives as a 20 feet tall three-Eyed Green Tiger was chasing them down. If he had been there, he would have noticed that each of these rogue cultivators disyed high talent during the first trial. Each of them disyed grade 4 crystal nerves which was the highest limit that most people could be rogue immortal cultivators.
A part of this group was the young man and woman who had drawn his attention during the weapon selection process. While the rest of the rogue immortal cultivators were running for their lives, trying not to fall behind and be ripped apart by the giant three-eyed tiger''s ws. The young woman with ck and white hair and the short man that had orange hair red at the three-eyed tiger with pure anger in their eyes.
"Leo, hurry up and kill those rogue cultivators. They dare try to steal my cores and ruin my chances of bing immortal. They only deserve death!" The young woman shouted to the orange-haired young man as she pped her palms in front of her.
"Boom!"
Even though she gently pped her hands, the sound of thunder covered the entire forest, causing the three-eyed tiger eyes to daze for a few seconds. Taking advantage of the Three-Eyed Tiger''s dazed state, Leo punched his chest hard and activated one of his favorite spells.
"Doom Rhino Armor!" Unable to help himself, Leo shouted out the name of his spell as thick gray armor made out of some special material covered his entire body.
When the rogue immortals who were on the run saw that both Leo and the young woman with ck and white hair still had the will to try and kill them even in this dangerous situation, they felt their hearts drop.
"Damn! We are goddamn immortal cultivators. We should be smarter than to put all our lives at risk for some petty reason!" One of the elderly rogue immortals that were on the run from both the Three-Eyed Tiger and the Demon Duo couldn''t help but scream at them.
Unfortunately, both Leo and the young woman with ck and white hairpletely ignored him as they continued to pursue them. After donning his armor, Leo''s speed increased drastically as he quickly caught up with one of the slower rogue immortals.
The rogue immortal that was being caught up with couldn''t help but heavily regret thinking that he had enough power to be able to survive this trial. He had only been able to form half of his Crystal Spine and was barely able to keep himself alive this whole time.
If he hadn''t prepared a secret stash of crystals on his body and found a peaceful cave to absorb them, he would have already died. He shouldn''t have been so greedy and should have dug himself six feet into the ground until this trial ended.
That way, he could at least have avoided angering the Demon Duo. The two people had been able to collect ten nt cores each and were extremely likely to beat this trial if nothing went wrong.
It was already bad enough that they had offended Leo, who had made a name for himself yet, by trying to rob him of his Greatsword and thus indirectly stealing his cores. But he should have realized that the leader of their group had a death wish when he provoked the rogue immortal who had earned herself the nickname Death Sniper, Thunder God, and Vengeful Ghost through her years of being a rogue immortal cultivator.
"I shouldn''t have believed this dumb old man. The title Wiseman of the South is wasted on this man." The rogue immortal looked at the old man who had shouted earlier with disgust.
Knowing that he had be a sacrifice for these two demons, the rogue immortal cultivator decided that it was now time to use hisst life-saving spell. After taking a deep breath and locking onto his target, the middle age immortal cultivator stopped running, startling everyone.
Chapter 243 243: Wisemen Of The South
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Taking a deep breath, the middle-aged rogue immortal cultivator felt his mind be clearer as he suddenly stopped running. After he stopped running, the middle-aged rogue immortal cultivator looked at Leo''s eyes with stillness as if he had already epted his fate.
Even though Leo and the young woman with ck and white knew that something was off with the middle-aged rogue immortal cultivators, they didn''t stop their chase. Instead, the moment the middle-aged rogue immortal cultivator stopped, the demon duo increased their speed.
This was especially the case with Leo as he hadplete confidence in his armor as its defensive capabilities were so high that it had allowed him to survive fatal attacks. In his entire lifetime, the number of times he had been injured in a fight while wearing his Doom Rhino Armor was zero.
Even the full-powered attacks from Martial Grandmasters couldn''ty a scratch on his armor which gave Leo the confidence he needed to charge at his enemies without care. Other than splitting half of his attention to maintaining his armor and locking down his enemies, he focused on watching the careful movements of his enemies and the surrounding environment to ensure nothing caught him by surprise.
"No crystal energy fluctuations? And he hasn''t cast a spell. Is he nning on relying on something he had cast previously?" Leo''s mind races as he tries to remember everything that he can remember about this middle-aged rogue immortal cultivator.
As someone previously on their team before being robbed, Leo had a wealth of information on the type and number of spells that each person had disyed for most of the trial. If he remembered correctly, the middle-aged man in front of him was named Jackie Fruit and was a rogue immortal cultivator from a faraway town.
Only arriving at New Swampscott City due to the rumors of a special treasure being born near the City. Unfortunately, this was amon trend as hundreds of rogue immortal cultivators had journeyed to collect that treasure.
With such a fiercely contested treasure, it was impossible for someone who had only created half of his Crystal Spine topete in thepetition. Now that he had joined the third trial, the weakness of his low realm yed a role in his trouble to survive.
However, his survival till now showed that he had plenty of tricks in his sleeves that could help him out of any sticky situation. Leo could remember when Jackie pulled out a spell that could turn himself into a ten feet tall giant that had super strength to match when they were restraining another rogue immortal cultivator.
Though that Giantification spell was difficult for someone of his caliber to be able to cast, his sess, paired with his ten water-rted spells, meant that he was a talented spell caster. So even though Leo knew that Jackie was low on crystal energy, he still decided to be cautious and activate another of his favorite spells.
"Buffed Rhino Armor!"
Once again, screaming out the end of his spell, Leo''s original gray armor that took on the shape of a rhino costume becamerger, and even a newyer was created to increase his defense. As Jackie watched Leo nearly get within punching distance, his heart slowed as he bent his knees.
"Please spare my life! I''ll help you catch that rat and kill anyone you want me to kill!" The moment Jackie''s knees touched the ground, he shouted to the sky with confidence as he screamed for his life to be spared.
Surprised by this scene, Leo and the young woman with ck and white hair felt their pupils contract from shock. Not expecting that at this moment Jackie would ce his life in the hands of others, Leo''s slightly slowed down to prepare for some surprise attack.
Taking advantage of this extra time, a green sh appeared in Jackie''s eyes, and he quickly used the rest of his crystal energy to activate one more spell. In a split instant after casting his spell, Jackie''s knees sank through the ground as he quickly turned intangible.
By the time Leo reached him, Jackie had allowed his entire body to enter the ground quickly, making his escape. He didn''t even think about how he had abandoned his teammates as he knew that if he had thought about loyalty for even a split second longer, he would have been dead.
Not only that, as the weakest member in this entire trial, there was only one oue if he was that foolish, death. If he wanted to survive, he needed to get rid of having a target on his back by clearing the path for the demon duos'' real target.
As Jackie had expected, he couldn''t sense anyone following him as Leo immediately switched his target for another middle-aged rogue immortal cultivator on the run. As the second slowest in the group and having not gained a significant distance ahead of Jackie, Leo quickly caught up to the rogue immortal cultivator.
"You gotta be kidding me!" The middle-aged rogue immortal cultivator cursed under his breath. Before muttering a chant under his breath, the middle-aged man turned his head around and spat out thick blue mes that reached thousands of degrees.
The man that had turned himself into a methrower easily covered Leo''s short body in his blue mes. The enormous heat from the fire turned the surrounding nts into ash while the ground was charred ck.
Unfortunately, the middle-aged rogue immortal cultivator knew it wasn''t enough to take down monsters like Leo, so he tried to activate another of his spells. Before he could, arge gray hand stretched out of the blue mes and grabbed the back of his head.
"Ahhh!"
The middle-aged rogue immortal cultivator instantly screamed as his blue mes engulfed his head, quickly melting his skin and bones. Before he died from having his head turned into ash, Leo''s second hand curled up into a fist covered in blue mes that punched right through the man''s chest.
After punching a hole through the middle-aged immortal cultivator''s chest, Leo threw his body away like a garbage bag to continue to chase after the two remaining rogue immortal cultivators.
"Brother, I hope you have a n on how to deal with this."
"Of course I do,"
After the death and escape of their two teammates, the two remaining members looked at each other with calm expressions on their faces as if they weren''t worried about being killed. This was even the case for the elderly old man who had hysterically screamed, as he no longer had the same panic-stricken look on his face.
"I havepleted absorbing the cores of our two teamsters, bringing us each to 15 cores. This should be enough to allow us to pass this test, so we don''t need these two demon''s cores any longer." The old man known as the Wiseman of the South smiled as he pped his hand to summon two weapons out of thin air.
These two weapons were Leo''s greatsword and the Vengeful Ghost''s Bow and Arrow. Each of these legendary weapons had been created by Immortal Patty each had a glowing ten imprinted on their surfaces.
"Here is a gift from the two Wiseman of the South for taking care of our ipetent teammates for us. As for your revenge, you can have these bodies as well."
After summoning the two weapons, the Wiseman of the South threw them to their owners, forcing Leo and the Vengeful Ghost to abandon chasing after the Two Wiseman of the South. With the additional time, the two old men pped their foreheads, causing their skin to turn bright red.
As soon as their bodies had turned as red as a lobster, the sound of ripping skin and muscles came from their bodies. Without much resistance, a skull and spine made of crystals shimmered in the sun, causing beautiful rainbows to surround their bloody and torn-apart flesh.
After escaping their struggling old bodies, the two pairs of crystal skulls, crystal spines, and brains quickly flew hundreds of feet into the air and disappeared.
Once Leo and the Vengeful Ghost grabbed their weapons, they looked at two bodies of elderly men that had been abandoned and turned into nothing more than sacks of flesh and stopped their pursuit.
"I''ll remember this,"
Even though the young woman dressed in a ck and white robe still desired to get revenge on the two old men, she knew clearly that it was no longer suitable for her to chase after them. Instead, she needed to escape as soon as possible before the Three-Eyed Tiger recovered from her Thunderp spell and swallowed her whole.
"Leo, I''ll meet you at the Immortal sect headquarters." She said quickly.
"Same to you, Yamgo." Leo gave her a slight nod before running away as fast as possible.
After saying their goodbyes, Tamgo threw a nce at the Three-Eyed Tiger and felt a cold chill crawl down her spine as she realized that it had already recovered from its dazed state.
Chapter 244 244: A Fateful Encounter
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Coldly staring at her were the Three-Eyed Tiger''s bright green eyes that looked at her like she was a bug that it was big that it was ying with.
With her heart rapidly thumping in her chest, Yamgo''s mind raced as she tried toe up with ways to escape this situation. Yet before she could think of anything, the Three-Eyed Tiger crouched down to get down on her level and used its giant third eye to look at her directly.
The moment the Three-Eyed Tiger''s third eye locked onto her, Yamgo knew that she was in danger and took action. She immediately pped her hands twice to unleash the power of Thunderp twice.
"Boom! Boom!"
Without waiting to see the results of her attack, Yamgo muttered to herself softly as she drew her now and pointed it in the opposite direction of the Three-Eyed Tiger. Quickly drawing the bow to its fullest potential, she controlled her crystal energy to form a thin yellow arrow inside of her bow.
As soon as shepleted the formation of her Tailed Thunder Arrow and shot the arrow into the distance, miles away, only less than a second had passed. With the power of her Tailed Thunder Arrow flying through the air, Yamgo hoped that she could be dragged into the air alongside it and escape.
"..."
Yet as soon as she felt her Tailed Thunder Arrow had reached far enough to begin pulling her, she suddenly found herself on the ground with the Three Eyes Tiger''s green paw mmed against her body.
"Let me go!"
Yamgo gritted her teeth in pain as she felt her bones slowly being crushed into powder by the Three Eyes Tiger''s immense strength and weight. Even with her body''s disproportionate physical abilities, she couldn''t ovee the power of the Three-Eyed Tiger that was smiling at her as she struggled to escape.
What made her the most furious was that the third eye staring at her was quickly shifting colors meaning that it was about to unleash one of its attacks. In less than a second, the Three-Eyed Tiger''s emerald color eye turned into a blinding red that unleashed an incredibly high temperature.
Even without attacking, the mere heat from its third eye caused the air around it to undergo distortion and easily created simr effects of Heat Haze. With such intense heat, Yamgo felt lightheaded as she could barely breathe.
Knowing that she had to pull out all her tricks to escape from this monster, Yamgo softly muttered to herself and expended all of her crystal energy to unleash her most powerful escape spell, Lightning Vanish. As soon as she cast her spell, she felt her body tingle as it transformed her into lightning, electrocuting the Three-Eyed Tiger enough to lift its paw slightly enough for her to instantly escape and travel a few hundred miles away.
"Roar!"
A soft sigh of relief escaped from Yamgo''s mouth as she heard the Three-Eyed Tiger''s roar, which was full of anger, pain, and injustice. Knowing that she still hadn''t fully escaped the Three-Eyed Tiger''s pursuit but merely increased the distance between them, she quickly entered a nearby cave to take temporary refuge.
Before she even entered the cave, Yamgo felt her heart clench as she could see that it was pitch ck inside, with not a single ray of light illuminating the inside. Even without entering the cave, she could hear the sound of dripping water hitting the cold stone floor and used her information-processing abilities to estimate the depth of that falling water.
"50 feet away from me. So the cave should only be a few miles deep, and paired up with the small height of the cave, it should keep me safe from the Three-Eyed Tiger until I can absorb some crystals."
After doing some mental calctions, Yamgo quickly concluded that it was better to take the risk of getting attacked inside the cave than try to find another ce and potentially get caught by the Three-Eyed Tiger.
"Roar!"
As if reconfirming her decision, the Three-Eyed Tiger''s ferocious roar echoed throughout the forest a few miles closer than before and seemed to be heading straight for her location. After cursing under her breath, Yamgo slowly walked into the dark cave with caution in each of her steps.
As soon as she entered the cave and allowed her eyes to adjust, Yamgo knew instantly that she had made the wrong decision. Right in front of her was a 10 feet tall humanoid rabbit that was jacked out of its mind.
The humanoid rabbit''s body seemed to not have a single ounce of fat on its body as it just had muscles. With seemingly all its giant muscles showing the strength of its body, the light specks of blood covering its pure white fur showed its brutality.
This helped highlight the scene of how the humanoid rabbit was in the middle of eating the rogue immortal cultivators that she had recognized to be the first person to realize they were inside the Endless Forest.
Seeing how this elderly rogue immortal cultivator who had reached the peak of the Crystal Skull realm just like herself being eaten alive made Yamgo know that she wouldn''t be able to leave this cave alive.
"P-please help me. Help me kill this demon rabbit." As if gaining thest bit of strength that he had just before his death, the old man reached out to Yamgo with his old wrinkly hands covered in his own blood.
Even though the old man looked pitiful, Yamgo wished that the humanoid rabbit had smashed his skull so that he couldn''t ruin the minuscule chances of her surviving this encounter. Unfortunately, she knew that it was toote as the old man''s call for help seemed to have alerted the humanoid rabbit that someone else had arrived.
"Hmmm,"
A deep hum came from the humanoid rabbit''s muscr chest as it lifted its head out of the old man''s chest cavity, which was missing a heart, lungs, and kidneys, with the rest of the organs left half-eaten. The moment the humanoid rabbit lifted its head to check out the intruder of its meal, Yamgo felt as if her body was being examined by a thousand eyes.
The humanoid rabbit''s head was covered in sticky blood, showing its brutal and bestial style, creating a juxtaposition with the cold eyes that were filled with high intelligence. Unlike the Three-Eyed Tiger, which showed some semnce of intelligence but was still a monster at its core, Yamgo instantly knew that this humanoid rabbit was on a whole other level.
Even without it making a single move, she was able to tell that it viewed itself on the same level that humans viewed themselves. The same arrogance to view that their species is betterpared to the rest simply due to certain metrics were present in the humanoid rabbit.
That was the level of arrogance that could only be obtained by highly intelligent species. Finding that same arrogance inside a humanoid rabbit made Yamgo aware that she had encountered a monster that was a much bigger threatpared to any of the ones she had met before.
"H-help m-" Before the old man could finish his call for help, the humanoid rabbit threw him a nce of disgust and pped him with its paw.
"St!"
As if dealing with an insignificant bug, the humanoid rabbit popped the old man''s head in a simr manner as a baseball bat hitting a watermelon.
After killing the old man, the humanoid rabbit dropped his body like leftover food that it had grown disgusted by after seeing another te of freshly made food. The humanoid rabbit''s pitch-ck eyes looked at Yamgo up and down as if deciding what it should eat first.
Should it start with tearing her chest open and eating her heart and organs, or should it deal with the less delicious parts first, like her legs and throat? Struggling to make a decision, the humanoid rabbit ced its paw under its chin with its other arm supporting it up.
Knowing that she was being treated as a meal, Yamgo tried to think of ways that she could get out of this situation. She went through thousands of different scenarios, but most of the time, she predicted that she would perish as soon as she moved a finger.
Only a few scenarios extended her life by a few minutes, and that was simply because she decided to wait until the humanoid rabbit had decided what it wanted to eat first. As Yamgi was losing hope of surviving this to be immortal and finally realize her dream of bringing her family back to life, she suddenly noticed a half-eaten blue crystal on the cave floor.
"That''s it!" Yamgo''s mind exploded as she thought up a n to keep herself alive and maybe even get a powerful partner that would help her achieve her dream.
After taking a deep breath to calm herself down, Yamgo stared at the half-eaten crystal on the ground with so much shock that it was barely believable.
Chapter 245 245: Why Should I Work With You?
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With her face in total disbelief, the humanoid rabbit turned its head around in curiosity to see that Yamgo was in shock over its half-eaten crystal. After turning its head around, the humanoid rabbit saw that inside Yamgo''s hands was another crystal that she had stored in her bag.
"Can you understand what I''m saying?" Yamgo said slowly, hoping that her n would work.
The humanoid rabbit remained silent as it looked at the crystal inside Yamgo''s hands, and a blue sh of like gleamed inside its eyes. Seeing that the humanoid rabbit didn''t outright attack her, Yamgo felt that the chances of her n working increased.
"As you already know, inside my hand is a crystal. It is extremely valuable for people like me as it is the key to us reaching the status of being immortal."
"From the fact that I can see that you are not a demon and are, of course, not a monster, I believe that you are already familiar with the importance of these crystals." Yamgo paused for a second for the humanoid rabbit to soak in what she was saying before she continued.
"As an intelligent species with crystal nerves like yourself, I know that you have some way to absorb crystal to improve yourselves. But from what I see right now, you don''t have a method that can turn you into an immortal."
"A being that can and will never die and will remain part of this world long after this has been destroyed. A being that can control the weather, the life, and death of countless creatures, and even destroy the limits of the body." Yamgo paused again as she noticed that the humanoid rabbit''s eyes slowly moved away from the crystal in her hands and looked at her with curiosity.
"I know that you can already tell what I''m going to say next. That is, I want us to break down the barrier that has blocked the rtionship between humans and intelligent creatures such as yourself."
"I want to keep my life intact and learn from you how to make my body as powerful as yours and evolve closer to the perfect being. While I will help teach you the human ways of bing immortal and help you get enough crystals to sustain your journey to the top." Yamgo said with vigor in her voice and a look in her eyes that showed she was truly sincere in her offer.
Unlike her, other ns were to escape or somehow trick this humanoid rabbit into letting her go. Yamgo preferred this n, where she wanted to enter a partnership with this monster and get its help in not only passing this trial but also guaranteeing sess in entering the top 10.
If everything went ording to her n, she could get crucial help from a monster to quickly rise through the ranks of immortal cultivators in the Immortal Pce sect and be immortal soon. After bing immortal, her life would no longer be dependent on the mood of this powerful humanoid rabbit.
Instead, their one-sided rtionship will evolve into a more bnced one, or she will be the dominant party and extract as much value from this humanoid rabbit before tossing it aside. While she might have felt that this was an insane n that had no hope of sess in the past.
That was mainly because she had no idea the difference between the monsters in the Endless Forest and regr demons. However, the longer they stayed inside the Endless Forest and fought nts that were gaining their sentience for their cores, the more she realized what those nt cores were.
From what she had gathered, the nt cores weren''t actual special cores that only the nts in the Endless Forest were developing. Instead, it was what made herself and countless other humans special and have hope of fighting against demons, Crystal Nerves.
The special nerves that only a small percentage of the human race had allowed them to develop a path to bing immortals that were impossible to truly kill. The nerves that she and everyone else was foolish enough to assume only belonged to the human race and no other race.
The nerves that made them as special as demons, who seemed to be the natural destroyers of this world. The race seems to have been given unlimited power since birth and continued to be blessed by heaven and hell.
Suddenly finding out that not only were Crystal Nerves not unique to humans but that other creatures that they simply had looked down upon and considered to be either food or a pet was a shock. It was a total shock not only for her but for all the other rogue immortal cultivators that hade to the same conclusion.
Suddenly they found out that not only were they not special and the only people that could rival demons, but even a nt could find a path to be so powerful and intelligent that it could easily kill rogue immortal cultivators that had spent their entire lives reaching the Crystal Skull Realm. When Yamgo remembered how she almost died because of a single de of grass, her face turned grim as she had to face the fact that she was weak.
So weak that to immortals, demons, and monsters all over the world that she was no different from the martial artists that she had disdained. She was simply a mortal that had be slightly stronger than the rest by using spells.
Not more and not less.
The only way for her to gain any sort of relevance in this world and show that she wasn''t simply a bug that could be squished at any time was to be immortal.
Not only did she need to be immortal, but she still needed to figure out how she was supposed to climb the ranks of the immortals. And how she was supposed to fight against the immortals that had lived for tens of thousands of years, the demons that were almost gods, and the monsters that seemed to be biological perfection.
These were all tasks that seemed insurmountable for her, who had the worst talent that was barely eptable enough to join an immortal sect butplete trashpared to the true geniuses and the sons and daughters who were blessed with otherworldly talent.
However, to aplish her dream, she was willing to do everything and anything, even if that was betraying humanity to keep her life. Even if she needed to hand over all the secrets that humanity had developed over the years to a demon or a monster to get assistance to reach the top, she was willing to do it.
"What do you think? I''ll teach you how to consume crystals the human way and even teach you my immortal cultivation method."
"Right now, I am part of a test to join an immortal sect and gain thest few parts of my immortal cultivation method to get theplete version and gain immortality. That way, I can give you theplete version and even give you a higher possibility of bing an immortal yourself."
"What do you think? Do we have a deal?" Yamgo puffed out her chest as she held the crystal in her hands out to allow the humanoid rabbit to get a better look.
After seeing that she had regained the focus of the humanoid rabbit on the crystal in her hands, she began to absorb the crystal. Slowly but visibly, the humanoid rabbit watched the crystal in Yamgo''s hands shrink magically.
Noticing that the humanoid rabbit''s interest had peaked, Yamgo wanted to continue her sales pitch, but before she continued to speak, she noticed that the humanoid rabbit had opened its mouth for the first time.
"Interesting proposal. What is stopping me from just killing you and finding another one of you humans to learn this method?"
The smooth feminine voice that came out of the humanoid rabbit''s mouth slightly shocked Yamgo as she didn''t expect the monster in front of her to know how to speak the humannguage. For it to be able to clearly speak in the human tongue meant that not only had it developed its mouth to make human sounds, but it also took the time to learn the manner of human speech.
This revtion sent a chill down her spine as she realized that taking advantage of this humanoid rabbit was going to be incredibly difficult. If she wasn''t careful, she would lose her life without gaining a single benefit. After taking a split second to calm herself down and think of the proper response, Yamgo spoke to the humanoid rabbit with a confident smile.
"It is simply because no one stronger than me isn''t immortal already. I don''t want to ruin your impression of me, but I don''t think you dare meet any of the immortals, as you know that your physical prowess will be nothing to them."
Chapter 246 246: Pet Rabbit
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Hearing Yamgo call it, afraid to show its face in front of the immortals, the humanoid Rabbit''s face turned grim as it said slowly.
"You haven''t seen my true power yet if you think that I simply rely on using physical strength to deal with my enemies. For worms like you, my physical strength is more than enough."
"As for those immortals that you spoke of, don''t assume that they are at the top of the food chain. I might not be the strongest, fastest, or smartest, but I''m not silly enough to make such a bold im to say that those immortals could defeat the strongest beings in the world."
Noticing that the Humanoid Rabbit wasn''t happy with her words and the re in its eyes shed with murderous intentions, Yamgo secretly swallowed her saliva with nervousness. Though she was scared of the Humanoid Rabbit, she didn''t dare show it on her face as that would tell the Humanoid Rabbit that it could find another person to make this deal with.
She could only continue to smile confidently as she spoke to change her mind.
"I know that it hurts to hear, but I am just telling the truth of what I know. Immortals are not only capable of casting powerful spells, but they can increase their physical abilities to unbelievable levels."
"I even highly believe that whatever evolutionary path that you had taken could be performed by immortals if they so chose to take that path. Now you might be right that you and the other intelligent creatures in the Endless Forest have other abilities, but are they as versatile as spells, and can theypete in terms of power."
The Humanoid Rabbit''s face lightened up slightly after hearing what Yamgo had to say. She didn''t know if what she had said about the Humanoid Rabbit''s special ability being limited or not very versatile was true, but Yamgo didn''t bother to find out and instead re-sent her offer.
"I have spoken quite a bit, so let''s get down to discussing if you are interested in working together with me."
"Your offer is good, but what guarantee do I have that you won''t betray me once I help you be an immortal? Or what is stopping you from using those immortal''s help to get rid of me once this test of yours ends?" The Humanoid Rabbit''s smooth feminine voice echoed throughout the cave as a painful piercing headache pounded Yamgo''s mind.
"What was that? The Humanoid Rabbit''s voice seemed to contain crystal energy behind it. Damn, is it using one of its special abilities to show me what it''s capable of!" Yamgo silently gritted her teeth as she endured the headache until it passed a few secondster.
During those few seconds, the Humanoid Rabbit''s smiled in a simr manner as a human, and in Yamgo''s mind, the Humanoid Rabbit''s smile slowly became more and more human with time. The only thing that she could think of with her headache was that the Humanoid Rabbit must have already developed its own n to blend in with the other rogue immortal cultivators, but it still wanted to see if she could do better.
"I''ll say this, any n that you have with blending with us humans is downright impossible and will easily be exposed in an instant."
"I don''t know about that. I fully believe in my capabilities to blend in with the human race." The Humanoid Rabbit snapped back.
"Don''t be a fool and let your own insecuritiespromise this mission. To seed, we need to convince the immortals that not only are you not a threat but that you are my pet." Yamgo said in a serious tone.
"Pet?" The humanoid Rabbit''s voice became deeper as Yamgo could sense its killing intent rising.
"I understand that it might be humiliating, but we don''t even need to try that hard. All you need to do is take up more rabbit form and allow me to carry you around."
"That way, everyone believes that I simply was able to tame you and that I treat you like my own pet rabbit. Even if everyone knows that you have crystal nerves and could evolve to incredible heights, no one would care enough to try and rip you away from my arms."
"That includes the immortals, as they would care more about getting me, a potential immortal, on their side. And with you, that potential could be guaranteed, and we would get our first solid foundation in the immortal sect." Yamgo''s eyes shed with resolve as she used her emotions and confidence to convince the Humanoid Rabbit.
"...I''m fine with your proposal, but you must first teach me the method of absorbing crystal in the manner that you humans do it. As well as your immortal cultivation method, I want all of it upfront." The Humanoid Rabbit''s voice calmed down as it slowly walked over to Yamgo, allowing her to soak in the size difference between herself and the Humanoid Rabbit.
With herself being only five feet and seven inches tall on a good day, she was considered to be the average height for a woman from the region that she came from, which wasn''t much shorterpared to the male height, which was only two to three inches taller.
Yet as the Humanoid Rabbit slowly walked over to her with its silent steps, she could feel a sense of oppression just from the difference in their bodies. When the Humanoid Rabbit was only a few inches away from her, she realized that she didn''t even reach its waist and could even see its face when she strained her neck to look up.
The difference between her and the ten feet tall Rabbit that was covered in muscles made her feel like she was a small infant looking up at a giant. She could truly understand how easily she could be crushed and defeated even if she was in her peak condition and able to use her strongest spells.
The difference between a monster''s physical abilities and its potential special abilities made it nearly on the same level as hellish as demons. It justcked the same level of broken regenerative ability and insurmountable capabilities.
Briefly absorbing the strength of her new ally, Yamgo took a deep breath and smiled as she lifted one of her hands to pat the Humanoid Rabbit''s stomach, to its own dissatisfaction, and said.
"Of course, partner, as long as you assist me in bing immortal, I''ll fulfill all your requests and much more."
As Yamgo and the Humanoid Rabbit were discussing their ns for the future, in another part of the Endless Forest, another rogue immortal was busy looking for more cores. As one of the youngest rogue immortals that had decided to join the third trial and also barely made it through the second trial, Bubbles looked around his surroundings with anxiety gripping his heart.
As someone who was in his thirties but only looked to be in his twenties and had stalled his advancement numerous times to fix his appearance, Bubbles knew that his chances of getting into the top ten were slim to none.
The only way he could reasonably survive this trial was if he could survive the entire week-long period and just collect one core. As long as he collected at least one core, that would mean that he had at least participated in the trial, and if enough people died, there was a chance he could, by default, make it into the top ten.
Though he knew that the chances of that were slim, Bubbles had confidence in himself that he could at least survive this trial and get into the Immortal Sect. Unfortunately, he knew clearly that with his current cultivation level and talent being at the bottom of the barrel, he would, at most, be able to reach the Crystal Skull realm faster.
"As long as I survive and get into the immortal sect, I can use my immense beauty to charm ady or two to help me be immortal. I don''t care if they treat me like a pet as long as I''m loved and can live for eternity. That is all worth it." Bubbles tried to do his most handsome smile as he used some of his crystal energy to cast a mirror spell.
As he opened his fist, a tiny circr crystal mirror hovered in his hands. As Bubbles cast his spell, the crystal mirror grew and grew until it was the perfect size to reflect every inch of his head and neck. As he stared at the handsome blonde young man with his hair slicked back, Bubbles''s eyes twitched as he noticed that some dust had gotten on his perfect skin.
"No, no, no, that simply won''t do. I can''t allow myself to be dirty for even a second, or else I might lose my chance to be immortal."
"As my mother had always said, life is easy for those with beauty and hard for those that look like ghouls. If not, why the hell would I marry your ipetent father?"
Chapter 247 247: End Of The Third Trail
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Fully agreeing with his mother that appearance was an important factor in one''s sess, Bubbles didn''t care that he was in the middle of a dangerous forest and ced a major amount of his focus on dealing with the dirt on his perfect skin.
He first muttered his favorite cleaning spell to himself and gently ced his glowing fingers on the dirty areas. As soon as his fingers touched the dirty areas, they glowed with golden light as all the dust, dead skin, and other unpleasant materials were captured by the golden light and thrown away from him.
"I should ensure the rest of my body isn''t dirty either."
After cleaning all the patches of his perfect skin that were dirty and fixing his hair, Bubbles felt his skin crawl at the thought of his journey through the dirty forest floor. He could imagine how dirty his clothes had be even though he had cast a spell on them before then to make sure no dirt got on them.
Deciding that he was going to do a full-body inspection, Bubbles muttered to himself, causing the floating crystal mirror to expand into a full-body mirror. Once the crystal mirror was at the perfect size that he could see everyst part of himself, Bubbles stopped casting the expansion spell.
"That was exhausting; after this, I need to recharge on crystal energy before I run out."
After making a note to himself to find some cave or hiding spot to begin absorbing crystals in secret, Bubbles refocused on finding all the mistakes and dirt that had somehow bypassed his spell. Every time he found a patch of dirt or a crease in his shirt or pants, Bubbles would use his golden fingers to fix them.
When the duration of his spell had run out, he would quickly cast the spell once more before using his rejuvenated golden fingers to deal with the issues. After casting the spell five more times, Bubbles was finally able to confidently feel beautiful, knowing that he was perfect.
"I still have 45 percent of my crystal energy stored up, which should be enough to help me deal with any issues that pop upter on. But just in case, I should begin to refill my storage."
After fixing everything about himself, Bubbles''s mind instantly returned to the fact that he was inside one of the most dangerous forests in the entire world. A forest where the entire environment shifted and moved to the point where one couldn''t escape unless they could fly or had another magical method.
A forest where many of the nts and animals seemed to have been born with Crystal Nerves and were slowly bing sentient, and their intelligence, speed, defensive capabilities, and offensive capabilities were all increasing to monstrous levels.
A forest where one slight mistake and a bad decision could spell the end of his precious life. So after regaining his caution, Bubbles immediately stopped using his crystal energy to support the existence of the crystal mirror.
With it no longer being supported by his crystal energy, the erged mirror lost its floating abilities and fell to the ground. Shattering into a million different pieces that slowly evaporated with time.
After getting rid of the crystal energy-draining mirror, Bubbles immediately went to find shelter.
"Thud!"
Just as he took his first step, Bubbles felt his feet m into something hard that caught his foot, resulting in his body mming into the ground. With his entire body lying on the grassy forest floor, Bubbles felt a cold shiver crawl down his spine as he immediately cast a spell.
Just as the Bubbles muttered the first few words of his escape spell, a thick de of grass covered in blue stripes wrapped itself around his mouth. Stopping him from casting most of his spells and making him aware that something was trying to kill him.
Even though Bubbles wanted to panic, his heart continued to beat in the same rhythmic pattern that it always did, and his brain remained cool as he calmly thought about all the ways he could escape. In a dangerous situation, he ced all his bad habits aside and focused on a path to survival.
He first snapped his fingers to forcefully activate one of his most familiar spells, Golden Skin Armor; this spell boosted his physical defenses and enhanced his senses of physical touch, allowing him to better understand his enemies.
As Bubbles activated Golden Skin Armor, underneath his perfect skin, a goldenyer of light appeared, enhancing his beauty and survivability. With the help of the increased sensitivity of his skin, he was able to make out a detailed appearance of what was tightly holding him down.
Unfortunately, once he figured it out, Bubbles almost wanted to curse as he saw that both his legs, arms, chest, neck, head, and mouth were all trapped by the same nt. The thick de of grass that was covered in blue strips tightly wrapped around him, attempting to crush him.
"This must be a nt that has gained sentience and knows that I''m hunting it down."
Even though Bubbles wanted to meet a nt that had gained sentience to harvest its core, he didn''t want to meet it like this, where he was the target of being harvested and was ambushed so sessfully that his chances of surviving this encounter were below ten percent.
After briefly cursing in his mind, Bubbles''s cold mind and calm heart allowed him to figure out a n that had a 40 percent chance of working with the current information at his disposal. All he had to do was wait for the nt to try and crush him one more time before he made his move.
"Crunch"
The next time the blue-striped nt attempted to crush him, his body crumpled along with it. Just like a snake shedding its skin, Bubbles used its own blue-striped nt''s strength to push himself out of his Golden Skin Armor and escape the binding.
Now naked and his skin was softer than a baby''s and much redder too, Bubbles used the second before the Blue Stripped nt regained its senses and realized that it hadn''t killed its prey to casting the Golden Snake Escape spell.
Underneath his skin, anotheryer of golden light sprang out and covered Bubbles with golden scales, transforming him into a half-snake half-human hybrid. Once he had transformed, he could feel different power flowing through his veins as he felt everything was simply too slow.
"Goodbye!"
Silently smirking to himself, Bubbles used his now evasive and sprinting abilities to quickly escape from the Blue Striped nt. After zooming through a mile of dense forest with his speed, Bubbles felt slightly faint as his Golden Snake Escape was forcefully canceled due to ack of crystal energy.
"At least I escaped from that thing," Bubbles sighed with relief as he didn''t run out of crystal energy when he was closer to the blue-striped de of grass, or he would have been in trouble.
What he didn''t realize was that with his decreased senses, the ground behind him was slowly splitting as the same thick blue-striped de of grass came out. With near-perfect silence, the blue-striped grass used its body which was miles long to silently block all the paths that Bubbles could use to escape.
Once all the exits were blocked, a cold light that resembled the edges of a de wrapped around the blue-striped grass''s entire body. Slowly but surely, it closed in on Bubbles as its murderous intention began to leak.
Suddenly feeling the chill of death tingling his neck, Bubbles felt goosebumps cover his entire body as a terrifying shiver went down his spine. He didn''t know why or what could have caused him to have such a reaction since he couldn''t sense anything wrong.
"God damn it!"
But having full trust in his intuitions, Bubbles immediately ducked his head and ran toward one of the exits that he had nned to escape towards if he hadn''t used up all his crystal energy. Unfortunately, before he could get close, the Blue Striped Grass made a move, blocking every exit, entrance, and opportunity to escape from Bubbles.
In almost an instant, the Blue Striped Grass was wrapped tightly around Bubbles''s body, like a mummy. The grass uses its incredibly sharp edges to dig into the skin and flesh before using its immense strength to crush the bones.
In less than ten seconds, another life was taken in the Endless Forest. For the rest of eternity, no one would fully know what had happened to all the rogue immortals that had died that day.
Whether it was due to the hands of all the dangerous nt monsters and animals or the hands of the other rogue immortals that wanted to increase their odds, none of it mattered to the people who had caused it; they were happily smiling to themselves as they gutted a blood-covered tree and ripped a giant blood ball out of its trunk.
Chapter 248 248: The Six New Members
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"I made it just in time." Yoze smiled to himself as he saw that the immortals from the Immortal Pce were waiting on the small hill outside New Swampscott City.
As he grew closer he noticed that the number of rogue immortal cultivators that had survived was much smallerpared to when the third trial had just begun. The number was so small in fact that only six of the top ten spots were filled due to therge number of deaths.
Out of the six rogue immortal cultivators that had survived lining the Endless Forest for a whole week all of them were quite strong from Yoze''s point of view. They all had a cultivation of the Crystal Skull realm and most of them were quite old as well.
This was especially the case for four out of the six rogue immortal cultivators. Out of the four immortal cultivators, there was a pair of twins with long ck hair that reached their waists.
These two brothers shared the same funny fashion sense as they both wore long ck robes that were too big for their bodies. They wore arge ck hat with a red or green colored ribbon that wrapped around the hat that added some color to their outfits.
What made them stand out even morepared to everyone else at the time was that they both had long horizontal scars across their faces. However, when Yoze look at them again those iconic scars had disappeared without a trace leaving behind only perfectly healthy skin.
Both of these twins had a weary look on their faces that one could only obtain from experiencing a lot for many years. Even though Yoze recognized these two brothers from before the third trial he couldn''t help but be suspicious as they seemed to have undergone arge transformation.
While their bodies were the same and both took on the appearance of 25-year-old men that were as fit as a fiddle. Yoze saw that not only had their personalities dramatically changed but their spiritual energy waspletely different.
Previously before the third trial, these two brothers shared simrly shaped spiritual energy that took on the shape of a hexagon but either took on a red or green color. Now as he examined them they only longer had that same shaped or colored spiritual energy.
For the brother that had a red colored ribbon on his hat, his spiritual energy was in the shape of a purple pyramid. While his brother with the green ribbon had a blue coffin-shaped spiritual energy.
Meaning that these two brothers had their bodies taken over by the other rogue immortal cultivators in the group. It didn''t take long before Yoze was able to recall which of the other rogue immortal cultivators had simr shaped and colored spiritual energy after he narrowed it down to the strongest at the time.
"So those two old men managed to take over the bodies of these brothers during the trial. The fact that none of the immortals are throwing a fuss about this shows that they didn''t care about the lives of any of the rogue immortal cultivators."
"I could only imagine the amount of carnage and rogue immortal cultivators murdering each other. But it makes sense that the trial would never be yed fairly if it was done in the Branch Forest where there was nothing of threat to these immortal cultivators except themselves."
After making a note to himself that he needed to look into how immortal cultivators typically took over bodies, Yoze turned his focus on the two people he had an interest in since he first saw them, Leo and Tamgo. Even though they didn''t have a scratch on their bodies, Leo and Tamgo seemed to have also gone through their own transformations.
Leo, himself was now wearing a thick rhino suit that wrapped tightly around his small body providing arge boost in defense. Other than the small crack in the rhino''s suit''s mouth that allowed him to see, there were no other ws that his enemies could take advantage of.
His suit of armor only had one w which was in an easily defensible position causing the one weakness to be easily protected. Yoze even imagined that if Leo wanted to he could learn some additional spells that could add additional protection to his eyes and mouth.
That way he could reduce the amount of damage he took if his enemies were ever able to bypass his defenses. If he ever became an immortal he could spend a few decades improving his Rhino Armor so that this w could be eliminated.
That way once he activated his Rhino Armor he would be an imprable fortress. And his enemies would have to pull out their hairs to try and figure out a powerful enough spell that was strong enough to destroy the Rhino Armor and fast enough to catch up to him.
Yoze also noticed the weary and anger-filled gaze Leo had toward the two twin brothers signaling to him that he already was developing powerful enemies which increased the importance of constantly improving his armor.
"Why does she have a rabbit?"
When Yoze turned his focus back on Tamgo he first noticed that between her arms was arge rabbit that had ears that were too long for its body. Just from looking at the rabbit''s body, Yoze predicted that it was at least a hundred pounds.
And given the fact that a freakishly strong woman like Tamgo was covered in sweat from just carrying the rabbit it most likely weighed much more. What made Yoze much more interested was the fact that the rabbit had simr eyes to his monster wasp.
Eyes that signaled that the creature held intelligent thoughts and was sentient. Even though these eyes could be obtained with the Beast Human body cultivation method, Yoze''s intuition pushed him to believe that the rabbit in Tamgo''s arms was anything but an ordinary rabbit.
"I should check out its talents after grabbing a few talents from the immortals first."
After making another note to himself to throw a talent mark or two in the rabbit''s direction, Yoze turned his attention to thest rogue immortal cultivator that had survived the third trial. As he turned to look at thest survivor, Yoze noticed that she turned her gaze toward him.
"Impressive eyesight,"
Since he was still many miles away from where the immortals and rogue immortal cultivators were standing and tens of miles in the sky, he was certain that he looked like a random small ck dot in the sky. For the rogue immortal cultivator that took on the appearance of a middle-aged woman to immediately lock eyes with his eye from such a distance was impressive.
After seeing that Yoze had also noticed her looking at her, the middle-aged woman quickly shifted her gaze toward the Wasp Monster below his feet and looked confused. While he was being analyzed himself, Yoze didn''t stop his investigation of middle-aged women.
Even though she looked to be in the middle of her 30s, the thick ck fog that was circling her spiritual energy and slowly eroding it, revealed that she was much older than her appearance. Simr to Tamgo, the fact that the middle-aged woman with short blonde hair was on the brink of dying from old age and yet kept a strong and mentally sharp mind showed that she was quite powerful.
To match the color of her hair the middle-aged woman wore a bright yellow suit that seemed to make her look younger and a nice pair of yellow leather shoes that were unfortunately covered in mud due to running around in the dirty forest. Since the middle-aged woman was the only one courageous enough to dare wear such a bright-colored outfit, she stood out like a sore thumb.
"I wonder if she had chosen those colors to grab the attention of the immortals and hopefully gain a powerful connection in the sect."
Though Yoze felt that the chances of the middle-aged woman choosing to use her clothing to stand out were slim, he couldn''t deny that if she did do it on purpose, the results seemed to be positive. Since he noticed that the immortal Miessy was nodding her head toward the middle-aged woman with a pleased look on her face.
"It seems that the final person has finally arrived. We will be traveling to the West for a few days to show you where headquarters is located."
"After showing the location we rmend that you six work hard for a few months to break through to the Crystal Brain realm and gain a footing in the sect. Since you six are new and have reached a decent level throughout your years as rogue immortal cultivators it won''t be difficult for you to find some people to ally with."
"But be aware that any of the immortal cultivators in the sect are going to be much stronger than any of you in the same realm. Simply because they are more talented and were able to use the sect''s resources for much longer."
Chapter 249 249: The Giants Sword
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Hearing that they would be far behind their peers didn''t shock any of them. They knew that just the fact that they weren''t talented enough to even qualify to enter the immortal sect was a massive disadvantage.
Theck of talent would onlypound further because, for immortal cultivators who have joined an immortal sect, the number of resources that would be provided to them wasrge. There were a lot of rogue immortal cultivators who were held back due to simply not having enough resources.
Yoze thought about Tiki''s situation before and after he arrived and allowed her to have better ess to resources. At that time, she had only reached the second level of the Nerve umtion stage and had spent many years reaching that level.
Yet she could quickly raise her immortal cultivation realm to the third stage of Nerve umtion once she had near-unlimited ess to crystals. This was a major issue for most rogue immortal cultivators, as they needed money to be able to buy crystals.
Even though practicing martial arts was a money guzzler, it was much more essible to themon peoplepared to immortal cultivation since most martial arts could be practiced without resources. Only once someone reached a high level of martial arts or trained in a body cultivation method that used herbs to make medicine for supple enough nutrition to the body would they need arge amount of money.
On the other hand, immortal cultivation was inessible to most of the poption and was a money guzzler from the beginning. For anyone to make the slightest bit of progress in the realm, they needed to devour and absorb numerous crystals that would cost them thousands.
Even working as a Schr that is getting paid much more than some people would ever make in their entire lives isn''t enough to fully sustain high levels of crystal consumption. Yoze predicted that if he couldn''t make hundreds of thousands killing demons and selling them to the City, he would not have been able to support Tiki''s and Dreyer''s crystal consumption while also progressing in his immortal cultivation.
So all the rogue immortal cultivators felt their hearts itch as they wondered how much crystals would be provided to the students of the Immortal Pce Sect and what kind of magical resources would be avable to them. After experiencing the magical nature of the Crystal Grape, Yoze felt his mouth be dry from high expectations.
Seeing that all the rogue immortal cultivators understood their positions, Immortal Patty nodded and waved his arms as he summoned a colossus ck sword. To say that this sword''s de had enough space to fit more than a dozen people was an understatement and could fit an entire vige of people.
If it wasn''t for the fact that the sword was floating in the air, casting arge ck shadow over them, all of the rogue immortal cultivators were certain that they would have been crushed by sheer weight. As Yoze stared at the ck sword with awe from its immense size, he noticed that engravings on the sword''s surface were a few quotes.
After reading a few sentences, he recognized that this was from a fairy tale he had read from a book. The story was called The Last Giant and was about the son of a cksmith who identally saw a Giant practicing its sportsmanship with arge tree.
Even though others would have been terrified to find out, they were living in the same world as a creature that was more than a thousand times their size and could simrly kill them by stepping on them like a bug. This young man was special and walked up to the Giant and offered to make him a sword.
After being identally found, the Giant epted the young man''s offer and allowed him to make the sword for him. With his dreaming true, the young man spent the next 50 years of his life making a sword for this Giant.
Once the sword wasplete, he handed it to the Giant, and seeing the Giant''s happy face and how he instantly fell in love with it allowed him to die without regret. Even though the story''s ending became blurry andcked much sense, Yoze remembered that the book said the sword created by the cksmith could destroy a volcano and y gods.
Suddenly seeing that sword being made in reality made Yoze''s mind wander about all the other weapons that Immortal Patty had created with his Immortal Tattoos.
"I wonder what other kinds of mythical things other immortals have created using their immortal tattoos." Yoze''s eyes sparkled as his curiosity about the immortal sect again raised a level.
"For this trip, you six, or maybe five, will be traveling to headquarters using this sword. Since this will be a long trip, I''ll inform you of more information along the way." Immortal Patty said in a neutral tone as he cast a questioning nce at Yoze and his Wasp Monster.
"Don''t worry, Lily. I won''t make you continue flying for a few days straight again. I don''t think he would mind letting you ride the sword as well since there is so much space."
Knowing Immortal Patty was questioning whether he wanted to fly alone, Yoze quickly turned to the Giant Wasp Monster beside him and patted her head as he told her she wouldn''t need to fly anymore. Hearing that she could finally catch a break and not have to exhaust herself any longer, the Wasp Monster shook her body up and down to exin to Yoze how relieved she felt.
Even though no one else understood what Lily had said, Yoze smiled as he continued to pat her head and turned towards Immortal Patty with expectation in his eyes. Without saying another word, Immortal Patty lowered his arm to gently move the ck sword to the ground.
Once it reached a sufficient height that everyone could easily get on with a simple hop, Immortal Patty stopped lowering his colossal sword and told everyone to get on. Before even a second had passed after he gave hismand, the two twin brothers wearing hats both excitedly rushed onto the ck sword.
After which, Leo squinted his eyes as he lightly hopped onto the sword and took a seat a few feet away from the two brothers, showing how weary he was of them suddenlyunching a sneak attack when he lowered his guard. The next person to step on the sword was Tamgo, who seemed to have to calm her pet rabbit down enough to step onto the sword.
Even still, Yoze could tell that the rabbit was constantly trembling and looked terrified that it was floating in the air. He could only imagine how much it would freak out once they took off and were hundreds of feet in the air.
After watching everyone else easily get on the ck sword, the middle-aged woman, wearing a yellow suit, walked toward the ck sword and examined its de. She even rubbed her finger across the engraving, and a look of surprise shed across her face.
"Sir Immortal Patty, may I ask if this is the Sword of the Last Giant?" She asked in an overly polite manner as if she was afraid that she would offend Immortal Patty and get herself killed.
"No, this is a recreation of the sword of thest Giant that I made after spending more than three years collecting as much information on it as I could."
"I was even able to get its unique ability to summon the same pressure that a Giant mere presence generated. But you have to have an impressive eye and knowledge to be able to notice that this was the same sword even though most of the stories about the sword aren''t very detailed." A small smile ran across Immortal Patty''s face as he talked about the ck sword.
"Thank you for yourpliment, but I would have never been able to figure it out if it wasn''t for how much detail and dedication you had put into recreating the sword." The middle-aged woman smiled as she tried her best to humble herself.
"If Iplimented you, just ept it. I don''t like people that try to unnecessarily humble themselves. Now get on the sword." Immortal Patty''s slight smile disappeared as he waved his hand to push the middle-aged woman on board.
"Thank you," The middle-aged woman quickly shouted as she felt a powerful wind gently lift her onto the sword.
"She''s quite clever," Yoze thought after watching that interaction.
Seeing how she could easily get on the good side of two immortals so quickly, he knew that if he wasn''t careful and identally offended her and made several immortals his enemies at the same time. After just experiencing the power of one immortal, Yoze wasn''t interested in making more enemies just yet, so he made a note to himself to watch out for her.
Chapter 250 250: Leaving For The Immortal Sect
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Noticing that he was thest person not on the sword yet, Yoze casually walked to therge sword with the Wasp Monster. Once he arrived next to the de, he paused for a second before lifting his feet and stepping on the sword.
"Thud"
Almost as soon as he ces some of his weight on the sword''s de, it dips slightly to the floor, causing Immortal Patty to frown. He nced at Yoze''s back and waved his hand to put more power into the sword, returning it to its original height.
Seeing that Immortal Patty had enough strength to support his weight and didn''t n to kick him off, Yoze silently sighed with relief and put his full weight on the sword. Like when he had ced only one of his legs on the floating sword, it rapidly plunged when Yoze forced it to support his full weight.
Even though Immortal Patty was able to quickly send more crystal energy to support the additional thousand pounds, he couldn''t help but be slightly shocked at how much Yoze weighed. It wasn''t only Immortal Patty, but everyone else couldn''t believe that Yoze weighed so much it weighed down the sword.
The only reason that they believed it, in the end, was because they didn''t believe that Immortal Patty was someone who liked to y harmless jokes with rogue immortal cultivators. They believed that if he yed a joke on any of them, they would be almost guaranteed to die from a heart attack as soon as they found out.
It also helped that Yoze was a giant among men standing around eight feet tall and incredibly muscr. So they felt his weighing much more than regr humans was much more believable.
"Buzz!"
Seeing that the Colossus Sword was struggling to remain afloat with Yoze on its back made Lily the Wasp Monster do a twirl to show that she empathized with Immortal Patty. As someone who had to carry him for several days straight, she could understand the shock and pain he would experience.
"Let''s go." After regaining hisposure, Immortal Patty quickly adjusted himself and the path of the route he had nned.
Just as Lily the Wasp Monster heard that she was going to be abandoned if she didn''t get on the sword, she opened her wings and used her quick speed tond next to Yoze before anyone could stop her.
"Good girl, make sure to stay still the entire flight, or you might identally fall off." Yoze smiled as he rubbed his hands on Lily''s soft hair.
After seeing that everyone and a monster had boarded his floating sword, Immortal Patty didn''t speak another word and lightly jumped onto the sword''s hilt. The moment his feet touched the hilt, a soft hum echoed from the giant sword as if it was pleased to finally have a direct connection with its creator once again.
Slightly waving his hand one more time, the recreation of the Giant''s Last Sword almost instantly turned into a ck ray of light that dashed toward the west, leaving the other immortals to deal with their travels. Just as Immortal Miessy was about to step forward and turn into stars to travel alongside Immortal Patty, she felt a hand touch her shoulder.
Without even needing to turn her head around, she instantly knew who it was and silently sighed, feeling that her regret ofing on this mission deepened further. Still, she knew that she couldn''t afford to offend another immortal, so she politely turned her body to face Immortal Scotty.
"Missey, I would like to discuss with you a proposal that would greatly benefit both of us." Immortal Scotty gently smiled as he tried his best to regain the image that had been destroyed by Immortal Patty.
"Unfortunately, Scotty, just like I had told Patty, I am currently in a sensitive time right now and can''t afford to help anyone. So I think you should give this opportunity to someone else." Immortal Missey quickly replied, hoping to swiftly end the conversation.
"I understand your circumstances and have no ns on asking for your assistance with dealing with any of my enemies. I simply wanted to ask you if there was a price I could offer you to buy your Star Map spell." Immortal Scotty slightly shook his head as he asked Immortal Missey in a calm andposed tone.
"Buy my Star Map spell?"
Even though Immortal Missey wanted to instantly reject his offer to buy one of her most important spells from her, she remembered that there were a few things that, as an ordinary student of the Immortal Pce Sect, she was simply unable to get her hands on that would boost her strength immensely.
If she could get her hands on at least one of those secret treasures or secret medicines that were only provided to the sect''s most important individuals, she felt it would be worth the price of losingplete ownership of one of her spells. This was especially the case if she never needed to provide Immortal Scotty with the updated versions of her Star Map Spell.
"May I ask you why you are interested in purchasing my Star Map spell? As you know, trying to purchase a spell that had been created from the ground up by an immortal is usually impossible."
"The amount of risk that I would have to take if I gave the core secrets of the spell could result in my enemies being able to figure out counterspells. It could also be that you can use my spell to derive the rest spell that I currently have or the spells that I will make in the future using Star Map as the foundation."
"So unless you inform me of what you n on using Star Map for, I will not sell it to you, regardless of the price." Immortal Missey sharply told Immortal Scotty.
"Thank you for being so flexible, Missey. I simply want to use your Star Map as a reference to help me create a new spell since I feel that it has a strong foundation that I can build off of."
"If you want, I can give you a copy of the skeleton framework of the spell that I am trying to create, as well as the finished product once Iplete it. All I need is the current version, so you don''t need to provide any updates or changes you made to the spell." Seeing that he had snagged her interest, Immortal Scotty struck while the iron was hot.
"If you are interested in the secret medicines inside the sect, I can use my connections to get them for you. All I need is the Star Map upfront."
"Let me think about it for a few days before I give you my response. This is simply a bigmitment for me to make."
While Immortal Missey was extremely tempted to take Immortal Scotty''s offer, she felt her heart clench when she heard that she would have to provide the details of her Star Map before she could get the secret medicine. Her mind raced to predict the millions of possibilities where this deal could go poorly for her and her life would instead be endangered.
"I chose to be a Living Immortal so that I can live for eternity. Why would I risk my life in this deal that can easily end up with powerful immortals making my life a living hell?" Immortal Missey thought to herself as she swiftly turned herself into dozens of stars and escaped toward the west.
"Damn it! I was so close!" Seeing that he had ruined this opportunity to gain a powerful spell with great potential, Immortal Scotty gritted his teeth in anger.
However, once he noticed that he had once again been left by himself, Immortal Scotty shook his head to cool off and sat on the ground. With a quick snap of his fingers, several of his red immortal tattoos entered his nk eyes, causing them to take a blood-red color.
As soon as his eyespletely transformed into their new, blood-red color, the image of a middle-aged man with a well-trimmed beard, pupils that took the shape of triangles, and didn''t wear a shirt formed in his eyes. Seeing the familiar figure, Immortal Scotty felt some of the pressure on his shoulders evaporate as he felt much more rxed.
"Father, we havepleted the mission and are currently on our way back to the immortal sect with six new members." Immortal Scotty spoke out loud as he focused on his weak connection with his father.
Even though the picture of his father in his eyes was blood-colored, two-dimensional, and didn''t transfer sound both ways, Immortal Scotty didn''t mind since he knew he had all the time in the world to improve this spell. Right now, it was enough for him to send his father information and collect information long before other immortals.
Chapter 251 251: Immortal Pattys Advice
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After waiting for a few seconds, Immortal Scotty was able to catch the lips of the image of his father slightly moving. At first, it was tiny and seemed as if the lips were glued together, but as time went on, his father''s lips finally overcame the limitations of his technique and mouthed a few sentences.
After reading his father''s lips, Immortal Scotty was able to decode his father''s message and was shocked.
"I don''t have much time. Currently, the Sect Leader is discussing with the Immortal Shadow Sect how to handle our dispute on who controls the Blood Pool."
"If everything goes right, we will be able to get a strong upper hand and convince the Immortal Shadow Sect to hand over their territory surrounding the Fog Mountain Range for control of the Blood Pool."
"Why would the Sect Leader consider that trade at all? The Blood Pool is an incredible resource for our Sect and allows us to quickly strengthen our bodies and even allow us to breed mass amounts of beasts."
"Fog Mountain Range might be closer to us and be easier to defend against the Immortal Shadow Sect, but we will not be able to profit from it." Though he was confused about the Sect Leader''s decision to lose such a valuable resource, Immortal Scotty didn''t argue with his father''s information.
Given that the Sect Leader was more than a thousand years old and extremely powerful, he knew their way of thinking was simply on two different levels. He wouldn''t be surprised that the Sect Leader wanted to make this trade because he wanted to refine the Fog Mountain Range into a weapon.
After receiving the news from his father, Immortal Scotty closed the weak connection between them, effectively ending their call. Since he knew that his father didn''t like to hold back anything important, so if he wasn''t told, he didn''t need to know.
"This is going to be a stressful decade. I finally was developing some confidence in my spells and reputation. But that bastard Patty had to ruin everything and slice me up."
"Once this news spreads throughout the Sect, I will be aughing stock, and people will assume that I''m weaker than I am. And my enemies may think this is a good opportunity to try to put more obstacles in my way to slow down my progress." Immortal Scotty sighed heavily and punched the air in frustration.
He had never liked Immortal Patty and felt that his attitude towards him was bing more and more intolerable. As he thought about dealing with Patty, Immortal Scotty realized that someone he also hated still hadn''t shown his face yet.
"Where the hell is Immortal Welse? He has been gone for the entire mission. He didn''t even show up when we were taking care of the Mother Tree."
"Even though that bastard is sleazy, he isn''t sozy that he would forgo getting any credit forpleting this mission. If he did, he would have to go on another mission instead, so there is no point in not showing up."
"Was he killed and injured so badly that he doesn''t dare show his face for the rest of the mission? It can''t be; even though the monsters were a little stronger than we ounted for, they shouldn''t have been able to injure his True Body." Immortal Welse said with confusion clear in his voice.
Unfortunately for Immortal Welse''s fate of ever being revived, Inmortal Scotty simplyughed at his misfortune and erased his concerns from his mind. He had too many worries to deal with finding out what had happened to another immortal, much less one he heavily disliked.
After clearing his mind and trying to devise another n to strengthen himself and get more allies, Immortal Scotty clicked his tongue to activate his only transportation spell. In nearly an instant, his body transformed into a bloody cloud and zipped through the sky at incredible speeds.
A few dayster, a ck beam of light, beautiful purple stars, and a bloody cloud could be found racing toward arge mountain that was six miles tall. Though the mountain was ordinary and easily mistaken as amon mountain around the world, it hides one of the most powerful organizations in the world.
"Here is the headquarters of the Immortal Pce Sect." After arriving near the mountain, the ck beam of light, purple stars, and the blood cloud stopped dead in their tracks.
As the ck beam of light stopped, it transformed to show that on top of it were seven humans and one wasp-like monster. Six of those humans stood at the tip of the unimaginablyrge sword. They stared at therge mountain with curiosity in their eyes.
After traveling for a few days and being forced to halt his training, Yoze felt relieved that he had finally arrived at the immortal Sect and could use this opportunity to get stronger. Even though the trip was smooth, and he had learned a lot about theplexwork inside Immortal Pce Sect, he still couldn''t help but feel ufortable not training.
It felt like he was wasting time and not being more productive since he could be improving himself while also learning all this information. Still, he couldn''t help but feel grateful for all the advice that Immortal Patty and Immortal Missey had given him throughout the trip.
And most importantly, their valuable talents that had made his mouth water.
[Name: Patty Devi]
[Age: 400 years old]
[Talents: Crystal Nerves (Grade 7), Immortal Tattoo (Grade 3), Rapid Calction (Grade 6), Investigation (Grade 4), Tea Making (Grade 1), Cooking (Grade 1), Story Telling (Grade 3), Weapon Creation (Grade 7), Concentration (Grade 8)]
[Name: Missey Drew]
[Age: 200 years old]
[Talents: Crystal Nerves (Grade 6), Immortal Tattoo (Grade 3), Rapid Calction (Grade 7), Crystal Absorption (Grade 5), Reading Speed (Grade 6), Cloth Designer (Grade 4), Body Cultivation (Grade 2), Star Reading (Grade 6), Constetion Reading (Grade 4) ]
Though Yoze was disappointed that he couldn''t upgrade his Crystal Nerves talent or Immortal Tattoo talent, he was pleased to see that they had some talents he hadn''t collected yet. He was happy to upgrade his Crystal Absorption and Rapid Calction talents to Grade 4 and Grade 6, respectively.
Not only that, he collected both Immortal Patty''s Weapon Creation talent and Concentration talent, as he felt that those were going to be incredibly helpful in development in the future. The only thing that he was upset about was that his talent marks still had a few hours of the cool-down left, meaning that he wasn''t able to collect more of Immortal Patty''s and Immortal Miessy''s talents.
"As you might have guessed, we are waiting for the Sect to process that our mission was a sess before letting us in. Once that has been confirmed and we are inside, we will be heading out in our separate ways." Immortal Patty said coldly.
"Sir Patty, may I ask you for some advice on what I should do once we arrive inside?"
As soon as everyone heard the middle-aged woman dressed in a yellow suit ask Immortal Patty for advice, their ears peaked, and they turned around to hear Immortal Patty''s advice as well. Yoze, in particr, was interested in how Immortal Patty was going to give his advice to Alosa, the middle-ageddy.
Throughout the trip, it was obvious to all the other former rogue immortal cultivators that Alosa was quickly developing a strong rtionship with both Immortal Miessy and Immortal Patty. Whether it was her charming personality and quirky selection of clothing, she could easily make people like her.
So much so that even though Immortal Patty hated when others would ask him questions, he tolerated it whenever Alosa asked him a question. However, the method he used to deliver the information was different each time, as if it was a form of entertainment for him.
Sometimes Immortal Patty would answer Alosa''s question by telling her a story and having her decode the hidden messaging. Other times he would create something simr to a movie and showcase the information directly.
There were even a few asions he would carve the information into Alosa''s skin and have her read it out loud to everyone. Thest method was extremely painful for everyone to watch, but Alosa easily dealt with the situation by turning off her sense of pain.
Luckily for Alosa, it seemed that Immortal Patty would only resort to that method whenever he was annoyed with her. But as long as she was more careful with her questions and used the others as scapegoats, she was able to avoid those punishments.
So regardless of the method, Yoze and the others couldn''t help but ce all their attention on Alosa and Immortal Patty. As if trying to decide what method he was going to use, Immortal Patty stared at Alosa for a few seconds in silence before giving a response.
"I have a few words of advice for you and everyone else..."
"Make sure to keep your head from being cut off your shoulders."
Chapter 252 252: Crystal Fortress
"Keep our heads on our shoulders? Is there someone that is not afraid of the consequences of murder inside the Immortal Pce?" Alosa asked Immortal Patty in a curious tone.
"Murdering your fellow student inside the Sect will be punished heavily inside the Sect. However, if you aren''t caught, then who is the Sect going to punish." Immortal Patty replied to Alosa''s question in the same quick and brutal tone as before.
Showing that not only was murdering a fellow student not umon, but it was most likely secretly encouraged by the Sect itself. Even though it was harsh and dampened everyone''s spirits, they secretly also heaved a sigh of relief.
As rogue immortal cultivators, they were used to not having many rules to follow and would always try to remove their enemies from the world of the living as soon as possible. Hearing that as long as they were smart about killing their enemies and made sure to leave no clues behind, they could still remove their future obstacles was a huge relief.
"Thank you for your advice."
While everyone was still digesting Immortal Patty''s advice, Alosa thanked Immortal Patty with a voice that showed her gratitude. Even Yoze felt that it was better for him if he was allowed to kill people secretly inside the Immortal Pce and not be afraid of being kicked out.
Though he didn''t n on doing so for most people, if he needed to remove some immortal cultivators or immortals to gather some secret treasures, he didn''t mind having some blood on his hands. He especially ced grabbing the Crystal Grape treasure as one of his most important treasures to collect since it could rapidly improve his immortal cultivation speed.
He knew clearly that the Crystal Grape still stored enough energy to support him being able to cross into a few more realms. He also nned to have Tiki use the Crystal Grape to quickly improve her own Immortal cultivation.
That way, she would be much stronger and be able to better protect herself from any dangers as well as protect everyone else. If possible, Yoze nned on using the Immortal Pce Sect''s resources to also assist her in bing an Immortal herself.
As Yoze and the other rogue immortal cultivators were busy with their ns for their future, they suddenly heard a deep rumblinging from the mountain below them. The mountain that was supposed to be the Immortal Pce Sect''s headquarters slightly cracked open on the top of the mountain, allowing them into the mountain''s insides.
Unlike what they expected, the inside of the mountain wasn''t dark and was not filled with tunnels used for transportation. Instead, a beautiful rainbow mist exited the mountain due to the massive crystal fortress inside the hollow mountain.
Just from what Yoze could see, the fortress was nearly asrge as the mountain itself, and from his perspective, it seemed more like the Sect had covered their Crystal Fortress in a thickyer of dirt and ice. Even the thickness of theyer surrounding the Immortal Pce was only a few feet thick at the thickest points.
Though the rainbow mist surrounding the Crystal Fortress was beautiful, Yoze felt that it had another function as well. However, before he was going to examine the rainbow further, he noticed that a small tunnel had formed inside the rainbow fog that led straight to the Immortal Pce''s entrance.
Without saying another word, Immortal Patty shrunk his giant sword to half its size before quickly flying through the tunnel that was formed for them. Not wanting to be left behind, the beautiful array of stars and the bloody cloud quickly turned into streaks of light as they rushed to enter the tunnel before it closed.
With the speed of the sword, it didn''t take long before they reached the entrance, which was two doors that were easily ten feet tall. After reaching the entrance of the Crystal Fortress, Immortal Patty waved his hand, causing a heavy gust of wind to blow everyone off his sword.
"Can you just get off," Noticing that his heavy gust of wind didn''t kick Yoze off of his sword, Immortal Patty didn''t bother to waste his crystal energy trying to cast a more powerful wind spell and just told him to get off on his own.
"Sorry about that, sir; I''ve been trying to pack on some more weight recently," Yoze said with a smile as he jumped off of the sword.
Even though he weighed more than a thousand pounds, he seemed as light as a feather as he softlynded on the ground below him as if he was a feather. Seeing this Immortal, Patty secretly shook his head as he simply couldn''t understand why such a talented man would waste his time practicing martial arts.
Even though their interaction with each other was nearly nonexistent, he was able to tell that Yoze was obsessed with continuing to practice martial arts even though there was a hard limit on how strong he could be taking that path.
"At least with his martial arts, he has a slightly better chance of surviving assassination attempts. If he can survive long enough to reach the Crystal Skull realm, I''ll offer him some protection so I can get a valuable ally." Immortal Patty thought to himself, fully expecting that Yoze wouldn''t reach that realm for decades.
"Everyone is here and ounted for, except for Immortal Welse, who had left the mission early." Immortal Patty said loudly into the void as if he was speaking directly to someone.
A few seconds of silence engulfed the area as everyone waited for the doors to open. Weirdly enough, it took more than a minute before another voice came somewhere in the mist and sent amand to everyone.
"No one is allowed inside the Sect until the arrangement between us and the Immortal Shadow Sect isplete. If you want to enter faster, you may head to the base of the southern mountain and enter these new immortal cultivators in the tournament that was created to test each of our Sect''s strengths."
After the voice gave its response, silence followed as Immortal Patty sighed and turned to the two brothers that had somehow appeared on the hilt of his sword beside him. Seeing the two brothers once again appear out of nowhere, Yoze felt his heart clench as he didn''t notice that they appeared at all, even with his extraordinary senses.
He only noticed their presence when everyone else had be aware of their arrival, and even with his sharp spiritual senses, he didn''t even see them arrive. That either meant that they developed a method to teleport anywhere around the world as they pleased, or they were able to somehow hide everything rted to their existence.
Either way, Yoze felt that these two brothers were far more dangerouspared to Immortal Welse since they could easily keep off his head at any point.
"Are we required to participate in the tournament, or can we just wait?" Immortal Patty asked calmly.
"No, it isn''t required, but it cannd us some extra points if these six join and do a good job." One of the twins smiled as he spoke in a cheerful tone as if he was excited to talk for the first time.
"Extra points? I guess that all six of you will be joining the tournament then." Hearing that he could acquire extra points instantly made Immortal Patty''s eyes sparkle as he quickly waved his hand to lift everyone except Yoze back onto his sword.
"Yoze, jump on quickly; I don''t want any dys to ruin our chances of getting valuable sect points." Immortal Patty said with impatience in his voice.
Understanding that this wasn''t a choice, Yoze lightly tapped his foot on the ground and jumped tens of feet to lightlynd on the sword''s tip. Before his weight could shift the direction of the sword, Immortal Patty sent more crystal energy to rebnce his sword.
Luckily by the time he was able to make sure everything was stable, Lily was able to softlynd beside Yoze and excitedly waited for them to the tournament. She felt her blood boil with excitement as she wanted to see Yoze beat up someone as badly as he defeated her.
She had full confidence that whoever Yoze''s opponent would regret that they ever stepped into the ring. She could still clearly remember being afraid for her life just from Yoze using his spiritual energy to suppress her.
She could only imagine how powerful he had to be that just looking at her could make her a monster lose.
After everyone had settled, Immortal Patty and his giant sword turned into a ck beam of light and left straight toward the base of the Southern Mountain in the least possible time. With their speed, it took only a few minutes before they arrived at a small mountain that was covered in a thick forest.
At the base of the mountain was arge ck square tform that seemed to have been made entirely out of obsidian. In the middle of the tform were two young men that seemed to be fighting to the death.
Chapter 253 253: Battle Between Two Sects
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"Boom!"
An explosion wrecks the entire ck tform as a fiery explosion engulfs one of the two men. The explosion was so powerful that even from dozens of feet away, Yoze was able to feel the hot air from the explosion hitting his skin.
Even the thick ck smoke that took on the form of a rising mushroom cloud reached a height of dozens of feet, showing how much power was behind the explosion. Without even blinking for a second, Yoze felt his interest peak as he stared at the smoke, waiting to see what the other did to win the battle.
"Shockwave!" A deep stern voice came out of an explosion as a loud sizzling sound simr to electricity quickly followed.
At extremely quick speeds, a five-centimeter-thick ring of yellow electricity exploded out of the ck cloud as it rushed to shock the other young man. As if expecting this, the young men outside of the explosion waited just as the yellow ring was about to hit him before his ck leather boots burned red as he stomped his boot on the ground.
"Boom"
The young man had the power of a much smaller and weaker explosion to send himself dozens of feet into the air, dodging that lethal ring of electricity. Unfortunately, the young man wearing ck boots made the wrong decision as once he reached the apex of his jump, a humanoid ck shadow appeared behind him.
The humanoid ck shadow waspletely silent as it ced its hands on the young man''s shoulders and seemed to fuse into the young man''s body. On the other hand, the young man never noticed that his body was being taken over as he focused his entire attention on the ck mushroom cloud.
By the time the young man''s feet touched the ground, it was obvious to the audience that the young man had lost since the young man had lost control of over half of his body and yet didn''t notice. He only noticed the abnormality with his body when he activated his jump spell, causing his ck boots to once again turn burning red, but when he tried to move, he couldn''t move his arms and everything below his chest.
"I surrender!"
Knowing that he had thoroughly lost, the young man''s face turned ugly as he gritted his teeth in anger before surrendering. Even though he hated the fact that he had missed out on this opportunity to get sect points, he knew that it wasn''t worth losing his life over.
"Immortal Shadow Sect score is 20 victories, and Immortal Pce Sect is 10 victories!"
The moment the young man from the Immortal Pce Sect gave up, a tall man with thick green sses, long green hair that was slicked back, and wore a suit that was colored in different shades of green phased onto the field through the center of the tform. The moment that tall green man''s head had left the tform, he immediately shouted out the loss of the Immortal Pce Sect.
Hearing that his opponent had surrendered and he had won, the humanoid shadow quickly let go of control over the young man''s body and transformed back into the other young man. Without a pause, the young man who had just imed victory for his sect slightly smiled as he walked off stage without another word.
"Who else would like to participate in the tournament!? Remember, both the Immortal Pce Sect and the Immortal Shadow Sect offer sect points for those who win battles!"
"Don''t miss out on this opportunity to get points and get your name out there!" The man with the thick green sses shouted out once again to the audience of several hundred people.
Silence quickly engulfed the entire tform and half the audience as the student for the Immortal Pce Sect stayed silent. Watching some of the best students in the sect lose more than 2/3 of the battles shows that there was a clear difference inbat ability between the two schools.
It was especially difficult for the rest of the students of the Immortal Pce Sect to agree to join the tournament because they had run out of students who were at least in the Crystal Skull realm. While the Immortal Shadow Sect students were staring at them with hungry eyes as they still had at several students that had recently reached the Crystal Brain realm.
With such a massive difference in their realms, it was extremely unlikely for any of the students from the Immortal Pce Sect to get the victory. Meaning that there was less than a zero percent chance that they would get the valuable sect points and instead had a better chance of getting themselves identally killed before being able to surrender.
"I volunteer these six new students from the Immortal Pce Sect." Suddenly Immortal Patty''s voice broke the silence at the base of the Southern Mountain.
Causing the heads of hundreds of students to turn their attention to the colossus sword flying above their heads. Seeing such a massive weapon, many of the students from the Immortal Pce Sect''s eyes lit up.
"An immortal has volunteered these students; they must have reached such a high level that he isn''t afraid of embarrassing himself. They should have at least reached the Crystal Brain." A defeated female student on the Immortal Pce Sect''s side felt her heart fill with hope.
As a student who was still developing her Crystal Brain, she had ced some of her hope on increasing the safety of the process by participating in this tournament. Yet she got a long and drawn-out loss that she had to surrender due to not wanting to exhaust her crystal energy storage below 50 percent.
Even though she lost, she still had some hope in gaining some sect points, in the end, to not make this trip worthless. All she had to do was wait for someone else to take care of the strong opponents on the field before stepping back into the ring.
It wasn''t just her who had this same n. Many of the students from both sides had long nned to farm the other school for their sect points. Unfortunately, they were both too clever to allow themselves to be farmed unless there was truly arge discrepancy in the two schools''bat abilities.
Chapter 254 254: First Opponent
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Now that we were an immortal who had shown up and even brought along some backup, the students from the Immortal Pce Sect had high expectations. While at the same time, a deep frown appeared on the faces of the students of the Immortal Shadow Sect as they secretly cursed themselves for having bad luck.
"Who wants to go down first?" Now that he had made his appearance known, Immortal Patty immediately made it clear that he wouldn''t gain anyone''s ire by picking anyone.
"Sir, may I ask what are the benefits for these sect points that you mentioned?" Seeing that they were going to have to fight anyways, Yoze decided to ask the question he had been wondering the whole time.
It wasn''t just him who had this question, as it was obvious to everyone that Immortal Patty ced great importance on these sect points. He cared about them so much that he was willing to put his reputation on the line to get just a few of them.
So their evaluation of these points was quite high since even someone who could live forever and so powerful valued them. So they couldn''t help but wonder what these sect points could be used for that even an immortal was interested in them.
"Sect Points are the universal currency in any Immortal Sect, and these could be used to buy nearly everything. Whether you want to buy spells, treasures, bring in servants from the outside world, or obtain additional crystals for your immortal cultivation, you can buy them with Sect Points."
"Of course, since almost everything can only be obtained with Sect Points, they are hard to get and easy to spend. So it doesn''t hurt anyone from putting in some additional effort into getting these points." Immortal Patty exined to everyone patiently.
"Bring in servants from the outside world inside the Immortal Sect!" The moment Yoze heard those words uttered from Immortal Patty''s mouth, he made up his mind to get as many points as he possibly could.
As everyone else was busy digesting the information and calcting whether it was better for them to step in now or bid their time, Yoze had jumped off Immortal Patty''s sword. Seeing him leave without hesitation, Leo''s, Tamgo''s, the two twin brothers, and Alosa''s eyes opened wide in shock.
They had secretly been making ns and calcting which one of them would step forward first, yet none of them had assumed that Yoze would take the first step. While they knew he had the most talent of the six of them and even had a strong body, they knew he was still the weakest of them in terms of immortal cultivation.
He even said himself that he had only recentlypleted the Nerve umtion realm and was about to begin the Nerve Crystallization realm. That meant that he was at least three realms behind any of them and by far the weakest.
Though he had trained in martial arts and had a powerful body that couldn''t make up for theck of spells and hardly any ability to quickly cast extremely powerful spells, so many of them had assumed that he would have decided that it would be better to wait on the sidelines to observe and find a better opponent.
"Well, at least they will have a lower expectation of us when we enter. So we might be able to get an early advantage if we y our hands right." The twin brother wearing the hat with a green ribbon rubbed his chin with intrigue as he watched Yoze''s heavy body fall to the tform like an asteroid.
While secretly wondering to himself whether the tform would be strong enough to endure a thousand-pound object crashing on it from dozens of feet in the air. It wasn''t just him as everyone watched the mini giant of a man flying down from the sky.
"Boom!"
It only took a few seconds for Yoze tond on the ck tform with both of his feet firmly touching the ground. Even though he had tried his best to distribute most of his weight as a precaution to not crack the obsidian tform, the moment Yozended, a loud sound resembling a boulder mming into the ground echoed through the stage.
"..."
Silence quickly took over the audience as everyone felt a heavy gust of wind m into their faces as Yozended. They all looked at each other with confusion as they couldn''t understand why a martial artist was standing in the ring.
There was no way an immortal cultivator could achieve such arge and muscr body unless they heavily modified their body. But the amount of crystal energy that would be required to create such a body would heavily slow down anyone''s progress in immortal cultivation.
In other words, it simply wasn''t worth all the effort to go so far into creating a physical body that could still be turned into ash from a single spell. So they felt that it was odd to see someone like Yoze who cared to modify his body to such an extent, but seeing that he had dropped from the sword of an Immortal, they felt he must be quite powerful.
"Good, the Immortal Pce Sect has brought a new fighter to the ring! Immortal Shadow Sect, please bring up your fighter!" After being briefly shocked, the announcer of the battles quickly regained hisposure andmanded the Immortal Shadow Sect to send in a fighter.
"I''ll go up," After a brief second of silence from the Immortal Shadow Sect''s side, a calm andzy voice came out of the crowd as a tall slim man stepped out.
He had long ck hair that reached his shoulders, a thin mustache, and wore a small grin on his face as he stepped up into the ring with swagger in his steps. As he walked on stage, his ck trenchcoat fluttered slightly in the wind, surrounding him in a mysterious atmosphere.
Chapter 255 255: Shadow Swamp
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"Fantastic! We have ourselves a battle of the century."
"Coming from the Immortal Pce Sect, we have Yoze, who has reached the peak of the Nerve umtion realm, and from the Immortal Shadow Sect, we have Lebra, who has reached the Crystal Brain realm." The stage announcer said without a single pause.
Yoze nced at the announcer, curious how he knew his name even though he hadn''t introduced himself. Still, he didn''t pay too much attention to how they already knew about him since he was now facing a strong opponent.
"Nerve umtion realm? Is that right?" The young man with a mustache looked at the announcer with confusion, but seeing that Yoze didn''t correct him, he looked somewhat puzzled.
He couldn''t understand why someone who had just started his immortal cultivation journey dared to enter the tournament. Not to mention the fact he had just witnessed his fellow student just lose miserably.
"Did he think the matches would be forcefully equalized ording to the personal realm? Forget this just means that I can collect more Sect Points this way." Unable to understand the thoughts running through Yoze''s head, Lebra shook his head and prepared to end this fight quickly.
"The battle will begin once I say go. Okay, three... Two... One... Go!"
As soon as the announcer''s voice shouted out, Go, the announcer''s body that he kept halfway inside the tform,pletely submerged himself. At the same, Lebra pped his hands together and instantly cast his favorite spell.
"Shadow Swamp!"
Behind Lebra''s back was his shadow that quickly began to expand in all directions causing the ck circle with a radius of 10 feet to appear all around him. In a blink of an eye, the ck circle quickly doubled in size and continued to double in size rapidly.
Normally Lebra would have taken this chance to cast another important spell that would have made him untouchable, which was the Shadow Dive, which was one of his Sect''s most difficult spells to master. It would have allowed him to turn himself into a shadow and enter his Shadow Swamp without any difficulties.
Once he entered, he would be like a fish who had returned to the ocean and had total freedom to move freely while thend dwellers struggled to swim and breathe. Simrly, while he would be able to enter and exit his Shadow Swamp world, his enemies would find themself having trouble moving and breathing.
If they didn''t manage to escape in time, there were only two results that would ur. The first was that they slowly suffocate to death inplete darkness. The second option was as if he took pity on them and killed them beforehand so they didn''t have to suffer any pain.
However, casting both spells and maintaining both of them was extremely consuming of his energy, so he would prefer if he didn''t have to use a third of his crystal energy on an easy opponent like Yoze.
Shortly after Lebra cast his Shadow Swamp, Yoze felt a faint tingling sensation at the back of his head, screaming at him not to let that ck circle get close. Looking at the ck circle that was darker than the night, he could imagine how dangerous it was if his instinct was sending such a strong message to him as soon as it appeared.
Even without Yoze taking action himself, Mindless Legs took over and used a bit of his strength tounch him into the sky. Now that he had escaped the dangerous situation of constantly running closer and closer to the edge of the stage and potentially being forced to jump off, which would result in him losing the battle, Yoze activated his Blood Armor.
In less than a blink of an eye, blood poured out of Yoze''s pores and quickly gathered to form arge suit of armor. At the same time, a thick blood mist exploded from his body, shrouding his entire body.
"He truly is a martial artist." Lebra stared at the blood fog that had consumed Yoze and felt strange.
He didn''t expect his opponent to rely on his martial art prowess to escape from his Shadow Swamp. However, he still didn''t think he would lose this battle since he still had the upper hand.
Not only was the tformpletely consumed by his Shadow Swamp, turning it into his personal world where he was the single ruler, but eventually, he knew that Yoze would have toe down. Even if he assumed that his opponent could temporarily fly using a spell, given that his immortal cultivation realm hadn''t even reached the Nerve Crystallization realm, he knew Yoze couldn''t maintain it for long.
"Let''s end this,"
While Yoze was in the middle of the air and still ascending, he felt his interest in observing Lebra''s spell quickly fade as he noticed that Lebra didn''t bother to cast any more spells. Since he figured he wasn''t going to get any more information from his opponent, Yoze simply gathered his blood to form a long whip.
As soon as the whip was formed, Yoze gently whipped it at Lebra, intending to knock him off stage. Even though he could easily cut off his head with a single sh, he didn''t want to rock the boat, given he didn''t know whether this was a life-and-death battle or simply apetition to see who was stronger.
"Whoosh!"
Even though Yoze had held back most of his strength, the amount of power he did use sent the whip flying at such speeds that even someone who had created a partiallyplete crystal brain couldn''t react in time. Yoze''s blood whipped tightly around Lebra in an instant and nearly crushed his bones.
Once he had gotten a good grip on him, Yoze flicked his wrist, which resulted in him identally sending Lebra flying off the tform like a rocket.
"The winner of the battle is Yoze!" Without skipping a beat, the announcer resurfaced from the tform that had been consumed by Lebra and announced his defeat.
Before everyone could understand what had happened, the announcer seemed to have noticed that Yoze was beginning to fall toward the tform and was going to enter Lebra''s Shadow Swamp, which was still active. After adjusting his thick green sses, he gently pped the tform, causing the terrifying Shadow Swamp to shatter like ss.
Once shattered, the ck space easily faded into nothingness, while the creator of the Shadow Swamp felt as if he had been gut punched. With the battlefield having now been reset from the battle between Yoze and Lebra, the announcer turned his focus back to the main part of his job.
"What a blood-boiling battle! Each of the opponents had given it their all, and the result was the upset of the century!"
"Let''s not wait any longer for another intense battle of wit and strength and get another opponent up here before Immortal Pce Sect''s contestant leaves!"
Unfortunately for the announcer, even though Yoze had touched the tform''s ground, it took several minutes before the audience could regain theirposure and analyze what had happened. After some deep thought, everyone realized that Yoze had fantastically yed his cards right.
Even though it was obvious to everyone that Yoze had been left with limited choice as to how he could deal with the Shadow Swamp, they didn''t think that he would use his martial art abilities in such a fashion to quickly end the battle. However, in hindsight, they all realized that most of them had never fought against a martial artist before.
Since none of them had any fighting experience against another martial artist, there wasn''t anything they could use as a foundation to make the correct choices to win the battle. This was especially the case with the abilities that Blood Masters and Martial Grandmasters possessed.
None of them knew how Blood Masters or Martial Grandmasters fought and thus could easily be caught off guard. Aparable situation could happen to them if they ever faced a martial artist, but instead, it would be their heads sent flying.
Secretly rubbing their necks, the crowd of immortal cultivators subconsciously raised their opinions on martial artists as a whole, even though it was undeserved. Since most of the immortal cultivators had never fought against Blood Masters, they didn''t know that Yoze''s physical prowess didn''t fit that category.
Even a Martial Grandmaster would have difficulty performing the same feat that Yoze had just done simply because sending an attack faster than a Crystal Brain realm Immortal Cultivator could react to was extremely difficult.
Only Martial Grandmasters who were considered to be powerful even whenpared to their peers would be able to fit into that category of people. So unless any of the Immortal Cultivators here decided not to kill their adversary in one move, most of them would never face such a situation.
Until they realized that Yoze was abnormally powerful for a martial artist, the majority of the immortal cultivators adjusted their thoughts on martial artists and their n of attack against Yoze. After the readjustment, someone from the Immortal Shadow Sect decided to test out their new strategy.
Chapter 256 256: Unbreakable Shadow Armor
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After a brief silence that had engulfed the audience, the sound of clicking metal footsteps slowly walked up the tform''s stairs. As the young man from the Immortal Shadow Sect made his appearance, Yoze couldn''t help but feel slightly shocked.
The young man was covered from head to toe in a suit of ck metal armor covered in spikes. The metal didn''t seem to be made out of any metal Yoze had seen before, as it waspletely pitch ck.
If it wasn''t for the curves and sharp spikesing out of the armor, the young man would have looked more like there was a human-shaped hole in the world. The only piece of the young man''s body that wasn''t covered in armor was his cold green eyes.
"Me," The young man said one word before falling silent.
As if understanding that the young man intended to fight against Yoze, the announcer nodded and began trying to hype up the crowd.
"Fantastic! We got an even more exciting battleing for everyone today!"
"Stepping forward for the Immortal Shadow Sect is a returning fighter! He is known for his suit of armor that can absorb anything! Combined with his deadly shadow weapons and Crystal Brain immortal cultivation, few can truly challenge this young man!"
"Let''s not wait any longer and allow Kuci, The ck Knight, to show us his power!"
Hearing that the young man in front of him had quite a reputation inside the immortal sects, Yoze became even more focused as he readied himself to dodge any attacks at any moment. Before the announcer officially started the battle, Yozemanded his blood to reshape into a long spear.
"Without further ado, the battle starts now!"
The moment the announcer finished saying the word now, Kuci felt a gust of wind closing on him rapidly. Without him even understanding what was going on, he felt as if he was being targeted by a dangerous predator.
Understanding that he needed to take action immediately, Kucimanded his Shadow Armor to cover his eyes. Instantly closing off the only weak point in his armor and giving him somefort.
Unfortunately, even with his reaction to close off his armor happening nearly instantly, he wasn''t out of danger. He felt his Shadow Armor quickly burning up in less than a blink of an eye. He felt as if he was on fire.
Without Kuci even seeing how Yoze could have moved so quickly, he understood that he had been attacked. Not only had he been attacked, but he had also been struck by arge force.
That was the only reason he coulde up with why his Shadow Armor would react this way since this was the side effect that came from being able to absorb anything. Therger and stronger the thing he had been attacked with, the more his armor would heat up.
Even if his Shadow Armor didn''t shatter or break, he would be burned to ash if he met an extremely powerful enemy. Still, knowing that Yoze simply was too fast for him to keep up, Kuci pped his hands together to cast one of his favorite spells Shadow Castle.
The moment Kuci cast the Shadow Castle spell, his shadow copsed into a ball and began to expand rapidly. In less than a second, a ten feet tall threeyered wall was created by Kuci''s shadow, giving him some protection and time to cast more spells.
At the same time, as he was creating his additional defensive abilities, the temperature of Kuci''s Shadow Armor had jumped thrice, meaning he had endured three attacks. As Kuci was breathing a small sigh of relief, and had a feeling that if he had to take a few more attacks, his skin would begin to melt into his armor.
"Interesting. Does everyone in the Immortal Shadow Sect learn the same shadow spells? Or is it something I can learn as well?"
Though he was in the middle of a battle, Yoze''s curiosity about the spells he had witnessed had made him more excited to try out magic himself. He even considered stalling the battle for a while to get more information on the type of spells that the Immortal Shadow Sect students have learned.
But he rejected that idea as he felt that it was simply too risky. He only wanted to get as many points as he could without overexposing himself.
That is why even though Yoze could have quickly overwhelmed Kuci''s armor to the point that it would have incinerated him with one attack, he didn''t. Instead, he capped himself to using the same amount of power he had used to send his previous opponent off the tform.
Even then, he surmounted that winning a few battles was more than enough. It even had a plus side making the battle between him and Kuci slightly more bnced.
This is why even though Yoze had thrown four blood spears directly at Kuci''s head, his Shadow Armor was able to endure and absorb them with difficulty. Noticing that Kuci was able to quickly set up a threeyered defense that blocked him from sending more blood spears at his head, Yoze changed his tactics.
"If I can''t attack you directly due to your walls, I''ll just hit you from above."
Even though Kuci had set up a powerful defense that would make it difficult for most immortal cultivators to break through, he had sealed his fate of being a sitting duck. With his Shadow Castle spell activated, his body was locked in ce and couldn''t move as he was the center of it all.
Usually, this was enough for him to get some rest time toe up with a better n of action to deal with the threats outside. But with a monster like Yoze, it was only dying the inevitable, especially when he didn''t form any defenses above his head.
"Right now, I can assume that my opponent is an extremely powerful martial artist, but he hasn''t used a single spell once. He either knows no spells or his list of spells aren''t very useful in battle."
"Which, unfortunately, means it''s going to be difficult for me to stall this battle out long enough to drain him of all his crystal energy. So stalling this battle isn''t an option for me."
"As long as I use my Shadow Walls as a barrier, I will be able to narrow the number of ces he couldunch attacks at me. Either he has to ovee the powerful defensive capabilities of my Shadow Castle."
"Or he can try attacking me from above, which will give me a chance to fight back!" With his mind racing with numerous ns to retake control of the situation, Kuci turned his focus to the sky.
Even though his armor was blocking his eyes, he could see the sky. The blinding sun had be slightly dimmer, which allowed him to see arge humanoid figure in the sky.
Therge humanoid figure was covered in blood-red armor and held arge blood spear in both of his hands. As the figure continued to rise into the sky, he threw his two blood spears down toward Kuci like missiles.
The blood spears sliced through the air and turned into a bloody blur. If it wasn''t for the fact that Kuci had focused so much on watching Yoze''s movements, he would have lost track of the Blood Spears.
Knowing that even though he could see the Blood Spears heading straight for him, they were simply too fast for him to do anyplicated spells, Kuci pped his hands. The moment the sound of shing metal came from his hands, the floor below Kuci spat out dozens of shadow spears to intercept those bloody spears.
"nk nk nk"
Unexpectedly even though he hadunched more than thirty shadow spears at them, the Blood Spears simply shrugged them off, only losing some size along the way. Before Kuci could think of another n, the two blood spears simultaneously mmed into his head.
"Slurp!"
An audible slurp sound came from Kuci''s Shadow Armor as it absorbed the two blood spears in their entirety. Even the force behind them seemed to have fallen into a bottomless ocean as it disappeared without a trace.
The signs that showed that Kuci was suffering from these actions was the heat radiating from his Shadow Armor which was bing unbearable. With the temperature from his Shadow Armor doubled, Kuci was well aware he wouldn''t be able to endure another attack without paying a high price.
Noticing that Yoze had another two Blood Spears of the same size in his hands, ready to fire at any time, Kuci felt a cold chill go down his spine even though he was burning up. Knowing that if he didn''t make a move now, he would begin the process of being turned into ash, Kuco gritted his teeth and shouted.
"I surrender!"
Chapter 257 257: Immortal Cultivators Blood Boils
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"I surrender! Don''t you dare send down those weapons!" Kuci''s voice echoed throughout the whole base of the southern mountain.
An eerie silence engulfed both the Immortal Shadow Sect and the Immortal Pce Sect as both sides tried their best to understand what they had just witnessed. Even though many of them had considered Yoze to be a strong martial artist and even praised him somewhat for being able to quickly take out Lebra, they hadn''t considered the possibility that another immortal cultivator could lose.
This was no longer a matter of not being prepared to battle against a martial artist or not taking action as soon as possible to not give them a chance to act. The moment Kuci fell into the defensive position, as soon as the battle started, everyone knew that he was in a bad position.
While the Shadow Armor that Kuci wore had amazing properties and could absorb everything, everyone was observant enough to see its weakness. The temperature of the suit of armor would increase with the more attacks it ate up and the stronger the attacks were.
Meaning that against opponents that were simply too powerful, Shadow Armor couldn''t provide as much value. Instead, it would act as a means to cook the user alive and turn them into ash for a chance to live a few seconds longer.
So to see that Yoze was once again able to gain the upper hand and force Kuci into absorbing his attacks was only bad news. However, once Kuci summoned his Shadow Castle and created arge wall surrounding himpletely, everyone breathed a small sigh of relief.
With the Shadow Castle activated, it limited Yoze''s options of attack and would force him to spend more time trying to break through. If he had chosen that path, Kuci would have had enough time toe up with countermeasures for Yoze''s speed.
Some people even predicted that in this scenario, Kuci would use amon spell called Eye Of Insight. This spell was inside the collection of all immortal sects and thus was one of the first spells many Immortal cultivators would buy with their points.
The reason for its poprity was that not only did this spell increase reaction speed, but it also had the function of easily being improved and adapted for each user. Meaning that the Eye of Insight was the first spell many Immortal Cultivators would spend their time improving and adapting for themselves.
So it wasmon knowledge that the stronger the immortal cultivator became, the better their Eye of Insights usually were. For someone who reached the peak of the Crystal Brain realm, many assumed that his Eye of Insight would be strong enough to track Yoze.
At that time, not only would he have developed a n, he could even react to each of Yoze''s moves and attacks. For most Immortal Cultivators, this resulted in a situation where Yoze would have an extremely small chance of being able to turn this situation around.
However, a small few, who also used shadow weapons, knew that taking this path would guarantee that Yoze would have lost due to one simple fact. While Shadow Castle couldn''t absorb attacks like Kuci''s Shadow Armor, it could redistribute the force.
So Yoze would have to use his most powerful attacks to have a chance of breaking through the Shadow Walls; if he didn''t, he would even leave a scratch and would be unable to break it all. With the additional time spent on breaking that spell, Kuci could have reduced the temperature of his Shadow Armor and thus be at peak performance by the time he had to deal with Yoze.
With all thosepounding variables, everyone in their right mind knew that as long as Yoze wasn''t dumb, he would try to attack from above. What they didn''t expect was that even when Yoze was trapped in the sky with nowhere to dodge, he still destroyed Kuci, forcing him to surrender.
"Doesn''t this mean that only the top immortal cultivators could defeat Yoze? Even with preparation, any immortal cultivator beneath the peak Crystal Brain stands no chance."
No one knew who said it, but a grim face covered the entire audience when the silent truth was spoken. Regardless of whether they were from the Immortal Shadow Sect or the Immortal Pce Sect, they all wanted Yoze to lose at this point.
His continuous victories made it seem that martial arts were stronger than immortal cultivation. They had poured their heart, sweat, and tears for decades as they believed that this was the only path to bing strong.
Recognizing that Yoze only used martial arts to trounce powerful immortal cultivators meant that what they considered the only path wasn''t true. That even martial arts could make one powerful even though they had always believed that they were superior.
As many knew, ss could both divide and unite people, so the moment that everyone saw other Immortal Cultivators being squashed by a lower ss of power, they felt as if they were also being beaten. If it wasn''t for the fact that the Immortal Cultivators on the Immortal Pce Sect side didn''t want to anger the immortal that had sent Yoze over, they would have told him to step down.
"Ahahaha! Look at this, the battles are getting everyone excited, and their blood is beginning to boil. The other immortals and I don''t want to see this momentum end, so the next person from the Immortal Shadow Sect must step up in the next three seconds!"
Contrary to the Immortal Cultivators, who felt that their pride was being stepped on, the strange announcer flew out of the obsidian tform roaring inughter. Strangely, the moment everyone heard it, they literally felt their blood beginning to boil.
At the same time, their hearts raced as the pure emotions that everyone possessed became stronger. Whether it was their anger, sadness, or confusion, it was all used to fuel their excitement for the next battle between Yoze and his next opponent.
"Three!" The announcer''s rough voice spread throughout the whole mountain range as all the immortal cultivators felt a deep paining from their veins.
"Hurry up, you cowards! Take down Yoze and show him that he should give up on the path of martial arts and truly follow the path of the Immortal!"
The first person to crack from the strange excitement was Leo as he rushed to the edge of the Immortal Patty''s sword and shouted at the Immortal Cultivators from the Immortal Shadow Sect. He was always someone who had been known for being hot-blooded and loved to fight.
Even though he had calmed down as he grew older and became more powerful, he still loved to have raw battles. So seeing that no one had stepped onto the tform already pissed him off since he wanted to see a more exciting fight.
"Two!"
"I can''t beat him! Get one of the Shadow Lords to take him down!"
"Get Shadow Lord Fliez! He should have enough power to kill this martial artist with a pinky!"
"No, Shadow Lord Fliez is too arrogant. He would be merciful and give Yoze a chance, so he isn''t the most suited."
As soon as the announcer''s countdown struck two, the mental defenses of all the immortal cultivators in the Immortal Shadow Sect copsed as they feverishly discussed who they would send up. This time they not only wanted to win, but only a crushing victory would satisfy their burning desires.
Even with their screaming and discussion, none of the people brought into the discussion showed their faces. Even the ten Shadow Lords in the Immortal Shadow Sect simply sat down and stared at the sky as they tried their best to resist the strange power influencing them.
"One!"
The moment that the countdown reached one, all the Immortal Cultivators on the Immortal Pce side copsed as their eyes became bloodshot. Everyone could feel that their blood was about to burst out of their bodies which would then either seriously injure them or outright kill them.
So they couldn''t stand by and watch any longer for the Immortal Shadow Sect people to discuss within themselves. Numerous people from the Immortal Pce Sect began to cast spells as a threat to start a war if the Immortal Shadow Sect didn''t send at someone.
"Hahaha, a fellow martial artist! I haven''t seen anyone use pure martial arts to defeat immortal cultivators since... ever!"
"To see everyone get so worked up is something I wish I had seen before I became an Immortal Cultivator, but this will do just fine! Hahaha!"
Finally, someone couldn''t take it any longer and decided that it was best to deal with Yoze instead of relying on others to do it for them. As soon as a deep and stableughter echoed throughout the base of the Southern Mountain, everyone knew who it was.
It was the voice of the Immortal Shadow Sect''s eleventh Shadow Lord. The strongest ck horse in the Sect and the only rival to the ten Shadow Lords.
"Geo the Terrible!"
Chapter 258 258: Unstoppable Immortal Martial Artist
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"Geo, thank you! You are the only person who cares about us!"
"Geo the Terrible? What kind of nickname is that? To defeat Yoze, we need to bring out the big guns, not someone weaker than the ten strongest."
"Geo the Terrible? Who is that?"
"Is there something that is keeping the Shadow Lords from stepping in? Why else would they not step until now?"
While everyone no longer felt their blood boiling and threatening to explode from the inside, not everyone knew who their savior was. This was especially true on the Immortal Pce Sect side, as not many people knew that there was an eleventh Shadow Lord.
So they were not happy to see that even with the threat of all of them dying, the ten strongest immortal cultivators from the Immortal Shadow Sect didn''t step up to the challenge. There were even some individuals who felt that the attitude that the Shadow Lords disyed today was too odd.
Even if they were waiting to fight the ten strongest immortal cultivators in the Immortal Pce Sect, they didn''t need to risk their lives for it. Simr to what Geo had mentioned when he volunteered to fight against Yoze, it was better for Immortal Cultivators to deal with problems themselves than to rely on others to do it for them.
Even if that required them to create a plot that would force someone in, that was still better than what they did now. By forcing someone to step in that would allow Yoze to continue to farm their sect for points, they could at least exhaust him some more.
As for people guessing that the ten shadow lords used this method to force out Geo, they simplycked information. People in the Immortal Shadow Sect who knew Geo''s reputation and his past deeds knew that he would have never stepped in, even if they tried to force him.
There was a reason he had earned himself the title Geo the Terrible. It was because of how cold he was when it came to doing the greater good and using every method possible to increase his power.
To be called the eleventh shadow lord wasn''t because he had fought against any of the shadow lords and lost. He had never fought any of the Shadow Lords, but everyone knew that he rivaled their strength.
Some even guessed that if he truly fought against them, he wouldn''t have been called the eleventh Shadow Lord; instead, he would be a true Shadow Lord.
So seeing that the Shadow Lords were willing to risk their own lives and future was insane. And could only make sense if something was stopping them or if there was a bigger incentive that would require them to save their strength forter.
Rumors that the Shadow Lords were saving their strength for something began to spread around like wildfire. Before Geo even stepped onto the stage, various branches of those rumors popped up and formed a life on their own.
Still, regardless of how much the rumors spread and how many people called them heartless, none of the Shadow Lords reacted. They simply sat with each other ying a calm game of chess while also paying attention to the fight that was about to begin.
Seeing that the crowds were more excited about the match and what the hidden motives could be, the announcer grinned as he waited patiently for Geo to step in. Luckily Geo wasn''t someone who liked to stall on the inevitable and walked on stage soon after.
Looking at his opponent''s 7 feet and 5 inches tall body that was shrouded in a ck robe, Yoze couldn''t help but silently nod his head with approval. Even though there was a robe covering Geo''s muscles and his appearance Yoze was able to tell that Geo''s statement of being a martial artist in the past wasn''t a lie.
Even though it was faint, he could see that there were habits that were exclusive to individuals who had practiced martial arts techniques and body cultivation methods. These remaining habits were difficult to get rid of or even try to copy since they could be slightly different depending on what the martial artists had trained in.
Combined with Geo''s statement, the rumors that were spreading around, and the stories about his aplishments, Yoze realized that one of his greatest fears was true. He had found an immortal cultivator who trained in martial arts and immortal cultivation.
That meant that his fear that he would someday face an enemy that had superior martial arts prowess and was more powerful than him was closer than he imagined. Even though the information that Yoze had gathered said that he had stopped training in martial arts not long after he became an immortal cultivator, they never said his martial arts prowess had deteriorated.
Finding someone like this so soon after he had arrived at an Immortal Sect both excited Yoze and sent a shot of anxiety into his veins. There was only a single realm of difference between the Crystal Brain realm and the Immortal Realm.
But the difference between their power was enormous, and gaining an infinite amount of time was not something that could be enjoyed by any other realm. Yoze couldn''t help but wonder if he met Geo when he had be an immortal, would he have faced someone who had retaken up his passion for martial arts?
An immortal who had the time to spend tens of thousands of years training in martial arts to perfect their craft and even possibly push past the limit of martial arts. Not only would he have to face someone who had spells that were strong enough to injure him badly in one attack, but he would have to face someone better than him in martial arts.
A cold shiver went down Yoze''s spine as he could imagine the scene. Every one of his martial arts techniques would be easily ovee, and he wouldn''t be able to use his overwhelming physical strength to make up for it.
Chapter 259 259: A Drop Of Water In The Ocean
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Even his power to control and use spiritual energy to attack wouldn''t be enough to make up for the difference in their capabilities. In other words, he would be thoroughly defeated with no hope of being able to win, much less survive if they were mortal enemies.
"Even if he doesn''t break through the limit of martial arts, he can still stack different types of body cultivation methods and martial art techniques. That way, he would be unbeatable by any mortal martial artist." Yoze''s heart tightened as the possibility that there were going to be immortals and demons that knew martial arts had increased dramatically.
"I guess I don''t need to give you my backstory since everyone is doing it for me. But I''ll give you the cliff notes so that we can be acquaintances."
"My name is Geo Stone, and I was a well-known Blood Master rank martial artist in my small town before I was discovered by one of the traveling immortals from the Immortal Shadow Sect."
"It was quite the story indeed. I am sure that you would find it interesting, but since we are in a tournament of sorts, I''ll tell youter. After I was discovered, I too felt that it was simply unfair that martial arts were given up too quickly by immortals."
"And their disdain was unfounded. But the longer I cultivated, and the stronger I became, the more I realized that I stopped relying on my martial arts skills to defeat my enemies."
"A simple spell did the trick, and with a single sneeze, I could turn the Martial Grandmasters that I viewed so highly in the past into dust. It simply had be too much of a burden." Geo''s deep voice held a hint of sorrow as he continued to tell his story.
Even though Yoze couldn''t see Geo''s expression, he could imagine how disappointed he was to find out that the passion that he had spent several decades training in waspletely useless.
He didn''t know how he would have reacted if he did not have a cheat, which allowed him to be more talented with time. And had spent all his blood, sweat, and tears for several decades only to find out that Tiki and Dreyer were stronger than him.
Hearing Geo''s painful realization about the truth of this world made Yoze sympathetic, and he felt a bit of kinship between them.
"But the day I reached the Crystal Brain realm, I had a realization. As an immortal cultivator, I was as trash as those same martial artists that were looked down upon whenpared to immortals and demons."
"There simply was no difference between the two. And since there is no difference between the two when ites to the highest powers, why notbine the two?"
"With infinite time and the magical powers of Immortal cultivators, I could modify and strengthen my body in ways that I could only dream of when I was a martial artist. That way, physically, I would dominate all other immortal cultivators, and my spells would be more lethal."
"One mistake from my enemies: I can react far faster than any other immortal cultivator and turn the situation around. The marriage between the two powers might seem to have no connection, but the marriage of the two will work wonders."
"Don''t you believe so, too, Yoze? We share the same origin and share the same dream of raising the reputation of martial arts."
"That way, martial artists will no longer be looked down upon, and everyone in the past viewed it like trash will have to scramble to incorporate it into their toolkit. Or else they will fall behind and find themselves ughtered like a farm animal." As Geo continued to speak, his sorrow disappeared like smoke, reced with hope and a strong desire to be recognized.
"What the hell is he talking about? Combining martial arts with immortal cultivation is the same as adding a drop of water into the ocean, insignificant."
"Yoze might be strong, but it has to be partially due to him putting a lot of focus on modifying and strengthening his body. I know that there are only a few martial artists that are as strong as him. "
"And look at him. He is still stuck in the Nerve umtion realm because of how much crystal energy he wasted. If we try to follow his example, we will never be able to be immortals before we die from old age."
Dozens of immortal cultivators from both the Immortal Shadow Sect and the Immortal Pce Sect growled as they rejected Geo''s proposal. Even though only a few immortal cultivators were verbally rejecting the idea, the majority of people silently agreed with them.
It wasn''t like this idea wasn''t proposed before, but the number of immortal cultivators that could make thisbination sessful was few. It was simply a problem with time and talent.
Without good talent in immortal cultivation, no one would bother to even consider splitting arge amount of their precious time to also practice martial arts. What was even more absurd was that even if one had good talent in both immortal cultivation and martial arts, there still wasn''t enough time to be an expert in both fields.
An example of this was with Geo himself; he is talented in both martial arts and immortal cultivation, yet even after several decades, he hadn''t broken through to the Martial Grandmaster realm. This meant that all his progress was due to immortal cultivation and only spending a small fraction of his time keeping his martial art skills.
For people like them who only had decent talent in immortal cultivation and no talent at all in martial arts, it was a death sentence to try. Only once they became immortals and had infinite time could they afford to ce an equal amount of time training in martial arts.
But at that point, they were so powerful that martial arts truly was like tossing a water droplet into the ocean.
Chapter 260 260: Beginning Of The Battle
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As the audience continues to belittle Geo''s dream of making martial arts a valuable path for immortal cultivators, Yoze could sense that the aura around Geo was bing colder and colder. As he barely tried to hide the hidden anger in his heart.
"Sigh, these folks are truly ignorant, but what they say is the truth. For mortals, it isn''t practical to practice both martial arts and immortal cultivation unless one is talented in both."
"So that''s why I believe that only once one bes an immortal can they truly show the power of martial arts. But with you here, I think we might be able to show them the potential of martial arts with our battle." Geo released a deep sigh as all the anger in his heart disappeared without a trace, reced with excitement for battle.
As Yoze listened to Geo''s speech, he couldn''t help but nod his head as he felt that their interest was simr but not the same in the end. While he was interested inbining martial arts and immortal cultivation, he had higher aspirations as well.
Yoze wanted to reach the peak of all three power systems of this world; he wanted tobine martial arts with spiritual energy and immortal cultivation. By reaching the peak, he would be impossible to defeat and thus could live his life withplete freedom without any fear.
With how magical all three powers were, Yoze believed that once he reached the peak of martial arts, spiritual energy, and immortal cultivation and fused them, he could do anything. He could make the impossible a reality, making fantastical dreams seem usible.
Yoze firmly believed that by fusing all three powers, he would get god-like powers that one could only dream of. Even if he could never aplish it in his lifetime, he knew it was possible since immortal cultivation and spiritual energy were already doing the impossible.
Whether it was immortal cultivation or spiritual energy, they seemed to have endless potential and advanced the furthest. Even with his shallow understanding of these two systems, he understood that both granted eternal life.
For immortal cultivation, it was quite simple as the path to immortality was achieved step by step until one reached that realm. As for spiritual energy, it seemed more tricky, but from what he understood, as long as they could protect their spiritual energy, they could revive and live forever.
The only path that didn''t seem to contain a way to be immortal was the martial art path, but Yoze believed it was because no one had reached it yet. Only martial arts seemed to have reached a limit that no human could break through.
The Martial Grandmaster realm was the current limit, but Yoze believed that he could break through that limit and allow martial arts to reach its full potential. Inner Vigor was just as magical as crystal energy and spiritual energy, but the unfortunate thing was that it required one to be extremely talented in the field.
If one wasn''t talented enough, they wouldn''t even be able to reach the Martial grandmaster realm before they died with old age. In contrast, you could say that immortal cultivation and spiritual energy didn''t require their users to be as talented.
As long as you had a grade-five Crystal Nerves talent for immortal cultivation, they had a shot at bing immortals. At that point, they would have an infinite amount of time to continue developing their paths.
Spiritual energy, on the other hand, was always exclusive to only a select few species, mainly demons, and all these species were extremely talented in the field to the point that the moment they were born, they were close to bing immortals.
So Yoze could understand why immortal cultivators underestimated it and firmly did not believe in its potential. But knowing that many immortal cultivators saw the potential in martial arts both excited him and scared him.
"Only immortals can break the limits of the human body and thus surpass the Martial Grandmaster realm." As Yoze was in deep thought, he suddenly remembered a conversation he had had with one of the generals at Jade City and couldn''t help but say it out loud.
"Exactly, while it is the sad truth. I believe that the path of martial arts is long and tiring, but the rewards will be worth it. It''s only unfortunate that the human lifespan is too limited to witness its true power." Responding to Yoze''s realization, Geo nodded his head with sadness before shaking his head.
"Come, my fellow brother, and let''s fight to please not only the immortals but to show everyone that martial arts are powerful in their own right!"
The moment Geo finished his sentence, all his sadness vanished like smoke and was reced with a strong lust for battle. He grabbed his ck cloak and ripped it off his body.
Seeing that the battle between them was about to start, Yoze snapped out of his deep thoughts and turned his focus back to Geo. However, when he saw Geo''s weapon, Yoze could help but silently curse at him.
Complementing Geo''s height, his body was extremely muscr but lean and bnced, showing that he took. Underneath his robe, Geo continued to appreciate the beauty of an all-ck outfit as he wore a skin-tight ck shirt and skin-tight ck leather pants.
Wrapped around his waist was a ck belt that had golden buckles, which was the only other color in his entire outfit. The reason for the unexpected color was obviously due to them matching his golden eyes that seemed to be as sharp as a knife.
In addition to the color of his clothing, Geo allowed his long hair to run loose, but even then, it seemed to be unnaturally clumped up into spikes. However, what made Yoze curse with anger was that covering Geo''s arms was a pair of spiked arm guards that were made of the same material as Lebra''s Shadow Armor.
"Don''t tell me his arm guards also have the property of being able to absorb anything. If that''s the case, it''s going to be annoying to use any range attacks on him." As Yoze stared at Geo''s arm guard, he couldn''t help butpare them to Lebra''s Shadow Armor.
If they were truly made out of the same material, Yoze knew that it was going to be difficult to win with the same level of power he had been showing all this time. It was already an inconvenience to overwhelm Lebra''s Shadow Armor to the point that Lebra had to surrender.
So he could only imagine trying to do the same with a more skilled opponent and someone who already had a good understanding of the level of power that Yoze was willing to show. It was going to be a tough match, but he wasn''t going to give up yet and decided to continue limiting himself.
It wasn''t only because it would be suspicious for a martial artist to be so strong, and it would most likely attract the attention of immortals that were too powerful for him to handle. It would also allow him to once again have a good opponent to improve his martial art techniques.
He had already gotten a good foundation of his new martial art technique that he had created and wanted to test it against a good opponent. This way, he could evolve and adapt the technique by getting rid of the kinks and useless shy moves in a real battle.
"Let''s go. I want to see how powerful you truly are to have such a grand ambition. Don''t disappoint me." As Yoze turned his focus on the battle, he felt his battle spirit surge as he urged Geo to attack.
"Disappoint you? Ahahah, I almost forgot that all martial artists crave a good fight. Thank you for reminding me, but I really hope that what you showed earlier isn''t your peak, or I''m going to be disappointed." Surprised by Yoze''s sudden urging, Geoughed before having his fighting spirit explode.
"Boom!"
The sound of a powerful explosion rocked the obsidian tform as the immortal cultivators in the crowd felt their hearts drop. They didn''t know what had happened before they suddenly realized that Yoze and Geo had switched ces.
They realized that both Yoze and Geo had moved so fast that they couldn''t even see them move. Many of them cursed before muttering a long chant to themselves and activating their Eye of Insight spell.
Within the crowd of hundreds of immortal cultivators, nearly all of them hadplex spinning magical circles within their eyes, allowing them to witness the entire world slowing down. They were determined to see everyst second of this battle and determine whether it truly was worth the effort to practice martial arts.
As for the immortal cultivators who didn''t activate Eye of Insights, they couldn''t help but curse at themselves for being too broke to afford the spell. They could only pray that they didn''t miss too much of the battle.
Chapter 261 261: First Clash
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As the world began to slow down for most immortal cultivators, they felt hopeful to see the next sh between Yoze and Geo. While the crowd of immortal cultivators was getting excited about the battle, Yoze looked down at his hands and saw that it was empty.
"This is going to be a problem." A deep frown appeared on Yoze''s face as he recalled his single sh with Geo.
With both of their insane speeds, they both charged at each other to end the match quickly and see what the other person could do. During the charge, Yoze manipted his blood to transform into a dual edge long sword and aimed straight for Geo''s neck.
As the sword rapidly approached him, Geo''s mouth curled up into a smile as he simply raised one of his arm guards to punch Yoze''s blood sword with his spikes. At the same time, Geo''s other arm threw a heavy punch at Yoze''s head, hoping to punch in some holes.
Even though Yoze saw that Geo''s attack was heading straight for him, he didn''t back down and followed through with his sword strike. He wasn''t going to back down from their first sh, and on the plus side, he wanted to see if Geo''s arm guards could absorb his attack.
"Slurp"
The moment the spikes on Geo''s arm guard mmed into the de of Yoze''s blood sword, a soft slurping sound erupted from the arm guard. It swiftly absorbed the Blood Sword in its entirety just as it was about to cut into his neck.
At the same time, Geo''s other arm guard was just millimeters away from turning Yoze''s face into Swiss cheese before Yoze used his flexibility to bend his head backward, barely dodging the attack. Seeing that both of the attacks were duds, Yoze and Geo tossed a nce at each before stopping at each other''s former locations to rethink their strategy.
"Those spiked arm guards can absorb all my attacks with the slightest touch. What would happen if it touched my Blood Armor? Or managed to scratch me?" Realizing that he could afford to even be scratched by Geo''s arm guards, Yoze thought about whether he should try some long ranger attacks.
"No, that won''t work. To be able to keep up with this speed means that he is fast enough to dodge my ranged attacks."
"What I need to do is simrly overwhelm him as Lebra, and since he isn''t wearing a full suit of armor once overwhelmed, my attacksnd directly on his physical body. All I need is to hit him once, and then he should surrender in fear of identally getting killed."
As Yoze''s mind thought of countermeasures for the special armor capable of absorbing anything, his opponent was doing the same. Instead of wondering how he could end this match as soon as possible, he was secretly drooling at the body cultivation methods Yoze had disyed.
"That insane flexibility came from a body cultivation method that is different from the body cultivation method he used to create his blood armor! Yoze has two body cultivation methods; no, he must have more, or else he wouldn''t be as strong." An exciting grin appeared on Geo''s face as he recounted their brief sh.
"Being able to train in three or more body cultivation methods at his age shows that his talent for martial arts is godly. It makes sense why he doesn''t want to give up on martial arts yet when he has a real possibility of breaking through the limit."
"But so far, his martial art techniques seem quitecking. Hopefully, he will make it upter. It would be disappointing if I learned that as someone who reached the Blood Master realm, my rival is trash at fighting a real battle."
With his expectations for Yoze raised to another level, Geo stopped smiling as he was ready to take it up a notch. Without saying a word to Yoze, he controlled the blood in his body to escape his pores and wrap them around his legs and arms.
When his blood surrounded his limbs, they instantly transformed into a bestial shape. Taking a simr appearance to the limbs of a WereWolf, showing that this was the power he gained from his Blood Master realm.
After activating his Blood transformation, Geo smiled as he remembered the time he first became a Blood Master fondly. At that time, he didn''t know the level of destruction that he was capable of and ended up destroying his house.
At the time, he was both pissed and excited, so he saw a local bandit group nearby and ughtered them all to steal their treasures. To this day, he couldn''t remember any of the details except the wonderful feeling of beating enemies that he struggled with so easily.
"Come, brother Yoze, let''s make these immortal cultivators struggle to keep up even with their Eye of Insight activated." With his battle spirit raised to the sky, Geo mmed his bloody werewolf feet on the ground and flew straight to Yoze.
Seeing Geo running towards him ten times faster than before, Yoze licked his lips as he knew he needed to finally use his martial art techniques. Yoze activated Centipede Steps without hesitation and instantly seemed like he grew 14 more legs, beginning the total to 16.
Each of the legs was slightly blurry, showing to all the immortal cultivators that he didn''t actually grow an abnormal amount of legs and simply was moving that fast. Still, with Centipede Step being at its peak, Yoze waited until Geo got close before sliding backwaters to gain some distance and shifting to the right to get to his side.
That swift change in direction was extremely quick, and it seemed as if he was a puppet being controlled by an invisible hand. Confident in his abilities, Yoze had already thrown a heavy Bear Fist straight at Geo before he even fullypleted the action.
Just as his Bear Fist was about to crash into Geo''s chest and crush his bones, Yoze suddenly felt Mindless Legs override hismand over his body and swiftly moved him out of the way. Knowing that for Mindless Legs to react like that, he must have been in serious danger, Yoze didn''t resist and allowed himself to slither away.
Chapter 262 262: Yozes Counterattack
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As Yoze''s body unconsciously slithered away, using the unreal flexibility of his body to truly embody the movements of a serpent, he saw Geo''s werewolf legs move like a ghost and kicked at where he previously stood.
"Boom!"
The moment Geo kicked out his leg, a loud sonic boom exploded as his legs broke through the sound barrier and would have done a decent amount of damage to him. Even though he had a durable and strong body, Yoze could imagine himself having to deal with arge amount of pain as his bones would have had the real risk of fracturing from that single kick.
"An instinctual attack?" Seeing the familiarity of how Geo three out that kick without much thought and at such great speeds made Yoze realize that he had finally met someone who also had another martial art technique that fused into their instincts.
"An instinctual movement technique? Yoze, I''m beginning to believe that you and I truly are brothers from different mothers."
"You are the tenth person I met in my life that also uses instinctive martial arts. Since you know, they could be quite dangerous due to theck of control." Geo smiled as he lowered his werewolf leg and casually swung it around as if he was stretching his legs.
"But so far, I am not too impressed with your martial art techniques. You just tried to use Bear Fists on me."
"Granted, your Bear Fist seems to be much stronger and all-around better than the regr one from Twin Fists, but still, it''s just too basic to really catch equal opponents off guard. But I shouldn''t be talking since I just used the basic martial technique Wind Wolf to stop you from crushing my bones." Geo calmly said to himself as he charged at Yoze.
"You remind me of someone I used to know who also said a simr thing. But you don''t have to worry; I have plenty more where that came from." Even though he had also failed his attack, Yoze didn''t feel disappointed and instead felt his blood beginning to boil.
He could even sense his Blood Heart slowly thumping faster as it continued to rece the blood he lost. If this trend kept up, Yoze knew that his Blood Heart would be as audible as a war drum. Still, at that time, he would be regenerating blood so quickly he wouldn''t need to worry about being drained by even a vampire.
With his battle spirit flourishing and his mind rapidly thinking about ways to achieve victory with his restrictions, he ced some of his focus on improving his martial art techniques in real time. After finally meeting a powerful martial artist, Yoze didn''t want to give up this chance to truly test the limits of his martial art skills.
Geo let out a crazed smile as he opened his clenched fists and swiped at Yoze from a distance. When his swipes locked on, several bloody werewolf ws left his hand and flew toward Yoze.
With a quick response time, Yoze deactivated Mindless Legs and used Centipede Steps to easily step aside all the blood werewolf ws while closing the distance between them. Seeing the calmness in Geo''s eyes, Yoze turned himself sideways and used Shoulder Rush.
Concentrating all his strength on his shoulder, Yoze exploded with a sudden burst of speed, instantly closing the distance between him and Geo. Surprised by the sudden burst in speed, Geo instantly used Wind Wolf kick to block Yoze''s Shoulder Rush.
"Boom!!"
The collision from both attacks created a powerful explosion as the blood on Yoze''s shoulder and Geo''s foot evaporated. Unable to stop all the force from the Shoulder Rush, Geo gritted his teeth as he felt the bones in his leg crack slightly.
Unaware that Yoze''s simple Shoulder Rush would have that much power behind it, Geo wanted to gain some distance to counterattack. When Yoze saw Geo try to get some distance, he smirked as he quickly transferred all his remaining power to use Death Finger.
Before the attack even touched him, Geo felt his danger senses go off as he stopped his attempt to get the distance. Without thinking, he removed the blood surrounding his spiked arm guards and used them to block Yoze''s Death Finger aimed at his chest.
"Wind Kick!"
Seeing that the opportunity had finally arrived, he immediately withdrew his Death Finger attack and switched to sending a powerful kick between Geo''s legs. Even given his quick reaction time, Geo couldn''t block the attack in time.
"Bang!"
The sound of metal shing against metal rang across the tform as many of the male immortal cultivators subconsciously took a deep breath and used their hands to protect their lower bodies. As for the female immortal cultivators, they nodded their heads as they felt that Yoze''s technique was excellent.
To switch his attacks mid-way in such a quick fashion to attack his enemy''s weak spot was something they could learn from him. Still, even though Yoze was able tond an attack on Geo, no one thought that the fight was even close to over as they watched Geo''s body being sent flying dozens of feet into the air.
Understanding that his Wind Kick couldn''t do that much damage to someone like Geo, Yoze quickly followed up his Wind Kick with a dozen more. With such arge chain of attacks, Geo found himself nearly a hundred feet in the air, with nothing to stop him from falling.
He couldn''t even try tounch a counterattack at Yoze as he found that he was falling abnormally fast as if he was experiencing a stronger force of gravity pulling him down.
"Incredible!" A bloody red light shed across Geo''s eyes as he endured the paining from his lower body.
"To have so quickly switched the situation just by using closebat martial art techniques truly makes you one of my strongest opponents. But don''t get cocky; I still haven''t been going all out." As Geo continued to speak, he controlled the blood on his body to fully wrap around his body.
Chapter 263 263: Blood WereWolf
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With his blood surrounding his entire body, Geo looked like he had transformed into a giant blood cocoon in the sky that was ready to hatch a beautiful bloody butterfly. Unfortunately, the creature that was about to be born from this blood cocoon was not as beautiful as a butterfly.
Instead, once Geo had finished his transformation, he had transformed into the monsters that were said to have been born during the night of the full moon. The sole predators to the legendary vampires and the masters of beasts, the werewolf.
"Awooo!"
Completely transformed into his blood werewolf transformation, Geo let out a loud howl that shook the tform. Feeling endless power flowing in his body now that he was using the full limit of his Blood Master realm, Geo stomped on the air heavily.
"Thud!"
Even though he was several hundred feet in the air, Geo''s stomp seemed to have hit a solid floor as he used it as a foundation to fly to Yoze at extreme speeds. Even with Yoze manipting the gravity around him to pull him to the tform faster, Geo rapidly caught up.
Seeing that Geo had caught up to him, Yoze took a deep breath and prepared to defend against any of his attacks. Unfortunately, the expected attack never came as Geo ran right past him and raced straight toward the tform.
Noticing the smirk on Geo''s face as he ran past him, Yoze''s eyebrow twitched as he prepared himself to face an attack from below instead. He couldn''t imagine what was going through Geo''s head to miss such a good opportunity to attack him in the air while he was helpless.
Still, he couldn''t afford to lower his defenses for even a second since one mistake could cost him his life. So after adjusting his defense, Yoze mentally prepared himself for anything Geo could throw at him.
As the two of them fell to the obsidian tform, Geo reached the tform first and was a few inches away from touching the ground before disappearing. Even Yoze''s incredible senses and the crowd of immortal cultivators using the Eye of Insight couldn''t see where Geo had gone.
"Whoosh!"
Suddenly feeling a tingling sensationing from the back of his head and having his body once again taken over by Mindless Legs, Yoze then became aware that Geo had finally made his move. With Mindless Legs'' quick reaction speed, Yoze''s body used its incredible flexibility paired with the Vine Serpent''s inner vigor to shrink his body to avoid the heavy kick to his skull.
"Boom!"
Even though he had failed tond his attack, Geo didn''t mind and had nned for that to happen. So he used the momentum of his kick to twist his and swipe at Yoze''s back using his ws wrapped in blood.
Feeling that the danger hadn''t subsided yet, Yoze noticed that Mindless Legs immediately activated his heavy inner vigor at full power. With his weight suddenly increasing several times, Mindless Legs controlled one of his legs to confront the attack.
"Boom!"
Though the kick didn''t use any martial art techniques and thus couldn''t use its full potential, his extreme weight managed to produce enough force to match Geo''s blood w.
Surprised that Yoze had another trick up his sleeve, Geo smiled as he again used his unbelievable speed to disappear and reappear in a location that Yoze wasn''t prepared for. Even though Mindless Legs managed to avoid or confront each of the attacks, Yoze knew that the situation wasn''t good.
Due to Geo''s endless attacks and his perfect nning, he was able to stop Yoze from continuing to fall to the ground and thus kept him in the sky, where his options were limited. What made it worse was that he couldn''t afford to deactivate Mindless Legs, as Geo would asionally remove the blood covering his spiked armor guards. With the extreme danger, only Mindless Legs could dodge those attacks.
"How do I change my situation?" With his mind trapped inside his brain, Yoze tried to devise ways to escape from his poor situation.
"Even though the situation looks like Geo is in perfect control and is toying with me, in reality, we are in a deadlock. He can''tnd a blow that can do enough damage to me, and I can''t escape his control."
"As long as I temporarily deactivate Mindless Legs and endure one of the attacks, I canunch a counterattack. But I will need to choose when I do it carefully since Geo could uncover his spiked arm guards at any time." Even though Yoze understood that he could simply beat Geo using his stamina or use more of his power, he didn''t want the battle to have such an ending.
He wanted to use this opportunity to improve his martial art skills, and simply using his superior body to win wouldn''t improve his battle skills. There weren''t many opportunities to fight opponents of Geo''s caliber, especially those who were arguably much stronger than any Martial Grandmaster yet was still weaker than an immortal.
After making up his mind, Yoze carefully watched for the best opportunity tounch his counterattack. Eventually, he found it when Geo tried to tear off his face using the ws on his blood legs.
With such a clear sight of Geo''s body in front of him, Yoze ignored his instincts, forcefully took control of his body, and endured the kick to his face.
"Bang! Rip!"
Immediately, the sound of shing and ripping metal echoed throughout the southern mountain, surprising Geo and the audience. Not allowing Geo enough time to adjust his ns, Yoze used the force of the attack to get some distance.
And swiftly transformed his blood into a long whip and attacked the tform. What Yoze wanted to do was get to the ground as soon as possible, and doing so using his natural falling speed wasn''t fast enough.
So he decided to get some help by establishing a solid connection with the ground by activating the Sinking Swamp''s inner vigor in his blood to form a bridge. Once Yoze''s blood whip mmed against the obsidian tform, Yoze pulled as hard as he could.
Chapter 264 264: Ten Percent Loss
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Having full confidence that his sticky inner vigor was strong enough, Yoze pulled as hard as he could and felt his blood whip instantly tensing up. Before he felt an equal and opposite force pull him towards the tform.
With the sudden force pulling him to the tform, Yoze swiftly reached the tform before Gel could stop him in time. The moment Yoze''s feetnded on the solid floor, Geo silently cursed to himself before rushing towards Yoze.
Before Yoze could breathe a sigh of relief, his instincts activated his life-and-death rm as he saw Geo coldly appearing in front of him with both of his spiked arm guards revealed. Understanding that their battle was about to go up a notch in intensity again, Yoze didn''t stop Mindless Legs from taking control of his body and allowed it to deal with the situation.
With Yoze''s full trust in it, Mindless Legs seemed to turn Yoze''s body into a piece of string and manipted his body to dodge each of Geo''s strikes in impossible ways. Even as Geo used his martial arts technique to elerate his attacks to the point it looked like he had grown twenty arms, he couldn''tnd a fatal strike on Yoze.
Even with Geo''sposure, he couldn''t help but feel increasingly frustrated that he couldn''tnd a single hit on Yoze. Even the attacks he managed tond were only because they were used to gain more distance.
"Yoze, you really are an extraordinary martial artist!" Geo shouted between his teeth as he paused his endless stream of attacks and moved to the opposite side of the obsidian tform.
"Since I can''t get a goodnd on you with my current martial art skills, it will be better for me, the audience, and the immortals if I begin to use my spells. This way, I can put more pressure on you and make sure this battle doesn''t just turn into who canst longer." Geo calmly said as he took a deep breath.
Just as he was going to continue his speech about what he was capable of and how he was achieving his dreams, Geo suddenly realized that he had lost track of Yoze. Suddenly feeling as if a predator was watching him, Geo instantly removed all distractions from his mind and noticed a red blur rapidly approaching him.
Realizing that it was Yoze and he had suddenly seemed to have reached a new level of speed, Geo silently gulped his saliva in nervousness and put up his guard. Just as he expected, even though Yoze seemed to have be faster, it wasn''t to the point that he couldn''t track him.
He was even able to realize the trick that Yoze had pulled to increase his speed; he had used another one of the multiple inner vigors in his body to decrease his weight. With his body weighing him down less, he was able to achieve higher speeds with the same amount of force.
"Luckily, it seems this is his first time using this method to increase his speed, or else I would have been caught off guard and eaten a powerful punch. " As Geo was once again surprised by how many types of inner vigor Yoze had managed to produce, Yoze quickly caught up with him.
Knowing that things would be worse for him if he allowed Geo to cast spells without any worries, Yoze didn''t bother about being polite and ran straight toward Geo, nning not to give him a chance. Just as Yoze was merely a foot away from Geo, he transformed his blood into a giant one-handed axe nearly five feet tall.
As soon as he created the axe, he used his Armored Swordsman sh martial art technique to cut off Geo''s head. With the addition of the martial art technique, Yoze''s normal axe chop became blurry and difficult for even Geo to track.
"Click"
Unfortunately, despite the increase in speed, Yoze''s Armored Swordsman sh simply wasn''t fast enough to stop Geo from activating a spell. With the sound of Geo clicking his tongue, Geo''s spiked arm guards silently exploded sending thousands of shards flying toward Yoze.
Feeling a wave of danger, Yoze changed the target of his axe swing and even used the blood sword he had secretly created to block the shards. Understanding that wasn''t enough, given the nature of the shadow armor shards, Yoze gritted his teeth and caused the surface of his Blood Armor to explode.
"Bang!"
"Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp!"
The sound of thousands of shadow armor shards slurping up Yoze''s blood engulfed the stage as Yoze escaped. Well aware that what was going to happen next was just the beginning.
As Geo watched the shards of his spiked arm guards absorbing nearly a tenth of Yoze''s blood, he couldn''t help but be excited as he knew that such a massive loss of blood would surely have arge impact on Yoze. Even though he couldn''t see Yoze''s face due to his remaining Blood Armor, Geo could imagine his pale face as he watched with helplessness as his inner vigor and his blood were being absorbed.
What Geo didn''t know was that not only didn''t Yoze lose a single strand of inner vigor, but he wasn''t in a panic from the massive loss in blood as it was being quickly reced by his Blood Heart. If it was another Blood Master, this truly would have been a massive loss as they wouldn''t haven''t been able to quickly retrieve their inner vigor from their blood.
But for someone like Yoze, who had obtained a talent in inner vigor maniption, he could use the tiny connection between his blood before they blocked the shards to bring the strands of inner vigor back into his body. So, in the end, he didn''t suffer as big of a loss as Geo had imagined, but being forced to escape wasn''t a good thing for Yoze.
"p! Shadow Clone!" Using this opportunity, Geo pped his hands together and shouted his next spell.
Chapter 265 265: Stopping Mindless Legs
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As soon as Geo cast his spell, the shadow beneath his feet darkened until it was darker than the void. As soon as the shadow color solidified, the two arms of the shadow left the ground and grabbed hold of the obsidian tform.
Before, the two muscr arms pulled Geo''s shadow out of the ground, creating a three-dimensional version of Geo''s shadow. Standing beside his Shadow Clone, Geo nced at it before pping his hands again.
"p! Shadow Armor!"
Feeling that this simply wasn''t enough to put enough pressure on Yoze, Geo summoned a suit of ck armor that tightly wrapped around his werewolf body. The long ck spikes at his elbows, knees, and shoulders gave Yoze a sense of danger.
However, what astounded Yoze was that even though Geo only summoned the ck armor to wrap around his body, an identical suit wrapped around his Shadow Clone. With additional armor covering his body and his Shadow Clone, Geo smiled as he clicked his tongue to retrieve the shards of his arm guards.
The thousands of shards that peacefullyy on the ground swiftly jumped into the air and flew towards Geo''s arm before quickly reassembling into his favorite spiked armor guards. As Yoze expected on Geo''s Shadow Clone, an identical version of Geo''s spiked arm guards emerged.
Before Yoze could curse about his luck, Geo had adjusted himself and regained his calm. With new and improved equipment and a partner to help his battle, Geo didn''t want to stall the battle any longer.
So using his immense speed, he and his Shadow Clone took a solid step before disappearing from Yoze''s and the audience''s vision. When Geo and his Shadow Clone disappeared, two powerful tingling sensations wrecked his body.
Feeling immense danger, Yoze''s Mindless Legs quickly took control of his body before strangely twisting his body into a pretzel. Just as the audience of immortal cultivators was wondering if Yoze had been twisted into a pretzel by Geo without their knowledge, Geo and his Shadow Clone reappeared beside Yoze and sent powerful sweeps of their ws at his head and back.
With his body already twisted into a pretzel, Mindless Legs activated Lily the Wasp Monster''s inner vigor inside his body to reduce his weight and mmed his back against Geo''s Shadow Clone''s ws. At the same time, Yoze''s body expertly narrowly avoided Geo''s ws that were surrounded by the spiked arm guards.
"Bang! Rip!"
The shrieking sound of metal being ripped apart engulfed the silence at the base of the southern mountain as Yoze hoped that his Blood Armor could endure the strike. Understanding that he missed an opportunity for a quick victory, Geo redirected his ws to rip off Yoze''s legs to chop them off.
As if Yoze''s body could see the future, Yoze''s legs exploded with power as Mindless Legs jumped into Geo''s Shadow Clone. Seemingly not expecting Yoze to jump toward his Shadow Clone, Geo''s Shadow Clone wasn''t able to change its attack tounch a more deadly strike; instead, it could only use Yoze''s force to dig deeper into the Blood Armor.
Just as the Shadow Clone''s ws were about to pierce right through Yoze''s Blood Armor and tear apart his flesh, Yoze forcefully took control of his body. Even though he knew that Mindless Legs was doing the best that it could in such a tough situation, he could tell that if he continued to rely on Mindless Legs, he would lose.
To be able to get a victory at this point in the battle would require him to make some sacrifices, and they would need to be followed up by a strong counterattack. Mindless Legs was an instinct movement technique that focused on avoiding danger as best as it could.
Meaning that if Mindless Legs could create a situation where he would never be injured, it would, even if it came with the cost of losing many opportunities to reverse the situation. So knowing that Mindless Legs was entering a situation where he needed to endure severe damage to regain a footing, Yoze knew he had to take over.
With his Blood Armor nearly cut through by Geo''s Shadow Clone and Geo himself closing in on him, Yoze''s mind raced for ways to reverse his terrible situation. Suddenly, a brilliant glow shed through Yoze''s eyes as he saw an opportunity.
"The Shadow Clone''s arm guards haven''t inherited the properties of Geo''s spiked arm guards. Meaning that as long as I can get away from Geo, I can deal with his Shadow Clone."
Knowing that his n was dangerous, but he didn''t have much of a choice if he wanted victory, Yoze immediately took action. He first used the force from his jump to cause his body to begin spinning and, simultaneously, withdrew all his inner vigor from the blood in his back.
Without Yoze''s various inner vigor supporting his blood, the back of Yoze''s Blood Armor returned to being normal liquid blood that allowed the Shadow Clone''s ws to easily tear into Yoze''s back. Even with tough physical defenses, Geo''s Shadow Clone''s ws tore apart his flesh like butter and could easily crush his bones.
Enduring the pain from having chunks of his flesh ripped off his body, Yoze continued to spin rapidly and used Martial Wheel Sphere to increase his spinning speed even faster. As the Shadow Clone''s ws tore through his skin and muscles as Yoze grinned as he used the force he generated from his spinning to strengthen his punch to the Shadow Clone''s jaw.
"Boom!"
The moment his punch collided with the Shadow Clone''s body, Yoze felt the strange texture of the Shadow Clone''s attempt to mimic reality, but he didn''t think about it too much since he sent it flying across the tform. Even though this took a while to exin reality, less than a split second had passed after Yoze had canceled Mindless Legs.
Just as Yoze punched the Shadow Clone, Geo arrived behind Yoze, with the spike on his knee a few centimeters away from Yoze''s spine.
Chapter 266 266: Yozes Counterattack
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The instant the ck spike appeared so close to his spine, a wave of danger crawled up Yoze''s spine, almost making Mindless Legs activate. Even though he knew that activating Mindless Legs would allow him to escape without harm, Yoze chose to suppress it and continued to follow through on his Martial Wheel Spin.
With his spinning speed elerating rapidly, Yoze turned his body around just before Geo''s knee spike pierced through his Blood Armor. At the same time, Geo''s eyes shed with a hint of surprise as he didn''t expect Yoze wouldn''t use his instinctive martial art technique to avoid his attack.
This small surprise created a dy in his response which Yoze was going to capitalize on heavily and use to counterattack. Just before the ck spike pierced through his Blood Armor, Yoze lifted and bent his body backward and mmed one of his knees against Geo''s attacking knee.
The amount of strength Yoze was able to use to push Geo''s knee wasn''t much and couldn''t damage Geo at all, it was enough to avoid the situation of his entire stomach being pierced through, but when he saw the ck spike extend a few inches to slice through his Blood Armor like a hot knife through butter, Yoze couldn''t help but breathe a small sigh of relief.
Not letting this opportunity go, Yoze continued to increase his spinning speed and grabbed hold of Geo''s leg. The moment he got a firm grasp, he crushed it with all his strength while using his momentum to send Geo flying.
"Click!"
Seeing the situation changing in Yoze''s favor, Geo clicked his tongue again to cause his spiked arm guards to explode again. Using the thousands of shadow armor shards as a cover to prevent himself from getting trapped in one of Yoze''sbo attacks.
After covering his tracks and forcefully stopping Yoze, Geo quickly stomped the air to regain his footing and used his incredible speed to disappear. Only to reappear alongside his Shadow Clone, who also recovered from Yoze''s punch, for both of them simultaneously attacking Yoze''s weak points.
With his Shadow Clone targeting the ck spikes on its elbows straight for Yoze''s head, himself aiming for Yoze''s heart, and the thousands of shadow armor shardspletely blocking any other path, Geo smiled as he knew that this match was about to be over.
"Not too bad. Unfortunately, Yoze had chosen to join the Immortal Pce Sect, or I would have taken him as a student once I had be an immortal." As the thought of taking Yoze as his student passed through Geo''s mind, he noticed a small but sinister grin on Yoze''s face.
Aided by his momentum, Yoze twisted and flipped his body upside-down beforeunching a full-powered Wind Kick directly at the Shadow Clone''s jaw while he punched Geo''s skull. Even though his attack n had been interrupted, Geo didn''t panic as he had nned for this and quickly shifted to his backup n, to stall until the thousand shadow shards ate Yoze alive.
Unfortunately, before Geo could alter his n of attack, he suddenly felt his body be slightly heavier. It was only in the tens of pounds, so it was minuscule for someone of his caliber, but it still led to his body responding slower than normal.
However, what made Geo truly shocked was that all the thousands of shadow armor fragments that he controlled plunged to the floor. With each shadow armor shard weighing less than a few grams, they rapidly descended and lost arge amount of their speed, causing the gaps between each shard to grow massively.
Even though each gap was not even remotelyrge enough for any adult human to pass through, no matter how flexible they were, especially for someone asrge as Yoze, after everything he had seen through their fight, Geo did not doubt that Yoze could crush himself enough to fit between those small gaps.
Not letting Geo''s high expectations of him go to waste, Yoze used abination of his flexibility and high control over his body to shrink and thin his body just enough for the shards approaching him to narrowly move to miss him. While at the same time, he activated and moved all his heavy inner vigor into his fist and leg, mming into Geo and his Shadow Clone.
"Boom!"
With the weight of several thousand pounds mming into him, Geo could sense that even his Shadow Armor began to crack. At the same time, the remaining force sent his entire body straight into the obsidian tform.
"Bang!"
Even then, it wasn''t until Geo felt the pain of crashing into the hard obsidian tform that he realized how Yoze could manipte his shadow armor shards. Hearing the howling wind that each shard created in their descent, Geo couldn''t help butpliment Yoze in his mind.
"I can''t believe it. He made the air itself extremely heavy and thus indirectly forcing his shadow armor shards to quickly lose their momentum."
"Even if I injected more crystal energy into each of the shadow armor shards, they would still struggle to stay afloat under the crushing weight of an additional 50 pounds. Yoze must have decent control of his inner vigor to ensure that not a single strand went near the shards, or they would have been absorbed."
"Very clever; I didn''t realize he could partially manipte his inner vigor outside his body. But then again, the clues were all there, but the excitement of the battle made me ignore them." Geo''s eyes shined with excitement as he realized that Yoze was even more of a battle freak than he was.
In their short time fighting, he had already found one of the few weaknesses of shadow armor shards. If he wasn''t in the middle of the battle and didn''t sense the powerful killing intent radiating from Yoze, Geo might have decided to examine every second of their fight from the beginning to see all the tricks that Yoze might be hiding.
"Bang!"
Seeing that Yoze was about to crush his skull and had sent his Shadow Clone flying, Geo immediately tried to twist his body out of the way, but he realized that Yoze had nned for it and sent a finger straight for his chest. Even though he knew that it was mostly a trap that Yoze had ced for him, Geo gritted his teeth and continued to roll as his instincts screamed at him to avoid his head getting crushed.
"Cling!"
"Boom!"
The soft sound of metal tapping against metal was instantly overwhelmed by the sound of Yoze''s stomp. Even the gust of wind generated from the attack could have killed a person.
If it wasn''t for his quick action, there was a chance that his Shadow Armor would have shattered and given Yoze a valuable opportunity to crush his head. At that time, he wouldn''t even be able to challenge the ten Shadow Lords, much less achieve his dream, so Geo wasn''t regretful of his choice.
But when he felt the dangering from his heart instantly triple the moment Yoze''s finger poked the back of his Shadow Armor, Geo''s face turned grim as he sensed a powerful force enter his body. Even the protection that Shadow Armor strengthened skin, muscles, bones, and organs could stop it.
All he could do was reduce half the amount of power from the force, but even still, the amount remaining was enough to do arge amount of damage. So Geo immediately took action and mobilized his crystal energy to form a sphere of protection against the Death Finger''s target, his heart.
Chapter 267 267: Geos Heart Explodes
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Even with half of the force of Yoze''s Death Finger being reduced before hitting its target, the amount was still plenty to explode Geo''s heart. Unfortunately for Geo, even though he reacted fast and quickly mobilized his crystal energy, the sphere he created simply wasn''t strong enough.
If he had more time to react, he could have used more of his crystal energy to form a perfect sphere around his heart that even Yoze couldn''t destroy. If he wanted to, he could even modify one of his protection spells to exclusively protect his organs.
Yet, this was the real world, and what if and what was possible didn''t y a role in changing reality. So even though Geo did his best, Death Finger''s force shattered the force field surrounding Geo''s heart, only losing another tenth of its strength.
Seeing that things were going against his favor, Geo gritted his teeth and used the milliseconds of extra time his force field provided to shift his heart to the side. That would be enough as long as he could prevent all of his heart from being destroyed.
But how could Yoze''s Death Finger be so simple? As soon as Geo shifted his heart, Death Finger''s force was immediately attracted to it like a metal to a ma. Shifting its flight path slightly so that it would directly hit the center of Geo''s heart.
Regardless of his effort to stop this attack, Geo sensed Death Finger''s force swiftly mming into his heart and entered inside without resistance. For a few milliseconds, nothing happened; the deathly silence made Geo''s danger explode as he waited with anxiety for the inevitable.
After the deathly silence, a mind-numbing pain rocked Geo''s body, with the epicenter of iting from his heart. He could sense his heart rapidly expanding, and due to the uncontroble expansion, his heart began to tear itself apart.
Just as Geo''s heart expanded to triple its original size, it exploded into nothing but a blood mist. Not a single chunk of his strengthened heart remained, as the remaining Death Finger force collided with the force field that Geo created to trap the damage to just his heart.
"Puff!"
Even though the sound of Geo''s heart exploding wasn''t loud, everyone, regardless of their immortal cultivation status, saw Geo''s chest expand before quickly deting after the sound. Paired up with Geo''s eyes turning ssy and cloudy, everyone could conclude the results.
Silence engulfed the crowd of immortal cultivators as they watched the battlepletely captivated and waited for anxiety about what would happen next. Since they all knew that this battle was far from over.
As everyone knows, immortal cultivators were the closest to bing immortals, and the stronger the immortal cultivator, the harder it is for them to remain dead. This was especially true for immortal cultivators who reached the Crystal Brain realm.
Unless you were able to destroy both their regr brain and their crystal brain, they could always repair their body no matter how damaged it was. As long as they had time and enough resources, they could regenerate any part of their bodies, which included their heart.
Even though Yoze hadn''t been a part of the immortal world for very long, he could see very clearly that Geo''s spiritual energy wasn''t disappearing or being devoured by death spiritual energy meaning that he wasn''t close to death. Paired with an uneasy feelinging from his heart, he decided to end this match by crushing Geo''s head.
Quickly taking advantage of Geo''s motionless body, Yoze sent all his heavy inner vigor into his leg and stomped at Geo''s head. However, as soon as his foot was mere centimeters away from crushing Geo''s Shadow Armor along with his skull, the sense of dangering from his heart expanded to his whole body as it became ten times more potent.
It was so dangerous that Yoze knew that this wasn''t something he could afford to endure and thus allowed Mindless Legs to take over his body. After regaining control, Mindless Legs quickly stopped Yoze from stomping on Geo''s head and used his full power tounch Yoze''s body into the sky.
Just as Yoze''s feet left the ground, a ck shadow darker than the night rapidly engulfed the spot Yoze was just standing. The ck shadow then moved under Geo''s motionless body and continued to expand until every inch of the obsidian tform was engulfed.
"Shadow Swamp!"
Recognizing the ck shadow for what it was, Yoze quickly turned his head towards Geo''s Shadow Clone to see that it had lost half of its body as it used the lower half to cast Shadow Swamp. Noticing that the Shadow Clone was staring directly at him, Yoze felt a tingling sensationing from above him as he saw that the thousands of Shadow armor shards had gathered in the sky above him to prevent him from going too high.
At the same time, he saw that Geo''s motionless body was being absorbed into the Shadow Swamp, which he could assume was to be able to heal and re-gather his strength before attacking with his Shadow Clone. Knowing that he couldn''t allow this to happen or he would bepletely defenseless, Yoze activated his heavy inner vigor to increase the weight of his body and made the air above him heavier.
With his physical body heavier and the increased air drag, Yoze quickly slowed his ascent to a crawl before allowing gravity to pull him back to the tform. As he fell to the ground, Yoze manipted his blood into turning into a blood whip.
With a heavy swing of his blood whip, Yoze quickly sent a heavy attack at Geo''s head. Understanding that Shadow Swamp must have been an extraordinary crystal energy-intensive spell since Geo hadn''t used it, Yoze knew that as long as he could get close, he had a possibility of a victory.
All he needed to do was make sure that nothing could block his descent, including the shadow armor shards. Just as he expected the moment, the moment heunched an attack, a small portion of the shadow armor shards above him separated from the pact.
Chapter 268 268: Fireball
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The moment the small portion of shadow armor shards, which numbered in the hundreds, separated from the rest of the swarm, they flew around him. Instead, they flew around Yoze to move past him and directly flew towards his blood whip.
At the same time, the thousands of shadow armor shards above Yoze slowly descended with him. Making sure they kept a decent space between them to prevent any possibility that he could re-ascend. Noticing this, Yoze recognized that after his performance of using his heavy inner vigor to indirectly cause shadow armor shards to fall, Geo didn''t want to take a chance of giving him another simr opportunity.
Making sure to keep a safe distance away from him so that the shadow armor shards couldn''t be influenced. What impressed Yoze was that even though he only had shown that move once, Geo could calcte the limit of how far his Big Golem body cultivation method could influence his surroundings perfectly.
Making it impossible for him to do the same trick again and allowing the shadow armor shards to reach his blood whip quickly. Knowing that his blood whip would never be able to get close enough to Geo, Yoze didn''t panic and continued with his n.
Just as the small swarm of shadow armor shards reached his blood whip and we were about to absorb it, Yoze reabsorbed all his inner vigor and allowed the blood whip to lose its form. At the same time, he created a long pole that was dozens of feet long and mmed it into the Shadow Swamp.
Even though Yoze knew the blood pole would be absorbed into the Shadow Swamp, he wanted to test how much time he had before it waspletely devoured. As he watched intensely at his blood pole being absorbed by Geo''s Shadow Swamp, he could sense that he lost his connection with the blood that was absorbed.
At the same time, he saw that his blood pole was being quickly absorbed by around ten feet per second which was enough time for Yoze tomence with the second part of his attack n.
"Slurp!"
The moment the shadow armor shardspletely absorbed Yoze''s blood whip and they turned their focus back on him, he created another blood pole much longer than the first version. As soon as the second blood pole touched Geo''s Shadow Swamp, the absorption process began.
In less than a second, the length of the second blood pole shrank by five feet while the first blood pole waspletely absorbed. But Yoze remainedposed and used the remaining blood pole as a tform tounch himself directly at Geo''s motionless body.
"Boom!"
Taking a small deep breath, Yoze bent his knees and used his full strength to throw himself past the small portion of shadow armor shards. At the same time, creating another blood pole in front of him and using it as another tform to quickly change his direction just as the rest of the shadow armor shards chased after him.
Creating one blood pole after another, Yoze escaped the rapid pursuit of the shadow armor shards while quickly narrowing the distance between him and Geo. Once he was only ten feet away from Geo''s body, he mmed his feet against thest blood pole he had created and sent himself flying at Geo''s body which was almostpletely absorbed into his Shadow Swamp.
With thousands of shadow armor shards chasing after him and thousands more flying directly at his head, Yoze stretched out his arm and opened his hand before quickly muttering to himself. Before Yoze finished his chant, Geo''s eyes which were ssy and cloudy, shook with surprise as he saw that a small orange and red ball of fire appeared in Yoze''s hand.
The fireball quickly grew to fill Yoze''s hand and let out an extraordinary amount of heat. Just the mere heat mming against his skin informed Geo that the amount of power within that one fireball was enough to burn dozens of Blood Masters into ash.
He could only hope that he could absorb the remaining upper half of his head before Yoze couldpletely form the fireball andunch it at him. Unfortunately for Geo, Yoze never nned on firing this fireball and immediately detonated it the moment hepleted the spell.
"Fireball!"
"Boom!"
The instant Yoze shouted out the name of his spell, the hand-sized fireball exploded into a giant ball of fire that engulfed both Yoze and the remaining portions of Geo''s body. The deafening sound of the explosion rocked the nearby trees as the audience of immortal cultivators were forced to activate their protection spells to deal with the heat.
After activating their protection spells, the immortal cultivators turned their attention back to the obsidian tform and looked at the explosion with curiosity. They quickly looked for signs of Yoze and Geo to see how this fight would progress.
"In the sky!"
Eventually, one of the immortal cultivators noticed hundreds of feet in the sky was a small blood-red speck. After confirming that the blood-red speck was Yoze, who had been thrown into the sky by his own explosion, he immediately shouted to inform the rest of the audience.
"That was unexpectedly powerful. If I had used that attack on myself before I became a Blood Master, I would have been seriously injured if not killed outright." As Yoze enjoyed flying in the air, he felt a shiver crawl up his spine as he realized that before he arrived here, he had never seen the full capabilities of a rogue immortal cultivator.
Whenever he had previously dealt with rogue immortal cultivators, he never gave them a chance to fight back and quickly killed them. Even when his home was ambushed by several Crystal Skull realm rogue immortal cultivators, he simply used his spiritual energy to kill them all.
However, it was only after he had seen what was possible after he used all his crystal energy on that fireball that he realized that if he had allowed those rogue immortal cultivators a chance to fight, he might have lost. Just a simple full-powered fireball from a peak Nerve umtion realm immortal cultivator was strong enough to turn dozens of Blood Master realm experts into dust.
If those rogue immortal cultivators who were several realms higher did the same trick with their own spells, there was no chance that he could have survived that battle.
Chapter 269 269: Charred Bones
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As Yoze reevaluated the power of immortal cultivators, he turned his focus back to the obsidian tform, which had been turned into a ck void by Geo''s Shadow Swamp. Even with Yoze''s incredible senses, he couldn''t see anything inside the void, and even the blood he had lost during the fight seemed to have been cut off from him.
As the fiery explosion began to clear, Yoze waited in the sky to see the results of his intense battle with Geo. At the same time, he kept his vignce on high alert as he watched for Geo''s counterattack.
As he expected, before the smoke and fire fully cleared, Yoze saw the dense swarm of shadow armor shards flying through the dust as if they were trying to find an invisible enemy. With the absorption properties of the shadow armor shards, the slurping sounds quickly filled the silent southern mountain as they absorbed the smoke and fire from the explosion.
"Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp!"
Within seconds the explosion that Yoze had sent all his crystal energy to create was quickly absorbed. With the smoke and fire absorbed, the entire tform was visible, allowing everyone to see the damages he had managed to cause.
As Yoze swept his gaze through the entire tform, he couldn''t find a trace of Geo''s body, and even pieces of his hair or soil couldn''t be found. What disappointed Yoze the most was that Geo''s Shadow Clone was still halfway fused with the Shadow Swamp with no signs of damage or instability.
Meaning that even after taking an explosion strong enough to wipe dozens of Blood Masters from the face of this world, Geo was still capable of fighting. There was even a high possibility that the damage that he was able to cause was barely a scratch for someone who highly modified his body like Geo.
"Brother Yoze, I must apud you. I have been fighting you for so long and only managed to keep up with you using abination of spells and martial art."
"Yet, you were able to rely only on your martial art skills to continue battling someone as strong as me. So it is clear to me that my skills in martial arts are far behind yours. I will admit my defeat on that front." Geo''s smooth and deep voice seemed to have appeared out of nowhere as he showed his admiration for Yoze''s martial art prowess.
"Your martial art prowess was so powerful that I had nearly forgotten that you were an immortal cultivator yourself, allowing you to ambush me with your fireball spell. If you had reached a higher realm than the Nerve umtion realm, you might have been able to defeat me just then."
"If you had reached the Crystal Spine realm, at least you could have pulled out a better spell that would have killed me. But since we are talking about reality, I''ll show you how much you aplished with your current abilities."
As Yoze listened to Geo speak, he couldn''t help but feel that there was something strange about it. Itcked the powerful emotions hidden inside his voice that he had before.
Instead, it was strangely calm and only allowed others to see the emotions that Geo allowed them to see. There was less nuance which gave Yoze a clue that even though the explosion wasn''t powerful enough to defeat Geo, it must have at least damaged his vocal cords.
Paired with Geo''s exnation that he still had the confidence to win this battle and his willingness to show the damage, Yoze couldn''t help but feel excited to see what his first spell could have done in a real battle. Not letting Yoze''s and the audience of immortal cultivators'' excitement go to waste, a small ck mound suddenly emerged from the vast Shadow Swamp.
On top of the Shadow Swamp mound was the upper half of Geo''s body as he tried his best to smile. Unfortunately, half of his face was incinerated by the powerful, leaving behind nothing but ck bones, and the other half was charred ck to the point where it resembled charcoal.
So even though he tried his best to let out a gentle smile, all that happened was that his remaining face cracked, causing a chunk of it to fall off his face. What impressed Yoze and the crowd was that even with such severe damage to his head, Geo''s hair remained luscious and undamaged.
It didn''t take long before most immortal cultivators realized that for Geo''s hair to remain undamaged while his face was burned away meant that his ck hair with the unnatural spiked clumps was even more modified than his face. There were only two reasons that Geo would have modified his hair to such a degree, and both made arge chunk of the audience sighed from sadness.
The first reason that Yoze and the crowd of immortal cultivators concluded was simply vanity. To have nice hair meant that one''s appearance would be evaluated to the point where they could be considered good-looking.
Paired with Geo''s strong body, handsome face, and smooth deep voice, Geo''s hair made him extremely attractive to the human eye. But to be able to afford to spend so much crystal energy and still reach the peak of the Crystal Brain realm in a reasonable time meant that Geo''s talent for immortal cultivation was excellent.
Many predicted that his immortal cultivation talent had to be at least on the Crystal rank, with a high possibility of his talent being ssified in the Earth rank.
Only someone with such a high talent for immortal cultivation could afford to modify their physical body to the degree Geo had done to his body. To transform his original Blood Master realm body to be more powerful and durable than a Martial Grandmaster could only be achieved by spending arge amount of crystal energy.
To be capable of such a feat without the fear of dying from old age instantly depressed all the immortal cultivators whose talents had barely been ranked Pure. While they struggled and had to work hard every day for fear that they would die before bing immortal, there were people like Geo who had so much talent that they could afford to waste it.
It made those immortal cultivators want to cry out about the unfairness of the world and wish that maybe one day when they finally reach immortality, they would crush those talented immortal cultivators they were forced to look up to.
Chapter 270 270: Bleeding Mountain
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Even though Yoze knew that vanity must have yed a small role in Geo''s decision to strengthen and modify his hair, he didn''t feel that it was the major reason. He felt that the probability that his hair had some special function for his spells was much more likely.
Throughout most of the entire battle, Geo relied more on his martial art skills to fight him, but for someone who had spent more time developing his skills as an immortal cultivator, he should have much more powerful spells that didn''t rely on his martial arts. However, what made Yoze certain that Geo was holding back was that he didn''t look like he was running out of crystal energy.
To still be able to keep his reserves of crystal energy high while fighting a strong opponent could only mean that Geo was holding back because of something. If Yoze had to guess, he felt that Geo was holding back because of the ten Shadow Lords who were still casually watching their battle.
It wasn''t only Yoze who hade to the same conclusion that Geo''s hair was his secret weapon, many immortal cultivators also came to the same conclusion after considering Geo''s personality and known aplishments in the past. Even though the battle between Yoze and Geo was intense and jaw-dropping, it hadn''t yet reached the level they had seen when Shadow Lords fought each other.
To be gained the title of the Eleventh Shadow Lord, there was clear evidence that Geo was capable of much more. The title of Shadow Lord meant that they were the strongest immortal cultivators in the entire Immortal Shadow Sect, with only Immortals above them.
They werepletely different beastspared to regr immortal cultivators who had also reached the peak of the Crystal Brain realm. The reason for this massive difference was quite simple; there was a massive difference in talent between ordinary people and the Shadow Lords.
For most immortal cultivators, their talents were stuck in the Pure rank. In contrast, the ten Shadow Lords'' immortal cultivation talents usually reached the Earth rank. Even though there was only a single rank difference in immortal cultivation, speeds could be massive.
With this additional speed, they were almost guaranteed to be immortals. They could afford to spend more time learning more spells and developing their power. As the years passed, the gap between regr immortal cultivators and the Shadow Lords continued to expand until they were unbeatable.
With their knowledge of how powerful the Shadow Lords were, the audience of immortal cultivators knew that Geo shouldn''t have pulled out his trump card yet. If he did, there was no way he could ever beat the Shadow Lords, who were much more powerful, and each held their own trump cards.
"Brother Yoze, this has been fun, and I''m excited to see what you be after a decade. I am sure you will crush the Immortal Pce Sect''s Ten Kings by that time."
"At that time,e visit the Immortal Shadow Sect headquarters, and I''ll show you around and give you some advice on the world of immortals. If you haven''t wasted your potential, I will even consider taking you as my student to help me develop the martial art path beyond the Martial Grandmaster realm."
"Hold on, let me fix my body before we continue our battle. I don''t want to waste my valuable crystal energy when I don''t have to." Geo quickly paused his speech and vigorously shook his head to get rid of his burned-to-a-crisp skin.
With his fierce shaking, Geo''s charred skin that stubbornly remained on his head quickly cracked and rapidly broke down into a thick cloud of ck ash. It was only when the thick cloud of thick ck ash began to thin and was Yoze able to see that the entirety of Geo''s skull had been charred ck and covered in thin cracks.
"I apologize, Yoze, for pausing our battle for so long. I believe you understand that it wouldn''t look good for us if we continued to fight, and my head is just messed up."
"Just give me one more second. I need to remove the ruined bones before I can start my healing process. Feel free to start attacking me if you want, or enjoy the time toe up with another strategy to defeat me."
Realizing the extent that Yoze''s attack had done to his body and the difficulty of healing his head, Geo quickly apologized for ruining the momentum of the battle. Even though he had apologized, he could see that Yoze didn''t exactly think his apology was genuine, so he simply shrugged his shoulders and gently tapped his finger on his bones.
Just like with his charred skin, the charred bones quickly copsed from the slight pressure and turned into another cloud of dust. As the cloud of dust began to clear, Yoze could see Geo''s Crystal Skull shimmering with rainbow light,pletely undamaged by the explosion.
"Where is his Crystal Brain?" Even though he was being provoked into fighting, Yoze didn''t take the bait and instead ced half of his focus on observing Geo''s body structure.
He didn''t want to lose this valuable opportunity to see how he could develop his Crystal Skull and Crystal Brain in the future. He had always been curious about how Immortal Cultivators were supposed to fit both their Crystal Brain and Crystal Skull inside their bodies.
He had some ideas of how this was possible, but having noticed that Geo fixed this problem by creating his Crystal Skull underneath his regr skull, Yoze was d he didn''t have to waste his time when he reached that point in the future. After mentally noting it, Yoze focused on finding Geo''s Crystal Brain.
Using his powerful eyesight, Yoze looked past the distracting rainbow lights and looked into Geo''s Crystal Skull to find two abnormally small brains. Of the two brains, the smaller brain looked like a typical human brain that was bright pink and looked like jelly.
The moment Yoze saw that brain, he knew that this must have been Geo''s original brain that had beenpressed to the extreme, while therger one had to be his Crystal Brain. Even though he was able to guess the method that all Immortal Cultivators used to create their Crystal Brains and was confident he could do it himself, Yoze was impressed that Geo was able to more than half the size of his brain without damaging it in the slightest.
To be capable of such a feat would require an immense understanding of the brain and a high level of control over one''s own body. With such a high level of understanding of his brain, Yoze understood how Geo could artificially create an identical copy using crystal energy.
Unfortunately, before Yoze could fully appreciate Geo''s brains, Geo manipted his hair which seemed to be physically fused with his Crystal Skull, to cover it up. The moment Geo covered up his brain, Yoze frowned from disappointment as he hadn''t been able to get a detailed look at Geo''s Crystal Brain.
"Thank you for giving me a second; the healing process should be done in less than a second at most," Geo said in a confident tone as he lightly tapped his finger on his Crystal Skull.
Just like he promised, the moment his finger touched his Crystal Skull, a soft white light engulfed his entire head before rapidly disappearing, leaving behind an undamaged head.
"There we go; this is much morefortable than using a spell to talk," Geo said with his smooth deep voice that hid his excitement as he looked directly into Yoze''s soul.
"This battle has been dragging on for too long, so let''s spectacrly end this battle. I''m unfortunately going to have to rely more on my spells to get a victory from you, but I can''t afford to lose to you."
"So, face my Bleeding Mountain spell!" As soon as Geo yelled his spell''s name, his hair grew several times longer before plunging deep into every inch of the small mound.
As more of Geo''s hair pierced into the mound, it quickly quadrupled in size, reaching the size of a small hill. Even before Geopleted his spell, Yoze felt his entire body begin to tingle as he felt a huge amount of danger.
It wasn''t just Yoze either, as the audience of immortal cultivators'' faces went pale as they felt that their lives were in grave danger. What made them more nervous was Geo''s spell hadn''t even beenpleted, yet they could feel its power.
Even the ten Shadow Lords, who were casually watching the battle between Yoze and Geo, all stood up and stared at the giant mound with stern faces. Seeing the reaction of Immortal Shadow Sect''s strongest Immortal Cultivators, Yoze felt his interest peak as he knew what he was about to see would be powerful.
Just as Yoze and the crowd of immortal cultivators waited with anxiety and excitement, Geo swiftly retrieved his hair and mmed his hands on the small hill to remove his body. Without hesitation, he quickly crouched his body and used the full force of his legs to propel him into the air.
Chapter 271 271: The End Of The Battle
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As soon as Geo''s feet left the small hill he had previously fused to; thick blood gushed out of the holes created by his hair. The thick blood quickly began to boil the moment it touched the air, creating a thick blood fog that rapidly spread throughout the obsidian tform.
Within seconds, the former ck small hill was transformed into a blood hill as the thick blood that hadn''t yet evaporated flowed down the hill and flooded Geo''s Shadow Swamp. Strangely after the blood touched the Shadow Swamp, it didn''t sink or get absorbed and treated it like a regr floor causing arge blood pool to form.
"Quite impressive, right? This is a personal spell that I created to counter spells like Shadow Swamp."
"Not only is it able to change the environment to be more suitable for me, but the blood itself is extremely dangerous. It''s as hot asva and is poisonous, so as long as you inhale the slight amount, you will die." As Geo exined his new spell, he turned his gaze to one of the ten Shadow Lords amidst the crowd of immortal cultivators and showed a sinister grin.
The Shadow Lord, who was being challenged, gripped his fist as he took off his robe, allowing Yoze to finally see the appearance of one of the Shadow Lords. This Shadow Lord strangely kept his elderly appearance andcked any hair on his head.
Paired with his thick gray mustache, blue eyes, thick wrinkles, and skinny body, this Shadow Lord looked like a harmless old man he would frequently pass by on the street. Yet this harmless old man stared at Geo with clear hatred in his eyes and even mouthed some ruthless words under his breath.
"Hahaha, are you afraid, William? If you are, just make sure you keep your head clean so that when I cut it off your shoulders, I don''t have to immediately throw it into the trash." After seeing the old man''s reaction to the Bleeding Mountain spell, Geo let out a heartyugh as he made it clear to everyone that this spell was created to target Shadow Lord William.
"Anyways, this spell isn''t quiteplete yet since I haven''t figured out how to make sure that it doesn''t kill me by ident. So as long as you can survive your fall, I''ll concede this victory to you." Afterughing at William, Geo turned his attention back to Yoze, who was starting to descend back to the tform.
Even though Geo had said that he hadn''tpleted the spell and would die from it, Yoze didn''t believe a single word of his. He didn''t doubt for a second that Geo had some measure in ce that would allow him to survive his own spell.
Even if the spell Bleeding Mountain was iplete and didn''t distinguish its user and their enemies apart, Geo could have just created a supporting spell that blocked out the poisonous blood fog and two thousand-degree blood. That was, he could have a perfect safe haven that his enemies would have to pass through to attack him.
Even if he hadn''t figured out a spell that protected him, Geo always had the option of canceling the spell. So there really wasn''t any danger for Geo himself. At the same time, Yoze would have to exhaust his crystal energy and stamina constantly to deal with the harsh environment.
After thinking about the pros and cons of the situation, Yoze silently sighed and nced at Geo before transforming his blood into a whip, whipping the ground outside the obsidian tform and pulling himself out.
Before anyone could react, Yoze softlynded on the soft green grass barely disturbed by their battle. He deactivated his blood armor and calmly sat down as he waited for the announcer to announce his defeat.
"That''s it,dy and gentleman! The fierce and blood-boiling battle between Yoze and Geo has ended with Yoze''s defeat!"
Just as he expected, shortly after his feetnded on the ground, the announcer, who had disappeared at some point during the battle, reappeared and waved his hands in excitement. With a simple hand motion, the terrifying bloodke that had formed due to the tens of thousands of gallons of blood leaking out of the bleeding hill turned into harmless most.
Even Geo''s Bleeding Mountain and his Shadow Swamp couldn''t escape the destruction as they turned into nothing but a white mist that easily vanished from a gentle gust of wind.
"Brother Yoze, I understand your decision and will respect it. My offer still stands if you want to visit the Immortal Shadow Sect headquarters." Even though his spells were forcefully destroyed, Geo smiled as he happily imed victory.
"I''ll think about it once you be immortal; until then, it''s just not worth the effort. Nheless, it was great fighting you." Yoze said with a smile as he shook his head and temporarily didn''t ept Geo''s offer.
He could guess that if he epted Geo''s offer publicly or even privately, he would have gained the ire of Shadow Lord William, which he wasn''t interested in gaining the attention of just yet. If he was interested in gaining attention, he would have used more of his power to continue to fight Geo and evaluated himself to the level of the Immortal Shadow Sect''s Shadow Lord instead of epting this loss.
Even though he was disappointed that he couldn''t im a third victory and get more Sect Points, he believed his decision to limit his strength was overall beneficial.
Not only was he confident that he had avoided a situation where he looked too strong, but he even was able to improve his martial art skills since he had to rely on his martial art techniques and strategies tost as long as he did against someone as strong as Geo. So he didn''t feel upset and just hoped that he had gotten enough points to buy some good stuff on the Sect.
Chapter 272 272: Blue Gem Hall
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"The legendary battle between martial art peers and their dreams to bring back its glory was awe-inspiring and heartwarming! Their passion to fight for the right to show the immortal cultivator world the power that martial arts can bring has ignited the curiosity of many immortal cultivators today!"
"We can all expect that not only will martial arts be taken more seriously by everyone, but these two peers will fight again to im the title of... The Immortal Martial Artist!!" The green sses announcer screamed at the top of his lungs as he sang up a wild story between Yoze and Geo.
Even though Yoze knew that the announcer was trying to create a false sense of tension between him and Geo to give more weight to their battle, he couldn''t help but find that the title of being called the Immortal Martial Artist had a ring to it.
"What should I be called when I be an Immortal? Immortal Martial Artist sounds nice but doesn''t show all my strong suits."
"How about Immortal Demon Martial Artist? No, that''s too long andplicated. Immortal Giant could be good." As Yoze went through title after title to figure out what he wanted to be called in the immortal world, he ignored the announcer''s blood-boiling speech and patiently waited for the next battle to begin.
Unfortunately, after what Yoze and Geo had shown in their fierce battle, no immortal cultivator from the Immortal Pce Sect was dumb enough to think that they stood a chance against Geo, the Eleventh Shadow Lord. Most of the immortal cultivators didn''t even think they stood a chance at beating Yoze, much less the person who defeated him.
The audience of the Immortal Cultivators all knew that the only people that stood a chance against Geo were the ten Shadow Lords of the Immortal Shadow Sect and their counterparts, the ten Kings of the Immortal Pce Sect. Any other immortal cultivator who walked into the obsidian tform was simply giving Sect Points to Geo.
However, just like how the ten Shadow Lords seemed to be conserving their strength, the ten kings were all standing amid the crowd with no intention of fighting. Sensing that the mood for battle wasn''t as intense as before, the announcer kicked Geo off the stage and demanded another two immortal cultivators step inside the death arena.
"Congrattions on your two victories. Come back up to my sword and hang out with the rest of yourrades."
Suddenly as Yoze was amid dozens of titles, he heard Immortal Patty''s voice being whispered into his ears. Understanding that this must have been a spell that allowed Immortals to talk with each other at a distance.
Yoze nced at the announcer, who was trying to get an immortal cultivator from the Immortal Pce Sect side before casually jumping up to Immortal Patty''s levitating sword. He lightly fell onto the sword and noticed that Leo, Yamgo, and the other former rogue immortal cultivators stared at him with nk expressions.
All five of them had never expected that the weakest of all of them would turn out to be the strongest. What was even more impressive was the fact that he wasn''t stronger than them in spells or any qualifications for immortal cultivators but because of his martial art prowess.
A power system that all rogue immortal cultivators looked down upon. But today, they had to figure out how they should approach the situation and find out the best way to gain benefits; at least, they couldn''t afford to develop bad blood between them and Yoze before they became immortals.
If they did, they might find themselves in a situation where their head was below Yoze''s boot and crushed like a watermelon. So until then, they unanimously all decided they wouldn''t disturb the immortal''s ns to develop a deeper rtionship with Yoze.
While the six rogue immortal cultivators they recruited were quickly figuring out their next steps, Immortal Patty, Immortal Miess, and Immortal Scotty were all sitting on the sword''s hilt, looking at him with a smile on their faces. Even without them saying a word, Yoze knew he had made a good impression on them today.
¡¤?¦Èm "Not only am I the most talented person in the six recruited rogue immortal cultivators, but I am also the strongest out of the six. There is no reason why Immortal Patty, Immortal Scotty, and Immortal Miessy are not expecting me to have a bright future."
"With their support and connections, many things should be avable to me that not many other immortal cultivators can ess. If things develop well, I might even be able to use them as a deterrent against other immortals, giving me additional protection against assassination attempts." Yoze thought to himself as he verbally responded to Immortal Patty''s message.
"Thank you for the heartfelt message, Immortal Patty. I won''t let you down and will continue to be stronger and develop my skills and immortal cultivation realm."
Hearing Yoze''s kind response to his message, Immortal Patty nodded his head before turning his attention to Immortal Miessy and Immortal Scotty, who were both drinking some kind of blue-colored tea. They both slowly took a sip of their drinks before calmly nodding their heads to show that they, too, appreciated the sess that brought them some Sect Points.
"Yoze, I didn''t tell you toe back on my sword just to thank me. I wanted to inform you that you have already been epted into the Blue Gem Hall." Immortal Patty informed Yoze with his calm and steady voice, which made it seem that this hall wasn''t special.
"May I ask what the Blue Gem Hall is?" Yoze quickly asked after noticing that Inmortal Patty wasn''t exining what the Blue Gem Hall meant in the Immortal Pce Sect.
"Don''t worry I will exin." As if practiced beforehand, Alosa jumped in front up in front of Yoze and let out a gentle smile.
"We need to first start with the fact that the Immortal Pce Sect is divided into five major halls and many smaller pathways. Each of the Halls covers a certain way to practice the Immortal Tattoo cultivation method."
Chapter 273 273: The Group Wants To Kill Each Other
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"Though everyone gets the same Immortal Cultivation method when ites to how to use it for battles, training, concocting elixirs, and much more, not many immortals can agree. So when the Immortal Pce was formed, it slowly developed these Five Major Halls, each with a powerful immortal heading it."
"As for what each of these Major Halls is called, they are quite simple; they are Blue Gem Hall, Red Ruby Hall, Green Emerald Hall, Purple Crystal Hall, and White Stone Hall. Each of the smaller pathways also has names, but we can talk about thatter." Alosa slowly exined as she looked at Yoze with bright, excited eyes.
As if knowing that Yoze and the others would want to know what was different in each of the major halls, Alosa ced her thumb and pointer finger underneath her chin to show that she was taking some time to think about how to word the information. After a few seconds, her gentle smile bloomed as she showed her pearly white teeth and continued her exnation.
"Sorry for taking so long. I was just thinking for a second; as for what each Hall represents, it''s also quite simple. The Blue Gem Hall focuses on using Immortal Tattoos or mortal tattoos to enhance the user''s body and modify the bodies of other creatures."
"So this Hall seems to fit you quite well, Yoze. You are already so physically strong, so I can only imagine how powerful you will be when you are stronger, faster, more durable, and smarter."
"The Red Ruby Hall takes a much different approach to the usage of the Immortal Tattoos and prefers to use them for offensive spells only. For example, Immortal Patty is part of this Hall and developed his Immortal Tattoos to be lethal weapons from both history and stories."
"When ites to pure firepower, the Red Ruby Hall is unmatched by any of the other Major Halls. So it is quite popr for many immortal cultivators and is the secondrgest Hall." Alosa excitedly said as she added extra pride and happiness when she exined the Red Ruby Hall.
She even added some additional information as if she was trying to advertise the Red Ruby Hall to the other four group members. Additional information that she seems to have forgotten to add about the Blue Gem Hall.
"The Green Emerald Hall once again deviates its thought process drastically from the Red Ruby Hall and the Blue Gem Hall. Instead of focusing on battle strength, this Hall focuses on using their Immortal Tattoos to create traps that their enemies can fall into."
"Even though our lovely Immortal Miessy isn''t part of this major Hall, I will use her Star Map as an example. We have all experienced the feeling of being absorbed into her Star Map and suddenly finding ourselves inside the Endless Forest."
"Just imagine that we were enemies, and instead of the Endless Forest, where we had a tiny chance of survival, we found ourselves inside a pool of magma. She might not even have to release us and can just kill us inside her Star Map."
"That is what the Green Emerald Hall is cing their focus on and is a great hall for those who don''t want to fight people and instead n in the darkness and control the situation." Alosa quickly said with as much excitement as she had been talking about the Red Ruby Hall.
"Endless Forest?" Yoze quicklytched on to the two words. Alosa casually slipped up and felt his heart tighten.
"The Purple Crystal Hall is where our lovely Immortal Miessy resides. Unlike the previous three halls, the Purple Crystal Hall focuses on creating magic medication, elixirs, and magic tools."
"Even though it doesn''t focus on offense or killing like the other major halls, the Purple Crystal Hall is just as deadly. It is also known that the users that focus on this path are the hardest to kill or beat out of the five major halls." Not knowing that she had just given a shock of a lifetime during her casual exnation Alosa continued to exin thest major Hall in the Immortal Pce Sect.
"Thest major Hall is the White Stone Hall and is the most popr Hall for immortal cultivators. White Stone Hall teaches an all-around and general approach to using Immortal Tattoos." Alosa quickly said as she wrapped up her long speech and walked up to Yoze to pat his shoulders in a friendly manner.
Before Yoze realized that he hadn''t recovered his original height and was still in a shrunken state, he saw Alosa pat his shoulders and look him directly in the eye. She used his body to block her face away from the twins and quickly mouthed out a few words before walking away as if nothing had happened.
Yoze nced at Alosa, who still wore her clean, bright yellow suit, with pride and felt slightly amused that she could be so bold as to discuss a n to murder the two twins right in front of them.
"Help me kill the two Wiseman of the South. We can discuss this more when we enter the sect."
Even though he didn''t hold any grudges against the two old men who had taken over the body of the twins, he found it interesting that there were two people out of three that wanted these men dead. So he decided to at least hear Alosa''s offer and see if he could get some benefits from it.
If he is lucky, he might be able to use her powerful ability towork to find talented immortal cultivators and copy their talents. Even if he couldn''t, getting rid of a potential threat in the future might be worth the effort.
"This group of former rogue immortal cultivators is such an interesting group. We have a woman with excellentworking abilities, a strong short man, a woman with physical strength disproportionate to her size, and two twins who everyone seems to hate."
"I can''t help but wonder how this group is going to develop in the future and if any of them will live long enough to be immortal." Yoze secretly smiled as he sat down on the sword and waited for the tournament to end.
Chapter 274 274: Final Battle Between Brothers
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After Alosa''s exnation about the five major halls, time quickly passed as the sun above the Southern Mountain fell, and the blue sky turned into a fiery orange-red color. As Yoze waited for the tournament to end, he indirectly asked Immortal Patty a few questions he had about the Blue Gem Hall through Alosa.
The first was how and why he was suddenly chosen for this when everyone else in the group hadn''t been assigned a Hall to join. The answer he got was quite simple: his performance through the fight with Geo was so impressive that the Head Immortal of the Blue Gem Hall decided to add him to the Hall.
"If everyone else had performed as amazing as you did during your battle, they would have attracted the attention of the Head Immortals as well. But don''t get cocky; just because the Head Immortal of the Blue Gem Hall has taken an interest in you doesn''t mean you are his student."
"He only has a bit of interest in your potential and finds that your current fighting style is already simr enough to the Blue Gem Hall, so he allows you to skip a step or two in the process of joining the Blue Gem Hall. If you continue to perform well, you might be able to be his student." Immortal Patty responded to Yoze''s question slowly as he watched the battles urring on the obsidian tform.
Getting the attention of the Head Immortal of the Blue Gem Hall would normally excite most immortal cultivators, but for someone like Yoze, who wanted to stay low-key, it didn''t please him as much. He knew that having the attention of such a powerful and influential immortal could greatly help his journey, but it also led to more danger following behind him.
After getting the answer to his question answered in such a simple manner, Yoze felt more confident about his guess that Immortal Patty was greatly pleased about his performance and was much more willing to ask his questions. So he quickly took advantage of this and asked a few more questions that he deeply wanted to know.
By the time he got all the answers from Immortal Patty, Yoze felt that his understanding of the Immortal Pce Sect deepened and realized that the immortal world was massive. Not only was this battle between immortal sectsmon, but immortal sects would frequently devour each other whenever an opportunity arose.
To this day, this region has threerge immortal sects that allpete with each other and would look for any opportunity to find smaller sects to devour and expand their territory. This current tournament seemed to be caused by these conflicts as the Immortal Shadow Sect had devoured a small sect near one of the important territories of the Immortal Pce Sect and wanted to take over.
Out of the threerge immortal sects, the Immortal Pce Sect was unfortunately seen as the weakest, with the Immortal Shadow Secting as a close second. The immortal sect that imed the title of first ce was known as the Immortal Lake Sect. Due to the Immortal Lake Sect headquarters being very far away from either the Immortal Shadow Sect or Immortal Pce Sect, a conflict between them and the other tworge Immortal Sects wasn''tmon.
"The Immortal Pce Sect is the weakest? After seeing our performance in this battle between immortal cultivators, it makes sense why we are considered the weakest."
After finding out that he had joined the weakest Immortal Sect, Yoze couldn''t help but wonder if he would be sent to fight in the Immortal Pce Sect''s conflicts with the other immortal Sects. That would be a great opportunity for him to devour numerous spiritual energies from immortal cultivators and Immortals, but it would also be very dangerous.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I am happy to announce that this is the final battle for not only the Immortal Pce Sect versus the Immortal Shadow Sect but these two brothers as well! Let me introduce to you the two brothers that have separated into two different paths!"
Even though Yoze was deep in thought about his future with the Immortal Pce Sect, the moment he heard that the tournament was ending, his mind snapped back to the obsidian tform. On the tform, the announcer was excitedly prancing around two immortal cultivators that stared at each as if they were mortal enemies.
What drew Yoze''s attention was that both of these immortal cultivators looked very simr to each and looked blood-rted. After hearing the announcer confirm his guess that these two men were brothers, Yoze felt his interest in their fight rise.
Falling for the announcer''s trap, the audience of immortal cultivators who had grown bored and exhausted from the long tournament turned their focus to the two brothers on stage. Seeing that everyone was eating up the final battle announcement, the announcer grinned as he continued to increase the stakes of the battle.
"Both were born from the same father and mother, lived in the same vige, and lived in harmony with one another for more than two decades. Yet, in the pursuit of power, one of the brothers abandons his humanity while the other treasures their humanity."
"Now, after more than 60 years of separation, the two brothers have found themselves again at odds, fighting for two different Immortal sects in a tournament to settle it all! On the left corner, we have Immortal Shadow Sect''s Bright Shadow Darwin!"
Hearing the announcer point out the conflict between the two brothers, the audience of immortal cultivators felt some energy return to their bodies as they felt eager to see these two brothers fight. In particr, the immortal Shadow Sect wanted their side to im victory since they knew their side was at a disadvantage.
On their side was a young man who looked to be around twenty years old and had long wavy ck hair tied in a ponytail. He wore a simple light blue long-sleeve shirt and pants with a ducks and clouds design.
The young man named Darwin was someone that the entire Immortal Shadow Sect knew since he took on a very different attitude when interacting with normal people. Unlike most immortal cultivators who preferred to view regr humans with disregard and viewed them as inferior, Darwin didn''t share that point of view.
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Chapter 275 275: Pack Of Lions
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If martial artists were slightly stronger humans in the eyes of immortal cultivators, then regr humans were nothing but ants in their eyes. They could not defend themselves in any situation and had extremely short life spans.
When an immortal cultivator learned a single spell, they would be unbelievably stronger than any regr human and thus could act almost like gods. So it wasmon for immortal cultivators to view regr humans as inferior beings.
Yet, even though Bright Shadow Darwin was in the Crystal Skull realm, he treated regr humans like equals. If he truly wanted to, he could be a god-like being for those people, but he chose not to.
His choice to not treat regr humans like ants was both respected and looked down upon in the Immortal Shadow Sect and made it so not many immortal cultivators wanted to hang out with him. But in this situation where he was going to represent the Immortal Shadow Sect against the Immortal Pce Sect, they all wanted to cheer him on.
"On the right corner for the Immortal Pce Sect is Blood Tattoo Gray!" The Announcer screamed at the top of his lungs, shifting everyone''s attention to the other sibling.
If Bright Shadow Darwin represented the brother who chose to keep his humanity and cherish human lives, then Blood Tattoo Gray had no empathy for regr humans.
Dressed in a thick loose ck robe that covered every inch of his body, Gray shared simr facial features with his brother Darwin. His hair had been cut short and only reached his ears, while he had a long scar that cut across his nose, making him seem colder than his brother.
With his pitch-ck eyes thatcked pupils and his emotionless face, the immortal cultivators from the Immortal Pce Sect knew his deeds clearly. As someone whose immortal cultivation talent was near the bottom of the Pure rank, Gray had done everything he could to increase his power.
Even though Yoze was unaware of Gray''s reputation just from the information he had gathered from the Announcer and the fact that Gray had covered his body with a ck robe, he could guess that the tattoos he had imprinted on his body had dark origins. There was a strong possibility that he could have ughtered regr people to use their blood to create certain spells.
Noticing the subtle nervousness on Gray''s face, Yoze knew that underneath the cold and emotionless exterior that he disyed, he wasn''t as calm as he seemed. This nervousness didn''te from guilt from killing the innocent but simply from meeting his younger brother and facing him in battle.
"Brother, why don''t you give up your dangerous pursuit of power using any means necessary? The path that you have chosen to use the innocent for power is following the path of ruin." Bright Shadow Darwin took a deep breath before calmly addressing his older brother.
"Darwin, you have no right to speak on this matter. Your talent has always been better than mine, and even though I have chosen to create my own path, you continue to closely follow behind."
"If I give up the path I have created for myself, I will ultimately be consumed by your shadow, and I hate being in second ce. So enough talking, and let''s fight to see who is truly better." As Blood Tattoo Gray spoke to his brother about their chosen path, he felt his nerves calm, and hisst bit of love for his brother was crushed.
"I have already decided to do everything I can to be immortal. Even if that means bing a demon in the eyes of all, it will mean nothing to me once I be immortal." Gray thought to himself as he quickly erased the doubt in his mind.
"Forget it; once I defeat you and take you back to visit our mother and father, you will acknowledge the errors of your ways. Let''s fight!" Darwin felt his blood boil as he heard Gray talk about human lives like they were obstacles to his path.
Darwin swiftly pped his hands together to prepare for a difficult battle while he waited for the Announcer to start the battle. With both sides thrilled to begin the battle as soon as possible, the Announcer grinned as he didn''t n to let their hopes down.
"The battle begins now!" Before the Announcer even finished his sentence, his body swiftly sank into the solid obsidian tform, but his voice remained undisturbed.
¡¤?¦Èm As soon as the battle began, Gray snapped his fingers, causing the ck robe that covered his body to explode and rip into a thousand tiny pieces, revealing his body. Like Yoze and many of the immortal cultivators in the crowd predicted, Gray''s upper body was a dense array of blood-red tattoos with ferocious beasts.
Even though the numerous tattoos formed aplex pattern on his skin, Gray didn''t hesitate to activate thergest tattoo on his chest. In a split second, the blood tattooed into his skin seemed to have regained its ferocious nature as thousands of gallons of blood exploded out of the tattoo of a pack of lions.
Without having to do anything further, Gray watched as the thousands of gallons of blood quickly transformed into a pack of seven feet tall three-eyed lions. Each of the lions was realistic to the point that even Yoze couldn''t tell if they were lions that Gray had created using blood or if they were real life he had sealed into his body.
"Thirty Lion Spring! Attack!"
When Gray heard the Announcer''s voice screaming, he felt as if a huge dose of adrenaline had entered his bloodstream. Paired with therge boost in excitement, he felt his blood lust to kill his brother surge as he unleashed his more than thirty three-eyed lions at Darwin.
Seeing that Gray really was serious about wanting to kill him, Darwin''s heart tightened as he felt his heart break slightly. Knowing that his brother wasn''t in the right mind, he sighed and allowed the pack of lions to swarm him.
Chapter 276 276: A Brothers Hatred
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"Roar! Roar!!"
The pack of lions'' roar shook the air. They rapidly ran over to Darwin, who seemed frozen to the point that he couldn''t move. Just as the army of lions had gotten so close to Darwin that he could smell the bloody scent of meating from their mouths, the shadow beneath his feet disappeared.
When Darwin lost his shadow, he felt his body be weightless and swiftly moved through the hoard of three-eyed lions with ease. Without losing a single strand of hair from his head, he escaped the danger of being eaten alive by his brother''s lions.
"p!"
"Shadow Trap!"
Darwin activated the trap he had been preparing, feeling the same sense of battle spirit that Gray had been enduring. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Darwin''s shadow suddenly appeared next to Gray before swiftly turning intorge shadow tentacles that wrapped around his body.
Unable to react in time, Gray found himselfpletely trapped and unable to move a single finger, but he didn''t panic. He had long known that his brother was proficient in movement and trap-type spells and had prepared for situations like this.
Without having to move a muscle, the blood tattoos on Gray''s body unleashed a blood-red glow as they activated themselves. In less than a second, countless crescent-shaped blood des exploded out of Gray''s body, swiftly cutting up the shadow tentacles into tiny pieces.
On the other side, Darwin, who had his shadow sliced up, gritted his teeth as he felt the pain from every cut. Still, he endured the pain and activated another spell the moment his Shadow Trap spell was destroyed.
"Shadow Light!"
In an instant, Darwin''s shadow, which had returned to Darwin, exploded with a blinding white light that engulfed half of the tform. Even though only half of the tform was engulfed in the sphere of blinding white light, the crowd of immortal cultivators felt a burning sensation in their eyes as they could only imagine Gray''s pain.
"Damn it!" Gray screamed in pain as he could sense the cells in his eyes dying from the intense light.
Even with his eyes tightly closed and his hands in front of his eyes, he could still see red as the light prated his flesh. Knowing that if this continued, he would go permanently blind for the rest of the battle and be at a disadvantage, Gray immediately took action.
¡¤?¦Èm He controlled his pack of three-eyed lions to ignore the pain and attack methodically until they either escaped the radius of the light or attacked Darwin. At the same time, Gray muttered softly as he used the Vision Tattoo spell.
As soon as Gray finished chanting his spell, the numerous blood tattoos on his body transformed into three-dimensional eyes that stared in different directions. Even though he was still enduring the pain of his eyes dying, a three-dimensional picture of his surroundings quickly entered his mind allowing him to see.
"Whoosh!"
As Gray''s blood eyes formed, they captured a blurry white shadow rapidly approaching, sending a chill down Gray''s spine. Without having to think about it, he knew that it was Darwin''s White Shadow Net spell which was not something that he could easily escape from once he was captured.
Acting fast, he snapped his fingers to activate one of the spells he had prepared for this moment. Within an instant, Gray''s body began to rapidly dete and shrink to only a quarter of his original size, causing Darwin''s White Shadow Net spell to narrowly pass by his head.
Knowing that he had to act fast or his situation would continue to worsen, Gray manipted the three-eyed lions close to Darwin to explode with rage and get as close to him as possible. Before Darwin could evade the lions, Gray caused all of them to explode.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The four separate explosions sent powerful shockwaves mming into Darwin''s back, causing his bones to fracture and break. At the same time, blood from the lions'' explosions sshed onto his body.
"Sizzle!"
A split second after the blood touched Darwin''s body; it acted like acid as it burned holes into his clothes before melting his skin and flesh. Feeling immense pain from having his body melted by acidic blood, Darwin''s eyes became bloodshot as he felt his hatred for his brother explode.
"Gray, I''m going to drag you back either dead or alive!" Darwin screamed at the top of his lungs, with his anger and hatred clear for everyone to see and hear.
"What?"
Even though Gray had assumed that he had crushed all his love for his brother and family, the moment he heard that Darwin wanted to kill him, he felt shocked. He felt that he had lost something he had taken for granted and felt his mind be distracted momentarily.
Understanding that this loss of concentration was dangerous, Gray quickly dragged his focus back to the battlefield. But Darwin had already taken advantage of this momentary distraction and unleashed his fury.
"Blinding Crescent!"
In an instant, Gray found himself surrounded by hundreds of white des of light that blended into Darwin''s Shadow Light spell. Even though he tried his best to form a defensive spell using his blood tattoos found that there were simply too many.
"nk nk nk nk!"
The sounds of Darwin''s Blinding Crescent des continuously mming into the Blood Sphere that Gray had summoned at thest minute echoed the entire base of the Southern mountain. As everyone saw that, the blood protecting Gray was rapidly evaporating alongside his crystal energy which was bound to dry up soon.
"Die!"
With Darwin''s rage, he poured arge amount of his crystal energy into his Blinding de Crescents, causing them to double in size and power. Before Gray could adjust his n, one of the Blinding Crescent des broke through his Blood Sphere and sliced through his neck.
An intense pain coursed through Gray''s body as he tried his best to defend his Crystal Spine from being sliced in half. As long as he could protect his Crystal Spine and kept his head attached to his body he could heal with time.
Chapter 277 277: Two-Headed Serpent God
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Gray felt a burning sensationing from his throat as Darwin''s Blinding Crescent de quickly incinerated his flesh while digging deeper into his crystal spine.
"Crack"
Even though the cracking sound wasn''t loud, it sounded like thunder to Gray as he knew that his Crystal Spine''s defenses were falling apart. If he didn''t do anything fast, he would soon find himself dead at the hands of his own brother.
Gray swiftly closed his eyes as he used thest bit of his crystal energy to use one previous spell that should save him from this situation. Knowing that he couldn''t hesitate any longer, he swiftly rearranged the blood tattoos on his body into a pattern of a Two-headed and Two-Tailed Snake eating its own tails.
Once Gray''s new tattoo wasplete, the Two-headed and Two-tailed Snake tattoo blinked as thousands of gallons of blood poured out of the tattoo. The blood quickly formed arge pool around ten feet wide, but even after more blood poured out, the blood pool didn''t get wider.
Instead, Gray''s blood swiftly formed a giant blood ball that contained all his blood. As more and more blood entered the blood ball, which seemed to have infinite space, it gave Yoze the impression that it wasn''t Gray who was giving his blood, but some unknown entity was taking it.
Strangely unlike Gray''s Thirty Lion Spring spell, which seemed to contain infinite amounts of blood and didn''t harm Gray in the slightest, his new spell caused his body to age as he swiftly turned into a dry corpse.
His plump skin, filled with youth, rapidly turned thin and yellow before his skin began to crack. His chest and stomach, which were in good shape, quickly sunk inside his body to the point that it made him look like he didn''t have any internal organs.
Gray''s hair was the next to fall as it swiftly turned white and fell off his head, chunks at a time. His white pearly teeth quickly followed as they all turned ck and fell out of his mouth one after another.
Even though Gray seemed to be on the brink of death from his own spell, his mouth morphed into a sinister grin as the Blinding Crescent de struggled to continue cutting through Gray''s neck. What Yoze was finding strange was that he noticed that Gray''s spiritual energy was beginning to be tinged by a blood-red color.
The contamination wasn''t fast, but it was noticeably expanding and engulfing Gray''s spiritual energy. From his prediction, if this speed continued by the time Gray''s spell reachedpletion, half of his spiritual energy would have been engulfed by the blood-red color.
"The only reason for this to happen is that spell that Gray had just cast. For it to be capable of influencing his own spiritual energy could only mean that the spell was quite strong." With his interest in this battle reaching a new high, Yoze nced at the announcer''s spiritual energy inside the obsidian tform before quickly shifting his gaze away.
After his experience with Immortal Patty, Immortal Miessy, and Immortal Scotty, Yoze knew that Immortals seemed to have extraordinary senses and would know that he was looking at them if he looked too long. To avoid getting in trouble or putting himself in unnecessary danger, he swiftly moved his gaze back to Darwin and Gray.
"God damn it, brother! Stop what you are doing; how could you be messing with that deity!" Darwin''s face quickly changed to horror as soon as he saw Gray''s tattoo and snapped out of his rage state.
"Two-Headed God Serpent Rises!" Ignoring Darwin''s plea, Gray''s empty eye sockets turned a deeper ck while his voice deepened unnaturally.I think you should take a look at
As soon as Gray shouted the name of the spell, his dried body rapidly swelled uncontrobly, turning him into a disfigured ball before exploding.
"Puff!"
Unlike the massive explosion that many of the immortal cultivators in the audience expected, Gray''s self-explosion was tiny and barely caused a gust of wind. However, while it didn''t have much power, it seemed to have triggered something in the blood ball as it rapidly expanded.
In less than two seconds, the ordinary ball of blood transformed into a ten feet long and 3 feet wide Two-headed and Two-tailed snake. The snake''s body, made out of Gray''s blood, quickly solidified and turned into flesh before a thickyer of its flesh turned into purple scales.
"Hisss! Hisss!"
In a short time, the situation on the tform seemed to have reversed as standing before Darwin was Gray, who had transformed himself into the Two-Headed and Two-Tailed Serpent God. Without Gray even moving, the gusts of wind from his two hisses sliced through Darwin''s skin with ease.
"This should be over. There is no way for Darwin to win at this point."
"To be nuts enough topletely give up his original body just to win this battle means that he shouldn''t have any qualms about killing his brother at this point. As long as Darwin gives up now, he will lose the battle but win the war."
As the battle between Darwin and Gray reached a new intensity, the audience of immortal cultivators began to softly discuss their thoughts in the battle. It wasn''t long before most of the immortal cultivators agreed that Darwin should give up immediately before collecting Gray''s corpse a few hours after the battle.
Though they found Gray''s battle spiritmendable, in the end, he made the wrong choice of not giving up when things were not going in his favor. Not only did he have the opportunity to surrender when Darwin''s Blinding Crescent de was cutting through his Crystal Spine, but he took another step and used a self-destructive spell to live.
They might not have exactly known what spell Gray had used and why Darwin was so afraid of it; they had seen simr types of spells before. These types of spells would usually give the user immense power but would always end up killing their own user by the end.
Since these spells were a guaranteed way to die, most immortal cultivators would never spend the time to learn these spells. Simply to avoid the situation of them losing their rationality and using this spell when there are other options.
In other words, most immortal cultivators viewed Gray more as a corpse than alive. So they quickly concluded that Darwin needed to surrender before he also lost his life.
Chapter 278 278: Dangerous Shadow Devil Immortal
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It wasn''t just the audience that thought so; even Yoze felt that it was better for Darwin to lose this battle than continue fighting. Simply because the pressure that he felting from Gray''s new body was a little stronger than the pressure, he felt when he had previously fought the Leopard demon.
Even if Gray couldn''t manipte his spiritual energy to the same level as the Leopard demon, Yoze didn''t doubt that the physical abilities that Gray now processed were far higher than what he had shown before. Not to mention that Gray''s transformation was bound to have some special abilities that should make it impossible for someone like Darwin to win.
In his eyes, there was nothing but death for Darwin if he tried to continue the battle. Unfortunately, regardless of what Yoze and the immortal cultivators thought was the best path for Darwin, it seemed that Gray''s transformation utterly paralyzed him.
His trembling body, pale face, and bloodshot eyes showed that not only was he frightened beyond belief, but his mental state was quickly copsing. If nothing happened, it was likely that Darwin''s mind would continue to copse to the point where he wouldn''t survive much longer, even if Gray didn''t attack him.
"Hiss! Hungary!" The Two-Headed Serpent''s deep voice silenced the tform of all sound as its purple snake eyes stared at Darwin with insanity.
Without hesitation, one of Gray''s snake heads opened its mouth wide to show a blood ball the size of a cannonball inside its throat. In less than a second after the snake head showed the blood ball, it controlled its muscles with masterful uracy andunched the blood ball as if it was a cannonball.
"Bang!"
The moment the blood ball was shot at Darwin, his instincts screamed at him to escape causing him to snap out of his daze. Without a second to spare, Darwin pped his hand to activate his favorite spell, Light Shadow.
Using the fact that his speed and reaction speed had drastically improved, Darwin narrowly dodged the blood ball. Before hearing the sound of sizzlinging from behind him.
Understanding that he couldn''t be distracted for a split second, Darwin ignored the urge to check the condition of the ground that the blood ball hadnded on and insteadunched a counterattack. Using the remaining Blinding Light Crescents that hadn''t been destroyed yet, Darwin threw them at Gray while dodging the dozens of blood balls being fired at him.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
"Clink! Clink! Clink!"
Even though Darwin''s Blinding Crescent des were strong enough to cut through a Crystal Spine, it was even nearly powerful enough to damage Gray''s scales, only resulting in them shattering on impact. Seeing that he was rapidly running out of crystal energy and saw no hope for victory, Darwin gritted his teeth and opened his mouth to surrender.
"Hiss! Hiss!"
Unfortunately, the moment Gray noticed that Darwin was about to give up, they turned red as he controlled his snake body to quickly cut the distance before them. In a short instant, one of Gray''s snake heads opened its head and swallowed Darwin before he could speak.
"Crush!"I think you should take a look at
"Hiss! Hiss!"
The sound of Darwin''s bones being crushed was quickly overwhelmed by Gray''s rage-filled hissing. Without a doubt in any of the immortal cultivators'' minds, they knew that Darwin had died and was the first immortal cultivator to die from this tournament.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope this match has been very exciting for you all! We have seen ups and downs!"
"We have seen underdogs ovee all odds! And we watched tragedy happen before our very eyes!"
"Give hearty and blood-boiling apuse to our sponsors of this tournament, the Immortals of the Immortal Pce Sect and the Immortal Shadow Sect! Please wee the Shadow Devil Immortal, Immortal Flint!" The announcer swiftly resumed his duties and responsibilities, ignored Gray''s Twin-Headed Serpent transformation, and introduced an immortal.
As soon as his name was announced, a tall and skinny immortal dressed in a long ck robe flew out from the direction of the Immortal Pce headquarters. Within a few seconds, the massive distance that took immortal Patty minutes to cross using his flying sword was crossed.
Once the immortal Flint had arrived and stood next to the announcer with a thin smile, Yoze felt that his appearance was quite strange but couldn''t put his hands on why. Even though Immortal Flint was only shorter than him by a few inches at most, making him very tall for a human, his appearance didn''t look out of the ordinary.
If anything, Immortal Flint looked too normal as his long ck curly hair, brown eyes, and round face weren''t on the same level as handsome as Geo and could only be considered slightly above average. Nor did the aura surrounding Immortal Flint create any impressions in Yoze''s mind, it was a perfect neutral aura.
Yet as soon as Immortal Flint appeared before him, his instincts told him that this man was dangerous. Just the fact that his instincts warned him about grabbing Immortal Flint''s attention proved to Yoze that Immortal Flint was by far the strongest immortal cultivator that he had met.
"Thank you, Immortal Glenn. Even though we are from different sects, you have shown me and every other Immortal a pleasant time."
"I''ll rmend that we hire your services next time we have an event like this. Without you there to control the flow of everything, it would be very boring." Immortal Flint spoke softly and sang praise at the announcer as he ignored the Two-Headed Snake that was trying to swallow him.
"Hahaha! Immortal Flint, without your rmendation, how could I have gotten such a cushy job for such an important event like this? I can''t ept your praise."
"But I will take up your offer to rmend more of these jobs, and don''t doubt that I won''t hold you ountable if you don''t fulfill your promise." Immortal Glennughed as he adjusted his thick sses.
Chapter 279 279: Plan For The Future
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Yoze sighed as he felt that the more he experienced in this world, the higher the ceiling of strength became. When he first arrived, he had always thought that Martial Grandmasters were the strongest beings in this world, with the expectation that Immortals and demons were stronger.
But at that time, he had always assumed that demons and immortals were simr to the next level above the Martial Grandmaster realm. He had never expected that it waspletely different and there was no rtion to one another.
Now even with his extreme strength and prowess, he felt that the ceiling of power for immortals and demons might not have a limit. They could continuously get stronger and stronger the longer they lived and could reach the levels of the gods.
"How am I going to catch up? How does someonepete with beings that are more than tens of thousands of years old?"
"Even talent can''tpete with thatrge of an age gap. If I want to be able to protect my family and myself from everything, I need to look for another way than simply following the same path that others have taken." Yoze felt his blood pressure rise as he began to feel stressed.
Ever since he had gotten his cheat, he had always felt his progress was continuously getting faster and faster. But he knew now that it was beginning to level off. The reason was simple: he was starting to reach a phase where it was difficult to find people with good enough talent that he could guarantee that he could upgrade his talent pool.
It wasn''t much of a problem for his talents rting to spiritual energy or immortal cultivation since he has had many opportunities to get a lot of talents from these categories. Instead, it came from his martial arts talents since he had so many that it was nearly impossible for him to keep track of it all.
It had gotten to the point that he was so talented that if he focused on his martial arts alone, he could reach the next level of the Blood Master realm in three months. Reaching the peak in one year before bing a Martial Grandmaster himself.
His speed was astonishing, and he had troubleprehending that anyone on the entire was more talented than him in this regard. But this was simply because of the quantity of talent he had that helped boost his martial arts progress and less of the quality.
"The Second Best System is beginning to live up to its name."
From the beginning, the quality of talents he could collect was always capped. He could never be the best in any talent and could only be slightly worse than the person he acquired it from.
So unless someone or he broke through into a grade 10 Crystal Nerve talent, he would never be able to have a heaven-grade talent. He would forever be stuck at the Earth rank or, more urately, grade-8 talent.
"Even though my grade of talents is capped and I might find myself struggling to find more talents in the nexting decades. It doesn''t mean much when my progress will be so monstrously fast that only God''s children might be able to do better."I think you should take a look at
"And even then, I still will be only in second ce when ites to talent, not prowess or experience. So as long as I continuously work hard and develop myself, I shouldn''t be afraid of anything." As Yoze''s thoughts and concerns rapidly passed through his mind, he felt his stress melt away as he knew that unnecessary stress would only slow him down.
He didn''t need to worry about those monster demons and immortals that were so old and powerful that they bordered the line of bing gods. All he had to do was focus on his current concerns and take things step by step.
"My first n of action should be getting familiar with the Immortal Pce Sect before finding a way to move Tiki, Dreyer, and my father here. It might not be the safest, but I will feel much better if they are by my side, at least until I can strengthen them enough that they can protect themselves."
"After that, I need to prepare for the Demon Summit that is happening soon. If it''s anything like the immortal world, I should find myself surrounded by talents and powerful demons."
"As for whates next, I''ll make a decision when ites to it. There is no point in making a n too far into the future if it is bound to change." As Yoze resolved his concerns and set a solid n for himself, he turned to Immortal Flint and Immortal Glenn, who had just finished their chat.
"Okay, okay, I can tell you are serious about your promises. Can you deal with that little snake biting at our feet before I take care of it?" Feeling annoyed that Gray had lost his sanity and was continuously trying to eat them, Immortal Glenn deepened his voice as he told Immortal Flint to make a move.
"Fine,"
Without hesitation, Immortal Flint raises his hand to his side, causing a ck sphere of darkness toe out of his palm. The ck sphere wasn''t veryrge and was only a few inches across, but the moment it appeared, the raging Two-Headed Snake that Gray had transformed into froze.
Losing all resistance, the Two-Headed Snake watched Immortal Flint calmly lower the ck sphere just above its two heads and felt a heavy pressure restraining its movements further. Just as the Two-Headed Snake''s eyes turned blood red and it was about to defend itself, the ck sphere rapidly expanded and swallowed its entire body.
In less than a second, the ck sphere returned to Immortal Flint''s palm as if nothing had happened, but the Two-Headed Snake hadpletely disappeared. While other immortal cultivators were wondering if Immortal Flint had disintegrated Gray or had merely captured him, Yoze stared at the ck sphere returning to Immortal Flint''s body and thought to himself.
"I need to make sure I don''t get into the sights of any immortals, or I might find myself being plotted against just like Gray and Darwin."
Chapter 280 280: Mission Collection Room
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After the tournament, the score between the two sects was 40 wins for the Immortal Pce Sect and 45 wins for the Immortal Shadow Sect. Compared to when Yoze had first arrived, the Immortal Pce Sect had been able to catch up somewhat.
But they still couldn''t close the massive gap that had already formed, so they lost, with the only casualties of the tournament being the two brothers. With the tournamentplete, Immortal Patty flew his sword back to the sect headquarters half because he wanted to im his Sect Points as soon as possible and the other half to drop off the group of new immortal cultivators.
"We are finally going to be able to see the inside and focus on bing immortals ourselves. We might be behind the others in immortal cultivators, but that doesn''t mean we can''t be immortals too."
Excited by the prospect that she would soon enter the Immortal Pce Sect headquarters, Alosa pumped her fists in the air with excitement. She even gave a small speech to the others to cheer them up because she could sense that behind their calm expressions was a deep depression.
It didn''t take a genius to determine the reason for their sadness. One of them was because of Yoze himself, so even though he could see that they were depressed, he didn''t try to cheer them up.
As rogue immortal cultivators, they had always assumed they were as strong as their immortal cultivator counterparts. If anything, they were only slightly weaker and were held back because theycked a method to the Crystal Brain realm.
But today, they had witnessed numerous immortal cultivators battle one another and realized the massive gulf between them. After today''s tournament, they realized they could only beat immortal cultivators that were a realm weaker than them.
As for challenging other Crystal Skull immortal cultivators, they didn''t stand a chance. They would lose in a matter of minutes if not seconds.
Even though they were sad to find out that they were not that powerful in the Immortal Pce Sect, they still felt they had a chance to catch up. Unfortunately, right next to them was a young giant who was much stronger than any of them and more talented.
The only thing they had above him was their immortal cultivation rank which would allow them to be immortal before him. But before they became immortals, they still needed to enter the Crystal Brain realm and form their Crystal Brains, which was a process that couldn''t be rushed.
"We are back from the tournament. Let us in."
Just like how they first acted, Immortal Patty waited for a tunnel to form the thick rainbow mist surrounding the Crystal Fortress. As soon as the passage had grownrge enough to fit the Giant''s Last Sword, Immortal Patty swiftly flew inside.
"The Sect''s arrangement has beenpleted, so you are allowed back in. As with your previous missions, you can collect your rewards in the Mission Collection room on the fourth floor."I think you should take a look at
Unlike their previous time of waiting over a minute to receive a rejection, the voice controlling the massive gate quickly responded. After briefly reminding Immortal Patty, Immortal Scotty, and Immortal Miessy about where they needed to go afterpleting their mission, the two massive thick gates blocking the entrance faded away.
"Yoze, since you have gotten some Sect Points as well, follow us to the Mission Collection room. Alosa, you may follow along if you like." Immortal Patty paused before waving his hand to cast a heavy gust of wind that pushed Leo, Yamgo, and the two wise men off his sword leaving only Yoze and Alosa remaining.
"Thank you, Immortal Patty! I''ll love to follow along to see more of the Sect." Recognizing that all her hard work to schmooze the immortals was paying off, Alosa smiled as she excitedly thanked Immortal Patty for the opportunity.
"Having a connection to someone strong can be quite nice sometimes. If I n to stay here for a long time, I need to form my ownwork of contacts so I can deal with problems more easily and get more resources."
"And who is a better start than Alosa, who already has a good rtionship with two immortals? The best time to gain her trust should being soon." Yoze nced at Leo, Yamgo, and the two wise men to see that their faces had be grim as they noticed they were already beginning to fall behind.
With Yoze''s strength, he never needed to form a particrly strong friendship with anyone to progress rapidly, nor did he need to try hard to make a good impression on any of the immortals. The strength he had disyed in his fight against Geo was already more than enough to make Immortal Patty have some thoughts about forming a good rtionship with him.
So he naturally was given this opportunity to visit the Mission Collection room early. As for Alosa, she had already ced her full effort into gaining the trust and friendship of Immortal Patty and Immortal Miessy.
With how much progress she has made in such a short amount of time, she was also given this opportunity even though shecked Sect Points. The only people in their group that haven''t made progress were the four of them.
With how things were going, Yoze knew that they only had three choices if they didn''t want to find themselves struggling. The first was that they tried their best to form a connection with him or Alosa.
It was their only choice where they had an opportunity to get a deeper connection with the immortals without risking their lives. The second was to start from scratch and form their own group of connections that would help them get resources and solve their problems.
But this choice had a lot of issues and wasn''t guaranteed to work. It was highly possible that they wouldn''t be able to make a strong impression on anyone and end up getting themselves killed.
Theirst choice was to rush to be immortal as quickly as possible. Not only would it solve their issue ofcking a connection since immortal cultivators would be jumping at the opportunity to impress them, but it would also reduce the chances of them being killed.
Chapter 281 281: Open World
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Even though the third choice could result in a reduced chance of death if any of them became immortals, it was the hardest to achieve by far. Not only did they need to get enough crystal energy, but they also needed to be extremely careful when making their Crystal Brains.
For Leo, Yamgo, and the two Wise Men, the third path was made slightly easier for thempared to the other immortal cultivators since they could use their crystal grapes to get enough crystal energy to reach the peak of the Crystal Brain realm. Yet there wasn''t a shortcut for them to have the skills to create an identical brain that wouldn''t end up killing them.
They could only take it one step at a time like everyone else. So even though the third path was possible, Yoze didn''t think anyone was crazy enough to choose it. He could imagine that Leo and Yamgo would choose the first path since it was the best option by far.
As for the two Wise Men, it depended on whether or not they noticed that there was hostility between them and everyone else. If they didn''t, there was a high chance they would choose the first option.
If they could sense the hostility, they would understand that the first option was unviable for them. Being forced to rely on the second option before trying the third option as ast resort.
As the four individuals made their decisions, Leo''s and Yamgo''s faces rxed as they winked at Alosa before walking inside the Sect''s entrance. As for the two Wise Men, their faces became grimmer and grimmer until they sighed heavily and left without saying a word.
Knowing that everyone had made their choice, Yoze didn''t think too much about it and turned his attention to the Sect. Since they were heading to the fourth floor, he would be able to get a good look at the entire Sect.
If possible, he wanted to map out the entirety of the Sect in this one trip or at least a majority of it. So that he wouldn''t struggle to find what he needs at a critical moment and could visit them right after to see what they offer.
"Let''s go,"
After Leo, Yamgo, and the two Wise Men made their decisions, Immortal Patty controlled his sword and entered the Sect. As Yoze and Alosa passed through the entrance, they felt as if there was a thin barrier blocking their way inside, but with a bit of pressure, it let them through.
When they made it past the entrance, their pupils shrunk from shock. They suddenly found themselves outside in arge bustling city. There were thousands of people wandering the streets with quick steps as they hurried to their next location.
Some old men and women were sitting outside restaurants ying various board games. There were even asional shouts of anger and small fights as they used each other of cheating.
Children walked around with their parents helping them hold groceries bags as they leisurely walked home in the soft ray of sunlight from the sun.
"Sun? How is there a sun inside the Immortal Pce Sect? Was the crystal fortress just a facade, and we were teleported to the real headquarters?"
Numerous thoughts raced through Yoze and Alosa''s minds as they looked at each other, hoping to see that the other was just as confused. It wasn''t only them. The four who had entered just before they did also were frozen solid from shock.I think you should take a look at
"Don''t stand there in shock. This is only the first floor of the Sect and is the worst by far."
"Regardless of whether one is an immortal, Immortal cultivator, or mortal, we are all forced to live on the first floor. But don''t have any idea of visiting the homes of any immortal."
"Their security will vaporize you into dust the moment you get close. That includes mine." Immortal Patty said calmly as he waved his hand to lift his sword thousands of feet in the air to avoid the skyscrapers.
"How is this possible? How are there more floors than this? Aren''t we outside?" After snapping out of his shock, Alosa unconsciously asked Immortal Patty a string of questions causing him to frown.
"I''m sorry, Immortal Patty, I was overwhelmed just now. Please punish me for my behavior."
Realizing her mistake, Alosa scratched her head to make herself look more innocent and quickly apologized.
With her timely apology and great acting skills, Immortal Patty''s face rxed, and he no longer thought of kicking her off his sword. If there was something he despised the most, it was people who thought too highly of themselves.
"To answer your question, this is possible because we are not outside but tens of miles underground. Our founder has created everything you see here."
"From the artificial sun, the blue sky, clouds, and the nts. The only thing our founder didn''t create was the buildings that immortal cultivators and immortals created." Noticing that Immortal Patty wasn''t going to answer Alosa''s questions, Immortal Miessy stepped in.
Without missing a beat Immortal Miessy pat the spot next to her to signal Alosa to take a seat. Immediately noticing, Alosa didn''t hold up, pretended to hesitate, and walked over and sat down.
"Isn''t the treatment between Alosa and everyone else a little too big?" Watching this happening, Yoze''s eyes twitched as he almost couldn''t believe what he saw.
"Now, I want you to feel the air around you. Can you sense what is different from the outside world?" Immortal Miessy said with a smile as she looked at Alosa as if she were her favorite child.
"There is a thinyer of crystal dust in the air. No, this is dust from the ground that is airborne due to the wind." Alosa''s eyes widened with shock as she could feel her hands that a small amount of crystal dust was being absorbed into her body.
She quickly noticed that it wasn''t just crystal dust in the air but regr dust from the ground. For a world created by a powerful Immortal, Alosa still found it hard to believe that they could afford to have this entire world covered in crystal dust, right?
Chapter 282 282: An Immortals Paradise
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"Yes, you are correct. There is crystal dust in the air because the entire ground is made out of regr dirt and crystals."
"With every gust of wind, a tiny amount of crystal will be airborne and be absorbed into your body to absorb beforeter transforming into crystal energy. Just be careful not to inhale too much dust, or you will die." Immortal Miessy said in a casual tone as if she wasn''t aware of how dangerous she revealed this world was to mortals.
For immortals and immortal cultivators, inhaling crystal dust wouldn''t harm them significantly since they could still absorb it. It simply would be extremely inefficient and take much more time than using their hands.
Even if they could, their control over their own bodies was excellent, and they could remove the excess crystal dust from the bodies with some time. But for mortals, unless they were martial artists, they would suffer a great deal from having crystal dust slowly umting in their lungs.
Unless they got treatment on a regr basis, they were guaranteed to die an early death. But this wasn''t something an immortal like Immortal Miessy would be concerned about.
None of the mortals on the first floor had any rtionship with her and would never be able to form one. She could live longer than enter bloodlines and outlive humanity itself if she had the chance.
So her feelings towards mortals were nonexistent, and she wouldn''t allow herself to endure the pain of developing a rtionship with a being bound to die before her. But regardless of how dangerous this world was to mortals, it was almost a paradise for immortal cultivators.
To have crystal dust flying in the air and being absorbed into their bodies without any thought and regrly was a dream for immortal cultivators. Yoze immediately began to see the benefits of such a design as he felt his empty crystal nerves begin to fill up.
It was an extremely tiny amount, but Yoze recognized that immortal cultivators that stayed here all year around would be able to make more progress than in the real world. This extra crystal dust entering their bodies was equivalent to having their crystal energy storage filled an extra two to three times a year.
These two additional refills are extremely valuable to desperate immortal cultivators who were barely scraping toward bing immortals. This would help them make progress but could also allow them to spare some time practicing spells.
It made sense why all rogue immortal cultivators desired to enter an immortal sect. As long as their talent was a bit better or they just had a bit more luck, they could almost guarantee bing immortal.
"Thank you for the warning Immortal Miessy. I will make sure to never inhale too much dust." Alosa said with a term face as she permanently imprinted Immortal Miessy''s words into her mind.
"Forget it; I don''t want to waste any more time. Patty, we need to get to the fourth floor as soon as possible. Having the two Observers breathing down our necks is ufortable." Noticing that Immortal Miessy wanted to continue giving Alosa more details, Immortal Scotty, who hadn''t spoken for a long time, raised hisints.I think you should take a look at
Immortal Patty coldly stared at Immortal Scotty from the corner of his eyes before lifting his hand. Even though he hated Immortal Scotty to his core, he also didn''t like being watched for merely six months.
When he turned back to see that the two twin brothers had somehow appeared behind him and staring at his back with their sparkling blue eyes, a shiver crawled down his spine. Even though this wasn''t his first time being assigned an observer, he couldn''t get used to their disappearing and reappearing act.
"Miessy, you can take Alosa on a tour when we return. Right now, the Sect expects us to turn in our mission and get our rewards." Immortal Patty said with respect for Immortal Miessyced in his voice.
"Okay, I understand." Knowing she was outvoted, Immortal Miessy stopped herself from continuing her lesson.
After their lesson was cut short, Immortal Patty flew his sword toward an enormous white marble pir several miles out of the City. The pir was truly massive as it extended far into the sky and dug an unknown distance into the earth.
If it wasn''t for the fact that Yoze and Alosa knew they were underground, they would have felt that the pir wasn''t made by a powerful immortal. They would have thought that this pir was ced here by the gods. Yoze couldn''t help but feel his heart skip a beat as he could only imagine how old the founder of the Immortal Pce Sect was and how powerful he was.
While Yoze and Alosa were absorbing everything and adjusting their mindset, Immortal Patty flew his sword toward a hole in the smooth white pir. As they grew closer, Yoze noticed that dozens of other immortal cultivators and immortals also entered the hole before being sucked deeper into the earth.
When they finally entered themselves, Yoze and Alosa felt a gentle gust of wind pushing them lower. However, with Immortal Patty''s holding them up, they didn''t fall a single centimeter. That was when they suddenly heard Immortal Patty''s voice calmly shout two words.
"Fourth Floor,"
As soon as those words were uttered, the weak gusts of wind became extremely powerful as they pulled them deeper and deeper into the ground at an elerating rate. In a sh, Yoze and Alosa found that they flew past two other holes withpletely different environments from the first floor.
After passing the third floor, the wind that was pulling them down gradually became less fierce until they came to a stop at the fourth hole that they had seen.
"This is the fourth floor and home to the Mission Collection Room. It might be smaller than the first floor, but for immortal cultivators and immortals, this floor is vastly more important." After arriving at the fourth floor, Immortal Scotty cracked his shoulders before dismounting Immortal Patty''s sword.
Chapter 283 283: Fighting For One Sect Point
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The Mission Collection room took up the entire fourth floor. It was only wide and long enough to fit around 1000 people at a time, yet it was hardly at its full capacity. When they arrived, the entire floor only had ten people inside the room.
Four of them are behind counters with a giant board of missions, alongside their star difficulty, a brief description, and rewards. As for the remaining six people, they were a group of young men and women fiercely arguing about the division of their mission rewards.
"Le, don''t make me your enemy! I will make your life a living hell! This reward is mine since I took on the mission!"
Just as Yoze and everyone stepped out of the giant pir and made their way to the counters. They saw a blue-haired and blue-eyed young man in histe teens screaming at a red-haired young woman.
The young man frowned deeply as he purposely lifted his sleeves before crossing his arms to show the twin dragon tattoos on his arm. Noticing the prideful look in the young man''s eyes, Yoze checked to see the reaction of the immortals beside him and saw that they couldn''t care less about the immortal cultivators arguing about their share of the rewards.
Since several counters were avable, they just walked up to an open counter and were about to get their reward. But when the blue-haired young man noticed the immortals, his face changed.
"Who gives a rat''s ass if you took on the mission? My brother did all the work, so we should get the reward! Since my brother is so nice, he wanted to split the one Sect Point we got."
"You are not only ungrateful, but you are even threatening me and my brother! Hmph, you better watch your words carefully, or you might find yourself wishing to have written a will."
The young woman who the young man screamed at seemed to have not noticed the shock on his face and continued to shout and curse him for his greed. If it wasn''t for the fact that another young man was desperately holding her back from mauling the blue-haired young man, she would have torn his face off.
With her body restrained and angered by her brother''s steed, she reached down to grab her slipper from her feet and wanted to p it over the young man''s head.
"Sister, stop. Let them take the reward this time. It''s just a single Sect Point. We can always get another one." Just as the Le''s slipper was about to p the shocked blue-haired young man''s face, a thin hand grabbed her wrist.
The young man restraining his sister quickly reacted to his sister''s attack and grabbed her wrist before itnded. Noticing that the man seemed to be one of the main actors in this situation, Yoze paid more attention to the young man.
The young man looked to be in his early twenties, but his thin stature,ck of muscles, and the stunning long robe that touched the floor allowed him to give off a younger feeling. Even though the young man wanted to ease the tension within their group, it was easy to tell from his muttering that he wasn''t happy and was lying to his sister.
Instead of cooling his raging sister, her eyes began twitching as she gripped her slipper harder before leaning to grab herst slipper from her feet. Before the young man could react to his sister''s ferocious attack, her slipper pped the blue-haired young man''s head.
"p!"
The loud p of the slipper hitting flesh shattered the remaining peaceful atmosphere the Mission Collection room had as all the sect employees looked over at the arguing group with interest. Watching all this happen, Immortal Scotty frowned deeply as he saw the sect employee grabbing his reward suddenly stop.
It was clear from her trembling hands and pale face that she was frightened by the fight that seemed on the verge of happening. Even though she was a sect employee, she was only a simple mortal.
She didn''t even practice martial arts to strengthen herself, so she waspletely defenseless if a fight happened. Just the mere gusts of wind from the fight could end her life, so it was no wonder she became too frightened to move.
"You have done it now; you''re going to pay for the consequences of your actions! Restrain them before the guardse over!"I think you should take a look at
Snapping out of his shock, the blue-haired young man touched his head to find that the area had be swollen to the point that it was the size of an apple. Feeling a sharp pain from a slight touch to his swollen head, the blue-haired young man shouted in anger for the three remaining people in their group to restrain Le and her brother.
"So annoying. Yoze, deal with that rowdy group of immortal cultivators and kick them out of the fourth floor. If you must, crush their bones and organs until they cooperate." Unable to take it any longer, Immortal Scotty calmly gave Yoze an order knowing full well that he would take care of it.
"Very weird. Why are these people arguing over one Sect Point? Is there anything you can buy with that?"
"Also, there are so many missions that offer way more Sect Points. Why is greed taking over?" Yoze shook his head as he felt that he might have undervalued the importance of Sect Points after seeing this fierce disy.
But he wasn''t in the mood to find out who was in the wrong or who was right with this group of people. He was given the order to kick them out of the fourth floor, not to kill or injure them.
From the fact that a real fight was about to break out, Yoze knew from the sect rules he learned on his way here that powerful guards would be sent to deal with the troublemakers. But since he could use this opportunity to get on Immortal Scotty''s good side as well as improve his rtionship with Immortal Patty and Immortal Miessy, he would take it.
Without saying a word, he manipted his blood into a thick before throwing it at all six people. Before they could react to Immortal Scotty''s surprising orders, they all were trapped inside Yoze''s blood.
"What the hell! Let me go, me and my brother are not in the wrong! Damn, why is this so heavy?" Le screamed with frustration in her voice before it quickly turned into shock.
She tried her best to rip apart Yoze''s blood but struggled to find enough strength to move her body due to the weight of the. Even when she found herself capable of gathering enough strength to attempt to rip the with her hands, she found it to be extremely durable and slightly stretchy.
With all her strength absorbed into the, she and the remaining five people found that the more they struggled, the tighter Yoze''s blood became. By the end of it, they were so squished together and the so tight that they feared that if they moved slightly, it would cut through their skin and flesh.
"Please let me go; we need the Sect Point to cure my brother''s sickness."
Knowing she couldn''t use brute force to escape, Le stopped her fruitless struggle and tried to plead with Yoze. She knew there was a real possibility that she could lose this mission''s rewards for causing chaos.
With everything she and her brother had gone through to acquire this Sect Point, she was near her breaking point. If it wasn''t for the fact that they had picked greedy and shameless teammates this time, she wouldn''t have caused her brother to suffer.
Even though Yoze could tell from Le''s expression that she was sincere, he simply shook his head and threw them into the pir. He knew that even if he didn''t take the initiative to throw them out, the guards that were about to arrive would.
The moment all six people entered the pir, Yoze retrieved his blood and watched them be forcefully lifted to the higher-level floors. As for what happened to them after they reached their destination, he didn''t think about it and shifted his attention back to collecting his Sect Points.
"I wonder how many Sect Points I am going to get from beating two people. It must be higher than one, right?" As Yoze walked back to Alosa''s side, he couldn''t help but worry that he had drastically overestimated how many Sect Points he would get.
After seeing that a group of six people tried to share a single sect point, the possibility that Sect Points could be divided and earned in fractions made Yoze feel that his two fights could have been all for a small fraction of a Sect Point.
"If I earn less than a single Sect Point, I am going to have to re-evaluate if showing so much of my strength and risk exposing myself was worth it."
Chapter 284 284: Earned So Little
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Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Yoze returned to Alosa''s side and followed Immortal Patty and Immortal Miessy to their counters. After dealing with the previous group, all of the sect employees visibly rxed as theyfortably asked their questions.
"Hi, how can I help you today?"
"We havepleted the rogue immortal cultivator recruitment mission and would like to collect our reward." Immortal Patty said quickly, trying not to waste any more of his time.
"Of course, the rogue immortal cultivator recruitment mission has a reward of ten Sect Points. Three Sect points have already been taken out by Immortal Scotty, lowering the amount to seven. How many would you like to take out?" The young man behind the counter closed his eyes as he easily spurted out the mission rewards.
Even without looking behind him or looking for more details, the young sect employee seemed to know everything like the back of his hand. Used to this disy, immortal Patty and Immortal Miessy each withdrew three Sect Points for themselves.
With one Sect Point left, Immortal Patty nced at Immortal Scotty, who was ready to spend thest Sect Point. He then looked at Immortal Miessy, who also had eyes for thest Sect Point, and knew that this was a perfect opportunity to get a bit of a favor from Immortal Miessy.
"Withdraw 0.33 Sect Points for me, 0.33 Sect Points for Scotty, and 0.34 Sect Points for Immortal Miessy. Immortal Miessy, don''t be afraid of taking the extra 0.01 Sect Point."
"We all understand the immense value of these Sect Points, yet you deserve it. If it wasn''t for your crucial help at thest minute against the Tree Ancestor, we would have been in a tougher position, so take it."
"In any case, if Immortal Welse hadn''t suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth just as we were about to begin the mission, we would have had an easier time as well. But he did disappear and has offered any assistance after his disappearance, meaning that your additional help was extremely valuable." Before Immortal Miessy could reject the additional Sect Point, Immortal Patty immediately gave her a good enough excuse.
"Well, in that case, I''ll take it. And before we forget, we need to give the Sect the blood core before we arebeled as traitors." Seeing that Immortal Patty had given her a good excuse and Immortal Scotty gave her a silent nod of approval, Immortal Miessy dly took it.
After agreeing to take the additional points, she summoned her star map and took out a ten feet-wide blood ball. The blood ball pulsed with life as it struggled to reform its body and return to life.
"Thank you for giving the Sect the second part of the mission so quickly. It should be taken away at any minute now." The young sect employee''s eyes became stern as he took a deep breath and watched the blood ball carefully.
After confirming that the blood ball was the correct mission requirement, the young sect employee sighed with relief and pped the corner of the counter with his hand. Before the young sect employee could finish the p, a blood ball began to sink into the floor.
Just as the young man''s hand touched the counter, the blood ball had beenpletely absorbed into the floor. Yet, not a single person showed any kind of concern for this development and treated everything like it was supposed to happen.
"Is there anything else you would like to do today?"
After marking the missionpleted and the rewards being distributed, the young man asked if there was anything else he could help them with.
"We have earned Sect Points from the tournament. How much do each of us have?" Immortal Patty asked casually.I think you should take a look at
"Of course, let me take a quick look. Hmmm, it seems that you have gained an additional 0.2 Sect points. This is the same for Immortal Miessy, Immortal Scotty, and the young man named Yoze."
"So little! All my hard work earned me less than Immortal Patty''s mission scraps." Yoze thought to himself.
"As for the youngdy, she has a total of 0.00 Sect points. There is no need to withdraw any of the Sect Points since they have automatically been added to your Sect Marks."
"Unfortunately, Yoze, since you have just joined the Sect and haven''t been tattooed with the Sect''s mark, your points haven''t been transferred yet. I rmend that you go to the first floor and acquire the tattoo, which will cause the points to automatically be transferred oncepleted."
"Alosa, I also rmend that you acquire the Sect''s Mark as soon as possible. Since it will allow you to begin taking sect missions and acts as an identifier to reach the lower floors." After telling Immortal Patty the details, the young employee turned to face Yoze and Alosa and gave them some advice.
"Understood. May I ask where exactly Iget the Sect Mark? The first floor seems massive. Is there a shop or building that can do it?" Yoze asked.
"Hmmm, there is no building or shop. Nor is there a location that you can specifically go to get the Tattoo Mark."
"Just ask the mortals on the first floor if they have some spare time to tattoo the Sect Mark on you. The majority of them have been living in the Sect for numerous generations and have learned a lot of valuable skills."
"Such as the art of Tattooing, so they should have no problem with making the Sect Mark. It''s only a mortal tattoo, after all." The young sect employee ced his hand on his chin to show he was thinking before giving his answer to Yoze.
"Thank you for the assistance."
"No problem. Anything else?"
"Actually, can I ask why the number of Sect Points that Yoze earned from his fights was so low? If you don''t know the answer, that is fine." Alosa stepped up and asked her own question.
"That is because Sect Points are extremely valuable. Even though the missions you see above my head have more than ten Sect points as rewards, they are extremely hard and dangerous toplete."
"Most missions are adjusted to the capabilities of immortals and demons. So normally, a one Sect Point mission might be killing a newborn demon that was discovered."
"Don''t misjudge and feel this is easy. Even though it is a newborn demon, its strength grows exponentially. In a few months, it can kill most immortal cultivators. Not only do the immortal cultivators that ept this mission have to be strong, but they also have to find the demon quickly before it bes too strong."
"This kind of mission isn''t something most immortal cultivators can do even if they team up. And that is only a one-star mission, so you can imagine how difficult it will be for missions that are high stars." The young employee exined.
Chapter 285 285: 0.1 Sect Points In Debt
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"I see, so are one-star missions the limit of what immortal cultivators are capable of aplishing? Any above one star is something that only immortals can do." Alosa asked.
"Pretty much, but as I said before, even one-star missions are very difficult toplete for immortal cultivators unless they are powerful and lucky. The group that arrived before you was one of the lucky few that were able to find a very easy one-star mission."
"They only needed to eradicate a few martial art sects from a region nearby. It took them about two years toplete, but it was worth it for them. I hope you don''t mind if I tell you this, but the young gentleman behind you is probably in the 0.001 percent of immortal cultivators that canplete a one-star mission on their own."
"I saw your battles, and I have to say that I was enthralled. Your passion for martial arts is amazing, and even though your immortal cultivation is a bit behind, you had made me, and my wife, cheering for you to win." The young employee said with a blush on his face from embarrassment.
"Thank you for cheering me on. I apologize for disappointing you." Yoze said with surprise in his voice.
"How is the news of my battle spreading this fast? I was certain that all the spectators were immortal cultivators. They might have either live-streamed it or recorded the battle."Yoze thought to himself.
"Not at all. No need to apologize; I am sure that in a few years, you will be much stronger than you are now."
"Anyways, I mentioned that to say that normally immortal cultivators will take one-star missions as a group of five or higher. With at least two immortal cultivators having reached the Crystal Brain realm."
"So as soon as you two get your Sect Marks, you will be very popr. Especially Yoze since it might be possible for you toplete a 1.5-star mission with arge enough group to help you out." The young employee waved his hands wildly as he dismissed Yoze''s apology.
"Can I ask how much it will cost to bring some people inside the headquarters?" Yoze asked.
"It depends on the number of people and how powerful they are. To invite one mortal, it costs about 0.1 Sect Point. I know that is very expensive, but this is to discourage people from bringing their entire family lines inside."
"For rogue immortal cultivators, it costs about 0.2 Sect Points per person. Once again, it''s to discourage the practice. Since they can cultivate, they take a bit of the limited resources the Sect has to offer."
"As for other immortal cultivators from other Immortal Sects, that is strictly forbidden. No matter how much you are willing to pay, they are not allowed in without special permission." As the young employee mentioned other immortal cultivators, his face shifted to be extremely strict as he lowered his voice.
The moment his voice deepened, Yoze suddenly felt a heavy pressure m onto his shoulders before quickly vanishing like smoke. Even though the pressurested only an instant, Yoze couldn''t help but frown as he knew that was a warning.I think you should take a look at
"The Sect takes this particr rule very seriously. Even though I don''t n on bringing in an immortal cultivator, it''s good to find out early."
"Right now, I should look around to see what I can buy with 0.2 Sect Points. If I can buy something good, I''ll buy it. If not, I should bring Tiki back with me to help her get stronger." Yoze thought to himself as he waited for the young employee to finish his information.
"I know you didn''t ask this but bringing in a pet costs about 0.1 Sect points, and if it causes trouble, you will be fined. Once your Sect Points are negative, you will be killed, or something much worse will happen, so be careful."
"Wait, I brought my pet Wasp with me to the Sect. Do I need to pay to keep her?" Yoze asked since he didn''t realize this would have been a problem.
If he hadn''t fought in the tournament just now, he would have instantly been brought to the negatives and would have had to flee.
"It''s okay, Immortal Miessy has already paid in your stead." The young employee said clearly.
Yoze already knew that he had gotten in debt with Immortal Miessy without saying another word and felt a bit unhappy that he owed someone so soon. He wanted topletely go his route once he reached the Sect and not be influenced by the Immortals.
But he knew that was no longer possible until he paid her back. He also couldn''t just give Immortal Miessy the Sect Point back since she had done so under the impression that she wouldn''t get paid back for many years.
She didn''t have any knowledge that there was going to be a tournament between the two sects and that he was so strong that he defeated two powerful immortal cultivators. All she knew at the time was that he was the most talented rogue immortal cultivator out of their group and hadn''t even entered the Nerve umtion realm.
If these two scenarios didn''t happen and Yoze was as weak as Immortal Miessy had predicted. He would not have been able to repay her for at least a decade or two. Not only that, she would have saved his life in the immensely valuable process.
Of course, she could have informed him that he couldn''t bring Lily the Wasp Monster along with him, but that would have caused him to be immensely disappointed. Having to wait for a decade before being able to bring his pet inside the Sect would have cost him a lot of stress and might have slowed down his progress due to trying all sorts of ways to bring Lily in.
So in Yoze''s mind, he not only owed her at least ten times the amount of Sect Points he had spent, but he needed to do something for her. Only that way would he feel that he hadpletely repaid the debt and be able topletely cut his ties with her.
Chapter 286 286: Unbreakable Spiked Shield
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"Immortal Miessy is already roping me into her own circle. I might not be the person to fully appreciate the favor, but I am not someone who stabs their benefactors in the back."
"On the other hand, being debited to Immortal Miessy might be better than owing a favor to either Immortal Patty or Immortal Scotty. At least I can avoid the chance of getting into a conflict between the two of them."
"Also, having her presence as a nket to protect me from the malicious thoughts of other immortals should allow me more freedom to do whatever I want. I can use her as an excuse to exin my rapid growth and have her be a barrier to stopping investigations about me stealing treasures." The moment Yoze found out he owed Immortal Miessy a heavy favor, his mind raced to figure out how this would impact him.
In less than a blink of an eye, he came up with the thought that it wasn''t too bad. It wouldn''t affect his ns too much and would give some extra protection at the cost of working for Immortal Miessy for a bit of time.
He also noticed that as soon as the young employee mentioned that Immortal Miessy paid for Lily the Wasp Monster, both Immortal Patty''s and Immortal Scotty''s faces deeply frowned before returning to normal. At the same time, Immortal Miessy had a subtle smile on her face, which she kept on to allow Yoze and Alosa to see.
Without having to think much, Yoze and Alosa knew that they had just witnessed one of the uncountablepetitions between immortals. With Immortal Patty and Immortal Scotty in a deep feud, they both wanted to gain Yoze as a valuable ally.
With his talent and his crazy battle prowess, Yoze would have given them a leg up. This was especially important for Immortal Scotty since he was still very far behind Immortal Patty.
Being enemies with Immortal Patty, who hadpleted his Immortal Tattoos and had chosen the path of a Plot Immortal, meant he would always be drastically weaker. For Immortal Scotty, he needed to use everything he could to defeat his enemy.
If he didn''t, he would have to worry for the rest of his life that Immortal Patty doesn''t discover the location of his True Body. Once discovered, he would instantly be a dead man without any way to stop Immortal Patty from killing him.
If he had gotten Yoze''s loyalty, he would have gotten a powerful immortal cultivator, which could have caused immense trouble to Immortal Patty''s underlings. With his underlings in crisis and having trouble collecting resources for him, Immortal Patty would find his progress slow down, and with enough time, Immortal Scotty was sure he could catch up.
"It feels good to win something over these two. I might not be as powerful as Immortal Patty or have the incredible connections that Immortal Scotty has, but I can hold my own."
"I must be able to if I don''t want to be dragged into the whirlpool of chaos that these two will cause each other. With Yoze and Alosa on my side, I can be more rxed."I think you should take a look at
"They shouldn''t want to risk causing me any trouble in case I have Yoze take care of all their manpower. With Yoze''s strength, he should be able to repay the immense debt with plenty of resources to spare to support his ascension to immortality."
"By then, I will have an extremely powerful immortal helping me. Oh, I am excited; given his level of power now, he might be stronger than I am the moment he bes immortal." Missy thought to herself as she immediately noticed that Immortal Patty''s and Immortal Scotty''s attitudes toward her became colder.
She knew that the two of them wanted her to be a pawn in their game and wanted nothing more than not to be a part of it. She had always known that she had too many enemies to deal with and couldn''t afford them to start joining sides with either Immortal Patty or Immortal Scotty.
With that, she would have gained another immortal enemy without gaining anything. As long as she remained neutral, she wouldn''t gain an additional enemy since they wouldn''t want to force her to join the other side.
Having nned all this and being able to react fast enough to im Yoze allowed her to have some breathing room. With this extra time, all she needed to do was improve her rtionship with Yoze and Alosa until they became her permanent ally.
Alosa was easy in her mind, but she struggled to devise a n to lure in Yoze and ran into trouble immediately. During the journey to the headquarters, she wanted to at least make some grounds for their future rtionship, but he was like a steel wall.
All her attempts would bounce off of him and not make any progress. Obviously, he didn''t want to have a deep rtionship with immortals since he valued himself highly.
With his strength and talent, his chances of bing immortal were high. As long as he didn''t make an enemy with an immortal, he was guaranteed to break through the Crystal Brain realm and be immortal.
With her foot through the door, Immortal Miessy knew that she would have to work hard to drag Yoze into her circle of close allies, but once she did, it would be worth the effort. What Immortal Miessy didn''t know was that she had already hit the jackpot and gained a nearly unbreakable spiked shield that would protect her life numerous times.
Even if she didn''t manage to lure him into her inner circles, Yoze had already decided to repay her immensely. Since he was already much stronger than Immortal Miessy, he didn''t worry about her enemies.
If Immortal Miessy''s enemies couldn''t kill her without his protection, then they definitely would not be able to be with him around. After convincing himself that the benefits outweighed the costs, Yoze almost wanted to hunt down Immortal Miessy enemies to devour their hundreds of years of spiritual energy and collect some treasures.
Chapter 287 287: Three Bases
At the bottom of the massive marble pir, dozens of immortal cultivators and immortals entered and exited the holes. Some formed small groups ofrades as they returned from the difficult missions with sess and were ready to go on a spending spree with their Sect Points.
Others looked around their surroundings cautiously as they ensured they were not being tracked by their enemies. Regardless of their purpose of traveling to the pir, each one threw a curious nce at a trio who had just returned from the fourth floor.
There was, interestingly, an Immortal who was the leader of their group and had her arms covered in beautiful star-shaped immortal tattoos. She had a calm look on her face as she subtly sent a warning to all the immortals who dared to try and steal her future allies.
Next to her was an odd middle-aged woman dressed in a tidy yellow suit. Even though she looked middle-aged, many passersby understood that she was very likely to be older, but they found it odd that she would choose that appearance.
It was already known that the stronger immortal cultivators became and the higher their realm, the more control they would have over their bodies. This was especially the case when it came to their flesh and muscles since they didn''t have to worry about identally killing themselves if they did anything wrong.
So it was quite easy for immortal Cultivators who had reached the Crystal Skull realm and the Crystal Brain realm to make themselves appear younger. While it was rare, some people took this level of control to the extreme and made themselves look like children.
Even though most immortal cultivators would never take it that far since there was no advantage to doing so, most of them still wanted to retain their peak physique, which was in their twenties. But other than her colorful suit and odd choice of appearance, she didn''t attract many looks.
Most immortal cultivators and immortals were interested in the mini giant human standing behind them. Standing around 8 feet tall and having a powerful body, he was able to give them pressure by simply not moving.
If it wasn''t for the fact that they had seen videos about this mini-giant fighting and acting like a human being, they would have been under the impression that he was an experiment from an immortal. An experiment that tested the limits of the human body and how powerful it could be if pushed to its natural limit and beyond.
To be honest, many of the immortals who saw the mini-giant in person felt this mouth drool as they felt inspired. If they could have a much more powerful body, they could imagine themselves being able to kill demons with their fists.
Unfortunately, most of them abandoned this inspiration because they had abandoned the art of body modification for their paths. Other than some basic applications, most immortals never wanted to take this path further and didn''t want to take the time to do so.
The main reason was body modification was the same as cing all their eggs in one basket. It would be great if they kept it, but once the basket was destroyed or stolen, they would have to restart in a worse position than they started.I think you should take a look at
With 70 percent of immortals choosing to be Living Immortals and taking their True Bodies out of their original bodies, they already had the mentality that their bodies were disposable. Only Plot Immortals who had chosen to keep their True Bodies would take into consideration modifying their bodies to be ungodly powerful.
As Immortal Miessy, Alosa, and Yoze returned to the first floor, they watched as Immortal Patty and Immortal Scotty quickly faded into the distance. After being snubbed by Immortal Miessy, the two of them were no longer in the mood to continue the tour. So they shut down all of Yoze and Alosa''s opportunities to continue asking questions and sent them back to the first floor.
As soon as Immortal Patty''s and Immortal Scotty''s shadows disappeared into the horizon, Immortal Miessy turned around to face Yoze and Alosa. She didn''t think she would have gained so much attention and interest when she first nned on luring Yoze to her side.
"Yoze, Alosa, I know that you two have many questions, but I need to go and check out the situation at my home. I have been gone too long."
"Here is the location of my building and the password to get past the firstyer of security. After which, just inform the guards that you want to see me, and I''ll see if I can spare some time to answer your questions." Even though Immortal Miessy wanted to continue engraving her presence into Yoze''s and Alosa''s minds, she knew she had to leave immediately.
"Immortal Miessy, don''t worry me, and Yoze deeply appreciate all the help you have given us. If we do need your help, we will definitely visit."
"Before we forget, once we find a ce to stay, I will visit you to give you the information. That way, if you have a small task that you would like us to take care of for you, you can easily find us." Alosa responded after receiving a light piece of paper with a detailed map.
Even though she had spoken for Yoze, he didn''t mind since he nned to let Immortal Miessy know one of the locations he nned to stay. In such dangerous territory, he wanted to be a rabbit with at least three separate bases so that he could take refuge in case of trouble.
One of them is the one he would allow immortals, such as the immortal Miessy, to know the location. As for the remaining two bases, they would be where he would stay most of the time.
Only asionally traveling to the main base to see if there was anything he needed to do to repay the favor he owed Immortal Miessy or anything else he felt would be worth knowing.
Chapter 288 288: Forming A Team
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Nodding her head to ept Alosa''s promise, Immortal Miessy transformed into a cloud of stars before flying toward the south. With Immortal Miessy gone, the number of immortal cultivators and immortals interested in Yoze and Alosa decreased until they were the only ones near the pir.
Now that they were alone and were out of the observation of the immortals, Alosa breathed out a sigh of relief as she turned toward Yoze with curiosity. Noticing that he had returned to his original height, she felt slightly disappointed since she felt even more tiny.
"I haven''t known you for very long, but I''m beginning to feel that you are some guardian of mine. My luck has been great ever since I met you."
"I''m just kidding, but I did want to chat with you about teaming up to kill the two wise brothers. I have already gotten Leo and Yamgo on board, so with you, the whole team will be assembled." Alosa chuckled to herself before continuing.
"I don''t know if you are familiar with the two wise men of the south, but let me tell you that they are evil. They caused viges to be destroyed and people to starve simply to take over gold mines and use the profits to buy crystals to assist with their immortal cultivation."
"They are responsible for the deaths of numerous immortal cultivators in the third trial. There is so much more I can tell you about their history, but it would take too long."
As Alosa exined the background of the two wise men, she noticed that her tales were not moving Yoze''s heart. Even though it might sound cruel, Yoze wasn''t interested in hearing about the two brothers'' past or whether they were evil.
What he cared about was whether they would potentially cause trouble for him in the future or if there were any benefits to teaming up with Alosa to kill them. At the end of the day, Yoze didn''t consider the two brothers much of a threat since they were too weak.
They might have been able to cause a storm in the outside world, where rogue immortal cultivators were considered extremely powerful. Inside the Immortal Pce Sect, they were almost below average. Trying to plot against other more powerful and intelligent immortal cultivators and immortals would only elerate their own deaths faster.
"If these two brothers dare to try anything against me, I can devour their spiritual energy instantly. They would be dead before they could even blink."
"So the most important thing for Alosa is to convince me that working together to kill them is in my best interest." Yoze thought to himself as he listened to Alosa''s speech.
Seemingly hearing Yoze''s internal dialog, Alosa lightly coughed before switching up her pace.
"Even though they are sneaky and evil, I believe that they are a threat to our entire group. With them gone, it will not only lower the amount ofpetition, but it will also allow better cooperation when ites to getting resources in the Sect." Noticing that she had piqued Yoze''s interest, Alosa continued.
"These two brothers are already eyeing monopolizing all the resources by trying to make themselves the leader of our group. As long as one of them gains that position, all immortals and immortal cultivators who have established themselves will enter talks with them and give them the benefits."I think you should take a look at
"So I want our first action to be establishing a leader before killing the two brothers on the spot. The earlier we kill them, the less trouble they will cause us, and we can avoid the situation where we have to worry about their revenge."
"This is quite a lot of information, and I know that you probably want to chat with the others about this beforeing to a decision. I just wanted to let you know that we three have already nned to take action in a week or two."
"Having you on our side will guarantee their deaths and make the cleanup work much easier. If you are not interested at the moment, that is fine too. We will still take action." Alosa said calmly.
After Alosa finished her speech, Yoze merely stared at the sky and contemted whether it was worth the trouble. A few secondster, he looked at Alosa and asked a question that had been bothering him.
"When did you five decide to form a team and elect a leader? I haven''t heard anyone mention this during the trip here."
"Oh, that''s right. I forgot to tell you that we made this decision right after the third trial ended. With only five of us at the time, we came to a quick decision that we should work together as a group to get a better footprint in the Sect." Alosa said with an embarrassed tone as she lightly pped her forehead to y up her forgetfulness.
Hearing that he was left out of the decision, Yoze couldn''t help but shake his head in disappointment. He could tell that Alosa didn''t forget to inform him about forming this group. Instead, all five of them hade to an understanding that they would not include him.
He could even guess the reason for their decision; it was simply because they didn''t think he was strong enough to be useful to their group at the time. Having limited information, they had guessed that he was only a strong martial artist and was a weak immortal cultivator.
In their view, this was the same as being weak and useless. With such a lower realm in immortal cultivation, they thought he would be a blood-sucking parasite at best or a tool for the other rogue immortal cultivators to extract more benefits.
It was only recently that they knew they had made a mistake in excluding him. And if they included him in their team, they would develop a much stronger and stable foundation in the Sect.
"I''m fine with being a part of the team, but I don''t want to be bound by anything. As for helping you kill the two brothers, I am not interested."
"I hope that you can understand my decision." Yoze calmly said to Alosa''s disappointment.
Chapter 289 289: Spiritual Infulence
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"I see. Is there nothing that I can do to change your mind? If I gather Leo and Yamgo, we might be able to decide to hire you for your work. How does giving you 0.5 Sect Points sound?" Alosa asked.
"No need to go through all the trouble; I am not for hire. In any case, how long will it take you three to earn those Sect Points to repay me for my services."
"A year, two years, a decade, or maybe when I join your team, I will simply forget about the debt that you three owe me. Alosa, I am willing to work with you and form a partnership."
"As for Leo and Yamgo, they haven''t shown me anything but disregard. Working with you can give me benefits and even open up some opportunities for me. But Leo and Yamgo?" Yoze shook his head with disdain.
"They are simply too weak. They have nothing they can do for me that you can do alone. In any case, why don''t you form a team with me instead, one separate from our original group."
"I''ll treat you much better, and you will actually have someone who can back me up when times get tricky. There will be no need to be so cautious with me by your side." As Yoze tried to convince Alosa, he stirred his Three-Headed Fox spiritual energy.
The instant he allowed his Three-Headed Fox spiritual energy to leave him, a bizarre aura suddenly appeared around Yoze. In Alosa''s eyes, she was no longer looking at a human but a giant three-headed demon with a sinister grin on its face.
Even though its appearance was horrid and her heart, body, and soul froze from fright, she felt deeply attracted to listening to every word. His words began to bury deep inside her mind and start to make her doubt her original decision of forming a group with the rogue immortal cultivators.
"Yoze is right. I might not need Leo and Yamgo at all. With him acting as my guardian, I can act like myself for the first time in decades. I can be free to be myself."
"No, he isn''t right. I need to get a grip on my mind. He might be strong, but he isn''t the strongest. There are plenty of people who can defeat him."
"He isn''t invincible. The Ten Kings of the Immortal Pce Sect and all the immortals who control the Sect. If I begin to disregard all of them, I will definitely die and possibly lose the value that Yoze cares about."
As Alosa was undergoing a war in her mind, Yoze stared at her curiously. He could tell that his words had influenced her deeply. More than they possibly should have since he had not only used his Three-Headed Fox demon spiritual energy, but the talents that he gained from the Flower Lord were beginning to show their power.
Even though he wasn''t trying to convert her spiritual energy, the moment his Three-Headed Fox demon spiritual energy licked her spiritual energy that was a brown chest, it started to convert it to the same type. Yoze didn''t fully understand what would happen when he changed Alosa''s type of spiritual energy.
Would she experience a dramatic personality change? Would she be a part of his pool of spiritual energy but remain separate? Maybe she would die instantly?
He didn''t know, but he wasn''t afraid to try and test it. He had always wanted to use his spiritual energy to influence people''s minds ever since he had identally scrambled Zeak''s mind.
With him only doing this on ident, he was able to convince Zeak that he was some type of trustworthy big brother figure. Unfortunately, it seemed that his influence back then was either not very deep and, with time, lost its effect or could be broken easily by outside forces.
This time he wanted to do it intentionally and use his newfound talents to bury himself so deep in Alosa''s mind that he wouldn''t have to worry about her betraying him.I think you should take a look at
"Even if this doesn''t work, I can always try again and again until it does. On the bright side, the more attempts I take, the better I will be until I finally seed." Yoze thought to himself.
Suddenly he noticed that the Three-Headed demon''s spiritual energy had converted two percent of Alosa''s spiritual energy. Meanwhile, the pressure from the spiritual energy prated her defense.
Striking while the iron was hot, he immediately gave her the final push to fully join his personal force.
"Don''t worry. I won''t force you into anything you don''t want to do. I am going to be your teammate, not your boss. I am only going to help expand your freedom to do anything you want, not restrict it."
"So what do you say? Are you interested, at least?"
After a bit of silence, Alosa seemed to have resolved her doubts and looked at Yoze with determination.
"As long as you promise that you treat me like a teammate and protect me against all my enemies, I am willing to join."
Seeing Alosa putting up a tough exterior and making her demands known, Yoze smiled as he felt a bit proud of himself. Even though Alosa''s mental defense was stronger than Zeak''s,pared to the progress he had made since then, it was nothing.
Even if he said no to her requests, he predicted he would still be able to get her to join his team. But he wasn''t interested in that; he had only done this as an experiment to see if he could replicate what he had done with Zeak.
From the results, he felt that everything was almost perfect, she didn''t mentally copse, nor did her personality change much. She only felt that he would be a much better teammate than Leo and Yamgo and was willing to abandon them.
"That is fine with me. I never wanted to be your boss; I just wanted to have a useful teammate that I could trust with my life."
"So I will never restrict your freedom, nor will I make you do anything you don''t want to do. As long as you continue to support me and act with my interests in your heart, that is enough for me." Yoze withdrew his Three-Headed demon spiritual energy and went to shake her hand.
After being relieved from the immense pressure of having a small part of Yoze''s spiritual energy on top of her, Alosa looked at Yoze''s extended hand with curiosity. She had no idea what he wanted to do and asked him.
"Why are you extending your hand?"
"Nevermind, this was a custom from where I came from, which means that we both reached an agreement. But since you don''t know about it, we don''t have to do it." Realizing that he still hadn''t grown out of some of his old habits, Yoze withdrew his hand.
"Where is Jewel from? How does she know what a handshake means?" Suddenly recalling his interactions with Jewel, Yoze realized something interesting.
Chapter 290 290: Earning Two Crystal Grapes
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Having been together with Jewel for so long, he had forgotten that he had never asked for background. He had known only a few basic information that she had mentioned to him but nothing more.
Whether the region she was originally from or who her parents were, he had never bothered to ask. However, he had done some basic research on the surrounding regions to increase his pool of knowledge.
From his understanding, only three regions surrounded the Grave region. The first was the region Yoze entered this world, and his family was from the Jade Region. The next region was the Depths region, blocked by the Endless Forest and another Grandline known as the Bottomless Swamp.
Thest region, the Giant region, was blocked by the Devil''s Valley grand line. Even though these regions were close by and had some passages that allowed for travel between them, they still developed some differences.
However, after his research, he noticed that none of the regions had a handshake as one of their customs. Instead, they had different versions of the handshake or none at all.
"When I get back, I should ask Jewel for more details about her background. Even though it won''t change anything, it will be easier for me to see how far she traveled and can spare me some time from researching the regions she has already visited or has a depth of knowledge about." Yoze thought to himself before returning his attention to Alosa.
"Oh, I see. I''m from the Jade region, and we don''t have such a custom. It makes sense for you toe from a different region since there is no way the Grave region can give birth to someone like you." Alosa said casually, unaware that she was born in the same region as Yoze.
Having be Yoze''s sole teammate at the moment, Alosa felt at ease. She hadn''t felt so rxed for many years and felt that her decision to join Yoze''s team was correct.
"Yoze, do you think I should not attend the meeting? If I don''t go, the chances that Leo and Yamgo sessfully kill the two brothers will be zero."
"I would prefer if I could kill them since it is not only for the benefits, but it''s also for a personal grudge of mine. But like I said before, there isn''t a high chance of sess if you aren''t there to assist." Alosa said as a glint of killing intent shed across her eyes.
"What are you three nning on doing with their Crystal Grapes after you kill them?" Yoze asked with interest in his voice.
He had been hoping to find some time to try and rob Immortal Patty of the crystal grape to elerate his immortal cultivation. Unfortunately, he hadn''t seen Immortal Patty pass down the Crystal Grape to anyone throughout the entire trip.
In Yoze''s mind, there was only one Crustal Grape since he had some difficulty feeling that such a magical treasure that could boost his immortal cultivation was somon. But after experiencing the Immortal Pce Sect Headquarters, he felt his previous thoughts were wrong.
It would be strange if such a powerful Sect only had one crystal that had to be shared by multiple people. Not only that, the Crystal Grape itself didn''t have endless crystal energy, so it would eventually run out.
If it wasn''t rechargeable, the only solution would be that the Immortal Pce Sect had multiple simr treasures with simr functions. The chances of those treasures being more Crystal Grapes are very high.
"We initially decided to postpone that decision until we seeded. There was no point in spending all that time trying to figure out what to do with them if we couldn''t kill them."I think you should take a look at
"If I had to say, we most likely would have sold them or used them to foster loyal allies," Alosa said after a while.
"In my opinion, you don''t need to attend the meeting. It doesn''t have much use unless you still n on forming a group with them. As for the two brothers, I can kill them for you as long as you allow me to have their Crystal Grapes." Yoze said after some serious thought.
"That sounds amazing, but I would like to have all their possessions as well as their corpses," Alosa smiled as she couldn''t help but feel a little excited about the two brothers'' deaths.
"Deal!"
Even though Yoze wasn''t sure why Alosa was interested in having the two brothers'' bodies, he wasn''t interested in finding out. All he cared about was getting those Crystal Grapes and using them to boost his and Tiki''s immortal cultivation realms.
He was even a bit tempted to steal Leo and Yamgo''s Crystal Grapes as well. But he decided against it since it was going too far.
Even though the two brothers'' evil history wasn''t enough to make him go out of his way to kill them, it helped solidify his decision to kill them to help out a teammate and get two valuable treasures. As for Leo and Yamgo, he didn''t have many opinions about them and could sense that Alosa still wanted to form a connection with them.
He had wanted Alosa to be his teammate because she was so good at forming connections with others. That way, he could focus on developing himself and not have to worry about forming connections himself to get more resources in the Sect.
He instead would leave that up to Alosa and allow himself to act as her backing. While she developed the connections and became more involved with the Sect, he could be more low-key and avoid catching the attention of the immortals.
He didn''t care if Alosa kept her connection with Leo and Yamgo since he wouldn''t be involved with them anyways. Therger Alosa''swork of friends became, the more useful she would be to him.
"Since we have a deal, how about we go get our Sect Marks so I can get my Sect Marks and figure out where I am going to live?" Yoze said.
Since he was nning on having three separate bases, he needed to have a lot of money or Sect Points on hand. For that, he needed to get his Sect Mark so he could begin to go on missions.
With his strength, he should be able to quickly start amassing many Sect Points. But since he had no information on how much staying in a ce costs in the Sect, he could only look around for suitable locations first.
"That sounds like a good n. Since it''s far away, are youfortable with me using a spell to run extremely fast? I know that you must be exhausted from the intense battle with Geo but with normal walking speed, it will take us at least a few days to return to the city." Alosa asked with some concern since she didn''t want to abandon her teammate so soon.
Chapter 291 291: Dungeons Inside The Sect
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"Don''t worry about it. I am a martial artist, so my stamina is much higher and recovers far faster than you can imagine. Even if I had fought for several days straight, I probably could still walk from here to the City."
"Go as fast as you want. I will meet you there." Yoze said.
Alosa nodded her head and grinned. After muttering to herself, the yellow hat on top of her head began to release a bright yellow light. The light covered her entire body briefly before retreating into the hat.
However, after the light returned, Alosa''s body disappeared, leaving only her floating hat swiftly flying towards the City. As Yoze watched Alosa''s hat grow smaller, he licked his lips as he couldn''t wait to see what would happen to Alosa after hepletely transformed her spiritual energy.
Clearing his thoughts, Yoze turned his focus back to the fact that he was in dangerous territory and took on a more cautious attitude to his actions.
A week quickly passed after Yoze and the others had arrived in the Immortal Pce Sect. In this short period, Yoze had chosen to take things a little slow.
Even though he had gotten his Sect Mark on the back right arm and could go on missions at any time, he chose not to. Instead, he chose to stay in one of the ten free apartment buildings for new immortal cultivators.
Even though the room was a little small for his liking, and he had to shrink his body as much as he could just to fit inside without bumping his head on the roof every single time, he had learned a lot. For one, even though this was a sacred ground for immortal cultivators, no one would receive crystals for free.
For new immortal cultivators, they only had two options. The first was to sell their services to the mortals for something called Mortal Sect Points. These points were a cheaper version of the regr Sect Points but were much easier to obtain.
As long as one gathers ten Mortal Sect Ponts, one can buy a singlerge crystal the size of a human head. In the outside world, a crystal of this size and quality would cost hundreds of thousands of silver to obtain. Most immortal cultivators would not have been able to afford such a crystal without developing a business or bing famous.
But to achieve such a feat would require a high amount of hours to obtain that result and keep it to continue affording these crystals. Sacrificing so many hours would surely slow down their immortal cultivation to the point that they would never reach the Crystal Skull real, much less be immortals.
The second was to mine the crystals themselves by traveling to one of the dozenrge open mines outside of the City. These mines were like dungeons from a video game where the deeper one traveled into the cave, therger and better the crystals. But after the fifth-level monsters began to appear and be stronger, the deeper one traveled.I think you should take a look at
Even though Yoze found it odd, he found that most immortal cultivators would choose to be helpful citizens and work for their crystals. Only when he visited the mines did he realize they were simply practical and cautious.
The mine he had visited was Mine-01 and had hundreds of immortal cultivators looking for crystals. As he went down, he noticed that all the crystals in the first five floors were much smaller than those that one could afford by working.
Even though they could collect more in quantity, they would have to spend a lot of time simply looking and mining for these crystals, in addition to having to remain cautious of all the desperate immortal cultivators nearby.
It was only on the sixth level that the crystals began to be closer in size to the ones in the City, and there were fewer immortal cultivators to worry about. But recing the immortal cultivators were monsters that were bred and modified by the Sect to kill the immortal cultivators.
With the threat of dying from mining the crystals and arge amount of time spent looking for them, most immortal cultivators would rather spend doing simple tasks for the Mortals to buy the head-size crystals. Noticing how the immortal cultivators acted, Yoze shook his head, walked to the tenth floor, and took a few crystals that were triple the size of a human head.
Looking down at the onerge crystal that he had remaining, Yoze let out a heavy sigh. Just these few crystals were equivalent to several hundred crystals in the outside world, yet he had just absorbed most of them in a few days.
It was enough for him to crystallize his nerve by three percent. Even with his grade 5 Crystal absorbing talent, grade 7 Crystal Nerve talent and grade 5 Dead Crystal Nerve talent giving him twelve times the speed at absorbing crystals, he still spent a week gaining three percent.
He could understand why even in such a paradise, immortal cultivators still had to manage their time well, or they would die before they could achieve their dreams. If he continued with this speed, it would take him 44 weeks toplete the Crystallization realm.
Other immortal cultivators would need to spend vastly more years to achieve these same results. Even though he was progressing fast, Yoze wasn''t satisfied.
He was surrounded by so many talents that he was able to improve his Crystal Nerves and Crystal Absorption talents simply by walking around randomly. If he coulde in close enough contact with the Ten Kings of the immortal Pce Sect, he would surely be able to greatly improve his Crystal talents.
Luckily his choice of having Alosa as his teammate was paying off. As he was gathering information on the Sect, gathering talents, and focusing on his immortal cultivation, she was busy forming rtionships with all the immortal cultivators in her apartment building.
Chapter 292 292: Dark Cavern Mission
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Alosa''s name seemed to spread like a virus as new immortal cultivators quickly heard of her good name. Even without meeting her, many immortal cultivators developed a favorable impression of Alosa.
As for how she was able to do it, Yoze had no clue, but he was grateful that the usefulness of having such a widework of connections was already proving useful. Just an hour ago, Alosa had knocked on his door with news that the Immortal Shadow Sect had left.
Not only that, all the Ten Shadow Lords were covered in deathly wounds as they struggled to stand up on their own two feet. With how powerful of an impression Geo had on everyone in the Immortal Pce Sect, it led to a massive shock.
All the immortal cultivator''s minds instantly snapped toward the Ten Kings, only to find out that they had all closed their doors and kept information about their well-being a secret. It became obvious to everyone that they must have fought one another in a secret tournament, but no one knew the results.
"The Ten Kings have closed their doors to recover?" Yoze frowned as he realized that his ns for meeting them and copying their talents would have to wait.
Having been living in the Immortal Pce Sect for thest week, he had discovered everything he needed to know to buy his own home. To qualify to buy a house, one needed to have at least five Sect Points and another Five to buy a decent ce.
If immortal cultivators wanted to buy a home, they needed to have at least ten Sect Points, which was a huge amount. It would take most immortal cultivators decades of saving to be able to afford those prices.
That was why even though most immortal cultivators would like to live in their base, they would prefer to stay inside the inner City and live in the apartment building and hotels. However, Yoze didn''t mind that he had to pay an extraordinary price to have a base since he had already steeled his heart to pay a huge price.
With a strong desire to buy at least three bases for himself, he would need at least 20 Sect Points. And at least 30 Sect Points if he wanted to have some of his bases far away from the City.
It was so many Sect Points most immortal cultivators would never dare to imagine themselves owning that much. It was only an amount that immortals would slowly gather over the years and spend at once when they needed to buy an expensive treasure.
"Now that the opportunity to copy the top ten strongest immortal cultivators in the Immortal Pce Sect is over. I should focus on getting enough Sect Points so I can create a strong foundation in the Sect."
"Others might struggle to collect that many Sect Points, but for me, it''s only a matter of time." Yoze thought to himself.
Knowing that he had to stick to missions that he could reasonably aplish with the level of strength he had disyed in the tournament, Yoze sighed with frustration as he knew he had to stick to one-star missions.
He could, at most, grab a 1.5-star mission. But, it will be difficult to find anyone to believe he could do missions any higher than that. Understanding that he could only stick with his n, Yoze left his apartment building and ran back to the giant white pir, which he discovered was called the Royal Spine.
Just like when he first arrived, numerous immortals and immortal cultivators scrambled to enter and exit the hole in the Royal Spine. Being familiar with the process, Yoze stepped inside and traveled to the Second Floor.
"Wee to the Mission Selection Floor! How can I help you sir?"
Just as Yoze stepped out of the Royal Spine, he was greeted by a cheerful young man weing everyone. When he first arrived to visit the second floor, he was greeted by the same young man who seemed to genuinely enjoy his job.
His head was nearlypletely shaved bald and oiled to be as shiny as possible, except he left a strip of soft brown hair going down the middle of his head. His mohawk-type inspired hairstyle matches perfectly with his bright smile and round face.
With his cheerful greeting and unique hairstyle, most new immortal cultivators'' eyes were instantly drawn toward the young man. Yoze was included as he was instantly drawn to the cheerful greeter, and his interest in him increased when he noticed his yellow spiritual energy was shaped like his hair.
"Oh, Yoze, you''re back!?"I think you should take a look at
Like how the young man drew people''s attention using his unique style and attitude, Yoze quickly drew everyone''s attention. After restoring his height to 8 feet, he once again became a giant among men and women.
The cheerful youth greeter also noticed Yoze and gave him his undivided attention. Even though his only job was to greet people, he quickly walked over to Yoze and said, with a beautiful smile.
"Yoze, are you here to collect a mission? What would you like? I can help find a good one for you."
Turning his attention to the young greeter, Yoze couldn''t help but feel amused. Even though the young man had incredible acting skills, he could tell the young greeter didn''t like him very much.
"Even though he is only an ant in the eyes of immortal cultivators and immortals, he is jealous of the attention that I drew away from him. He has to have balls of steel and be a massive narcissist to enjoy this job." Yoze thought to himself.
"Hello Sami, I would like to take a one-star mission. I would prefer it if it is something I canplete rather quickly." Yoze said.
Even though hepletely saw Sami''s act, Yoze didn''t mind since he would get a personal guide every time he arrived. The personal guide even wanted him to leave as soon as possible, so he could quickly get anything he needed.
"You are nning on leaving the Sect! Just give me a few seconds, and I will bring three perfect missions." Sami secretly swallowed his saliva in anticipation and rushed behind the counters separating the Sect employees and everyone else.
After a minute, Sami ran back to Yoze,pletely covered in sweat and a hint of excitement in his eyes. With three stacks of folders clenched tightly in his hands, he handed them to Yoze.
"The first folder holds a one-star mission titled Dark Cavern. It''s about a haunted cave system in the Gox territory. There have been rumors that a young demon is lurking inside the caves, so the Sect would like to investigate it."
"This mission is really rewarding. Just taking this mission and investigating it, you will be rewarded 0.5 Sect Points and an extra 0.5 if you find clues that a demon is inside."
"But the best part is if you kill the demon inside the cave and bring back a small piece of its flesh, you will get an additional 1 Sect Point. Meaning that in the best scenario, you can get 2 Sect points for this one mission." Sami said with excitement.
As Sami exined the mission, Yoze read through the details and noticed that Sami was telling the truth. If he really did find clues about the demon and killed it, he would get double the Sect Points of other one-star missions.
However, the premise was that there truly was a demon inside the cavern. If there wasn''t a demon, then this mission would only give half the points of an ordinary one-star mission. Meaning that one would have to gamble their luck that the cavern not only has a demon, but the demon is fairly weak.
"This mission is not too bad. But I am not a gambling type of man, so I will put this one on hold for now. Sami, can you exin the other two missions?" Yoze asked.
"Of course, but I do want to add that this mission isn''t as much of a gamble as it seems," Sami said through his teeth.
"Oh, do you have additional information?" Yoze asked curiously.
"Yes, this isn''t the first time the Sect has offered this same mission. It''s the third time, and the previous two attempts concluded that there were no demons."
"But for the Sect to continually create this mission means that they are certain that there is a demon, but they want someone to find clues of its existence first. With your greatness, I believe you can find those clues and even y that demon with a mighty punch." Sami said with confidence.
Chapter 293 293: Deity Killer Mission
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"Oh, the Sect had posted this mission before. How long ago was the first post?" Yoze asked.
"About a year ago. At that time, it was taken by an immortal cultivator with blue hair who was somewhat desperate for Sect Points, which is why I still remember it."
"After a week, that immortal cultivator returned with nothing but mncholy and turned in the mission. I had thought everything was over, but a wellter, this exact mission was once again posted."
"This time, it flew below the radar, so it took nearly two months before a group of immortal cultivators epted the mission. Just like the first immortal cultivator, they returned with no clues or signs of a demon."
"Just like the first time, a weekter, the Sect posted this same mission. Unfortunately, most immortal cultivators were no longer interested in this mission, so many months had passed." Sami said with a serious face.
"A year has passed. Hmmm, I''ll think about it. Tell me about the other two missions." Yoze said after some thought.
With the time frame that Sami had provided, the demon hidden in the cavern must have been at least a year old, possibly older. That meant that this mission had long since passed the threshold that immortal cultivators could reasonably beat a demon.
The Elephant demon that he had fought in the past was a good example of how quickly demons matured. In a short few months, it learned how to manipte its spiritual energy to form armor and even use it to attack.
With such a level of control of its spiritual energy, even if it wasn''t that goodpared to older demons, it was more than enough to devour and destroy an immortal cultivator''s spiritual energy without much effort. Only immortals could reasonably defeat such a demon, much less this mysterious demon that was much older.
"Why would the Sect keep posting this mission as a one star if they know that the demon would be impossible for immortal cultivators to defeat? There is something much deeper going on, but how much do I want to be involved?" Yoze thought to himself.
"Okay, the next mission is called the Golden Wheat Belt. This is very different from the first mission as this isn''t about exploring but defending one of the Sect''s food territories."
"At the Green in territory, the Sect has nted arge amount of Golden Wheat that has been attacked numerous times. The Sect has no idea what is attacking it and killing the mortals farming, so it has created this mission."
"What is strange is that there are already immortal cultivators defending the ce, but they have been injured and need to return. Unfortunately, this is a critical time for the nts since they are maturing in two weeks."
"If they keep being attacked, the entire harvest will be ruined; thus, the Sect is nning on sending more immortal cultivators. Since whatever is attacked the ce is strong, this mission has been ssified as 1.5 stars." Sami said with some excitement in his voice.
Even though he wasn''t able to convince Yoze to take the Dark Cavern mission, he felt that the chances that he would find the Golden Wheat Belt mission more eptable was much higher.
"What is the reward?" Yoze asked.
"Of course, the reward for this mission is two Sect Points. This is the standard amount for a 1.5-star mission, but having to defend the farm for only a couple of weeks makes it a good mission." Sami said.I think you should take a look at
"None of the attackers noticed anything strange, unique, or specific to the attackers? Not a single clue after all this time?" Yoze asked.
"From the report, there was truly nothing that was reported. Besides the attackers attacking in the darkest periods of the night and at random times, nothing else was reported." Sami said.
"Very strange. Not having a single clue that could be used to identify the attackers puts suspicion on the defenders. It''s too odd for a group of immortal cultivators not to gather a single clue about the attacker. Even if the attacker faked the clue, it was something."
"But for nothing toe out of it makes me suspect that there is a rat among the immortal cultivators. In that case, most of this mission''s difficulty is finding a justification for killing those immortal cultivators." Yoze thought to himself
"This one is quite good, but I want to hear thest mission before I make my decision," Yoze said after some time.
"Of course, you need to be careful when epting missions. As for thest one, I think this is the worst of the three." Sami said with a frown.
"Why is that?" Yoze asked with some interest.
"This mission is called the Deity Killer mission and is a 1.5-star mission. Even though it is a 1.5-star mission, it offers three Sect Points, which is much higher than normal."
"Unfortunately, this mission is about traveling to Gospel Peak in the Lizard Territory. It has been discovered that the natives of a hidden vige in the mountain are worshiping a deity called the Eternal Justice and treat it as their god."
"The Sect is worried that this deity is actually a demon in disguise and feeding on the people''s faith to grow stronger. The reason I say this is the worst mission is that it shouldn''t be ranked so low."
"There are simr other missions about investigating and ying demons disguised as gods and holy creatures, but they are ranked as three stars and above. Even though this mission is 1.5 stars, I believe it is the hardest mission by far." Sami said.
"Interesting, so it ismon for demons to disguise themselves as gods and other creatures. Just like the stories I have heard, I should ask, how long has this vige been worshiping this demon?" Yoze asked.
"I don''t know." Sami shook his head.
"I just noticed this mission just recently. So it must have been here for quite some time."
"So the demon must be quite strong itself to be capable of surviving this long even though the Sect had known of its possible existence. Of course, there is a possibility that this is just a dud, and there is no demon at all. But the chances of that are slim." Sami exined.
Chapter 294 294: Accepting The Deity Mission
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Yoze rubbed his chin as he thought about his options. He had three missions in front of him that had their own uniqueness, and all could be excellent missions that would earn him many points.
For two missions to involve demons, Yoze felt that either his luck was improving or this proved that immortals simply lived in a different world. Back at New Swampscott City, he had struggled to find traces of demons and had to rely on the City to gather clues for him.
Now he came upon two missions that had a high chance of hunting demons. For other immortal cultivators, they would be cursing their luck at how unlucky they were to have been brought to unachievable missions.
But Yoze felt that these missions were much more suitable for him than the Golden Wheat Belt mission. Not only could he collect more talents, spiritual energy, and demon flesh, but he could also get a lot of Sect Points all at once.
"I shouldn''t discount the Golden Wheat Belt mission. Even though it doesn''t involve demons, it could be the most simple mission."
"From the information inside the folder, this mission is mainly to defend the farm from any further damage. Finding out the attackers'' identity and killing them was secondarypared to protecting the wheat."
"With my spiritual energy and incredible observation skills, I should be able to protect the farm without much issue. And after two weeks and the wheat had been harvested, I will no longer have anything to do with the mission."
"Meaning that the mission itself is restricted to only take up two weeks of my time. As for the other two missions, they didn''t have such a time limit."
"Meaning that if I am unlucky, I might spend more than two weeks simplypleting just one of these missions. If I am really unlucky with the Dark Cavern mission and the Deity Killer mission, not only will I spend arge amount of time, but I will also not meet any demons." Yoze''s mind raced as he thought about the best mission for his current situation.
After a few seconds, Yoze eventually decided that the Deity Killer mission was the most suitable mission for him at the moment. Even though the Golden Wheat Belt had the benefit of only taking two weeks of his time, he didn''t want to deal with the consequences of being forced to kill those immortal cultivators.
If his assumption was correct that the attackers and defenders were the same people, then he couldn''t imagine these immortal cultivators acting against the Immortal Pce Sect''s interest without the backing of another immortal. If he had to take action, he might get into a conflict with an immortal and attract attention which is not what he wants.
As for the Dark Cavern mission, Yoze still considered this mission to be a gamble. Even though Sami noted the particr interest that the Sect had for the cave. There wasn''t a guarantee that the demon that was inside the cave was still there.
With such a possibility, even if small, Yoze was not interested in wasting his time to get a below-average amount of Sect Points. As for the Deity Killer Mission, he felt that it was more interesting and would waste his time the least.
As a person who has unlocked his spiritual senses and even fought multiple demons in the past, he was confident that he could quickly determine whether there was a demon hiding as a deity. If there was a demon perfect, he had fully recovered from his battle with Immortal Welse and was ready to battle against another strong opponent to improve his martial art skills.I think you should take a look at
If there wasn''t, it was also fine since he could always im that he did y the demon and leave some traces of their battle. When the investigation team arrives to see if he truly did find and y a demon, they would be fooled by his realistic battle marks.
Resulting in him easily getting three Sect Points for doing barely any work. Yoze was also interested in the method the demon could have used to extract spiritual energy from people believing in it.
He didn''t believe Sami''s im that the demon was absorbing people''s faith to get stronger was fully true. It was more likely that this ''Faith'' was a substitute for spiritual energy.
"I''ll take the Deity Killer mission. As for the other two missions, I will take a look at them again when Ie back." Yoze said.
"You chose the Deity Killer mission!? You are truly bold... and mighty." Sami said with shock written over his face.
He had never assumed that Yoze would choose this mission. It wasn''t a lie when he said this was the hardest mission. He truly believed that the Sect had misrepresented the mission rank and would be forced to raise it in the future just like the other simr missions.
He had only brought this mission along because he wanted to influence Yoze''s decision to select the other two missions. One would get rid of him for two weeks, and the other had the possibility of killing him.
"He truly is courageous to select this mission. I wonder where he gets his confidence from." Sami thought to himself as he walked away to sign Yoze up for the Deity Killer mission.
After a few minutes, Yoze felt the Sect Mark on his body beginning to heat up as it flowed down to his palm like ck ink. Without him having to do anything, the Sect Mark morphed into the three words of "Deity Killer mission."
After a few seconds, his Sect Mark flowed back to its original ce and once again acted like an ordinary tattoo.
"Yoze, the mission is now all yours. You can head out whenever you are ready." Sami said with a wide smile on his face showing his true emotions.
Yoze nodded his head and returned to the first floor. He needed to do a few things first to prepare for the mission. The first thing was to buy a map that had a route directly to Gospel Peak.
Chapter 295 295: Justice Town
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A few days passed after Yoze epted the Deity Killer mission. After getting the map to Gospel Peak and a few crystals for the road, he set off.
Even though Gospel Peak was quite far away from the Immortal Pce Sect, with Yoze''s speed, he arrived in a matter of days. But when he got there, he was surprised to find out that Gospel Peak wasn''t what he had imagined it would be.
He had initially imagined that the mountain that Gospel Peak was located in was massive and covered in a thick forest that helped hide the natives from the outside world. However, what he sawpletely contradicted his imagination.
The mountain was truly massive and was muchrger than the mountain that hides the Immortal Pce Sect. The mountain was nearly ten miles tall, and its base stretched for dozens of miles.
Yoze found it interesting that even though this mountain was massive, it was not part of a mountain chain. It was the sole mountain in the vast area, making the small hills seem smaller than usual.
Even though the mountain was enormous, it couldn''t hide the prosperous civilization growing on its side. There was arge town flowing with life as regr humans and martial artists were living their best lives in the Town.
Together with the beautiful night sky covered in stars, the Town looked beautiful, and he could imagine how vibrant it would be once it was daytime. From his prediction, the Town had at least a few thousand people and seemed to still be growing.
"This town isn''t on the map; there shouldn''t have been a mistake since this map was the most recent one avable," Yoze muttered to himself as he made his way up the mountain.
As Yoze began to walk up the hill, he noticed that all the nt life in the area took on weird demonic shapes. Regr green grass, flowers, trees, and even weeds all had a demonic touch to them, but other than their strange shapes, they werepletely ordinary.
Since Yoze didn''t n to stay long to investigate all the mysteries of Gospel Peak, he didn''t stop to check out the nts and only made a mental note of them. After an hour of walking, he finally arrived at the Town that was supposed to be a small hidden vige.
Before he even entered the Town, Yoze saw a massive sign with the Town''s name and motto, which said:
"Justice Town! Those with kindness shall live in harmony while those with Injustice shall face Eternal Justice!"
"It seems that I truly am in the right ce. For this small native vige to grow to this size, a long time must have passed. This isn''t very good news for me."
"I might be strong and confident in my strength, but I can at most defeat demons who are at most a hundred years old. After that, it''s going to be tricky." Yoze''s eyes began to shimmer as he felt his desire for battle surge.
It had been a long time since he hadst fought a demon which was his fight with the five-year-old Leopard Demon. Even though he had a rtively easy time fighting the Leopard demon, he still sustained some injuries.
After that fight, he had grown much stronger, but he still was reasonable with his assessment of his own strength. He knew that a demon who was twenty times older than the Leopard Demon wasn''t merely twenty times stronger.I think you should take a look at
If that was the case, he probably beat demons that were at least several hundred years old. Instead, demons seemed to be exponentially stronger the older they became.
With every additional year, the more spiritual energy demons can devour, the more they can strengthen their bodies, and the better they can control their spiritual energy. As someone who barely knew the basics of spiritual energy, facing a demon with hundreds of years of experience would end in disaster.
Just as Yoze was taking this mission more seriously and his cautious nature was taking hold, he noticed three teenage boys from the Town staring at him with shock. Even though the three teenagers were hidden in the shadows behind the Town''s walls, it wasn''t an issue for him to see their unusual appearances.
The boy in the middle of the two other boys seemed to be the oldest, as he was the tallest and had a bit of maturity in his eyes. Paired up with his graying sideburns, the young teen gave off an older feelingpared to the other two.
The teenager on the right was the shortest and seemed the most shocked and frightened, as his entire body was trembling from fear and remorse. Unlike the older teenage boy, he had visibly less gray hair in his brown hair than the taller teenager.
Thest teenager on the left was clearly the youngest, as he still had his baby fat on his face, and his eyes were filled with innocence.
After a few seconds of shock, the boy on the right screamed with a particrly strong ent that Yoze could barely understand.
"Oh my god! The flower giant is real. The story is real, we need to scatter now, or else all of us will be punished!"
Hearing the teenage boy shouting at them before running off into the Town, the other two teenagers responded quickly. They both turned around and tried to run away, but before they could, arge and heavy hand gently touched their shoulder, immobilizing them.
"I apologize if I scared you three with my slightly above-average height, but can you tell me why you are so afraid of me? I am not going to hurt you. I just arrived in Town after hearing that there was a flourishing town nearby." Yoze said to calm down the two boys, who were trembling from fright.
Yoze''s deep and calm voice seemed to have calmed them down, especially after they heard that he was just an ordinary person visiting their glorious Town. After the two teenage boys looked at each other with embarrassment to try to get the other to exin, the taller boy spoke.
"I worry about that; my cousin who had just run away had just heard the story about the Flower Giant that punished people who drank wine before they got married. Since we stole, I mean borrowed a few cups from a store, he got nervous." The tall teenage boy said after calming down.
He didn''t understand why, but he feltfortable talking with Yoze, a total stranger. It might have been due to hisrge height that made him feel like he was talking with his parents, but he didn''t know.
All he knew was that after a few minutes of talking, he and his younger brother were telling Yoze everything about their Town with pride written all over their faces. They even dared to point out the location of the store they had stolen the wine from, which they would regretter on.
Chapter 296 296: Birth Of Eternal Justice
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After chatting with the two teens for a while, Yoze was able to gather their names. The oldest teenager was Zeke Griffin, the local cksmith''s son, and he was 15 years old. And the youngest teenager was his Leak Griffin, who had recently turned 13 years old.
As for the teenager who had run away at first sight of Yoze, his name was Yek Thunderbird. Even though he wasn''t the youngest among the trio, he was unfortunate to inherit his father''s small height.
With the small amount of time that Yoze talked with these kids, he found that he was right that the town was experiencing a rapid growth spurt. When Yek was a small child, he remembered that the town was much smaller and only had around a hundred people at most.
However, in the next ten years, he experienced the town''s rapid growth and enjoyed the benefits of rapid modernization. Not only did the town''s child mortality drop drastically, but everything rted to people''s health also improved.
This, of course, could be attributed to the changes in technologies, but for Zeke and Leak, this growth was only due to one entity. The god defeated the town''s other gods and instilled his magical power into this cursednd.
"Are you talking about Eternal Justice?" Yoze asked.
"Oh, you know about our god! I knew it; our god''s light was spreading across the corrupted world. Eventually, we will be allowed to leave the vige and spread the message of justice!" Zeke''s eyes sparkled with excitement as he thought about the outside world.
"Of course, I know about Eternal Justice. That is one of the reasons I came to the town, so I can learn more about it." Yoze said with a smile.
"Well, listen here, child, the glory of our lord can''t be understood by simple preaching. You must know the story of his creation and his journey to be the god we know." Yeke said with a cheeky smile as he tried to imitate an adult man.
"Before you start, how about we find somewhere we can sit? I don''t want you to identally catch a cold while telling your tale." Yoze said.
Yeke nodded and led Yoze and Leak to a small shop that was still open. The shop was his favorite ce to get noodles since the food was good, the prices were low, and they were open until veryte.
After entering the shop, Yeke and Leak sigh with relief as they feel the warm air in the shop warming their flesh and bones. They didn''t realize until then that they were freezing while standing outside.
Yeke and Leak both took a seat at their favorite booth in the shop and gotfortable before they realized that Yoze had taken a seat on the floor. Even though he was sitting, he still remained taller than they were when sitting on chairs.
Though they wanted to ask if he wanted to sit with them, when they heard the slight creaking sounding from the floorboards below Yoze, they didn''t say anything. This might have been a nice shop, but it wasn''t built for an outsider like Yoze, who was at least 8 feet tall and must weigh a ton.
"So, did you mean, what you said that your lord wasn''t originally a god? How did he be the Eternal Justice and help your vige grow to this size?" Yoze asked after seeing Yeke and Leak had gottenfortable.
"Yes, the story began like this. Our god originally was just an ordinary boulder in an unknown vige. This vige was wrecked with corruption, and the people suffered from injustice for as long as they could remember."I think you should take a look at
"No matter who tried to rebel against the people controlling the town, they would be killed without another thought. Nearly half of the entire vige was ughtered after mere decades and on the brink of copse."
"It was barely surviving due to the persistence of the vigers to not allow their home to be destroyed by darkness. It was truly a hopeless situation for them to be in, and even the most hopeful viger couldn''t see a way out of their misery." As Yeke told the story, his eyes began to water as he felt that the vigers'' suffering was unfair and couldn''t imagine the pain they were going through.
On the other hand, Leak was balling his eyes out as he tried his best to hold back the tears but failed miserably. He could use the napkins on the table to wipe away his tears and runny nose.
After using a few seconds to calm himself down, Yeke continued with the story.
"Anyways, the vige suffering eventually touched the boulder''s soul and awakened him from his slumber. His birth caused the world to tremble; the sea of clouds that had formed above the vige was split apart, revealing the beautiful,forting sun."
"With his birth, he summoned a young man from the vige and asked him if he wanted to stop the injustices of the world and if he wanted to end suffering. If he wanted to bring evil to justice and allow those wronged to have their souls rest in peace." As he told the story, Yeke''s eyes began to glow with excitement as he recounted the young viger''s words passionately.
"The young man said, ''I will give the entirety of my being to the cause of ending injustice and eradicating the world''s evil! I will not rest until I have saved every woman, child, and man and punished all those who have evil in their hearts!"
In his excitement, Yeke stood on the table as he shouted at the top of his lungs, "The divine rockughed with joy. The boulder exploded before the young man and turned into a white powder that entered his body."
"After fusing his being with the newly born boulder, the young man''s eyes shed with golden lightning, and his flesh and bones evolved into a higher existence as he transformed into Eternal Justice that day."
"Do you understand? Eternal Justice is the greatest thing to happen to this world where the gods have abandoned humanity. As for the vige that was wrecked with corruption, how could eternal justice allow it to fall?"
"To this day, Eternal Justice has guided the vige to eliminate their corruption and bringw and order into the vige. He has guided the vige to be more powerful and vibrant every day until it has grown to the point where a thousand people call this ce home with pride in their hearts." Yeke said with his eyes sparkling as he felt proud about their vige being the starting point for Eternal Justice.
"Smack!"
Just as Yeke was about to continue singing praise about all the wonderful things that had happened to the vige since Eternal Justice, he felt someone p his head. As if instinctively knowing who it was, he shivered as he turned around to see an angry old man wearing a thick leather apron.
"Boy, what did I tell you about jumping on the table!? This is a ce for people to eat, not a ce for your dirty shoes, get down this instant." The old man said angrily.
"Yes, Father."
Chapter 297 297: Human Farm
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Rubbing the back of his head to soothe some of the burning pain, Zeke swallowed his saliva from fear as he jumped off the table. Unfortunately, even though he got off the table, he noticed that the mes of fury were still burning bright in his father''s brown eyes meaning that he was still going to be punished when he got back home.
"Look at you two. If it wasn''t for Yek telling me you two were in danger, I wouldn''t have known that you were trying to drink the devil''s juice. Haven''t we told you that only adults who the hands of our god have blessed have enough power to purify wine?"
"You three trying to drink it will only lead to your souls being sent down to hell, where you will be punished for eternity. Once your mother hears about this, she will teach you a lesson." Zeke''s father barked.
While Zeke and Leak were fairly getting lectured about the dangers of drinking alcohol at a young age, Yoze felt that it was his time to leave. He had gotten enough information to confidently say that this ce had something unusual going on.
"If what Zeke had said was true, then this deity seems more like an abnormality than a demon. But then again, this could be a fake story created by the demon to allow the people here not to suspect anything. Regardless of which one is the case, I need to be careful, or else I will be in danger.
"Demons are a threat of their own, but they are something I am familiar with. However, for abnormalities, I don''t have as much experience fighting against them as I do with demons."
"Just from my experience with the undead baby and the Blood Heart, they all seemed to have unique abilities that were quite powerful. However, that also means that I can get some unique talents." Yoze grinned as he stood up and left the shop, leaving Zeke''s and Leak''s father to continue lecturing the two boys.
Even though he had left, he didn''t draw any of their attention due to his footsteps being perfectly silent, and his presence had disappeared without a trace. As he stepped back outside, the cold air once again licked Yoze''s skin as the harsh gusts of wind blew down the mountain.
"Howl!"
Just as he stepped outside, Yoze felt his instincts screaming at him that danger lurked around. As he cautiously looked around for what could be causing this feeling, he noticed that the night stars seemed to have disappeared without a trace, as there was only endless darkness in the sky. Yoze frowned as the lively feeling he had gotten from the town when he had first entered vanished without a trace.
There was only silence and emptiness that felt like he was in a ghost town. Turning his head back, he saw that the noodle shop doors were silently closed shut, with wooden boards covering the door as it locked everyone out and kept everyone in.
"Is this the true face of the town, or is this some kind of illusion?" Yoze muttered to himself as he couldn''t help but feel his heart tighten.
"Howl!!! Why does a young demon like you dare to enter my territory without my permission!?" Carried by the howling wind, a stern and powerful voice echoed throughout the town.
"I apologize if I have upset you, but I had heard rumors that a demon was here. I wasn''t sure, so I came to investigate, but it seems that it truly was the case." Yoze said calmly.
Hearing the powerful voice, Yoze felt his heart calm down and be more rxed as he could tell from the smell in the air that it was a demon that had spoken just now. He had been worried earlier that he had identally provoked an abnormality that had been going on for decades.
Even though he was confident in his own strength, he didn''t like the thought of having to deal with an unknown power or ability without more knowledge of it. He had been lucky when he first encountered the Undead Baby''s army of zombies.
He was able to first experience the power of weaker zombies and acquire their talents which were counter to their abilities to drain energy from their targets. If he had fought one of the mutated zombies without prior knowledge and a counter talent, then he didn''t know if he could have survived that day with his strength alone.
However, since he was only fighting a demon, he could feel relieved that there wouldn''t be anything too strange during their battle. Unless the demon was too strong, then there wasn''t anything that he needed to worry about.
Unaware that it had identally relieved Yoze of some of his worries, the mysterious voice seemed to be angrier as the sound of teeth grinding followed the wind.
"Hmph, each generation seems to lose more and more respect for us older demons. You can leave now that you know that I am controlling everything here."I think you should take a look at
"Everything here is my property, and I have grown it to the flourishing farm you see today. One day you will see my farm containing thousands of humans that will all sacrifice their spiritual energy for me." The angry voice seemed to hint at some pride.
"A farm?" Yoze''s face turned frosty as he heard the demon treat the town full of people like a farm.
He had already guessed this was the cause, but he hadn''t entirely epted the thought. For demons to help viges grow into towns before harvesting their spiritual energy made him sick.
"Demons truly treat humans like livestock that are supposed to be stuffed before being eaten. I shouldn''t be too shocked or angry since we are two entirely different species, but I can''t help but feel my blood boil." Yoze thought to himself as he tried to calm himself down as he felt his blood boil.
"Of course, my best farm yet. After my previous three other attempts, this was the first time I had reached such a scale. Young demons like yourself who only have a few decades of experience don''t know the struggle of finding enough food and spiritual energy when we aren''t part of the demon alliance."
"But then again, I am not interested in joining an organization that fears weak humans. There is almost an unlimited stock of humans waiting for us demons to eat and use as a means to increase our spiritual energy, but they stop us from attacking."
"Their even fun excuse is even funnier, are we supposed to be scared that more humans are going toe out of hiding and try to fight us!? That just makes it easier for us to continue to get stronger!" The demon didn''t bother to hide the longing and desire to eat humans in his voice.
"I see. I am actually trying to apply to join the Demon Alliance, so it can''t be all that bad. You have to remember that humans still have immortals protecting them, so we should be cautious, or we might start a war." Yoze said coldly as he tried to track down the demon''s location.
"Immortals? They don''t care about mortal humans. They only care about finding new and creative ways to kill each other. In any case, even if we wipe out all the mortal humans, the immortals can just birth some more."
"Even though I have been alive for over a hundred years, I have only encountered five immortals. All of them haven''t bothered to risk their own lives just to kill me, so you don''t have to worry about it." The demon said with pride.
Yoze was slightly speechless as he didn''t know what to say. He agreed with the demon that most immortals didn''t care about human lives, but saying that demons didn''t have to worry about them was ridiculous.
There were plenty of demon-hunting missions, and they all targeted younger demons showing that even though the older and more powerful demons might be too much to worry about, the younger and weaker demons did. Heck, he was currently on a mission to kill the demon that was talking with him.
"I wouldn''t say that immortals don''t care at all. I think your previous incident with your encounters with immortals was just luck. There will eventuallye a time when your luck runs out, and you have to face the consequences of your own actions." Yoze said slowly to the demons triggering a heartyugh.
"Hahaha! You might be right, but the number of immortals who can challenge me, the great demon of Gospel Peak, is slim to none."
"I wouldn''t say that; in any case, is there a way for me to see you in person? I get the feeling that you are trying to hide something from me since you haven''t shown me your body." Yoze''s eyes sparkled with multiple colors as he nced toward the mountain''s peak, where he saw a gray statute in the distance.
"I''m going to tear off your flesh and bones before I consume your spiritual energy!" Having Yoze point out the oddity of its behavior and look in the direction of his body made the demon suddenly go berserk as its killing intent became apparent.
Unfortunately, Yoze had already begun sprinting for its body before it could finish its threats. With his heart on the verge of exploding from rage, he was no longer interested in entertaining the demon.
Having found the demon that called itself Eternal Justice, all he wanted was to devour its spiritual energy before copying its talents and eating its flesh. Even though he had felt some danger from the demon as they spoke, he realized that the sense of danger he had felt wasn''ting from the demon but from somewhere else.
Chapter 298 298: What Could Have Been
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"Whoosh!"
As the wind passed by Yoze''s ears as he quickly ran to the top of the mountain, he cautiously looked around to find any traces of the thing that was genuinely causing him to feel threatened. However, even as he reached the top of the mountain in a blink of an eye, he never could find a clue.
Once he had reached the top of the mountain, he found that the people of Justice Town had truly gone all out on worshiping the Eternal Justice demon as he saw a hundred feet tall gold statue of a young man wearing ordinary clothes.
Even though the statue wasn''t alive, the sculptor must have instilled his passion and love for the person as Yoze could see that the sculptor tried his best to make it as realistic to the real thing as possible. The young man had small bags underneath his eyes; his skin wasn''t clean, as there was dirt on his hands and feet and his clothes.
The young man''s wide smile showed his pure joy, satisfaction, relief, and hope at this moment in his life. The stature perfectly captured the young man''s aura, personality, and appearance.
It showed that not only was the sculptor a master of his craft, but the young man had left a deep impression. An impression was so deep and thorough that even after many years of building this statue, the essence of the young man hadn''t been lost or diluted at all.
If Yoze still focused on his profession as a schr, he would have demanded to see the sculptor who had made this statue. He would have loved to chat with the sculptor to see how he had gotten his inspiration and ask for his story.
"Maybe in a different life, I would have be a famous schr who would have been known throughout the world. I could meet Kings and Queens without permission and not have to worry about having my life in constant danger." Yoze thought to himself.
Even though he found the statue to be a masterpiece, he couldn''t help but feel his eyes tear up from a mixture of happiness and deep sorrow as he saw the graveyard surrounding it. The graveyard had hundreds of gravestones that had the life stories of all the people who had unfortunately been taken away from this world for numerous reasons.
The graveyard wasn''t as extravagant as the statue. Still, it held onto its purity as a ce for people to mourn the loss of their loved ones and feel their presence once more for sce. Just from how clean all the gravestones were, they were obviously well taken care of.
"Nothing can stop the flow of time. Even immortals who have escaped the sweet yet suffocating embrace of death can''t heal their bleeding hearts; they simply numb the pain. The scars on every living being''s heart might be healed with time, but only when one dies and escapes the realm of sadness can those scars truly heal." Yoze softly said.
As Yoze felt his emotions swell up from simply seeing the scene, he couldn''t help but reflect on everything he had done in this life. Unfortunately, before he could get too far into his reflection, he heard the Eternal Justice demon''s disgusting voice m into his eardrums.
"For a young demon, you are truly bold. To try and challenge me and im my farm for yourselves is gutsy."
"But you truly arecking in the experience department. Haven''t you fought any demons that were powerful at all?"
Though he didn''t understand why he had suddenly be so emotional, Yoze felt his rage and desire to kill this demon explode. His eyes began umting green, orange, blue, and brown sparkles as he stared intensively at the spot in front of the golden statue where he sensed the demon was hidden.
In his rage, he had barely noticed that the Eternal Justice demon''s voice which was previously filled with anger and killing intent seemed to vanish like smoke. Even the voice became more profound and more aged as the demon suddenly transformed into an old man looking at his grandson''s first steps.I think you should take a look at
"I took the trouble ofing all the way here just to visit you. You could at least show me your true face before I leave." Yoze''s eyes flickered with killing intent showing his obvious desire to kill the Eternal Justice demon.
He hade here for one purpose alone: to kill this demon pretending to be the god that would save the townspeople of Justice Town. Yoze almost felt slightly embarrassed as he had unconsciously been erasing his prejudice against demons ever since he had found the Serpent demon.
"I have been finding demons so easy to kill that I began to feel a bit of pity for them. I am a human, and I am not a demon."
"Even though demons and humans can coexist, I mustn''t have the delusion that it will be a fair arrangement. Demons are simply too powerful for most humans."
"Even the strongest martial artists can barely challenge the weakest demons, so how on earth can we stop them from taking advantage of us when it benefits them so much? The only way would be to equal the ying field by allowing humans to unlock their potential for Human Spiritual Body cultivation." Yoze thought to himself as he felt his mind race as he quickly thought about how to improve the strength of humanity.
"So far, I should be the only human capable of practicing Human Spiritual Body cultivation, but my talent in it is terrible. It is by far my worst talent being at grade zero, and I have never found any way to improve it."
"As long as I can sessfully start my cultivation, I can start figuring out how to allow other humans to do the same. Even if most of the poption can''t aplish it, we only need a small percentage which, paired with our massive poption, means a lot of people."
"It''s possible, but it''s going to be difficult. For this to happen at all would require..."
Before Yoze could finish his thought process, the Eternal Justice demon again interrupted with his rotten voice.
"You want to see my face. You want to see my body. Think again, boy; only those who are stronger than me can see my glory. You are less than thirty years old, yet you think you canpete with me."
"Let me inform you, in this world, age is power! This isn''t some fantasynd where young people can surpass their elders! We demons don''t rot with age. We thrive!" Eternal Justice demons shouted as numerous small patches of grass in the beautiful graveyard bulged out.
Seeing this beautiful grass being ruined, Yoze felt his heartache as he hoped he could have ended this fight without damaging this beautifulnd. Unfortunately, the Eternal Justice demon didn''t hold his same concern as the bludging patches of grass exploded to reveal rotten corpses.
Each corpse was rotten to the extreme as the flesh easily fell off their rotten bones as they escaped the earth. Without even making a sound except for the sound of them climbing from the ground and the rattling bones, Yoze felt he could understand their immense pain.
"Something is influencing me." Suddenly Yoze frowned as he felt his spiritual energy tingling.
Chapter 299 299: Bad Partnership
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Feeling the spiritual energy flowing inside his body slightly tingling before returning to its original undisturbed flow, Yoze''s sense of danger spiked as he warily looked around his surroundings. Since he had reached Gospel Peak, there were only a few key things he needed to pay attention to.
For one, the golden statue of the young man, who he guessed was the supposed human form of the Eternal Justice demon. Even though it seemed to be an ordinary statue, Yoze didn''t doubt for a second that it could be used for an attack.
Next was the vast graveyard that took up the majority of Gospel Peak''s area. With 90 percent of Gospel Peak being upied by hundreds of clean gravestones, it didn''t leave much room for other things like nt life and roads.
Thest thing that Yoze felt was significant was that among the several zombies rushing him, all were wearing armor. Though the armor had been damaged heavily over time, it still provided each of the emerging zombies with some additional defensive capabilities.
"Someone is trying to influence my mind. From the looks of it, they are much more proficient than I am." Yoze thought to himself.
"Including these zombies, I can confirm that there must be an immortal or a witch assisting this demon. The odds that an immortal would be assisting a demon are quite low, so there could be a witch." Yoze''s mind raced as he quickly summoned his blood armor.
He felt slightly better With the additional protection, even though he knew it wouldn''t provide any meaningful defense against witchcraft that affected his mental state. As soon as he discovered a witch nearby, Yoze began to see why he felt that everything was odd.
For one, some of the gravestones were ced in areas that made no sense. Around eight bronze gravestones were carefully ced around the edge of Gospel Peak. Each is ced in one of the cardinal directions north, east, west, south, northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest.
Forming a perfect circle epassing the entire area of Gospel Peak, which naturally included where he stood. Seeing that he had entered a witch spell, Yoze shook his head as he couldn''t believe his luck.
He had just selected this mission so he could kill a demon and get an easy three Sect Points. Yet, the demon he predicted wouldn''t be too powerful was at least a hundred years old, making it extremely difficult for him to win.
What made it worse was that he would need to deal with witchcraft at the same time. Even though Yoze hadn''t focused much on his witchcraft in favor of his other paths, he still learned a lot from Dreyer.
For one, he knew that even though witchcraft had a simr form to how immortal cultivators control crystal dust and crystal energy to create spells, witches took a more extreme path when it came to certain types of spells. Dead Crystal Nerves'' natural defects of being unable to absorb and store Crystal energy led to witches having limited amounts of Crystal energy that they had to spend immediately as soon as they converted their crystal dust into crystal energy.
To solve this issue, most witches, like Dreyer himself, would use their limited crystal energy to create objects with special abilities. For example, Dreyer''s nt soldiers had to be created ahead of time, and the stronger they were, the more crystal energy was needed to create them.
Since most witches don''t have enough energy to create spells at a moment''s notice to defend themselves, they have to rely solely on their creations. More powerful and experienced witches, they could create formations with their magical items that enhance and create even more magical effects.I think you should take a look at
This is where the real lethality of witches came into y since if immortals and demons stepped into this formation, they would be trapped and have to forcefully destroy the formation to escape. Of course, even with these formations, the chances that witches could be a real threat to immortals and demons were slim.
"This formation might have some influence on the mind which is causing me to be more emotional. This must be quite a strong formation, or else I wouldn''t be affected this much."
"Of course, this ipetent demon also yed a massive role in hindering this formation from working properly. With its annoying voice constantly distracting me, I haven''t gotten the chance to truly be pulled into the formation effect." Yoze looked at the spot he felt the Eternal Justice demon and felt odd.
This demon had unknowingly been hindering its own ally and weakening their team. Maybe once it came out of its hiding and attacked together with the witch''s zombies, it could give him some trouble.
But if it continued to hold its pride over being a good teammate, their partnership would onlye crashing down in a ball of fire. As Yoze watched the zombies escape from the ground and rush at him, he couldn''t help but think of a popr saying.
"It''s better to be alone than in badpany," Yoze said out loud.
"Hmmm?"
Confused about why Yoze would suddenly say a quote while he was in danger of being torn apart, the Eternal Justice demon simply chose to say nothing. He couldn''t be bothered to think about the implications or hidden meaning of the words of a dead man.
Even though these zombies were the work of a human witch, the Eternal Justice demon felt confident in their ability to do some damage to Yoze. He had personally seen their power and remembered that he had endured his body being in constant pain for months before the wounds had healed.
Unfortunately, before the Eternal Justice demon could enjoy the scene of Yozebeing torn apart, it watched as a long blood whip cut all the zombies into hundreds of small chunks of meat and bones before they even took ten steps.
"..."
"Can we stop stalling so we can get to the main event? We both are demons, and we should fight like demons. Come out of your little hole and let our bodies devour each other while our spiritual energy does the same." Yoze said with clear boredom in his voice.
Chapter 300 300: Slug Monster
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"You are stronger than I thought you were a little demon. But if you want me toe out, you''re going to have to show that you are more worthy." The Eternal Justice demon said after a few seconds of awkward silence.
He hadn''t expected that the zombies that he had thought were decently powerful were so weak in front of Yoze. He almost felt a bit embarrassed that he had chosen to have trusted these small creatures to fight a demon.
He had forgotten thatpared to its species that had a weak body from the start. Most demons were very sturdy the moment they were born. Meaning that as they grew older and had more time to devour more spiritual energy, their physical bodies would automatically be stronger.
From the mere looks of it, the young demon in front of him had already made his body so powerful that it could control its blood to be a weapon. Even though these zombies were useless in front of most demons, he had allowed his own bias to influence his own decisions.
Unfortunately, he had too much pride in his heart to allow a younger demon like Yoze to see his body after boasting so much. He could only force his teammate to try harder.
While the Eternal Justice demon was refusing to ept his own mistakes, Yoze felt that this was the most boring battle he had ever been a part of. Even though several minutes had passed since he had gotten here, he hadn''t been able to fight the Eternal Justice demon or even see its body.
The only thing he felt was interesting was the formation that the witch had set up that could influence his emotions. Still, after he lifted his guard, its effect dropped drastically. So unless the witch who had set this up came with a more powerful formation or spells, he didn''t have to worry about it much.
"If you are not goingto volunteer toe out, then I will just force you."
Before Yoze finished his sentence, he jumped into the air and threw a heavy long blood spear made out of his blood at the location he sensed the Eternal Justice demon. In less than a split second, the blood spear had dug deep into the ground when a deep roar erupted.
"Fine! I will just kill you and not give you any mercy!" The Eternal Justice demon''s rage and shame seemed to fuel its spiritual energy to explode from the ground like a volcano.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Three red pirs of spiritual energy rose out of the ground like magmaing out of a volcano.
The ground trembled asrge cracks ran across the graveyard, causing dozens of gravestones to fall deep into the mountain, including one of the bronze gravestones, which allowed Yoze to instantly sense that the formation surrounding the region copsed to nothing. Watching the Eternal Justice demon cause this level of destruction simply from leaving the ground, Yoze''s face dropped as he knew that this would be a tough battle but felt his heart thumping from excitement.
He could only imagine the horrifying creature about to emerge from the mountain''s depths. ording to his theory, the demon had to be at least twenty feet tall and weigh nearly 20 tons.I think you should take a look at
The demons he had fought before were childrenpared to the disy that the Eternal Justice demon had shown him just now. Luckily he didn''t have to wait long before he noticed a giant blood-red eye with several purple pupils popping out of one of the cracks in the earth.
The single eye was sorge that it was asrge as a human torso, and the killing intent was so dense that Yoze felt like he could taste it.
Just then, a second eye appeared from another crack, then another, and another. By the time Yoze counted the original ten eyes, another ten popped up, filled with the same rage and killing intent as the first five eyes.
"Boom!!!"
Suddenly, the entire ground of the graveyard sank several feet before exploding to reveal a giant ck figure. Judging from the shape of the Eternal Justice demon''s body, Yoze was surprised to realize that it wasn''t a mammal.
"A slug?"
Even though there was a thick cloud of dust covering the details of the Eternal Justice demon''s body, it was enough for Yoze to guess that the Eternal Justice demon was some kind of slug-like creature. From the fact that all of its eyes were on stick-like appendages and its oddly long body, he felt that the possibility that the Eternal Justice demon had some rtionship with a slug was high.
"Are you engulfed in fear!? Hpmh, I hope you can survive at least a few seconds so I can get some entertainment as I kill you." The Eternal Justice demon said with anger.
Using one of its eyes, it waved away the dust cloud so that its majestic body could be revealed to Yoze, which allowed Yoze to see the bright yellow and slimy skin of a giant slug.
"Finally, let''s not y around anymore. It''s either that I end your life today and consume all of your spiritual energy and body, or I will only consume half and leave the rest for breakfast." Yoze said calmly.
With the reveal of the Eternal Justice demon''s true body, he felt more confident in his ability to win this battle. Even though the Eternal Justice demon gave him some sense of danger, it wasn''t to the point where he felt he had to retreat.
It was on a slightly higher level than when he had fought the Leopard demon when it was strong but not something he couldn''t defeat. Even with a witch hiding in the background, Yoze''s instincts no longer sensed a threat.
"For the witch''s threat to disappear either means that they have retreated and are too far away for me to sense any danger or after having their formation destroyed by the Eternal Justice demon, they don''t have anything else that can threaten me."
Chapter 301 301: Red Ghosts
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Yoze''s mind rapidly spun as he took a deep breath. The cold air had a hint of blood, dust, and other harmful materials, but he didn''t mind. His body was strong enough to quickly digest the materials that might upset an average person''s stomach and lungs.
He held onto this breath until everyst bit of oxygen was absorbed into his lungs before quickly exhaling all the carbon dioxide. He then took another few short breaths to elerate his heart rate. As he performed this strange breathing method, he watched as the world around him seemed to quickly slow before settling at a rate 20 percent slower than normal.
Feeling his mind working faster than normal, Yoze smiled under his blood armor as he began to feel his two hearts thump hard. The pressure on his shoulders from holding back at the immortal cultivator tournament and even having to restrain himself for a week melted away like snow.
He could finally just rx and be who he wanted to be and do what he wanted. He didn''t realize that he bore so much pressure that it affected his mood and desire to train. Even though Yoze knew that his emotions were no longer being affected by the witch''s formation, he couldn''t help but feel his blood lust for battle rise like the sun.
He didn''t care about killing his opponents most of the time, and he didn''t like wasting his precious time on things he didn''t like. But like every martial artist, they would suffer from an ill mental state that would slowly destroy their bodies and souls.
Even though he didn''t think he was suffering that much since he only had been restraining his behavior for a short period, he didn''t want to take a chance like that.
"Restraint is something that every being must do. This is how the world is allowed to function without destroying itself. The body restraints itself to protect its own strength from ripping itself apart. The mind restraints itself so that it doesn''t go crazy from all the information that it processes."
"Spiritual energy restrains itself so that it doesn''t decay from the harsh environment. Demons restrain themselves so they don''t face the cold embrace of death. Immortals restrain themselves so they don''t face death''s cold embrace."
"I restrain myself for the opportunity to progress. Martial arts are a means of restraint and a means of freedom. It allows for the restrained power of the body and mind to be free. It allows the body to reach its utmost potential by drawing out the Inner Vigor hidden inside every cell and letting it do the impossible."
As Yoze thought about theplexity of life and how his life had been affected by transmigrating to this world, The Eternal Justice demon wasn''t nning on allowing him to freelyprehend his inner desires. With a deep roar, the twenty different eyes on Eternal Justice''s body radiated a powerful red light as it mobilized 20 percent of its blood-red spiritual energy to form dozens of spiritual energy ghost monsters.
The majority of the spiritual energy ghost took on a simr form to the Eternal Justice demon, which made it look simr to the Armored Elephant demon''s Spiritual model. Fortunately for Yoze, he noticed that even though these spiritual energy ghosts had formed into other monsters, theycked the intelligence and sentience of the Armored Elephant Demon Spiritual Energy model.I think you should take a look at
Even though these ghostscked intelligence of their own, he didn''t dare underestimate them as they each were easily five times stronger than the Leopard Demon''s desperate attack. After putting his thoughts into the back of his mind to think aboutter, Yoze took another deep breath and no longer restrained himself.
As soon as he rxed, deep cracks resounded from his body as it rapidly grew an additional two feet allowing him to reach over ten feet. With his growth, the aura around his body deepened as his body began to sing praise as his Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method went on overdrive.
Even Yoze''s blood armor became more terrifying as numerous spikes grew around his fists and feet. With one punch or kick, these spikes would tear apart whoever and whatever they touched without mercy.
"This form isn''t too bad. I no longer need to imagine creating certain weapons since their blueprints are now ingrained into my armor." Yoze thought to himself with excitement as he noticed that these spikes were not simply for ripping his enemies apart.
They also had a dual purpose of allowing him to summon and create certain weapons without thinking about what they would look like. Instead, all he needed to do was think about wanting a sword, spear, or whip, and he could instantly summon the identical one he usually created.
Even though this would only spare him a few milliseconds, in an intense battle, each second counted. If he didn''t need to think about creating a weapon in the heat of battle, he could put his remaining focus on destroying his opponents.
"I must be getting close to reaching the second level of my Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method. Once I reach the second level, this transformation should beplete, and I should be able to set a dozen different weapons into my armor."
"Throw a talent mark on that Slug demon. I want to see if it''s truly as old as it says it is." Yoze quickly thought to himself as he dodged the dozens of red ghostsing his way.
Even though the red spiritual ghosts hadn''t touched him, Yoze could feel their intense heat prating his body and attempting to burn his mind. Luckily, though the ghosts were as fast as a Martial Grandmaster, they were too slow to him when he moved as quickly as he could physically, much less when he was using Centipede Steps.
So in less than an instant, the Eternal Justice demon found that not only were its attacks useless, but they created a gap for Yoze to quickly narrow the distance between them. Given the sheer size of its slug body that was barely able to fit on Gospel Peak even when it was constraining its body, it knew that it was a sitting duck.
Chapter 302 302: Ghost SkyNet
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"If you think rushing me is going to work, then you are sorely mistaken." The Eternal Justice demon said with a wide grin on its face.
With his more than 40 feet-long body, even when constrained and wrapped up like a donut to barely fight on Gospel Peak, it wasn''t going to be easy for any demon to easily get close to its body. With a single thought, the dozens of ghosts chasing after Yoze''s blood mist beganughing with a demonic tone.
"Hohoho!"
The ghostsughing caused Yoze to tighten his eyebrows as he pondered what the Eternal Justice demon nned on doing. Still, he didn''t stop for a second as he quickly arrived in front of the giant slug demon.
Clenching his fist to form a tight punch, Yoze thought about three words that caused his blood armor to boil rapidly. Sharp sounds of cracking bones came from his punching arm as it quickly tripled in size.
"Blood Breaker Fist!"
As Yoze''s fist shattered the air and unintentionally caused the air around him to rapidly increase in temperature by several degrees, he suddenly felt his mind burning as he somehow found that he had missed his punch.
"Boom!!!!!"
Several seconds after Yozepleted his punch and retreated from the giant slug demon, the sound of his punch had finally arrived and rapidly spread dozens of miles. The sound was so loud that it was several times louder than thunder and caused an uncountable number of creatures to panic.
While the devastation from his punch continued, the criminal himself looked at the dozens of red ghosts forming into a giant above the mountain. With a grim look underneath his boiling blood armor that was rapidly thinning, Yoze unconsciously touched his head as he felt his spiritual energies protecting it.
"What an incredible technique. Itbined the power of all of its spiritual energy ghosts and lifted them into the air so that all the power was spread evenly across Gospel Peak without any discrimination. Even though the power was drastically cut due to being spread around arge area, it was enough to prate my defenses and burn some of my thoughts."
"If my spiritual energies hadn''t been activated in time to prevent more of my thoughts from being burned into nothingness, I might have punched myself. I''m not even sure I can endure my full-powered Blood Breaker Fist, even with my blood armor and iron defenses." Yoze thought to himself as he shook his sore arm.
Even though his ability to save more and more energy and use it more effectively grew with time, thanks to his grade 4 Life Attraction talent, it still took him three shakes before the soreness in his arm was relieved. The mere power of a Blood Breaker Fist was far above his Blood Fist, even when he had broken through its limits.
He hadn''t yet reached the peak of his Blood Breaker body cultivation and itsplementary martial art techniques. Once he reached the pinnacle of this body cultivation method and its martial art techniques, he nned to perfectly incorporate it into his Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method.
As for now, he could only effectively pair the two body methods together at the drawback of having to rapidly consume his blood. If it wasn''t for the fact that he had two hearts and one of them was the Blood Heart, he would have been on life support from that one punch.I think you should take a look at
"This is to be expected from a demon that is 120 years old. Even though it has the fewest number of talents I seem a demon has, it is still quite powerful." Yoze nced at the screen in front of him before picking one of his talents.
[Name: Sleug Slug]
[Age: 120 Years Old]
[Talents: Banana Slug (Grade 10), Slug Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 10), Multitasking (Grade 3), Flexible (Grade 9)]
Of the four talents that Slug demon possessed, he was only interested in two of them: the Banana Slug talent and the Slug Spiritual Body Cultivation talent. With the Banana Slug talent, he could further improve his Mindless legs.
As for the Slug Spiritual Body Cultivation, it would increase strength immensely and further his progress in creating thework for his own human spiritual body cultivation. Unfortunately, even though he could grab both of the talents now, he could only reluctantly temporarily put aside the Slug Spiritual Body Cultivation talent.
At the moment, he couldn''t risk having an intense bacsh from taking this talent while in the middle of a battle with potentially the most powerful opponent he had ever faced. So he only took the Banana Slug talent and felt a chill course through his body as he felt his body be looser. He even had an illusion that his skin had be a bit more slimy.
"Hmph, your reaction speed is amazing. But I hope you are not on the brink of copse when I have only used less than a third of my spiritual energy." Eternal Justice shook his head in disappointment as it had thought that Yoze would put up more of a fight.
Even though that punch from him would have created a hole through his body, he didn''t fear one of those attacks evernding on his body. If he could influence Yoze''s mind with only a third of his power, then once he used everything he had, he should be able to burn a hole right through his spiritual energy defenses.
"If you were a bit kinder to me and showed some respect to your elders, I might have spared your life. But from your tant disrespect and for all the destruction you have caused to mynd, I have to kill you and devour your spiritual energy as payback." The Eternal Justice demon said sternly as it conveniently ignored the fact that it had caused all the destruction itself.
"If you are so confident in your spiritual energy, then why don''t you just invade my body then? We can have a contest of true strength that way." Yoze retorted back.
"..."
The Eternal Demon was a bit shocked that Yoze would dare to utter such a suggestion when it was obvious what would happen. The only result would be that all of Yoze''s spiritual energy would be consumed, and it would ruin any chance of him ever reviving in the future.
Chapter 303 303: Tentacle Tumors
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The Eternal Justice demon shook its head with disapproval at Yoze''s suggestion. Even though it hated his guts and was going to tear Yoze''s limbs off his body one by one to continue the pain, it wasn''t stupid enough to ept his proposal.
It didn''t believe that Yoze would simply allow it to send the majority of its spiritual energy into his body without having a backup n. As it thought about the look of confidence in Yoze''s eyes, it felt a cold chill run along its long thick body.
"Could it be that he is one of those demons with a second body?" The Eternal Justice demon ordered a few of its eyes to watch its surroundings carefully to prevent any sneak attacks.
Even though it had a partner, it would be a fool if it trusted a human to be capable enough to stop a hidden demon from attacking. Even if its partner was a witch, in its eyes, only creatures who have be immortals were qualified to have its respect and full trust.
With its guard up, the Eternal Justice demon mobilized the remaining two-thirds of its red spiritual energy and caused the pirs of fire to fuse. With all of its spiritual energy fused, the mere heat from its spiritual energy began to cause the very ground of Gospel Peak to melt.
The remaining nts that survived the eruption of its glorious entrance spontaneouslybusted into the bright red fire. Literal ck pirs of smoke rose into the night sky, bing support pirs for theughing Ghost in the sky.
"Hohoho! Hohohoho! Hohohoho!"
As the Eternal Justice demon quickly transformed the original peaceful and serene graveyard of Gospel into a hellscape, it groaned with relief as it felt everything bing morefortable. It was a being that preferred the heat, and living underground at the peak of the mountain didn''t satisfy its cravings.
If it wasn''t for its witch assistance mentioning that humans bred faster when they stayed in these environments, it would have moved towards a warmer location a long time ago. Now that it had to fight against a fellow demon, it couldn''t risk not being able to control its body properly due to the cold.
After raising the temperature on Gospel Peak ten degrees, it stopped as it knew that if it kept going, it would cause irreversible damage to the mountain and thus harm the delicate humans he had tried too hard to farm. With the temperature reaching a decent level, it manipted its fused spiritual energy into arge, tight-knit that even bugs would find difficult to get through.
After creating this death, it sent it directly toward Yoze with a n to slice him into tiny cubes. With a single thought, the speed of this red-hot reached speeds of thousands of miles per hour.
If it was any other human, they would have had their body sliced before their brains could evenprehend it. However, Yoze simply took a deep breath and mmed his foot into the ground, causing a loud bang but no damage.
As soon as his foot touched the hard ground, Yoze disappeared into the eyes of the Slug demon.
"What?" Surprised that Yoze could move so fast that even his twenty eyes temporarily lost track of him, the Slug demon''s eyesbusted into mes as it enhanced its eyesight.
After enhancing its eyesight, it again saw Yoze''s blurry figure rushing directly toward his death. Feeling as if Yoze was trying to humiliate them by showing he didn''t fear his, the Eternal Justice demon swiftly caused its to vibrate at high speeds.I think you should take a look at
It no longer wanted to simply slice Yoze into tiny cubes; it wanted him to feel the pain of being burned to death while watching his body cut into thin pieces. And the realization that with his body sliced into such thin slices of meat, there would be no chance of his spiritual energy reviving him, even if it didn''t eat his body.
Not aware that his actions had caused the Slug demon''s hatred of him to deepen, Yoze used his Skipper movement technique at its fullest potential and ran head-first into the death. Just as he and the vibrating death were about to collide, he manipted his spiritual energies to form two long colorful, sharp ws on his hands.
The moment he formed his spiritual energy ws, he swiftly forced the oppressive nature of the serpent demon''s green spiritual energy, the heaviness of the Armor Elephant demon''s dark blue spiritual energy, and the Swamp Leopard demon''s brown spiritual energy to form a tough exterior while making the Three-Headed Fox demon''s spiritual energy the foundation.
"sh!"
With thebined power of his spiritual energies and his maxed-out Armored Swordsman sh technique to enhance the power of his strike, he was able to cut through the vibrating death with ease. Unfortunately, it wasn''t without losing a few strands of his spiritual energy simply due to the immense heat burning the strands away before being devoured.
Though he faced some loss, he was able to cut a hole wide enough to allow his entire body to slip through the without worrying about bing charcoal. Even then, the heating from the was more than four times hotter than what he was prepared for.
If it wasn''t for having decades of years worth of spiritual energy covering his entire body underneath his blood armor, he wouldn''t have tried such a risky move. Having made it past the first obstacle, Yoze didn''t rx for even a split second as he noticed that the Slug demon''s face only showed anger but not a single ounce of fear.
With his many years of battle experience, Yoze knew that the Slug demon must have prepared a trap for him, but he didn''t back down and continued charging straight for it. Even if he was forced to escape, it would be worth it if he couldnd one hit; even if he failed, he could gather more information about the Slug demon''s capabilities.
Having cut the distance between them to less than a foot, Yoze felt slightly in awe at how massive the Slug demon was. Even with his body being more than ten feet tall, he still felt small as he looked at the Slug demon staring at him from above. Its body alone was double his height, and when he included its ming eyes, it was nearly 30 feet tall.
"Roar! Die and be part of my flesh!"
Seeing that Yoze had finally gotten close enough, the Slug demon let out a loud demonic roar that shook the mountain. As hundreds of little bumps appeared on its skin, they rapidly grew like tumors.
In less than a second, these hundreds of tumor-like bumps grew twenty feet long and three feet wide, each covered inrge red balls that were releasing piping-hot steam. The hundreds of tentacle-like appendages locked on Yoze and released a ton of steam before rushing straight for him.
Yoze''s pupils shrunk as he saw the steaming from therge red balls instantly turn arge rock into redva. And from the fact that each of the yellow tentacles was radiating so much heat that they raised the air''s temperature by several more degrees, he knew that they were just as deadly as the steam.
Chapter 304 304: Underground Escape
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Quickly finding himself surrounded by these tentacles, Yoze felt his Mindless Legs takeplete control of his body. With his body in control of Mindless Legs, his brain went into overdrive as it examined the world in slow motion.
With the countless pieces of information entering his brain, he watched Mindless Legs effortlessly control his body to find the perfect path out of danger. Using everything at its disposal, Mindless Legs shrunk his body back to its seven feet tall form and slithered through the small gaps within the formation of the tentacles.
Still, some of the gaps were so tight that even with his body shrunk and high flexibility, the tentacles grazed some of his blood armor and the hot steam. With each slight graze, his blood armor evaporated, which temporarily exposed his skin, which quickly released more blood to fill in the gap.
Just as the burning red tentacles touched Yoze''s blood armor, causing the blood to vaporize in an instant. Mindless Legs forced all of the blood to be reabsorbed into Yoze''s body while also crushing his body as much as possible.
Just as he escaped the tentacle formation, the Slug demon swiftly added dozens of more freshly grown tentacles to fill those gaps. Unfortunately, it was toote as it could only watch as Yoze quickly widened the gap between them.
Thinking on its feet, the Slug demon wrapped its tentacles together to form arge wrecking ball with hundreds ofrge red balls that poured out a thick white fog of steam. With its new weapon created, the Slug demon lifted it before throwing it at Yoze with enough power to send it flying a thousand miles per hour.
Now that it had allowed Yoze to escape from the tentacles, Mindless Legs wasn''t going to allow him to be captured. Hence, it controlled Yoze''s legs to lightly tap the ground to change directions.
"Boom!"
Just as Yoze''s body had narrowly missed the collision with the ball of tentacles, therge ball crashed into the ground, causing a two feet-deep crater to form asrge amounts of dirt, rocks, and some remaining snow flew into the sky while turning intova from the nearby steam.
Before Yoze could breathe a sigh of relief, he felt a cold chill run down his spine as he saw that blocking his path was the reformed vibrating death. While at the same time, he sensed that the Ghost Net above him was rapidly descending,pletely blocking his path from above.
Just as Mindless Legs was about to turn around and escape using its previous path, Yoze sensed immense dangering from behind him. Without even having to turn his head around, he knew that the Slug demon must have controlled its tentacles to form another death.
Knowing that Yoze couldn''t escape from any direction without facing immense danger and damage, Mindless Legs swiftly changed its n and stopped moving before plunging Yoze''s spiritual ws deep into the ground. Without pause, it rapidly dug a deep and narrow tunnel into the ground while using Yoze''s feet to move the dirt it had dug up to the surface to seal the entrance.
Noticing the n Mindless Legs had cooked up, Yoze was impressed as he could feel that his Mindless Legs movement technique was rapidly advancing again. Even though it couldn''t control his spiritual energy ws, it used them efficiently. He could tell that it was using the Swamp Leopard''s experience and his experience of traveling through underground tunnels as a foundation for using the underground world to its advantage.
Unfortunately, he had to temporarily deactivate Mindless Legs since its excellent n was failing to live up to its potential due to one w. The single w is that Mindless Legs couldn''t control the spiritual energy.
Since it could not control it, it had no way of deactivating it either, which allowed the Slug demon to easily track him. Paired with the fact that he could feel the earth above him rapidly rising in temperature, he knew that if he wanted to escape this danger, he had to take control of himself.I think you should take a look at
If he had gotten rid of Mindless Legs'' w beforehand, this would have worked easily. Unfortunately, to get rid of this w, he needed to continue to break through Mindless Legs'' limits which was happening sooner than he expected.
But it wouldn''t be happening in this battle, so he could only think about two other options to make up for it.
The first n he thought of was to turn off his spiritual ws and cut off the possibility of the Slug demon from using his spiritual energy to track him. This n had a few ws that made him reject it outright.
For one, if he withdrew his spiritual ws, his digging speed would slow. Even if he switched to using his blood to form ws and shovels to move the dirt, it would be slower than using his spiritual ws. With his Spiritual energy ws, he was cutting and moving the earth so easily, and quickly it was like he was swimming with a jetpack.
Once he switched, the resistance he would face from cutting into the dirt, rocks, and metals would increase so much that he would be slowed down by 30 percent, sufficient for the miles-long spiritual energy from the Slug demon to catch up with him.
Instead of this wed solution, he came up with a better idea. He first withdrew all his spiritual energies except for the Leopard demon''s brown spiritual energy. As soon as his spiritual energies reentered his body, he felt the hot soil above him pause for a split second before swiftly cooling.
Using this precious time, he focused on digging as deep into the mountain as possible. By then, Yoze sensed that the Slig demon''s spiritual energy continued moving; he had already dug two miles underground.
"As expected, the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy has a special quality of not being able to be sensed underground. With the sudden disappearance of my other spiritual energies, the Slug Demon has to guess where I had gone, " Yoze thought to himself as he continued to dig by, this time in the opposite direction of the Slug Demon''s body.
He knew that in this instance of the battle, he had to outpete the Slug demon in terms of intelligence and information if he wanted not to get caught by its horrifying traps.
"The most likely path that the Slug demon would think I would travel toward is around its body. From my constant attempts to get close to the demon, it might be a bias to think that I only have close-range attacks."
"There is also the possibility that I would take this opportunity to sneak behind the Slug demon andunch a devastating attack where its guard is the lowest. I could also take this valuable opportunity to escape ande back more prepared."
"Those are what I would do in this situation, but what would the Slug demon do? If I were in its position, I would guarantee my safety."
"With so little information, the chances that I can guess my enemy''s thoughts and movements perfectly is low. So I can''t risk blocking an escape path for my enemy while leaving myself open."
"But then again, I don''t need to take such a risk since I can rely on my teammate to block the escape route for me." Yoze''s eyes shed with multiple colors as he dug his way out of the mountain, waiting for the lurking witch to take action.
Chapter 305 305: Curse Of Possibility
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"These damn demons."
Inside a test building of Justice Town, which happened to be the Town Hall, was a middle-aged man wearing a long ck cloak. With his thick ck hair slicked back with a handful of grease, he was able to cover up his head full of thick gray hair showing that his body was a lot older than he wanted people to believe.
The man''s sharp blue eyes shimmered in the bright room as they reflected the chaotic scene above the town. If Yoze saw this middle-aged man, he would have been shocked to notice that he bore a striking resemnce to the golden statue of the young man who was rumored to have transformed into the God of Eternal Justice in the town''s story.
The simrities were so close that he would have known this was the same man who had aged gracefully with time. Unfortunately, the hopeful and youthful aura surrounding the middle-aged man''s statue was reced with coldness.
As the middle-aged man stared at Gospel Peak and saw the level of destruction that had been caused, he couldn''t help but feel the hatred buried deep in his heart resurface like a volcano. The middle-aged man clutched his heart in a fruitless attempt to stop himself, but he couldn''t take it any longer.
He had been suppressing himself for far too long. The weight of responsibility and guilt he felt for all the deaths he had caused using demons'' hands wrecked his mind and soul.
"God damm! Lucien, what happened to that promise you made a long time ago when you first ran away from this cursed town!? You said you were going to protect everyone and get help."
"What did you do instead when you returned? You brought a massive demon that treats your family and townspeople like food! You ipetent fool, you should have followed through and let it kill you!" The middle-aged man screamed as he mmed his fist into his forehead repeatedly.
The middle-aged man didn''t even seem to notice the pain, as even when his forehead began to bleed, he didn''t stop. His blood quickly streamed down his face and stained the pristine white carpet.
The memories of his past rapidly yed through his mind like a broken record with no stop button. The memories of his childhood that were filled with his entire vige falling apart due to rampant corruption and hired evil outsiders who forced the vigers into submission to the broken system.
The men and women in the vige''s hearts were filled with fear as they worried that one day they would be captured by the corrupt leader and evil outsiders. If it wasn''t for the fact that they were forced to work on the farmers for ten hours a day, they would have rather locked themselves at home.
His entire memories of that were only of his parents trying tofort him and his younger siblings even though they were just as scared as them. It was themon life of a viger back then, and he had no power to change it.
Years passed by in a sh in his mind as he reached the day he feared most and hated to remember. The day his younger sister was taken away to the town hall, and never came back.
Simply remembering the details caused the middle-aged man to cry as he felt helplessnesspletely engulf his soul. His strength seemed to have been snapped away from his body as his knees gave out, causing him to fall to the ground.
On that very day, he saw that something in his parents had snapped as he watched them secretly grab the knives and pans from the kitchen and walk outside in the middle of the night. The middle-aged man screamed at his younger self to follow them, but he could only feel the helplessness he felt grow as he had to watch his younger self do nothing due to fear.
"Follow them! Help them! If you don''t, they will nevere back!" The middle-aged man screamed as he felt immense paining from his heart.
Time seemed to pass slowly as the night in his memories seemed to never end until he heard the sound of something being squashed. The sound wasn''t very loud since it came from somewhere far away, but the middle-aged man knew it came from the Town Hall.
The sound of his parents'' heads being squashed like a watermelon by the evil and powerful outsiders drew him crazy. Without knowing what had happened next that day and not wanting to know, his younger self ran away.
He abandoned everything. He abandoned his life in the vige. He abandoned his mother and father. He abandoned his younger siblings.I think you should take a look at
The only thing that helped the guilt from consuming his entire soil was his promise to bring help to save the vige. He had a helpless idea that only evil could uproot evil. To save the vige, he needed to bring even more evil outsiders to kill the outsiders preventing his vige from being free.
"I promise I wille back and save the town! I will bring more outsiders to save us and kill all those bastards who have been terrorizing us!"
He didn''t dare to think about what he would do to get rid of the more evil and even stronger outsider. All he wanted was to run away from his problems and not look back.
"Lucien, stop your bemoaning and hurry up and stop being useless. I already knew that your human witchcraft wasn''t any good, but I didn''t think it was so useless that a young demon wasn''t affected in the slightest."
Suddenly as Lucien was grieving and suffering from his mind, body, and soul being consumed by his guilt of the past, present, and future, he heard the voice that he hated to the core of his being. The voice was rough and nonhuman-like, yet it easily reached his ears and entered his mind like a brain-eating parasite.
The moment Lucien heard this voice, he snapped out of his haze as he felt anger engulf his heart. Just as he was about to scream curses at the demon, his rationality took over, forcing him to swallow everything again and bottle it up in his tired heart.
Knowing that even though he could hear the demon from such a far distance between them, the demon wouldn''t be able to hear his voice. He gritted his teeth and remained silent as he waited for the voice he found so disgusting to continue without pause.
As he expected, just as the demon''s voice finished its sentence, it continued without a care about his feelings.
"The young demon I am fighting is cunning and has dug himself underground. The chances of him digging toward the town to use as an escape route is high."
"So I want you to use your weak and flimsy spells and tools to protect and block the demon from escaping. Even though you are weak, I expect you can hold him off for at least a second...maybe I should temper my expectations a bit."
"Hold him off for half a second if you can. If you fail to fulfill even this, you can expect that this demon will eat my farm before running away like a thief!" The demon''s voice was filled with anxiety as it reached Lucien''s ears.
However, he knew this anxiety wasn''t for his or the townspeople''s safety and protection. It was the anxiety that someone would have when they suspected that someone was going to eat the food while they went to the bathroom.
In this case, Lucien knew that the demon''s food was himself and the hundreds of townspeople, while the thief was a young demon disguised as a young human man in histe twenties.
"I want you and your entire race to die a horrible death. If it wasn''t for my people''s lives being in danger, I wouldn''t do anything for you." Lucien muttered to himself as he suppressed his bloodlust.
Without bothering to calm himself down, he took various strange tools and objects out of his ck cloak and ced them in front of him. After cing thest object on the floor, he sat down and inspected each object to make sure there weren''t any ws or he would lose his life.
After taking a careful look at a marbled green clock, a wooden crying snake statue, a bottle of lizard tears, and the bag of random marbles that had shapes of screaming ghosts inside them, he closed his eyes and converted the crystal dust sticking to his Dead Crystal Nerves into crystal energy.
Once he converted all the crystal dust inside his body into crystal energy, Lucien touched the marbled green clock and muttered a curse with a clear target in mind. A detailed image of a strangely tall, muscr young man wearing a thick suit of armor made out of blood appeared in Lucien''s mind as he cursed the young man with the Curse of Possibility.
Chapter 306 306: Mangos Student
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"In this world, there are endless paths to the future. Uncountable opportunities could bring a person happiness, satisfaction, and eternal joy."
"These are the hidden possibilities in this world, and the one that people follow is often wrong. Allow me, Lucien Mango, to sacrifice my sacred objects to allow this young man to once again be spared from the choice of endless possibilities." Lucien softly chanted the curse under his breath, causing the blurry image of Yoze to solidify until he could see every detail.
As soon as he noticed that he could see Yoze''s entire body with picture-clear rity, he quickly dumped all his crystal energy into the marbled green clock before letting go. As soon as he let go, a strange humming sound came from all his sacred objects as they reached resonance with one another.
The humming had a strange quality that made it seem fake, like an illusion. Yet as the humming grew louder, Lucien could hear his own distorted voice hidden inside the loud humming sound.
Just as he was getting used to the sound of his own twisted voice, the humming suddenly was cut short as his sacred objects all simultaneously silentlybusted intorge ck mes. There was no sound of a crackling fire or the smell of burning wood; it was as if the ck mes didn''t exist in the same ne.
The ck me quickly and easily ate away at his sacred objects as if they were made of paper. Leaving nothing behind but the tiny bits of ck ash that were created regardless of the material being burned.
"Two minutes."
Noticing the speed at which his sacred objects were burning, Lucien urately guessed he had only two minutes before his sacred objects wouldpletely be burned into ash, and his curse would end. Understanding that he didn''t have much time, he focused on the image of Yoze, which was now surrounded by ck gas.
The ck gas was cker than the night sky as it absorbed all of the colors in Yoze''s image. As the ck gas absorbed all of Yoze''s colors, it grewrger and cker as if it was evolving into a ck hole or bing an ever-expanding ck void.
In less than 30 seconds, all the color on Yoze''s body was eaten up by the ck gas that had be arge ck cloud that hovered above Yoze''s head. Even though this was only an image inside his head, and he had seen such a thing several times before, Lucien still felt his heart tighten as he could feel the immense power of the cursed cloud.
Knowing he didn''t have much time left, Lucien used his imagination to shape the cursed cloud into a giant book. Even though he tried his best to fill out all the details of the book, he saw that the book''s details remained blurry, as if it was purposely obstructing its own details.
With the book now formed, countless thin ck pages popped in between the book''s cover. The number of pages inside the book seemed endless, but that was none of Lucien''s concerns. He instead focused on the countless small words being quickly written into the book using colorful ink.
Out of hundreds of thousands of pages, tens of thousands of different possibilities that Yoze could have chosen in the past, present, and future were continually written down at an ever-increasing speed. With urgency in his heart, Lucien didn''t bother to look through most of the book and swiftly settled on three possibilities that would affect Yoze at this moment.
"The curse of choice is nothing but an illusion. The first possibility is that Yoze never chooses to be a martial artist. The second possibility is that he chooses not to ughter Justice Town and instead runs away. The third possibility is that he chooses to be the student of Lucien Mango."
"There is one possibility from the past, present, and future, but which one should I apply using the curse?" Lucien clutched his head with his hands as he endured the paining from his brain.
Even though he had reached the level of a Cursed Witch, performing a curse-level spell was too much for the human body to handle for very long. Whether it was the witch''s target or the witch themselves, they needed to be very careful throughout the whole process, or else it might result in them dying a horrible death.
As someone who had only be a Cursed Witch a decade ago, he could hold this curse for over two minutes and even choose which possibility would be true. Unfortunately, even though there were endless opportunities written in the book, not a single one of them was the possibility of Yoze dying.
Even though he found it strange, Lucien could only chalk it up to the fact that, as a demon, Yoze was so powerful that the possibility of him dying in the past or the near future was zero. Thus, it wasn''t written in the book at this point. With a time limit of only two minutes and more than half of that time has passed, the book of possibilities didn''t show any signs of slowing down and continued to elerate with time.I think you should take a look at
"If I knew of his past better, I could choose the most beneficial possibility for me. But without this information, I can only y the safe option."
"The first possibility is not bad since I noticed that he has practiced martial arts and even is using it in battle. But as a demon losing his martial arts skills wouldn''t do much harm."
"Without it, he would still be strong enough to ughter everyone in the town and devour our spiritual energy within seconds." Quickly detecting the ws of choosing the first option, Lucien focused on the next one.
"This possibility is by far the safest for us. As long as he runs away and doesn''t kill anyone, this is the best thing to happen for the entire town. But...knowing that evil demon''s personality after this battle, it will be too anxious and impatient for results."
"I don''t know if I will be able to continue to stop it from eating the town. It''s cruel that the safest choice is riddled with danger." Lucien sighed as he helplessly turned toward thest option.
This was something he identally discovered in the vast sea of possibilities and selected without thinking too much. He didn''t think he would be forced to take this option since he didn''t know what would happen to him and the town if he was forced to take a demon as a student.
What made his heart tighten was that since this possibility involved him, he would also be affected by the curse. Once the possibility is set, it can''t be changed by anyone. As for what would happen, how and why this demon would choose to be his student, he didn''t know. And he couldn''t predict what would happen to him and the town after this possibility was resolved.
Would they prosper and finally be able to get rid of the Slug devil, or would they just have another dangerous demon breathing down their backs, waiting to strike?
With no other choice, Lucien selected the third possibility and watched as the cursed book exploded back into endless ck gas that entered the image of Yoze. In seconds the image regained all of its colors and seemed to be on the verge of breaking into reality.
"Ahhh!"
Suddenly, a sharp pain ran across Lucien''s brain as he screamed from the intense pain. Feeling the sensation of thousands of ants gnawing at his brain caused Lucien''s eyes to turn bloodshot and blood to run down his nose.
"I can''t afford to lose consciousness now. If I do, there is no guarantee that I will wake up tomorrow morning." Trembling from the pain, Lucien reached into his robe and pulled out a ss bottle that held a blue shimmering liquid.
Seeing this strange liquid, Lucien felt his nerves slightly rx as he knew he could endure the pain and stay awake. Unfortunately, just as he twisted open the bottle cap and was about to take a drink, the chandler in the room fell from the ceiling.
The loud sound of ss scattering shocked him, causing a temporary dy in his drinking of the shimmering liquid. This small dy was soon followed up with a sudden increase in pain as the number of ants eating his brain quadrupled in the very instance.
With this strange series of idents, Lucien was helpless to find that his vision was rapidly being consumed by darkness. Just as he was about to go be consumed, the realistic image of Yoze in his mind gently smiled before opening his blood-red mouth filled with shark teeth.
As Lucien''s body copsed on the carpeted floor, the marble green clock, the wooden crying snake statue, and the bag of screaming ghost marbles all silently turned into ash. Leaving the only clue that happened that day was a circle of ck ash and an unconscious Lucien.
Chapter 307 307: Demon Eggs
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As Yoze was swimming through the ground, he suddenly felt his heart tighten. A wave of danger alerted his instincts before losing most of its danger, and he only was left with five percent of its original power.
"What was that? Did the Witch make a move?" Yoze''s face turned grim as he couldn''t sense anything was near him.
His entire surroundings were pitch ck from theck of light. However, it seemed to be more beautiful than the night sky, as tens of thousands of small spiritual energiesing from the creatures of the underground acted as stars. Even though he didn''t pay attention to every individual spiritual energy, he was certain that there was nothing out of the ordinary.
However, not feeling that anything had changed or was out of the ordinary only made him more uneasy. He wanted to use this opportunity to lure out the Witch and be able to get rid of this lurking threat.
Luckily with his persistence, he was able to find the general location of where the threat came from. When he noticed that the Witch was hiding somewhere in Justice Town, which caused his face to turn grim, though he wanted to kill the Witch before they turned into a problem, he didn''t want to enter the town in fear that he would only cause it to be destroyed, along with thousands of innocent lives being lost.
There was also the high likelihood that Justice Town was the Witch''s base of operation and thus was the most dangerous location for him. If he went toward the town, there was a possibility that he would fall into another formation.
It had only been a few minutes since he had escaped from the formation on Gospel Peak, and from how the town''s environment transformed into a ghost town the moment the Witch and Slug demon took action, it was a guarantee that there was another formation or two. With such a possibility, he quickly predicted what would happen if he ignored the danger and went into town.
Within less than a second, he knew his oue wouldn''t be good. From the scenario he created in his mind, the moment he was trapped inside the Witch''s formation, the Slug demon would take action. With both of these threats ganging up on him, he would have no choice but to use all his power regardless of the safety of the town and its people.
Ultimately, even if he could survive, he would be seriously injured, and the town would be destroyed. This wasn''t an oue he wanted to experience again, so if he could avoid it, he would.
"At this moment, the Witch had finally made a move, but so far, it doesn''t look like I have been discovered. The Witch may have only safeguarded the town by setting up a dangerous formation there."
"From my current direction, I am heading toward the town, so that could exin why I felt there was extreme danger. But it doesn''t exin why it suddenly shrunk by more than 95 percent." Yoze thought to himself as he raised his guard even higher than before.
Carefully looking around his surroundings for anything he missed, he suddenly noticed a strange and mysterious force attracting him to another direction. It was away from the town or the Slug demon, instead towards a small frozenke named Everest Lake.
Everest Lake blocked a path on his map that would lead away from the mountain that Justice Town was on. However, this path was only considered blocked by ordinary people''s standards, but for him, this was just another path.
Since this path was essible to him, it was one of the many directions he thought about taking when he first entered the underground world. It was even the direction that Mindless Legs wanted to go when it nned on escaping from this battle with the Slug demon.
Unfortunately, Mindless Legs''s n couldn''te to fruition as he took over after discovering that his spiritual energies were attracting the Slug demon like a ma. With him in full control, he changed his path to swim directly toward Justice Town to lure out the hidden Witch.
However, strangely he felt as if something was trying to lure him away from Justice Town. He could only imagine that this strange force must havee from the hidden Witch, but he didn''t understand why he would try to get him to take this path.
He couldn''t feel any dangering from this path, and if anything, he knew that this was an easy escape route since the Slug demon would never expect him to run away from the battle without trying to gain anything. Even though he had no idea why the Witch would want him to escape, he decided to bite the bullet and follow along.I think you should take a look at
He could alwayse back if there was nothing there. As for whether this was a trap that the Witch hadid out for him, he didn''t n on showing any mercy and would kill the Witch as soon as he appeared.
After making up his mind, Yoze swiftly changed the direction he was digging and followed where this strange force was taking him. As he followed along, he felt the dangerous sensation slowly decrease before reaching a low point of two percent without decreasing further.
Even though there was still hidden danger, Yoze didn''t pay attention to any of it as he was enthralled with what he smelled. He smelled a thick scent of watermelon, fresh vegetables, and a multitude of refreshing scentsing from a nearby area.
Even without any air, the smell found its way into his nose and buried deep into his brain as it triggered the spiritual energies in his body. Each of the four spiritual energies became intoxicated with the smell and deeply desired whatever was producing the smell.
Yoze felt his eyes beginning to water and his mouth drool as he knew clearly what could produce this smell; he had consumed it before, Life spiritual energy. He had once consumed the life spiritual energy of the Serpent demon egg, which not only allowed him to safely collect the Serpent demon''s talents. But since the Serpent demon was still being born, he could devour its Life spiritual energy and transform it into more of the Serpent demon''s green and oppressive spiritual energy.
Unfortunately, after his first experience with the Serpent demon''s egg, he never saw another demon egg. Unexpectedly he would stumble upon another demon egg from a random mission. From the intensity of the smell, the amount of life''s spiritual energy was far higher than the Serpent demon.
"What is this witch nning? Did they betray the Slug demon in favor of me to kill its offspring? Could it be that they don''t want me to destroy Justice Town?" As Yoze''s mind raced toe up with the Witch''s motives, his body went into action and dug directly toward the source of the life''s spiritual energy.
Even though he knew that there was a possibility that there was a trap, he knew that he needed to go. Because all the spiritual energies in his body were going on a rampage to try and escape so they could devour the life spiritual energy, he didn''t have much of a choice, or he would risk a bacsh.
"If I am not mistaken, the chances that the life spiritual energy ising from demon eggs is high. If ites from demon eggs, then the only possibility is that these eggs belong to the Slug demon."
"I don''t believe that the Slug demon could live in this mountain for more than a decade and not discover that there was a cluster of demon eggs underneath its nose. So these eggs must be its children that it decided to nurture." as Yoze concluded that he was about to eat the Slug demon''s children, he couldn''t help but feel a bit weird.
He hade over here on a mission to save a town from the Slug demon, but with him nning on eating its children, he almost felt that he was the viin. But he didn''t let that feelingst long and erased it to clear his head.
Instead, he needed to focus on what he would do if another demon protected these demon eggs. He didn''t know much about Banana Slugs, and he knew nothing about how demon banana slugs reproduce.
Still, from his instincts, which he got from copying from the Banana Slug demon, there shouldn''t be any other demons protecting these eggs. Even though he felt that the odds were in his favor, he still made up a loose n on what he needed to do in case there was a hidden demon or any type of trap.
After swimming for a mile in the same direction, Yoze noticed that the direction the strange force tried to lure him and the direction of the source of the life spiritual energy diverged. The source of life, spiritual energy, took a deep dive into the mountain''s depths while the strange force wanted him to continue traveling toward Everest Lake.
Without hesitation, Yoze immediately dived toward the life spiritual energy and temporarily ignored the strange force. What he found interesting was that even though he no longer followed the strange force, the sense of danger he felt didn''t increase.
It remained at its two percent mark even with this divergence which wasn''t true when he tried to head back towards Justice Town. Since he didn''t have much information on this strange force, he could only think that the Witch didn''t mind this small divergence.
Chapter 308 308: Slug Spiritual Body Cultivation
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As Yoze swam closer and closer to the source of the life spiritual energy, the refreshing smell continued to increase and be thicker. Judging from the intensity of the smell, the life spiritual energy was more than twenty times thicker than whenpared to the Serpent demon''s life spiritual energy when it was an egg.
With his speed and the urging of his spiritual energy, he quickly arrived at the border, where he saw the source of the life spiritual energy he detected. Even with his vision consumed by darkness, he could see that there wasn''t just a single source.
There was arge and thick white mist of life spiritual energy that surrounded ten human-sized egg-shaped objects. Each of theserge objects seemed to be their own source of life spiritual energy as the majority of the life spiritual energy never left these individual eggs.
There were only a few instances where some of another egg''s life spiritual energy would be attracted to another egg. This strange phenomenon seemed to happen the most frequently with thergest egg in the nest as it tried its hardest to steal as much life spiritual energy as it could before it hatched.
In Yoze''s eyes, these ten eggs were like miniature white suns, with hundreds of worms and other tiny creatures that lived in the underground world unconsciously attracted to the eggs. If things continued at their current pace, all these tiny creatures would most likely be these new demons'' source of food and nutrients.
"This is incredible. If I can absorb all of this life spiritual energy, then all my spiritual energies will get quite a boost. But I first need to ensure that my n has no dangerous ws." Yoze''s eyes shed with desire, but he temporarily restrained it and instead went over the details of his n.
His n was quite simple. Since he couldn''t be sure that something was protecting the Slug demon''s eggs or if there was a trap that would alert the Slug demon that there was an intruder inside its nest. He could only resort to absorbing the life spiritual energy from a distance.
He first ruled out the possibility of using his spiritual energies to enter the nest and allow them to devour the life spiritual energy. There were multiple reasons, and the first one was that he couldn''t be sure that the Slug demon didn''t have a method to sense when foreign spiritual energy entered its nest.
If he went with this n, the best oue would be that there weren''t any additional defenses, and his spiritual energies would be allowed to devour everything, including ending the life of those Slug demon eggs. It was an efficient method but had too many dangerous ws.
For one, if he didn''t want to immediately alert the Slug demon that he was right next to its nest, he could only use his Swamp Leopard demon spiritual energy. Since it was the only one of his spiritual energies that could enjoy the benefits of the life spiritual energy, it would immediately be far strongerpared to the rest of his spiritual energies.
With how sentient his spiritual energy seemed at some points, Yoze did not doubt that the moment the Swamp Leopard demon''s spiritual energy reentered his body, it wouldunch an attack on his other spiritual energies. Even though he didn''t believe it would be able to sessfully kill any of his demon spiritual energies, he was more worried about his own spiritual energy.
It was by far the weakest spiritual energy in his body and was on the verge of disappearing. It wouldn''t take much effort for one of his demon spiritual energies to swallow it whole.
Not only that, he would have to deal with a significant bacsh from his demon spiritual energies fighting to the death since the bnce that kept it peaceful would be thoroughly shattered. Knowing that he couldn''t afford to send out any of his spiritual energies, Yoze decided on another method.I think you should take a look at
One that he was more familiar with since he had sessfully tried it in the past. He was going to copy the Slug Demon Spiritual Body Cultivation talent from one of these eggs and attract the life spiritual energy to his body.
From his experience, he should be able to rapidly consume and devour all the life spiritual energies of these baby Slug demons without attracting the mother Slug demon. Even if he did attract her attention, she would be puzzled as to what was wrong with her baby''s life spiritual energies but wouldn''t make a move.
Since there was no sign that a demon was devouring the life spiritual energy, it would look like another egg was absorbing it. Plus, with the danger of another demon lurking in the darkness, she wouldn''t take the chance of identally exposing her egg nest.
This would give him some time to absorb the life spiritual energy and allow his spiritual energy to absorb the life spiritual energy and be stronger. If he could, he would try to guide some to his gray spiritual energy in hopes of strengthening it.
After reviewing his n and ensuring he hadn''t overlooked anything, Yoze retrieved the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy back into his body before throwing hisst remaining talent mark at thergest source of spiritual energy.
[Name: Slyo Slug]
[Age: 0]
[Talents: Spiritual Sensing (Grade 7), Flexibility (Grade 10), Slug Demon Spiritual Body cultivation (Grade 10), Spiritual Maniption (Grade 8), Slime Production (Grade 4), Running (Grade 2), Investigation (Grade 5)]
"Incredibly, even before this little guy is even born, it is already far more talented than its own mother. If it was allowed to grow, it would be a terrifying powerhouse."
"What''s more, it''s going to be able to upgrade my Spiritual sensing talent and even finally give me some talent to manipte spiritual energy. You and your siblings will have toe with me after I absorb your life spiritual energies." Yoze pupils shrunk from shock as he didn''t expect that he would stumble on a hidden treasure.
He didn''t think that following the strange force would improve his life so much in such a short amount of time. He almost wanted to thank the Witch for guiding him to this hidden treasure.
After celebrating for a few seconds, Yoze calmed himself down and chose to copy the grade 10 Slug Demon Spiritual Body cultivation. As soon as he got the degraded version of the talent, he turned his senses to inside his body, where he saw that all of his demon spiritual energies were trembling as a small number of their spiritual energies were converted into arge stream of burning hot red spiritual energy.
Chapter 309 309: 3,125 Boost! 3,125 Changes
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[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 24]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension, Art, Physical, Martial Arts, Spiritual, Crystal Talents, Weapon, Hunting, Beasts, Other]
[Technique Categories: Martial Arts, Blood Arts, Spiritual Arts, Crystal Arts]
[Recent Additions: Banana Slug (Grade 9), Slug Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 9)]
[Spiritual Talents]
[Spiritual Sensing (Grade 5), Spiritual Speech(Grade 4), Serpent Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 9), Three-Headed Fox Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 9), Armored Elephant Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 9), Swamp Leopard Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 9), Human Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 0), Slug Spiritual Body Cultivation (Grade 9)]
[Talent Marks: 0]
Taking a brief look at all the talents he had collected in the realm that applied to spiritual energy, Yoze felt proud as, before he knew it, he had expanded his collection by a lot. When it came to spiritual body cultivation, no one could match him when it came to talent. He didn''t believe that even the most talented demons could look him in the eye and confidently say they were better than him.
"If my calctions are correct, then my single most talented category has to be the spiritual category. With the boost alone from having five grade 9 spiritual body cultivation talents being enough to overwhelm the other categories."
Even though Yoze felt proud of himself at this moment, he wasn''t lying, as he truly was unmatched by anything when it came to spiritual body cultivation talent. This was even more true when he narrowed it down to only demon spiritual body cultivation talent.
His other categories, such as martial arts, physical, and the arts, were hisrgest categories and gave him enormous boosts. However, due to many of the talents he collected in these categories being below grade 5 and varied in what they covered, their collective boosts were not as high as having a few extremely high-grade and selective talents.
"From getting a boost of 625 times to most things rted to spiritual body cultivation. With the new addition of the Slug Spiritual Body Cultivation talent, I should be getting a multiplier of 3,125."
"Itpletely dwarfs my previous talent. Why was I worried earlier that I would never catch up to those ancient demons and immortals? As long as I keep finding new demons, I will speed will only be more demonic; just one more demon alone will boost my talent to 15,625 times."
As he was celebrating his breakthrough in his spiritual body talent, his body seemed to also be transforming, which caused him to cut his celebration short. Without knowing why, he felt his consciousness being pulled into the ck space where the representation of his spiritual energies lives.
Knowing there must have been a reason, he didn''t resist and quickly found himself surrounded by darkness. Compared to the liveliness from before, where the giant bodies of his demons wandered freely, he saw that it was empty.
Yoze frowned as he looked around his internal space and walked around. Even though the space was filled with darkness, with the presence of his demons no longer creating a thick fog, he could easily locate his human spiritual energy. Just like before, it remained the same size as he had left it before, but there were some differences.I think you should take a look at
With his increased talent in spiritual body cultivation, he found that it was much easier to guide the few strands of his gray spiritual energy around his body. Just like before, he guided his human spiritual energy through the conflicting spots, which had once again increased in number with the addition of the Slug spiritual energy.
With the new additions, he was easily able toplete a single cycle of his human spiritual energy. Once his human spiritual energy had discovered its pathway, Yoze saw that it immediately left his control and rapidly cycled through his body and consumed and expanded.
Within a split second, it went from being less than ten strands to hundreds. After hundreds of cycles, his spiritual energy reached the same size as his other spiritual energies before slowing down to match the pace of the others. Unlike the other spiritual energies, Yoze noticed that his human spiritual energy was deeply tied to his mind giving him much more control.
"Where is everything else?"
Even though Yoze felt happy now that he could put his n into action, he couldn''t help but feel worried about the disappearance of his other spiritual energies. He could still sense that they were in his body, but he didn''t sense any bacsh or conflict.
"No, my body!?"
Yoze quickly snapped his eyes open and immediately sensed the shocking changes to his body. He knew he hadn''t been gone for long, but he saw that his demon spiritual energies were causing chaos inside his body.
Even though he was reassured that there weren''t any spiritual energy leaks so he wasn''t discovered yet. He wasn''t relieved as he finally understood why they had all disappeared and didn''t bother to fight each other. They were all trying to remodel his body to be a more suitable demon body.
With five different demon spiritual energies all striving to transform him into different demons, his body was rapidly mutating. His bones, skin, eyes, hair, and flesh went through ten mutations every second.
Sometimes he would grow additional pairs of eyes on his head from the influence of his Slug Spiritual Energy before the other spiritual energies wiped them out. His limbs frequently lost their human form in favor of something that resembled a fusion of a snake, elephant, and leopard before returning to their proper shape.
He even grew different types of fur all over his body that bore no resemnce to any known creature of this world. From the speed that his body was mutating, any other creature would have died within the first few seconds.
But for Yoze, even though the pain from his mutating body was immense, he was never on the verge of dying. Simply because his demon spiritual energies held themselves back in fear that they would cause his death.
So his demon spiritual energies could onlypromise with one another and try to find the most optimal form for Yoze to have so that they could get a stronger foundation. With the increasing number of spiritual energies inside Yoze''s body, they all felt an increasing threat to their survival.
This was even more true when they discovered that Yoze''s human spiritual energy had grown to the same size as all of them. Not only that, it didn''t have to bear the cost of birthing the Slug demon''s spiritual energy, so it was in perfect condition. Paired with the fact that it was the perfect path for a human, they all knew they would be suppressed if they didn''t do something.
If they could sessfully transform Yoze''s body, they would be able to act as the de facto ruler of his body and dethrone Yoze''s human spiritual energy as the rightful path. For example, as the oldest demon inside Yoze''s body, the Serpent demon had long been unsatisfied that it could never dominate its home.
It wanted to transform Yoze into a Serpent demon so that its path would be the perfect match. With its spiritual path matching Yoze''s body, it could quickly gain the dominant position in Yoze''s body.
Chapter 310 310: Human Demon
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"Thump! Roar!"
Yoze watched the Serpent demon''s green oppressive spiritual energy m into the skin and sink into the thousands ofyers. As quickly as the situation changed, the outeryers of his skin fused and formed metal scales that resembled the Serpent demon''s scales.
These scales were ck and shone with a green light that released a pressure that made every being feel as if they were insignificant. At the same time, his slightest movements would generate gusts of wind that scratched the earth around his body.
Unfortunately, before the Serpent demon could celebrate its sessful transformation, the Armor Elephant demon and the Three-Headed Fox demon took action. They quickly mmed their spiritual energies into the transformed skin and destroyed the Serpent demon''s masterpiece.
With the three types of spiritual energies fused and transforming his skin, Yoze noticed that it became an amalgamation of the three. His skin had be leathery, the metal scales became patches of armor, and a thinyer of fur concealed everything.
Knowing that the Slug demon and the Leopard demon hadn''t taken action, Yoze watched with interest as he turned his attention to his lower body.
He saw that the Serpent demon and Slug demon were working together to fight over influence over what form his legs would take. These two demons wanted to fuse his two legs to form a type of tail. In contrast, the Leopard demon, Armored Elephant demon, and Three-Headed Fox demon wanted to keep his legs separated.
The rapid infusion of spiritual energy caused his legs to expand and shrink from the constant back and forth while crisp sounds of bones breaking reached his ears. This same situation yed out all over his body as the various forces tried their best to get as much influence before the arrival of the Life Spiritual Energy.
They all knew that once the Life Spiritual Energy arrived, they would all have to focus on devouring as much as they could instead of transforming his body. If they lost this opportunity to grow stronger rapidly for some minor gains, they knew they would be overpowered, and those changes would be erasedter on.
Yoze knew this was the case as well since he had always wanted to create a perfect bnce between his demon spiritual energies using his human spiritual energy. Due to abination of his human spiritual body cultivation talent being of low grade and it being Yoze''s original spiritual energy, it had a lot less independence than the others.
This had pros and cons, but Yoze felt that this situation was enough for him. Even though his body was rapidly transforming and mutating, he didn''t care after his initial panic.
It wasn''t because he didn''t care about being human anymore but because, with all these transformations, his physical body was rapidly bing stronger in all aspects. The constant infusion of different spiritual energies into his flesh, bones, and organs made them much stronger.
His body was always growing stronger due to some of the spiritual energies always fusing into his body. Still, it was too slow for his liking. His physical body was bing stronger much faster than any other demon, and it was much more stable and constant. However, it was too slowpared to the progress he made from training.
If he could, he would have liked his body to be as strong or even stronger than the demons he had encountered. With the Demon Summit quickly arriving, he didn''t want to hold himself back like he did in the Immortal Sect.
And if he wanted to hunt demons, he needed to be much stronger. The stronger the demons he killed, the more benefits woulde from eating their flesh. In any case, even if he lost his human form, he didn''t feel that it was that terrible.
From how quickly his other spiritual energies were able to transform his body, he should be capable of doing the same with his human spiritual energy so Yoze didn''t feel too worried about bing a disgusting monster.
"Okay, that''s enough ying for your five. The life spiritual energy is here to absorb it and be stronger." Yoze whispered as he saw the sea of white life spiritual energy rushing toward him.
The refreshing scent had be extremely intense as Yoze robbed every lick of life spiritual energy away from the ten demon eggs leaving nothing for them. When he had stolen the Serpent demon''s spiritual energy, he had taken more than 99 percent of it. Leaving the Serpent demon to have to absorb thest 1 percent to continue its growth regardless of how small.
Now that was no longer the case. Not only was he stronger, but he also had six hungry spiritual monsters inside his body to feed. So regardless of the amount of life spiritual energy, they were all attracted away from the proper owners and became his food.I think you should take a look at
Using the second he had be the huge sea of life spiritual energy arrived, Yoze quickly dug up arge room around him so that he could practice some of his body cultivation while he absorbed the life spiritual energy. In particr, he wanted to improve his Blood Weapon Handler and his new and improved Iron Colossus body cultivation method.
As hepleted forming his temporary training space, Yoze felt his muscles begin to unconsciously rx, a thick wave of life Spiritual energy entering his body. As soon as the life spiritual energy entered his body, it was surrounded by his starving six monsters and swiftly devoured.
Watching his six spiritual energies growing slowly, Yoze realized he had greatly overestimated the effectiveness of life spiritual energy and felt deeply disappointed. Even though he was disappointed, he could recognize why his spiritual energies were growing at a snail''s pace.
He came to two conclusions: the first was that life spiritual energy was very good for younger demons, especially demons that haven''t been born yet. This was because life spiritual energy was most likely the easiest type of spiritual energy that most demons could absorb and transform into other types of spiritual energy.
It was also the most easily essible form of spiritual energy for demons that hadn''t been born yet since all living creatures would produce or have life spiritual energy during their development. With life spiritual energy being the most essible and easily obtained spiritual energy, it was extremely valued and desired by demons.
Even his own spiritual energies deeply desired life spiritual energy since they didn''t need to do much for it to transform into their type of spiritual energy and fuse with their current pool.
The second reason Yoze felt that it wasn''t up to par with his high expectations was that for both his first experience with life spiritual energy and the demon eggs, most of the life spiritual energy was used to strengthen their bodies to inhuman levels.
Spiritual body cultivation could also strengthen the body, but this was more gradual since only a few strands would fuse with the body at a time. This slow process wasn''t something adult demons concerned themselves about since they would never die from old age. As long as they continued to grow their spiritual energy, their bodies would continue to grow stronger.
However, for newborn demons, this wasn''t an option they could take. They were in their weakest state when they were just born and would be prey for wild creatures and, most importantly, humans if they were weaker.
After doing some research on his own, Yoze found that it was rare for Martial Grandmasters toe across freshly newborn demons, which was why every battle was life and death for them. But if they were lucky to encounter the Serpent demon who had faced Yoze, it wasn''t a question that they could kill it in an instant.
In this dangerous environment, newborn demons cared more about strengthening their bodies now than ced more importance on its other useful functions. After figuring out that he needed to allow the life spiritual energy to prate and be absorbed into his body, Yoze immediately took action.
He quickly controlled his human spiritual energy to interrupt his other spiritual energies'' absorption. He also forcefully controlled his demon spiritual energies to return to their original path instead of absorbing the life spiritual energy.
"Roar!"
"Roarr!!"
"Roar!!!"
"Roar!!!!"
Regardless of how much Yoze''s demon spiritual energies wanted to continue their absorption of the life spiritual energy, they found that they could no longer do it. Even though they were highly autonomous in the end, they were still Yoze''s spiritual energy, so he had a decent level of control over them.
This became even more true when Yoze was able to manipte his human spiritual energy to disrupt their absorption process, making it impossible for them to continue devouring the life spiritual energy. With great reluctance, they could only fall back to their pathways and pray that some of the life spiritual energy made it over to them.
Chapter 311 311: Seven Types Of Inner Vigor
With his demon spiritual energy suppressed and no longer devouring all the life spiritual energy as soon as it entered his body. Yoze felt the life spiritual energy beginning to truly work its magic.
His tense muscles and flesh quickly rxed and were massaged at a strange frequency as they absorbed the life spiritual energy. With this strange movement, Yoze sensed his body quickly growing stronger. Whether it was his physical attack power, defense, or speed, they were quickly being enhanced.
However, the most important use of life''s spiritual energy only began to show once he felt the first few strands of inner vigor being forced out of his flesh. Unlike before, each of the strands of inner vigor had different attributes belonging to each of the body cultivation methods he practiced.
There was his heavy inner vigor from his Big Golem body cultivation, the inner vigor that was sticky from his Sinking Swamp body cultivation, the inner vigor that was as tough as metal which came from all his different Iron body cultivations, the inner vigor that was long and flexible from his Boneless Man body cultivation, the inner vigor that extremely stiff and hard like a diamond from his Turtle Shell body cultivation method, the inner vigor that was short and explosive which came from his Blood Breaker inner vigor, andstly was the inner vigor that was tough andted together like armor which came from his Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation.
In total, he had seven different types of inner vigor being squeezed out of his body, causing each respective body cultivation to improve quickly. The only one of his body cultivation methods that weren''t experiencing growth was his Beast Hunter body cultivation.
The reason why all the different types of inner vigor that he had gained from this body method weren''t also being squeezed out of his flesh was unknown, but Yoze had his guesses. The first reason could be that none of the inner vigor from the Beast Hunter body cultivation method belonged to him.
They belonged to the beasts he had tamed and had acquired using this body cultivation method. If he had his beasts with him and they were also gaining the benefits of the life spiritual energy, some of the inner vigor might have transferred to him.
The second possibility was rted to the first, and it was because he had never produced these inner vigors himself. Whether it was the light inner vigor that could reduce his weight, the inner vigor that could shrink and expand his body, or even the inner vigor that could make anything sharp as a sword, his flesh had never produced it before, and when the life spiritual energy caused his flesh to massage itself and release inner vigor, only the inner vigor that his flesh had remembered producing before was recreated.
There was also a third possibility that life''s spiritual energy could only help him produce seven types of spiritual energy at a time. And a fourth possibility is that life''s spiritual energy worked based on his body cultivation methods that produced only a single type of inner vigor and thus ignored his unique Beast Hunter body cultivation method.
Yoze leaned towards the second possibility being the closest to the truth since he felt that this strange massage that his flesh and muscles were going through didn''t seem random. Instead, he could find traces of the types of exercises that each of the body cultivation methods made him perform to produce this type of inner vigor.
However, even though it was unlikely, he felt the fourth possibility could have a grain of truth. Due to one fact, not only was his Beast Hunter body cultivation method not improving, but his newly created Iron Colossus body cultivation method was also not seeing any benefits.
[Big Golem (Level 7: 20%)]
[Iron Skin (Level 5: 60%)]
[Iron Bones (Level 5: 60%)]I think you should take a look at
[Iron Organs (Level 5: 60%)]
[Boneless Man (Level 3: 101%)]
[Sinking Swamp (Level 5: 101%)]
[Turtle Shell (Level 1: 101%)]
[Blood Breaker (Level 3: 70%)]
[Blood Weapon Handler (Level 1: 90%)]
"I haven''t been training my best recently, so my progress has slowed for all my martial arts. After this mission, I should leave the Immortal Tattoo Sect and go back to New Swamp Town to see if everything is going well with my father." Yoze let out a heavy sigh as he felt as if life was beginning to get ahead of him.
He had been running around for the past month destroying martial art sects, fighting an immortal, joining an immortal sect, and even sending Leah to his dream home. Even though he had been trying his best to train this past month or two, he just hadn''t found a peaceful and safe ce to focus on his martial art training.
Unfortunately, while Yoze wanted to think about the good times, he knew he needed to focus on making the most out of this once and a lifetime opportunity. Taking a deep breath, he changed his focus to breaking through the limits of the Boneless Man, Sinking Swamp, and Turtle Shell body cultivation methods.
Even though these were body cultivation methods that he didn''t use most of the time, he needed to upgrade them since he had added them to a part of his Iron Colossus body cultivation method. As his ultimate self-created body cultivation method, it had umted all of his experience, desires, and needs. It didn''t waste a lick of his potential.
As thebination of all his iron body cultivation methods and all of his body cultivation methods other than his Blood Breaker body cultivation method, Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method, and the Beaster Hunter body cultivation method, it was a masterpiece. Even though his new body cultivation method was extremely powerful, one of its ws was that it could only ever reach the level of his lowest level of body cultivation.
Which was currently his level-one Turtle Shell body cultivation method, so in theory, once he began to cultivate his Iron Colossus body cultivation method, he would be capped to only reaching level one. In Yoze''s opinion, he felt that it would be a pity if he couldn''t live up to the high expectations he had set for himself.
Chapter 312 312: Creation Of The First Martial Formation!
Yoze had created the Iron Colossus body cultivation method as he was thinking of all the ways he could improve the Iron Body cultivation method. The improvement process was simple and resulted in the power of the Iron Body bing harder and harder for anyone to reach.
Even though Yoze didn''t have the method to be a Martial Grandmaster, he had felt that he had derived a method to reach it just in case he never could get his hands on the method. However, as he continued to improve his Iron Body method, he felt something was missing.
After thinking about it for thest few days, he finally realized why he felt that his Iron Body method was missing something crucial and was not living up to his expectations. The reason was that all he was thinking about was improving his strength by fusing all his body cultivation methods. Still, regardless of how much he tried, there would always be a ceiling.
A ceiling to how much his Iron Body method could reach and how many levels he could add to the method before he reached the limit of his imagination. This was inevitable when anyone tried to create anything.
Regardless of a person''s profession, the moment they create something, that object would have an inherent limit. Once this limit was reached, there would be nowhere else to go.
Of course, this didn''t apply to Yoze. He was quite familiar with breaking through the limits that previous generations had thought were impossible. Regardless of any of his most influential body cultivation methods or martial art techniques, they all had gained power from him breaking through their old limits.
So when he created the Iron body cultivation method, it was as if he was once again reestablishing a cap or a limit to these same techniques and body cultivation methods that he had broken the limits of. It unconsciously made him hesitant to try and practice the Iron Body cultivation method.
After finding the reason for his hesitance, Yoze decided to go on an entirely different path that didn''t focus on obtaining immediate power. Instead, he created the Iron Colossus body cultivation method, which focused entirely onbining all his body cultivation methods and making them work together in such a way that they exceed each other''s limits.
In a sense, Iron Colossus wasn''t a usual body method which was very differentpared to Iron Body. With the Iron Colossus, he would keep all his body cultivation methods individualized but would be under the supervision of this one method.
Only once all his body cultivation was at the same level could his Iron Colossus body cultivation method unleash its true power. A power that was far beyond what the Iron Body cultivation method could reach and truly didn''t have any limit.
The only thing that could limit Iron Colossus was himself and how far he could reach in every one of the seven body cultivation methods he used to form the Iron Colossus.
"Calling Iron Colossus a body cultivation method is not doing it justice. It''s not an ordinary method either, so it should be called a new name. How about calling these types of body cultivation methods Martial Formations?"
"That doesn''t seem too bad. From now on, I will be the first martial artist to also practice Martial Formation, and my first masterpiece shall be the Iron Colossus Formation!" Yoze shouted out loud with excitement.
He didn''t even care that his shout shook the cave he had created and threatened to cause it to copse. All he was interested in was his new Body Formation, and it seemed to him that even his cheat was excited as it created a new martial art section on the spot.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 24 ]I think you should take a look at
[Talents Categories: Comprehension, Art, Physical, Martial Arts, Spiritual, Crystal Talents, Weapon, Hunting, Beast, Other]
[Technique Categories: Martial Arts, Blood Arts, Spiritual Arts, Crystal Arts]
[Martial Art Categories: Martial Art Techniques, Body Cultivation Methods, Martial Art Formations]
[Martial Art Formations: Iron Colossus (Level 1)]
[Talent Mark: 0]
Filled with pure adrenaline, Yoze immediately shifted his focus to improving his Boneless Man, Sinking Swamp, and Turtle Shell body cultivation methods to the same level as his Iron body cultivation methods. Just as he was about to get started, he suddenly noticed that he had identally missed another notification from his cheat.
[New talent has been discovered! Congrattions on discovering the Martial Formation talent branch!]
[Grade 0 Martial Formation talent has been added! Grade 0 Iron Colossus Formation talent has been added!]
"What!?"
As soon as Yoze noticed these two notifications, he felt a tingling sensationing from deep within his bones. It wasn''t a sensation that he was familiar with, so he knew that this couldn''t be what because he had gained two grade 0 talents.
He had gained another grade 0 talent before and didn''t feel this way. It instead felt as if it wasing from his instincts as a martial artist that something had changed. He felt the blood from his body rush into his head, and the inner vigor that randomly upied parts of his body swiftly started to organize itself in an orderly fashion.
An unspeakable power seemed toe from this strange orderliness that his inner vigor had taken. Just as this unspeakable power was about to break loose and arrive into this world, it broke as quickly as it formed.
Each of his inner vigors returned to their previously upied locations and once again ignored each other''s existence. Even though Yoze had only tasted power from order for a microsecond, he already knew that this power came from the Iron Colossus Martial Formation.
"This power isn''t inferior to spiritual energy or even crystal energy at all. If my theory is correct, I finally found the proper path to surpass the human limit of Martial Grandmaster, and it has everything to do with my Martial Formations!" Yoze felt his two hearts racing as each thumped so loudly they shook the earth around him.
Chapter 313 313: Martial Art Instincts
?
As Yoze was excited by his discovery, he realized that he had not only added two new talents to his collection but also unlocked a new talent branch.
"Talent branch? This makes sense; in theory, there are possibly as many Martial Formations that can be created as there are different types of martial arts."
"Since people can be talented in certain martial arts and techniques, it would make sense that people could also be talented in certain Martial Formations. But Martial Formations are quite different from martial art techniques or body cultivation methods as they use the level of body cultivation methods as their foundation and to determine their power."
"So does being talented in a type of Martial Formation mean also being talented in certain body cultivation methods?"
As the discoverer of a new path in martial arts, Yoze was extremely excited to explore this path further and was full of questions. Without waiting for long, he quickly pulled up the definition of his new talents; the more he knew about what these talents meant, the more he could use them effectively.
[Martial Formation Talent is a type of talent branch for the martial art path. Many broad and general talents in martial arts will be relevant to this field. This particr talent gives the user a boost in learning and understanding Martial Formations. The current talent grade is 0 and will give a boost of 0 percent.]
[Iron Colossus talent is the first Martial Formation ever created in this new field. This talent gives a boost to learning and understanding the Iron Colossus Martial Formation. The current talent grade is 0 and will give a boost of 0 percent.]
"I see. The Martial Formation talent is just like I thought it is one of the general talents for this talent branch. There is probably a Martial Formation Comprehension talent for this as well."
"However, the definition of my Iron Colossus talent isn''t different from the definition of my other talents rting to certain martial arts techniques. This could mean nothing, but it could mean that there is a possibility of breaking through the limits of Martial Formations." Suddenly Yoze shook his head and revised his words.
"No, there is no breaking past the limits of Martial Formations; there could only be enhancing the power by gaining a deeper understanding of the Martial Formation. And from the definition of this talent, being talented in a Martial Formation has no relevance to being talented at the body cultivation methods used for its creation."
"Since this is a new path, I will be able to explore this deeper once I finish this mission. Right now, I need to use this Life Spiritual Energy to rapidly improve my body cultivation methods."
After finishing his thoughts on Martial Formations, Yoze summoned his blood and transformed it into a thick, long, spiked whip. The mere appearance of this whip screamed evil. If another person was here to witness Yoze create such a whip, they would have thought he was here to punish an irredeemable monster.
Unfortunately, this long and hellish while was for none other than himself to train his Turtle Shell body cultivation method. Since he had reached the peak of the Turtle Shell body cultivation method and paired with his high level of natural defenses, he needed to use something much stronger than ordinary whips to further his understanding breakthrough.
"Boom! Pak!"I think you should take a look at
Taking a deep breath, Yoze swiftly flicked his wrist, which caused his blood whip to beautifully and elegantly wrap around his body and rip into his back. The pain from the whip caused Yoze to grit his teeth, but at the same time, he felt his mind clear, and he saw a path to improve his Turtle Shell Body cultivation method.
[Turtle Shell (Level 1: 200%)]
"Boom! Pak!"
[Turtle Shell (Level 2: 10%)]
The moment Yoze broke through the limit of the Turtle Shell body cultivation method, he felt the Turtle Shell''s inner vigor collide with each violent. After a few seconds, the rampaging inner vigor settled, and Yoze knew that his back had be even tougher than diamonds.
"Again,"
As Yoze was falling deeper into a calm state of mind suitable for martial arts, and ced all his focus on using the flood of Life Spiritual Energy to help elerate the improvement of his body cultivation methods. He didn''t know that he had identally changed the course of history by discovering Martial Formations.
His discovery immediately sent a shock wave throughout the top echelon of the martial artmunity as an uncountable number of Martial Grandmasters and extremely talented martial artists felt their martial art instincts quivering. The moment these martial artists felt their martial art instincts tremble, all their faces went pale as they quickly looked around their surroundings to see if they were in mortal danger before breathing a sigh of relief.
As experts who have trained in martial arts for decades and some close to a century, they all had powerful and well-tuned instincts that helped them avoid danger and helped them progress in their martial art path. Once Martial Grandmasters and elites discovered that their instincts weren''t warning them about the danger, they all knew that an opportunity to improve their martial arts had arrived.
At the top of the path of martial arts, many elites and Martial Grandmasters had long reached the peak of martial arts. With the path forward being covered in an imprable fog, they were all forced to improve themselves using different means.
Many simply failed, and some fell into the same trap that Yoze had almost fallen into himself. Nheless, no one ever seeded in prating the fog.
Unexpectedly someone who had only joined the martial artmunity for three years had identally caused some of the fog to copse, signaling to all these experts and Martial Grandmasters that they could stay a step forward and explore another path of martial arts.
The path of forming Martial Formations was created, and these talented martial arts, paired with decades of experience, were going to use it to create their own. Without Yoze''s knowledge, Martial Formations spread rapidly and would soon exceed what he thought was possible.
Chapter 314 314: Aiming To Be The First
?
Inside New Swampscott City''s Martial Art Courtyard, two old men were arguing fiercely before both of their faces quickly went pale. Without saying a word to each other, they both jumped out of their seats with the grace of a cheetah and lifted their arms to protect themselves.
"..."
"..."
After a few seconds of awkward silence between the two old men was broken by the sound of the door unlocking. Without even turning their heads, the two old men knew who was at the door and shouted as quickly as they could.
"Araha, we have been betrayed! I always knew we couldn''t trust these criminals!"
"Jeven, we have been betrayed! I always knew we couldn''t trust these dogs of the City!"
The young man and young woman had entered the room and looked at their respective grandparent with dazed stares. However, even though they didn''t understand what was happening, they still trusted their grandparents and gave each other a wary look.
The young man was dressed head to toe in golden armor and gave off a warm aura simr to standing next to the sun standing next to his grandfather. Who seemed to really be made out of the sun''s mes.
Even though the old man held a red metallic cane in his right hand, he didn''t seem to need it as his back was straighter than an arrow, and his footsteps were stable. Even when he stood still, it was difficult to look at him for long. His pure golden robe unleashed a blinding golden light directly into people''s eyes.
Meanwhile, the young woman, who wore a thick set of ck leather armor, calmly walked over to her grandfather before standing before him. Even though shecked the details, her hazel-colored eyes emitted a heavy aura that made others feel as if they were getting crushed by a mountain.
Seeing his granddaughter standing in front of him, the old man behind her looked at her with pride. Even though she was in herte thirties and had a powerful aurapared to how much pressure she must have been enduring to stand next to him made him proud.
It wasn''t every day that a martial artist could endure the pressure of a Martial Grandmaster and not even flinch. The old man smiled as he didn''t mind that every inch of his body was covered in scars.
"Cough! We were just joking. Don''t take it so seriously." The old man wearing a golden robe softly coughed as he looked at the scared old man with embarrassment.
"Yes, yes, Araha. We two old men were just joking. We weren''t serious about the betrayal and also forget about what I said about them being dirty criminals." The scarred old man quickly followed up after noticing that the golden old man had also realized their mistake.
"Araha, let''s leave. I just happened to have some inspiration and need to immediately take hold of this insight before I lose it." The Scarred old man gave his granddaughter a calm nce before grabbing her hand and disappearing from the room, leaving only a light breeze behind.
"Grandpa Geav?"
Just as the young man was about to ask his grandfather what had happened, he suddenly noticed that he was alone in the room. Even though the young man didn''t understand that the golden age of martial arts had arrived, he didn''t try to find his grandfather.
All he did was look down at the thick pile of papers in his hand that talked about one of the schrs in New Swampscott City.
"A schr that had be a Blood Master, how does that make sense? I thought the City would have more integrity than to hire a martial artist as a schr. But I guess nothing can stop corruption from seeping into the foundation of society."
...I think you should take a look at
Simr situations happened across the world as many Martial Grandmasters took this breakthrough in strides hoping to be the first person to take a step in the thick fog of the part of martial arts. As this was happening, Yoze looked at the numerous notifications entering his eyes and felt blessed to see so much progress.
[Big Golem (Level 7: 30%)]
[Iron Skin (Level 5: 70%)]
[Iron Bones (Level 5: 70%)]
[Iron Organs (Level 5: 70%)]
[Boneless Man (Level 5: 5%)]
[Sinking Swamp (Level 6: 9%)]
[Turtle Shell (Level 4: 0%)]
[Blood Breaker (Level 3: 80%)]
[Blood Weapon Handler (Level 2: 0%)]
"This is quite good. Everything except Boneless Man, Sink Swamp, and my Turtle Shell body cultivation methods has increased ten percent."
"Allowing me to break into the next level of the Blood Master realm. As for those three, I had surpassed the limits of my Turtle Shell body cultivation method three times which should allow me to disy my Iron Colossus formation at level 4." Yoze smiled as he could feel his body flowing with power.
Even without him breaking through to the second level of the Blood Master realm, the power of his blood would have seen a drastic upgrade due to the additional inner vigor. Still, Yoze wasn''tining; in his mind improving too much was better than not improving at all.
"Crack, crack, crack."
As he was examining his body, he suddenly noticed a soft noiseing from the direction of the Slug demon eggs. Due to the thick wall between them, the noise of the eggs hatching was almostpletely blocked, but with Yoze''s sharp senses, he could catch the subtle sounds.
"Unfortunately, the eggs are hatching early. If they waited for a few more minutes, taking them would have been much easier." Yoze shook his head as he took a step forward in preparation to dig through the wall.
However, he suddenly stopped as he noticed that in addition to the sound of the demon eggs hatching, there was also an even more hidden sound of digging. And judging from the sounds, the digging wasing towards him at a quick pace.
"Are the baby slug demonsing to me on their own? If that is the case, I might as well wait for them toe to me on their own so I don''t identally trigger a trap."
Chapter 315 315: Supressing baby Slugs
Chapter315 315: Supressing baby Slugs
It wasn''t a long wait as the baby slug demons dug their way through the hard stone andpressed dirt. As the baby slugs demons got closer, the sounds of sizzling grew loud, and the smell of something burning reached Yoze''s nose.
Without even having to see them, Yoze knew that the baby slug demons seemed to have the ability to spit out acid strong enough to melt the ground. He could only imagine how powerful their acid would be as they became older and began incorporating their spiritual energy into their attacks.
"If these baby slugs already can produce and spit out acid this strong. How powerful is the acid that the Eternal Justice demon produces? I need to be careful, just in case." Yoze thought to himself as he smiled at the first notice that the baby slug demon had finally made it across.
He watched as the wall separating the two of them quickly began to melt from the ten small holes created by acid spread like fire. Within a second, the entire wall had turned into a pool of brown liquid that reeked of vomit.
"Pink?"
Yoze was bombarded with an army of bright-colored human-sized slugs as soon as the walls came down. Whether it was hot pink, sky blue, light green, or bright yellow, they each enjoyed the body of at least two baby slug demons.
Other than their bright, colorful skin and bodies covered in a thick slime, the baby slug demons simply looked like ordinary slugs that were enhanced to human size. Of course, this human size was based on regr humans who stood around 5 feet and 9 inches tall ording to averaging the height of multiple regions.
So as someone who had just seen progress in the Big Golem body cultivation and saw another height increase of an inch or two. Bringing him to a height of 8 feet and 3 inches, these human-sized baby slug demons looked like babies to Yoze.
"Raaaw!"
"Raaaw!"
"Raaaw!"
Just as Yoze was examining the baby slug demons, the baby slug demons also examined him with tworge eyes on stick-like stems. Even though theycked any eyelids, the looks of surprise on their faces couldn''t be hidden from Yoze.
It wasn''t surprising to see their reaction, as Yoze assumed they must have thought he was another baby slug demon. From how easily and quickly they lost their life spiritual energy, they thought he must have been their strongest sibling and nned on killing him.
Even though they were siblings from the same parent, they were first demons. With an unlimited lifespan and not having to fear the process of aging, all demons focused on their safety first.
If their hatching wasn''t interrupted, they would have all hatched and entered an intense battle with each other. From which theirrge family of ten baby slugs would have shrunk to maybe one or two.
After which, they would quickly run away from their home to escape from their parents. Even though it was safer to stay under the protection of a powerful demonpared to trying to survive in the wild, they would not want to take the risk that one day, their parents are in a bad mood and decide to eat them.
Whether they survived in the wild would be based on their luck, survival skills, and talent. Unfortunately for thisrge group of Slug demons, their hatching process had been rudely interrupted, which forced them to hatch early since they no longer had any life spiritual energy to continue to strengthen their bodies.
Expecting that their life spiritual energy had been stolen by one of their particrly strong siblings, they all chased after the life spiritual energy in hopes of killing them before they hatched. But it didn''t take a genius to see that Yoze wasn''t a Slug demon.
"Well, well, well, you all finally arrived. I was expecting you." Yoze grinned as he stared at the ten baby slug demons with excitement.
Noticing the sparkling specks of colorful Yoze''s excited eyes, all the baby slug demons felt a chill crawl down their long backs and immediately turned around to run away. Unfortunately, not only were they too slow, but in front of Yoze, he would never give them a chance to escape once he saw them.
Yoze immediately activated all his heavy inner vigor, causing his weight to shoot up from one thousand pounds to nearly 8 thousand pounds. As soon as his heavy inner vigor activated, an invisible sphere rapidly expanded to cover all the baby slug demons.
Suddenly they felt that their bodies weighed an additional 532 pounds, while the air around them felt much thicker than before. All these factors made it so that their escape was as slow as a snail, allowing them to be easy targets for Yoze to pick up.
After grabbing all ten slug demons by their tails, Yoze was ready to Just as Yoze was about to leave, he suddenly lifted his head to the ceiling and noticed an intense heat from above. Not only that, the return to the route the Witch wanted him to follow. From the harvest he had gotten from this one detour, he didn''t mind temporarily retreating to consolidate his gains and returnter to crush the Slug demon pretending to be a God.
Just as Yoze was about to leave, he suddenly lifted his head to the ceiling and noticed an intense heat from above. Not only that, the heat was rapidly climbing to the point that he could see that slight bits of magma from above were quickly flowing through the cracks of his ceiling. Falling to the ground with extreme heat that could burn anything it touches to ash.
"It seems like I have to consolidate my gainster. First, I have to deal with this evil demon before I safely leave this ce." Yoze smirked as he knew that the Slug demon must have sensed something was odd with its nest and rushed here after noticing it had been tricked.
From how it turned everything into zing magma without any regard for its children, it was obvious it no longer cared about their safety. It might have even assumed that Yoze had already killed them and eaten their flesh.
Chapter 316 316: Iron Colossus Punch
Chapter316 316: Iron Colossus Punch
"Forget it, you ten stay inside your nest until Ie back for you," Yoze said to the ten baby slugs demons casually.
He didn''t even know if they could understand human speech yet, so he also spoke to them using his spiritual speech. Whether they understood what he tried tomunicate, he no longer cared and threw them back into their cave.
After making sure not to forget to suppress them with a little bit of the Leopard demon''s spiritual energy, he focused on the real threat at hand. Starting at the time droplets of magma, Yoze took a deep breath to prepare himself for the iing battle.
Even though he was dealing with the same opponent from only a few minutes ago, he didn''t feel a lick of nervousness in his bones. Even his instincts had reduced the level of danger that the Slug demon had given him.
No longer in the mood to remain passive and to avoid cing any unnecessary risk on the ten baby slug demons, Yoze immediately activated his new Martial Formation. As soon as Iron Colossus was activated, he sensed the inner vigor in his body instantly reacting.
As if they seemingly gained awareness of the existence of other inner vigors, he watched as all the inner vigor that made up Iron Colossus once again formed a strange and orderly pattern. As soon as this pattern was created, Yoze felt an immense power filling his body, easily surpassing his initial expectations.
The first thing to change was that Yoze''s skin rapidly turned into a shiny gray metallic color. It wasn''t just his skin, but his muscles, bones, organs, hair, nails, and everything else that was a part of his body transformed into this shiny gray metal.
This pleasantly surprised Yoze as he smiled at the fact that he didn''t have to bother to try and find the other Iron body cultivation methods. Now even if his enemies wanted to take advantage of his small weakness, all they would find was that they were just as sturdy as the rest of his body.
"Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!"
Before he could fully be excited about his new defensive power, the slight pain from his bones cracking, healing, and expanding, gained all his attention. Within less than a second, Yoze found that his body had grown more than six inches bringing his height to 8 feet and 9 inches, but he knew this was just the beginning.
The small space he had created on a whim reached its limits as Yoze''s body rapidly expanded and grew. With his head mming into the ceiling from this initial increase in height, he signaled to Yoze that he needed to be careful or else his head would be plunged into the magma above.
9 feet...10 feet...11 feet...12 feet...
In less than a second, Yoze pressed his back against the ceiling as his body showed no sign of slowing down. Before he could even consider the fact that he should have taken off his clothes, the loose clothes he had bought for asions like this were easily ripped to shreds leaving him exposed.
13 feet... 14 feet... 15 feet... 16 feet...
Finally, the small space could no longer handle Yoze''s growth and began to copse. Having already nned for this, Yoze clenched his fist and punched at the ceiling with his full power.
"Bull Fist!!"
"Boom!!!!!!"
When Yoze''s giant fist mmed into the ceiling, it copsed immediately and barely reduced the remaining power. Instant, the remaining power spread across the entire mountain, causing it to shake violently.
As if the entire mountain had experienced a small earthquake, the ground began to crack, and chunks of the mountain broke apart, causingrgendslides. Even the sleeping vigers of Justice Town all woke up with cold sweats as they immediately left their homes to deal with this emergency.
The disaster this one punch caused easily exceeded Yoze''s expectations, and he almost felt a little guilty about not holding back. But after briefly confirming that most of his attack power was still heading for its target. And that even though the power exceeded his initial expectations, it didn''t exceed it too much to cause any threat to Justice Town and the vigers.
At most, it would scare them but not cause significant damage. As for the target of his punch, he was excited to see how the 120-year-old Slug demon would deal with it.
...
A few minutes ago, the Slug Demon was anxiously staring at every slight twitch of grass or pebble, regardless of what caused the slight movement or would send a wave of its red spiritual energy to burn it to ash.
Even though it had seen that Yoze dug into the ground with high proficiency, it thought it could easily catch up with its spiritual energy and kill him.
Unexpectedly, the spiritual energies it had been following had suddenly disappeared along with any traces of Yoze. It was like he had vanished into thin air or as if he had be part of the ground itself.
"What kind of demon has multiple types of spiritual energy!? Is that man still digesting the spiritual energy of the demons he had killed beforeing here?" The Slug demon thought to itself, filled with anxiousness.
Not only could it sense that Yoze was a powerful demon with a lot of spiritual energy, but the Slug demon felt that Yoze was only teasing it. It had never encountered a demon using multiple types of spiritual energy. It could only make guesses which never ended well for it.
Just as the Slug demon was about to send a spiritual message to Lucien to see if he discovered anything, it suddenly noticed that the spiritual energy it left inside its egg nest flew out. It felt dumbfounded as it knew that this would only happen if an intruder entered or its eggs had hatched.
"That young demon should not have found my secret nest since my spiritual energy is suppressing the scent and the visual signals of the life spiritual energy. So that can only mean my eggs have finally hatched, which is good news." After concluding that Yoze couldn''t have possibly known about its eggs, the Slug demon felt its body rx.
Chapter 317 317: Transforming A Mountain Into A Volcano
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Even though the Eternal Justice demon felt that Yoze couldn''t have found its nest, it couldn''t help but find that some of its eyeballs kept wandering back to look toward its nest. Not only were its nerves not rxing, but it kept feeling that something bad was happening.
That feeling continued to get stronger and stronger. As the feeling got stronger, it found itself getting more and more agitated.
"God damn it. Where is he?"
"I feel like there is a knife on my back waiting to stab me when I drop my guard. The silence from Lucien must mean that the young demon is waiting to ambush me. I can''t let my guard down." The Eternal Justice demon thought to itself as itmitted half of its eyeballs to watch the ground and the other half to give him a 360-degree vision.
Aftermitting so much of its resources to finding Yoze and protecting itself, the Eternal Justice demon began to notice some strange tremblinging from the ground. The slight shakes were extremely small and would be impossible to notice if he didn''t ce so much focus on the ground.
What made it anxious was that these small tremors seemed to follow a pattern. The pattern was simr to a rapidly beating heart, but it was slightly different.
"Is the mountain heart beating?"
"No, something is wrong. I need to check it out."
As soon as it felt these strange tremorsing from the earth, the Eternal Justice demon''s anxiety spiked, and it could no longer sit by and do nothing. It immediately collected its spiritual energy and spat out arge thick ball of bright yellowish slime toward the ground.
As soon as the disgusting thick slime touched the ground, it began to burn a hole through the earth while releasing toxic fumes. After melting a giant ten-feet deep and 20-feet wide hole into the ground, the Eternal Justice demon plunged its enormous body into the hole face first.
Even though the hole that was created wasn''t very deeppared to its massive size, the Eternal Justice demon didn''t mind as it was just to make it a bit easier to travel through the ground. The moment the Eternal Justice demon''s skin touched the melted soil, it easily copsed and melted further from the slime from its skin.
With a speed that seemed impossible, given its size, the entire body of the Eternal Justice demon disappeared into the underground world. After a minute had passed, it reached the point where it had lost track of Yoze''s spiritual energies.
"So he went further down." After breathing a temporary sigh of relief, the Eternal Justice demon found slight traces of the direction Yoze had dug.
After finding Yoze''s path, the Eternal Justice demon slowed its pace and tried to find where those strange tremors wereing from. It didn''t take long before it realized they wereing from its nest, which caused its anxiety to explode.
As it was a demon, it knew that its newly hatched children would immediately begin to fight each other to the death the moment they were born. After which, the remaining baby slug demons immediately escaped from the nest and continued on their own path.
However, a few things were suspicious. It had just left its nest to fight Yoze, and all of its eggs still had plenty of life spiritual energy to absorb for another 24 hours, so they should have hatched so early. And second, the fierce battle between the baby slug demons shouldn''t have produced enough force that it would be able to feel it from Gospel Peak.I think you should take a look at
Even though the Eternal Justice demon wanted to believe that Yoze couldn''t have possibly found its nest, these strange urrences and the growing sensation of danger it felt in its bones made it so that it could not calm down unless it saw for itself.
"No! Shit, how did he find it!?" The Eternal Justice demon screamed angrily as it suddenly noticed traces of Yoze digging toward its nest.
"My babies must be dead already! I will kill you if it''s thest thing I do!" The Eternal Justice demon felt its hatred for Yoze deepen as its twenty eyes burned with rage.
After losing its offspring, its desire to kill Yoze and torture him exploded as its mind became consumed with killing Yoze. It didn''t even want to consider the possibility that Yoze hadn''t killed its offspring yet.
All the Eternal Justice demon wanted to do was make sure that Yoze would not be able to threaten its life anymore. So it immediately controlled its bloody red spiritual energy and sent two-thirds of it directly to its nest.
As soon as the blood-red spiritual energy touched the soil, rocks, and creatures living underground, everything was turned into ash and zing hot magma. The temperature of the mountain immediately began to rise sharply and began to kill everything.
In the Eternal Justice demon''s fury, it immediately swam through the hot magma directly toward its nest. As it continued to swim deeper and deeper, more of the mountain''s internal core was transformed into magma, turning it into a volcano that could erupt at any time.
Even though the Eternal Justice demon knew that its actions would harm the development of its human farm, it no longer cared. After this battle with Yoze, it had already desired to consume all the spiritual energy of the humans in the vige before restarting in another location.
"What is going on? Did I identally cause an earthquake from my recklessness? God damn it, my luck is awful today!"
"Forget it; even if this mountain erupts and causes all the humans to die, I can always start over. In the meantime, I will just start to consume human viges and towns again."
The Eternal Justice demon eyes showed confusion as it didn''t expect that creating magma in a mountain would cause such an enormous reaction. Nevertheless, it didn''t think about the consequences of its actions much since this eruption wouldn''t cause him any physical harm.
"Boom!!!"
Unfortunately, even though the Eternal Justice demon was right about that, an erupting volcano wouldn''t do much harm to him due to his body being able to easily endure the temperatures of burning magma. The force wasing, for it was another story. As soon as the Eternal Justice demon heard the deep rumbling of the earth and the loud explosion, its instincts screamed of danger.
However, before it could respond, the force of Yoze''s Bull Fist had already pierced through its magma and directly mmed into its head.
Chapter 318 318: Torn In Half
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The Slug demon''s pain was nothing like it had ever felt before. Even when it was weak and had to fight against its siblings to survive, it had never felt like this.
The feeling of having half of its head blown off while its remaining half was crushed into a pulp was unimaginable. Even though it had survived, the impact of the Slug demon almost wished it didn''t.
Unfortunately, even after using arge amount of its energy to ruin the Slug demon''s face, Yoze''s Bull Fist had enough remaining force to throw the Slug demon out of the mountain and a mile into the air. Even though Yoze didn''t know how much damage his punch had done to the Slug demon, he didn''t n on stopping his assault.
Since the small space he was inpletely copsed, he could only dig his way out. And by the time he resurfaced, he had ground another four feet before his transformation had stopped.
"The power of my Iron Colossus Martial Formation is amazing! If my guess is correct, my full-power Bull Punch was at least 20 times more powerful than before." Yoze grinned as he stared at the falling Slug demon from the sky.
Given the enormous body of the Slug Demon, he knew it must weigh at least 200 tons. Even though he was confident about his own strength, he knew that unless he used the full power of Blood Breaker, Blood Fist, his spiritual energies, and his full power, there wasn''t any possibility of him being able to send the Slug demon flying through the air.
Much less having the ability to send the Slug demon a mile into the air after pushing it out of an entire mountain. That wasn''t possible, even if he risked his life to draw out everyst bit of strength he had in his body.
So to have acquired this power by simply activating his Iron Colossus Martial Formation, he was more than pleased with the result. Even if he had chosen to continue to practice the Iron Body cultivation method, its results would still be vastly inferiorpared to the Iron Colossus Martial Formation.
"Slug demon! I hope you still have some fighting spirit left in you, or this battle will be boring!" Yoze shouted at the top lungs as he stomped heavily on the ground to throw himself into the air.
With his heavy stomp, the ground below Yoze''s feet caved into several feet deep while Yoze, who had reached a weight of more than 80 tons, flew into the air like a bird. In less than a few seconds, he reached the falling Slug demon, who was shocked beyond belief.
It couldn''t understand where this giant metal humanoid monster came from. One moment it was underground and swam in a pool of its own magma, and the next second, it found itself in the air.
What was even more insane was that the mountain suddenly gave birth to a giant iron monster that gave it so much pressure that it wanted to run away. Unfortunately, as a demon who had always lived on the ground or below the surface, it had no experience controlling its massive body in the air.
So it could only helplessly watch as it watched a massive fist heading straight toward its ruined face. Even as it hurriedly gathered its red spiritual energy to form a makeshift armor, it knew it could only pray that it didn''t hurt too much.I think you should take a look at
In his excitement at his newfound power, Yoze didn''t flinch as he saw the Slug demon hastily control its hot spiritual energy to make armor. All he wanted to do was test how strong he had be and send this demon that had caused him so much trouble into outer space.
"Blood Bull Fist!"
As Yoze used the full power of his Twin Blood Fist technique, he felt the blood in his gaming body begin to boil as his arm doubled in size. The veins in his arms became thicker than a snake as they tried their best to contain all his boiling blood.
Just as his fist was about to m into the Slug demon''s body, Yoze''s shiny gray eyes glinted with red sparkles that contained his strong bloodlust.
"Boom!!!!!"
When Yoze first came in contact with the Slug demon''s spiritual armor, he felt his iron skin be red hot. At the same time, the temperature of his iron muscles also began to rise rapidly. However, though his body was heating up, Yoze only felt as if he had dunked himself in a hot water bath.
It was hot and caused his blood to rush into his skin, but it wasn''t enough to cause any significant damage. Instead, it felt quite rxing and even felt quite good.
While Yoze was enjoying this interaction, the same couldn''t have been said for the Slug demon, who was being torn apart from physical and spiritual pain. The defensive power of its red spiritual energy was nowhere near as capable as the Armored Elephant demon''s dark blue spiritual energy.
So even though it had caused Yoze''s body to be hot, it could only stop 40 percent of the force before breaking apart. The pain from having its spiritual defense broken was immense and unforgettable, but the pain from its body ripping apart wasn''t less painful.
The Slug demon''s mind was overwhelmed by the pain and shock as it could only watch its long body rip into two halves that were sent flying even higher into the air. Before the Slug demon could even think about trying to regenerate its body, Yoze''s spiritual demons left his body at full force and targeted each half of the Slug demon.
With this moment of weakness, Yoze''s five spiritual demons devoured as much of the Slug demon''s spiritual energies as they could. This was especially true for Yoze''s Slug demon spiritual energy as it easily incorporated the Slug demon''s red spiritual energy.
Even to the shock and horror of the Slug demon, Yoze''s red spiritual energy didn''t hesitate to eat and absorb until it had grown about twenty percentrgerpared to the other spiritual energies that were having a more difficult time in the absorption process.
Chapter 319 319: Ten Giant Meatballs
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As the Slug demon watched in horror and pain as Yoze''s several demon spiritual energies were consuming its red spiritual energy, it angrily stared at Yoze. Still, it could do nothing but hope to return to the ground. It had lost more than half of its spiritual energy before its remaining spiritual energy was forced to escape and fly back to its torn body.
Once Yoze saw that his spiritual demons couldn''t devour more of the Slug demon''s spiritual energy he summoned them back into his body. Now that he had started his human spiritual body cultivation, he didn''t want to allow his spiritual demons to grow sorge that they dwarfed his human spiritual energy.
Even though he had consumed more than half of the Slug demon''s spiritual energy, each of his spiritual demons didn''t grow asrge as one would have expected. If one considered that the Slug demon had 120 years'' worth of spiritual energy then Yoze had decades worth of spiritual energy before he even devoured the Slug demon''s.
So even though he had consumed arge amount of spiritual energy from the Slug demon, about 70 years worth, each of his demon spiritual energies only gained about ten years worth. Of course, Yoze''s own Slug Spiritual demon had gained the mostpared to the others.
It was simr to the thought that each of his spiritual demons had eaten two leopard demons. So from another standpoint, Yoze''s own spiritual demons were beginning to be terrifying.
The more spiritual energy he consumed and added to his supply, the more his spiritual energies could act as if they were their demons. With this strong group of spiritual demons, once he faced another bacsh from their battles for dominance, Yoze knew he would suffer grave injuries.
So he could only follow with his initial n of having his human spiritual energy act as the dominant party and be the host for his other spiritual energies. Unfortunately, not only did he not have a clue on how to start that process, he was in the middle of a battle, so he could only forcefully redistribute his spiritual energies so that they all remained equal.
After this redistribution, all his spiritual demons stared at his gray human spiritual energy with hatred as they all faced a loss while only it had gained. However, none of them took action as they knew that Yoze''s gray human spiritual energy still had home field advantage even though they tried to modify Yoze''s body earlier to make it more suitable for them.
Once Yoze settled his issue with his spiritual energy, he turned his attention back to the Slug demon, who had reached a new height of four miles into the sky. Seeing the power of his Blood Bull Fist, Yoze smiled and quickly shook his arm to get rid of the tingling sensation and exhaustioning from his arm.
"It''s been quite some time since Ist used the attacks from Twin Blood Fists. To draw out the full power of my body and exceed it is as exhausting as I remembered it."
Even though Yoze wanted to examine the performance of his Blood Bull Fist further, he knew he had to temporarily put it on pause. He was about to touch the ground and once again be able to continue their battle.
With his bloodlust still fired up, Yoze immediately mmed his foot on the ground to shoot himself directly to where the Slug demon was falling. If there was anyone there to watch, they would have been stunned to see how an 80-ton iron giant crashing into the ground didn''t make a single sound.
Not only did Yoze''s crash not make a sound, but it didn''t even make a crater. His jump made it seem like he was much lighter and even grew a jetpack to fly in the sky. He easily flew through the air and reached the Slug demon, whose remaining five eyes looked at him with great fear.I think you should take a look at
The Slug demon knew it waspletely helpless, as it knew that Yoze would never allow it to reach the ground. It could only grit its teeth and hope that one of its attacks would do enough damage to this metal giant.
"Whoosh!! Whoosh!! Whoosh!! Whoosh!! Whoosh!!"
Unfortunately, that was exactly what Yoze wanted it to do. As he reached the Slug demon, Yoze grinned as he unleashed a flurry of rapidbos of Blood Koi Fists to crush the Slug demon''s body into a bloody paste.
In less than a second, thebo chain of Blood Koi Fists surpassed one hundred, and the Slug demon''s two halves were unrecognizable. They couldn''t even get the luxury of getting a break to regenerate since Yoze''s chain of attacks kept them in the air but never would send them far enough that the next attack wasn''t around the corner.
Even though the Slug demon''s physical body was getting the worst beating it had ever experienced in its life, the situation with its spiritual energy was much worse. No matter how powerful any of its attacks were or whether they were full of tricks, Yoze would always send out his gang of bully spiritual demons to do nothing but devour its spiritual energy.
"This young demon is a monster! Where did he get all these demons'' spiritual energies!?"
"Is he trying to collect the spiritual energy of all the demons he killed and trap them inside his body to act as his underlings!? What kind of sick freak did I run into?"
"I should have joined the Demon Alliance! Maybe I wouldn''t have to face this monster all alone." The Slug demon''s thoughts were full of regrets, and besides the mind-numbing and soul-crushing pain, it almost wanted to join the Demon Alliance on the spot.
The only thing stopping it from doing so was that it feared that even if it joined the Demon Alliance now, Yoze would still kill him. Finally, after more than 20 minutes, Yoze''s seemingly endless array of attacks stopped as he allowed the ten giant balls of bloody and slimy flesh to crash into the ground.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The sound of all ten giant balls that used to be the Slug Demon crashed and destroyed a small forest area. Not far behind these balls, Yoze gentlynded next to them and looked at the giant meatballs with pride.
Chapter 320 320: Surrounded By Demons
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Each of these giant meatballs was made up of the Slug demon''s flesh, bones, and slime. With each meatball weighing around 20.5 tons, the total weight was 205 tons of meat.
Starting at these giant meatballs that used to be the Slug demon, Yoze shook his head with a gentle smile as he remembered hisst moments with the Slug demon. At that point, he had nearly consumed all of the spiritual energy that the Slug demon could manipte outside of its body or what made up the majority of the consciousness of the Slug demon.
At that time, Yoze had not only crushed the Slug demon''s body to the point that it was unrecognizable from just a bloody paste or crushed-up meat, but the Slug demon was at the breaking point. It knew that it would die if it didn''t do something, and it had long lost the chance to form any kind of counter-attack or even escape.
The only thing that brought it the slightest hope was horrid and would possiblypletely lock its life into what was no different from very. Having lost all its eyeballs and too afraid to send out its remaining red spiritual energy outside of its body, it could only rely on its spiritual sensing ability to sense Yoze''s red spiritual energy.
Not only did it sense that Yoze had the same type of spiritual energy, but it also sensed that the red spiritual energy followed the spiritual body cultivation method as its own. That could only mean one thing and that its number one enemy had somehow obtained the spiritual energy of a Slug demon.
When the Slug demon became aware of this, its heart shook with pain, and the desire to kill Yoze vanished like smoke. Though the Slug demon hated Yoze to its core, this red spiritual energy gave it some hope.
"He didn''t have this spiritual energy before; he must have obtained it from my children. He must have consumed them and kept their spiritual energy alive and sealed in his body to use his puppets."
"If I give up and dedicate my life to him, will he ept me as one of its servants? Maybe in the future, I can charm him with my beauty, and he will allow me to have more freedom. Possibly even get my body back." The closer the Slug demon got to death, the more delusional it became. Still, it unexpectedly almost hit the nail on its head.
Yoze had indeed only obtained the Slug demon''s spiritual energy when he had found its nest. Unfortunately, it wrong assumption that Yoze had eaten all its children and captured all their spiritual energies was very wrong.
But how could it be med? Any demon would havee to the same conclusion if they saw Yoze wielding several types of spiritual energy with ease.
Even the Leopard demon had a simr thought when it noticed that all of Yoze''s spiritual energies seemed to have almost had a mind of their own. It was as if there wasn''t a single entity controlling the actions of all these different types of spiritual energy but multiple.
Since all demons would only have one type of spiritual energy and one spiritual body cultivation method they were born with, their minds were strongly linked with their spiritual energy. Meaning that the instincts their spiritual body cultivation talents gave them were the same as their own.I think you should take a look at
In the demon world, Yoze was an anomaly. And no matter how much experience demons had umted over the years, when faced with this situation that the Slug demon was in, they would all make the same decision.
"Okay, I surrender! I''ll be your ve. Just please don''t kill me! Here, here, here, this is all my remaining spiritual energy, so you know I am sincere!"
The Slug demon immediately crumbled when it felt its danger instincts screaming to escape from the dangering from Yoze''s fingers. Before Yoze could even say anything, the Slug demon quickly sent out everyst strand of the spiritual energy it could control.
When Yoze saw the Slug demon show him its spiritual energy in such a submissive manner, he was shocked before recognizing that this was the same as what he had experienced with the Leopard demon. In this sh where he had gotten a dominant position with the Slug demon having no way out, it wasn''t surprising that it would resort to desperate means to survive.
Unfortunately, even if Yoze wanted to ept the Slug demon''s proposal, he had no idea how to do it. He was only able to have some control over his spiritual demons because they were all his own spiritual energy.
They were all originally a part of his human spiritual energy before his cheat split them. So no matter the type of spiritual energy he had or the spiritual body cultivation it followed, he could control it like it was his own.
As for allowing a foreign demon''s spiritual energy to enter his body and live inside him, he didn''t know how he could do it without his spiritual demons trying to kill it. Understanding that the Slug demon''s hope was impossible to achieve, Yoze just nodded and controlled his human spiritual energy to drag the Slug demon''s spiritual energy into his body.
Mistaking that Yoze''s actions meant that he had epted its proposal, the Slug demon''s felt its hatred for Yoze deepen. It could barely ept that it was going to be forced to serve a demon younger than itself.
"Wait a minute, is this another type of spiritual energy? How many demons have fallen to this man''s subjugation? And what kind of twisted freak is willing to keep so many dangerous entities in his body." The Slug demon felt its heart tighten from fear as it sensed another type of spiritual energy.
Before the Slug demon could think about its horrible future under permanent servitude, it found its spiritual energy surrounded by several bloodthirsty spiritual demons and arge humanoid figure standing at the side like a lifeless giant.
"Shit..."
Chapter 321 321: Selling To The City?
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After dealing with the Slug demon''sst red spiritual energy, the rest of the remaining body of the Slug demon wasn''t very difficult to take care of for an absolute giant like himself. Even though Yoze had taken care of the Slug demon and felt that his Iron Colossus Martial Formation was out of this world, he had to figure out what he would do with all this meat.
The total weight of the Slug demon came to be around 205 tons or 410,000 pounds. That was too much meat for his family and himself to be capable of eating.
Even if they focused on eating this meat every day and eating as much as they possibly could, a majority of this meat would still be rotten and lose its special properties. Not only would that be an immense waste of precious food, but it would also be nearly impossible to hide from any organizations.
Whether it was the Immortal Sects like the Immortal Tattoo Sect or the Immortal Shadow Sect or major cities like New Swampscott City, they would be drooling if they saw his precious meatballs. Unfortunately, there would be no way for him to sell such a massive quantity of slug meat to Immortal Sects like the Immortal Tattoo Sect without gaining attention and suspicion.
From the sheer size and weight of Yoze''s meatballs, no immortal would think that a weak and recently born demon could grow to this size without being extremely powerful. Powerful enough to kill new immortal cultivators with some effort and impossible for an immortal cultivator like Yoze would be capable of.
Even if they still epted his offer and he gained arge number of contribution points, there was a high possibility that he would be the target of an extremely powerful and old immortal. Yoze might have been extremely confident about his strength, especially with his invention of Martial Formations. However, he still knew there were many existences in this world he couldn''t challenge, at least not yet.
"What do I do with all this meat? I can try selling it to New Swampscott City." Yoze gently held his iron chin as he thought about all the pros and cons of selling his meatballs to the City.
After a few minutes, Yoze nodded as he figured out that selling to the City was a great way to get rid of his excess demon meat. However, he might need to take a massive loss if he did so.
In Yoze''s mind, regardless of how much he decided to sell to the City, it would ruin the value of his future demon meat sales to the City. Even if he sold them just one meatball, the City would gain a huge supply to serve its own armies.
So regardless of what he did or how the City decided to manage the meatball, they would have more leverage the next time he wanted to sell demon meat. Meaning the value of his meat would go down, which was a huge loss for him.
As for the City, no matter how much Yoze decided to sell his meatballs to them, they would still make a huge profit in the end. Not only would they be able to easily strengthen their current army, but they would be able to also easily expand their army due to the influx of martial artists who would want to try eating demon meat.I think you should take a look at
"Selling the City is a guaranteed way for me to lose the sellers advantage in the small supply and high demand in the demon meatball market. But as long as I use the gains of the present to make investments in the future, I can mitigate my losses."
"I can also include the condition that my demon meatballs must be given to the people and the martial artists. This way, even if I give the City a lot of meat, it will be quickly consumed."
"It will also serve as a foundation for my future ns and help to once again create a high-demand and short-supply market. Still, I can''t give the City all my meatballs; I can keep half a meatball for myself and my family."
"8 meatballs can go to the City, which woulde to a total of 164 tons of demon meat for them. Yet with the City''s massive poption being in the millions, no one will be able to even get much."
"This is especially so if the City decides to increase the proportion size for all their armies and cut the amount each regr person would get. Still, this should be enough for what I am nning."
"As for the remaining one and a half, demon meatballs... They can go to Justice Town." As Yoze thought about Justice Town, he couldn''t help but smile.
He had onlye to this town on a whim to get more Sect Points, but he had gotten something much better. As for the Witch lurking inside the town, he would find a way to drag him outside the shadows before he left.
If there was anything he could do for Justice Town to repay them, he could at least allow them to enjoy his demon meatballs and get rid of another hidden danger for them. He could also use this meeting to make the Witch answer a few doubts in his mind.
"As for where the Witch is trying to guide me by using this strategy force, I can take a look. To be capable of summoning a fog that even my instincts scream of intense danger, he must be immensely powerful and a much more terrifying threat than the Slug demon." As Yoze mentioned the Slug Demon''s partner, his joyful face dropped as he stared at the thick ck fog of death that loomed over the horizon, waiting to gobble him up.
After staring at the looming ck fog for a few minutes, Yoze moved his gaze and grabbed one of his demon meatballs. After lifting the first one and doing a few test tosses, Yoze felt his n was reasonable and picked up the rest of the meatballs and began to juggle them back to the mountain.
Chapter 322 322: Caravan Arrives At Justice Town
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If there were any here to bare witness to the magical scene of Yoze juggling around ten giant demon meatballs, they would have been shocked. The sight of a 20 feet tall giant made of iron silently walking through the forest with giant balls of flesh and meat would have scarred anyone who saw it.
This scene would have been forever engraved into their minds, and they will tell their children and grandchildren once they grow old. identally creating a horrifying legend of the flesh-collecting iron giant that wandered the forest.
Even though Yoze knew how strange he looked, he didn''t ce too much thought into it, as he was trying his best to predict where the strange force wanted him to go. He initially thought it wanted him to go to Everest Lake, but it no longer seemed so.
He had been walking up and down the various mountains and forests for thest few days and walking in circles. If it wasn''t for the strange force continuously weakening as he followed its directions, he would have disregarded it and dealt with the consequences.
Luckily, while Yoze was in mid-thought about how he would hide the traces of the intense battle between the Slug demon and him, the strange force disappeared entirely. Noticing its disappearance, he looked around before his eyes twitched since he was right outside the entrance of Justice Town.
The only difference between when he first arrived was that there was now a long andrge wooden caravan parked outside of the entrance of Justice Town. Numerous wandering traders stepped off their carriages and wagons with exhausted faces and stared at Justice Town curiously.
After traveling from vige to vige, then from town to town, and city to city for numerous years, all the traders had gained many strange treasures and umted arge amount of wealth. So it was strange to see theme to such a remote town that hadn''t even existed a few years ago.
Bymon logic, there wasn''t much for these merchants to gain froming to such a small town with only a poption of a thousand. And after listening to the murmurs from both the merchants and the workers, Yoze was certain that they didn''t understand they hade to Justice Town either.
"Why would the Witch make me wander the forest for a few days and bring me back to Justice Town? Did he n to use those few days to make his escape?" Yoze deeply frowned as his mind raced to figure out the Witch''s motivation.
After a few minutes of observing the Town''s situation from within the shadows of the 100 feet trees in the forest, Yoze knew he needed to enter Justice Town to truly understand what the mysterious Witch wanted from him. So he silently left to find a caverge enough to hide his demon meatballs and covered the entrance and exit with a giant boulder.I think you should take a look at
After deactivating Iron Colossus, a deep sense of exhaustion mmed into Yoze like a rock as he struggled to keep himself awake until his body recovered enough energy by eating a hundred pounds of demon meat. Once he felt the energying back into his body, Yoze frowned slightly before understanding that this was a side effect from using his Iron Colossus Martial Formation.
"To generate arge amount of power, one must consume an equal orrger amount of energy. The power that I can obtain from Iron Colossus is far beyond my expectations, and so is the amount of energy required to use it."
"Just from this one attempt, it seems my limit is a week, or I can activate Iron Colossus 4 times in a row before I die from exhaustion. For now, that isn''t too bad since I have never fought a battle that has needed tost that long." Yoze shook his head as he felt disappointed that he couldn''t be in his Iron Colossus state for as long as he liked.
Even though he was disappointed that he would only be able to use his Iron Colossus Martial Formation during tough fights or emergencies, he knew that other martial artists would be in a much worse position. From what Yoze predicted about the nature of Martial Formations, he suspected that the more types of body cultivation methods and inner vigor were incorporated into a Martial Formation, the more energy was demanded from its users.
Of course, with each additional body cultivation method and inner vigor, the power of the Martial Formation would drastically increase. From Yoze''s current knowledge, to create a Martial Formation, one would need to have at least two different types of inner vigor.
So for Yoze to create the first Martial Formation in the world, to need five different types of inner vigor to activate bore testament to the immense power it gave. But it also made it nearly impossible for any other martial artist to ever learn it, much less have enough endurance to sustain the Iron Colossus Martial Formation for long periods of time.
Yoze was the only exception, and even with his abnormal endurance, which could put demons to shame, he could only activate Iron Colossus four times in a row. Any other martial artist who somehow learned the Iron Colossus Martial Formation wouldn''t be able to activate it more than once and use it for a few hours at most.
"I can treat Iron Colossus as my trump card for now. In the meantime, I should create another Martial Formation requiring less body cultivation methods and types of inner vigor." Yoze thought to himself as he walked outside and felt a subtle breeze touch his rock-hard muscles.
"Damn, I forgot that all my clothes had torn off when I was transforming. So I have been walking around making for thest few days... I can''t tell anyone about this." Realizing that he had been walking around naked, Yoze felt his face burn from shame as he remembered that he had walked past several viges...numerous times.
asionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 323 323: An Elegant Scholar
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"When I see that Witch, I''m going to have to beat him up when I meet him to get some revenge for putting me in such an embarrassing position. If I didn''t need to walk around in circles for several days, I would have noticed I was naked." Yoze sighed deeply as he tried his best to forget that it was his fault for not noticing earlier.
Instead, he focused on how he needed to get himself another set of clothes that would be able to fit his massive body and frame. It didn''t take long before he remembered that there was one that sold clothes amongst the many wagons and carriages that were a part of the caravan in front of Justice Town.
Not only were these clothes avable for purchase, but they seemed to indicate that the merchant selling these clothes was into fashion as they were all unique. Each one is different from thest, and most importantly, all the outfits were made out of expensive material so that the elites would have something to brag about.
Even though he wasn''t the type of man deeply into fashion, he remembered that he found some of the clothes to look quite nice. Whether the clothes were for men or women, they were all designed to tightly mold to their user''s bodies to pop out their figures.
As long as the person who bought the clothes was somewhat fit and could fit into the tight clothes, they would look quite nice. So for someone like Yoze, whose physique could be nothing else but described as perfect, he felt quite confident that as long as he bought one, he would look amazing.
"Hopefully, there are some clothes that will be able to fit me. The chances aren''t that high that the merchant would have bought clothes that can fit an over 8 feet tall giant full of muscle." Yoze frowned and sighed again as he knew that he would have to shrink his body.
Unlike when he had asked Jewel for clothing advice, there was no going to a costume store that just happened to have clothes designed for a giant monster. So he could only make do and make the sacrifice of hiding some of his beauty to ensure he doesn''t identally sh anyone.
After making the painful decision to shrink his body, Yoze activated the inner vigor he had gotten from his pet serpent, which caused his body to shrink by a foot. Now that he was only 7 feet and five inches tall, he looked around the forest and felt everything was much bigger.
"Now that I solved my size problem, I can at least get myself some clothes. But there is still the problem that the Witch might still be inside Justice Town."
"If that is the case, then I will be discovered the moment I step into town. Even though I am much smaller now, it will still be obvious that it''s me from my aura."
"Even though changing my aura won''t help too much, it will still be better than nothing. But to do that, I will need to get my Three-Headed Fox demon spiritual energy under control." Yoze''s eyes shed with gray sparkles as he quickly entered the ck space that held the representations of all his spiritual energies.I think you should take a look at
Unlike when he entered this space when he copied the Slug spiritual body cultivation talent, the entire space was once again filled with the auras and extremelyrge bodies of his spiritual demons. Whether it was the Serpent demon, Armored Elephant demon, Three-Headed Fox demon, Leopard demon, or Banana Slug demon, they were allrger than thest time he saw them.
Having grown from devouring all of the Slug demon''s spiritual energy, they all were more powerful than ever. With their increase in power, the light of intelligence in their eyes and the rity of their spiritual body pathways that asionally shed across their bodies improved.
If he had taken the time to remain in this space longer to observe these pathways, he might have gained more insight into theplex spiritual energy pathways in his body. Unfortunately, Yoze was not interested in studying their spiritual pathways in more detail yet.
Right now, he needed to find the Three-Headed Fox demon and ''convince'' it to allow him to control his aura. Even though this ck space seemed infinitely big, it wasn''t difficult to find the Three-Headed Fox demonzily sitting next to his nearly motionless human spiritual energy.
"Fox demon, I''m going to need you to do me a favor and allow me to have better control of my aura." After finding the Three-Headed Fox demon, Yoze quickly controlled his human spiritual energy to suppress the Three-Headed Fox demon.
"Roar!!" Angered that Yoze was suppressing it, the Three-Headed Fox demon roared. Unfortunately, even with the quantity of their spiritual energy being equal, it wasn''t a match with Yoze''s human spiritual energy, which had a home-field advantage.
Once the Three-Headed Fox demon was suppressed, Yoze noticed that its gigantic body began to clear, which allowed him to see the subtle changes in its spiritual pathway. With each subtle change in the speed, direction, locations, and density of the orange spiritual energy, he noticed the aura he projected changed slightly.
Eventually, he settled on a type of aura that gave him a sense of elegance that should only belong to real schrs of knowledge. It created the feeling that he was disciplined and extremely confident in his abilities but remained somewhat humble.
"This shall do quite nicely. It''s very different from the aura that the Three-Headed Fox demon usually creates, so it should take some time for the Witch to figure out who I am." Yoze smiled as he felt that his current aura was quite pleasant, so he quickly stopped the orange spiritual energy from changing and kept everything constant.
To ensure that the Three-Headed Fox demon didn''t ruin his ns, he could only keep it suppressed until it was no longer necessary to hide his aura. After ensuring he didn''t forget anything, Yoze once again stepped outside and walked back to Justice Town to buy some clothes.
Chapter 324 324: Expired
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With his speed, stealth, and aura that had be more subtle, it didn''t take much effort for Yoze to grab a set of clothes from the fat merchant that sold somewhat exotic clothes. When Yoze saw the clothes he was left with, his face twitched as he didn''t think he would be left with these options.
Since he had seen all the clothes from a distance and with them all tightly packed together, he didn''t realize that all the clothes he wanted were too small for him. Even after shrinking himself as much as he could, he knew there was no possible way for him to get into them without them tearing.
So he could only settle with the clothes he had found that fit his current size and frame. Other than the fact that these clothes might be tighter on him, he didn''t have much toin about.
"When I get back, I should train more with the Vine Serpent. I had only had him for a few days, yet his inner vigor has already been extremely useful to me."
"If I can get as much inner vigor that the Serpent currently has, I might be able to be asrge as it. Unfortunately, even if I can be a hundred feet tall using the Serpent''s inner vigor, I will still be much weaker than just using my Iron Colossus Martial Formation." Yoze touched his chin as he imagined trying to create a Martial Formation using the Beast Hunter body cultivation method.
Eventually, Yoze sighed from defeat as he struggled toe up with Martial Formation that used the Beast Hunter body cultivation method. After creating Iron Colossus and experiencing its vast power, he tried to create other Martial Formations, but all his attempts ended in failure.
"Creating Iron Colossus took me quite a long time to figure out, and that is because I tried to create a body cultivation method instead. So now that I have experience creating one, it should be easier, but it seems that creating Martial Formations is harder than I thought." After struggling to create a Martial Formation, Yoze shook his head and focused back on his new clothes that cost him a small bag of demon meat.
"These three outfits are very different from one another, so I guess I will go with this one here. Itpliments my current elegant aura."
After selecting an outfit, Yoze used his incredible mental imaging ability to create an urate image of himself. When he saw how he looked, he smiled as he felt he looked incredible.
He was wearing an all-ck outfit with bits of sparkling gold that created a feeling that he was wealthy. His long pants were made out of some smooth material that felt like silk which was the same as the rest of his tight suit.
Whether it was his shirt, zer, socks, cane, or that they had a solid base of ck with some hints of real gold that popped out. When Yoze noticed that this suit even had several ck metal masks and small whips inside its inner pockets, he couldn''t help but wonder what this suit was made for.
"Now that I am all dressed up, I''m ready to go and find that Witch in style."I think you should take a look at
Once Yoze ensured everything fits him properly, he swiftly walked by the caravan and entered Justice Town before any of the merchants could get a good look at him. They could only see an elegant tall man walking past them in a hurry.
As for the fat merchant who had just unknowinglypleted a transaction, when he saw Yoze rushing figure, he couldn''t help but think that Yoze was an elegant man. He even hoped that before they left Justice Town, Yoze woulde to visit his carriage so he could sell him some suitable clothes.
"This ce hasn''t changed much since I fought the Slug demon. It even seems more vibrant and active now that the sun is out." Yoze thought to himself and felt a bit of shock when he entered the town.
Just like he had first expected, Justice Town seemed to be an extremely active town and was growing. He saw numerous parents walking with babies in his arms as their older children yed in the streets.
Even the elderly poption, who had experienced the days when the town was just an insignificant vige, seemed to be enjoying the vibrant life of the town. However, he did notice a few oddities about the town, like even though Justice Town was growing rapidly, the number of people in their old age was much lower than it should have been.
Usually, for a stable town of this size, the number of elderly people make up ten to twenty percent of the poption. Even if the town was growing and had many newborn children, the percentage of elderly people in their sixties would rarely be below ten percent.
However, even though Yoze was simply wandering the streets aimlessly and casually looking around, he only saw 30 people in their sixties and above. And all these people didn''t have a lick of death spiritual energy surrounding them, meaning they hadn''t reached the end of their lifespan.
"For the elderly poption to be this low can only mean two things. First, all the other elderly people died early and thus aren''t part of the current poption of Justice Town."
"The second is that most elderly people have died after bing old. This isn''t too strange since this town''s medical field isn''t as good or robust as New Swampscott City''s or other older towns."
"What makes this town different from others is that a demon was overseeing its growth. And no demon would allow itself to waste precious spiritual energy just because it wants humans to live their lives to the fullest." Yoze''s eyes dimmed as he could guess what had happened to all the old people the demon viewed as about to expire.
Chapter 325 325: Luciens Troubles
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"Just as humans don''t allow livestock to get too old to make sure that doesn''t lose their vor. Demons would not want to waste any human spiritual energy because of the erosion of death spiritual energy."
"I should ask a few questions from the townspeople before I jump to conclusions. Hopefully, I can be proven wrong in my hypothesis." Yoze sighed as he tried not to think about the worst possibility without any evidence.
After hearing that the Slug demon was absorbing the faith energy humans produced from the greeter in the Mission Room, Yoze had assumed that was wrong. From his own experience, demons didn''t require humans to worship them to grow stronger. They only sought to devour theirrge quantity of spiritual energy.
There was no other reason. Human beings simply had, on average, arger amount of spiritual energypared to other animals, such as ants, pigs, elephants, and worms.
Since humans had firm control of thend and could be found nearly everywhere, they were the favorite target for demons. So when he heard that a demon was trying to be the god of a vige, he had some doubts.
After meeting the Slug demon, he was able to confirm that there was nothing special about the Slug demon from the other demons he had met in the past. The Slug demon was older and more powerful but didn''t seem to have any talents simr to the Flower Lord.
"It is a blessing that the Slug demon doesn''t have the Flower Lord''s talent of Spiritual Gathering and Spiritual Type Influence. If not, no one in the Town would have been safe, and things would have gotten a lot more messy."
"It''s been quite a while since I was in New Swamp Town. I believe it''s been about two weeks, so I wonder how much it has grown since then."
"The Flower Lord was only six months old when Ist checked, so with the amount of time that has passed, it should have reached seven months old. Not only should it be stronger, but I wonder if it has gotten more talents."
As Yoze was walking around, he suddenly remembered that inside New Swamp Town lived the Flower Lord, who, at the time, gave him an intense feeling of danger due to its ability to influence its targets. If it wasn''t because he had been able to firm up his will and resist the Flower Lord''s influence, he didn''t know what would have happened.
After consuming the Slug demon and gaining more control of his spiritual energies, he was excited to test who had grown more in this short period. Was it himself whose talents were growing at a steady pace, or was it the Flower Lord?
"Regardless of which one is the case, I''m going to need to devour the Flower Lord''s spiritual energy. It might not have made any attacks against me yet. Still, the fact that it is hiding New Swamp Town and secretly changing its followers'' spiritual energy means that it is up to no good." Yoze''s eyes shimmered with colorful sparkles as he imagined how much his spiritual energy would grow after devouring the Flower Lord.I think you should take a look at
Even after meeting the Slug demon, the Flower Lord was still the creature with the most spiritual energy he had seen. And it was still by quite arge amount as well.
Suddenly as he was walking around and observing Justice Town, he noticed a middle-aged man with slick ck hair and a head tightly wrapped in bandages slowly walking towards him with elegance, unlike the ordinary townspeople of Justice Town, who seemed to be filled with vibrancy and life.
The middle-aged man''s aura was heavy, and he seemed to carry a heavy burden that many people would have crumbled under. What made Yoze feel strange was that he felt that the middle-aged man gave him a sense of familiarity as if he had met him before, but he couldn''t quite ce his finger on it.
That middle-aged man was Lucien Mango, Justice Town''s mayor and the one who was responsible for the rapid growth of the Town. As the sole individual who had helped Justice Town grow from a small vige to what it currently is, he should have been proud of his achievements, but instead, he was filled with guilt and worry.
"My luck is so bad. First, the Slug demon had disappeared and caused utter chaos before it left, and now my teacher has sent his eldest student to check in on my progress."
"What am I supposed to say? I had already lied to my teacher about returning to Town to teach a student, so I can''t possibly say I no longer have a student and made no progress."
"If I do, my life and Justice Town will all cease to exist tomorrow morning. God, what has my luck be." Lucien sighed deeply as he gently touched his head.
After being hit in the head by his chandelier, yesterday he had no memory of what had happened the entire day, so he had no clue why he received reports that the entire mountain had experienced an earthquake. When he decided to visit Gospel Peak to check in on the Slug demon, his jaw dropped.
Gospel Peak had disappeared and was reced by a deep crater filled with boiling magma. There was no telling how far deep the pool of magma had gone, so it was possible that overnight that the entire mountain had transformed into a volcano.
With no way to contact the Slug demon who had mysteriously disappeared, he could only return to Justice Town and give a half-baked excuse to the Townspeople. And that was only what had happened when he had woken up; now that a few days had passed, he had to deal with another life-and-death problem.
When Lucien remembered the two people waiting for him in the town hall, his head began to throb with pain. He could only make things up as he goes and pretend that he was sending a message for his student to return to Justice Town, which would buy him a few days to find a fake student.
Chapter 326 326: You Are Now My Student
Lucien took a deep breath to clear his head and randomly walked around town to see how it was developing. This was the only thing capable of giving him some joy for thest few years.
Seeing everyone''s lives improve every day due to his involvement made him believe for a second that what he was doing wasn''t sending everyone to their deaths. That he was doing the right thing, that the longer and healthier they were, the more time it would take them to experience the pain of having their souls eaten by a demon.
"If only I was born during this period of progress, then I wouldn''t have to worry about all of this mess. I can experience a peaceful life without any oppression and experience my life with my family."
"Mother, father, brothers, and sisters, I hope you are not watching my torment from above. Just watch the good side of the town, not the darkness I have hidden behind my back." Lucien''s sharp blue eyes softened as he lifted his head to look at the clear blue sky and feel the sun''s warmth.
"Hmmm, who is that?"
As he was trying to enjoy hisst few days on this earth, something or, more urately, someone immediately caught his eye. Standing a dozen feet away from him was a tall gentleman who seemed to be the definition of elegance. His tall, strong back, long ck cane, and well-shaped body easily made the young man stand out amongst the crowd of townspeople.
Even though the young man easily attracted the attention of others simply from his great appearance, what truly attracted Lucien''s attention was that the young man caused his Witch Identifier to pulse. Feeling the subtle pulsing next to his heart, Lucien pulled out his silver pocket watch and noticed that the minute hand and hour hand were pointing straight at that young man.
This a clear sign that the young gentleman had Dead Crystal Nerves inside his body, which meant he had the potential to be a witch. Seeing this young man suddenly appear at the perfect time, Lucien felt his heart rapidly beginning to race.
Without thinking about it much, his legs began to move toward the young man, as he didn''t want to identally miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Even though there was a chance that this young man was already a witch, he didn''t care.
All he needed was for this young man to pretend to be his student for the next few days. As long as the young man could pull off a convincing act, he would reward him.
If the young man wasn''t a witch, that would be even better; he could use the excuse that his student wasn''t very talented in the craft to stall or cancel the check-in. As for whether the young man would want to continue to be his student after discovering his potential, he would respect the young man''s choice and teach him as best as he could before sending him off.
This town was too small and dangerous for the growth of a new witch, so for his benefactor''s benefit, Lucien wouldn''t condemn him to an early death.I think you should take a look at
As he got closer to the young man, Lucien realized he was taller than he initially thought. He, himself, had a height of six feet and three inches which was quite tall for Justice Town''s standards. Yet, he felt small in front of the young man, who was over seven feet tall.
"Cough, young man. Are you new to Justice Town?" Lucien loudly coughed to get the young man''s attention which seemed unnecessary since the young man was already looking at him with curiosity in his eyes.
"You could say that. My name is Yoze Thunder. I''m a schr from New Swampscott City. May I ask who you are?" Yoze smiled as he realized why he felt Lucien felt so familiar.
Inside the graveyard on Gospel Peak was a statue of a young man rumored to have be the Deity of Eternal Justice. He had always wondered who the young man was based on since it was the Slug demon who controlled the town.
But now that he saw Lucien had realized that they both shared very close simrities, which could only be possible if they were family members or the statue depicted when Lucien was younger. Either way, it showed that the man in front of him might have some connection with the Slug demon and could be the witch he was looking for.
"A schr from the big city ising to our little town. It seems that our reputation is growing faster than I expected. I am Lucien Mango, the mayor of Justice Town; it''s an honor to be in your presence." Lucien felt surprised to find out that a schr would visit them.
It wasn''t every day that a schr would visit small towns very far away from the cities. This was especially the case since Justice Town had only grown to this size recently, so on most maps, they would still appear to be a small vige.
"I don''t want to interrupt your time in Justice Town, but since you are a schr, allow me to give you a gift. First, my most precious pocket watch, which is said to have been blessed by the gods to help identify chosen ones." Lucien smiled as he forcefully ced the Witch Identifier into Yoze''s hands.
When he saw Yoze stare at his watch with a curious gaze, Lucien sighed with relief since it showed that Yoze was not an experienced witch. If he tried the same trick on another witch, they would have immediately given it back and thrown a dozen curses his way.
Before Yoze could speak and possibly return the watch, Lucien grinned as he activated his trap.
"Well, it seems that the watch has chosen you, which could only mean your future is bright. Allow me to ept you as my student so my knowledge of the arts will be passed down from generation to generation."
Chapter 327 327: Completing The Curse
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Inside Justice Town, there existed a hidden room that rarely saw usage. Except for the Mayor, no one else in the entire town knew about this room''s existence and, of course, never stepped foot into it.
Yet today, this hidden room that seemed to always be empty was a bit crowded. Inside the room were four people who each had their unique facial expressions and thoughts. However, today it seemed that the main character, Lucien Mango, was the only one who seemed to be struggling to keep his emotions in check.
With his back facing the other three people in the room, he hid the fact that his face was pale and his hands were trembling from fear. If the others had seen him, they would have thought that he had seen a ghost, only he knew that he had seen an existence that was much more horrifying than any ghost.
"Demon, how could I have epted a demon as my student!?" Lucien''s pupils were tightly constricted as he remembered what had happened only a few hours ago.
"Since you have good fortune and are destined for greatness, allow me to take you as my student. Don''t discount my offer since this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Lucien said with confidence.
Even though he had partially tricked Yoze into bing his student by forcefully handing him his Witch Identifier, which took the form of a silver pocket watch, he didn''t regret his actions. Since it meant that unless Yoze threw it away or handed it back, other witches would see him as part of the Witch of Time legacy.
He didn''t think Yoze would go so far as to throw the silver pocket watch away since it was a valuable item and was quite interesting for new witches. Just the feeling of the Witch Identifier causing Yoze''s Dead Crystal Nerves to throb for the first time should have grabbed his interest.
"What is this? Also, who are you, Mayor Lucien?"
When Yoze spoke, Lucien nodded as he knew that Yoze would have asked this question since this was exactly what he had asked when his teacher had taken him in. To lure Yoze deeper into his trap so that there would be no way for him to deny bing his student, he didn''t answer and simply walked toward the town hall.
He knew that Yoze would follow him since he needed to get his questions answered, all of which could onlye from him. Unfortunately, Lucien wasn''t able to get far as he felt that Yoze was familiar like he had seen him before.
"What a strange feeling! It is like I have seen this young gentleman before; have I seen his work as a schr?" Lucien felt puzzled as he searched his memories to try and find where he had seen Yoze before.
"No, I don''t think I ever heard of a schr named Yoze Thunder. Judging from his young age, he must have only be a schr recently."
"Maybe I identally saw him walking around town and just forgot about it. Yeah, my memories are beginning to clear; I saw him somewhere in town before." Suddenly Lucien stopped walking as his eyes snapped open wide as he felt a shock run through his body from both fear and horror.
"He''s the demon that was fighting the Slug demon! For him to be here and the Slug demon to have vanished could only mean." Lucien''s body began to tremble, but he quickly tried to suppress it.I think you should take a look at
Even though he no longer wanted his memories of that day toe back, he had no choice but to endure the flood of information. As he remembered everything, he made connections about all the rumors and disasters that were happening around town.
The mountain transforming into a volcano, the earthquakes, the sighting of a worm-like creature flying in the air, and the rumors of the mountain suddenly giving birth to a giant metal monster, everything made sense.
"I''m doomed."
The urge to run away as far as possible nearly overtook Lucien''s body as he knew that for Yoze to be here and in perfect condition could only mean that the Slug demon was dead. And that his curse did everything in its power to make sure that he would force Yoze into his student.
Including making him have amnesia so that he wouldn''t remember anything that happened that day. As for everything else that happened after this point was no longer influenced by the Curse of Possibility.
Even if Yoze decided to kill him and devour his soul, the curse would do nothing since it had already fulfilled its goal and ended. He could only hope that Yoze didn''t figure out that he was the Witch that cursed him so that he could live a little bit longer.
Unfortunately, Lucien''s wish wasn''t going to be fulfilled as he felt arge hand sp his shoulder tightly as he heard Yoze whisper into his ear.
"Let''s find a quiet ce where there are no people so we don''t catch unwanted attention. You wouldn''t want the townspeople to find out that their mayor is a witch, right?"
Even though Lucien didn''t see Yoze''s face, he could imagine that Yoze had an inhuman grin across his face. So he sighed with regret and continued to walk to the town hallcking the pep in his step he had before.
...
After recalling the details of his and Yoze''s chat, Lucien heavily rubbed his eyes from exhaustion and stress as he first needed to deal with the immediate problem. His teacher''s elder student was waiting peacefully behind him to check his progress in witchcraft.
Even though he hadn''t made much progress, this check-in wouldn''t be a problem since he had already nned an excuse. The problem was that right next to this elder student was someone even more problematic.
Knowing he couldn''t stall any longer, Lucien turned to face all three people waiting for him. Unlike the other two, Yoze had a smile on his face as he gained quite a lot of benefits from his interaction with Lucien.
Chapter 328 328: Cursed Book
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When Yoze examined the other two people inside the room, his smile grew as he felt he would have arge harvest in the next few days. The first person to draw his eyes was the supposed talented elder student that had caused so much worry for Lucien.
Yet in Yoze''s eyes, he only saw that he was a charming young man dressed like an experienced merchant. His clothes were extremely fancy and made it clear that he was wealthy. Still, he also tried his best to make himself as approachable as possible.
To sell as many goods as possible, one needed to have the desired products and reasonable pricing, and a good merchant would make his customers feel asfortable as possible. The morefortable people were, the more likely they would feel morefortable buying things they didn''t necessarily need but wanted.
This young man fits that description perfectly. He had long brown hair tied up into a ponytail and soft hazel-colored eyes. His body wasn''t the stereotypical fat merchant that most people were familiar with. Instead, he was lean and slightly on the skinny side.
This might have been due to the need to travel far distances and tough terrains that kept his body fit. Regardless of how Yoze looked at him, the young man was only a charming merchant and didn''t fit the description of what a witch should be in his mind.
Yet, when he saw the young man''s information panel, he realized that he truly had the talent to be a great witch.
[Name: Devi Marrin]
[Age: 30 Years Old]
[Talents: Dead Crystal Nerves (Grade 8), Witchcraft (Grade 9), Rapid Calction (Grade 10), Emotion Control (Grade 9), Crystal Energy Maniption (Grade 7), Curse of Remembrance (Grade 5), Trap Arts (Grade 4), Value Identification (Grade 7), Finger Arts (Grade 3)]
"I can understand why he is the elder student even though he is obviously younger than Lucien. He has the most talents rted to the art of being a witch I have ever seen. He is basically the better version of Blood Master Scarlett." Yoze thought to himself as he copied Devi Marrin''s grade 8 Dead Crystal Nerves talent without hesitation.
[Grade 8 talent Dead Crystal Nerves has been selected. Your Dead Crystal Nerves talent has been upgraded to grade 7.]
As soon as Yoze saw that his talent had been upgraded, he felt a calming sensation flowing through his body as he sensed his mind quickly bing faster. While at the same time, the crystal dust that was on the outer edges of his dead crystal nerves was no longer on the verge of being sucked away from his crystal nerves.
Every single particle of crystal dust grew closer together as his Dead Crystal Nerves tried to absorb the crystal dust but failed. As Yoze was enjoying the sensation of his talent improving, he didn''t waste his time tossing hisst talent mark to the young boy standing beside Devi Marrin.
Compared to Devi, who looked like a professional merchant, the young boy dressed like a typicalmoner. His clothes were not expensive but also not the cheapest ones that could be bought in the market.
Whether it was his shirt, pants, or shoes, they were all slightly too big for him now, but in a year or two, they would be the perfect size. When Yoze noticed that the young boy had purple hair that had been recently cut short and purple eyes that looked around the room with curiosity, he was partially convinced that the young boy was a child.I think you should take a look at
However, once he saw the young boy''s information panel, he realized that everyone in this world liked to hide their age.
[Name: Luxy GoldenEye]
[Age: 10 Years Old]
[Talents: Witchcraft (Grade 9), Dead Crystal Nerves (Grade 8), Rapid Calction (Grade 6), Crystal Energy Maniption (Grade 6), Curse of Youth (Grade 7), Investigation (Grade 8), Acting (Grade 10), Running (Grade 8), ounting (Grade 5)]
Seeing that the young boy who looked like he was in middle school was only ten years old, Yoze''s eyes twitched. After finding out that it wasmon for immortals and immortal cultivators to make themselves appear younger than their actual age, he had already developed a somewhat distrust for people''s surface age.
Yet this was his first time seeing someone make themselves look older. Even though he was interested in the reason behind Luxy''s choice, that didn''t stop him from copying his talent for witchcraft.
[Grade 9 talent Witchcraft has been selected. Your witchcraft talent has been upgraded to grade 8.]
"Senior Devi, before we begin with my check-in, can you inform me about the situation with our teacher? How is his health?" Lucien calmly asked after regaining hisposure.
"It''s the same as when you left; his condition isn''t very good. With his age, most people would have died a long time ago. He is only barely staying alive by putting a curse on himself that is eating at him." Devi slowly said without any infections in his voice, not allowing anyone to know his true emotions.
"I see. Is he getting any closer to bing a Grand Witch? Before I left, I heard he nned on visiting the Grand Witch of Fog Mountain; how did that go?"
Hearing that his teacher''s health wasn''t improving and was declining, Luciem couldn''t help but show some worry on his face as he asked a few more questions. Unfortunately, with every answer Devi answered, his hope that his teacher would survive this year continued to decline.
Just as Lucien was about to lose all hope, he suddenly heard something that immediately attracted his and Yoze''s attention.
"Teacher has already epted that he is going to die, so he ns on ending his life by creating a cursed book with all his knowledge. He wants you and me to visit him onest time so he can decide who will inherit the book."
Even someone extremely talented in controlling their emotions, like Devi, felt his desires surge when he thought about the cursed book his teacher was about to create. For a titled witch to pass down all their knowledge in such a way, it almost guarantees a smooth path for the user to be a Titled Witch.
Chapter 329 329: A Witchs Honor
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Cursed Books, the umtion of a witch''s knowledge, experience, and power. Those who inherit the book were nearly guaranteed to quickly rise through the ranks of witchcraft.
Even though creating Cursed Books sounded hard, in reality, any witch who had be a Cursed Witch could create one. However, the process was extremely painful and difficult, so the number of witches willing to sacrifice their lives to create these Cursed Books was small.
As for those who do, they usually pass on their Cursed Books directly to their own students, who would quickly rise through the ranks. This made the supply of Cursed Books always constrained and the demand for these books high.
Though there were many Cursed Books avable, they still helped witchcraft grow and prevented the extinction of the art. So no matter how many witches were willing to do it, it was a requirement for all Cursed Witches to learn how to create one.
To hear that their Teacher was going to sacrifice his life to create a Cursed Book for one of them immediately changed Lucien''s and Devi''s moods. Even Yoze was tempted to simply rob the inheritor so that he could easily improve his witchcraft skills.
If, in the rare case, he didn''t want the Cursed Book, he could give it to Dreyer so that he could quickly be a Grand Witch.
Sensing that the mood had subtly changed, Luxy scowled as he looked at Lucien and Yoze with disappointment.
"Hmph, typical. The moment you hear of treasure, you two no longer care about our Teacher Windor''s life."
"Luxy, don''t speak to your Lucien like that. He is your superior, and you will treat him as such!" Devi''s face immediately shifted as he quickly yelled at his student.
"Teacher, I am sorry for mynguage, but I am not someone who can allow injustice to spread freely. So allow me to be blunt."
"Senior Mango, with your talent for witchcraft being so much worsepared to my Teacher, I think you should just allow my Teacher to take the book. That way, he can properly advance safely without worrying about you." Luxy crossed his arms as he slowly said what he wanted without regard for Lucien''s dignity.
As soon as Luxy finished speaking, Devi pped Luxy on the back of his head to show his anger. Even though it was clear that both of them had already nned this out beforehand, Lucien felt his blood boil.
He nearly wanted to cast the Curse of Possibility on Luxy to teach him a lesson, but the moment he saw Yoze standing there with a calm look on his face, his blood chilled. All his rage seemed to vanish like smoke on a cloudy day as he felt his mind be filled with rity.
"Please keep your student under control, Devi. He is lucky he had said those words to me and not my student, or else he would be dead before he even realized it." Though he had regained his calm, Lucien still gave Devi and Luxy cold looks as if he couldn''t just ept their insults.
The reputation of a witch was extremely important as it was both a sign of strength and a source of protection. As mere mortals, it was extremely difficult for even the most powerful witch to be capable of protecting themselves from the ill intent of all witches.
Even Disaster witches could fall into the hands of a Novice witch if they were careless. So having a powerful reputation that scared away potential enemies was crucial.
For his own sake and the safety of Justice Town, Lucien knew he had to punish Luxy. Even though he wasn''t the most talented witch among his Teacher''s students, he was by far the student with the closest rtionship with their Teacher.
So it wasn''t difficult to imagine why he was chosen to be one of the only two students his Teacher chose to inherit the Cursed Book. If he allowed Luxy''s insult to slide and his Teacher heard this, the chances of him getting the Cursed Book would decrease dramatically.
"Since this is your first offense, I will only give you a p of the wrist by having you run tenps around town. And don''t try to bezy and cheat; I have eyes all over town." After careful consideration, Lucien settled on this punishment.
Seeing their n fail, Luxy frowned but followed orders and left to run around town. He and Devi had taken a risk to try and stain Lucien''s reputation to gain an earlier advantage but failed.
So he could only take the punishment, or else he would have to suffer even worse punishments and would instead ruin Devi''s reputation. As for the threat that Yoze would have killed him, he didn''t take it seriously and just thought it was another means for Lucien to boost his student''s reputations.
"I apologize for that, Devi. His emotions have been in turbulence ever since he knew that Teacher was going to die." Devi sighed heavily.
"Thank you for the apologies; I appreciate it. Devi, can we get to the test now?"
"Of course, just like previous times, we will be performing the spells on fake props. Since you are a Cursed Witch, you need to create as many curses as you know in two hours." Devi exined as he walked over to arge bulging sack that was in the corner of the room
As Devi pulled out numerous fake props from the bag, Yoze couldn''t help but wonder why they were all stuffed animals. There was a blue Griffin, a purple lion, six penguins, and many other types of animals being pulled out.
Having gone through this before, Lucien could easily apply two different curses to the stuffed animals. Even though he didn''t use his most powerful curse, the Curse of Possibility, he knew that he had passed this test with nearly the same markings as thest time he took this test.
Chapter 330 330: Immortals Becoming Witches
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"Impressive, so this is what a Cursed Witch is capable of. It makes sense why they would be considered a threat to immortal cultivators."
"Any mortal who has to face one of these curses will have no power to resist them. They will only have to deal with the aftermath and will have no way to figure out who had cast the curse on them." Yoze thought to himself after watching Lucien''s performance.
This was what made witches so scary and mystical in all the stories about them. Due to the nature of curses, a witch doesn''t even need to be near their targets to cast curses on them.
Meaning that no matter where a person escaped, a vengeful witch would always be capable of exacting their revenge. The only limiting factor was how much the witch was willing to sacrifice to make their enemies pay.
Other than finding the materials to cast the curse, it simply takes more crystal energy to cast curses from long distances. And due to the nature of Dead Crystal Nerves, the amount of crystal energy any witch can possess is extremely limited and can never be increased.
From the information that he could extract from Lucien for helping him, he learned that most witches would create crystal energy storage vassals to create more powerful treasures. Creating these vassals was expensive to create so even these vassals were limited.
"If witches had the huge storage of crystal energy that Immortal Cultivators and Immortals had, then witches would be even more terrifying. Just the ability to cast a curse almost instantaneously would make them as powerful as the most immortal cultivators."
"As for rogue immortal cultivators... They, unfortunately, will only have one more thing to worry about." Yoze felt his heart thump as he realized thatbining witchcraft waspatible with immortal cultivation.
Witches truly were unlucky to be born with Dead Crystal Nerves. Even though witchcraft made up for most of their losses, it wasn''t exclusive to them, like immortal cultivation was exclusive to immortal cultivators and immortals.
Everything that Dead Crystal Neres could do, Crystal Nerves could also do. Still, this rtionship didn''t work the other way around. So an immortal cultivator could learn and perform witchcraft, but witches would never be able to be immortals.
As Yoze thought about it, if immortals decided to learn witchcraft after some time, they would be even more skilled, knowledgeable, and powerful than 99 percent of witches. Only immortal witches might stand a chance, but that was only on the basis that immortal witches truly found a way to extend their lifespan indefinitely.
"Witches are in a very simr boat as martial artists. We are both in power systems that are powerful and full of potential, but the users can''t or have never been able to ess its full potential."
"Yet only in the hands of immortals and demons who have an infinite amount of time these power systems are capable of truly reaching their potential. One of the few differences between the two power systems is that witchcraft has gone much further than the path of martial arts." As Yoze was thinking about the simrities between witchcraft and martial arts, he heard Lucien begin to speak.
"Devi, how about we call it early today? You have just arrived today, and Luxy is still running around town. So there is no way for my student and yours topete against each other before it gets dark." Lucien scratched his neck as he struggled to get up.
After sitting down for more than two hours, his back was killing him. Even though he had grown used to this treatment since witchcraft requires patience, he still didn''t like sitting down for a long period of time.
"That is true. Okay, we can continue tomorrow afternoon when it''s brighter outside." Devi said slowly with the sameck of inflection in his voice.
"I have a few spare rooms in the town hall that you can sleep in. As for you, Yoze, since you only n to stay here for a few days to take this test, I rmend you stay here as well." Lucien said calmly while hiding his true thoughts.
"I hope none of you want to stay over. If you do, I will burn this town hall to the ground to ensure I get rid of any bad luck." Lucien thought to himself with a smile.
Not knowing that Lucien was cursing at him, Devi simply responded by saying he would be staying with the merchant caravan with Luxy. As for Yoze, he also didn''t n to sleep in the town hall since it was too dangerous.
Even though he knew Lucien was the hidden witch that was lurking during his battle with the Slug demon, he didn''t trust him at all. He was currently contemting whether he should just devour Lucien''s and Devi''s spiritual energy.
This way, he could get rid of any hidden dangers for himself and Justice Town. Even when he knew that all of Justice Town''s progress was due to Lucien, he didn''t think that his dying would have too much of an impact on the town in its current state.
All he would need to do was make sure that his death seemed to be an ident. After a few days of mourning, another mayor would take his ce and continue growing the town.
As for Luxy, he didn''t n on killing him. From Luxy''s current abilities, he stood no chance of being a threat to him. After copying Lucien''s, Devi''s, and Luxy''s talents, there would be no chance of him ever being a threat.
"But I would miss the chance of getting that Cursed Book from their teacher. So maybe I can revisit Justice Town after a month or two to see if Lucien had gotten the Cursed Book."
"If he did, then that is good. I can just devour his spiritual energy and take the book. It would be a shame if he doesn''t, but I will not suffer any losses." Yoze''s eyes sparkled as he weighed his options.
Chapter 331 331: Infinitely Close To Zero
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After the ident inside the Town Hall, time slowly passed as night fell upon Justice Town. Unlike the darkness that filled people''s hearts with fear of the unknown, the night sky covering Justice Town was filled with bright shimmering stars.
Any random picture of the night sky would have captured thousands of stars. Finding stars of any color would have been easy, whether it was red, blue, purple, or even green.
With such a beautiful sky, not many citizens from Justice Town were terrified by the night. In contrast, many people instead enjoy watching the stars as they try to map and name every star before going to sleep.
Yet, there were no citizens of Justice Town that enjoyed the night sky as much as Lucien. But even he was a bit surprised when he noticed a tiny figure slowly running around town, drenched in sweat but continued to run regardless.
That tiny figure was Luxy, and he was on his sixthp around town. Even though his body was aching, exhausted and his body felt like it was overheating, he didn''t give up on trying toplete Lucien''s punishment.
In fact, Lucien never cared if Luxy cheated and skipped a couple ofps since he knew that Luxy was a child. Even if the Witchmunity heard what Luxy had said about him, they wouldn''t have batted an eye since, in their eyes, he was but a child who was following his teacher''s orders.
So Lucien knew his reputation wouldn''t change even if he punished Luxy more harshly. Instead, if he wanted to do his absolute best to protect his reputation, he would need to find a way to punish Luxy''s teacher, Devi Marrin.
Unfortunately, Devi was much better than him at witchcraft and his teacher''s number-one favorite student. So it would be difficult to find any opportunity to make him pay for his attempt to humiliate him.
"Devi picked out a good student this time. This kind of dedication is what makes one a good witch."
"When can I have a student like this? Devi was able to get a student with excellent talent, intelligence, and a tough heart. While all I identally tried to recruit a demon because of the side effects of my curse." Lucien sadly muttered to himself as he looked through his window to watch Luxy''s small figure slowly running around town.
Disappointed with histest performance, Lucien shook his head and walked away from the window as he tried to figure out what could have led to such a big mistake. After some time, his eyes became bright as he realized that everything that had happened was indeed a work of art.
"I had chosen a possibility whose chances of acquiring naturally were infinitely near zero. For this possibility to have happened, Devi and his student had to arrive in town, and I would have naturally walked outside to find someone to pretend to be my student."
"If Yoze had arrived during that time, I would have naturally done exactly what I did today and ''recruited'' him as a student. Not aware that I had just recruited a demon in disguise."
"Unfortunately, while I had chosen a possibility of the future, current and past actions all nearly made this possibility impossible. Simply Yoze arriving in town a few days earlier reduced the chances of this possibility happening by nearly 90 percent."
"Not to mention that I had be aware of his arrival and that he was a demon capable of fighting against the Slug demon. I would have never tried to make him my student even if he was the most talented man in the world."
"So the only option left was for the curse to temporarily make me lose my memories and guide Yoze to return to the town when the caravan arrived. So a possibility that I thought was beneficial for me turned into a trap that could easily cause my death." Lucien chuckled as he realized he still had a long way to go before he mastered the Curse of Possibility.
Even though he had been working hard and training every single day to increase his endurance, he could only increase the time he could use the Curse of Possibility to two minutes. Compared to other witches that knew of this curse, his time limit wasn''t bad and even was on the better side.
Even his teacher''s peak time limit during his prime only reached six minutes, so reaching a third of his teacher''s peak time was excellent. What made his feat more impressive was when he considered that Devi, his teacher''s top student, had a time limit of one minute with the Curse of Possibility.
Fortunately, he wasn''t delusional enough to think he was a better witch than Devi just because of one curse. He knew he still had a long way to go before he caught up to Devi.
If he wanted to continue to improve, he needed to keep training since he knew that his current time limit was too short for him to consider the dangers and opportunities that each possibility had adequately.
If he had enough time, he would have never chosen the possibility that Yoze would be his student. Because of this choice, he suffered a massive loss that, if leaked, would have caused the entire witchmunity to want him dead.
"Having to give Yoze, a demon, my spell book, curse book, and some of my treasures was a fair trade, right? Who am I kidding? I just allowed a demon to learn how to use witchcraft."
"If others found out, I would be considered the traitor of all witches and would be flooded with curses." Lucien sighed deeply as he lightly touched his hair; he only hoped all this stress wouldn''t cause his hair to gray faster.
While Lucien was stressing over what he would do in the future, Luxy suddenly stopped running as he noticed a strange creature walking toward him. It resembled an ordinary three-eyed crow, but strangely, it was walking on the ground and reeked of the smell of rotten meat.
Chapter 332 332: Dark Cloud Of Three-Eyed Crows
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Luxy frowned as he covered his nose; as a witch, this wasn''t his first time seeing a walking corpse, so he wasn''t scared. Instead, he felt oddly unsettled that he couldn''t sense anything from this Three-Eyed Crow.
Usually, when witches created undead creatures, they would have a ck fog surrounding their bodies, representing crystal energy that had been used to cast a curse. Yet, this dead crow was not only not covered in ck fog but showed no sign of being caused by witchcraft.
"A seed?"
Suddenly, dead to the Three-Eyed Crow''s body not being suitable for walking on the ground, it tripped over its rotting legs and fell to the floor, allowing him to see that there was a thick pulsing seed that had taken root inside the Three-Eyed Crow''s head. Seeing this strange sight, the feeling of uneasiness in Luxy''s heart as a terrifying thought came to his mind.
"I need to get out of here quickly. No, if I leave, this problem might be worse." Lucy suddenly gritted his teeth and pulled out a thin book.
This thin book was a treasure he had made after two months of hard work. Each page could cast a spell instantly, allowing him to react to any situation quickly without having to worry about running out of crystal energy.
After turning to a ck page that seemed to have been drenched in oil, Luxy ripped it out and threw it at the Three-Eyed Crow, who was trying to regain its bnce. The moment the ck paper left his hand, it immediatelybusted into a fist-sized ball of red fire that mmed directly into the Three-Eyed Crow''s chest.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
After letting out three painful screams, the Three-Eyed Crow quickly turned into ash alongside the strange seed, making Luxy sigh of relief. For a second, he worried that the strange seed might have given the dead Three-Eyed Crow''s body a physical boost or enhancement.
"I need to tell teacher Devi about this. The appearance of this strange bird could mean that there is an anomaly nearby which would be bad." Luxy''s mind raced as he quickly turned around to run back to the caravan.
Even though he had turned that undead crow into ash, he couldn''t get rid of the feeling that this was only the first hint of what was about toe. Thest thing he wanted was to encounter an anomaly since it usually meant the inhabitants nearby would all lose their lives.
Even a Grand Witch would be forced to pack up everything they had to escape from an anomaly, much less anyone else. He had heard too many stories about how quickly anomalies grew and how they could easily kill everything near them.
"Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!" As Luxy ran, his pupils shrank from fear as he saw a cloud of Three Eyes Crow flying in the sky.
"Caw!!! Caw!!! Caw!!!!"
What made his brain tingle from fear was the ck cloud of Three-Eyed Crows that, usually following a strict formation, was inplete disarray. The countless blood-red eyes of the Three-Eyed Crows were filled with pain and agony as they slowly turned dull.
The ck cloud of Three-Eyed Crows thinned one by one; crows fell to the ground dead. Even without knowledge of anomalies, witches, immortals, or demons, anyone who saw this scene would have felt their toes curl.
For hundreds of Three-Eyed Crows to suddenly fall to their deaths could only happen from something horrifying. And no one would be confident enough to believe that this disaster would not affect them.
"There is danger! Danger! Danger! Come on, why did this have to happen when I am so far from the caravan!?" Lucy gritted his teeth in anger as he felt light-headed.
After running for several hours, his young body was exhausted and could barely stand up straight. Even though Justice Town wasn''t thatrge, it was still half a mile across at its shortest point, so trying toplete tenps around was difficult.
This was especially true for Luxy since he was still only ten years old, even if his body looked a bit older than it should have. Luckily, before Luxy had to worry about losing consciousness before he made it to the caravan, he saw a tall figure slowly walking toward him.
"Is that Yoze? Did he hear my screams ande out to help me?"
Seeing this elegant man dressed in a ck and gold suit, Luxy sighed with relief as he recognized him as Lucien''s student. Even though he had caused trouble seeing Yozeing to save him, his eyes began to water.
"Yoze, I think I saw an anomaly! The Three Eyes Crows in the sky are infected by some kind of parasitic seeds controlling their dead bodies."
"We need to inform our teachers so that we can leave immediately. Not only that, we need to evacuate the town so that no one dies." Luxy tried his best to exin the situation to Yoze.
Still, thebination of heaving breathing and his mind blurring made it difficult for anyone to understand his words.
"Don''t worry, I will take care of this, and we can talk about this in a calm setting." Yoze calmly said with a smile as he patted Luxy''s small head.
Even though Luxy was slurring his words due to exhaustion, Yoze was able to clearly understand what he was trying to tell him. But it wasn''t needed since he could clearly see that the ck cloud of Three-Eyed Crows was dying rapidly.
He could even see all the crows'' spiritual energy detaching from their bodies before being destroyed by the harsh environment. What made him the most curious was that he smelled an intense scent of oil from where the crows were falling.
From his experience, he knew that this smell came from spiritual energy; it seemed to be somewhat different from the scent that other spiritual energy had. Not only was the scent strange, but its intensity was abnormal for how much spiritual energy each of the crows had before.
"If Luxy is right that an anomaly is causing this, then we are going to really need to evacuate everyone in Justice Town. Even if I can get some unique talents, I would prefer if no one innocent died because of it." Yoze thought to himself as he lightly tapped his foot on the ground to jump into the sky like a bird.
Chapter 333 333: Strange Aura
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"Who would have guessed that my trying to find the baby slug demons would have resulted in me bing a bird exterminator? After doing this job, I should ask Mayor Lucien for a raise; dealing with zombie birds isn''t part of my job description." Yoze thought to himself with amusement as he flew through the sky with a single hop.
After leaving the town hall, once Lucien''s test waspleted, he initially nned to head back to Gospel Peak to find the baby slug demons he had left there a few days ago. Even though the mountain had gone through arge amount of trauma and the small space he was in had copsed, he felt the possibility that all the newborn slug demons were still alive.
Once he found them, he wanted to try out his newly created blood master body cultivation method to advance the Beast Human body cultivation method. Afterbining the three blood master cultivation he had found in the Beast Hunter Sect, he created the Bloody Beast Clone cultivation method.
This body cultivation methodbined all the best attributes of the Blood Beast, the Blood Bond body, and the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation methods, which were unthinkable for the martial artists from the Beast Hunter Sect. This was especially the case with the Blood Beast Twins body cultivation, which Yoze considered to be a failure.
Unlike the previous three books, Yoze made his body cultivation method only have four levels to match the stages of the Blood Master realm. At the beginning of creating the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method, he had thought he wanted to make it as overpowered as possible.
By creating a long andplex body cultivation method, it would have taken a resemnce to his Iron Body cultivation method. And with howpatible the three original body cultivation methods were, it wasn''t too difficult for him to do so.
However, after creating the Iron Colossus Martial Formation, he quickly scrapped and simplified his old n. Due to this simplification, itcked as much power as the previous version. But, for Yoze, it was worth giving up since it now had the potential to be a Martial Formation or be a part of a Martial Formation.
Still, even though he had reduced theplexity of the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method, it was extremely powerfulpared to ordinary Blood Master realm body cultivation methods.
[Bloody Beast Clone (Level 0: 0%)]
[Description: This body cultivation method was created after Yoze hadbined the Blood Beast, Blood Bond, and Blood Beast Twins body cultivation methods that Welse me developed.
This body cultivation method aims to allow the users to transform any ordinary beast into a clone of themselves with their thoughts. What is also unique is that users of this body cultivation method can also bond with other users.]
"Oh, it looks like my cheat has once again updated. Now it can even give me a description of any techniques and body cultivation methods." Yoze''s eyes shined as he suddenly noticed a panel pop into his vision.
Even though this current update was as valuable as when he entered the Blood Master realm, it was still nice that his cheat could describe books he was looking at. And from the looks of it, the description was quite urate.
"Welse is the one who created these body cultivation methods? It now makes sense why he was in the Beast Hunter Sect library but wasn''t listed as one of the elders."
"To think that not only did I destroy the Beast Hunter Sect, I even killed the creator of the body cultivation methods. Does that mean that I can now im myself as the creator since I devoured his spiritual energy and turned his True Body into my sword?" Yoze shook his head with a small smile before refocusing on the current situation.
Even though this took a long time to describe in reality, only less than a second had passed, and Yoze had justnded next to a small hill formed by the dead Three-Eyed Crows'' corpses. With his current information processing speed, even without trying, Yoze could easily think more than ten times faster than ordinary people.
So even during this emergency, when time was of the essence, it wasn''t a problem for him to devise a n to solve the issue. As for now, he was interested in testing out the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method, so he needed a test subject.
Since he didn''t have time to go visit his initial test subjects, the baby slug demons, he nned to try it out on the dying Three-Eyed Crows. Not only could he take care of the crisis he would also get more data on the seeds that were causing the crows to die in mass droves.
"First, I need to deal with this pile of dead crows first." Yoze''s eyes shed with a red light as he felt his blood pumping through his veins.
As he was about to take action, he suddenly noticed tiny movementsing from the middle of the small hill as dozens of dead Three-Eyed Crows tried to stand up. Unfortunately, the weight of the new dead Three-Eyed Crows quickly crushed theirst bit of resistance.
But the seeds that were taking root in their brains and bodies were not epting defeat as they quickly grew tiny thin roots that prated through the bodies of the crows below them. In an attempt to move into the ground to absorb its nutrients to once again grow.
Seeing this shocking sight, Yoze''s pupils shrunk as he summoned his red spiritual energy, making the air around it hotter. As soon as the slug demon''s spiritual energy was summoned, it dived for the small hill.
"Caw!!! Caw!!! Caw!!"
As soon as the red spiritual energy touched the pill of Three-Eyed Crows, they immediatelybusted into a massive ze of fire. Unlike what one would expect from corpses burning into ash, the hundreds of dead Three-Eyed Crows became squawking in a distorted and demonic fashion as they escaped the pile.
Chapter 334 334: Test Subject One
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As Yoze watched the giant hill of fire, his eyes scanned everything, looking for details that might be easily overlooked. At first, he didn''t see anything strange except that most of the parasitic seeds had all grown roots and moved toward the ground.
Unfortunately, most of these parasitic seeds could never reach the ground before they were burned to ashes. However, for the few on the bottom of the hill, their roots did enter the ground.
This allowed them to quickly expand and grow, but the immense weight crushing them from above made it impossible to grow normally, with most of them being forced to grow between the cracks of the dead Three-Eyed Crows.
Thergest one even had grown to be over five feet tall and more than an inch thick, which was quite impressive. But what truly caught his attention was that his red spiritual energy spotted a weird energy inside the seeds.
"So this is what is causing this smell of intense oil. From the looks of it, it seems to be simr to the aura that Blood Master Steel created when he went berserk." Yoze''s face went grim as he remembered the day he fought Blood Master Steel.
Even though the battle was extremely one-sided, when Blood Master Steel went berserk, he was somehow able to break through into the Martial Grandmaster realm. He even created a special red aura that was the fusion of inner vigor and spiritual energy which seemed to have the special property to switch between the state of inner vigor and spiritual energy.
However, when he felt that the aura he was looking at now was a bit different. Not only was it a strange glossy green color, but it seemed to want to enter any creature''s body. As if the bodies of the dead Three-Eyed Crows were powerful maic, every time the glossy green aura was exposed to the air, it flew into the body of a burning dead crow.
"Even though my red spiritual energy is somewhat burning this aura, its resistance is extremely high. Not only that, but I can''t devour it as I could with ordinary spiritual energy." Yoze''s eyes twitched as he turned to the dark cloud of Three-Eyed Crows.
If it wasn''t confirmed before that an anomaly caused this strange ident, then Yoze was now certain. He had only ever encountered this type of aura from the anomaly that imnted a Blood Heart in Blood Master Steel.
The only usible solution would be if there was a demon who practiced martial arts to get inner vigor andbined it with its spiritual energy. Not only was that less likely to be the case, but it would also be much more difficult for him to deal with at his current strength.
A demon capable ofbining two different types of energies must be powerful and knowledgeable in both inner vigor and spiritual energy. That wasn''t an existence that he could defeat without making much more progress in his martial arts and his ability to control his spiritual energy.
Since there was no way for him to kill the existence that created this strange green aura, Yoze settled on first dealing with the current dark cloud feeding into the fire. With every dead crow, the fire would burn a little bright and for a little longer, but from the number of crows still that haven''t died, this fire would not end until the sun rose.
"You can be my first test subject."
With few options left to deal with the glossy green aura, he turned to simply making sure that all the crows would not identally fly out of this region so that all the ones he couldn''t use as test subjects would fall into the fire.
After grabbing the first Three-Eyed Crow, Yoze suppressed its spiritual energy to lower to ensure it didn''t resist his examination. He then took a closer look at the seeds causing this mayhem and was surprised to see that they were simple oak tree seeds.
Besides the glossy green aura inside them and the fact that they were quickly growing roots into the Three-Eyed Crow''s body, there was nothing special about the seeds. After examining how far the roots had grown into the crow''s body, Yoze shook his head as he noticed that the roots were dug too deep into the crow''s brain and body to remove without killing them instantly.
"What a shame," Yoze sighed before lightly tapping the Three-Eyed Crow''s body and using the Beast Human body cultivation method.
After twenty minutes, Yoze was satisfied to see that the Three-Eyed Crow that he could hold with two hands had grown sorge that it was more than six feet tall. With this massive size and strength increase, it could easily fly with a human on its back.
After reaching a level four bond with the Three-Eyed Crow, Yoze was surprised to find that the crow could survive this long with the help of the Beast Human body cultivation method. Even though it was still slowly dying, it would take much longer for the seed to kill itpletely.
"Good job, It might be possible for me to remove the stubborn seed from your body if we can reach a sufficiently high level with the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method."
"Are you willing to try it out?" Yoze asked.
Even though the Three-Eyed Crow had only recently had her intelligence increased, she knew what Yoze meant. The difficulty in practicing the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method was much higher than the Beast Human body cultivation method.
And just as mentioned in the name is the body cultivation method; practicing this method was very bloody as it would require both Yoze and her to drench themselves with each other''s blood. With her current state, it would be hard for her to endure having arge amount of her blood drained out of her body multiple times in a row.
However, she was still willing to try it since she wanted to keep getting stronger. And since she already had nothing to lose except for dying slightly quicker, she didn''t mind being Yoze''s test subject.
Chapter 335 335: Scar The Three Eyed Crow
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Seeing that the Three-Eyed Crow he had randomly grabbed had be this determined and intelligent, Yoze smiled as he could see the results of breaking through the Beast Human body cultivation limits. So far, he discovered that all the animals he used this body cultivation on seemed more intelligent than their peers.
He was starting to believe that if he broke through the Beast Human body cultivation a few more times, his beasts would be much stronger and more intelligent than humans. As he thought about it more, he might only need to break through its limits one or two more times to get that effect.
Once he did, the beasts that he tamed would no longer be limited by their intelligence and seem more like the mythical beasts from legends. He could turn a simple lizard and snake into wise, powerful dragons. Maybe he would turn this world into the Pokemon world by ident.
Just like how he broke through his Big Golem body cultivation manual and his Mindless Legs technique limits so many times, they had be significantponents in his fighting capabilities even though they were very simple and basic. The same could be said about Twin Fists, which was far past the limits that others thought were possible, but it even spawned two other powerful techniques, Twin Blood Fists, and Twin Endless Chains.
Twin Blood Fists was a version of Twin Fists that he had created a long time ago when he first got Blood Fist. Afterbining the two techniques, he made Twin Blood Fists, which was a much more powerful versionpared to the ordinary version of Twin Fists.
Still, he didn''t use Twin Blood Fists and Twin Fists as much as he liked since he had gotten almost too strong. Most of his opponents were not even close enough to his level for him to use these two techniques, and if he did, they would die from a simple Bull Fist.
As for using Twin Endless Chains, this was a technique he created using Twin Fists as a basis tobine numerous other martial art techniques to add more variety and unpredictability to his attacks. So far, he had only tested this new technique on two people.
The first was Geo during the tournament at the Immortal Tattoo Sect headquarters. Due to cing limits on himself, he could use the Twin Endless Chains more freely and improve it.
As for his second opponent, he used this technique on, it was none other than the Slug demon, who was too helpless, so it could only eat his attacks.
Knowing the power that Twin Fist and his other martial art body cultivation methods and techniques had be after breaking through their limits, Yoze was excited to see the Beast Human body cultivation methods power.
Unfortunately, he couldn''t focus on breaking through his Beast Human body cultivation right now. He needed to practice his new Bloody Beast Clone before the Three Eyes Clone died and hopefully save her life.
Luckily, he made it so that he could still practice the Beast Human body cultivation method even when they sessfully entered the Blood Master realm. So as long as he saved the Three-Eyed Crow, he could continue to train with her and make breakthroughs.
"Okay, to reach the first stage of the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method, we need to bathe in a mixture of each other''s blood three times. Only when we absorb everything will we enter the Synchronization stage."
"Since you are currently in a weakened state, I will drain your blood a little less. Even though the mixture will be a little off-bnce, we can make up for thister." Yoze gently said as he stroked the Three-Eyed Crow''s head.
Even though she had grown to the size of a human being, she still had grown to Yoze''s size, which allowed him to pat her head like a child''s easily. Feeling Yoze''srge hand softly rubbing against her head while carefully avoiding her third eye, the Three-Eyed Crow felt much calmer and safer.
After rubbing her head for a few seconds, Yoze turned his attention to arge tree nearby. Since they didn''t have buckets or tubs to help collect their blood, he could only make his own.
Even though he had never made a tub out of wood before, it wasn''t much of a problem when he used his blood to easily cut down a tree and sculpt it into a long tube-like shape. After confirming that he and the Three-Eyed Crow couldfortably sit within his makeshift tube together, Yoze signaled her to get in.
What he needed to do next was quite simple: drain the blood from their bodies. And since he nned to take less of the Three-Eyed Crow''s blood, he could make up the remaining portion with his blood.
"It''s getting difficult to continue calling you by your species'' name. Would you like it if I gave you a name?" Yoze asked after making a hand-sized cut across his left arm.
Unable to move her gaze away from Yoze''s bleeding arm, the Three-Eyed Crow nodded excitedly. But she was a bit shocked to see how much blood wasing out of Yoze''s arm.
The blood was gushing out so fast that she was confident that it had hit an artery, yet not only was Yoze not flinching, but he seemed displeased by how slow it was going. But when she saw him make several other cuts that gushed out blood, she felt she needed to stop Yoze before he died.
"Don''t worry, I am a Blood Master already. I am much more capable of enduring this than you are. Even if I lose 80 percent of my blood all at once, I will pass out at most, so there is no need to worry." Yoze smiled when he noticed the concern in the Three-Eyed Crow''s eyes and waved it off.
"As for your name, what do you think of Scar? It is a pretty good name and will ensure that everyone can easily remember who you are." Yoze said sincerely.
Even though Yoze knew that the name he had chosen didn''t seem suitable for the Three-Eyed Crow since she was ady, he felt that the name Scar was too cool to give up. She was also the most qualified candidate among all his current beasts to be given the name Scar since she might have a scar once he removed the parasitic sees from her body.
Not to mention the fear she would be capable of striking into her enemies when they heard the battle cry of Scar the Three-Eyed Crow would make the odd name choice worth it. As for the Three-Eyed Crow, she didn''t mind the strange name choice; she was just excited to have a name.
Seeing how happy she had be after he gave her a name, Yoze felt his smile widen as he softly cut a wound into Scar. Since she only had one cut, the blood she lost was much lower than the amount he lost, but it didn''t affect him.
Thanks to his Blood Heart, he was able to reproduce his blood much faster than other Blood Masters. Not to mention he had the grade 8 Blood Heart talent and the grade 5 Blood Adaption talents, which allowed him to adapt to the new blood his body was producing easily.
There was also another benefit that needed to be taken into ount, and that was the more blood he lost, his blood was subtly evolving. It became a little thick and carried more oxygen and other nutrients so that he could afford to lose higher percentages of his blood.
After they gathered enough blood Yoze no longer made any further cuts into his body and allowed his previous cuts to heal slowly. With the tub full of a mixture of his blood and Scar''s, all they needed to do was focus on absorbing all the blood into their bodies.
This process took only 30 minutes toplete as all the blood was absorbed into their bodies without anyplexation, which was surprising. From his predictions, Yoze had assumed that one of the roadblocks to reaching the first level of the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method was that there was bound to be a physical rejection of the blood for both sides.
It only made sense since it should have been impossible for two different species to share blood as easily as humans could with each other. Not to mention that for humans to share blood, they needed to have the same blood type, or else it would be nearly impossible for their bodies to ept blood transfusion.
So for him and Scar to easily incorporate each other''s blood into their bodies was nothing short of a miracle. Even when he ounted for the fact that using the Bloody Beast Clone method lowered the chances of rejection to only 30 percent, it seemed too smooth.
[Bloody Beast Clone (Level 0: 35%)]
"Scar, you and I are much more suitable for each other than I initially thought.
"If this continues, then not only will you have reached the Blood Realm, but you will also be able to have multiple types of inner vigor in your body in a simr manner to me," Yoze said with a smile as he felt the connection between him and Scar rapidly deepen as they adapted to the new blood in their bodies.
Chapter 336 336: Scars Transformation
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"Crack, Crack, Crack"
Soon after Scar began to absorb Yoze''s blood mixture, her body underwent drastic changes. Her bones began to crack as she experienced another growth spurt.
In mere seconds, she grew an additional foot as her ck feather shimmered with a metallic gray color. Her ws glinted with the color of sharp gold that seemed capable of cutting through anything.
Moreover, her three blood-red eyes had suddenly gained different colored sparkles. Whether it was red, blue, green, orange, or gray, she had at least one or two in her eyes showing that she had not only gained an increase in strength and a small percentage of Yoze''s numerous types of inner vigor, but she also gained some of his spiritual energy.
Before Yoze had time to process this sudden development, he heard a soft thumping sound from within Scar''s body. Even though the heartbeats were much quieter than Yoze''s war drums, it was still audible.
Yoze felt even more surprised hearing this sound as he was certain that this thumping sound wasn''ting from Scar''s normal heart. Instead, it came from slightly below, meaning she had developed another heart.
"Incredible... This shouldn''t have happened until we reached the second level of the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method, at least. To see this much change can only happen so early means that you and I are extremelypatible or that my blood produced by my Blood Heart already has this invasive property."
It took a few seconds for Yoze to regain hisposure since the changes Scar had undergone were far more than he had predicted. But this shouldn''t have been surprising since any techniques or body cultivation methods usually took many trials and tests before finally finding what worked.
But he could skip most of these tests and trials due to his talent in martial arts and his high information-processing speed. Still, it was unavoidable that there were bound to be a few surprises since he couldn''t ount for everything.
For example, although the three body cultivation methods that Yoze used to create the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method were extremelypatible with one another, they were still very different. So most martial artists would struggle to fuse these methods without making a lot ofpromises.
Yoze chose another route to get the same result as all three body cultivation methods to get around this issue. First, he divided the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method into four different stages that fit with the four levels of the Blood Master realm.
The first level of the Bloody Beast Clone method was called the Synchronization stage and corresponded to Third Rate Blood Masters. In this stage, the user and their beast would have their bodies synced.
Meaning that their hearts, brains, muscle cramps, and emotions would sync and enter a perfect harmony. This not only would allow them to better share their inner vigor and get a massive boost in strength, but their ability to battle with one another would be out of this world.
Withoutmunication, they would understand what the other person wanted to do, their thoughts, and even their emotions. This came with a massive boost in their teamwork and coordination.
The second stage was the Transformation Stage and matched well with the Second Rate Blood Master level. This was the stage where Yoze expected to see Scar begin to develop and truly begin to be his clone. In this stage, she would gain any organs that she previouslycked, which would benefit her.
However, this transformation wasn''t exclusive to the beast since even the users would see small body modifications that would make them far stronger. In this case, Yoze expected that his fingernails would have be longer and sharper, and his internal organs might have evolved slightly.
The third stage was the Second Body stage. The stage where they both would be each other''s second body. By using their blood, they could even transform into one another.
The fourth stage was the Clone stage and where Scar would, in theory, get a human body and be his clone. Not only would she have been able to practice martial arts made for humans, which were the majority, but she would have also been able to speak the humannguage.
Once Scar and he reached this stage, they would have be Blood Masters that were at the peak. And it would be far stronger than other Blood Masters and even be able to fight to beat some Martial Grandmasters.
However, seeing Scar undergoing some transformation before they even reached the Synchronization stage meant either he had drastically underestimated his Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method or underestimated his Blood Heart''s capabilities.
"It has to be my Blood Heart. So far, I have absorbed our blood mixture, but other than having a closer link to you and gaining more of your inner vigor, I have not transformed at all." Yoze calmly said after examining his body.
"I should have expected that something from an anomaly wasn''t so simple. To think that it could transform the bodies of any creature that absorbs it."
"Not to mention, it seems that some of my spiritual energy has entered my blood. It must have happened when my spiritual energies went berserk."
"Wow, I almost forgot that I wanted to research how the Leopard demon was able to modify its body to survive having many holes in its body." Yoze''s eyes shimmered with brown sparkles before he sighed.
"Having all three different powers has allowed me to be incredibly strong, but at the same time, it has be increasingly difficult to manage all of them. I have to research more about Martial Formations and make more progress in my body cultivation methods."
"But I also can''t forget about my spiritual energy since it is crucial to making my body as powerful as demons. I am already far behind most demons on my spiritual energy control, so I have to at least try to close the gap."
"Both my immortal cultivation and witchcraft are even further behind than my spiritual energy. At this moment, they are not adding as much of an increase to my battle prowess as I like, so I need to make more progress so they can be useful." Yoze felt a headache as he wished that he had clones that would do the training for him.
Chapter 337 337: Bloody Beast Scar
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"Time, I just need more time. No matter how talented I am, I still need to put in time training and practicing."
"How many of my talents that I have collected are simply going to waste? I have been focusing on martial arts, spiritual energy, and Immortal cultivation that I don''t have time to do anything else."
"Scar, once we have reached the pinnacle of the Bloody Beast Clone method, you should be able to help me somewhat. However, I am not sure if my talents will also be transferred to you after you be my clone, but it looks like it might." Yoze said with a smile as he watched Scar finish adapting to the blood mixture.
Unlike what he and Scar expected, she looked like she had been rejuvenated instead of drained of her blood. From the looks of it, not only did she be more powerful, but his blood had adapted to her body perfectly, meaning that the chances of her dying due to blood loss had dropped dramatically.
"Let''s continue, shall we," Yoze quickly said as he again cut a few more deep cuts into his body.
Yoze''s blood spurted out of his body as if he was a blood fountain and rapidly began to fill with his blood. Seeing that they were starting their next session, Scar''s eyes shed with determination as she used her sharp ws to create a few cuts in her body.
Even though her cuts weren''t as deep and released less blood, it was still unbelievable for most people to imagine losing as much blood as she was. Luckily, it seemed that her new tiny blood heart was slowly producing some blood to refill the amount she lost and help her heal her wounds.
[Bloody Beast Clone (Level 0: 70%)]
Another twenty minutes had passed, and Scar felt her body again adapting to Yoze''s overpowering blood. Even though she was only getting a small percent of his spiritual energy and inner vigor, she felt she was the strongest in the world.
The pressure that her body emitted unconsciously was so intense and powerful that even the Three-Eyed Crows in the sky felt a deep instinctive urge to run away but couldn''t due to Yoze''s human spiritual energy preventing them from escaping. After a few minutes of getting used to her new strength, she and Yoze started theirst blood bath again.
[Bloody Beast Clone (Level 1: 5%)]
As soon as Yoze and Scar reached the first level of the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method, they felt their mythical connection be solid. It was no longer an elusive feeling they shared but something that directly connected them.
Regardless of what the other felt or thought, the other would know instantly. Not to mention that the smell of blood seemed to have be permanently etched into their body, which meant that both of them had be Blood Beasts.
"Wow, this feeling ain''t bad. Just one of us alone is stronger than any Third Rate Blood Master." Yoze muttered as he tightly clenched his fist as he enjoyed the power that came from deep within his blood.
Even though he had already be a Blood Master two months ago and enjoyed practicing the Blood Breaker body cultivation method, he still felt that the joy of having such a massive leap in strength was indescribable.
Scar, who had also enjoyed the breakthrough and entered the first level of the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method, felt her eyes water as she felt incredible. Even though she still had this parasitic seed trying to grow into her body and brain, she didn''t care because she wanted to enjoy the moment.
With every thump of her heart, she felt the numerous types of inner vigor inside her blood flowing through her body, giving her strength. With a single thought, she could increase her weight by nearly two thousand pounds, turn her feathers and skin into iron armor, and, most importantly, she was able to make herself into a lightning god due to her own inner vigor.
"Scar, I know you are enjoying your new body, but let me remove that seed from your brain and body so we don''t have to worry about it anymore."
Seeing that Scar was enjoying her rebirth, Yoze felt happy for her. However, he still knew that if they didn''t remove this abnormal seed from her body, there would always be a hidden danger for her. So they could only remove it as soon as possible so that she could truly enjoy her rebirth.
Snapping out of her daze, Scar nodded in agreement and allowed Yoze easy ess to her head which was still infected by the seed that wouldn''t stop growing. After so long, it had grown from a small oak tree seed to a sapling that was a foot tall and a few centimeters thick.
For most creatures having a tree growing in their brains and body would have been lethal. Still, for Blood Masters, as long as they didn''t suffer too many injuries during the removal process, they would always be able to heal and return to normal. And due to their strong connection with each, it didn''t take Yoze long before he removed the parasitic sapling from Scar using his blood as the ultimate surgical tool.
"Caw! Caw!?"
"Yeah, I don''t know what this is. But from the looks of it, ites from an extremely dangerous entity."
"Scar, do you know where this seed could have infected you?" Yoze moved his gaze from the sapling, squirming inside his hands as if it was alive, and asked Scar if she knew where she got infected.
After making a face that looked deep in thought, Scar''s face lit up as she knew exactly where she had gotten infected. With a few caws, Yoze''s pupils shrunk as he felt his heart turn cold.
"Are you certain you got infected inside the Branch Forest?"
"Caw, caw, caw!" Scar said withplete seriousness in her voice.
"Shit, I didn''t think that the New Swamp Town''s army really was going there to fight a real anomaly. I thought that they were going to investigate my fight against the Immortal Welse."
"That could exin why they still hadn''t returned even after a week had passed by. I was too excited about joining the Immortal Tattoo Sect that I ignored the oddness of the situation." Yoze''s eyes twitched as he felt a powerful urge to return to New Swamp Town, but he suppressed it.
Even if he left now and ran at his fastest speed without stopping once, it would still take him five days to reach New Swamp Town. By that time, either the town had been long overrun or still had solid defenses, so his urgency wouldn''t change anything.
Chapter 338 338: Yozes Warped Perspective
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Yoze felt an itch in his heart as he worried about his father''s safety. Even though he had left him in the protection of Tiki, Dreyer, and Jewel, they were still not powerful enough in his book.
One of them was a rogue immortal cultivator who had only reached the third level of the Nerve umtion realm, another was a novice who only knew witchcraft, andstly, one of them was a martial artist who hadn''t reached the Blood Master realm yet. Whether they had preparation or not, they wouldn''t be able to stop even a young demon or Martial Grandmaster.
Even the little serpent he had left with them could only fight against Blood Masters and not defeat them unless it had help. Then again, if the little serpent worked with the White Tiger, who had transformed into a Blood Beast, it would be difficult for any Blood Master to stop them from escaping.
So regardless of who it was, none of them was powerful enough to defend his father against the real threats of this world. However, it had to be mentioned that they were all weak in Yoze''s eyes, but when it came to the standard of this world, they were not weak.
Even though Tiki was a rogue immortal cultivator and Dreyer was a novice witch, there was a reason why rogue immortal cultivators and witches looked down on martial artists. The reason was simply that the early stages of both of these crystal arts had such an enormous boost in power for their users that they had spells and witchcraft that were able to kill Blood Masters with ease.
In the Fire Immortal cultivation manual, the Fireball spell was capable of bing so hot that it could turn a Blood Master into ash, even when they used their blood as protection. Even Yoze had used this spell when he fought against Geo, and a Fireball at full power was so hot and caused such a massive explosion that it could easily turn arge group of Blood Masters into ash.
A Martial Grandmaster would have to ensure they didn''t be hit by this spell, or they would get severely injured. Of course, since Tiki hadn''t reached the peak of the Nerver umtion realm, her fireball wouldn''t be as powerful as his. However, it was still powerful enough to turn a Blood Master into ash.
Not to mention that there were at least ten spells in the Fire Immortal Cultivation manual that had the same level of destructive power the Fireball spell had, such as the Explosive Metal spell that Tiki had used a long time ago when they first met to fight against another route immortal cultivator.
This spell could be cast instantly and almost instantly cause metals such as iron from a knife to be red hot and turn into makeshift explosives. If a few of the explosive projectiles that Tiki had created stabbed into the back of a Blood Master, they would be dead without a doubt.
Dreyer''s witchcraft could also create nt soldiers in the Blood Master realm. Even though these nt soldiers were weaker than most Blood Masters, this weakness could be dealt with by simply having more nt soldiers.
Regardless of whether it was Tiki or Dreyer, both of them were not as weak as Yoze imagined, and after living and training with him for so long, they were much stronger than when they first met. So with only these two, they had the capabilities to deal with any Blood Master that came their way. Even Martial Grandmasters would have to be careful around them.
When Jewel, the little serpent, and White Tiger are included, they form a solid defense around his father that is significantly better than what most government officers would receive.
The only reason they seemed so weak in Yoze''s eyes was that he had a warped vision of power. Since his growth speed was always getting faster and faster, he never had the time to properly adjust what was considered powerful in his eyes versus reality''s true powerhouses.
Yoze even saw Martial Grandmasters in a kind of weak light, but they were still in a better light than Blood Masters, who he felt were weak. It couldn''t be helped since even before he became a Blood Master, he could defeat a group of five Blood Masters, not to mention, as he got stronger, they became almost insignificant.
By the time he became a Blood Master, most Blood Masters couldn''t even harm him. So he only saw Martial Grandmaster as his opponent for a long time.
But for the majority of the world, Blood Masters were the true elites and was the realm that most people strive for but would never be able to achieve. Blood Master Scarlett herself was capable of forcing hundreds of martial artists to behave when they were around her tiny vige, which was a crazy feat.
Just the fact that New Swamp Town was thergest Town in the whole region but only had ten generals that had reached the Blood Master realm but not a single Martial Grandmaster showed not only how powerful New Swamp Town was but how rare Blood Masters were, much less Martial Grandmasters.
In this world, Martial Grandmasters were the true powerhouses, but their rare existence made it so that only a few ces, such as a city and medium torge Martial Art Sects, could support them. So for the ces that these powerhouses couldn''t reach, Blood Masters reigned supreme.
Yoze shook his head to clear his mind so he could focus on the situation before him. Right now, he has transformed a powerless Three-Eyed Crow into a powerful Blood Beastpanion using his Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method.
"It took me nearly two hours to transform Scar into her current state. So I could save a few more Three-Eyed Crows so that I will have morepanions and future clones." Yoze''s mind raced as he looked at the dark sky, which was beginning to prate the dark cloud of crows.
For him to be capable of seeing some of the colorful stars could only mean that the number of crows that had died and fallen into the fire had reached several hundred, while those who continued to battle it out were only a hundred at most.
"I''m sorry, Scar, that I can''t save all of your friends, but I can still save a few more before they all die." Yoze showed Scar his remorse as he felt that she must have felt saddened to see so many crows she knew would die.
"Caw, caw, caw, caw" Scar gave a few sad caws before she flew into the sky with a single p of herrge wings.
Before the pained crows could react to Scar''s sudden appearance, she had opened her ck beak that reeked of blood and carefully used her blood-red tongue to bring a few crows into her mouth. Once she collected four crows, she returned to the ground without a sound in less than a second.
"Caw, caw, caw!"
"Scar, there is no need to be so shy with me. If you want me to save your siblings, then you don''t even need to ask since I know what you wanted."
Yoze gently shook his head as he felt amused by Scar''s shy behavior and grabbed one of her siblings from her mouth. Unfortunately, the rest of her siblings would have to remain under the restraint of their sister''s blood-red tongue until he got to them.
As for the sapling, he had decided to allow it to follow its desires and nted it into the ground. He wanted to see what would happen if he allowed it to grow in an almost unrestrained manner.
Since he would have to deal with an anomaly, he wanted to know more about it and how its strange aura worked. Why were these ordinary saplings so lively, and why were they so determined to absorb the nutrition in the soil?
From the looks of it, they seemed to have the ability to use their roots to absorb the nutrition from the bodies of their victims. So why don''t they just go on a rampage and kill all the living beings in their closest vicinity instead of trying to nt themselves into the ground?
If he wanted to better understand this anomaly to kill it, then he would need to understand what was the purpose of these parasitic seeds and what their capabilities were. This was the only way he could deal with an anomaly, and most importantly, he needed to keep at least one of these parasitic seeds and nts until his talent marks were refreshed so he could copy their talents.
"This is going to be a long night," Yoze sighed before putting on his best smile and started to poke the little crow in his hands.
As soon as his fingers poked the little crow, its dull eyes began to regain their rity, and its spiritual energy that was teetering on the edge of disconnecting from its body quickly regained its foundation.
Chapter 339 339: Attacked By A God
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The sounds of bones cracking and the screams of hundreds of crows sprouted deep fear in the people of Justice Town. With the screams of a child screaming of danger waking them up from their deep slumber, all the men and women grabbed steel pots and pans to protect themselves and defend their children.
Yet what they saw when they left their soft beds seemed to be from hell. All the townspeople of Justice Town saw looks of panic in each eye of each other as they saw a massive pir of fire outside their Town.
The pir of red mes cut through the darkness as the heat of the night as the heat from the mes mmed into everyone''s faces. Above the mes was a single giant dark cloud that seemed to be from the depths of hell as it was made of crazy Three-Eyed Crows whose caws were filled with pain and fear.
This scene was nothing but nightmare fuel for all the townspeople of Justice Town as they greatly feared that the Three-Eyed Crows would leave their dark cloud and attack them. Fortunately, there seemed to be an invisible, imprable barrier protecting the Town whenever a Three-Eyed Crow would leave the dark cloud formation and head towards the Town with insanity filling their blood-red eyes.
They would not be able to get far before something mysterious would scare them and force them to turn around. As for those who hadpletely lost their minds and continued to attack the Town, they would suddenly die and be plucked out of the sky by a gigantic beast covered in blood armor.
The blood beast moved at incredibly fast speeds that no ordinary person could see it make a move, so most people only saw the crazy crows just disappear. Only a few people who have been hunters in the past or martial artists who were interested in this new Town could see a blurry red sh before disappearing.
As all of the townspeople of Justice Town felt their brains tingling from fear, some were courageous enough to slowly walk to the entrance to take a closer look at what was happening. When they arrived, they saw that standing in front of the entrance was the board back of their mayor, who had his arms crossed as he watched the scene.
"Mayor Lucien, what have you seen so far?"
Seeing that Lucien, who had been the one who lifted and guided the Town to its current size, was standing by the entrance before anyone else caused many of the townspeople to feel their shoulders slightly rxed. As their trust in Lucien''s knowledge of the world was much vaster than their own, to see that there wasn''t an ounce of panic on his face caused the townspeople to calm down.
"This is an attack from one of the Gods of Evil, in particr, it is the God of Death and Terror who has found out that our glorious town is being graced with the God of Justice and wants to destroy us," Lucien said without any hesitation or doubt in his voice.
Lucien''s words were filled with so much conviction and certainty that all the townspeople didn''t doubt his words and quickly spread the news. Within less than an hour, everyone in the Town and the caravan heard that a god was attacking them.
"Oh God of Eternal Justice! Please protect us from this evil god who loves to torment all creatures of this world!"
"What do we do!? Do we stay inside the Town or evacuate!?"
"Are you mad!? Where are we going to go? The God of Death and Terror is attacking us! We can only stay in the Town and hope that Eternal Justice will smack down all the attempts from these evil gods!"
The news that a god was attacking the Town spread like wildfire and caused the townspeople to feel goosebumps all over their bodies, but they still believed it. Even the traveling merchants who had seen many things felt inclined to believe Lucien''s words as there was no exnation for how this act of god could happen.
With panic and questions filling the Town, many people rushed to ask Lucien to answer their questions, but he remained silent until arge crowd of people had formed around him. With his face covered in sweat from the intense heat of the pir of mes, he slowly answered all the questions that came his way with one exnation filled with faith.
"Don''t panic; Eternal Justice knew these evil gods would never stop trying to squash him. So he has blessed a schr from the outside world whose heart was filled with nothing but love and Justice with a mission to protect and guide all those who believe in Justice."
"This schr is known as the Schr of Burning Justice and is protecting our Town from this attack. So no matter how much the God of Death and Terror tries to destroy the Town, it will not fall." Lucien''s eyes shed as he stared at the tall back of an elegant schr wearing a ck and gold suit.
"A schr is protecting us? Where is this schr?"
Simr questions flew around the townspeople before someone noticed a tall, elegant figure standing before the massive pir of me with only a ck cane in his hands. The people of the Town were shocked as they could only imagine the amount of heat radiating the elegant schr was being mmed with as they were struggling to even endure the heating to the entrance of the Town.
What was more impressive in the eyes of the townspeople was that they truly began to believe that the elegant schr was the one controlling the mes as they noticed that the Three-Eyed Crows that the God of Death and Terror hired were falling into the pir of fire and being burned to ash.
"The fires of Justice are the hottest in the world and can cause all creatures who have done injustice to others to turn into ash. Eternal Justice is great! The Schr of Burning Justice is great! Mayor Lucien is blessed!"
No one knew who started this chant, but it spread through the townspeople as it expressed their feelings. So, like a wave, the voices of every child, man, and woman in Justice Town shouted the chant with pride.
Chapter 340 340: Yoze Is A Black Frog
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As the night slowly passed, the sinister dark cloud of Three-Eyed Crows thinned to the point where the veryst Three-Eyed Crow capable of surviving the whole night suddenly disappeared as the sound of bones cracking followed. Even though the sun was rising from the horizon, meaning everyone had stayed up all night, they didn''t feel tired.
They marveled at the extraordinary event they had just watched, and all knew this would be recorded in the history books. Future generations will only be blessed with reading about the uniqueness of this event. In contrast, they are blessed to be capable of watching this historic event.
Many people felt their convictions on believing the truths of the god of Eternal Justice''s words strengthened and solidified. At the same time, some merchants had converted after experiencing such a horrifying event. However, as a whole, everyone breathed a deep sigh of relief as they watched thest evil crow disappear.
"The attack on the town has been defeated, and we are now safe. Right now, our town''s schr is cleaning up the remaining mess, so there is no longer a need for everyone to watch."
"By my orders, everyone will return home and sleep until they feel well rested. There will be no work or construction until then as we do not want anyone to identally make a serious mistake due to being sleepy." Lucien calmly spoke, causing everyone to realize that they were incredibly tired.
The wave of drowsiness engulfing the town caused everyone to feel as if their eyelids had be as heavy as sandbags, and their minds felt like a bag of stones was inside. Some people even struggled to keep their eyes open, so no one bothered to start since they likely fell asleep before Yoze finished cleaning up this mess.
When thest few people left, and Lucien was alone, he saw a young charming merchant walking toward him with a grim look stered to his face. This young merchant was Devi, who had been watching everything on the sidelines and felt embarrassed that he shared the same teacher as Lucien.
To see a Cursed Witch making up stories for a whole town was ridiculous. Witches had the reputation of being mysterious and powerful, but here is Lucien, who was a public figure and fueling this town''s religious belief.
Even though he was displeased with Lucien''s methods, he couldn''t help but ept that it was effective in getting the townspeople to regain their calm and even forget about questioning how Lucien had gotten to town''s entrance before anyone else even though the town hall was at the center of the town.
"So what do you think?" Devi asked as he walked beside Lucien.
"This can only be done by immortals, witches, and anomalies. I am leaning toward an anomaly since there doesn''t seem to be a sign that this was caused by a crazy immortal or a witch trying to get revenge."
"I came to the same conclusion, but this anomaly seems weak and simple. Unless it just popped up, I rmend that you move your town to a different location for the time being." Devi said before continuing after he noticed Lucien''s silence.
"You can always return to this ce after the anomaly was destroyed. All you have to do is inform the nearby towns and have them send over some soldiers to find and get rid of this anomaly."
As Devi finished his thoughts, he saw Lucien''s eyes shine and nodded in agreement with his suggestion. But even still, Lucien didn''t move his eyes away from the pir of fire.
After a few seconds of silence, Devi finally asked what had been bothering him and what Lucien had been preparing for all night.
"Is Yoze really your student? From the looks of it, he is extremely powerful, and his witchcraft is very good. Might be even better than yours."
Knowing that he had been caught, Lucien let out a heavy sigh as he looked away from the pir of fire for the first time and started at Yoze''s back. He knew that his plot wouldn''tst forever, but he didn''t expect it to end in less than a day.
He had paid Yoze so many valuable items and knowledge only for him to be exposed before he even took the test. Seeing that he was caught red-handed, he could only tell Devi the truth and deal with the consequences.
"Yes, Yoze is my student. I have been trying to teach him some witchcraft for the past few years, but he has always been kind of slow when learning witchcraft."
"As you could guess, this is most likely abination of hisck of talent and my poor teaching. But it seems that everything that I believed was fake and just something that Yoze had put in front of me." Lucien''s eyes dimmed as he masterfully made it seem like this realization had hurt his soul.
"I am sorry to hear that your student was so brilliant and thoughtful that he was a ck Frog under your nose."
It was unknown whether Devi believed Lucien''s story after seeing his earlier performance, but he still offered his condolences. For teachers to find out that their student was lying to them was a sad thing, and this was especially true for witches.
Since there were too many stories and examples of students killing their teachers to take their titles and steal all of their treasures, there was previously a crisis ofck of trust between students and teachers. Student betrayals and kills happened so frequently that a metaphor had been created to exin the situation.
ck Frogs were one of the mostmon ingredients witches used to create treasures. But because it was somonly used, there would be asions when a ck frog would sneak under the nose of a witch''s nose and jump right into it.
The pain that followed a ck fog jumping into one''s nose was so painful that many witches died. So many witches who found out their students lied about their capabilities called them ck Frogs.
Chapter 341 341: We Leave In Two Days!
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Lucien sighed as he felt the emotions inside his heart churning like butter. He never wanted to have Yoze as his student since he knew that he was a demon in disguise.
Yet his own curse forced him into a situation where this scenario made this the only path he could follow. Unlike demons or immortals who had the capability to fight against curses, he was only an average human who knew a little bit about witchcraft.
Maybe others would consider him a talented fellow when it came to witchcraft, but he knew his limits. Unless he somehow gained his dying teacher''s Cursed Book, there was very little hope for him to be a Grand Witch, much less be so skilled that he could join the ranks of Immortal Witches.
Most of his life seemed to follow the trend where his future was already decided. When he first ran away from the vige, he initially wanted to find some powerful person so he could bring them back to the vige to defeat the evil leaders.
It was only after learning more about the world that he realized that the people he sought after were martial artists. Unfortunately, life had a different n for him, so he ran into his current teacher, surrounded by ck fog in a random part of the forest.
For a witch to be sneaked up on while casting a curse was a dangerous situation that could have resulted in the caster dying a cruel death. Even if the curse was sessfully cast, most witches would still be so angry that they would kill the one who disturbed them regardless of who did.
However, what happened next could only be described as a series of coincidences that resulted in his teacher epting him as his student against his will. He could even clearly remember the strange look in his teacher''s eyes after he became his third student.
"Luckily, Teacher Windsor was very kind and understanding that day. If not, my body would probably be buried six feet into the ground."
"But from Teacher Windor''s face and him muttering something about an unexpected bacsh, I can only imagine that he suffered the same fate as me." Lucien''s eyes twitched as he felt he finally understood why his teacher had epted him instead of just killing him.
"Lucien, I know you are in grief, but could you decide where to take your people soon? I know this is a major decision, but Teacher Windsor wants us both to be present when he is creating the Cursed Book. So, with his degrading health, it would be better if we got going sooner rather thanter."
Suddenly interrupting Lucien''s internal thoughts was Devi''s soft but stable voice that whispered in his ear like a demon. After being interrupted by Devi, Lucien stopped thinking about the past and how his teacher might have also been forced to ept him as a student from his own curse.
Instead, he took a second to organize his thoughts and asked Devi for his thoughts on his n.
"I am thinking about making an announcement tomorrow morning to everyone in Justice Town that we will leave for New Swampscott City in two weeks. That should give us enough time to gather our things to walk to the City without too many stops."
"What do you think?"
"You are giving the townspeople far too long to prepare. We are possibly dealing with an anomaly, and all anomalies have fast growth periods."
"To have everyone in town remain in the same ce for another two weeks before leaving might result in the entire town being killed before two weeks even pass. Unless you are nning on betting on having me and my student stay and help you protect the town." As Devi finished speaking, he pulled out a small pot emitting white smoke from his pocket and handed it to Lucien.
"Here, Luxy and I will be leaving in two days to visit Teacher Windsor. We will help you protect the townspeople as long as you leave at the same time as us. If not... Teacher Windsor ns to create his Curse Book in two months."
Lucien breathed a heavy sigh as he nodded and epted Devi''s proposal. He couldn''t afford to guard the town alone since he didn''t have the power or resources to do so.
Even if he somehow convinced Yoze to help him protect the town, Lucien was more afraid that Yoze would rece the Slug demon''s position and im the town to be his farm. And even worse, he decided to simply kill everyone in the town and harvest their souls.
For the town''s overall safety and his own, he knew it would be better if he could travel alongside Devi and Luxy. In any case, even if Yoze abandoned the town, they would have more safety and means to ess more resources if they traveled alongside the wandering caravan.
As Lucien and Devi were discussing Justice Town''s future, Yoze had a wide grin as he saw twelve Three-Eyed Crows that were 8 feet standing in front of him. Each of the crows emitted an intense, powerful aura that would have made any martial artist feel as if they were standing before the messengers of death.
Scar stood out of these twelve crows, who felt amazed to see how many of her rtives survived due to Yoze. She had initially thought that with Yoze''s current rate of forming connections and transforming her into a Blood Beast, she could only save at most five of her closest rtives.
But it seemed that both she and Yoze had underestimated how much he would shorten the time he needed to transform Three-Eyed Crows into Blood Beasts. With every additional crow, the amount of time Yoze needed to turn them into Blood Beasts using the Bloody Beast Clone method dropped by 30 seconds.
The additional time saved allowed them to save more crows. It even gave Yoze enough time to remove the parasitic seeds imnted into their bodies. So not only were they saved and no longer ordinary birds, but they also had a great future ahead of them.
Chapter 342 342: Body Cultivation Interference
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While Scar and her rtives celebrated their rebirth as Yoze''s Blood Beasts, he pulled up his cheat to organize his thoughts.
[Name: Yoze]
[Age: 24 ]
[Talents Categories: Comprehension, Art, Physical, Martial Arts, Spiritual, Crystal Talents, Weapon, Hunting, Beast, Other]
[Technique Categories: Martial Arts, Blood Arts, Spiritual Arts, Crystal Arts]
[Recently Added Talents: Dead Crystal Nerves (Grade 7), Witchcraft (Grade 8)]
[Talent Marks: 0]
"So far, I have been making good progress, and with my recent breakthrough with my Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method, I have be a second-rate Blood Master."
"But I can sense that my progress has once again slowed down. This should be normal since getting through to the next level is always harder, but this is far more than I expected." Yoze''s eyes squinted as he felt his mind racing with theories to figure out the problem.
After a few seconds, he had developed a solid theory about the reason for his slowdown. However, if his theory were true, then his future to break through the limits of the human body would be in peril.
"Okay, from the evidence that I have currently, the reason for my slow down is that I am practicing multiple Blood Master body cultivation methods simultaneously. This shouldn''t be surprising since this was the same issue faced by people in the Martial Artist realm."
"But unlike back then, I had be a first-rate martial artist before I had started training in other body cultivation methods. And because I was collecting more talents that boosted my martial arts, the slowdown was overshadowed by the increase in speed."
"My current slowdown should be for a simr reason, except it has to do with the fact that I am currently training in three different Blood Master realm body cultivation methods. And this time, I have not been collecting talents that boost my martial arts training speed as frequently, so I can sense the slowdown."
Yoze''s eyebrows frowned as he understood this was a problem he would still have to deal with when he became a Martial Grandmaster. He also feared that this slowdown would once again be more drastic once he began to practice multiple Martial Grandmaster body cultivation methods.
"If I consider my current slowdown, the time it will take me to reach the peak of the Martial Grandmaster realm has increased to two years. This is still disgustingly fast, but if I continue to add more Blood Master body cultivation methods, it will only take me an increasingly longer time to reach the peak."
"From my current knowledge about martial arts, the possible exnation for this slow down all has to do with how my body cultivation methods interact with each other. One exnation is that when ites to Blood Master realm body cultivation methods, they are fighting for dominance or are interfering with each other."
"This interference could be the reason why training with multiple body cultivation methods results in less progress. Worst of all, this could mean that to be a first-rate Blood Master, I would first have to make all my Blood Master realm body cultivation methods reach that level."
"The second exnation could be because my Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method controls all my body cultivation methods. With full responsibility for controlling and managing all my body cultivation methods, it bes harder and harder for it to progress."
As Yoze thought about these two possibilities, he felt they both were decent exnations. Still, he preferred if thetter exnation was true. This was because he would prefer if he only needed to make breakthroughs with a single-body cultivation method to progress instead of having to do the same with multiple.
"In any case, I can find out the next time when I am on the verge of bing a first-rate Blood Master. So I shouldn''t be too worried. In any case, even if my progress slows down, I am not going to give up on my martial arts." Yoze''s eyes shed with colorful specks of light as he clenched his fist with determination.
"Caw!"
As Yoze pondered the mysteries of martial arts, he suddenly heard Scar scream. He immediately understood that she was warning him about the parasitic tree. Having been left to grow for the past several hours, it had grown into a massive oak tree full of acorns the size of fists.
Even though it had grown to 60 feet tall, it seemed to still be growing rapidly as it swung its branches wildly, with one of itsrgest branches heading straight for his head with enough power to pop the human head like a watermelon against a sledgehammer.
Unfortunately, this oak tree couldn''t even arouse Yoze''s danger senses as itcked the power to harm in the slightest. Still, Yoze wasn''t going to allow this strange oak tree that was infected by an anomaly to touch him since he didn''t know its full capabilities.
So he controlled his red spiritual energy to burn the branch, aiming for him to ash. In less than a blink of an eye, the massive branch the width of a human torso caught on fire and turned into ck ash carried away by the wind.
After losing one of its branches, the oak tree seemed to have gone berserk and aimed all its branches at the area where Yoze stood. Seeing that the oak tree was trying to kill him with the same method, Yoze simply stood still and allowed the oak tree branches to pass through his barrier of red spiritual energy.
Just like the first branch, all the oak tree branches that passed through his red spiritual energy barrier instantly caught on fire and burned into ash that would fertilize thend in the future.
Just as Yoze thought the oak tree might throw itself into his spiritual energy and turn itself into ck ash, he sensed an intense smell of oiling from below his feet and moving toward the oak tree. As if the oak tree had been injected with a growth serum, it quickly doubled in size and grew back all of the branches it had lost, thicker and stronger than before.
Chapter 343 343: Abnormal Oak Trees Defeat
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The oak tree growth was explosive and surprised Yoze as he could sense that the oak tree seemed to be filled with vitality. Regardless of how severe the previous damage it had sustained from having all its branches burned to ash, it regenerated it all in mere seconds.
Its green leaves seemed to shimmer in the intense sunlight as the smell of oil from its body rapidly became stronger. Even without guessing, Yoze knew that the green aura that had umted inside the fire was now entering the oak tree''s body.
"This seems quite simr to spiritual body cultivation or maybe a body cultivation method. Maybe this is a mixture of life spiritual energy and some type of inner vigor that increases regeneration speed?"
Yoze stared at the oak tree that had gotten a zenkai boost and calmly observed the green aura''s effects on it. Even with the crazy growth causing the tree to be nearly 200 feet tall, he didn''t feel worried.
"Simba, Mufasa, N, and Sarabi show this tree who is boss."
With the oak tree''s growth, Yozemanded his newly reborn Three-Eyed Crows to fight against this more powerful tree. Even though he didn''t think it was their opponent, he felt it would be a good warm-up for them to prepare for future battles.
"Caw!"
"Caw!"
"Caw!
"Caw!"
Even before Yoze could finish his sentence, Simba, Mufasa, N, and Sarabi made a move as they understood what he wanted them to do. After the glorious caws, each of them had their wings and ws covered in their blood that shimmered with a light blue color.
With the activation of four Blood Beasts, the air became heavy with the scent of metallic blood. A thin fog of dark blood formed around Simba, Mufasa, N, and Sarabi as they felt an intense power flowing through their bodies.
"Caw!!!!"
Even though they didn''t speak humannguage yet, Yoze blushed in embarrassment when he heard their shameless praise.
After praising their new master, Simba, Mufasa, N, and Sarabi leaped into the air with a p of their wings and disappeared. The vague sound of cracking electricity filled the air as the oak tree froze before a long ck mark that seemed to be created by lightning strikes covered its body.
The four simultaneous lightning strikes nearly turned the oak tree into charcoal as its entire body turned ck, with ck smoke filling the sky. Still, the regeneration abilities of the oak tree were astounding as its burned bark fell off to reveal brand-new bark and fresh green leaves.
"Caw!!"
The angry caw from Mufasa filled the air as he hated that theirbined strike couldn''t kill the oak tree in one blow. Embarrassed that he couldn''t deal with such a small sapling on his first attempt, Mustafa reappeared 300 feet above the air and dived straight for the oak tree.
"Crackle! Boom!"
Mufasa controlled his blood to cover his entire body in a second, turning himself into a blood meteor. Before the oak tree could react, it was split in half. One side was burnedpletely ck from the inside out, leaving it no path to regenerate.
"Caw!!"
Not far behind, Simba appeared next to the oak tree like a ghost and covered the entire remaining side in a thin veil of his blood that was filled with light blue inner vigor that had the properties of lightning and electricity. What happened next was predictable as the remaining half of the oak tree experienced the full power of being struck by lightning...ten times in a row.
After turning the oak tree into a ck charcoal art piece, Mufasa and Simba immediately flew away as they sensed Yoze''s warning. As Yoze expected, after the oak tree waspletely toasted, the green aura flew out of its body and tried totch onto Simba.
Unfortunately, with Yoze''s timely warning, Simba and Mufasa had escaped the green aura grasp just in time.
With no other living target nearby, the green aura rushed to Yoze and the other crows as if it was determined to get inside their bodies. Understanding that Yoze wanted to capture the green aura, Scar and the rest of the Three-Eyed Crows flew into the air, forcing the green aura to have no choice but to rush to Yoze.
"Come here. I might not be able to devour you, but my spiritual energy can still form a cage around you." Yoze stated bluntly as he controlled and drew out his Armored Elephant and Serpent demon spiritual energies.
The dark blue and greenbination of these two spiritual energies was then wrapped around the green aura, bing the most oppressive, heavy, and armored prison imaginable. Even when all of the hundreds of strands of green aura repeatedly smashed into the spiritual energy cage, it could do no damage.
"Interestingly, some green aura had been lost when it stimted the oak tree''s growth. The amount was small, but it still had some loss."
As Yoze stared at the green aura''s endless attempts to enter his body, he couldn''t help but feel more intrigued about the anomaly that had infected all the oak seeds. However, when he looked at how long time remained for his talent marks to refresh, he could only temporarily put the green aura aside since he couldn''t get more information from it.
[Talent Marks: 0 (Time Remaining: 05:34:56)]
After settling everything, Yoze nced at Lucien and Devi, who had seen everything and had their jaws on the floor from shock. He smiled and gave them a nod before running up the mountain to Gospel Peak.
Even though he was rudely interrupted by the parasitic seeds, he still followed his n to find the baby slug demons. Not only did they lose their parents, but as their only rtive left in this world, he was responsible for taking care of them so they didn''t cause chaos.
So he needed to raise them right by training them with his Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method so that they would be as great as a man as he was.
Chapter 344 344: Forming A Mighty Army
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With his heightened senses, spiritual senses, and various talents that made him suitable for the underground world, Yoze quickly found the ten baby slug demons. After remaining buried underground for nearly a week, they had be thinner, and some of the slime covering their body had dried from hunger and malnourished.
After seeing their poor state, Yoze sighed as he was d he didn''t stall this visit anyter, or he might have found ten dried corpses instead of baby slug demons.
"Come with me; I have some food for you to eat and regain strength." Yoze uses his spiritual speech tomunicate with the baby slug demons, but from the nk looks in their eyes, he guessed it didn''t trante.
Since that method was a dud, Yoze grabbed the ten baby slug demons by their tails and dragged them to the surface. After making it to the surface, he watched the ten baby slug demons sluggishly adapt to the sunlight and fresh air, ensuring they didn''t die from sudden exposure.
Luckily, even though the baby slug demons had been starved ever since they were born, their bodies were much stronger than most animals and humans, so their immune system was still quite hearty, which was good because if their bodies had grown too weak, the process of recovery would have taken much longer and more care on his end.
Even though Yoze joked around and thought about taking responsibility for the ten baby slug demons'' future, he mainly just wanted to copy their talents, especially when it came to spiritual energy maniption due to the fact he struggled to form his spiritual energy in any other shape than ws and basic shapes.
In addition, he wanted to use his Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method on them and transform them into his clones. After recruiting the family of Three-Eyed Crows, White Tiger, Little Serpent, and the Lily the Wasp Monster, he formed a mini beast army that could overrun all his enemies.
With the addition of these ten baby slug demons into his beast army, he would have increased their size to 23 beasts. All of which were capable of fighting and beating Blood Masters.
Just from the power of his beast army, Yoze could destroy any medium-sized sect and town with ease. Even the mighty New Swamp Town would be destroyed without much effort.
Any City would have been willing to pay a heavy price if they could make their own beast army as strong and capable as his own. It was not only because they were Blood Beasts and wereparable to Blood Masters, but their loyalty would never be questioned.
All they would have to do was feed them and provide them with a safe and loving home, and they could get great protection for many years. The Cities would even be willing to kill to obtain the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method.
Unfortunately for the Cities, Yoze was not interested in giving up his custom body cultivation method.
"Come eat. This meat should be quite good for you. A few bites, and you will be filled with energy." Yoze said with a gentle smile as he fed the baby with meat from his giant meatballs.
Famished, the ten baby slug demons quickly devoured all the meat Yoze had on hand and stared at him with desire. The amount of food they could eat was not even enough to fill their stomach, but the meat tasted delicious.
Even though the meat was not cooked, due to the hot spiritual energy that is inside every piece of meat, it was edible. Every bit was the perfect temperature where it still tasted hot and fresh but was hot enough to burn their mouths and tongues.
As the first things the baby slug demons had eaten since their birth, they couldn''t help but want more of this delicious meat. Yoze was willing to oblige to their requests and guided them to the cave where he had hidden the giant meatballs of demon meat.
Though he had mentally distributed the meatballs to whom he would give them, after seeing the weak state of the baby demon slugs, he sliced off 500 pounds from New Swampscott City''s portion to fill the baby slug demons up. He needed them to quickly regain their strength so they could endure the process of having the blood drained out repeatedly and undergoing the intense process of creating inner vigor.
After ensuring that all the baby slug demons had eaten their fill and were glowing with energy, Yoze once again suppressed them with his green, spiritual energy and began converting them into powerful Blood Demons.
A few hours flew by in a sh, and Yoze stood up from the cold ground and smiled as he noticed that the cave was filled with a thick blood fog. The fog was so thick that if someone didn''t wear a mask to cover their nose and mouth, their lungs would be quickly filled with blood, and they would drown.
"Congrattions! Even without you releasing your full power, the blood fog formed from you simply standing together is almost as thick and lethal as my own." Yoze said with full praise.
Standing before him was his minibeast army, which had grown to a poption of 23 Blood Beasts. With ten of them being demons, it might have been better to call this a mini-demon army that would cause any army to want to surrender.
"Even if another martial artist has formed his own beast army, it is nothing like ours! None of them have a beating heart that is as powerful and synchronized as ours!"
"The moment the sound of war drums enters the battlefield, our enemies will feel a cold chill run through their bodies, and their feet will turn colder than ice from fear! The sounds of our heartbeats will be the deepest fear of our enemies!"
Havingpleted his miniature demon army, Yoze felt his heart swell with pride as he spontaneously gave a heartfelt speech. Even though he had never given a speech before, his various talents rted to speech and public speaking helped him find the words he was looking for.
"Listen up from now on, puff out your chests, and allow the work to hear our blood hearts! From today forth, we will start our journey to be the most feared existence in this world!"
"So feared that even our greatest and boldest enemies will not even think about attacking our family, friends, and anyone linked to us! From now on, we will be the Demon Heart Army!"
Chapter 345 235: A Thousand Years!
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"Rawr!"
After Yoze finished his speech, the baby slug demons who had grown to be more than ten feet tall and 15 feet long roared with pride and their glorious future prospects. Ever since they had been turned into Blood Beasts, or maybe it was better to call them Blood Demons, they had formed a deep connection with him.
No longer seeing him as an enemy and more as the closerpanion that any of them had ever and will ever have. Even though they had only reached the first level of the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method, they felt as if they were filled with endless power.
As baby demons that were less than a month old, they still didn''t have much control over their spiritual energy, butbined with Slug demon Spiritual body cultivation and their martial art body cultivation method, they were far more powerful than they would have been if they had not been captured. Not only that, they were also in a simr situation to Yoze, where their martial arts realm didn''t urately reflect their power.
As demons from the moment they were born, they had the physical prowess to be capable of fighting third-rate Blood Masters. They would have been much stronger if Yoze hadn''t devoured all their life spiritual energy.
If they continued to absorb their life spiritual energy, they would have be stronger than peak Blood Masters. Capable of fighting against Martial Grandmasters from the very beginning of their birth.
Yet, in their current state, they could easily defeat a version of themselves that had never encountered Yoze. A demon body full of spiritual energy and a body cultivation method were an excellent pair.
Going by Yoze''s experience, they should have been able to easily kill Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder. What was more horrifying for the world was that they would only be more deadly and powerful as time passed, and they continued to merge the path of spiritual energy and martial arts.
Unfortunately, though the baby slug demons wanted to be proud of the fact that they were the strongest in the Demon Heart Army, they knew if they didn''t continue training hard, they would quickly fall behind. Just the Three-Eyed Crows, known as the unlucky signs of disaster, were all extremely powerful and surpassed the limits of their realm.
It wasn''t as much as the baby slug Demons. Still, with the small amount of spiritual energy in their blood slowly fusing into their bodies, they were getting stronger. This slow fusion of spiritual energy and the body was like a rudimentary version of spiritual energy body cultivation.
"Caw?" (What is the master doing with his hands?) Simba asked.
"Rawr," (What do you think? He is examining the weird spiritual energy that is fused with another type of energy.)
"Caw, caw?" (Don''t get snappy with me. I can''t see spiritual energy like you, demons. So how am I supposed to know?) Simba said as he squinted his third eye, trying to see if he could sense the spiritual energy.
"Rawr, rawr," (Don''t bother to strain yourself. We don''t want you to have your third eye pop out of its socket.)
"Caw," (Stop bullying Simba, he is still a baby.)
"Rawr?" (Aren''t we also?)
As the baby slug demons and the Three-Eyed Crows argued, Yoze controlled the spiritual energy cage he had formed and lifted it in front of him. With the constant strikes of the green aura that seemed to be continuously slowly being eroded by the world''s natural environment, Yoze felt as if he was learning more about the properties of this type of energy.
Still, he wasn''t focusing on it. Instead, he was watching the refresh counter for his talent marks slowly ticking down until he heard a soft clicking sound from deep within his brain.
[Talent Marks: 2]
"Use one talent mark of this green aura. I want to directly see the status window of the anomaly." Yoze softly said with high expectations that this should work.
If he was right about this energy being a fusion of spiritual energy and inner vigor, then it only made sense that he could use it to target the owner of this aura.
[Talent Mark has been consumed and retrieved the information on the anomaly. Please select a talent.]
Yoze didn''t pay much attention to the new message that his cheat had sent him. Instead, he focused on the panel with anomaly information and talents.
[Name: Gredi Gredi Gredi (Endless Forest''s Soul), (Martial Art Master), (Hope Bringer), (Te Spring), (Yesa Light)]
[Age: 1230 Years Old]
[Talents (Due to too many talents, only the most suitable five for you will be shown): Witchcraft (Grade 10), Memorization (Grade 10), Willpower Conservation (Grade 3), Stable Growth (Grade 2), Stealth (Grade 10)]
[Rmended Talents: Willpower Conservation (Grade 3), Stable Growth (Grade 2)]
[Evaluation: This anomaly is very powerful! It is rmended that the user get his family out of the region as soon as possible.]
"...Everyone, help me move the demon meatballs. We will be leaving today."
"Caw? Caw!" (Right now? Okay, boss!)
Sensing the quick shift in Yoze''s emotions, the Demon Heart army soldiers knew they had to pack up quickly. Even though they didn''t fully understand why their master wanted to leave as soon as possible, they didn''t hesitate.
Within minutes, Yoze watched as the giant demon meatballs were rolled out of the cave and sent down to Justice Town. This was made easier with the knowledge that all the citizens were fast asleep, so no one stopped them from cing the meatballs on the town square.
Other than Lucien, Devi, and Luxy, who were staring at the giant balls of meat with their jaws on the floor, no one else was awake, which could only have been done with the work of witchcraft.
When Yoze finally joined his miniature demon army at the town square, he walked up to Lucien with a face full of regret.
"I am sorry, teacher, but an urgent matter has called for me, so I will have to leave before doing the test. I hope you understand this is due to a family emergency."
"I will be heading to New Swampscott City, so please visit me when you have the chance. Here is my current address, and as a gift, I grant you one giant meatball of demon meat."
Chapter 346 346: Teaching The World
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"Yoze, if you need to leave due to an urgent matter, that should be fine. I am sure that my teacher and Devi will understand." Lucien said with an awkward smile.
He didn''t understand what was going on or what had happened that could suddenly change Yoze''s attitude so much.
Even though he had essentially bribed Yoze into pretending to be his student for this test, he didn''t need to show this much loyalty. If everything went right after taking the test, he and Yoze would peacefully go their separate way and hopefully never see each other again.
But Yoze''s strange actions and words made it look like he was trying to avoid the test because he had already shown his power during the elimination of the Three-Eyed Crows disaster and the Living Oak Tree disaster. Any normal witch would take his actions as someone with a guilty conscience who wanted to go into hiding so he would not get killed.
"Lucien is right. After what you disyed back there, we no longer need to do the tests. I am sure our teacher would have had to have a grand disciple as powerful as you." Devi''s eyes shed with a cruel light as he steadily answered.
"I am d." Yoze pretended to breathe a sigh of relief and continued to talk.
"Like I said, teacher, I will leave one of these giant meatballs here for the town. I hope you will give them daily demon meat since this kind of meat is filled with nutrients and other things that make them excellent food."
"Oh, and before I forget, I know that the town is very real right now, so I would like to give you a few martial arts books to help encourage the people of Justice Town to learn how to defend themselves in case of danger."
"I strongly rmend everyone to try a few exercises and martial art techniques after lunch and dinner since that is the best time to practice." Once Yoze finished speaking, he saw the nk eyes on Lucien''s and Devi''s eyes and wrote down everything in a booklet.
"Thank you, Yoze. You are my best student." Lucien said in a mechanical tone.
"Thank you for being so kind to me, teacher, and Senior Teacher Lucien. I once again apologize for ending our meeting so soon. I would have loved to get to know you and Luxy for a few days longer." Yoze said with sincerity.
He truly nned on staying in Justice Town a few dayster to collect Lucien''s, Devi''s, and Luxy''s talents. Unfortunately, while man proposes, god disposes.
He could only cut his ns short and begin his n to reform the martial artmunity and begin trying to awaken humans'' potential to practice spiritual energy.
He had been interested in doing this since he learned that people could unlock their talents by gaining awareness of them. However, it was only when he unlocked his talent for human spiritual body cultivation that he decided to make a n for it.
Now, with him inventing Martial Formations and unlocking a new branch of talents, the stakes of his n only grew, as well as his determination.
"It almost seems like my cheat is custom-made to make me open up a school or a sect. Though I am rich and can easily make money with a drop of my hat, I stillck a lot of knowledge and experience."
"I can only hope that my talents are enough to support me. I don''t have much time left to dilly-dally in any case now that an extremely powerful anomaly has made a move."
"I can only start my journey with the resources and knowledge I have before uprooting it and bringing it to a new region. It will be a painful process with a lot of loss, but it is better than having to start from the beginning." Yoze sighed before focusing his attention on the panel in his eyes.
[Name: Gredi Gredi Gredi (Endless Forest''s Soul), (Martial Art Master), (Hope Bringer), (Te Spring), (Yesa Light)]
[Age: 1230 Years Old]
[Talents (Due to too many talents, only the most suitable five for you will be shown): Witchcraft (Grade 10), Memorization (Grade 10), Willpower Conservation (Grade 3), Stable Growth (Grade 2), Stealth (Grade 10)]
[Rmended Talents: Willpower Conservation (Grade 3), Stable Growth (Grade 2)]
[Evaluation: This anomaly is very powerful! It is rmended that the user get his family out of the region as soon as possible.]
Reading his cheat''s evaluation, Yoze''s eyes twitched as he felt nervous. Not only did this new update to his cheat appear suddenly, but it also said for the first time that it was an opponent too strong for him.
He couldn''t even live in the same region as this anomaly, which only heightened its power. Yoze could only imagine that this anomaly had already spread to nearly every inch of the Grave region, meaning that no matter how far one escaped, they would still be in its range.
The only way was to cross the Grandlines, which his cheat suggested would keep this powerful anomaly trapped inside this region...at least for a while.
"Too many talents that even my cheat can''t show it all. If someone lived an exciting life for more than one thousand years, they would have learned a lot about themselves and their talents."
"So it makes sense that an anomaly that has lived for more than a thousand years also has umted a lot of talents and power. I wonder how Blood Master Steel is dealing with the Blood Heart anomaly?"
"If I am not mistaken, he should not be able to defeat the anomaly that created him, so he should be more willing to ept my help. As for when we meet each other again, no one knows, so I shouldn''t ce too much thought on it."
As Yoze walked out of Justice Town, he lightly tapped his Sect Mark, which caused it to glow. As the Sect Mark sent a signal to the Immortal Tattoo Sect that he hadpleted the mission, a naked iron goliath surrounded by horrifying monsters suddenly appeared in the middle forest and easily picked up the giant meatballs in front of him.
After ying with the meatballs that weighed tens of tons, the Iron Colossus that Yoze transformed into disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the smell of cooked meat and a mini demon army that rushed to not fall behind.
Chapter 347 347: Happy To See You Again
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"Ah, today is such a wonderful day to get some blood on your hands, right, brother?"
Somewhere deep in the forests of Lukafune, a group of bandits were staring at a merchant caravan with sickening grins on their faces. Each one has experienced the joy of thief and murder a thousand times. Yet, regardless of how much they stole, how many people they killed, and how far their infamy had spread, they would always find dumb fools who thought they could cross this forest safely.
Luck.
Whenever they asked their victims why they would cross this forest when they knew the Icy Vein Bandits ruled this forest, they would always receive the same answer.
I thought I was different! I thought Lady Luck was on my side!
Followed by otherme excuses that tried to exin why these merchants, warriors, andmon folks had to take the gamble. Honestly, for the leader of the Icy Vein Bandits he was beginning to get sick of it all!
He was now almost forty years old and still had to deal with the same kind of people. The same dumb people who thought they were different from the rest. Without even asking the questions, he already knew this small merchant caravan''s answers.
"...Gus, deal with these arrogant idiots like we did with the rest." The Bandit Leader nced at the young man dressed in fancy clothes and had the emblem of a blue flower on his chest.
With this simple nce, the Bandit Leader was already able to figure out the identity of this young man. A young schr from another region most likely wanted to experience the world.
This was something quitemon around these parts since they were near the border and next to the Grandline, known as the Immortal Cliff. A natural border that was so mind-blowing that rumors had it that it was caused by none other than the gods.
"Wait! I am a messenger from White Crimson City. I was ordered to deliver a message to New Swampscott City. If you kill me and I don''t return, White Crimson City will send a brigade to find me."
"White Crimson City?" The Bandit Leader''s ears twitched as he heard the young man''s calm voice.
"Gus, kill him and chop up his body into a million pieces before spreading it around the forest."
Without even turning his head, the Bandit Leader could tell that the young man''s face turned ghostly pale. His utter silence from shock was more than enough for the Bandit Leader to confirm that the young man was telling the truth.
Yet, it also showed his ignorance of the world. Shelter from all the blood, war, and danger that protected his little perfect world.
"Why?" The young man''s pitiful cry was music to Gus''s ears.
"Why!? Aren''t you schrs supposed to be smart!? We are bandits! Ouws! Killers and thieves! We don''t fear our own major city, much less foreigners! Hahaha!" An almost demonic gutturalugh came from Gus''s throat as he pulled out his machete.
This was his favorite part. He loved to watch these pretty boys and girls squirm like tiny worms as he lifted his machete. Ready to slice their heads off and see a fountain of blood squirt out of their exposed necks.
"Oh? Criminals who take pride in their activities are usually the most degenerate or are fighting against injustice. Which one are you, I wonder?"
"Who said that!? Show me your face, and I will show you mercy and only chop you up into ten million pieces!" Gus shouted.
He had never been talked to like that since before he had be a bandit. The absolute power he had over his victims was addicting.
When he heard their pleas for mercy and the fear in their eyes, he was reminded of the cold, arrogant eyes that his father had shown him. He hated when they showed anything but submission toward him, so for someone to dare disregard him was uneptable!
Looking around, Gus scanned his surroundings for any signs of where the little rat could hide. Yet, the forest was calm, and the bushes that could be hiding any person or items were cut and removed after they ambushed all the guards protecting this young schr.
All he could see was the shocked look in the young man''s eyes. As Gus was about to p the young man in the face in anger, he suddenly noticed that everything had be quiet.
Abnormally quiet.
When Gus was about to turn around and order the other bandits to help him look for the hidden man, his nose was suddenly tickled by the faint scent of blood.
His heart turned cold as he remembered the look of shock on the young man''s face¡ seemed off. It was like it wasn''t looking at him but behind him.
"Oh? Who says I am hiding? I am right behind you."
Gus''s heart turned cold as he recognized that the deep and smooth voice from before was licking the back of his neck. He was petrified.
The faint smell of blood, the utter silence from his fellow bandits, and the misced look of shock were all bad signs.
"Are you not going to turn around?" The smooth voice asked again, but Gus could hear a hint of amusement inside the voice.
He couldn''t turn around. If he turned around, he would die. But if he didn''t, then he would still die.
Gus''s mind raced as he struggled to figure out what to do, but he eventually gritted his teeth and turned around to face his enemy. If he was going to die, he wanted to see the face of his enemy so he could curse him for all eternity, even if that forced him to be a vengeful ghost.
"Chest?"
That was all Gus could see when he turned around. All he saw was the chest of a man wearing a ck and gold suit.
As if he turned into a puppet controlled by the god of death, Gus slowly lifted his head until he strained his neck to see the man''s face. When he saw the youthful face of the giant man, Gus''s eyes turned dull.
"Now that I have dealt with your problem, we can finally do our official introductions. It''s nice to meet you again, Evi. Did you miss me?"
Chapter 348 350: Establishing The School Of Eternal Knowledge
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[Disimer: Hello everyone, I had identally released the chapter in the wronger order so this is a future chapter. I will post release another chapter that should be the correct one. So feel free to skip this untilter on.]
"What! You want me to join your Sect!?" Evi screamed in shock.
He didn''t expect Yoze to offer him the chance to be his first student. He was only a simple schr who focused on umting knowledge and maneuvering through politics.
Just one look at his thin body thatcked much muscle was enough to show that he had never practiced martial arts in his life. Evi had tried to learn amon martial art technique called Twin Fists before, but he found that he wasn''t very talented.
Knowing that he would never get far, he stopped training in any martial arts and focused on bing the best schr he could be.
"Of course, I want you to join my Sect! Not only are you a good friend, but I can see the hidden potential in your body waiting to be unlocked." Yoze smiled after noticing doubt begin to form inside Evi''s eyes.
This wasn''t a doubt of whether Evi thought he was lying but a self-doubt that stemmed from a perceivedck of talent and worth.
After hearing that Yoze saw potential inside him, Evi felt shocked and was about to reject Yoze''s advances since he felt that Yoze was just being offered the position because he was Yoze''s friend.
"Yoze was just being nice and considerate when he offered me the opportunity to join his Sect. In reality, I don''t have any talent in martial arts, so how can I take advantage of him and join? I would only drag his good name in the mud." Evi felt his shoulders bing heavier, with grief and disappointment appearing in his eyes.
Just as he was about to reject Yoze, he felt a big, warm hand grab his hands.
"Evi, what I said earlier about your journey of bing a great schr and not doubting yourself applies here, too. The world is so massive and full of mystery that no one person can discover everything."
"Whether it is the journey to bing the best schr, the most powerful martial arts, or the most brilliant leader, it is often said that the journey to the top is lonely. But why is that the case?" Yoze paused his speech and looked at Evi straight into his brown eyes.
"I-I don''t know?"
"The reason is that to be the best, you must have an obsessive passion for it. A hunger that will never go away no matter how much you eat."
"This kind of obsessive passion, while it sounds great and is the key to bing the best in any field, is in reality toxic and tends to push out those who can''t stomach the intense 24/7 grind." Yoze''s face became stern as he continued.
"This is a trait of the human body that every human being has. However, it is locked away until they find what they are truly passionate about. But if this is the case, why do we know so many leaders, professionals, or an expert in a particr field don''t seem to be lonely?"
"Because they all died!"
"They died?" Evi''s jaw dropped. He couldn''t believe what he had heard.
So far, Yoze had been hyping up this obsessive trait that allowed people to be the best in their fields. He had thought that Yoze would tell him that he had this obsessive trait as well, and only by joining his Sect could he find what he was obsessed with.
"Yes, because they didn''t know when to stop and who to kick out of their life. Those who are obsessed are blind to other paths."
"They stubbornly think they can reach the top with more training, reading more books, or examining and learning from their mistakes. That thought is not wrong, but it will slowly kill them because the human body can only take on so much abuse."
After reaching this point in his speech, Yoze rxed since he discovered that the self-doubt in Evi''s eyes had stopped growing. He should be able to squash this self-doubt from growing anyrger with a few more thought-provoking words.
"What they are missing is talent andpanionship. People think that talent means having the potential to reach higher heights. Thatpanionship must be abandoned to be the best."
"This is nothing but a misconception. Talent is more like a time-saver. Being talented allows for the same level of improvement in a shorter period of time. With additional time, talented people can afford to form deep levels ofpanionship and connections that allow them to truly reach the top."
"In other words, I chose you because you are my friend."
"..."
Evi was stunned again. This was the third time Yoze had shocked him with his words. He didn''t think his heart could afford to be shocked anymore.
"Didn''t Yoze say earlier that I had hidden potential? Why is he saying he only chose me because I am his friend?" Evi expected that Yoze''s confession would have hurt him, but strangely, he felt more rxed.
Once the bandage had been pulled off, it would reveal that the wound had long been healed. As Yoze stared into Evi''s eyes, Evi also looked into his and felt mesmerized by faintly appearing sparkles.
Combined with Yoze''s speech andplete silence, he found himself thinking more deeply about the meaning of Yoze''s words. As someone talented in literature and a schr for nearly five years, it didn''t take him long to understand what Yoze wanted to say.
"I have potential, but in Yoze''s eyes, that is not what is important. What he wants is someone who can help him be the best. So whether I have potential or not doesn''t matter; the fact that I am the key to making his dream sect possible is what is important."
As Evi came to this realization, his self-doubt vanished, and the heavy rock on his shoulders was turned into dust.
"Okay, I am willing to join your sect!" Evi spoke with confidence after being freed from his shackles.
"Perfect! I knew you woulde to an understanding." Yoze breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that Evi had joined his Sect.
He had been practicing his speeches for thest few days and would have felt embarrassed if he couldn''t convince Evi to join. As the first person he recruited, he felt that Evi was the perfect candidate to be his first student.
Not only was he somewhat knowledgeable about martial arts, which allowed him to understand what he was trying to teach him, but he also wasn''t stuck in any particr martial arts path, so he could mold him.
As for whether he had any talent in martial arts, Yoze didn''t care. At this point, he was so talented when it came to martial arts that any amount of talent others had would seem slow in his eyes.
The real challenge woulde from his attempts to awaken Evi''s talent for spiritual energy. Yoze firmly believed any living creature could control and manipte its spiritual energy. Talent would only determine how easily and quickly they could improve their skill mastery.
So, he needed to have his first student be someone who could be patient with him and would have unwavering confidence in his skills. He had initially nned to have Jewel be his first student, but after seeing his long-time friend Evi, he had thrown that n on the back burner.
Evi would be a much better first student than Jewel, even though she was more talented in martial arts.
"Thank you for believing in me. I promise I won''t hold you back and will try my best to make this Sect the best in the world."
"But I forgot to ask, have you already decided what your Sect will be called? This is quite important since the name of the Sect greatly influences peoples'' initial opinions."
Now that he had joined Yoze''s Sect, Evi immediately began to think about the Sect''s future and how they would expand in the future. Even if he couldn''t be Yoze''s best student, he wanted to be at least someone useful so Yoze would not regret his decision.
"Cough, I was thinking about making the Sect name something humble so that others don''t think we are arrogant. So something like the Wandering Worldly Schrs or Heavenly Schrs of Justice will do."
As Yoze thought about some good names for his Sect, he wanted to rub his chin with his hand but noticed that he was still holding Evi''s hands. Embarrassed, he let go and casually threw out some names for his Sect.
"I think you are right. As schrs trying to forge new paths for the world, I think we should be humble. Your names kind of suck, though, so how about we call our Sect The School of Eternal Knowledge instead."
"It not only shows others that we are schrs trying to make the world a better ce, but it also tells the world we are humble," Evi said withplete sincerity.
Chapter 349 348: Is This Real?
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Evi''s mind went nk when he saw who was the young man who had stood up for him and dealt with an infamous bandit group. It was the face of someone he had treated as a friend but had expected to never see again in their whole lifetime.
Like fine wine, the young man had be more handsome and perfect as time went on. With wless skin, a strong body filled with muscles yet perfectly portioned, an elegant aura, and short ck hair, the young man seemed to be the definition of a perfect schr.
What made this young man even more utterly beautiful were his eyes, which had colorful sparkles that faintly faded in and out. However, even though the young man before him had undergone a drastic transformation, Evi could still instantly recognize him.
"Yoze, is this really you?"
"Of course, why are you stunned by how cool I had be after ourst meeting? This is merely an after-effect of practicing martial arts."
"As I told you before, martial arts changes the human body, so after practicing it for years, I had naturally changed quite a bit," Yoze said with a wide smile.
"Bullshit! I have seen other martial artists who have also trained for years, but none of them look even remotely as good as you."
"Plus, how does martial arts exin why you suddenly became nearly nine feet tall!?" Evi frowned as he began to feel that the world truly wasn''t fair.
He had been trying his hardest for thest three years to make it up the ranks of government and be a better schr. He had made so much progress that he had be very well-known in Jade City.
There were even some newspapers that called him one of the best-looking schrs in the City. After working so hard, he nned to settle down and find a partner he could marry.
Unfortunately, he identally pissed off a schr with higher status and seniority than him, so not only did all his progress suddenlye to a halt, but he began to lose his rank. To protect himself, he could only leave the Jade City and try his luck in a smaller city.
One thing led to another, and he found himself leaving the entire Jade Mountain region. Lady Luck truly wasn''t on his side thesest few years, but he managed to get by.
After risking his life, he was able to be a schr of White Crimson City and even gain the favor of the government. Though his status wasn''t as high as when he was in Jade City, he was given the honor of delivering some documents to the City of New Swampscott.
With everything he had experienced throughout the years, Evi was quite proud that he had not be a weathered, wrinkly old man. Yet, when he saw how Yoze became better looking after the years, he almost doubted whether he should have also practiced martial arts on the side.
"I told you before, the Big Golem body cultivation method is fantastic. Not only does it shred off fat and build muscle, but it even allows you to be taller."
"If you are interested, I can teach you. I don''t want to boast, but I think I am very talented in teaching." Yoze said casually while flexing his muscles.
He wasn''t lying; most of his growth was due to his Big Golem body cultivation method. He just conveniently didn''t say that practicing just the normal version of the Big Golem body cultivation method would never lead to anyone bing as handsome or tall as him.
Of course, as a schr who had traveled across three regions, Evi wasn''t as inexperienced as he was when he was a poor farmer. He had read about some history of martial arts and knew that most martial artists were normal people who didn''t have much talent or resources.
Unless one joined a martial arts sect, the military, or was part of arge and powerful family, most people would never be able to make much progress in their martial arts. However, seeing how easily Yoze had disposed of a group of bandits that had more than twenty members that practiced martial arts, it wasn''t hard to see that he had reached a high realm.
"By the time I reach the stage where I can be as handsome as you, I will be a skeleton half-buried in my casket. So I think I will have to take a pass." Evi shook his head to dismiss Yoze''s proposal.
"Yoze, it has been nearly five years since we had both be schrs. How much progress have you made?"
"My journey has been very bumpy and hard, so I can understand if you don''t want to tell me."
"My progress as a schr?" Yoze slightly chuckled as he forgot he was a schr half of the time.
"I haven''t made much progress. I am currently working as one of the schrs for the Martial Courtyard in New Swampscott City. But the pay is very good since I am currently getting arge house built for myself, my father, and his kids."
"Stop lying. You are getting another house. I don''t even have a permanent ce to stay, yet you have two houses. I need to pick up the pace." Evi sighed after realizing he was further behind than he initially thought. Still, he felt good that his best friend was doing great for himself.
"That is enough about me. I heard that you came over from White Crimson City to deliver a message to New Swampscott City. What is that about?" Yoze asked.
"Oh, that? I was just trying to make myself sound more important and valuable to White Crimson City, hoping those bandits would spare me."
"In reality, I am just delivering some documents to New Swampscott City so that the two cities'' databases are up to date with one another. This happens every other month or so." Evi blushed with embarrassment when he saw the curious look in Yoze''s beautiful eyes.
Chapter 350 349: First Student? Its You Of Course!
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"Ah, that makes sense. I have heard that cities make frequent visits to one another to keep their information up to date. The process is quiteplicated too since it is too dangerous to send it by bird."
"Evi, don''t discount yourself, for White Crimson City to send as their delivery man is still very important. Without people like you who are willing to risk their lives, all the cities and regions would bepletely isted from each other." Yoze smiled when he saw Evi''s embarrassed face and wanted tough but held it in.
"I am risking my life, but the City doesn''t have that much trust in a weak schr like me sending out this information, so at least two other people are delivering the same information. In the grand scheme of things, me and you are insignificant." Evi coughed to regain his image as an intellectual, but it was easy for Yoze to see in his eyes that he truly believed he was insignificant.
"Ah, whatever. If you are thinking in such arge scheme, then every individual human is insignificantpared to the world. Even humankind is insignificantpared to the world atrge."
"So don''t let this affect your confidence and worldview. This will not only affect your cognitive ability, but it will also negatively affect your future opportunities." Seeing that his friend was having self-doubts, Yoze quickly tried his best to squash it.
"...I guess you are right. If I keep thinking of myself as unimportant, I will never be important. The world is so big that thinking that everything is insignificant does nothing but harm the present and future."
After hearing Yoze resolve his doubts, Evi felt like a heavy rock had fallen off his shoulders and felt much better.
"That''s the way to think about it." Yoze smiled before turning his sights to the other people besides Evi.
"By the way, who are these people you were traveling with? Are they your friends andpanions?"
"Who?" Evi''s eyes shed with confusion until he turned around and saw several naked, fat men tied up beside him.
"Oh yeah, I had forgotten about them because we were having such a good conversation. These are the merchants I was traveling with, so I guess you could call them my travelpanions."
Hearing that Evi had forgotten about them, the several naked fat men felt as if their hearts had been stabbed with a knife. After traveling together for more than a month, they were so easily forgotten.
However, when they saw that handsome and beautiful, really, really, really tall schr didn''t forget about them, they felt much better. It would have been bad if Evi and Yoze truly did forget about them and left them tied up in the forest.
"Mmmham!"
Unfortunately, their mouths were tied up earlier because of how much they were crying and begging, so they could only beg Yoze and Evi to mumble through the rope.
"Evi, can you exin why they are naked? It shouldn''t be because their clothes were made out of gold and silver, right? So why would the bandits harm their eyes by stripping these merchants naked but not you?"
"Well, it wasn''t like the bandits had a choice; they had stripped off their clothes on their own when our guards had died. I think they thought that by showing that they no longer had any valuables anywhere in their bodies, they would have been let go." The disgust in Evi''s eyes and voice was evident as he didn''t want to look at them.
They really didn''t look good in both physical and intelligence aspects.
"...I see. They must not be very experienced in being robbed, or else they wouldn''t have stripped themselves naked voluntarily."
"Bandits don''t usually strip people when taking their valuables. Plus, it only makes it seem that you are not important or hide the real valuables inside your body." Yoze''s eyes twitched when he saw the stunned looks in the merchants'' eyes when they realized their mistake.
"It is not their fault. The martial arts sects have more control over the region than here, so there are fewer bandits."
"Evi, how much do you know about martial arts sects?" Yoze asked curiously.
"Probably less than the person who worked at two Martial Courtyards. But after a few years, I learned some basic information." Evi bit his lips to try and remember what he had read over the years.
"I read that there are ten powerful martial arts sects who have extraordinary influence on politics and resources of the region they are in. From what I can remember, these sects, from strongest to weakest, are The Human Empire, The Crimson City, The Lost Lake Sect, The Sword Sect, The Fire Sect, The Grand Empire, The Demon Children Sect, The Honey Sect, The Ice Sect, andstly the Charred Sect."
"In this region, the Charred Sect is the only major Sect, while all the other sects are not notable. While the Lost Lake Sect dominated the Jade Mountain region."
"Interestingly, no major sect controls the Imperial Region, so the other notable sects are thriving. Like the Devil-Be-Not Sect, which is ranked in 14th ce, and the Holy Spear Sect, which is ranked in 12th ce."
"But other than that, I don''t really know a lot about the martial arts sects. Sorry if I am just repeating information that you are more knowledgeable in." Evi said with a nervous smile.
"What the hell? How does he know so much? I only became aware of all that information after leaving the Jade Mountain region with Jewel. And I had to be scammed to get that information." Yoze thought to himself while keeping his smile.
"Don''t worry about it; I didn''t know much about martial arts sects until I left the Jade Mountain region. So, the fact that you know so much is very impressive."
"In fact, I was thinking about establishing a sect of my own." Yoze slowed down his speech as he tried to pique Evi''s interest.
"You are thinking about starting your own martial arts sect! Wow, for that, you have to have gotten incredibly good at martial arts."
Evi felt stunned when he heard Yoze wanted to establish his Sect. Establishing a sect wasn''t as simple as it sounded. It required not only a lot of resources to start, but it also required the sect leader or the founder to have a deep pool of knowledge on a type of martial art and great leadership.
If the newly established Sect was missing any of these aspects, then it would amount to nothing but an aspiration. So the fact that Yoze showed so much confidence revealed that he really might have what it takes to make a martial arts sect.
"Well, my idea is a bit different from traditional sects," Yoze said mysteriously.
"What is so different about it from other sects?" Evi asked.
"Okay, since you asked, my sect is going to teach a special kind of martial art called Martial Formation, the superior version of martial arts and the key to breaking past the limit of Martial Grandmaster!"
"Of course, that isn''t all of it. I will also teach everyone who joins the secrets of Human Spiritual Body Cultivation. A unique path that controls a special energy that all living beings possess."
"Evi, imagine it with me: In the future, you will have the power to destroy mountains with a single punch, have the ability to walk on water, and transform yourself into a giant that is more than 80 feet tall. All while being able to transform a mountain into a volcano with a single thought or fight demons head-on without fear!"
"Doesn''t that sound amazing! It is an irresistible opportunity that no one else can provide. Does that pique your interest in joining?" Yoze earnestly asked Evi.
"That sounds amazing! If I were someone you were recruiting, I would like to join your Sect."
"But that sounds a bit far-fetched, don''t you think? It might make people begin to doubt your credibility if you say something so grand but show no proof." Evi slowly said as he carefully picked his words, hoping not to dete Yoze''s ego.
Even though Yoze''s proposal sounded grand and inspiring, it was a bit too much. When something sounded too good to be true, then it usually was.
As Yoze''s best friend, Evi didn''t doubt that Yoze was lying to him about his being revolutionary, but it would not be the same for other people. When it came to normal people, they wouldn''t be able to understand even half of the words Yoze was saying, so they would most likely think he was a scammer.
As for martial artists, they would think he was lying since he had no credibility or solid proof that his ideas and new paths were real. Even if it was real, what is to say that they would get the chance to break past the limits of the Martial Grandmaster realm when they were stuck as first-rate martial artists?
"That makes sense; I should continue to work on my speech. But while I figure that out, how about you be the first person to join my Sect?"
Chapter 351 350: Establishing The School Of Eternal Knowledge
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"What! You want me to join your Sect!?" Evi screamed in shock.
He didn''t expect Yoze to offer him the chance to be his first student. He was only a simple schr who focused on umting knowledge and maneuvering through politics.
Just one look at his thin body thatcked much muscle was enough to show that he had never practiced martial arts in his life. Evi had tried to learn amon martial art technique called Twin Fists before, but he found that he wasn''t very talented.
Knowing that he would never get far, he stopped training in any martial arts and focused on bing the best schr he could be.
"Of course, I want you to join my Sect! Not only are you a good friend, but I can see the hidden potential in your body waiting to be unlocked." Yoze smiled after noticing doubt begin to form inside Evi''s eyes.
This wasn''t a doubt of whether Evi thought he was lying but a self-doubt that stemmed from a perceivedck of talent and worth.
After hearing that Yoze saw potential inside him, Evi felt shocked and was about to reject Yoze''s advances since he felt that Yoze was just being offered the position because he was Yoze''s friend.
"Yoze was just being nice and considerate when he offered me the opportunity to join his Sect. In reality, I don''t have any talent in martial arts, so how can I take advantage of him and join? I would only drag his good name in the mud." Evi felt his shoulders bing heavier, with grief and disappointment appearing in his eyes.
Just as he was about to reject Yoze, he felt a big, warm hand grab his hands.
"Evi, what I said earlier about your journey of bing a great schr and not doubting yourself applies here, too. The world is so massive and full of mystery that no one person can discover everything."
"Whether it is the journey to bing the best schr, the most powerful martial arts, or the most brilliant leader, it is often said that the journey to the top is lonely. But why is that the case?" Yoze paused his speech and looked at Evi straight into his brown eyes.
"I-I don''t know?"
"The reason is that to be the best, you must have an obsessive passion for it. A hunger that will never go away no matter how much you eat."
"This kind of obsessive passion, while it sounds great and is the key to bing the best in any field, is in reality toxic and tends to push out those who can''t stomach the intense 24/7 grind." Yoze''s face became stern as he continued.
"This is a trait of the human body that every human being has. However, it is locked away until they find what they are truly passionate about. But if this is the case, why do we know so many leaders, professionals, or an expert in a particr field don''t seem to be lonely?"
"Because they all died!"
"They died?" Evi''s jaw dropped. He couldn''t believe what he had heard.
So far, Yoze had been hyping up this obsessive trait that allowed people to be the best in their fields. He had thought that Yoze would tell him that he had this obsessive trait as well, and only by joining his Sect could he find what he was obsessed with.
"Yes, because they didn''t know when to stop and who to kick out of their life. Those who are obsessed are blind to other paths."
"They stubbornly think they can reach the top with more training, reading more books, or examining and learning from their mistakes. That thought is not wrong, but it will slowly kill them because the human body can only take on so much abuse."
After reaching this point in his speech, Yoze rxed since he discovered that the self-doubt in Evi''s eyes had stopped growing. He should be able to squash this self-doubt from growing anyrger with a few more thought-provoking words.
"What they are missing is talent andpanionship. People think that talent means having the potential to reach higher heights. Thatpanionship must be abandoned to be the best."
"This is nothing but a misconception. Talent is more like a time-saver. Being talented allows for the same level of improvement in a shorter period of time. With additional time, talented people can afford to form deep levels ofpanionship and connections that allow them to truly reach the top."
"In other words, I chose you because you are my friend."
"..."
Evi was stunned again. This was the third time Yoze had shocked him with his words. He didn''t think his heart could afford to be shocked anymore.
"Didn''t Yoze say earlier that I had hidden potential? Why is he saying he only chose me because I am his friend?" Evi expected that Yoze''s confession would have hurt him, but strangely, he felt more rxed.
Once the bandage had been pulled off, it would reveal that the wound had long been healed. As Yoze stared into Evi''s eyes, Evi also looked into his and felt mesmerized by faintly appearing sparkles.
Combined with Yoze''s speech andplete silence, he found himself thinking more deeply about the meaning of Yoze''s words. As someone talented in literature and a schr for nearly five years, it didn''t take him long to understand what Yoze wanted to say.
"I have potential, but in Yoze''s eyes, that is not what is important. What he wants is someone who can help him be the best. So whether I have potential or not doesn''t matter; the fact that I am the key to making his dream sect possible is what is important."
As Evi came to this realization, his self-doubt vanished, and the heavy rock on his shoulders was turned into dust.
"Okay, I am willing to join your sect!" Evi spoke with confidence after being freed from his shackles.
"Perfect! I knew you woulde to an understanding." Yoze breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that Evi had joined his Sect.
He had been practicing his speeches for thest few days and would have felt embarrassed if he couldn''t convince Evi to join. As the first person he recruited, he felt that Evi was the perfect candidate to be his first student.
Not only was he somewhat knowledgeable about martial arts, which allowed him to understand what he was trying to teach him, but he also wasn''t stuck in any particr martial arts path, so he could mold him.
As for whether he had any talent in martial arts, Yoze didn''t care. At this point, he was so talented when it came to martial arts that any amount of talent others had would seem slow in his eyes.
The real challenge woulde from his attempts to awaken Evi''s talent for spiritual energy. Yoze firmly believed any living creature could control and manipte its spiritual energy. Talent would only determine how easily and quickly they could improve their skill mastery.
So, he needed to have his first student be someone who could be patient with him and would have unwavering confidence in his skills. He had initially nned to have Jewel be his first student, but after seeing his long-time friend Evi, he had thrown that n on the back burner.
Evi would be a much better first student than Jewel, even though she was more talented in martial arts.
"Thank you for believing in me. I promise I won''t hold you back and will try my best to make this Sect the best in the world."
"But I forgot to ask, have you already decided what your Sect will be called? This is quite important since the name of the Sect greatly influences peoples'' initial opinions."
Now that he had joined Yoze''s Sect, Evi immediately began to think about the Sect''s future and how they would expand in the future. Even if he couldn''t be Yoze''s best student, he wanted to be at least someone useful so Yoze would not regret his decision.
"Cough, I was thinking about making the Sect name something humble so that others don''t think we are arrogant. So something like the Wandering Worldly Schrs or Heavenly Schrs of Justice will do."
As Yoze thought about some good names for his Sect, he wanted to rub his chin with his hand but noticed that he was still holding Evi''s hands. Embarrassed, he let go and casually threw out some names for his Sect.
"I think you are right. As schrs trying to forge new paths for the world, I think we should be humble. Your names kind of suck, though, so how about we call our Sect The School of Eternal Knowledge instead."
"It not only shows others that we are schrs trying to make the world a better ce, but it also tells the world we are humble," Evi said withplete sincerity.
Chapter 352 351: Welcome To The Family!
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"The School of Eternal Knowledge...that sounds pretty good. Then it''s final. The School of Eternal Knowledge will officially begin today!"
"With the first student being the noble schr Evi Rocks! Congrattions on bing part of a legendary journey that will shock the world!" Yoze smiled as he felt all his hard work was worth it.
"Mmmmh!"
Suddenly, the sound of the fat merchants mumbling through their ropes interrupted the warming and excited atmosphere. When Yoze and Evi noticed the excited looks of the merchants who were jumping up and down, they were no longer in the mood to celebrate.
Even with their mouths covered, it was obvious to Yoze that they were inspired by his speech and wanted to join his sect.
"I''m sorry, but the School of Eternal Knowledge is currently full. Please try registering at ater date, like in a few years."
"Mmmmha!" A sad collective sigh came from the fat merchants as they knew that they would never be able to join after making such a bad first impression.
They could only hope that Yoze and Evi didn''t forget about them and took them along when they left the forest.
"Yoze, as the Sect Master, what should we do first?" Evi raised a good question that made Yoze think for a few seconds before answering.
"Though I want to start your training as soon as possible, the best thing for you and me is getting to the closest town first. That way, we can ditch these merchants and focus on your training while heading to New Swamp Town before going to our final destination of New Swampscott City."
"That sounds like a good n, but why are we heading to New Swamp Town? I looked at the map, and we can travel to New Swampscott''s southern gate and enter the City that way."
"You might not know this since the rules for White Crimson City and Jade City are very different from New Swampscott City. But for anyone to enter New Swampscott City, they must show proof that they had visited New Swamp Town beforehand."
"Since you have just entered the region, I don''t think you have any proof unless White Crimson City gave you a pass that allows you to ignore this rule." Yoze calmly stated as he exined the City''s situation.
"Ah! I see. I didn''t get a special pass to enter the City, but I did get a special pass to bypass the security search for entering the City Hall. Thank god you mentioned this, or I would have had to extend my journey by a week." Evi breathed out a sigh.
"Don''t mention it. I also have another reason for going to New Swamp Town before going to New Swampscott City. My father and his two kids are waiting for me there." Yoze hastily mentioned it with worried eyes.
Noticing that Yoze looked troubled by something, Evi frowned as he reached out to pat Yoze''s shoulders.
"Yoze, I understand that it might be strange to find out that your father has other children. But I am sure your father doesn''t love them any more than he loves you."
"What?" Yoze asked, confused about why Evi would suddenly say that.
"I had read a lot of books and stories that were simr to your situation. Where a young man or woman finds out that their father has a secret family living aboard."
"This is a tough pill to swallow, but I know that Mr. Drew Thunder is a man who can spread love equally among everyone. So even if he has a secret life, I am sure he would hate to see that this is eating you up from the inside."
"You are as much as his family as his biological children are. Even though you are adopted." Evi said withplete seriousness in his eyes.
Yoze felt his eyes twitching as he knew that Evi had misunderstood why he looked troubled. But before he could say anything to rify, he saw that the fat merchant''s eyes were filled with tears as they looked at him with pity.
"Do you want a hug?" Evi finally said after seeing that Yoze was stunned into silence.
"No! I am not troubled or worried that my father doesn''t love me. I am worried because their army had left to fight a powerful anomaly thest time I left the town." Unable to take it any longer, Yoze just exined everything.
After Evi and the tied-up fat merchants heard what Yoze was worried about, their eyes became as wide as a dinner te from shock.
They couldn''t believe it. How terrible was their luck!? They just happened to enter the region when a powerful anomaly had taken action. It could even infect hundreds of crows and kill them all from a huge distance away. It was terrifying!
Even if they didn''t get caught by the Icy Vein Bandits, they might have been killed by the anomaly before they ever reached New Swampscott City.
"Ah, Lady Luck, why have you cursed us? What have we done to you to deserve this treatment!?"
As the fat merchants cursed their bad luck, Evi calmed down and smiled as he felt his luck must have been great. To have encountered Yoze just as they arrived and were caught by bandits was extremely lucky.
After witnessing Yoze''s strength, it was clear he was powerful enough to protect him during his journey to New Swampscott City.
"Thank you, Lady Luck, for allowing me to see my best friend again after so many years." Evi thought to himself before coughing to clear up his misunderstanding.
"Sorry about that, Yoze; I didn''t mean anything I said before. But from what you said, your family should still be inside New Swamp Town, so it makes sense that you want to take them with us."
"With your family possibly endangered, we shouldn''t dilly-dally and need to meet up with them as soon as possible."
"You''re right. The longer we wait, the more dangerous it will be for us to travel around. Who knows how far this anomaly can stretch its ws?" Yoze said in agreement with Evi.
Just as he was about to ask Evi to follow his lead, he suddenly remembered that he had nearly forgotten something important.
"I almost forgot..."
"Mmmmmha!" Seeing that Yoze hadn''t forgotten about them, the fat merchants felt their rapidly beating hearts slow down and felt more rxed.
Unfortunately, before they could get their hopes up, they suddenly heard Yoze say something strange.
"You cane out now!"
"Who ising out?" Evi and the fat merchants thought all at the same time as they turned to the direction looking toward.
Before they could prepare themselves for what was about to appear, Evi and the fat merchants felt a soft draft of warm air m into their faces as twenty different colored eyeballs popped out of the bushes. Each eyeball was twice the size of a human''s eyeball and showed a high level of intelligence mixed with curiosity.
"Thud, thud, thud, thud..."
The strange but horrifying scene was simply too much for the fat merchants'' hearts to handle, so they fainted. As for Evi, even though his heart clenched with fear as he instinctively felt a dangerous threating from these eyeballs, he was able to calm himself swiftly.
"These must be what Yoze was calling out to, so they shouldn''t be dangerous. Plus, they also have the same faint sparkles in their eyes as Yoze, so they must be friendly, right?" Evi thought to himself as he forced himself not to run away.
"Hahaha, Evi, you really are the best!" Seeing that all the fat merchants had fainted, Yozeughed heartily before giving Evi a sincerepliment.
"Sorry about that; I didn''t mean to scare you. I just wanted to let you meet some of the pets I had tamed. I just didn''t think they would show themselves in such a horrible way." Yoze sincerely apologized after scaring Evi.
"It''s alright. I got scared, but not enough to cause me to faint or lose control of my bowls. In any case, what kind of pets did you tame that look so strange?" Evi immediately sighed with relief after knowing these strange floating eyeballs belonged to Yoze''s pets.
"These little guys are Slug demons."
"They are what?"
"Slug demons," Yoze repeated with a smile on his face.
Evi stared at Yoze for a few minutes, hoping he would see any sign that Yoze was joking, but his jaw dropped after seeing that he waspletely serious. His brain nearly fried when he fully shook his head and tried his best to forget what he had heard.
"Okay... You said earlier that these are only some of your pets. Your other pets are not also demons, right?" Evi asked cautiously.
"Of course not," Yoze shook his head to dispel Evi''s assumption that he was some demon collector.
"Caw!"
"Caw!"
"Caw!"
"If you look above your head, you will see giant Three-Eyed Crows. They are also my pets." Hearing that Scar, Simba, and Mufasa were getting rowdy, Yoze also decided to introduce them.
"Yoze, I don''t know what to say except you are a crazy man that needs to be locked up."
Chapter 353 352: Make Me More Beautiful!
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On the outer borders of Lover Town, two young men were sitting on top of logs as they sat around a zing campfire sharing stories. Even though the one who was nearly nine feet tall and extremely handsome was doing most of the storytelling, the other young man was also trying his best to seem as engaged as possible.
These two young men were Yoze and Evi, who had dropped off the unconscious fat merchants at Lover Town and left soon after. Even though Lover Town was well known for having very good-looking men and women, it was usually considered more as a tourist location. Hence, the town was too small for them to gain anything by staying longer.
"That is how I ended up identally killing an elder from the Thorn Rose Sect. If I had known that Blood Master Scarlett was a witch, I would never have let her into my home.".
"The good thing was that at the end of the day, I gained quite a bit from it." Yoze smiled as he retold his incident with the Thorn Rose Sect.
"...That Blood Master Steel is a lucky guy." Evi sighed as he nketly stared at the raging fire.
After listening to what had happened to Yoze throughout the past few years, he had nearly had a heart attack ten times! The number of martial artists, demons, and rogue immortal cultivators that Yoze had killed seemed too high to be true.
Killing Blood Masters and Martial Grandmasters for Yoze seemed like he was killing chickens. Like mostmoners, Evi had believed that immortals, witches, and demons were mostly made-up stories that their grandparents had made up when they were bored.
Yet, from Yoze''s retelling, it was like they were everywhere!
Asmon as weeds inside a field of grass. It might look as if the field was filled with nothing but prestigious green grass, but a closer examination would allow anyone to find that between every patch of grass was a troublesome weed.
"Maybe I should not have joined Yoze''s sect. I don''t want to encounter a witch and have a curse cast on me that turns me into a frog."
"How am I going to convince a beautiful princess to kiss me? Life is not that strange... never mind with Yoze, life is that strange." As Evi thought to himself, his mind was having difficulty processing the new reality of his life.
He could only pay attention to the fact that Blood Master Scarlett suddenly married her enemy, which drew a strange look from Yoze.
"Evi, don''t get any weird ideas about courting Blood Master Scarlett. She is already a married woman, and even if she wasn''t, she would never be interested in schrs like us."
"Please stop calling yourself a schr. You are making the whole schrmunity look like shitpared to you." Evi hastily interrupted as he felt his fragile heart couldn''t take it anymore tonight.
"You calling yourself an ordinary schr is like calling a majestic lion a stray alley cat. If I keep letting you call yourself a schr, no one would want to hire any schrs in the future. Scratch that all schrs and martial artists are nothingpared to you since you are aplete package." Evi told Yoze.
"Alright, I will be less humble and call myself a super schr next time. Does that make you happy?" Yoze teased Evi but didn''t expect his response.
"That would be great. Yoze, the Super Schr, has opened up the School of Eternal Knowledge. A school that focuses not only on creating new paths for martial artists but also creates Super Schrs!"
"I kind of like the sound of that. What do you think, Yoze? If you want, we can make our sect more specialized so that all the martial artists you teach will also know literature, math, art, elegant speech, and politics."
"If this works and we are the first school to create Super Schrs, then we have a cool and useful gimmick that the Cities and Sects can''tpete with," Evi said slowly after some thought.
Unlike Yoze, who hadn''t given his clients a single piece of advice since he became a schr, Evi was the real deal. He had umted a lot of experience when it came to giving out useful advice, so he was able to easily find something useful from their casual talk.
"As expected from the Nobel Schr Evi, that is a great idea. But you forgot the most important thing about being a Super Schr." Yoze said seriously.
"What is it?" Evi asked. He was curious about what he had missed. Didn''t bing a Super Schr just mean a schr who is also an expert in martial arts?
"Super Schrs have to be both handsome and beautiful. When they appear in public, everyone must know that they are not ordinary schrs."
"They have to stick out like a Blue Feather Crane in arge crowd of red chickens," Yoze said seriously.
If it was an ordinary person, they would have thought Yoze was joking, but Evi knew he wasn''t. What he said made perfect sense since they lived in a superficial world.
Even though the appearance of a schr shouldn''t matter, only the schr''s experience and skills should be the only important thing. Unfortunately, in reality, having good looks usually has benefits.
A schr who is handsome or beautiful is more likely to get a promotion or a pay raisepared to a schr with the same level of skills. Not only that, schrs who liked to travel or preferred to be hired by people instead of governments needed topete with other schrs doing the same.
So if all the Super Schrs they produced were extraordinarily handsome and beautiful, then all their students would have a much easier time finding jobs and getting promotions.
"I guess you are right, but it''s going to be hard finding people who are as handsome and beautiful as you. It will make our sect much smaller." Evi said after realizing the truth of Yoze''s statement.
"That would be true in most cases, but did you forget I wasn''t always this good-looking? If our sect is going to make Super Schrs, then one of the things we will do is teach them martial arts that improve their looks and teach them good hygiene." Yoze casually mentioned.
"Can you teach me?" Evi said more seriously than he had ever been in his entire life.
Chapter 354 353: Evi, Are You Sure That You Arent A Genius!
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"Hahaha! See, I told you, with how the world works, everyone pursues beauty more than strength and knowledge."
"If every woman and man tried even half as hard to improve themselves as much as they did making themselves better looking. Then everyone would be an expert in something." Yoze let out a heartyugh when he saw Evi''s serious face.
"You are right, but what kind of martial art can make someone as handsome and beautiful as you? Don''t get me wrong, but before, you were at most slightly better-looking, but now you are a hunk of meat that any woman would love to get her hands on."
"If what you said was true, we might end up finally breaking the invisible ceiling for women in the world of schrs. And having more women in our sect is already a plus." Evi continued.
It was a known truth that women simply had it harder when it came to making progress in Nobel professions, like bing a schr. In Evi''s experience, the few women schrs that he had met were usually far smarter and cunning than their male counterparts but always had lower positions than they deserved.
With extremely hard obstacles to ovee, women schrs were rare, but if their sect could allow them to be more beautiful in addition to bing far more knowledgeable and skilled when it came to martial arts. Then, it was an almost inescapable sect for women who were interested in bing schrs.
And with a high poption of women, it was inevitable that men would follow. So, in the end, their sect would quickly be well-recognized.
"Of course, it is true, but just one martial art isn''t enough to be as handsome as me. If our future students want to follow my path, they must also train in multiple body cultivation methods, which means they will follow my theory on Martial Formations." Yoze smiled as he felt everything wasing around in circles.
A good circle!
For people interested in bing Super Schrs, they must practice the basics of Martial Formations, and during the process, he would instill in them the method of controlling their spiritual energy. He would not only be able to cultivate an uncountable number of people who had talent in both of these fields, but he would also be able to continue his research by using them as test subjects.
"Since it is true, please hurry up and teach me! I am already 26 years old, so I either have to settle down soon or be more handsome if I don''t want to be considered outside of marrying age." Evi urged after seeing that Yoze had sunken into his own thoughts.
"Oh, yeah. We will start your training tomorrow morning, so I can use the rest of today to figure out a training routine for you."
"Since we decided that our sect is going to specialize in creating Super Schrs, then you are going to have to be a good example. So make sure to eat a lot today so that you don''t die tomorrow." Yoze said casually.
But for some reason, Evi felt a chill run down his spine when he heard Yoze talk about transforming him into a Super Schr.
"I really hope I don''t regret this."
Knowing there wasn''t more to talk about, Evi ate the delicious meatballs Yoze had carried with him until his stomach threatened to rip his shirt before falling asleep.
The next morning quickly arrived as Evi felt the warm lighting from the sunrise hitting his face. Even though he had slept on the floor all night, he didn''t feel exhausted or any pain. Instead, he felt like he had as much energy as a tiger cub.
"Yoze? When did you wake up?" Noticing that Yoze was deeply absorbed in writing something in a thick ck notebook, Evi couldn''t help but wonder what time he had woken up.
Hearing Evi''s energetic voice, Yoze closed his notebook with a p and examined Evi''s body up and down.
"Evi, you are going to be a wonderful specimen. If my instincts are correct, you are going to be quite talented in Martial Formations." Yoze sincerelyplimented, but he only drew a wary look from Evi.
"Alright, I hope that you are full of energy after eating that demon meat. Because we will be beginning training immediately, so take off your clothes." Yoze said before taking off his own clothes.
"I can understand why I need to strip naked, but why are you also?" Evi asked.
"Because I am also going to be training right beside you so that you don''t feel lonely when training. Plus, with my martial arts, if we wear clothes, they will only be torn to shreds soon after we start anyway." Yoze exined.
He had long since be used to tearing his clothes, but with his limited choice of clothing currently, he had no choice but to strip to prevent having to walk around naked.
As for why Evi had to do so when there was only a small chance that his clothes would be ruined during training, it was because Yoze didn''t want to be taken advantage of alone.
"Okay," Even though Evi felt that there was something wrong with Yoze''s logic, he didn''t question it since he wasn''t an expert on martial arts.
After stripping naked, Evi began to follow along with Yoze''s strange movements and felt his energized muscles quickly losing energy. However, with his willpower, he was able to endure the strange training for two hours before he copsed.
No matter how much he urged his muscles to move, he would get no response, and every time the wind blew, he would have to grit his teeth to endure the pain.
"Not bad, Evi, you were able tost quite a long time. Before, we were training in the body cultivation method known as Boneless Man, which I had modified slightly to be more efficient."
"Unfortunately, while this means you can make faster progress, training will be more painful and more exhausting. Evi? Are you awake?"
Chapter 355 354: Yoze, Are You Sure Your Human?
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Yoze breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed that Evi was breathing. He had been worried that he had identally killed Evi during their first day of training.
"So your muscles are just sore. Don''t worry. After you recover somewhat, I will help you get some food in your system so we can begin round two." Yoze said with a smile.
To make sure that Evi didn''t identally die, Yozeid him on his side so that if he threw up at any point, he wouldn''t drown. With that settled and Evi staring at him as if he were a monster, Yoze continued his own training.
"Did you need to go so hard on the first day!? I wasn''t mentally prepared." Evi thought to himself as he imed on the ground helplessly.
He had known that training in martial arts was extremely difficult, but he hadn''t expected it to be this difficult. Even though Yoze had praised him, Evi didn''t take it seriously since he would have preferred the ability to move.
"Wow, is this the full power of the Boneless Man body cultivation method? He looks like he doesn''t have any bones. No, that isn''t correct. It''s more like he is made out of water." Evi''s eyes widened from shock, if they could have moved, as he watched Yoze train.
His body was twisted up like aplicated knot, and his limbs seemed to be in ces that should have been impossible for the human body.
"How is he doing a handstand, splits, the twisted floor bow pose, and the crane pose all at the same time!? We really are not on the same level at all!"
As Evi watched Yoze do poses that shouldn''t be possible, he felt a fire burning in his heart. He didn''t want to be left behind.
After not seeing his best friend in nearly five years, they seemed to have gone down twopletely different paths. He had decided to follow the traditional path for schrs'' and worked his butt off for numerous years only to not do much.
Yet, Yoze, through numerous twists and turns, was able to transform himself into a Super Schr who represented the peak of humanity. Even though Yoze had only told him that he had only be a second-rate Blood Master recently, Evi felt deep in his heart that no one in the world could beat him.
"I can''t allow myself to keep falling behind. I need to get up and work hard. It doesn''t matter if I don''t have talent. I simply have to put in ten, no, a hundred times more effort!"
"As long as there is a will, there is a way. No matter how long it takes me, I will catch up to you, Yoze!" Evi''s eyes shed with determination as he pushed himself to get up.
Even though his muscles were responding initially, after some time, he started to regain some feeling in his finger. Using that limited amount of sensation as motivation, Evi soon found himself standing up on his two feet.
"Oh, you are up. Go eat the food I had prepared beforehand, ande back and train with me." Yoze said casually.
He was impressed by Evi''s willpower since most people would not be capable of doing such a thing. Even most martial artists would not have enough willpower to be able to force their bodies to move when they werepletely exhausted.
"I did make the right choice." Yoze thought to himself as he turned his focus back on his training.
Though Yoze wanted to praise Evi for his mental strength, he knew that it wouldn''t be productive to do so. Not only would it make Evi feel that he was belittling him, but it might break his determination to train.
As an addict to training himself, Yoze knew that nothing felt better than the feeling of improving on your own. This was especially true when it defied others'' expectations.
Since he wanted Evi to be strong in both a physical and mental sense, he would do his best to inspire Evi. Still, he would make sure not to go too hard, or it might have the opposite effect. For now, he only needed to focus on his own training.
[Boneless Man (Level 5: 6%)]
After breaking through Boneless Man''s limit three times, his progress slowed down. He predicted that with his current pace, it would take him around two months before he could attempt to break through its limits again.
However, he had high expectations for when he broke through as he sensed that all his Boneless Man inner vigor was activated. He could no longer turn it off, just like what had happened with his Big Golem inner vigor.
This was one of the reasons he decided to start Evi''s training with the Boneless Man body cultivation method. He didn''t want to constantly be a rubber man who could stretch and twist his body in inhuman ways.
The other remaining reasons were quite simple. Boneless Man was a good body cultivation method that was easy to understand, didn''t require any additional resources, and was high-level enough that he could easily modify it to fit his needs.
For training beginners in martial arts, Boneless Man didn''t require much understanding, so even people whocked talent in Martial Art Comprehension would have no trouble practicing it. In their eyes, Boneless Man was just a more advanced version of yoga.
But most importantly, he was able to break through the limits of Boneless Man more than three times and pushed this simple body cultivation method to levels its creator would have thought impossible. He deeply understood Boneless Man, which allowed him to know the most optimal training method.
Just like he had told Evi, he had modified the Boneless Man he was teaching Evi to be far more efficient when ites to making progress. Even if Evi didn''t have any talent, he would be able to reach the peak of the first level in a month.
Unfortunately, a simr situation to today was bound to happen at least ten times a day. So if Evi''s willpower wasn''t strong enough to handle the pain and not having any feeling in his muscles and bones, they would, unfortunately, have to slow down.
Luckily, there seemed to be no reason for him to worry as he sensed the determined Evi walk beside him. He was in a much better state than before after eating a few pounds of demon meat and guzzling some water.
"I am ready to begin training again!" Evi looked at Yoze''s body and felt a cold chill crawl through his spine.
Though he wanted to train like Yoze, he knew that he hadn''t yet reached that level, and if he tried, the only thing that would result from it was losing his ability to have kids in the future.
"Of course, let me untangle myself real quick, and I can help you adjust your posture from before." Although Yoze''s body was tangled to the point that people would have thought a psychopath had murdered him. His voice didn''t sound too strained.
At most, he was a little tired.
After detangling himself in less than a second, he stood above Evi, a little sweaty, and grabbed the back of Evi''s shoulders. They were a little stiff, so he began to massage them.
"Ahhh, this feels quite good. Where did you learn how to give massages like this? I have never felt so rxed." Evi''s voice began to slur as he felt all his sore muscles quickly rxing.
"It is a simplebination of talent and having extensive knowledge of the body. Though I never learned the proper way to do massages, it isn''t hard to figure it out with some practice." Yoze said slowly as he picked apart Evi''s body with ease.
For their next round, he needed Evi to be rxed. If he didn''t, he might identally tear something he shouldn''t.
"Okay, that is good enough. Evi, can you do me a favor and rx your lower body? For this round, we will be working on your splits."
"Okay," Out of habit and due to him being fullymitted to learning, Evi hastily rxed his lower body before suddenly feeling a powerful force pushing him down.
Before Evi realized it, he found that his butt was only a few millimeters above the ground, with his legs spread apart. With Yoze''s help and his rxed body, he had reached a level of splits that only professional gymnastics could do.
This feat was even more impressive when he considered that he had never done the splits before.
"Yoze, I''m scared."
"Don''t worry the adrenaline is going to dy the pain." Yoze patted Evi''s head, proud that he could see his friend''s first major split pose.
"With the small amount of time left, I am going to push you further down so you canplete a full split. Are you ready?"
"I don''t think so," Evi muttered in utter shock.
"Don''t think about it too much. The human body is capable of such feats. It is all in the mind. So I am going to get started."
"Wait!"
Chapter 356 355: Eyes Hidden In The Bushes
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The next day, after Evi and Yoze''s intense training, was bright and warm as no clouds were in the sky. The beautiful chirps of the birds were signaling that spring was arriving soon.
"Yoze, you suck. But your methods are incredible. I had never felt so rxed and loose in my life." Evi said with a smile on his face.
Even though he had lost thest bit of dignity in his body, he couldn''t help but be amazed at how much stronger and flexible his body had be. It felt as if his muscles and joints had been lubed up in baby oil.
Not only that, he felt a bit stronger as well. It wasn''t a major increase, but for someone like Evi, who was an ordinary person before, it was as if he had been training in the gym for the past month. The results of his hard work were finally showing.
"You could just say you are grateful. Even better, how about you buy me a gift when you get to the next town. That would make up for the punch in the face yesterday." Yoze said as he lightly touched his cheek.
Evi blushed as he knew it was his fault for not trusting Yoze more. He was so scared of the pain that he was going to experience that he wanted to give some of it to Yoze.
Unfortunately, even though Yoze''s body seemed to be made out of flesh when Evi punched him, it felt as if he had punched a metal wall. The results were obvious.
Yoze''s face won while Evi''s fist lost miserably.
"Cough, fine, I will buy you something. What would you like?" Evi coughed to hastily change the topic.
"A few textbooks about the world, a few dozen martial art body cultivation methods, an abandoned school building, ten thousand custom-made uniforms for both men and women, and... I will be nice with myst request. I just want ten defeated immortals."
"But other than that, I don''t think I want anything else. So when can I expect to receive my presents?" Yoze grinned as he looked at the shock on Evi''s face.
"You can get all those things when my ten grandchildren are dead!" Evi pouted before turning his head away from Yoze.
"Hmph! Did Yoze think I am made out of money? I''m just an ordinary schr who is making 15 silver a month. I can barely afford to buy a few martial arts techniques, much less anything else."
"Also, what is he going to do with ten defeated immortals?" Evi thought to himself before concluding that it was better for him not to think about it.
After pouting for a few minutes, Evi got bored, turned back, and told Yoze he would buy him a few textbooks. Even though Yoze''s other requests were impossible for anyone else but the richest people in the world, Evi felt that they were simple jokes to mess with him.
"Fine, I will settle for now. But I will get my other requests sooner orter."
"The day you get those things from me is the day I will be the emperor of the world. I don''t even think that anyone could even defeat ten immortals."
"Didn''t you say you almost died when you fought against one? So how am I going to do it?"
"One at a time."
"Screw off!"
As Evi and Yoze had their friendly banter from afar, two young men covered in ck clothes secretly looked at them through binocrs. The two unknown men had grim faces as they stared at Yoze''s tall and muscr body.
Without a doubt, they were certain that Yoze was a martial artist, as only a martial artist could develop their body to that extent, which would make their n to rob them much more tricky.
"Brother, we should continue tracking them until nightfall, and they loosen their guard. Afterward, you and I can sneak over and take their stuff." The older-looking man was noticeably much calmer than his younger brother, so he quickly made a n.
"What if we get discovered?" The younger robber asked cautiously.
"Then we run."
"But..."
"No more buts! The Lotus Town has wanted our heads for three years now, yet they haven''t been able to catch us. So how could an unknown martial artist and his assistant aplish what a town full of martial artists can''t?" The older robber had pride written on his face as he forcefully suppressed his brother''s doubts.
As robbers who had robbed numerous merchants, martial artists, and schrs, these two brothers had terrorized Lotus Town for a long period. This was especially the case for the older robber, as he had gotten himself a nickname for how many people he had killed during his thefts.
Blood Stepper! The greatest robber that Lotus Town had ever seen.
After convincing his younger brother, the two robbers retreated further into the forest to prevent Yoze and Evi from identally discovering their traces. Unfortunately, they didn''t realize that Yoze had long since discovered them.
No matter how well they could hide their bodies and scent, they, as ordinary humans, could not hide their spiritual energy. So Yoze noticed the two brothers and heard their entire n with his enhanced hearing.
"Two robbers that have learned a few stealth martial art techniques. They should be good fighting partners for Evi." Yoze''s eyes shed as he grabbed Evi''s shoulder.
"Evi, you have rested enough for today. It is time for me to teach you a martial technique."
"I''m ready," Evi said seriously.
He knew this day woulde when he would have to learn martial arts techniques. As a future Super Schr, he couldn''t allow himself to not know any fighting techniques."
As Yoze had told him yesterday, a martial artist who only knew body cultivation methods was a cannon without cannon balls. It was not using its full potential and would be useless during an actual battle.
In the reverse situation, a martial artist who only knew martial arts techniques was a cannonball without a cannon. No matter how heavy the cannonball was, it could not do much.
Both martial arts techniques and body cultivation methods had to go hand in hand. Only then could they unleash their full power and not be a liability your enemies could take advantage of.
"What I am about to teach you is called the Spiral Twin Fists. It is the enhanced version of the Twin Fists martial art technique that you had learned before, so you should have an easier time learning it." Yoze said slowly.
He had decided to teach Evi this enhanced version of Twin Fists for two reasons. The first was because Evi mentioned that he had previously attempted to learn Twin Fists.
Even though he said he had given up due to not having much talent, the small bit of muscle memory his body had developed when training Twin Fists would allow him to learn the basics of Spiral Twin Fists faster.
Thest reason was simply because he was biased.
Twin Fists had also been the first martial art technique he learned when he started his martial arts journey, and he wanted to give it some justice. Since he was going to make the School of Eternal Knowledge, he wanted to give his students a solid foundation in martial arts, so starting with a basic martial arts technique was a good starting point.
"What is the difference between these enhanced and regr versions?" Evi''s eyes shimmered with excitement as he asked Yoze.
"This version not only incorporates what I had learned when I broke past its limits, allowing it to reach level five. But it also gives you more control over your enemies, simr to a whirlpool trapping everything thates close."
"That sounds cool. Hurry up and teach me before the sun gets dark. I still want to train my Boneless Man body cultivation method before I go to sleep."
"Alright, let''s get started then." Yoze smiled with delight when he saw that he had ignited the mes of passion in Evi.
With the two of them focused on training, time quickly passed by, and the two robbers were looking at each other with dismay.
"Brother, what do we do now? We had set all our traps and equipment by the Silver River bridge." The younger brother looked at his older brother with nervousness.
"Though it won''t be as convenient to rob these two fools as we want it to be, it should be no issue. Once again, all we have to look out for is the big guy since he should, at most, be a third-rate martial artist." Blood Stepper calmly answered.
"How do you know that he is only a third-rate martial artist?"
"Look at the martial art technique he is teaching his apprentice. It is Twin Fists, a martial art technique useless beyond anything past third-rate martial artists."
"And from the prideful look on his face, he finds Twin Fists to be a good technique." Blood Stepper exined.
He found his younger brother''s excessive cautiousness to be annoying. He knew that asionally, it was useful in protecting their lives, so he dealt with it.
Chapter 357 356: Yoze Is A Helpless Maiden
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With night fast approaching, Yoze and Evi stopped training and hastily set up a campfire. As they say, training hard works up your appetite.
After Evi started training the Boneless Man body cultivation method, he found that his appetite had increased significantly. Before, as a skinny schr, his stomach would get full from a medium-sized bowl of soup, but now, he needed to eat a few pounds of food to get full.
Though his appetite had increased, Evi didn''t find this strange and knew this was to be expected. Training the body wasn''t easy and required enough nutrients to keep it active and heal all the muscle fibers that had ripped during training.
So even though Boneless Man mainly focused on increasing the user''s flexibility, it also made Evi slightly stronger.
Paired with his intense training with Yoze''s new and improved Spiral Twin Fists, Evi was exhausted and famished. Yet, his increased appetite couldn''tpare to the monster sitting in front of him.
Hundreds of pounds. That was how much Yoze could eat in one sitting.
"Yoze, is it normal for strong martial artists to eat as much as you?" Evi asked with curiosity.
"Ummm, no. I need to eat this much to maintain my weight. As you know, I practice the Big Golem body cultivation method, which mainly focuses on increasing the user''s weight to generate power."
"So I need to eat high amounts of food with high levels of nutrition. Paired with the fact that I am also training in eight other body cultivation methods and training many martial arts techniques, it is to be expected that my appetite is huge." Yoze touched his chin and thought carefully about his words.
"Other martial artists, even Blood Masters, most likely only eat tens of pounds of food, and that is only during their training days. If they tried to eat like me, their stomachs would explode."
"Evi, you don''t have to worry about that. As someone on the path to learning Martial Formations, you will also start eating as much as me. Don''t worry, you won''t be fat." Yoze added, seeing the shock in Evi''s eyes.
"I''m not shocked because I think I will be fat! I am worried about how we are going to feed everyone who wants to be a Super Schr." Evi''s eyes shot down as he looked at the half-empty bowl in his hands.
"I am grateful for you giving me a small portion of your demon meat, but in the far future, there won''t be just me to feed. There are going to be hundreds of students who are also training in Martial Formations and need lots of food."
"The cost of feeding all those students is going to cost hundreds of silver every day. That is only considering that we feed them ordinary food and not demon meat." Evi exined his worry to Yoze.
After joining Yoze on his journey to create the School of Eternal Knowledge, Evi had already decided to give it his full attention and effort. He even nned to temporarily quit being White Crimson City''s schr to fully focus on the development of the school.
So whenever he saw a potential problem that might affect the development of the school, he brought it up with Yoze. Now that he saw a problem with the school supplying resources to their students, he couldn''t keep his mouth closed.
"Hmmm," Yoze closed his eyes and stayed silent for a few seconds, causing Evi to worry.
He had hoped that Yoze had already thought about a solution to this issue and hadn''t mentioned this to him yet, but now it seems that was not the case.
"Feeding a thousand students is not a problem. I have the money, or at least I will soon," Yoze said slowly before continuing.
"I n on selling the majority of my demon meat to New Swampscott City to raise funds and collect treasures. From how much I can sell this demon meat for, we shouldn''t have any problems with money in the short term."
"Unfortunately, giving up all my demon meat does mean we won''t have any demon meat to give any of our future students, which will slow down their development. But I think I have a solution to this issue, but I will tell you thister." Yoze muttered mysteriously as he secretly nced in the direction the two robbers were hiding.
He was so quick that the Blood Stepper and his brother didn''t notice Yoze looking in their direction. Even Evi didn''t notice this and instead felt slightly relieved that Yoze already had a solution.
Though he was interested in what this solution to theck of demon meat was, since he had a lot of trust in Yoze, he didn''t question further.
"That''s good. I won''t worry about it then..." Evi breathed a sigh of relief before he hesitated.
"...actually, can you give me a massage? My back, legs, arms, stomach, neck, and thighs are killing me."
"Okay, take off your clothes."
"Thank you. I will get the oil."
"Hmmm, as expected from a martial arts master, your massages are amazing!" Evi moaned.
As Yoze gave Evi the best massage of his entire life, the two robbers in the distance felt as if they were losing their minds. It was nearly midnight, and these two young men were not going to sleep.
Instead, one of them began to strip off their clothes while grabbing some oil. Blood Stepper''s first thought was that he might have misunderstood Evi and Yoze''s rtionship.
But when he saw that Yoze was only giving Evi a massage, he couldn''t help but feel slightly disappointed. If he was going to stay up and hide in a cold bush sote in the night, he wanted to at least watch something interesting.
"Brother, this is perfect. After this massage, they both should be tired and fall into a deep slumber. We can then sneak in, grab their stuff and go." Blood Stepper whispered to his brother, who was staring intently at Yoze and Evi, ensuring they didn''t identally discover them.
"Brother, how about you go and steal it, and I stay back to guard the area?"
"Nonsense, they have so much stuff that I need your help to carry it all. Also, why would I need you to guard the surroundings? If there is a hint that something is wrong, we run."
"But..."
"No buts! I don''t understand why you are so cautious today. There is nothing out of the ordinary." Blood Stepper easily interrupted his younger brother and shut down his suggestion.
"I just have a bad feeling."
"You are just hungry." Blood Stepper said softly before patting his younger brother on the head.
His younger brother always had a bad feeling when they robbed people, so he didn''t take his warning seriously. This was an issue with his younger brother''s morals not being corrupt enough to y the game of theft.
This was annoying for a professional, ruthless thief like Blood Stepper. Still, it is one of the reasons he loved his younger brother. They had different moral systems, so his younger brother could always keep him from going too far in his robberies.
"Here, eat my candy bar. This should fill you up until weplete this mission. And look, those two already fell asleep while we were talking."
"We will wait 15 minutes for them to go into a deep sleep before making a move." Blood Stepper calmly said as he handed his younger brother a candy bar that was in his pocket.
As the younger robber ate his candy bar, he felt much better. He couldn''t help but think that his brother was right this time. He really was just hungry.
Fifteen minutes passed by as two ck shadows quickly made their way to a recently extinguished campfire. From theck of sound from these two shadows'' movements, it was clear that they had trained in some kind of movement technique that allowed them to be silent in the night.
As if the two shadows knew the campsite like the back of their hand, they easily walked over to a tall tree that hid two giant lumps. One of the lumps was clearly muchrger than the other, so the two shadows split up.
Blood Stepper, who was one of the shadows, made his way to therge lump and skillfully grabbed therge bag next to it. After making sure that he didn''t take up the sleeping giant underneath the tarp, he silently made his way deeper into the forest.
"Ahhh! Brother, help me!"
Unfortunately, he wasn''t able to get far before he heard his younger brother''s frightened scream.
"Shit!" Blood Stepper bit his lip, rushed back to the shiftingrge lump, and took out his knife.
"Don''t do anything to my brother, or your master will have his throat slit!"
In such a dangerous situation, Blood Stepper knew he had to take back the upper hand and prevent the real martial artists from taking action. Only then could his younger brother and he have a chance to escape from this incident unscathed.
"Ah, help me, Evi! I am in danger!"
Chapter 358 357: The Power Of Family
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Going back a few minutes, Evi was exhausted after finishing his bowl of food. It wasn''t easy for his body to adapt so easily to suddenly training so intensely.
If he didn''t care for his body properly, his progress would slow down and maybe even stop. Luckily, he had Yoze to help him out when it came to his recovery.
Not only did Yoze provide him with plenty of food and nutrition, but the massages Yoze gave were like magic. After each massage, he no longer felt sore, and he wouldn''t feel sore the next day, which allowed him to continue his training.
But no matter how magical Yoze''s massage hands were, they couldn''t give Evi more energy, so after the massage waspleted and he had put on his clothes, he quickly fell into a deep slumber.
"These days are wonderful."
With a smile stered on his face, Evi felt morefortable than he did when he was back at home. Yet, before he could fully fall asleep, he felt something tingling in his mind.
Sometimes, it was as if a hot needle pricked his brain, then a heavy hand, and then an oppressive wind. No matter the sensation he experienced, he was slowly waking up and was incredibly ufortable.
"What is going on? I am having a migraine. I should have drank more water." Unable to sleep any longer, Evi sighed out of his nose and opened his eyes.
But what he saw nearly gave him a shock of a lifetime. A ck shadow was standing above him, staring at him with a thick ck bag in its hand.
"My shadow demon is trying to kill my sleep!" Evi''s mind whirled quickly out of fear. Instantly, his flight or fight instincts kicked in, and without much thought, Evi chose violence.
He immediately punched the shadow''s crotch, thinking that it most likely wouldn''t be effective. Unexpectedly, his shadow demon seemed to be made out of some weird material like thin leather since he could feel the power of his fist hitting directly into his shadow demon''s body.
Even though this was only a punch from his instinctive reaction, his shadow demon crumbled as it shouted for help.
"Brother, help me!"
"Shit, my shadow demon is getting back up! I need to get out of here before they eat my heart!" Evi felt his mind slowly catching up with reality as he stood up quickly and tried to run away.
Knowing that with his basic knowledge of Spiral Twin Fists and slight progress in Boneless Man, he wouldn''t even be able to fight two shadow demons simultaneously. Evi quickly resolved his heart to escape before his shadow demons could gang up on him.
"Where is Yoze? Is he also fighting his shadow demons?" Sweat fell from Evi''s forehead as fear mixed with adrenaline kept him up.
"Ah, help me, Evi! I''m in danger!" Yoze screamed after he noticed that Evi was trying to run away.
He had painfully set up this battle scenario for Evi to gain some battle experience and to know that his training was working. Though Evi had only learned around 20 percent of the first level of Spiral Twin Fists, it was more than enough to take out these two ordinary robbers.
To ensure his act was convincing enough, he even changed his aura to give off a sense that he was powerless and helpless to save himself. This was one of the reasons why Blood Stepper felt confident that he could take him as a hostage.
"Yoze, you are alive! Wait, you two aren''t my shadow demons, thank god." Evi clutched his heart tightly as he breathed out a sigh.
Now that he had gotten some distance away from one of the shadows, he noticed they weren''t shadow demons at all! He had just been tired and tricked by the darkness of the night.
Though Evi knew these robbers were dangerous, he couldn''t help but feel better knowing that his enemies were humans who could be defeated. Especially two regr people that Yoze could defeat with a snap of his fingers.
"Wait, Yoze, are you okay!? Don''t do anything to him, robber!"
After figuring out that he wasn''t fighting the representation of his darkest desires, Evi quickly understood that this might have been a test. If he could rescue Yoze from the clutches of the robber, then he would pass. He would fail the test if he could not stop the robber from killing Yoze or if he was defeated.
"Shit, how do I save, Yoze? As a Super Schr, what would Yoze do?" Evi thought to himself as he stood a safe distance from the younger robber.
"An ordinary schr would use their words to deal with the situation while a martial artist would use violence. But as an aspiring Super Schr myself, these two methods have downsides."
"For my robber to call the other robber his brother means their rtionship is deeper than being transactional. This should allow me to have more negotiation power if I capture him!"
"Using abination of diplomacy and violence is the way of a true Super Schr!" Evi felt his mind was running hot as he quickly devised a n and took action.
While the younger robber was still recovering from his crotch punch, Evi quickly threw a hard Spiral Bear Fist to the robber''s chest. A heavy thud came from the younger brother''s chest as all the air in the younger robber''s lungs escaped through his mouth and nose.
"Hey! I told you to stop! Do it or else!" Blood Stepper gritted his teeth hard as he didn''t expect Evi to be this strong.
He had thought that as an assistant to Yoze, who seemed to be a martial artist, Evi would not be capable of fighting. But what he regretted the most was that he didn''t check if Yoze and Evi were truly asleep.
Blood Stepper initially skipped this portion of their routine due to the worry that this would alert Yoze that something was wrong and lead to them being led into a trap. Who would have thought that they would have run into a trap regardless?
"If you don''t stop now, I''ll cut his throat! This is yourst..." Just as Blood Stepper''sst words were about to leave his mouth, they became stuck.
He saw his younger brother''s face getting punched after punch, and it almost looked like he was falling directly into Evi''s fists. Instead of asking Evi to stop punching his brother, Blood Stepper almost wanted to tell his younger brother to stop eating these punches.
"It couldn''t be that hard not to get hit, right?" Blood Stepper mumbled to himself.
After throwing a seven Spiral Koi Fistbo attack, Evi was exhausted, and his body quickly became heavier. After training intensely in a body cultivation method and a martial art technique for a whole day, he had not fully recovered even though he had eaten demon meat.
Luckily, after throwing his seven fists, the younger robber was thoroughly defeated but still alive and breathing. The only thing now was that his face was full ofrge lumps and bumps that almost looked like tumors.
Knowing that this was his only chance to pass Yoze''s test, Evi endured his fatigue, walked behind the younger robber, and took him hostage.
"Let Yoze go! I have a hostage!" Evi screamed.
"You monster! I said I would let your friend go if you didn''t attack my brother. Now I don''t feel like it." Blood Stepper said cruelly.
Seeing that the situation had turned from bad to worse, Blood Stepper knew he needed to step up his game. In a fight between two monsters, the more ruthless one would win.
So he pressed his knife against Yoze''s throat and cut into it. Due to how dark it was, he couldn''t see how deep he had cut into Yoze''s throat and could only hope that he had cut deep enough to draw blood.
"Hey, calm down, we don''t want any trouble. I can see that you two are robbers, and you made us your next targets, which is fine." Evi''s eyes shed as he adjusted his breath to slow his rapidly beating heart.
"We are ordinary schrs trying to get to New Swampscott City to deliver a letter from White Crimson City. Since we are not from around here, we don''t care whether you steal from the people or not."
"So as long as you let go of Yoze, I will let go of your brother. Hey, can you talk a bit so that your brother doesn''t think you are dead?" Evi said with a stern face as he shook the younger robber awake.
"Ahh, brother, let''s do what he says. I don''t want to die." The younger brother answered quickly.
Seeing that his younger brother was trembling and his face was heavily damaged, Blood Stepper felt his heart clench with pain. He didn''t expect that he would cause his brother so much pain by dragging him into his robberies.
"Fine, but you must let go of my brother first and let him run away for three minutes. After those three minutes have passed, I will let your teacher go."
"Brother..."
"Shut up and just do as I say!" Blood Stepper barked.
"Okay."
Evi smiled as he saw that even though these two brothers were robbing people, they maintained a solid family rtionship. But when he remembered that there was most likely blood of the innocent on their hands, he shook his head and wiped away his smile.
Chapter 359 358: Three Punches! One Victory!
Chapter 359 Chapter 358: Three Punches! One Victory!
Evi paused for a minute as he thought about Blood Stepper''s offer. In such a dangerous scenario, it was better to be cautious and not take the first offer.
"These robbers have a strong rtionship with each other. This is especially the case for the robber holding Yoze hostage."
"So it is reasonable for him to want his brother to escape before letting go of Yoze. But there is a big risk I have to take if I allow this robber to go."
"Let''s see what my skills in diplomacy and words can get me." Evi''s eyes shed as he turned towards Blood Stepper.
"Your offer is too dangerous for me and Yoze. How can we guarantee that once I let your brother go, he won''t get reinforcements while you continue to hold Yoze hostage?"
"You are also taking a huge risk by holding Yoze hostage. Who is to say how much longer you''ll be able to hold him captive?"
"Just from the difference in body size, he is a better martial artist. If you make one bad move, he might be able to reverse the situation and capture you instead." Evi took a deep breath to pause and collect his thoughts.
"So, how about this? Both of us will meet next to the campfire. At the same time, I will let go of your brother, and you will do the same with Yoze."
"This way, there is no chance that you can slit Yoze''s throat in the confusion, and I can''t recapture your brother."
After Evi finished his proposal, he stopped talking and allowed the silence of the night to once again engulf the forest. With nothing to keep his mind upied, Blood Stepper slowly realized the amount of pressure he was in.
Though he found it hard to keep up with the words Evi was rapidly spitting out, Blood Stepper found it hard to distinguish the contradiction in his statements. Yoze, on the other hand, saw through Evi''s trick and almost wanted to nod his head with approval.
"Wonderful! Evi first made me sound weak and helpless to make this robber feel that the deal he had offered him was too unfair. By discounting my strength, Evi made it seem like he and I were the ones in danger."
"But just in the next sentence, Evi reversed the position of power. Instead of being a liability for him, I am now powerful enough to escape on my own, making this robber no longer feelfortable holding me hostage."
"Unless this robber sees through this small trick, he might ept an offer that puts him in a disadvantageous position with no upside."Yoze smiled in the darkness and feltfortable in the hands of Blood Stepper.
Even with a knife on his throat, he didn''t feel scared or nervous as it wouldn''t be able to cut his skin anyway.
"Okay, I understand your position, but you still have to allow my brother to leave before I let go of your teacher. No matter how you spin it, I can''t allow your martial arts teacher to escape at the same time as my brother."
"Instead, why don''t we follow your n, but you allow my brother to go, and thirty secondster, I will let go of your teacher. This is my final offer!" Blood Stepper slowly said as hepromised.
"That is fine." Evi paused briefly to make Blood Stepper think he was hesitant before epting the deal.
With both in agreement, Evi and Blood Stepper walked slowly toward the extinguished campfire and looked at each other. With the help of the light from the moon and stars, they could see each other in more detail.
"Yoze looks ridiculous!" Evi thought to himself when he saw how weird it looked for someone of Yoze''s size to be captured by someone much smaller than him.
Being nearly nine feet tall, Yoze dwarfed Blood Stepper, who was only five feet and eight inches tall.
Even after bending his knees to lower himself to match Blood Stepper''s height, Yoze still found himself the taller party, which forced Blood Stepper to stretch his arms to keep his knife on Yoze''s neck.
However, Evi found this all to be stupid as he knew that Yoze could kill everyone here with a single thought. He still took it seriously and kept his face stern throughout the process.
"Let him go." Blood Stepper said after observing his younger brother.
Evi nodded and slowly unwrapped his hands on the Blood Stepper''s brother''s neck. Once free, the younger robber took a deep breath of relief and looked at his brother.
"Go, idiot! What are you standing here for!?" Blood Stepper screamed when he saw his younger brother wasting his precious time standing there helplessly.
"Make sure you escape brother!"
Terrified that he was putting his brother in danger, the younger robber immediately dived into the bushes. After the bushes rustled in the darkness, it seemed as if the younger robber had vanished.
"Incredible. Even though these two robbers don''t seem to practice body cultivation methods and can''t be called full martial artists, their stealth technique is incredible. They could have been great assassins if they didn''t choose to be robbers." Evi thought to himself as he waited for a few seconds to have passed.
He was not nning on waiting the full thirty seconds and was instead waiting for the moment Blood Stepper lowered his guard.
"That''s it!" Evi''s pupils shrunk when he noticed that Blood Stepper had be distracted.
Treating this as a life-and-death situation, Evi took immediate action and ran full force to tackle Yoze and Blood Stepper.
"Shit! You goddamn liar!" Blood Stepper angrily screamed.
The force of having Yoze''s and Evi''s body weight falling on top of him blew the air out of his lungs and dazed him. Before he could recover and counterattack, Evi grabbed the arm holding the knife and moved it away from Yoze''s throat.
Unfortunately, just as he used to move Blood Stepper''s knife away from Yoze''s neck, Blood Stepper recovered from the tackle and threw a punch to Evi''s face. Scared of being punched, Evi jerked his head away from the punch and narrowly missed it.
However, this hasty dodge allowed Blood Stepper to regain some of the upper hand as he used his legs to push Yoze and Evi off him.
As an experienced thief, Blood Stepper had experienced numerous dangerous situations and survived all of them. Even though hecked in-depth education, Evi had learned to be a schr when it came to street smarts and fighting experience he had Evi beat.
After regaining his bnce, Evi''s face turned grim as he looked at the sharp knife in Blood Stepper''s hand. Fighting someone with a weapon without one was highly disadvantageous. It could easily result in his death if he wasn''t careful.
"You big-time city folks are all big hypocrites! We could have ended this peacefully if you had just followed our deal." Blood Stepper growled.
He tightly clenched the knife in his hand and felt slightly safer. Facing two martial artists who could kill ordinary people with a single punch was ideal.
As a thief, he preferred not to have to fight directly. From how easily Evi had taken down his younger brother, Blood Stepper did not doubt that if he turned around to run, he would die. So he could only wait for an opportunity to dive into the bushes and escape using his nt Shadow movement technique.
"Lucky, GeGe had already escaped. Even if I am captured or killed, he is at least safe." Blood Stepper grinned as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.
From the amount of confidence he disyed, most people would have thought that his reinforcements were arriving soon. This was a trick he had learned from his many years of stealing.
The more confidence he showed his enemies, the more likely they would make the wrong move and feel less confident fighting him. Unfortunately, Evi wasn''t going to fall for such a simple trick. He took a deep breath and ran over to Blood Stepper.
Now that he had allowed one of the robbers to escape, he had to capture Blood Stepper, or he might fail Yoze''s first test for him.
"Damn! Why is my first test so hard? Why couldn''t Yoze just choose the standard test of checking my skill mastery with a dummy?" Evi told himself to file aint to Yoze once this is over.
After throwing away all his caution, Blood Stepper gritted his teeth and stabbed Evi while trying to prepare himself to fight against Yoze''s ambush. Unfortunately, with his attention split, Evi was able to narrowly dodge his knife stab and threw a Spiral Bull Fist directly into Blood Stepper''s jaw.
"Pa! Pa! Pa!"
The impact of Evi''s spiral Bull Fists lifted Blood Stepper''s feet a few inches off the ground. Not letting this opportunity go, Evi threw two more Spiral Koi Fists straight at Blood Stepper''s chest.
With three powerful punches hitting him directly, Blood Stepper''s ordinary body couldn''t handle the force and was sent flying a whole foot before his body mmed into the ground hard and rolled into a nearby tree.
From his motionless body, it could be seen that Evi had knocked him out cold.
"I won!"
Chapter 360 359: The Ghost In The Bush!
Chapter 360 Chapter 359: The Ghost In The Bush!
"I won," Evi breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that he had knocked out Blood Stepper.
Just as he was about to turn around and ask Yoze whether or not he had passed the test, he noticed that Blood Stepper''s body slowly slid into a nearby bush. A cold chill crawled up his spine as he could only think of one thing.
"A ghost! Damn, first I met two robbers, and now there is a ghost." Evi mumbled to himself as he backed up.
"Evi, what are you doing? Stop that second robber from dragging his brother into the bush." Yoze let out, speechless about what he saw.
He didn''t expect his friend to be so superstitious. At first, he thought the two robbers were shadow monsters, and now he believed that a ghost was dragging the robber''s body.
"His parents have been feeding him too many ghost stories. Come on, this is the real world. How could ghosts exist? Scratch that...ghosts are a hundred percent real because this is the real world." Yoze held his tongue when he realized that from everything he experienced, he shouldn''t be questioning the existence of ghosts.
Evi blushed from embarrassment when he heard Yoze point out the obvious and quickly ran toward the bush to stop the younger brother from saving his brother.
"Brother, I am sorry!" Seeing that he had been noticed, the younger brother picked up the pace of dragging his brother into the bush.
When half of Blood Stepper''s body had made it halfway into the bush, Evi arrived and grabbed one of Blood Stepper''s limbs. With one hand holding Blood Stepper, Evi dragged his tired body and threw a Spiral Bear Fist into the bush.
Due to his fatigue, the power of his Spiral Bear Fist wasn''t as powerful as before, but it was still too fast for the younger robber to dodge. With a light thud into his chest, the younger robber felt his breath leave his body.
Quickly following his sessful punch, Evi threw another Spiral Bull Fist straight into the young robber''s jaw. Though the remaining power that Evi could summon was less than half of before, he stillnded a critical hit and knocked the younger robber out of the bush.
"One hit KO! What a clean hit!" Yoze said with a smile.
"Shit! I am so tired...Yoze, can you lend me a hand?" Extremely exhausted after training hard all day and fighting against two opponents, Evi felt he was on the verge of passing out.
"Of course, I will take care of the rest. You just get some sleep. After what you have been through today, you deserve it." Yoze paused before he added another sentence.
"You did so good that you deserve a reward. But it is a bit special, so I will give it to you when we get back to town."
"Thanks, I will go to sleep now." Too tired to think about Yoze''s mysterious reward, Evi dragged his body back to his sleep spot and immediately fell asleep.
Seeing this, Yoze shook his head but felt his heart be warm. As his first student and one of his few friends in this world, he was happy to see that his friend had be quite strong.
"If Evi fought against my younger self when I first started martial arts, I would lose without a doubt. For me to win against those two bandits, I needed to ambush them and hit them fast and hard."
"If they had fought back, I would have lost." Yoze licked his lips as he stared at Evi before focusing on a tree.
"Scar, have you and the other found a nearby town close by that we can drop these two off?" Yoze said to the darkness.
"Caw!"
"Strange, how could a town have only a hundred residences? Whatever, it doesn''t matter how big or small this town or vige is. As long as it epts these two, it''s fine."
"Scar, what else did you find?"
"Caw! Caw! Caw?"
"Interesting? Are you sure you smelled the scent of a Blood Master?"
"For such a small town to have a Blood Master is very weird, but we can start advertising the School of Eternal Knowledge nevertheless." After getting the information he desired, Yoze walked toward therge bag that Blood Stepper had picked up and took out a long, thick robe he had prepared beforehand.
It didn''t take long for Yoze to deal with these two ordinary robbers, and with the help of his spiritual energy, he didn''t need the rope to keep them unconscious. But he did it nheless since it would make it more convenient to travel with them in the morning.
...
The next morning, Evi woke up refreshed and hungry.
"Yoze, when is breakfast?" Evi asked Yoze, who was already awake and writing something in his journal once again.
"Breakfast is already prepared. Just dig in. After all your hard work to save me yesterday, I prepared you a big breakfast. There is rabbit meat mixed with demon meat stew, a side of bread, and a tall ss of fruit juice." Yoze said with a smile as he closed his journal.
"Thank you! Yoze, you''re the best! Plus, you are an incredible cook. It''s like you are getting better at cooking every day." Evi''s mouth began to water when he saw the wide range of delicious food in front of him,
"I get my talent from my father," Yoze said truthfully.
After eating until he was full, Evi finally noticed that the two robbersst night were awake and staring at him with envy. They had not had time to eat all day, and to prepare for yesterday''s robbery, they only ate snacks to satiate their hunger.
So now they were famished, and being forced to watch Evi eating delicious, freshly made food right in front of them was torture.
"I am indeed too kind. There is no need to waste this good food." Evi sighed as he turned his back away from the two robbers.
He felt bad for them, so he ensured they didn''t have to be tortured by the sight of food. He quickly ate the rest of the food and patted his full stomach.
"That was cruel," Yoze''s eye twitched when he saw what Evi did.
Chapter 361 360: Jelly Town! Here We Come!
Chapter 361 Chapter 360: Jelly Town! Here We Come!
With breakfast out of the way, Evi and Yoze began their daily training. Like before, Yoze quickly stripped his clothes, exposing his powerful body to the elements.
"Evi, what is wrong? You haven''t taken off your clothes yet?" Yoze asked, with concern in his voice.
"Are you serious? Do I really have to take off my clothes in front of strangers?" Evi blushed with embarrassment when he saw the clueless look in Yoze''s eyes.
"I see you are embarrassed about your body. This is amon problem with people our age, so you shouldn''t be embarrassed about sharing this with me." Yoze smiled and ced his hand on Evi''s shoulder.
"Evi, you are beautiful the way you are, so there is no need to be embarrassed. Plus, I think they would love to see your body." Yoze said as he red at the two brothers, who immediately understood his hint and fiercely nodded their heads.
"That doesn''t help at all! I would prefer it if they didn''t want to see it."
"Whatever, if you insist on me getting naked, then I guess I have no choice." Evi slowly said.
He felt speechless after seeing Yoze''s attempt to cheer him up but took off his clothes nheless.
He would never admit to Yoze that he indeed felt more confident after his speech.
"See nothing to be embarrassed about. With our constant training, your body is bing leaner and stronger. Once you reach the second stage of Boneless Man and begin to produce inner vigor, I will start teaching you another body cultivation method."
"This will be the foundation of your Martial Formation. Thoughmon knowledge says that your progress will slow down, your martial art prowess will be far ahead of martial artists who only practice one body cultivation method." Yoze exined as he examined Evi''s body with interest.
After traveling with Evi for thest few days, he could see the results of Evi''s training better than anyone else. Compared to before, when Evi''s body was thin butcked any muscle definition, he now started to show some muscle.
This type of progress was incredible, and most people would not be capable of achieving this even if they had better talent. Though Evi''s talent in martial arts wasn''t high, thebined effort of eating demon meat and Yoze''s teaching elerated his growth to genius levels.
With Evi''s current progress, Yoze had to re-evaluate their training schedule as Evi was making more progress than he initially thought.
"Two more weeks, and he should be able to reach the peak of level one of Boneless Man. Though this ruins what I had nned before, it doesn''t matter. I will just move some things forward." Yoze''s eyes shimmered as he stared at Evi, who didn''t mind.
"Yoze, how well am I doing?" Evi suddenly asked.
"Evi, you are doing well above my expectations. Not only were you already good-looking, but thanks to the weight loss and muscle growth from training, your body is much more well-proportioned."
"If I had to grade your looks, I would give you a five out of ten. With ten being as beautiful and handsome as me. So you are doing fantastic!" Yoze nodded with a kind smile.
"I was asking about my martial arts skills."
"Oh, you are doing alright."
"Seriously, I just beat up two people and saved you, and all I got was alright," Evi shook his head with disappointment and started to train while ignoring the part where Yoze graded his looks.
After their banter and body cultivation training, Yoze helped Evi fix some of his mistakes with the Spiral Twin Fists techniques he made during his battle with the two robbers. Once Evi found himself lying helpless on the ground for the third time, they finished up their daily training.
"Follow me. We are going to be changing directions and instead go to a small town called Jelly Town," Yoze said.
"Is it to turn these two into the authorities?" Evi asked.
"Of course not! We are going to collect these two robbers'' bounties. From how broke you are, you desperately need the money."
"I am not broke. I make a good amount of money as a schr, plus don''t I make more than you?" Evi folded his arms.
"No, that was true back in Jade City, but I got a pay bump in New Swampscott City. In any case, as your number-one teacher, you should start paying for my lessons."
"Screw off before I sue you for sexual harassment. I never heard of a teacher making their students strip for them daily. I wonder who will win thewsuit if I take this to court?" Evi said with a wide smile
"Evi, we are family. How could you be so cruel?" Yoze pouted, seeing that he was on the verge of getting sued.
As Yoze and Evi were enjoying their banter, they suddenly heard a muffled voiceing from Blood Stepper, whom Yoze was carrying like a bag. Knowing that he and his brother were about to be turned over to the authorities, he knew that he had to make a gamble on his life.
Interested in using what Blood Stepper wanted to say, Yoze untied the rope on Blood Stepper''s mouth. Once he was free to talk, Blood Stepper hastily began to convince Yoze and Evi to let him and his brother go.
"If you don''t turn us in, we promise to give twice as much as you will get for our bounty."
"How much are we talking?" Evi asked somewhat interested in Blood Stepper''s offer.
"40 silver! We can get it to you tonight. I promise on my brother''s life."
"...that is an interesting offer, but we will have to pass. 20 silver for just you two sounds like a good deal."
"That is more than a month''s worth of money for a poor schr like Evi. Any more than that, and he might get greedy." Yoze answered in Evi''s steed and turned down Blood Stepper''s offer.
The money that Blood Stepper offered was incredible and could change a person''s life. However, at the end of the day, he wasn''t doing this for the money.
There were hundreds of ways for him to make money and numerous ways for him to make so much money that it could drown Evi. What Yoze was really after was to start spreading the news that two wandering schrs were up for hire.
Preferably, there would be someone rich enough in Jelly Town who could afford to hire them so that he could start buying the ingredients he needed for the next part of his n.
Chapter 362 361: Super Scholars Dont Need Money
?
With the expansion of the School of Eternal Knowledge in mind, Yoze wasn''t nning on letting his greed harm his future.
"Gaining an extra 20 silver does notpare to the cost of dying my n to spread the word of the School of Knowledge and gaining additional money to buy more expensive supplies."
Blood Stepper did not know Yoze''s thoughts, so he assumed that Yoze didn''t trust him enough. In his mind, everything could be resolved with enough money.
This was how he had escaped capture on numerous asions, so he didn''t n on quitting now that his and his brother''s lives were on the line. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he increased the amount he was offering.
"60 silver! If you let us go, I will pay you 60 silver!"
"Not interested," Yoze said slowly.
"80 silver then!"
"..."
"Fine, I will give you everything I have! 124 Silver, and I will hand it over to you in three hours. One second more, and you can cut off my hand!" Veins popped up on Blood Stepper''s forehead as he made hisst offer.
He refused to believe that Yoze wasn''t at least tempted by more than 120 silver. This was an amount that most people would never be able to see this amount of money in their entire lives!
"More than eight months of my sry. An ordinary thief has more than eight months of my sry." Evi muttered to himself.
He was already tempted to ept Blood Stepper''s offer when he offered them 40 silver. Now that the offer had been raised to more than eight months of his hard work as a schr, he was beginning to doubt if he had gone into the wrong profession.
If it was him making the decision, he would have epted Blood Stepper''s offer immediately and made a huge profit. But he wasn''t the one making the decision this time; Yoze was.
As someone who had arge amount of trust in his best friend, Evi wasn''t going to try and convince Yoze to ept the offer. He knew that regardless of the decision, Yoze must have had something better nned.
"40, 60, more than 120 silver, you have been holding out on us." Yoze smiled as he nced at Blood Stepper.
Seeing Yoze''s smile, Blood Stepper breathed a sigh of relief as he thought that Yoze was tempted and ready to ept his offer.
"I''m gl-" Blood Stepper was about to speak when he was interrupted by Yoze.
"But what is silver worth when I can get gold just as easily? As an ordinary thief do you think Super Schrs like us are tempted by money?"
"If we wanted to, we could make money in our sleep. A few silver coins or gold coins aren''t worth our time. The only reason why we are turning you two in is because it is just convenient to do so." Yoze stopped smiling as he stared at Blood Stepper with dead eyes.
Blood Stepper instantly felt his body scream in danger as his mind froze with panic. Something was screaming in his mind, telling him he could die at any moment.
Luckily for him, Yoze wasn''t interested in teaching him a lesson, so he tied the rope around his mouth again and returned to his conversation with Evi.
"What do you think? Was that cool, or should I work on my speech to promote the morals of a Super Schr?"
"It was great, but it was ruined when you said we only did this out of convenience. If we preach about the morals of being a Super Schr, we should at least make it seem that we are working for the goodness of the people." After listening to Yoze''s speech, Evi felt as if he was saying that Super Schrs were some kind of antiheroes or vigntes.
"Well, I never had the thought of imposing certain morals on our students anyway. I mainly want people to join our school because it would benefit their future. But what do you suggest?"
"No matter how much schools or sects try not to interfere with their student''s morals, at the end of the day, it can''t be stopped since teachers and students are humans. Even if you don''t try to teach the students to adopt your own morals, they will copy yours if they doubt their own."
"So, I think the whole world would prefer if we at least made an effort to teach our future students the importance of not injuring ordinary people and instead helping them. As well as the importance of freedom." Evi said after some thought.
It was nearly impossible not to shape the morals of the students who intended to be Super Schrs. Fact may be fact, but how one says it matters, as all facts can be twisted to fit any narrative.
Regardless of whether the higher authorities spreading the information intended to spread their ideals, hints of it will get past and influence the popce.
"I guess you are right. It is better to ensure that most Super Schrs don''t be tumors of society. We can''t stop one apple from turning bad, but we can stop most of the batch from rotting." Yoze mused.
As Evi and Yoze talked more, they somehow found themselves talking about the standards for toilets and what was the correct way to use one. Luckily, before they could get far in their discussion, they noticed a small family of seven approaching their direction.
From their attire, it was clear to Yoze that these people were moving as they had bought themselves a small wagon filled to the brim with clothes, books, food, and other necessities for traveling long distances. After asking this small family about the directions to Jelly Town, the already strange looks they gave them for carrying the two robbers became even stranger.
"You two, sorry, you four want to visit Jelly Town? Haven''t you heard some coal miningpany had recently bought the town?" The father of the family asked.
"We have been traveling from town to town and haven''t had time to catch up with thetest news. Is the town now dead since it has been bought?" Evi waved his hand as he casually exined their circumstance.
"Not yet, but it is going to be. After the old mayor had been reced with Mr. Light, no one is confident he will make good policies with the town folk in mind."
"So no one wants to start as they fear the prospects for their children. No one wants to discover yearster that they developed a deathly sickness from the nearby mining." The father deeply frowned as his disdain for Mr. Light was clear.
Chapter 363 362: Yoze, Are We Conquering Jelly Town?
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"Have any of you seen Mr. Light, or have you heard anything about him?" Yoze asked, worried that his n would be in jeopardy.
"That is the problem. No one has seen him. We only heard rumors that he is the son of the owner of the miningpany so it doesn''t seem like he was selected for his town management skills."
"Sigh, why couldn''t our small town escape this fate? While we didn''t have the greatest life, we at least had some say in the policies. Now, we will have no power to change anything. We can only leave while we still can." The father of the family of seven sighed with regret before chatting with Yoze and Evi for a few minutes before leaving.
Yoze and Evi looked at each other and took their heads with pity. In this world, there was no dominant method of governance, so it was a mixed bag when visiting towns and viges.
However, it was observed that therger the poption, the more likely it leaned toward a more democratic method of governance. This wasn''t because the people at the top didn''t want to have more control of the people or had the people in mind.
It was simply because the higher the poption, the more power the top needed to control it. For viges with a poption that never exceeds a hundred people a third-rate martial artist could control it with an iron fist.
However, no group of third-rate martial artists could control a vige or town with a poption that exceeded a thousand. To aplishplete submission of a poption of that size requires Blood Master level power.
Therger the poption, the more power was required to suppress it. But it wasmon knowledge that at the scale of cities, it was nearly impossible for even arge group of Martial Grandmasters to suppress the people and have strong control.
A dissatisfied poption of nearly a million people could destroy anyone if they took action. This wasn''t a nation of a million people spread across hundreds of miles but a single area.
This was why it was moremon to see cities run democratically than these small towns and viges, which a single group easily overpowered. There were plenty of historical examples that mimicked Justice Town''s history of being ruled by oppressive dictators.
"Yoze, are we still nning on going to Jelly Town? If what that old man said was true, Jelly Town is nearly dead and will die in another month." Evi looked at Yoze and asked him for guidance.
"Hmmm, we will still check it out. If Jelly Town really is dying, then we will turn in these two robbers before observing the situation for a few days."
"If the town dies on its own, then we will just leave. If the miningpany decides to take oppressive means to stop the town''s decline, we will save the town and recruit more students for the School of Eternal Knowledge." Yoze slowly spoke as he pondered the best way to overthrow a town.
"You want to do a forceful takeover! Yoze, that is crazy! We will be making an enemy against a powerful corporation with almost unlimited money to throw at us." Evi said in shock.
It wasn''t just Evi. Blood Stepper and his brother looked at Yoze as if he was a crazy person.
"Why are you looking at me like that? You are the one who said that we should teach our students to have good morals. And what is more noble than saving people from bing ves?"
"In any case, I am not talking about taking over the town anyway. I was thinking of helping the townspeople find a new ce to live while stopping Mr. Light from infringing on their right to leave."
"And if we are lucky, a few people will want to join our school and be future Super Schrs." Yoze pouted, seeing that Evi thought he was crazy, and rified what he meant.
"Oh, thank god! I thought for a second you wanted to make the whole town join our school." Evi clutched his hand on his heart as he breathed a sigh of relief.
He wasn''t yet ready to be a town-conquering school. Maybe in the future, but not yet.
"If that is what you want, then I will support you along the way, but it will still be better if this Mr. Light doesn''t take such forceful action. Now that the town has been taken over, will they ept the two robbers'' bounties?" Evi asked after suddenly realizing that the mayor''s recement could make their entire journey to Jelly Town irrelevant.
"That''s what I am fearing, but we have alreadye so far we might as well visit Jelly Town to see the situation," Yoze said.
Seeing that Yoze still wanted to visit Jelly Town, Evi agreed with Yoze''s assessment and followed along. Luckily, they weren''t too far from Jelly Town and saw a tall wooden wall surrounding Jelly Town.
The dirt path that they traveled on suddenly turned into a smooth stone path that was suitable for wagon carriages, leading to a massive stone gate guarded by two guards. From a nce, Evi and Yoze saw that the two guards were both third-rate martial artists, which was impressive for a town that now only had a poption of a hundred.
The guards finally noticed them as they approached the town and looked surprised. It wasn''t every day that these two guards saw peopleing to town ever since its takeover.
But once they overcame their pleasant surprise, the middle-aged guards'' faces turned pale. Suddenly, Evi and Yoze watched with shock as the two guards yed a quick round of rock paper scissors.
The left guard won with paper and ran into town without hesitation while the remaining guard cursed him out.
"Damn, how much have you two terrorized the people around here that they are this scared to meet you!?" Evi''s eyes twitched when he noticed that the two guards didn''t have this reaction because of them but the two robbers they captured.
Though Blood Stepper hated the fact that he was about to be captured and sent to jail, he felt his heart swell up with pride, seeing how much fear he had struck in the two guards'' hearts. These guards could easily beat him up, yet they feared a thief like him.
Blood Stepper didn''t know if he was influenced by Yoze''s and Evi''s insane rants, but a weird thought popped into his head.
"This is the privilege of my hard work over the years. At least I made a meaningful impact on the world."
Chapter 364 363: The Handsome Mr. Light
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"Halt! State your identity and purpose!" The remaining guard yelled in a stern voice.
While the guard''s voice and face remained stern, Yoze noticed that the guard''s body began to tremble slightly. It was too small for most people to notice, but Yoze''s enhanced sense allowed him to pick it up.
"Finally, the guard realizes these robbers aren''t the threat." Yoze thought to himself.
He was initially a bit surprised to see that the guards didn''t care about him and Evi at all, instead of purely focusing on the two robbers, particrly Blood Stepper.
However, as Evi and he got closer, the guard finally recognized that Blood Stepper was tied up and stared at Yoze angrily and feared. More importantly, as Yoze got closer, the guard realized how tall he was.
"Wow, what a tall man. I wonder what his mom fed him to grow so big."
"This tall man must have practiced some type of body cultivation method that increased his height. I need to get his secrets so I can practice it, too. I''m tired of being the short guy in my friend group." As Yoze and Evi got close to the guard, his mind began to wander as he tried to hide his anxious state.
Having discussed this beforehand, Evi stepped forward with a wide smile and exined their situation to the guard.
"Hello, sir, my name is Evi Rocks, and my friend is Yoze Thunder. We are wandering schrs who want to pass through this town. Along the way, these two robbers tried to rob us, but luckily, we were able to defeat them, so we are hoping to know if there was a bounty for their heads and if we can collect it."
"You two capture these two robbers? As for the bounty, there is indeed a bounty on their capture; it is currently priced at 20 silver." The guard''s face lit up with surprise, hearing that Evi and Yoze had captured these two brothers.
"It is not that I don''t believe you captured these two, but I can no longer offer you the bounty. The town has been bought and is now under a new leadership, so no guard can ept bounties without approval from the new mayor."
"Can you get in contact with the new mayor for us? We would certainly like to collect the bounty and turn these two criminals in instead of having to drag them to another town."
"That shouldn''t be an issue." The guard briefly answered before he stepped aside from the gate.
Just as the guard moved his body, Evi and Yoze noticed that the guard that had previously left had returned with another person. Unlike the two guards whose bodies were roughed by the elements and tough battles, the young man following behind seemed to be a nobel.
Dressed in a navy blue suit with a dark blue tie, the young man had wless skin, long ck hair tied up into a ponytail, and long eyshes. Regardless of how one looked at the young man, it could be seen that he was someone who was born into a higher ss and had nock of money.
If it was before Evi and Yoze had traveled around the world, they would have been convinced that this young man was part of the government or a family-born schr. However, with more experience under their belt and in addition to the news that they heard about Jelly Town''s situation, it wasn''t hard for them to guess that this young man was Mr. Light.
"Gentleman, I heard that you have captured two highly wanted criminals. Don''t worry about these guards. Please follow me. I would like to discuss a few things with you." Mr. Light''s voice was smooth and gentle when he looked at Evi, but once he turned to Yoze, his face was shocked.
After getting used to the shock of seeing Yoze, Mr. Light turned his focus back to Evi and looked at him with more respect. Throughout this process, Mr. Light did not look or say anything to the guards as if he disliked them.
"This Mr. Light seems to have a superiorityplex engraved into his bones. No wonder the townspeople and guards don''t like him." Evi thought to himself as his opinion of Mr. Light dropped.
"If I am not mistaken, you must be Mr. Light. Yoze and I have heard of you on our way here. We would be grateful to discuss a few things with you." Evi softly said, maintaining his schrly attitude.
Now that they were in town, Yoze and Evi knew they couldn''t act as loose as when alone in the forest, so they had to restrain their behavior. While this was nothing new for both of them, they both felt slightly ufortable after letting loose and saying whatever they wanted for the past few days.
"Well, I hope that you have heard good things about me." Mr. Light paused before continuing.
"In any case, it is better that you have had a chance to talk with the previous townsfolk and their opinions. That will make our discussion a lot more meaningful."
"Please follow me. As for you two guards, take these two criminals out of our sight and prepare 30 silver to give to these two schrs." Mr. Light looked meaningfully at Evi before turning around and walking away.
Evi and Yoze looked at each other and smiled before handing the two brothers to the disregarded guards. After getting rid of the two robbers, Evi breathed a sigh of relief before following Yoze, who had taken the lead in following Mr. Light.
"I hope Mr. Light doesn''t try to act against the town. From the looks of it, not only is he unpopr, but he doesn''t have a single piece of knowledge on how to rule a town."
"This is great for us if he decides to hire us as schrs, but it is terrible for this town''s future." Evi felt his mind racing as he tried to adjust to being a ssy schr again.
Chapter 365 364: Jelly Town Hidden Dangers!
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"Evi, what do you think of this ce and Mr. Light?"
Evi suddenly jumped as he looked at Yoze with surprise but realized he hadn''t said anything. Just as Evi thought that he was going crazy, he heard Yoze''s voice once again appear inside his head, and this time, Yoze nced at him with a mischievous smile.
"Are you surprised? This is one of the powers of spiritual energy called spiritual speech. I don''t use it too often since it previously had a problem of being audible to everyone, just like regr talking."
"But after experimenting and just being that good I figured out a way to use spiritual speech without others hearing it. Unfortunately, it seems to have a short range and makes it seem like I am whispering, so you are going to have to deal with it." Yoze whispered.
"Oh, so it is simr to telepathy. Yoze, does it work both ways?" Evi asked in his mind.
"..."
"I guess not. Damn, how do I learn this?" After hanging out with Yoze for the past few days, Evi felt as if his current knowledge of the world was nothing.
Not only were the demons, witches, immortals, and monsters that he thought were fake very much real. But Yoze was opening up his world to the prospect of helping him develop a more advanced path of martial arts and learn a new type of power called spiritual energy.
If it was anyone else, they would have doubted that what Yoze had said was true, but he didn''t doubt it for a second. Not only was the proof right in front of his eyes, but he had a deep trust in his best friend.
"Evi, can you stop staring at Mr. Light? If you want to stare at someone, you have me here." Yoze''s voice suddenly said in Evi''s mind.
"Really? Okay, I might be staring." As much as Evi wanted to deny Yoze''s ims, he did realize that he was staring at Mr. Light, who was walking at a normal pace.
From an outsider''s point of view, it looked as if he was enthralled with Mr. Light or had a crush on him.
Evi shook his head to clear his thoughts and looked around the town to see that it felt like a ghost town. The streets were nearly empty, and all the shops that should have usually been full of products and people were all abandoned.
Fresh wooden nks and signs covered the doors and windows of the building, indicating that the previous owners had left hastily with no time to find someone to sell it to. As for the few people who remained in town and wandered the streets, they all looked at Mr. Light with dissatisfaction and fear.
Unfortunately, when those eyes move to Yoze and Evi, some of the suspicion is transferred to them, which causes Yoze and Evi to mentally sigh.
"Though this Mr. Light has only recently been ced as this town''s mayor, his reputation is in the gutter. It is suspicious why thepany that sent him here isn''t doing more to persuade the people to stay."
"Even if it is just lip service, at the end of the day, it would make the people on the brink of leaving second guess their choice. It won''t help much, but it is better than nothing." Yoze''s eyes scanned the town for life and saw even more clearly than Evi how lifeless Jelly Town had be.
"A town that can hold a poption of more than one thousand people is now left with a hundred. What makes this more depressing is that this number is inted with the people Mr. Light and hispany had brought into town."
"So the townspeople who have lived here are far below a hundred. From the looks of it, even the guards protecting the town are on the verge of leaving."
"This Mr. Light is a great client to improve both Evi and my skills of being schrs." Yoze smiled when he noticed that Mr. Light''s back was subtly bing more hunched as they walked through the town.
Seeing that Mr. Light wasn''t immune to the depressing atmosphere of the ghost town, it was clear to Yoze and Evi that Mr. Light cared about the town''s state. No matter how much he wanted to hide it or didn''t want to care, the sight of something previously thriving suddenly dying because of your presence wasn''t encouraging.
Eventually, they reached the town hall, which was covered in paint and harsh words that cursed Mr. Light and thepany behind him for destroying the town. A deep frown appeared on Mr. Light''s beautiful face as he tried his best to hide his anger.
"Those damn guards still haven''t removed this filth! If I wasn''t because I need them to guard this dumb town, I would have had their heads hung!" Mr. Light muttered to himself, seemingly unaware that Yoze and Evi could hear him clearly.
Evi tossed Yoze a concerned look and picked up his pace to stand next to Yoze. With the state of the town and from Mr. Light''s unintentional words, it was beginning to be clear to them that not only was Jelly Town on the verge of dying, but it was bing more dangerous.
The remaining townspeople and guards might be too attached to the town to abandon it, leaving it to the hands of an outsider. From a radical point of view, they might feel that it would be better to burn the town to the ground than let strangers have it.
Such actions would obviously lead to a path of destructive thoughts that would result in Mr. Light''s death.
"Mr. Light is the son of the miningpany''s owner. So someone from the top might be the one preventing thepany from assisting Mr. Light."
"All in hopes of having the townspeople kill Mr. Light!" Yoze''s eyes shimmered with excitement as he felt Jelly Town was beginning to look like a better training ground for his n than he thought.
Chapter 366 365: Mr. Light, Do You Trust Your Guards?
Chapter 366 Chapter 365: Mr. Light, Do You Trust Your Guards?
The situation inside the town hall was much better than the inside. It was packed with men dressed in metal armor, servants who wore the highest-grade silk, and even a few purple dogs happily ran around.
If anyone only saw the inside of the town hall, they would have thought there was nothing wrong with Jelly Town. Instead, they would have thought that Jelly Town was thriving as it continued to expand under the leadership of Mr. Light.
"Schrs, please take a seat. I would like to propose to you." Mr. Light calmly said as he sat down on a leather chair. Gesturing for Yoze and Evi to take a seat across from him, there was a fancy leather couch.
"Sir Yoze, could you keep standing? I don''t think my couch can hold someone your size and weight." Mr. Light said shortly after.
Evi and Yoze nced at each other and smiled as they found it funny that someone here would actually dare to point out something so obvious. Normal people would have hesitated before trying to hint at the possibility that the couch might not be suitable for Yoze.
In most cases, the host would tightly seal their lips and not say anything, only praying in their hearts that Yoze would not break their precious furniture.
Yet for Mr. Light to point it out without a change in facial expression slightly amused Yoze and Evi, who knew he wasn''t nning to sit on the couch. Luckily for Mr. Light, his rudeness didn''t change their opinions of him since it was already in the gutter from the start.
"That is no problem, Mr. Light. Evi, go take a seat. You don''t have to remain standing for..." Before Yoze could finish his sentence, he noticed that Evi had already gottenfortable on the leather couch.
"Oh, Yoze, what were you saying just now? I apologize for missing it. This couch was just toofy." Evi smiled at Yoze with elegance as he didn''t bother to act as if he was apologetic.
If he wasn''t in the presence of Mr. Light and ten other guards, Evi would have stuck his tongue out.
"Oh, it was nothing. Just make sure you arefortable." Yoze grinned as his eyes shimmer with colorful sparkles.
Evi immediately felt a shiver crawl down his spine as he noticed the faint, colorful sparkles in Yoze''s beautiful eyes be slightly brighter as they shed rapidly.
"Shit! Every time Yoze''s eyes look like that, he is thinking of something diabolical. I need to make sure to lock my doors tonight. Also, move all my furniture in my room to the door to block it...and sleep with one eye open." Evi gulped in fear as he tried to mentally prepare himself for the consequences of his actions.
As Evi''s and Yoze''s little yful game happened right in front of them, Mr. Light and hispany guards all felt a tension between them. From an outsider''s point of view, it looked as if these two schrs were having a hidden conflict, which excited them a little.
It wasn''t every day that ordinary people could see two schrs openly conflicting with one another. Most of them had only read it in drama books, where the two schrs fight over the love of a beautiful, humble female servant.
"Am I the beautiful, humble female servant in their eyes?" Mr. Light thought to himself and touched his face as he pondered.
"Mr. Light, what would you like to discuss with us?" Evi asked as he tried to hide his terror.
"Hmmm, yes, I would like to hire you to advise me on improving Jelly Town. I believe you have already thoroughly heard the news that the town is on the verge of dying."
"As someone who has been chosen to take over this town, I would like to have it not die under my ownership. So I would like to hire you for 50 silver per day for your help." Mr. Light got straight to the point, knowing that Evi and Yoze already knew why they were there.
"50 silver is quite a high amount for a schr to get without having a fantastic record. Since I don''t have much knowledge of you, I hope that this is enough."
"You are right, Mr. Light. 50 silver is enough to pay for the services of an ordinary schr. Even I would ept your offer, but this is only enough to receive my advice as a schr but not my other services." Evi said patiently.
"Your other services? I have never heard of a schr doing anything other than advising their clients." Mr. Light raised his sharp eyebrows as he questioned Evi.
"Of course, that was previously the case before the existence of Super Schr. Super schrs are schrs who have not only been trained as schrs but also as martial artists."
"Before you question the use of a schr who knows martial arts, Mr. Light, I would like to ask you, do you trust your guards?" Evi asked.
As Yoze''s first student and best friend, Evi wanted to ensure he spread the word about their Super Schr status. It was difficult for most people to have enough money to hire ordinary schrs, much less famous ones.
When people think about schrs, they only imagine two things: expensive and books.
"..."
Mr. Light opened his mouth as if to reject Evi''s statement but suddenly tightly closed his mouth. His face turned grim as he didn''t dare look any of his guards in the eye.
Mr. Light''s silence was more than enough to answer Evi''s question, so he continued with his advertisement.
"That is one of the many useful situations hiring a Super Schres in. Not only will we be able to give you advice, but we will also protect you and help you enforce our advice."
"As my teacher once said, ''Knowledge is useless without action. Only those with power and information can reach the top.''"
"My first advice to Mr. Light is to hire us Super Schrs so we can truly help you change this town for the better and not face a gruesome death," Evi said with a serious face.
Chapter 367 366: Evi Youre Hired! Threats Are Everywhere!
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Silence followed as Mr. Light thought about Evi''s proposal. Only he knew the amount of stress he was enduring when he was forced to take this assignment.
As someone who had the opportunity to take over the Mining Company and inherit an unbelievable amount of wealth, being sent to a rural town such as this was basically cutting off his future. If it wasn''t for the internal conflict inside thepany, someone of his status would never be sent here, no matter how valuable the mine found was.
Yet there was no use crying over spilled milk. Now that he was here, Mr. Light was determined to do his best and show everyone he was a suitable leader to rule over thepany. Unfortunately, reality pped him hard in the face. Before he even arrived at Jelly Town, 90 percent of its citizens had already left.
And the remaining were slowly trickling out of his control. That would have been fine, but he knew his position would be increasingly shaky as time continued.
"...there wille a day when you must face the people''s wrath. I hope that you can survive and make it back." Reminded of his Uncle''s wise words before he left for Jelly Town, Mr. Light sighed.
Thanks to his Uncle''s reminder, he knew that if he didn''t try to solve Jelly Town''s decay, he might one day wake up with his head on a pike.
"Schr Evi, I hope you are right that I require a Super Schr. I''m willing to double your pay to acquire all of your services." Mr. Light finally answered after a minute of heavy silence had passed.
As soon as Mr. Light answered, all the nearby guards secretly clutched their weapons, which were picked up by Yoze, who grinned. Knowing that this was his time to shine and make his own offer, Yoze lightly coughed to grab Mr. Light''s attention, who was focused on Evi.
"Mr. Light, your decision to hire Super Schr Evi was a great decision. But suggest that one Super Schr isn''t enough to guarantee your protection. I hope you can hire me as well." Yoze said with a brilliant smile.
"How much would you cost?"
"My services cost triple your initial offer. While I am expensive, my services are of the highest quality."
"Uhmm, okay. I will give you 60 silver per day of your service." Without much hesitation, Mr. Light agreed to Yoze''s request, surprising not only everyone but himself as well.
But then again, if anyone hired a literal giant like Yoze for protection, anyone would feel safe with him around. So, while Mr. Light doubted Yoze''s ability to give him advice like a schr worth 60 silver, he hoped his martial arts prowess made up for it.
"Thank you for your trust, Mr. Light. Me and Evi will get started right away." Yoze smiled as he casually grabbed Evi''s hand and lifted him off the couch.
"Evi, two chefs to your right have covered their knives in poison. The three guards near the wall have all subtly drawn out their swords. The butler has prepared three cups of wine that are slowly releasing odorless poison."
"I want you to take Mr. Light and the two maids beside him to his room, and I will follow behind. Don''t worry about being ambushed. The secret Blood Master will take care of it."
As someone with two sets of crystal nerves that increased his information processing speed, Yoze''s powerful sensesplimented them well. His powerful senses allowed him to gather massive amounts of information, which his highly developed brain would process.
At a speed that normal people couldn''tprehend, he was able to evaluate all the dangers that Mr. Light was facing at the current moment and figured out the best solution to resolve them.
"Now that we have been hired, I hope we can discuss this further in your room so we can slowly discuss our n." Evi smiled warmly at Mr. Light and extended his hand like a gentleman.
After receiving Yoze''s spiritual message, Evi didn''t react and acted like everything was normal. However, he was surprised to hear how much the people around Mr. Light wanted to kill him.
"Okay, I also wanted to talk to you in private." Finding nothing strange about Evi''s request, Mr. Light nodded and stood up.
"Thank you for your trust, Mr. Light."
"Our job is to provide you with the best protection possible while helping your dreamse true. So the better you cooperate, the easier and faster we can achieve it." Evi''s face turned stern as he took his job as a schr seriously.
Through his hard work, he was able to climb his way up the ranks of schrs, and if it wasn''t for his poor luck, he would have been more sessful. With the job of helping a dying town stop its decline and instead thrive, Evi was willing to work hard for the next few months.
...
A few minutes passed peacefully, and Mr. Light, Evi, Yoze, and two maids entered arge, bare room. From the looks of it, Mr. Light had only arrived in town a few days ago and didn''t even have time to sort his clothes.
Yet, at the same time, everything from the leftover food, furniture, potted nts, and rugs was of the highest quality, costing hundreds of silver at minimum. The amount of wealth disyed was something ordinary people would have thought wasically exaggerated for a book.
As someone who lived on his sry as a schr, Evi''s jaw dropped wide open when he stepped inside. He almost didn''t want to step inside, afraid of how much it would have cost him to take one step.
"I hope you can bear theck of furniture and decoration with me. I haven''t had the time to make this ce my own when I feel like I don''t belong." Mr. Light said with a slight smile when he saw the shocked look on Evi''s face.
"That is alright, Mr. Light. I apologize on behalf of Evi here since he came from rural farnd." Yoze smiled.
"So did you!"
Evi muttered to himself but quickly regained hisposure and stepped inside, feeling his heartbreak when he saw his muddy shoes touching the beautiful rug.
Chapter 368 367: Rumors! Rumors! Rumors!
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"So, what did you want to discuss in private?" Mr. Light asked calmly, not minding his new rug getting dirty.
"We would like to discuss the n for improving your image with the town folk of Jelly Town. Before handling your opponents trying to kill you, we must first stop the town from bleeding dry." Evi calmly exined.
"What advice do you have for me?" Mr. Light agreed with Evi''s n as he could understand its logic.
If they continued to allow Jelly Town to lose people and instead focused all their effort on dealing with the hidden dangers caused by thepany, then the town would die. Once a town dies, it is almost impossible to revitalize it to its former glory.
Even before they would be allowed to try, the Mining Company would have already dered that he was a terrible leader and would force him to return. Once he arrived back at thepany, his enemies would once again have an endless number of choices to kill him.
It was better to stop people from leaving the town and instead try to get people toe back. Many people born in Jelly Town still have the town in their hearts and would return if they heard it was doing well.
"We first have to squash the rumors with better rumors. The more we can spread, the less likely people are going to believe them and instead prefer to wait and see your results."
"Rumors like you n on renovating old town areas, fixing schools, and funding business. There also needs to be rumors of your excellence, such as how good-looking you are, how funny, and exaggerated achievements."
"The more we secretly spread them and allow the remaining town folk to hear them, the more they will be curious and spread their own. After a few days, we can find what sticks and secretly help it grow."
"What do you four think?" Evi crossed his arms after he calmly exined his n.
Mr. Light was the first to answer, saying, "You want to spread rumors to improve my image? Arent rumors supposed to do the opposite?"
He was confused. All his life, whenever rumors spread like wildfire, they always had ruined lives. He had never heard of anyone doing the opposite. Would it even work? People loved to gossip and put people down, so why would they want to lift another person''s reputation?
Yoze noticed Evi''s secret nce and sent him another message through spiritual speech. This idea of using rumors to confuse the public while also manipting their opinions was an idea he had after thinking about the memes from Earth.
Thanks to the inte, information was widely avable to all, and at the same time, misinformation. Through this mishmash, memes came into existence and spread throughout the corners of life like a virus.
Memes became a source of information for some people as they enjoyed the feeling of understanding the jokes and references. They also digested the hidden information inside. This became especially apparent for the younger generations as mainstream media became less appealing.
Unfortunately, this world had yet to develop the inte, so the capability for an ordinary person to spread their own opinion and information at any time was limited. But that didn''t matter for their current n. At the moment, Mr. Light controlled all the media, so it wasn''t hard to spread information to every corner of the town and slowly into the nearby towns.
Evi secretly nced at Yoze as he knew this was the idea that he had told him through spiritual speech. He also didn''t understand the full logic behind using rumors. Still, after getting another round of exnations through spiritual speech, his eyes glowed excitedly.
"Just as you said, Mr. Light, people love to spread gossip behind people''s backs, especially when ites to people who have power over them. Allowing all rumors to spread will give the people the illusion that they can say whatever they like under your rule."
"Whether they realize it or not, as these rumors spread, they will slowly turn into a mess with hints of truth and falsehood. In such a state, would anyone fully believe them?"
"But everyone will be attracted to them like flies to a light. The feeling of being part of a group that understands these rumors and their truths will be addicting. And once they leave the town, they will be unable to experience this kind of freedom any longer."
"As long as we slightly make some improvement to the town or don''t do anything for the next few days, people will be more likely to reconsider and convince themselves to stay a little longer," Evi said, feeling slightly out of breath.
Though Mr. Light still didn''t understand the full use of rumors, he didn''t mind following Evi''s n. In any case, he didn''t have much experience when it came to being a leader, so he desperately needed advisors like Yoze and Evi to help.
Seeing that Mr. Light had no more questions, Evi turned his head to the two maids, who were shocked about why they were brought along. One of the maids, who was in her mid-twenties, was trembling as the memories of numerous novels she had read shed through her mind.
"..."
"..."
"...Do you two have any questions? If you do, ask, as this concerns my reputation and life." Mr. Light said sternly, seeing that his maids were remaining silent.
He also didn''t understand why they were brought along. Still, he didn''t doubt Evi''s decision and used his authority to make them cooperate. Finally, the maid, who was trembling and had a red face, asked a question.
"I went out earlier to grab some vegetables and areas, but all the stores were closed...what can we do to open them up?" After speaking, the red-faced maid felt her knees weaken as she wanted to copse.
But Yoze, Evi, and Mr. Light nodded as this was an excellent question. One that they had almost missed, but if they couldn''t solve this issue, then the town would die no matter what they did.
"It''s simple: give people a reason toe and provide their business. That reason is money." Yoze calmly answered.
Chapter 369 368: My Maids Are The Most Helpful!
Chapter 369 Chapter 368: My Maids Are The Most Helpful!
"Giving these businesses money will only bleed the finances of the town. Are you expecting me to foot the bill?" Mr. Light asked.
While rich, he didn''t have unlimited funds to give to the townspeople as he pleased. And even if he wanted to go into debt, there was only so much money people would be willing to give him.
It would be fantastic if this n worked, but it would only worsen his current situation if it didn''t.
"No, I am not saying to hand people money for free. Instead, change the tax system to be more favorable for businesses."
"This will not only bring back the previous businesses in Jelly Town since they still have a foundation here but also attract other businesses andpanies. In any case, as long as thepany you serve is making money from her nearby mine, they won''t care about how fantastic the town is thriving for a while." Yoze responded.
This was the most they could do in the short run. There might have been other methods that had better results, but they all required a permanent poption of people. With Jelly Town down to itsst couple of dozen people, using those methods wasn''t nearly impossible.
"In the meantime, we need to spend lots of money to ensure that necessary stores are stocked so people can survive. That means grocery stores, clothing stores, and supply stores."
"It will drain your bank ount. This is to be expected. Trying to revitalize a town is hard but better than starting from the beginning," Evi added.
From that point, their conversation became very deep as they discussed all the details regarding taxes and policies that needed to be straightened out. Soon, they discussed how they were going to enforce their new rules. From time to time, thanks to the encouragement of Yoze, Evi, and Mr. Light, the maid that had spoken out earlier would ask a question, spurring another round of discussions.
Without knowing why, the maid found herself involved in the inner circles of Mr. Light. Yet, while Mr. Light initially found Yoze''s and Evi''s choice to bring her along strange, he changed his mind when he saw how much help she provided.
"As expected from two schrs, this one choice saved us hundreds of hours of experimenting and observation. I should give this maid a promotion. Hmmm, what was her name again?" Mr. Light rubbed his smooth chin and nced at the maid with gratitude.
The only person who didn''t join in their discussion was the one maid who hadn''t spoken once.
Time quickly passed when Yoze, Evi, and Mr. Light sighed heavily as they all felt exhausted. The work that they had done usually required dozens of people, yet they aplished it only in a few hours, which was an aplishment but exhausting.
"How about you miss? Do you have any questions, or is there anything you don''t understand?" Evi asked while massaging his temples to relieve some of the pressure inside his head.
"...Uhmm, I am just an ordinary maid, sir. I don''t understand anything you have said at all." The maid who hadn''t spoken finally said.
"Hmmm, we will call it quits here for now. I think we have made enough progress in one day. Let''s meet up at the same time tomorrow. That includes you two." Mr. Light calmly said.
He was exhausted and had no energy to go for another hour-long discussion with Evi and Yoze. He feared that if his second maid asked a fantastic question, they wouldn''t be able to sleep tonight.
"Yes, master!"
"Yes, master!"
Mr. Light''s two maids immediately bowed their heads as they both epted his proposal. Knowing that there wasn''t anything urgent at the moment, Yoze and Evi nodded in eptance.
"..."
"...Can you leave my room? They will take you to your rooms." Mr. Light paused before adding to his statement.
"Schr Yoze, our current beds cannot hold someone your size yet. I will get someone to purchase another bed to temporarily increase the size."
"I hope that you can understand." Mr.Light calmly exined with his voice filled with respect.
Before, he doubted that someone who looked strong could be an excellent schr, but Yoze had proved him wrong. Not only was he a great schr, but his ability toe up with solutions that others hadn''t thought about before was shocking.
Without Yoze''s advice, they wouldn''t have made so much progress and would most likely be stuck in numerous issues. So Mr. Light''s opinion of him had risen dramatically.
Plus, Yoze''s handsome and beautiful looks would y an enormous part in improving the public''s image of him. While Mr. Light thought of himself as someone with good looks, hecked theplex and multifaceted handsomeness and beauty that Yoze possessed.
Having someone with that level of beauty was like a tsunami lifting all the boats so that even the rustiest and decayed boat would temporarily have a moment of glory before it was destroyed.
"Don''t worry about it. I will not be sleeping tonight. All I want is for you to send these two maids to my room with a list of requested items."
"After I receive them, they can go to Evi''s room to give him some snacks," Yoze said casually with a wave of his hand.
Yet it led to a bombshell in the minds of Mr. Light and the two maids. Immediately, Mr. Light frowned as he didn''t think that Yoze would be the type of person to take advantage of his status.
Yet he knew that after all this help Yoze provided, he couldn''t bluntly refuse his request since he didn''t make his intentions clear. For all he knew, Yoze really could have just wanted snacks.
All he could do was tell his maids to follow orders and secretly help them resist any pressure that fell upon them.
Yoze noticed they had misunderstood his request and immediately thought about what his words could have meant. He shook his head and was about to exin, but Evi stepped in and helped him out.
"I would prefer if you could ce me and Yoze in the same bedroom. Please do bring the snacks and items, though." Evi lightly coughed before making his intentions known, causing his face to turn red from embarrassment.
Chapter 370 369: A Solution To Demon Meat
Chapter 370 Chapter 369: A Solution To Demon Meat
"This is my chance to break through!"
In an unknown room in Jelly Town''s town hall, a young maid was fixing her uniform, ensuring there weren''t any creases. After brushing her long blonde hair until it was smooth and perfect, she put on some makeup and checked her teeth to ensure there weren''t any food scraps between them.
This young maid was Gn White. As a person who hade from amoner family, she had never been able to experience the joy of being able to grab onto a chance to rise to the upper ss.
"Sir Schr Yoze and Sir Schr Evi are so nice to allow me and Suzanne to participate in helping Master revitalize the town. Not only was I able to make a good first impression, but I even got an increase in my sry of one silver."
"With this, I will now be able to make 11 silver a year. I am on the up and up." Gn smiled as she felt as if everything wasing along very well for herself.
"I even was asked to go to Sir Schr Evi''s and Sir Schr Yoze''s rooms at night. They must fancy me. If I can seize this chance and be their wife, my life will be perfect!" Gn''s hazy blue eyes glinted as her face became red.
The scenes from numerous books describing simr situations shed through her head, causing her to be nervous. After calming herself down and ensuring she looked perfect, she picked up a food tter next to her and walked to Yoze''s room.
"Hmmm, hm, hmmm, hm"
Along the way, she couldn''t help but start humming a cheerful melody her mother had taught when she was a child and skipped through the halls with glee. Soon, she reached the assigned room and stood at the door briefly before knocking on it to let them know she was there.
"It''s great to see you,"
Before Glian knocked on the door, the door quickly opened to reveal a half-naked Yoze sweating from recently finishing his training with Evi. Gn felt her jaw drop to the floor as she saw the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
"I am going to die." Gn''s face rapidly became redder than a tomato as she lost the ability to speak.
"Do you know where that other maid is?" Yoze asked calmly, secretly happy that everyone appreciated his good looks.
"S-she is getting the items from your list, but she should return in a few minutes. I-i-I have the snacks. I hope they are enjoyable for you." Gn said softly.
"Fantastic,e inside. Evi is also here, so you two can chat while getting to know one other." Yoze said as he gestured for her to enter but paused before adding.
"I know this might seem strange, but once that other maid shows up with my items, are you willing to join my experiment? This test is not harmful but might be a little painful."
"Of course, I will not take advantage of you and will pay you 20 silver if you participate. You can also leave whenever you want if you no longer feelfortable."
"Sir Schr Yoze, I would love to join in the experiment. Do I need to take off my clothes?" Gn asked with sparkling eyes, giving Yoze an unsettling feeling as if he was being taken advantage of.
"No, but once the experiment begins, you might identally tear your clothes if the pain gets too much for you to handle. I rmend you change into morefy clothes so that you don''t mind being ruined." Yoze answered, but he strangely felt that Gn didn''t hear a word he said.
"Okay," Gn clenched her small hands and walked inside Yoze''s room with determination in her heart.
Once she stepped inside, she was pleasantly surprised that Evi was also half-naked and lying on the bed. Unlike the elegant and gentle self he portrayed when they felt met, he didn''t answer or even look at her direction. Once she got closer, she noticed his muscles trembling as he stared at the ceiling.
"Sir Schr Yoze, is there something wrong with Sir Schr Evi?" Gn asked with worry.
Evi was the only one who she was confident in being able to wed without identally getting killed during the process. If she came to find out that he was too sick, then she would have to try to wed Yoze.
"How tall are my kids going to be in the future? They have to be at least seven feet tall if I marry Yoze."
"No, I heard that kids are always taller than their parents, so does that mean my and Yoze''s kids will be eleven feet tall." Gn randomly thought to herself.
"You can just call me Yoze. Being called Sir Schr Yoze is a mouthful, and since you are kind enough to join my experiment, you can just call Yoze." Yoze smiled before answering Gn''s question.
"As for Evi, he is just tired from our training. If you are interested, you can join us next time. Yoze said casually as he grabbed a sandwich from the tter.
Before Gn could answer, she saw Yoze suddenly open the door. As surprised as she was, she saw Suzanne, who was a new maid, standing outside with several male servants carryingrge bags.
"My stuff is finally here." Yoze excitedly said as he easily grabbed the bags that several people struggled to lift and ced them in his room.
After putting everything inside, he noticed that Suzanne had entered his room and was talking with Gn. Still, it was clear to see that one was more excited than the other. Like what he had offered Gn, he asked Suzanne if she wanted to join in his little experiment.
"If Sir Schr Yoze thinks this humble maid is qualified to help you with this experiment, that is enough for me." Suzanne softly answered, which caused Yoze to grin widely.
"Okay, you guys can go." Seeing that he had gotten both his targets, Yoze turned to the remaining servants who were awkwardly standing outside the door and told them to leave.
There was no need to entertain servants who were currently secretly working with his client''s enemies. After closing the door, Yoze unpacked all the items that were brought.
It was full of strange herbs, medicine pastes, and other strange items that most people would never buy. Well, it wasn''t like they could afford to buy them anyway.
"Yoze, is this all for that experiment you were talking about?" Evi asked after regaining some energy.
"Yup,"
"Can I withdraw my participation?" Evi asked with a hint of hope.
Yoze temporarily stopped organizing his herbs, medicine pastes, and items to examine Evi''s body thoroughly before saying,
"Nope, Suzanne and Gn can leave at any time, but you need to stay. I also won''t be paying you."
"Great, but at least all of us will suffer together, right Yoze? As best friends and deeply tied partners, we must suffer together." After regaining some strength, Evi immediately began to rapidly eat the snacks that Gn had brought to him.
While it wasn''t as nutritious as the demon meat Yoze had fed him, it was better than nothing.
"And as my best friend, I know you know that my pain tolerance is low, so you are willing to take my share of the medication. Thank you so much. I appreciate it." Yoze said casually as he finished his organization.
With everything neatlyid out in front of him, Yoze took out his journal and reviewed the process of creating blood pills. As one of the dozen witchcraft techniques that he had gained from helping Lucien back at Justice Town, Yoze was always interested in creating the Blood Pill.
From the description in Lucien''s notes, Blood Pills could give any person a 50 percent boost in stamina, strength, and vitality for one hour. Not only is the pill quite safe forrge consumption, but long-term use will result in the user''s body bing healthier and stronger.
So was an incredible pill that anyone should have in their toolbox, but creating Blood Pills was expensive since some of the ingredients were rare or umon. Even with Mr. Light''s help, they were only able to get enough ingredients to create eight blood pills.
However, what Yoze was more interested in was that creating Blood Pills required the inclusion of blood. What he was hoping for was to use his own blood in hopes this would solve all his problems.
What was his current problem that has been giving him a headache for years?
Insufficient demon meat.
Whether it was for extending his father''s lifespan, increasing the power of hispanions, or for his own training, he never had enough.
No matter how much demon meat he had, it would run out sooner orter. Which meant he would have to go hunt more demons.
As he got stronger and explored the world, his need for demon meat exponentially increased. Even after killing the Slug demon and getting all of its demon meat, it wasn''t enough since he needed to sell a majority of it to get enough money to fuel the School of Eternal Knowledge.
Yet, as the School of Knowledge gets stronger, the need for demon meat for his students will increase. Yet, from his experience, finding demons was hard, and catching them was even harder.
Unless he found another demon the size of the Slug demon, he would run out of demon meat immediately.
Knowing that hunting demons wasn''t sustainable in the long term, he had been looking for other alternatives, and he soon found it.
That solution was inside his own blood.
Chapter 371 370: Spiritual Blood Pills
"Leopard Demon," Yoze''s eyes shed as he swiftly began to create the Blood Pills.
Ordinary blood would do for creating regr blood pills. However, Yoze desired blood pills that could solve his problems, so his blood needed an extra kick.
That extra kick was natural spiritual energy.
This was something he had wanted to attempt for a long time, but ack of talent when it came to spiritual energy was his most significant issue. Now that he had gotten better talent at spiritual energy maniption from one of his baby slug demons, he experienced a much easier time controlling his spiritual energy into his blood.
With the addition of his blood-contained spiritual energy, he could now transfer his spiritual energy to hispanions. Even if he no longer hunted demons, he could supply them with constant spiritual energy.
This was essentially him cutting off his own flesh to feed them. That meant for every blood pill he created, he would lose some of his spiritual energy.
The more blood pills he created, the more spiritual energy he would lose. If any other demon knew what Yoze was doing, they would have cursed him for being crazy and was being suicidal.
All demons had a limited amount of spiritual energy inside their body that was impossible to grow without external means. So, for every strand they lost, they would be permanently weaker until they consumed another source of spiritual energy.
Volunteering to give up arge amount of their spiritual energy was crazy to them. Even the most kind-hearted demon would never do such a thing as it could result in their own death!
Yoze was no different from other demons; he would not be willing to give up his spiritual energy if it meant bing weaker. But unlike other demons, his body was like a perpetual motion machine for spiritual energy.
As someone who simply built differently, he could do things that other demons could not. That included having spiritual energy that never stalled and continuously grew due to constantly conflicting with his body''s other types of spiritual energy.
This was the inherent advantage of having multiple types of spiritual energy flowing through one''s body. While their conflict was destructive, it also enabled his spiritual energies to grow independently without limit.
It was due to this conflicting nature that created additional spiritual energy that demons loved to hunt other demons. Not only would they be able to devour all of their target''s spiritual energy, but due to the conflicting nature of their spiritual energies, they would get some extra in the process.
Since he could create spiritual energy without having to go on a murder spree, Yoze thought to himself that he should use his gift for good. Not only would he be able to use his gift to help his allies, but he could sell the rest of his blood pills to get an additional source of revenue.
Of course, for New Swampscott City, they will find their blood pills have gotten an extra tax.
Aftering up with the n to inject multiple types of spiritual energy into his blood before using his blood as the core ingredient for the blood pills, Yoze couldn''t wait to try it.
After ten minutes, Yoze''s body was once again covered in sweat as he concentrated on crushing the herbs into a paste using his hands instead of an instrument. Using the method that Leah had taught him, his high control over his hands, and his talent for witchcraft, Yoze didn''t find the process of creating blood pills hard.
However, it was more time-consuming than he initially thought. From Lucien''s notes, he was able to create blood pills in an hour, but Yoze only finished after four hours.
"This is the difference in experience. I might be more talented than Lucien, but he has more experience when ites to creating blood pills." Yoze muttered as his eyes twitched at therge dark red balls in front of him.
These resulted from the blood pills that had incorporated his spiritual energy-filled blood. Yet they were slightly different from what the book described them.
They were three timesrger than normal blood pills and used double the number of ingredients to create. They had the texture of a soft meatball and gave off a weird smell.
"These barely seem to qualify as blood pills. Whatever, let''s see if they are any good." Yoze put on his most friendly smile and turned around to see that Gn and Suzanne were staring at him like he was a monster.
"Yoze, are you a witch!?" Gn asked with a pale face.
Even though she didn''t have much experience traveling the world, what Yoze had done didn''t seem like the normal process of creating medicine. The first thing that came to her was the picture of witches who created potions to turn people into frogs and ate beautiful women.
"Is that why Yoze wanted me? Does he think I am beautiful enough to eat?" Gn didn''t know whether she was more ttered or scared.
"Of course not! Don''t you know that witches use cauldrons to create potions and spells? This is an experimental pill that is used for body cultivation." Yoze denied vehemently.
"All body cultivation methods that martial artists practice revolve around training their bodies to the extreme to release inner vigor. However, such a training method requires the user''s body to have enough nutrition so that they don''t be injured or, even worse, die."
"The method of keeping their bodies healthy differs from martial artist to martial artist, but food ys an important role in the end. This is why I am trying to create a single pill that will allow any martial artist to get enough nutrition without the hassle of eating a lot of food." Yoze softly exined.
This was an excuse that he had prepared beforehand, and from the fact Gn''s face once again turned red, it seemed that his exnation worked.
"Yoze, I am sorry for not believing you!" Gn deeply bowed as she apologized.
"Don''t worry about it. You will all feel the effects once you eat it." Yoze said casually with a wave of his hand.
Seeing that no one else was questioning the blood pills, Yoze secretly sighed with relief and picked up the fourrge blood pills. They felt warm in his hands, and he could feel that he had a slight connection to each of the pills, but it was extremely faint.
If they were not in his hands, he wouldn''t have been able to sense his connection with them.
After handing one to Gn and Suzanne, Yoze paused before handing his remaining two blood pills to Evi.
"One for each of you, and since we are best friends, Evi, you will eat my share. Don''t worry. If you can survive this, you will be much stronger." Yoze said with a grin.
Chapter 372 371: Delicious But Too Hot!
Chapter 372 Chapter 371: Delicious But Too Hot!
"Oh, man!"
Evi frowned as he looked at the two blood pills sitting in his hands. He was afraid that he would choke on one of them due to their size.
Compared to regr blood pills that were easy to swallow since they were designed to be used in battle, Yoze''s wasn''t. His blood pills were asrge as a golf ball, which made it incredibly easy for anyone to identally choke on them if they were not careful.
Yet, even though Evi knew the risks of eating these pills, he couldn''t help but feel lustful for them. They seemed to have some sort of maic pull that made him drool and whisper sweet nothings in his ears, telling him to eat them.
Evi looked at the two maids sitting with him on the bed and saw they were just as attracted to the blood pills as he was. Especially Gn, who was literally drooling over it.
If it wasn''t because she was waiting for Yoze to tell her that it was alright to eat it, she would have swallowed her blood pill the moment it touched her hand. Even Suzanne lightly licked her lips as she had a look of longing in her eyes.
Something was telling her to eat it and to make sure to savory everyst bit of it as it would give her the power that she desired.
"These pills are enchanted!" Suzanne''s pupils shrunk as she resisted the urge to eat it,
"What are you waiting for? You guys can eat it, but be careful of choking. I know they smell good, but I can guarantee they taste even better." Yoze said with a smile.
After hearing Yoze''s words of encouragement, Evi, Gn, and Suzanne couldn''t resist any longer. The first to crumble was Gn, as before Yoze even finished his sentence, she popped her blood pill into her mouth.
Immediately, she felt her blood pill spike in heat as it became hotter and hotter before it quickly melted on her tongue. At the same time, due to the heat, her face became flushed red as she pped her hands around her face in a useless attempt to cool herself down.
Even as she swallowed the liquid blood pill, the heat didn''t weaken and instead continuously grew. The heat of the blood pill spread throughout her body like a virus trying to burn her alive from the inside.
"Too hot!" Gn growled as she felt helpless against the endless heat burning her organs.
Yet, as she was being burnt alive, she felt as if a hidden power inside her body was being driven out. She felt stronger and more energized, and her mind felt clearer than ever before.
Suddenly, Gn felt two big hands grab her waist and lift her into the air like a baby. Looking down at a body that looked like a lobster boiling alive, she felt a strange sense of relief seeing the serious look on Yoze''s face.
"Shit, I made it too strong. Seeing how you are reacting, my blood pills are actually cooking you alive! If I don''t do anything, by the time the effects of the pill stop, you will be dead." Yoze frowned as he could sense that Gn''s body temperature had reached dangerous temperatures.
This wasn''t a temperature normal people could handle for a long time. Before an hour passed, he knew that Gn''s organs would have been burned ck along with her brain.
Even though he had informed her that this was an experiment, he didn''t n on identally taking her life. After all, she was just an ordinary maid trying to make a living in this tough world.
She didn''t desire to die.
"But what can I do to help her? My spiritual energy is useless here, and so is my immortal cultivation. I haven''t gotten far enough on either of them to be capable of helping another person." Yoze frowned as he saw that Gn was losing her mind.
After quickly ncing at Evi''s and Suzanne''s situation, they were also having a tough time enduring the effects of the blood pill but were faring much better. For Evi, even though the effects of the blood pill were intense, he was able to mitigate them by training.
On the contrary, due to the blood pills'' positive effects, he was able to throw some caution to the wind and make serious progress. By the time the blood pill''s effects ran out, his progress on Boneless Man and Spiral Twin Fists would have increased by ten percent.
While Evi was making full use of his blood pills, Suzanne was much calmer. She simply sat on the bed with dazed eyes as she tightly clutched a long dagger that she had pulled out of her maid dress.
Unlike Evi and Gn, whose skin was bright red, Suzanne''s skin remained the same light brown color as before. A slight red mist hovered around her body, causing a bloody smell to fill the room.
"Suzanne is a first-rate Blood Master? Mr. Light has some strong protection." Yoze thought for a split second before pulling his mind toward finding a solution to Gn''s situation.
He thought about teaching her a body cultivation method in an attempt to let her release some steam in a simr manner as Evi but eventually shook his head.
"While I can make fun of Evi for not having the best talent when ites to martial arts, he at least has some. But I have no idea how talented Gn is, so trying to teach her martial arts now is a gamble."
"It might take her a few tries to truly learn a body cultivation method and even longer to make it an instinctual habit. By the time she learns a body cultivation method, she will be dead." Yoze stared at Gn before suddenly asking her another question.
"Gn, are you willing to join me in another experiment? If my experiment works, you will not only survive this, but you will gain immense power."
Chapter 373 372: Beast Human Human?
?
As Yoze''s mind rapidly went through the various means he had to save Gn, he eventually settled on trying to save her using the Beast Human body cultivation method. As one of the most unique body cultivation methods in his toolbox, he had a special love for this method.
So far, he had only used the beast Human body cultivation method to take various beasts and demons. Yet now he needed to use it on a human, so he couldn''t help but feel excited. Would he seed, or would he find the limit of this body cultivation method?
"Humans are simply a type of beast, aren''t we? After having the Beast Human body cultivation method for so long and breaking through its limits, it has an 80 percent chance of being the solution to Gn''s problem." Yoze''s eyes sparkled as he looked up at Gn, who was still redder than a boiled lobster with expectation.
"Yoze, I trust you!" Gn answered quickly.
As someone who could feel her organs and brain being cooked, her blood boiled, and her skin baked, Gn could hardly think. Yet when she heard Yoze''s calm and smooth voice, her chaotic mind calmed down slightly.
With this bit of rity, she looked down at Yoze, who was holding her up, and had the delusion that she was a dying white star that was releasing itsst but bright rays of light before being consumed by the endless darkness of space. As the only person who could save her from being turned into food, Yoze''s ck eyes seemed to slowly erase the darkness as a shimmering of colorful faint sparkles appeared in his eyes before disappearing without a trace.
"Thank you for your support! As thanks, I will increase your pay to 40 silver." Yoze breathed a slight sigh of relief, seeing that Gn''s brain hadn''t beenpletely fried yet.
Now that he had gotten Gn''s permission to proceed, he lowered his hands before lightly tossing Gn in the air. With his light toss, he carefully turned his big hands in a way that caused her body to spin.
Though Yoze described his throw as light, Gn would have suggested otherwise as she flew so high that she nearly mmed into the ceiling while her body was rapidly spinning. Without her mind being unprecedentedly clear and stable, she would have vomited her past three lunches.
Suddenly, Yoze took a deep breath and allowed his mind to rapidly elerate as he performed the Quick Mind Slow World technique. Causing the world around him to slow down, allowing him to easily see Gn''s rapidly spinning body.
"In my arsenal of body cultivation methods, the only one that doesn''t require the user to learn it themselves is the Beast Human body cultivation method and its more advanced version the Bloody Beast Clone."
"However, I still need Gn to reach level three of the Beast Human body cultivation method before I can even attempt to use the Bloody Beast Clone body cultivation method. Getting her to reach such a high level would take some time, and more importantly, our rtionship would have to be strong."
"That isn''t much of a problem since reaching the first level of the Beast Human body cultivation method should be more than enough." Yoze''s eyes shed as he reached out both hands and rapidly poked various areas around Gn''s.
With each poke, her red skin would slightly lighten up, showing that some of the excessive energy in her body was being used up to further condition her body. Seeing that it was working, Yoze breathed out a sigh of relief and continued to poke her, expecting that by the time she fell back to the ground, she would have broken through to the first level, bing a third-rate martial artist without much trouble.
Finally, after ten minutes of spinning in the air, Yoze gently grabbed Gn''s waist with both of his hands and looked at her with a strange gaze. Her skin, which was previously redder than a lobster, was now three shades lighter, and her mind, which was on the brink of copse, was now stable.
"Sir Yoze, your pokes kind of hurt but it also felt quite good. What was that?" Gn asked softly as she felt embarrassed that while Yoze was trying to save her, she was enjoying the process.
"Cough, that was a body cultivation method called the Beast Human body cultivation method and is usually what I use to tame beasts. Unfortunately, this was the only method I had to save you since I didn''t know how talented you were in martial arts." Yoze lightly coughed as he saw Gn blushing, though her skin was still red.
"Forget about the strange name of this method. Let''s focus on what you have gained through this process. First, your body is much stronger and has more stamina than most people by at least three times."
"You might think that this isn''t a lot, but in reality, once you start to practice martial arts techniques, you will see how much more powerful you are," Yoze exined as he put Gn back on the ground.
"But I am still burning up. Can you continue?" Gn worriedly asked as she still felt her blood pill was releasing a lot of heat throughout her body.
"Unfortunately not, our connection has already reached its limit before we even hit the Beast Pet...cough... Acquaintance Stage. This is required to reach the first level of the Beast Human body cultivation method."
"In other words, unless we somehow improve our rtionship further, then we can not progress in this body cultivation method. But this has given us enough time to teach you another body cultivation method to use the remaining excess energy." Yoze exined as he looked at the sparkling eyes of Gn.
"Oh, okay. What are the other stages of our rtionship, do we have to get married?" Gn asked with sparkling eyes.
"Umm, the stages for the Beast Human method are the Acquaintance stage, Friend Stage, andstly is the Battle Friend stage. So unless you want to join me on the battlefield and fight together until we die, I don''t think we will ever reach the final stage." Yoze exined as he quickly changed the names of the Beast Human method.
He couldn''t possibly tell Gn that they didn''t even reach the Beast Pet stage so they could forget about trying to get to the Beast Friend Stage and the Battle Beast stage. So he hastily changed their names to be more suitable to what the equivalent human rtionship stage would be.
"Never mind then, I''m just a maid, so how could I join you in battle," Gn said with a pout as she crossed her hands.
Seeing that she was feeling better and had enough energy to pout, Yoze smiled and taught her the Boneless Man body cultivation method. Unfortunately, he had to stop halfway as he could see she didn''t have much talent in learning Boneless Man, so he could only switch to another body cultivation method.
Funnily enough, Gn seemed to be extremely gifted at the Big Golem cultivation method. When he taught Gn the Big Golem method, she rapidly learned the basics and showed signs that she had a lot of talent in this body cultivation method but no other.
"A fellow lover of muscles has been born. Maybe my mistake isn''t too bad." Yozeughed as he sat on the ground, watching Evi, Gn, and Suzanne focus on training their bodies for the remaining fifty minutes.
Chapter 374 373: Green Ball Of Mist’s Appearance
Chapter 374 Chapter 373: Green Ball Of Mist''s Appearance
Hhaa," Evi slowly breathed out a long, heavy sigh that drew out a long white mist. Sensing that the energy brought by the blood pill had run out, he felt a powerful sense of weaknessing from his muscles.
His knees would have copsed to the floor if it wasn''t for his strong will and trained body. After thest effect of his blood pill ran out, he stopped training and looked directly at Yoze, who was casually sitting on the floor.
Even though Yoze sat on the floor without doing anything, there was a mysterious aura around him radiating pure elegance. His eyes shimmered with slowly fading colorful sparkles that seemed even more beautiful and mysterious than before.
"What is that?" Suddenly, Evi''s pupils shrunk as he noticed a translucent green ball of mist floating behind Yoze.
The green ball of mist was strange as he smelled a scent simr to oil whenever he looked in its direction. As Evi looked at the strange ball floating behind Yoze, he realized it quickly became fainter until it disappeared.
"Was that the spiritual energy that Yoze frequently mentioned?"
Though Evi had an idea about what that strange ball of mist was, he kept silent until Gn and Suzanne left before he brought it up with Yoze. While they might be Mr. Light''s only non-hostile allies in this entire mansion, it doesn''t mean they gave them their full trust.
"Well, how was it?" Yoze calmly asked with a brilliant smile when he saw that all three individuals had stopped training.
"Yoze, you bastard, you did it again. Those pills were amazing, but they have some ws at the moment." Evi lightly touched his chin as his eyes thought about his experience.
"For one, these pills are too goddamn big! I nearly choked when trying to eat it. If this was taken during a battle, just trying to swallow this pill would be a lethal threat."
"Second, the effects are very strong, almost too strong for beginner martial artists. And for people who have never trained in any body cultivation method before, it is too powerful!" Evi calmly said, causing Gn, who was sitting on the floor, to blush.
"Andstly, why did you have to make them so tasty? I am drooling at thest one in my hand. I would have eaten the second one if my self-control wasn''t strong enough."
"As for what would have happened to me if I took it, I think only the creator who created this pill would know what would have happened," Evi concluded.
"Thanks for the information. What about you, Gn?" Yoze mentally noted Evi''sints and turned to Gn, who had recovered from her recent ident.
"Umm, Evi has said everything that I wanted to say. When would you be making more? And can I continue to be your test subject?" Gn asked with ttering eyes.
Even though Gn had almost died from eating Yoze''s blood pills, she deeply desired to continue participating in the experiment. One reason was that her blood pill tasted quite good.
Another reason was that she had never felt so strong or had such mental rity before in her life. Of course, the jaw-dropping amount of money she earned from this hour alone was more than enough to make up for all the bad stuff, like her burning organs.
She didn''t mind continuing to join this experiment as long as it didn''t continue to burn her organs into charcoal.
"I''m d you want to help me continue researching the best nutrition pill for martial artists. Unfortunately, the ingredients to create this type of pill are quite expensive and rare, so I don''t think we can continue the experiment for a while." Yoze said with a smile before turning his gaze to Suzanne.
Seeing Yoze''s happy smile, Suzanne ufortably wiggled as she knew she was exposed. While she did her best to suppress her blood mist, the effects of her blood pill were too strong to contain, resulting in her blood mist forming around her.
As someone who imed to be a Super Schr and practiced martial arts, she was sure that Yoze could tell she was a Blood Master. Even if he didn''t know this earlier, he definitely did now.
After staying silent, hoping Yoze wouldn''t bother her concerning her status as a Blood Master, she lightly sighed and gave her thoughts on her blood pill.
"These nutrition pills, as you call them, are quite good. They provide a lot of nutrition to the body once eaten, but their effect of...giving a temporary increase in power to anyone who eats them seems to be overpowering."
"I see. Thank you for giving me your thoughts. If there is nothing else, let me give you the money you deserve." Yoze said with a knowing smile when he heard Suzanne''s review.
While Gn wanted to stay a little longer to try and convince Evi to be her husband, she, unfortunately, wasn''t able to stay any longer as Suzanne dragged her out of the room after collecting their payment. Leaving Evi and Yoze in the room, who sat in silence for several minutes.
"Yoze, did you know that there is arge green ball of mist floating behind you?" Evi carefully mentioned.
"Oh, that? Yeah, it is something I collected from a 1000-year-old abnormally. But more importantly, you see, it means that you are slowly gaining the ability to sense spiritual energy!" Yoze said with excitement as he grabbed Evi''s shoulders.
"Evi, did you know why I included Gn and Suzanne in my experiment even though they are just maids?"
"Isn''t it because you wanted to get arge testing sample? Gn is a regr person who previously never touched martial arts in her entire life, so she represented new students to our school."
"I represent students that have just started their journey as Super Schrs. And Suzanne represented students who have made it very far into their careers." Evi answered, startled by how excited Yoze seemed.
"Yes, but it was also because I was testing how well you three reacted to absorbing my spiritual energy. Didn''t you feel your mind be clearer, and you felt more youthful as if your lifespan was increasing!"
"Out of the three, you were able to absorb the most. Which was mostly because your spiritual energy is the color green, so it was a color of spiritual energy that I owned."
"But still, it shows that as long as I use blood pills as a medium, I can act as a recement for demon meat!" Yoze said with pure joy as he heavily shook Evi, causing him to wiggle around like a wet noodle helplessly.
Chapter 375 374: Jelly Town’s Rumors! Blood Sect’s Arrival!
Chapter 375 Chapter 374: Jelly Town''s Rumors! Blood Sect''s Arrival!
"You want to act as the recement for demon meat? That sounds crazy!" Evi''s eyes shot up when he heard Yoze''s n.
"But is it? All I am giving up is some of my blood and spiritual energy to help you grow. As long as I don''t lose too much blood and spiritual energy, I will recover quite quickly."
"Unlike other demons, I can recover my spiritual energy naturally without devouring it from other creatures. For example, I had sacrificed 400 strands of my spiritual energy to create these four blood pills."
"This sounds like a lot, but I can recover this much in a day. Other than me sacrificing my spiritual energy, the most important aspect of absorbing spiritual energy seems to be that their attributes have to be the same for maximum efficiency." Yoze calmly exined.
"Yoze, while this sounds nice, doesn''t it sound weird that I will have a part of you inside me?" Evi asked while touching his cheeks.
"Don''t make it sound weird. You are just consuming some of my blood. Go ahead if you want to think about it like eating medium-rare steak." Yoze''s eyes twitched.
"Fine, how much did I absorb? My mind feels very rxed, so I must have absorbed quite a bit of your spiritual energy."
"Nope, your spiritual energy is the green attribute and takes the shape of a 20-point star or a sunflower. Since I also have the green attribute, you were able to absorb that part with nearly 100 percent efficiency."
"Great,"
"But that only makes up 17 percent of my total spiritual energy, so for the rest, you were able to absorb 20 percent of it, which isn''t too bad. That means you were able to absorb about 33 percent of all the spiritual energy inside your blood pill." After staying silent, Yoze eventually calcted how much Evi had absorbed and told him.
"That''s bad. I only absorbed 33 strands in total from your blood pill."
"Don''t think about it like that. You aren''t terrible, at least average."
"That doesn''t make me feel better." Evi pouted.
"Anyways, it seems that the absorption rate for different attributes of spiritual energy is constant, so there is nothing we can fix unless you start your spiritual body cultivation. Right now, we need to focus on something we can control: your martial arts." Yoze exined as he began to take off Evi''s clothes, to his confusion.
"Why are you taking off my clothes?"
"We are going to continue training. Take yourst blood pill and start training with me."
"B-but we are still inside the town hall. What if people get weird ideas about what we are doing?"
"It''s fine. We are going to start with the splits first. Remember, your butt needs to touch the floor. If you can''t do it, I will help you." Yoze calmly said with a warm smile that looked almost demonic in Evi''s heart.
...
A few days passed since Yoze and Evi had made it to Jelly Town. Compared to the homelessness that had consumed Jelly Town when they arrived, it was full of life. Even though the number of people who resided in the town was a far cry from before, the number of people who returned had doubled its poption.
This sudden change in Jelly Town''s situation was all due to the numerous rumors that suddenly spread through Jelly Town and the nearest five towns and viges. Rumors that Jelly Town had been bought solely for the nearby mine contradicted rumors that the town would be revitalized and developed.
No matter the type of information that reached the ears of old and current Jelly Town residents, they would hear or see news of the opposite. No one knew who spread these rumors, but some things proved true, such as reduced business taxes, which helped cause the old Jelly Town residents to be hopeful that their town was being developed and not abandoned.
The one town impacted the most by these rumors was Lilca Town, which had seen thergest influx of Jelly Town residents. As a small town with a poption size of several hundred people, it was a wee surprise when the mayor of Lilca Town discovered the drastic decline of its rival Jelly Town.
"Reverend, how did your investigation go?"
Inside a secret room in Lilca Town''s town hall, the tough and harsh town mayor, whom all the residents had grown ustomed to, was putting on a gentle smile. If it weren''t for the scars covering his face and his roughly trimmed beard, most people would have thought he was a merchant.
Across from him was a young man in histe twenties who looked bored as hezily tossed a blood-covered dagger. Suddenly, the young man grabbed his bloody dagger and threw it between the mayor''s legs, causing his entire body to tremble from fear.
"The investigation was boring as usual. The so-called new mayor of Jelly Town is an ordinary young person. The only person of importance in that god-forsaken town was the female Blood Master who failed to conceal herself."
"These wandering Blood Masters disgrace the title of Blood Master! Any ordinary Blood Master of the Blood Sect can kill her with ease. Oh, from the look on your face, you weren''t interested in this information." The young man said as he narrowed his eyes.
When the mayor heard the young man''s dissatisfaction, his heart dropped, blood drained from his face, and he felt a painful sensationing from his right hand. Looking down, he saw that he was missing a finger and felt dread fill his heart as he couldn''t even see the young man move.
"No, no, no, Reverend, you misunderstood. I was dissatisfied that the Blood Master wasn''t up to your expectations. From the rumors, I had thought that the Endless Wealth Company would send someone who could at least entertain your excellency!" Lilca Town''s mayor exined while concealing the pain he was in.
He didn''t dare to show any sign that he was suffering as he knew that it would only excite the young man in front of him. The students of the Blood Sect were evil and twisted to their core. Only pain and suffering could bring them joy, so having this devil in his town was the worst thing that could have happened to him and his town.
Chapter 376 375: Disappearing Blood Lust
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Compared to the amount of fear that filled the mayor''s heart, the pain from losing his finger was nothing. If he couldn''t perform well, he wouldn''t only lose his fingers.
"Good that you know your ce. Now, where was I?" The young man sneered as he looked at the terrified mayor.
ying with the bloody finger, the young man threw it into his mouth, chewing it until he swallowed the bloody mush of flesh and bones. The disgusting sight instantly caused the mayor to grab his mouth tightly with his hand to hold back from vomiting.
Seeing the mayor''s almost frail appearance, the young man simply shook his head with disappointment. When he had epted this mission from the sect missions list, he had thought the targets would be more exciting.
At least there would be someone capable of putting up a decent challenge. Even if there was no peak Blood Master present, he had hoped to take the heads of at least three Blood Masters tonight. Now, he would barely be satisfied by ughtering the entire town in the process.
"Master said that those witches have predicted that there would be a good challenge for me to ascend to the next level. So far, there doesn''t seem to be anyone worthy of even cleaning my boots."
"If I can''t find a worthy opponent to eat, then there is only one other way to spread my name."
"Reverend, there might be another who might be to your fancy?" The mayor said as he felt his heart tighten as he could see the growing blood lust in the young man''s cold ck eyes.
"Oh, who could that be? I justpleted my investigation a few days ago, so how could there be anyone of my interest? But do go on.."
"Two people arrived at Jelly Town the day you left Jelly Town. They are a pair of schrs who im to be Super Schrs!"
"Super Schr? What the hell is that!? I have never heard of such a ridiculous thing; did a child think of the name." The young man from the Blood Sect raised his thin eyebrows as he listened to the mayor hastily exin.
"Reverend, the name might be poor, but rumors have spread that they are excellent martial artists. And there is a schr named Yoze who is said to be a peak Blood Master."
"A peak Blood Master, that is barely enough to grab my attention. What sect is he from?"
"I am notpletely sure, but from the rumors, he is from a sect called the School of Eternal Knowledge. They focus on training schrs to be powerful martial artists and a new type of martial art called Martial Formations."
Just as the mayor finished hisst sentence, he felt two cold hands grip his throat as an intense blood lust prated his mental barrier. Completely terrified, the mayor saw his life sh before his eyes.
"Mommy..."
"Did you say Martial Formation!? Answer now before I cut off your family jewels!"
Hearing the young man''s cold voice snapped the mayor''s mind back to reality, and he hastily answered, not knowing why the young man suddenly changed.
"Yes, yes! The rumors said Martial Formations. There aren''t many details about this type of martial art. Is there something important about it?"
"I don''t know...but I can feel my instincts telling me if I can get that technique, I can even eat the Sect Master." The young man mumbled before his eyes shed a dark red color, and the scent of blood filled the room.
Before the mayor could react, his entire body burst into a cloud of blood mist that was absorbed into the young man''s body, leaving only the tattered pieces of the mayor''s clothes as a reminder that he was here. After finishing his meal, the young man turned his gaze toward Jelly Town before disappearing without a trace.
...
"Suzanne, are you okay?" Gn asked with concern as she noticed that Suzanne had suddenly frozen, her face pale.
"Nothing, I just thought I saw a spider." Suzanne shook her head to Gn''s concern.
She couldn''t tell her that she felt a cold and intense blood lust aimed directly at her neck before suddenly disappearing without a trace. From the mere intensity of that blood lust, the enemy that wanted her dead was far above her realm and possibly even practiced multiple body cultivation methods.
She couldn''t defeat this person even if she gave it her all, and even consuming those Blood Pills that Yoze had given her a few days ago wouldn''t help.
"If you want, I can call a doctor to check you. You might have a sickness that makes you hallucinate since spiders can''t enter the town hall." Gn said as she touched Suzanne''s forehead to see if she had a fever.
"Really, I''m fine. Let''s just deliver this bag of herbs to Schr Yoze and Schr Evi." Suzanne once again shook off Gn''s concern and continued to deliver what she needed to do.
The earlier she finished this delivery, the sooner she could return to staying beside Mr. Light''s side and protecting him. From the disappearing blood lust, she knew an assassin was nning on taking action soon.
"Evi, your punches are too focused on hitting with as much power as possible and not enough onnding on your opponent. If you can''tnd a hit, then the entire Spiral Twin Fists is useless."
As soon as Suzanne and Gn walked outside the town hall''s main doors, they were immediately hit by the cold air as winter approached. If it wasn''t for the fact that they needed to deliver these two bags of herbs and pastes to Yoze, they wouldn''t have bothered stepping outside at all.
Seeing that even in this cold weather, Yoze and Evi were still not wearing shirts surprised Gn as she didn''t understand their madness. As for Suzanne, she didn''t want to think of this as strange since it was quitemon for martial artists to train in cold environments as it helped condition their bodies.
Chapter 377 376: Training Is Hard
Chapter 377 Chapter 376: Training Is Hard
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh."
"What did I tell you about following the pattern and not letting your emotions control you?"
Even though winter was fast approaching, Yoze looked at the shirtless Evi, who was covered in a thickyer of his sweat. As the days passed since they arrived and provided Mr. Light with advice, they didn''t stop their training.
Instead, thanks to having a base and no longer needing to make time for travel, Yoze could focus more on training Evi to pull out his potential. With his help, Evi quickly reached the first level of Spiral Twin Fists and could throw 15 Spiral Koi Fists in a row.
At this level, if he faced Blood Stepper again andnded his hits, he would be able to crush Blood Stepper''s skull without a problem. Abo chain of 15 punches might not sound like a lot for someone like Yoze, but that was solely because he was a freak, and all his enemies would be capable of causing mass genocides.
In theory, Yoze''s regr Twin Fists no longer had a limit on howrge hisbo could be; however, he predicted that in most of his battles, he would at most get to one hundred before his opponent died or escaped.
"Evi, at your current strength, you are not even close to bing a third-rate martial artist, much less beating one. If you can''tnd a hit on me with five attacks, I will counterattack." Yoze said casually.
Evi, who was focused on punching, immediately felt a shiver run down his spine as he felt his heart pounding as if facing a predator in the wild. Knowing Yoze was serious, Evi stopped attacking and took a deep breath to regain hisposure.
Yoze had restricted his strength to just below a third-rate martial artist to help with Evi''s training. Yoze was still extremely difficult to hit for someone at Evi''s level.
Once he calmed his heart, Evi lowered his body until he was crouching before sprinting at Yoze as fast as he could. Once he got within arms reach, he threw out a heavy Spiral Bull Fist directly under Yoze''s chin.
"Whoosh"
The wind generated from his one-punch was heavy and showed how much power Evi had put into it. Unfortunately, Yoze easily escaped the punch by stepping back, just narrowly missing it by an inch.
Suddenly, just as Evi''s Spiral Bull Punch reached Yoze''s throat, Evi released his clenched fist and made a grabbing motion at Yoze''s throat. Startled by these swift changes, Yoze tried to sidestep to escape, but he found himself trapped as Evi used his flexible body to put himself in a position to attack in any direction.
With Evi''s most brutal and powerful attacks aimed directly at Yoze''s crotch. Knowing he was bound to get hit, Yoze gritted his teeth angrily before charging directly at Evi. If this was any other novice fighter, they wouldn''t have been able to quickly decide to continue their attack or retreat, allowing their opponents to once again regain control of the battle momentum.
However, Evi was prepared, as this was amon tactic that Yoze resorted to whenever he made a good move. At first, he would always lose because of it, but now he was prepared.
Evi''s pupils shrunk as he grabbed Yoze''s throat andnded a heavy Spiral Bear Fist into Yoze''s solid stomach. With a simple twist, Yoze found his body forced to move in a certain direction, which was supported by the hand on his throat.
If he didn''t follow the flow, his neck would snap, causing his death. He could only grit his teeth and end up in Evi''s control, which ended up in him getting punched 15 times and sent flying a few feet.
"Ha haaa, I won. How was that? Did I improve fromst time?" Evi asked as he felt his arms trembling from exhaustion.
"Not bad. Your battle sense was better than when I was at your level. That is, of course, I am training you. By the way, I ept cash, coins, and banknotes." Yoze said as he leisurely patted the dirt off his clothes.
While the battle seemed intense, in reality, if it wasn''t because he was trying his best to mimic the fighting style of a thug, Evi wouldn''t have won so easily. However, Yoze was more than happy to see that Evi was rapidly improving.
"Yeah, yeah, your free massage coupon is in the mail waiting for you. It''s good for one massage from yours truly." Evi said before noticing Gn and Suzanne standing across from them with two heavy stuffed bags.
"Are those the herbs and medicine pastes Yoze needs for his Blood Pills?" Evi asked.
"Yup, the young master heard that you two wanted to purchase more ingredients, so he arranged for some servants to get them from the other towns and viges. More should being in the following couple of days."
"By the way, Yoze, can I be part of your next experiment? After getting to experience it the first time, I think I can handle the effects now, especially after you taught me the Big Golem body cultivation method." Gn said with a cheerful tone in her voice.
"Hmmm, you''re still too skinny at the moment. Once you gain 100 pounds of muscle, I will let you join the next experiment." Yoze''s eyes scrolled up and down Gn''s body and noticed she hadn''t gained much weight in the past few days.
At most, she had gained a single pound of muscle, which was bad. Even though she wasn''t the most talented person in martial arts when it came to the Big Golem body cultivation method, which was graded 7, her talent gave her an additional 200 percent boost.
So, seeing how she was barely progressing even though she had such great talent could only be exined by her not eating enough food and not training. While he understood that she had a job, she would have made some time if she was serious about learning martial arts.
While he was looking for students to ept into the School of Eternal Knowledge, he wasn''t going to force anyone to join if they weren''t interested. As for letting her take another blood pill, it was unnecessary since he had collected all the data he needed for the first experiment.
"100 pounds¡that is impossible. Unless¡you are interested in that kind of thing." Gn muttered as she shyly looked at Evi, who was stunned speechless.
Chapter 378 377: A Broken Trust Is Replaced
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Yoze shook his head when he saw the look in Gn''s eyes. Even though she had the talent to be a great Big Golem martial artist, she was simply wasting it.
"Sigh, at the end of the day, what everyone has is just talent. Unless someone is willing to put in some effort, they will never be able to reach the top of their field." Yoze''s eyes shed as he warned himself never to follow in Gn''s footsteps.
His cheat allowed him to copy the talents of others with ease, giving him the chance to change his fate. From a poor farmer boy living in the middle of nowhere, he was able to climb his way to the top of the martial arts world.
Even the mighty cities he had looked up to now had to take him seriously. He had in immortals, ughtered demons, and even ckmailed a witch into giving him all their spells. He had reached a point that others would never dare reach, and he felt beyond grateful.
Yet, he knew he was still far from the top of this world''s food chain. There was still plenty he didn''t understand and countless beings he didn''t dare meet.
And even more creatures could reach his level if he stopped even for a moment.
"Blood Master Steel..."
"I can''t afford to get conceited and think I made it. I need to use my acquired talents to their maximum potential, even though most of my talents aren''t rted tobat. I should at least put some time into training them."
"Maybe they will be of some useter." Yoze quickly returned his distracted mind to reality and found that Suzanne was staring at him.
"Do I have something on my face?" Yoze asked with confusion in his tone.
"No, me and Gn will be leaving now. Thank you for your help." Suzanne hastily shook her head before grabbing the unwilling Gn and walking away.
"Bye..." Gn yelled to Evi.
"Strange girl, Yoze, are you interested in getting married soon?" Evi casually mentioned as he stretched his back, causing audible popping sounds toe from his spine.
"Nope. And you don''t have to worry about that either."
"You will not be getting married any time soon under my watch," Yoze said with a smile as if he was doing Evi a favor.
"Wait, what do you mean about that!?" Evi swallowed his saliva with fear and asked Yoze what he meant.
Unfortunately, it was time to restart training after that long rest, so Yoze immediately charged at him. Before Evi could continue asking questions, he saw Yoze''s body be blurry, rushing at him with nearly no time to react.
"Shit!"
...
While Yoze and Evi were sparring, Mr. Light waited in his bedroom in silence as he read the book of notes that he had discussed with Yoze and Evi through these past few days. Inside was extremely valuable advice that helped him manage the town and watch over its growth with ease.
"Knock knock"
Suddenly, he heard a knock on his door and instantly knew it was Suzanne, his lovely maid. Knowing that she was here because of his request, Mr. Light closed his dense book and stood up to open the door.
"Com-"
"Boom!"
Before he could finish his sentence, his wooden door exploded into hundreds of wooden shards scattered throughout his room. A cloud of wooden dust filled the room, blocking his attacker''s sight and providing him with a valuable opportunity to escape.
"Shit! Someone is trying to assassinate me! I need to hide until the guards arrive."
Without much thought, Mr. Light dropped his cane and fell to the ground to roll under his bed before the dust caused by the exploded door settled. Due to hisrge bed, he had plenty of room to slide further inside, but he didn''t dare.
If he was truly being assassinated, then the assassin would be a martial artist who specialized in killing quickly and silently. As professionals, they would immediately hear the sounds of his clothes rubbing against the ground, causing him to lose his bidding spot.
"Where is that bastard? He should be somewhere in this room."
"Talia, block the door to prevent any guards froming inside. Yaya, look through the closest while I look under the bed." A rough and stern familiar voice came from the door as Mr. Light heard three sets of footsteps entering his room.
Even though his life was in danger, Mr. Light felt his heart shiver as he was familiar with that rough but stern voice. Memories of a middle-aged man with gray hair wearing various professional suits filled Mr. Light''s head, causing his worldview to copse.
"Wilder... who would have known that even my Head Butler and his male servers are out to kill me!" Mr. Light gritted his teeth in anger before suddenly feeling helpless.
While he knew that he was in danger and shouldn''t trust anyone, he still held the faint hope that the Head Butler, who had cared for him for years, wasn''t out for his life.
"Am I such a fool? How could I have not known?" Mr. Light''s eyes began tearing up as he wished this was all a dream.
"Interesting. I wonder what got you three so impatient to kill your young master. You couldn''t have waited a few days or maybe until he was sleeping to slit his throat."
Suddenly, the world seemed to stop as a deep and maic voice appeared in the corner of the room. The moment Mr. Light heard this voice, his rapidly beating heart quickly slowed as he knew who that voice belonged to.
"Yoze finally came. I hope his title as a Super Schr isn''t for show." Mr. Light didn''t know why, but the fear and uncertainty in his heart quickly vanished like smoke as if he knew he would be saved.
"Wait a minute, did he just say they should have cut my throat while I was sleeping?" Mr. Light thought to himself.
"Sir Yoze, I- we didn''t see you there. Were you discussing something with the young master?"
"We had heard that there was an assassin nning on making a move on the young master and rushed to protect the young master and kill this assassin. If you don''t mind, I would appreciate it if you helped us look for this assassin." Wilder ignored Yoze''s questioning and made up an excuse on the spot, hoping that Yoze would be tricked.
"This sneaky, shameless, dirty son of-" Hearing Wilder''s weak excuse, Mr. Light felt his face burning from outrage.
He wanted to grab his ex-Head Butler''s legs and bite them on an impulse, but he held himself back as he knew that Yoze would get him the justice he deserved. He fully trusted him.
Chapter 379 378: We Are The Victims!
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"What a good joke. Also made me chuckle a little. Now tell me, how strong are the three of you, and who sent you." Yoze said with a stern face.
Looking at the three men standing before him, Yoze couldn''t help but be disappointed at the simple assassination n. To burst into Mr. Light''s room andmit the assassination before leaving without a trace.
While it was simple, it would have been effective if Yoze wasn''t here. The moment these three broke through the door, Yoze had heard it with his enhanced hearing and arrived inside the room within seconds.
If he didn''t purposely reveal himself, they would have never known who had killed them. Now that he thought about it, he could have killed them without even stepping inside the room. All he needed was to send his spiritual energy and eliminate all the spiritual energy that didn''t belong to Mr. Light.
"Ah, I was hoping this would be simr to a mysterious movie or game where I would need to look for clues on the attackers and their ns. Only then would I have been able to stop their n and save the world?"
"Hmmm, on second thought, that would only be the case if his enemies had somewhat equal power to me. Never mind, as long as they die today, I don''t think Mr. Light will care how they die."
"I might as well take advantage of this and try a few out a few things," Yoze muttered in his heart as he simply stared at the assassins without much pressure.
"Sir Yoze, I don''t know what you are talking about. We are just normal servants. How could we try to kill the young master." Wilder said with a grim face.
Yoze turned his attention to Mr. Light''s Head Butler, an old man approaching his 60s. If it wasn''t for the fact that he was working for a wealthy family, he would have died a long time from natural causes. His hair had turned gray, with his hairline fading rapidly.
If not for his handsome face, which always seemed to signal that he was always serious, his deep wrinkles would have given others the impression that he had seen history itself. The male servants behind him weren''t any better as they seemed to be Wilder''s most loyal male servants who had followed him for years.
"If you aren''t a martial artist, then the quality of these doors is quite poor. But from what I can tell you three traitors are at least third-rate martial artists ."
"Which is perfect training martial for Evi. Wait, stay here for a second while I go grab him." Yoze said, causing Wilder, Mr. Light, and his male servants to nearly choke.
"What the hell, aren''t we supposed to fight to the death? Why are you suddenly leaving? If you are that weak and scared, why did you show up in the first ce?"
Simr thoughts appeared in everyone''s minds, but before reacting, they suddenly saw Yoze''s body be a blur before disappearing.
"..."
One secondter...
"Thud... Where am I? Head Butler, why are you here?"
Just as Yoze promised, exactly one secondter, he reappeared with Evi in his hands. Witnessing the sheer speed that Yoze disyed, Wilder''s grim face finally broke as he felt his heart gripped with fear.
He knew that someone in the Martial Artist realm could not reach this speed, and only Blood Masters could move so fast that the eye could no longer track it!
The male servants behind Wilder''s face turned pale as they instantly knew they had made a mistake. They had only thought they needed to avoid one Blood Master, but who would have thought that a randomly hired schr would have also been a Blood Master!?
"Evi, as you can see, these three nned to kill our employer. So beat them up to teach them a lesson." Yoze exined as he patted Evi''s naked shoulders before pulling his hand away before it was sweaty.
"God damnit, I just wanted to get a break for once," Evi mumbled before his face suddenly turned pale.
He tried to cover his mouth with his hands, but before he could, it was already toote.
"h!"
Colorful vomit flew out of his mouth, causing it to ssh all over Wilder and his male servants. They were so stunned by what they just witnessed that they didn''t react until it was over.
"...I forgot to cover Evi in a protectiveyer before I rushed over here. Well, a lesson learned for another day: there were no victims anyway." Yoze said with a surprised tone.
"What about us? We are victims!" Wilder and his male servants screamed in anger and disgust.
...
"Who are you!?"
While Yoze and Evi were dealing with the traitors, a smiling young man blocked Suzanne in the halls. While the young man was handsome, she didn''t dare to take him not seriously, as the look in his eyes made her feel like he viewed her as food.
She felt as if she was being stared at by a top predator, blocking her only path to save her life. Before the young man could exin himself, Suzanne drew out her hidden two long daggers with one in each hand.
Her ordinary presence immediately changed as the intense scent of blood filled the empty hallway, causing her to look like an assassin who had killed hundreds of people. Yet the young man in front of her didn''t flinch as his smile remained as if he didn''t take her seriously.
"I am the one who is going to eat you alive. But before then, I will ask you a few questions about some giant schr named Yoze."
"If your answers are satisfied, I might allow you to keep a few of your bones to let your loved ones moan for your loss. That should be a fair enough deal. I am quite kind, don''t you think." The young man chuckled, but his warm voice did nothing to soothe Suzanne''s heart as she instantly released who her opponent was.
"Jilque of the Blood Sect and a student of Elder Chika. I didn''t think he would send his best student to still get revenge for a petite thing from decades ago." Suzanne''s eyes turned cold as she knew she wouldn''t survive today.
Chapter 380 379: Thousand Waterfall Technique
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Sweat slid down Suzanne''s forehead as her anxiety soared to the roof. Facing off against Jilque, who had reached the Peak Blood Master realm and someone who was known to have cultivated in two body cultivation methods, was nearly suicidal.
Not to mention, he was part of the Blood Sect, which was known for its evil methods ofmitting heinous acts as long as it benefited them. Any other martial artists would have dropped everything they had and tried to escape when facing off against a Blood Sect member.
Even if the Blood Sect member wasn''t strong, most martial artists would have no choice but to run away, or else they would draw the ire of the Blood Sect. And gaining the attention of the Blood Sect was never a good thing.
However, Suzanne had a duty to protect Mr. Light from any dangers that he might face and kill those who dared try to harm him. She was getting paid an enormous amount of gold to do. Of course, she could not forget that her pride was on the line.
She was someone who would never quit, even when there was an impossible challenge in front of her. It was her powerful will that allowed her to reach the Blood Master realm when her talent was only so-so.
Deep within her heart, she knew that if she turned her back now, it would be a shadow of guilt in her mind that would affect her martial arts skills. Her powerful willpower, she used to be as strong as she is, would shatter, and she would no longer be able to live with herself.
"What a terrible situation. I don''t leave, I die. If I do leave, I will most likely die. Hpmh, I might as well keep my pride and die with dignity!" Suzanne gritted her teeth as she didn''t bother to amuse Jilque.
A streak of red light shed across her eyes as blood poured from her pores, covering her entire body. Within less than a second, she became taller and thinner until she stood at around seven feet, and even the thickest part of her body was as thick as a human palm.
After transforming into what looked like a stick bug made of blood, the pressure around Suzanne quadrupled as she unleashed her full power. With such a powerful threat in front of her, she didn''t have the mind to care about the possible damage their fight would cause to the town hall, much less the Jelly Town.
"So you decided to give up your life so easily. Tsk, I would be lying if I said I was surprised." Julique clicked his tongue when he saw Suzanne''s transformation and showed a look of twisted joy.
"After spending my time investigating your background and capabilities, I have to say that out of all the Blood Masters for Hire I battled, you might be one of the strongest I faced. Which means that you will hopefully be able to entertain me for a few minutes before I eat you." Jilque calmly said as he licked his blood-red lips, staring at Suzanne with desire.
He didn''t even bother to activate his full power and watched Suzanne sprint at him at full speed. With her long, thin legs extremely thin, she quickly cut the distance between them in an instant.
If the Blood Master of a lower realm watched this battle, they would have seen Suzanne suddenly disappear before reappearing behind Jilque. Swinging her long, thin fingers directly at the neck with the n of decapitating him in one move.
Yet, as soon as her blood fingers were a centimeter away from cutting into Jilque''s pale skin, he suddenly made a move. His figure wobbled uncontrobly and randomly, making it seem he was falling in every direction."
"Thousand Waterfall...what a troublesome technique," Suzanne muttered to herself as she instantly recognized one of Jilque''s most famous or, more urately, infamous escape techniques.
After epting this job, she knew there was a chance she would have to face off against a member of the Blood Sect, so she did her due diligence to research their techniques and famous members. It was already starting to pay off as she knew the secret of Jilque''s Thousand Waterfall technique.
It was an escape technique that forced the user to wobble and toss their body in random directions with little thought to mimic water droplets inside a waterfall. While all water droplets had to fall to the ground, it was said to be impossible to predict the location or path of a water droplet once it began to fall from a waterfall.
There was simply too much chaos and unpredictability that made it impossible. This chaos and unpredictability was the main focus of this escape technique. The illusions of the user falling in thousands of different directions and ways made it impossible for their enemies to lock on to their correct escape method.
This was an escape method created by a Martial Grandmaster who waster killed by an ambush from the elders of the Blood Sect. As a martial art technique that has the potential to even be useful for Martial Grandmasters, its effectiveness in battle was clear to see.
Suzanne instantly knew that even with her level of experience, she could not crack the secrets of this martial art technique and could only rely on the uracy of her information on Jilque''s habits to predict what he would do.
"While Jilque seems to be a madman, in reality, he is very cautious. Just the fact that he bothered tounch an investigation on me when he is so clearly stronger proves this fact."
"Paired with the fact that he has yet to reach the full limits of the Thousand Waterfall escape technique and can only create the illusion that he is falling in 16 directions. There is a much higher chance that I can sh at his real body."
"Anyone cautious would not take their chances with luck, and Jilque should be the same. So there is no way he is any of these illusions and has already escaped!" Suzanne''s mind raced as she gave up attacking any of the illusions in front of her and instead twisted her body like she had no bones to sh behind her.
"nk!"
The sound of metal shing against metal spread across the town hall, as Jilque suddenly appeared with a thick smile as he blocked Suzanne''s attack with his dagger. His ck eyes glowed with excitement as he opened his mouth to praise her but was interrupted by Suzanne''s next attack.
Chapter 381 380: You’re Too Unlucky
Chapter 381 Chapter 380: You''re Too Unlucky
Ding!
"Pressure...I need to keep up the pressure!"
That was the only thought in Suzanne''s mind as sheunched attack after attack at Jilque. Her movements were like a ghost, disappearing and reappearing without a sound.
The only thing that gave a clue of her existence was a thickening bloody smell that slowly eroded the walls and floors of the town hall. Yet, even a terrifying existence like her was struggling tond a single hit on Jilque, who had even released his blood.
Regardless of how much Jilque confronted Suzanne''s lethal strikes, the smile on his face never faded as he simply blocked her strikes with his bloody dagger. Suddenly, Suzanne''s body became transparent as her body released ten blood-red shadows that attacked Jilque from every direction.
Using theck of space that the hall provided for their battle, Suzanne used her famous Ghouls Death Song technique. She split herself into ten other blood clones that she could use to attack her enemies and break through their weak points.
Taken by surprise, she had killed numerous of her enemies, and even those who were prepared suffered severe injuries that required months to heal. She had saved this technique just for this moment so that she couldunch an ambush and attempt to stab Jilque in his heart.
"You finally used your famous Ghoul Death Song technique. Took you long enough," Jilque said as his cheerful smile grew wider until it seemed to split his face.
"Oh no!"
Underneath Suzanne''s blood, her face swiftly changed as she noticed a thick blood mist surrounding Jilque''s body. Before she could cancel her move and reabsorb her blood clones, the blood mist reached her clones just as she was about to move.
Swiftly, Jilque''s blood mist ripped her blood clones to shreds. The intense pain that came from her being forcefully broken all at the same time was extreme.
Before Suzanne could celebrate her mental victory of enduring the pain, she suddenly felt her muscles losing strength.
"Shit, he is consuming my blood! I need to stop him!" Suzanne quickly took action and stabbed her ten long bloody fingers at Jilque''s skull.
"Ten seconds. Yousted ten seconds." Jilque slowly muttered as he easily faded through Suzanne''s fingers and closed the distance between them.
Without much effort, he punched Suzanne''s stomach and easily broke her defenses. Sending her flying and crashing through the numerous walls of the town halls.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Sigh, am I really going to die here? I hope Yoze and Evi were able to save Mr. Light and ran away." Suzanne thought to herself as she ignored the intense paining from her stomach.
Even without looking, she knew a hole in her blood armor and clothes showed a blood-red fist print on her stomach. If it wasn''t for her blood armor, her stomach would have had a hole going straight through it.
"I would say that I was disappointed with your performance today, but I would be lying if I didn''t predict it! Hahaha!" Jilque''s heartyugh echoed throughout the town hall as he slowly walked to Suzanne.
"Thud...Thud...Thud..." The sound of each of his ck leather boots hitting the wooden floor was like a hammer mming into Suzanne''s heart.
She knew that she would die today, but she felt her anger increasing just as quickly as her fear of death. As she helplessly watched Jilque get closer to her before standing over her like a death god, she withdrew her blood into her own body, showing the thin smile on her face.
"What are you smiling about?" Jilque''s never-fading smile froze as he felt an increasingly bad feeling in his chest.
"Nothing unless you would like to hear how you''re going to die in five months," Suzanne said with a satisfied smile.
Even though she knew she would die, she felt much better when she thought about how the person who would kill her would also die because of her. While she couldn''t get the revenge she wanted or see his dead body in front of her, the thought of seeing her killer''s soul being dragged down to hell with her made the thought of dying feel not so bad.
"Oh, is it the poison that you injected into your blood? The one you only have the antidote for, and anyone else will simply die if they devoured your blood."
Suzanne''s face immediately went pale. She didn''t know how he could have known about the poison she injected into her body nearly three months ago. She had poisoned herself even before she had epted the mission to protect Mr. Light from his enemies.
"H-how could you know about-" Suzanne stuttered as she truly began to fear the young man in front of her.
"A simple matter thates from underestimating your enemies and overvaluing yourself. To be dedicated to using the Leopard Spot Poison on yourself means that you were confident that one says your enemies would consume your own blood."
"That could mean that you were truly dedicated to this one mission of yours. Preparing yourself to die from one of the hands of a Blood Sect member. In particr, one of Elder Chika''s students." Jilque exined slowly with pleasure as he watched Suzanne''s face bing increasingly pale.
"If I am not mistaken, you were hoping that a young woman known as Willow the Bloody Beauty would take my ce instead. While I don''t know what kind of grudge you and my little sister have, I do know that you are unlucky."
"Not only because your target didn''t arrive but also because the poison you prepared ispletely useless!" Jilque immediately spat out a ck ball of poison that began to quickly eat the wooden floor.
After seeing the poison she had prepared for at the cost of her own life being so easily dealt with, Suzanne closed her eyes with pain. The paining from her stomach was nothing like the paining from her soul.
"Hahaha, Willow, I guess I lost to you once again, and this time I have lost big time."
"Even though I didn''t drag you to hell, time will do me the favor instead. Even if I have to wait decades, I will personally stay in hell for as long as it takes to see you suffer!" Suzanne coldly chuckled before turning her focus back to Jilque, who stabbed her heart.
Chapter 382 381: Gilans Hidden Strength
?
Facing Jilque''s attack, Suzanne felt the piercing sting from his intense kill intent and simply closed her eyes in helplessness. Yet, while she knew she couldn''t survive or kill Jilque, her strong will prevented her from falling intoplete despair.
"If I can''t win, I will ensure my death makes you suffer! Even my death is just an annoyance!"
Suzanne''s eyes split open as she quickly poured blood into her heart. Transforming herself into a living bomb that could severely damage Blood Masters.
However, doing so meant giving up the chance tounch a counterattack, as the rest of her body wouldck enough energy to move. Blood was considered the life essence of all creatures for a reason.
She would slowly die without blood pumping throughout her body to provide her organs, muscles, and flesh with fresh oxygen, nutrition, and energy. It was a simr sensation of dying from blood loss but even more extreme as the exhaustion and pain of losing all your blood simultaneously was enough to kill someone.
If it wasn''t for the fact she was a Blood Master and had a powerful body, she would have died long before she sent all of her blood into her heart. Pumping all of her blood into her heart was equivalent to gathering all the energy in her body into a tiny point before allowing it to explode.
Even if she never sets off the bomb in her heart, her body would slowly die from ack of oxygen and nutrition.
"Stop! Pick on someone your own size!"
Hearing an intruder''s voice on his kill, Jilque stopped his dagger a few centimeters away from Suzanne''s chest and lifted his gaze to see who had the guts to stop him. However, Suzanne felt her heart clench when she heard the voice as she instantly knew who it was.
"Who are you?" Jilque said with a distinct frown, as he had no idea who this person was.
Standing before him with the light singing behind her back, Gn took a wide stance with her arms crossed as she confronted the Jilque. She froze when she saw the bloody dagger in Jilque''s hand before taking a deep breath to regain herposure.
"You need to leave Suzanne alone! How about you pick on a real martial artist!?" Gn screamed.
"A real martial artist?" Jilque''s eyes twitched when he heard Gn''s statement, as even he didn''t have the gall to call a Blood Master a fake.
Suzanne, who heard Gn, felt her heart almost explode from embarrassment. She barely kept herposure when Gn told Jilque to pick on someone his own size, but when told she was a fake, Suzanne wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
"Wait, why would Gn call me a fake? Doesn''t she know that I''m a Blood Master and that Jilque is not someone she can beat? Unless..." Suzanne''s eyes shot open as she realized Gn didn''t know she was a Blood Master.
It wasn''t Gn''s fault, as she didn''t know that the maid who stood beside her daily was one of the most powerful fighters in the world. Even when they both took Yoze''s blood pill, Gn was too busy trying to survive to pay any attention to Suzanne''s situation.
She didn''t see Suzanne identally release her blood mist, and even if she did, with herck of knowledge in the martial arts world, she didn''t know what it represented. So when she saw how Jilque was standing over Suzanne''s body and about to kill her, she couldn''t stand still.
"No, I have to tell her that she needs to run. I have to stall Jilque as long as possible so she can escape!"
"I need to remove my blood from my heart as fast as possible!" Suzanne gritted her teeth in pain as she quickly attempted to shift her blood back into her body as fast as possible while ignoring the damage it was doing to her heart.
Who would have known that as soon as shemitted to ending her life with a bang, she would have to abort a secondter? Unfortunately, while Suzanne wanted to ignore the damage,pared to trying to fill her heart with blood, it was far moreplex and time-consuming to do the opposite without identally killing herself.
"Interesting. Since you think you can do better than her, I''ll entertain you," Julie said before running toward Gn leisurely.
Even still, the speed that Jilque considered leisurely was too much for Gn as she could barely track his shadow, and that was only because he was going in a straight line.
"I''m so dead." Gn''s face turned pale as she knew she had challenged the wrong opponent this time.
With a speed that she could barelyprehend, Jilque reached her. Not having any fighting experience, her instincts took over, and she threw a punch while closing her eyes.
She dared not face the man who was about to turn her body into Swiss cheese.
"What a disappointment, just die."
Seeing how weak Gn was from her punch, Jilque felt all the excitement and blood lust he had all disappeared. He didn''t even try to dodge her weak punch and stabbed her head.
"Boom!"
Yet, when Gn''s tiny fist touched his chest, Jilque felt his chest cave in as a powerful force broke his natural defenses and rib cage. Jilque''s instincts quickly kicked in as his body jumped back to dissipate the remaining force.
"Did Gn just push Jilque back?" Suzanne muttered in shock but pulled herself back to reality when she noticed the giant figure behind Gn.
"Am I that strong?" Gn looked at her fist and wondered if all the cakes she had been eating were finally beginning to pay off.
"Don''t get your hopes up. You are still two thousand pounds too light before you can push someone as strong as this young man back," Before Gn could continue with her thought process, she suddenly heard Yoze''s deep voice ring from behind her.
"Cough, Sir Yoze, you came! Did you save the young master?" Trying to cover up her embarrassment, Gn lightly coated before switching the topic.
"He''s fine. Evi is dealing with the three assassins, so he should be done in an hour or two."
"Anyways, the most important thing is saving Suzanne. From the looks of it, she is poisoned and dealing with internal damage to her organs." Yoze calmly said as he nced at Suzanne, who had managed to withdraw her blood from her heart.
Chapter 383 382: I Need To Save Gilan!
Chapter 383 Chapter 382: I Need To Save Gn!
"Yoze..." Suzanne''s eyes flickered before continuing.
"Are you confident that you can beat him?"
"Who is he? He seems to be quite strong." Yoze asked.
Suzanne sighed as she could feel the piercing gazes around her. Knowing she didn''t have the strength to fight, she could only exin what she knew about Jilque to help increase Yoze''s chances of victory.
"Jilque is a student of the Blood Sect. While the Blood Sect might not be in the top ten strongest martial art sects in the world, it is definitely in the top 100."
"They are one of the few sects considered evil by both cities and other martial arts sects due to the way they train themselves and their methodology. Everything they do warrants every student, elder, and leader of this sect to be executed, but they are simply too strong." Suzanne shivered as the countless evil things that the Blood Sect had done in the past, and current shed through her head still, she didn''t hesitate to spill it all to Yoze.
When Yoze heard everything, he licked his lips in excitement. Everything Suzanne mentioned was what he had heard from Jewel but in far greater detail. From Suzanne''s view, or, more urately, the view of most martial artists who haven''t joined a martial arts sect, they divided martial arts sects into two distinct factions.
The first was the Righteous Faction. They followed a strict creed of maintainingw and order within their members. This includes making sure that their members don''t vitemon morals that are eptable by most of society.
While this doesn''t prevent members of these martial arts sects frommitting heinous acts and crimes against themon people, it does prevent it from happening in mass and ordinary people from hearing about it.
The other faction was obviously called the Evil Faction. This group of martial arts sects doesn''t care about maintaining a semnce ofw and order within their members. The onlyw that these sects follow is thew of the jungle.
The person with the strongest fists makes the rules.
As one can expect, when these sects encourage their members to breakws and destroy order to be strong as fast as possible, themon person is the one who suffers the most. There is frequent news that members of these sects kidnap, kill, steal, and other heinous, unspeakable acts directed toward the ordinary people in their territory of control.
All in all, everyone in the Evil Faction deserves to be burned in hell for all eternity!
Out of the Evil Faction, one of the strongest and most known is the Blood Sect, which has subsidiary sects in numerous regions. This far reach allows their evil deeds to spread far and wide and, at the same time, prevent others from destroying them all.
Simrly to how the Blood Sect is like a cockroach that always seems toe back, each student is the same due to their specialty body cultivation method, Blood Donor.
Don''t be fooled by the name; this body cultivation method''s main effect is to allow the user to absorb blood from others, heal themselves, and strengthen themselves. This body cultivation method also has a Blood Master realm and Martial Grandmaster realm version, allowing users to be even more eager to suck on others like parasites.
As a student of an Elder, Jilque definitely practiced the Blood Master version of the Blood Donor body cultivation method. From Suzanne''s research, he also practiced two other body cultivation methods.
One of them is well known, whiches from his teacher, The Death Ice body cultivation method. It allows the user to generate extremely cold temperatures. On the Blood Master level, this body cultivation method is capable of freezingrge swaths of ake and instantly turning people into popsicles.
Jilque had once used his blood mist to cover an entire town, freezing everything to death. Whether it is men or women, old or young, they are instantly killed by the extreme cold, with Jilque not having a single ounce of remorse.
Jilque''s third body cultivation method was less known. Only after Suzanne did deep research and examined countless articles about his history did she predict that he had some type of body cultivation method that increased his regeneration capabilities. As for the name of this body cultivation method or its exact effects, she didn''t know since she suspected Jilque purposely tried to prevent too much information about this body cultivation method from leaking to his enemies.
"So we need to eliminate Jilque today, or he will be a nightmare that never dies. I''ll help you defeat him!" Suzanne gritted her teeth as she endured the pain from her tired body.
She walked to Yoze before suddenly feeling woozy and stuttered. Just as she was about to regain her bnce, she saw Yoze''s hand reaching out to catch her fall.
"I''m f-fine, don''t help-" Before Suzanne could finish her sentence, she noticed that Yoze''s hand had already reached his smooth chin as he looked deep in thought.
Clearly, Yoze wasn''t attempting to help her, which, for some reason, made Suzanne''s lips twitch. After regaining her bnce, she walked behind Yoze. She stood next to Gn, who was anxiously looking in the direction of Mr. Light''s room.
Seeing that Gn was worried about the safety of her young master, Suzanne ced her arm on Gn''s shoulder to support her friend in a time of crisis.
"Don''t worry sure that he is alright with Evi-"
"Do you think Evi is getting hurt by those assassins? I hope he is safe and beating up those criminals." Gn interrupted Suzanne as she said with deep worry in her eyes.
"I''m sure Evi is doing fine. He is thepanion of Yoze, who is so strong, so he must also be strong." Suzanne eventually replied after her shock.
"Ah yes, you''re right. We need to believe in Evi! He is definitely going to beat up those criminals and look for me to celebrate, maybe even marry me since we have gone through this disaster together."
"Isn''t there a saying that bad times bring people together? Maybe if I work hard, I can get a ce in Evi''s heart," Gn said with a smile as she went into her delusions.
Seeing the look of love and desire in Gn''s eyes, Suzanne felt as if the world she knew was crumbling around her. First, she was nearly killed, and her teammate didn''t even bother to help her when she stumbled. And now her friend seems to care more about a random person she met a few days ago than her young master.
"Maybe those strange pills did more brain damage to Gn than I thought?" Suzanne muttered as she looked at Gn like a mental patient.
Chapter 384 383: Quick Drink This
Chapter 384 Chapter 383: Quick Drink This
Thump thump thump
The guards'' footsteps rushing toward them cause Gn to sigh with relief as she feels much safer. As an ordinary person, I thought guards and soldiers who belonged to towns and cities were reliable and engraved into her bones.
Even though she was hired to serve a private organization as a servant, she still felt that criminals would immediately run away as long as guards came to a crime scene. Unfortunately, Suzanne didn''t have the same level of confidence. Instead, she felt they were liabilities that would get them killed.
An ordinary Blood Master could ughter viges and everyone in the Martial Artist realm. Only monsters like Yoze and those talented martial artists from top sects could cross realms.
"Those fools will only be fuel to supply Jilque with healing material and strengthen him. We need to move the battlefield outside of town." Suzanne said with a worried look on her face.
Meanwhile, Yoze found himself in deep thought as he couldn''t help but be attracted to obtaining Jilque''s regeneration body cultivation method. He had longed for this body cultivation method for a long time but had not even discovered a hint of it.
After raiding two martial arts sects of all their possessions, he found numerous martial arts techniques and body cultivation methods, but healing-type methods were simply too rare.
Who wouldn''t want to be capable of healing from deathly wounds in seconds and surviving dangers that easily killed others much stronger than them? Yoze certainly wanted it, and he even had a few talents that might allow him to quickly increase his healing factor abilities.
All he needed was a guide. A body cultivation method or technique, and now he found it.
"I need to obtain that body cultivation method no matter what! If I am going to continue fighting against immortals, demons, witches, and abnormalities, my current natural regeneration capabilities are simply too insufficient." Yoze''s eyes glittered as he stared at Jilque like a treasure.
Noticing the look in Yoze''s eyes, Jilque shivered as he knew that he couldn''t allow himself to fall under Yoze''s control of his life. While others would be terrified by Yoze''s stature and power, Jilque instead felt excited.
Even his broken ribs couldn''t stop the twisted smile on his face from rapidly growing on his face. As if he couldn''t feel any pain, Jilque heavily mmed his palm on his chest, causing a terrifying crunching sound.
"A few broken ribs, some of which prated my lungs and stomach. Not bad for a first strike. The rumors of you being a strong Blood Master are not false."
"I might even be able to use my full power for a bit," Jilqie said calmly as he licked his red lips.
Seeing how calm Jilque was about his injuries, Yoze''s, Gn''s, and Suzanne''s eyes twitched. They couldn''t help but think that a good chunk of the damage caused was from Jilque''s reckless actions.
"From the power of that one punch alone, he must practice a body cultivation method that focuses on increasing the power of his attacks with the heaviness of weight. It could be the Elephant God body cultivation method, Iron Mountain, or the Corrupt God body cultivation method. Each is quite powerful and is capable of supporting someone in the Martial Grandmaster realm."
"A Blood Master whose weight can be measured in tons is not someone I can easily handle at close range. I should maintain a safe distance and freeze him to death before sucking his blood." Jilque calmly muttered, not caring if the others heard his strategy.
With a trickle of blood following from the corners of his mouth, Jilque took a deep breath before letting out a long line of white mist. The sound of his bones quickly snapping back together and Jilque''s slightly pale face regaining its color was evident that he had activated his body cultivation method.
Within less than a second, his dented chest popped back to normal like rubber,pleting his healing.
"That''s better. I''ll give you a little hint. I have a regeneration-type body cultivation method, but I''ll spare you the details out of respect for the dead. Hahaha!" Jilque''s eyes sh a bloody light as an intense smell of blood covers his body.
Suddenly, Jilque''s body disappeared as the sound of screaming ghosts filled the hallway. This sound attack instantly caused Gn to cover her ears with her hands to block out the nauseating and terrifying screams.
"Kaah! Kaah!"
While Gn was suffering, Suzanne frowned as the intense screams caused her to feel pain in her ear drums. If it wasn''t for her Blood Master realm body, she wouldn''t have been able to handle it either.
"Frightful Ghosts Step, damn, he didn''t even bother to use this against me. By following a certain pattern, each of his steps will create a harsh gust of wind that will sound like screams, capable of inducing headaches, nausea, and even nose bleeds." Suzanne exined quickly to Yoze as she activated her blood armor to block out the screams.
Seeing that her effort was effective, Suzanne breathed a sigh of relief before grabbing Gn''s hand, covering her in a blood cocoon. As soon as the blood covered Gn''s head, she suddenly found that the dreadful screams became muffled before quickly disappearing. Confused about what was happening, Gn opened her closed eyes to find herself surrounded by red with a calm Suzanne.
Before Gn could ask her what was happening and why they were surrounded by blood, Suzanne took the initiative and pointed to her back.
"Gn, climb on my back. Things are about to get bumpy."
While she didn''t understand what was happening, Gn was smart enough to know that things were far beyond what she imagined and chose to follow her friend''s request. Luckily, when she climbed on, Suzanne didn''t even frown as she easily lifted Gn like she was made out of paper.
"Suzanne, I am going to need your help. I don''t think I can defeat Jilque alone, so I will need your help." Seeing that Suzanne had chosen to protect Gn, Yoze nodded before making his face grave as if he were making a tough decision.
After briefly pausing, Yoze reached into his suit and pulled out a small clear jar filled to the brim with dark blood. The small jar''s mouth was strangely wide, nearly half the size of the jar itself. Noticing the strange jar Yoze pulled out, Suzanne squinted as she saw arge round object floating within the blood.
"Suzanne, pardon my words, but right now, you are more of a liability than help, especially now that you must also protect Gn. So you''ll need a boost in strength to help us defeat this monster." Yoze tried to exin further, but the ghosts'' screams rapidly increased as they both felt a gust of wind heading straight for them.
"There is no time! Drink this!" Yoze screamed as he quickly activated his blood armor and tossed the blood jar to Suzanne.
"This pill! Did you make another in secret? Forget it. How many do you have?"
As soon as Suzanne caught the jar, she instantly realized it was the strange blood pill. At the same time, she wanted to know when Yoze had created another one. She ignored her doubts and drank the entire jar along with the pill. Almost immediately, she felt a deep powere from her stomach. She felt as if she had taken ten shots of adrenaline.
Chapter 385 384: Returning From Death
Chapter 385 Chapter 384: Returning From Death
"Kaah!" A scream akin to scratching metal against metal rang through the hallway as a fierce wind blew toward Yoze and Suzanne. Without hesitation, they both used a movement technique they were familiar with to narrowly dodge this fierce wind.
"Whoosh!"
Immediately, the gust of wind heavily mmed into the wooden wall where Yoze had previously stood, exposing a young male servant who was quivering in fear. The young male servant''s uniform was ruined as his dark blue uniform, freshly ironed this morning, was soaked in blood and wood dust. It was unknown whether it was his own blood or the blood in the air quickly forming into a blood fog.
Even though the blood had yet to sink deeply into the fabric, the young man had already decided to throw it away. He didn''t want to be reminded of the absolute terror he was feeling.
Witnessing the wall that previously seemed sturdy easily copse from the intense battle, the young man''s pupils shrunk to the size of a dot as his instincts screamed of his impending death.
"Please have mercy!" The young man screamed out of fear even though he had no idea what he feared.
"Hehehe, no!"
In a simr manner to a ghost, Jilque suddenly appeared behind the young man with a twisted smile. His pearly white teeth glistened in the few lines of sunlight that passed through the dust. Pairing it with the visible chilling blood mist surrounding his body, Jilque truly felt he suited the role of a vengeful crazy ghost.
Jilque narrowed his ruby eyes, reflecting the young male servant''s tiny body like a bug. With the young servant''s life in his hands, Jilque pped the frightened young man''s face several times, causing a red face imprint to appear. Seeing the pained look on the young man''s face, Jilque nodded with notification as he could see that, but the young servant''s fear of death stopped him from acting out or trying to escape.
Like a deer staring at an approaching car, the young man could only wait for his death.
Finally, after pping the young man for the third time, Jilque clenched his fist, causing his blue veins to pop out like blue snakes. With a rxed face, his punch surpassed the speed of sound and instantly reached the young servant''s head.
"Boom!"
"I''m going to die." The young servant thought to himself as he felt his consciousness fall into darkness.
"Where am I? Did I travel back in time?" The young man said with surprise.
Looking around him, he found that he was no longer standing in the destroyed bathroom, covered in blood and dust, while a ghost was smiling cruelly at him. Instead, he was standing outside in the middle of a field of golden corn that was leisurely swaying in the warm wind.
The warm rays of light touched his skin and clean clothes, erasing any fear and anxiety in his heart and recing it with happiness. Suddenly, the young man felt a light tap on his shoulder, startling him.
"Why are you looking at the corn like that?" A deep voice asked with confusion.
Hearing theforting, deep voice, the young man felt his heart shake as he knew it belonged to his older brother, who had passed away many years ago.
"So I died." The young man with a peaceful smile.
"Hey, are you alright? I just saved you, so run away before you die again." Suzanne asked as she shook the young male servant''s body to wake him.
Just as the young man was dragged out of his peaceful afterlife, he looked around, confused, before realizing he hadn''t died. But after seeing who looked saved him, he almost wished that he did.
Standing in front of him were tworge human monsters that werepletely covered in blood. The intense scent of blood entered his nose and caused his nose hairs to curl.
"You''re not killing anyone on my watch." Yoze coldly said as heunched a terrifying Bear Fist.
"Boom!"
Jilque''s pupils dted as he could sense the intense forceing from Yoze''s fist. He immediately tossed away the thought of trying to face it head-on. He might have been crazy, but he wasn''t stupid.
When it came to overwhelming power, he couldn''t keep up with Yoze, especially when Blood Armor was involved. Without even feeling it, Jilque could sense the terrifying power of weighting from Yoze''s blood mist, making it difficult for him to escape easily.
Just as Jilque was about to escape, Suzanne moved and transformed her arms into long blood spikes that sparkled like metal. She created weapons that could cut through metal like butter using her distinct inner vigor with sharpness properties.
Even though she wasn''t able to find apatible Blood Master body cultivation method to suit her original body cultivation method, the amount of sharp inner vigor that she had when she was a First Rate martial artist remained.
Not wanting to let this opportunity go to waste, Suzanne used a sword technique toplement her attack.
Suzanne''s blood spikes instantly turned into a red blur as they threatened to tear Jilque''s face apart. Yet, even in such a dangerous situation, Jilqur remained calm.
Jilque hastily took a deep breath, puffing out his chest nearly three times before blowing out a gust of white cold air. As soon as the white air touched Suzanne''s blood, the faint sound of them freezing, followed by a thinyer of expanding white frost, caused her to temporarily give up her attack.
Allowing Yoze''s Death Finger to sneakily appear next to Jilque''s chest. As if he didn''t notice Yoze''s strike, Jilque''s face turned pale as he felt the uncontroble power of the Death Finger attacks his heart. Just as Suzanne''s eyes sparkled with joy at the thought of them winning, Jilque suddenly sneered as he exploded into a cloud of cold blood.
"Congrattions, you managed to kill my blood clone. With a little bit more luck, you might even be able to scratch me." Jilque said mockingly as he walked out of the shadows while pping his hands.
Not interested in chatting with a maniac, Suzanne and Yoze shook their heads beforeunching another surge of attacks.
Chapter 386 385: The Test Dummy
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Seeing the confident sneer on Jilque''s face, Yoze subtly smiled under his blood armor.
"Jilque is much stronger than I initially thought, so I can hold back slightly less."
Yoze''s eyes sparkled as he felt his heart pumping. His dark blood rapidly circted and poured out through his pores. After testing Jilque''s fighting ability, he determined he was the second strongest Blood Master he had ever faced. Only second to Geo, who had modified his body to extreme levels.
"If I exclude Geo since he mainly used his immortal cultivation to increase his strength to such an absurd level, then Jilque is by far the strongest. I might be wrong, but he might even be able to hold his own against a Martial Grandmaster like Silver Thunder."
As Yoze thought about Martial Grandmaster Silver Thunder, his mind began to think back to when he first battled this legendary fighter. At the time, he was much weaker and only reached his peak as a first-rate martial artist.
He would have been crushed if he hadn''t gotten his body strengthened by his demon spiritual body cultivation and broken through the limits of Mindless Legs. Even with his advantages, he couldn''t even fight back against this legend due to their massive gap in martial arts skills.
Unfortunately, such a strong martial artist can be easily suppressed and killed using spiritual energy. This type of energy was simply too overpowering against people who couldn''t control their spiritual energy. It''s a one-hit KO!
"If I didn''t have those advantages, I would have died before I knew what killed me."
Yoze lightly shook his head with pity, but he didn''t stop attacking Jilque as he slowly increased the amount of strength to be slightly weaker than him. He wanted an intense battle where he could push his martial arts skills to the limit.
As the foundation of his power, he didn''t want his martial arts skills to rot or stagnate. At the same time, his body cultivation and spiritual energy be his only fighting method. This was especially important now that he knew there was a path to bring the martial arts path to the same level as the immortal cultivation and spiritual energy power systems.
To reach this level of power, he needed to be an expert in martial arts; no, he needed to be the absolute best martial artist! How can a martial artist lose against another in terms of martial arts skills!? Especially someone who nned on forging the future path of martial arts!
"If I want to be able to fight against those old monsters who lived for thousands of years, then I have to use all my advantages. Thanks to the Second Best System, I can use all four power systems of this world."
"But that doesn''t mean that I''m the best at them. So far, I have developed my martial arts skills, spiritual energy, immortal cultivation, and witchcraft to some extent."
"I''m a jack of all trades but a master of none. Compared to any expert in these fields, I''m still a noob. I might have extremely good talent, but it takes time and opportunities for me to develop. Since a good training dummy fell on my doorstep, why not use it?"
As Yoze''s mind thought about his future, his body didn''t stop for a moment and continued to battle Jilqie. With three Blood Masters shing, a thick blood fog had overtaken the entire town hall that was barely standing.
Yoze and Suzanne pushed Jilque further and further away from Mr. Light and the approaching guards in a short period. If one looked behind their path, they would only find destruction as the walls that remained sturdy for decades had multiple giant holes going through them.
The floors and ceiling were no better than the smooth wooden floor littered with holes of various sizes. Some were extremelyrge as they had endured an explosion, and some were tiny like someone had used a needle to poke through the floor.
Regardless of its state, the moment Jilque, Suzanne, and Yoze stepped on the ground, regardless of their weight and movement techniques, the floor below them would copse at the slightest touch. Without their constant awareness of their surroundings, they could lose their bnce at any point and allow their enemies a golden opportunity to kill them.
Even the ceiling above their head was in the best state as the countless holes allowed the beautiful rays of light inside the town hall, making it seem that it was an open-air design.
While they battle at the edge of the town hall, Yoze suddenly sees a gap within Jilque''s defenses and immediately seizes this chance. Using his flexible body, he slivered past the dozens of punches, kicks, and even headbutts that Jilque threw before mming his shoulder into Jilque''s chest.
"Boom!"
Jilque''s face turned snow-white as the immense power from Yoze''s Shoulder Rush crushed his ribs into fine powder. Almost immediately, Jilque''s body was spent flying before immediately breaking through the wooden wall, causing its copse.
Unfortunately, even that wasn''t enough, as Jilque''s body helplessly crashed into another store more than thirty feet away before he could stop himself. The damage from that one attack was enough to kill any Blood Master who didn''t have their blood armor on, and yet, other than a ghostly pale face, sunken chest, and damaged organs, Jilque showed no sign of being on death row.
The sickening smile on his face never left his face as if he enjoyed the pain that Yoze had just given him.
"You''re strong. Maybe even stronger than the rumors said you are. To be able to fight against me to this extent is admirable."
"I hope that you pat yourself on the back... Jozo? It''s been quite fun, but the girl fighting alongside you is getting boring. Get rid of her, please." Jilque said as he lightly twisted his body as if he wanted to stretch his muscles.
Hearing that Jilque wanted to fight him one-on-one, Yoze ignored his request. He had only one reason why he allowed Jilqie to live this long. It''s to further perfect his martial arts.
Only by giving Jilque just enough pressure would he use everything he had in his arsenal to fight against him and feelfortable enough to think he can escape whenever he wants. So far, his strategy has been working like a charm.
"He really is like the perfect test dummy." Yoze thought to himself as he felt his admiration for Jilque as a martial artist soar.
It had only been a few minutes since the start of their battle, and Jilque had already used more than one hundred different martial arts techniques. From his strange escape techniques, movement techniques, attacks, and even defense techniques, he seemed to have a never-ending supply of ways to fight!
"All being equal, Jilque is simply the better fighter among us."
Yoze smiled under his blood armor as he didn''t feel upset at this realization and instead felt excited. He knew that hisrge martial arts talent would be the most useful only when the ceiling was high enough.
Chapter 387 386: Coldest Blood Master!
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With a wicked smile, Jilque sighed in his heart as he felt a terrible headache when facing Yoze and Suzanne. While it looked like he was having an easy time fighting these two Blood Masters, he wanted to tear his hair out.
"What a freak! Whenever I use more power, he does the same." Jilque stared at Yoze with hatred but didn''t change his face.
As he learned from his teacher, when you can''t control your emotions, then your enemies take control of you. Only when he takes total control of his emotions will he be able to kill even the fiercest demons!
The countless scars on his teacher''s body didn''te from his battles with demons but from his endless attempts to take control of his pain and emotions. Each one of those scars allowed his teacher to surpass countless others and reach the peak of all mortals. If he wanted to break through to be a Martial Grandmaster and stand above countless other beings, then he needed to be unbeatable!
To be unbeatable required his heart, body, and soul to be the hardest material in the world. A material that can''t be fazed by anything and knows no fear! A crazy person who has no concept of death and fear makes others feel fear in their steed. Fear that creates mistakes and mistakes that bring nothing but death!
"A tough egg to crack tastes more divine when broken! A schr who is trying to be a martial artist, it''s impressive really to have this far, but..." Jilque licked his lips as he stared at Yoze with an almost crazy level of desire.
"I wonder if that knowledge crammed into your tiny head will be transferred to me if I devour your very essence. What a treat that would be!?"
As Jilque spouted his most insane and vile thoughts without a care in the world, it didn''t stop his mind from churning through hundreds of ns and strategies.
"I''ll get rid of Suzanne if you give me both versions of your secret regeneration body cultivation method," Yoze said casually to interrupt Jilque''s increasingly insane speech. He couldn''t allow Jilqie to continue his rant as he noticed that Suzanne''s mind was starting to get affected.
"So I guess that''s a no. What a shame I really liked you too." Jilque widened his smile, nearly as creepy as his ghostly pale white face, as he chuckled at Yoze''s proposal.
"I guess both of your heads will do nicely as cups and your body''s fantastic rugs. Sorry, I got ahead of myself. Once I freeze your bodies, you will have excellent drinks!"
As soon as Jilque finished his sentence, his chest quickly filled up as he vastly healed his deadly wounds before pushing cold blood out of his pores. Before Yoze and Suzanne could reach him, Jilque''s ice-cold blood armor had formed around his body in a form simr to medieval knight armor.
Countless blood tes formed on one another, forming a thickyer of protection harder than any metal. Not even the sharpest sword, strongest arrow, or heaviest hammer could leave a scratch on this armor.
More interesting was Jilque''s blood helmet, three thin but long slits. Two slits took the location of where his eyes used to be, while thest remaining slit was horizontal and located at his mouth.
A thick white fog lingered around his body as the new fog was constantly formed before being consumed by his thickening blood mist.
As soon as Suzanne saw Jilque''s transformation, her face fell as she staggered back from fear. She knew better than anyone else that it was over for them once they failed to kill or force Jilque to retreat before he used his blood armor.
The mere pressure she felting from the motionless Jilque was by far the most intense she had ever felt. It was like she was standing below a mountain made of the world''s oldest and coldest ice.
Only pure calm and death would be left once he made a move.
"Interesting. I don''t feel the pressure of Jilque''s other inner vigors anymore. Only the cold inner vigor in his blood seems to be activated. No, it''s more like it''s the only inner vigor present." Yoze''s eyes glowed as he ignored the pressure that he felting from Jilque in favor of focusing on the attributes of it.
All inner vigor produces pressure, each giving a unique type of pressure. Hot inner vigors create pressure that makes people feel as if they are standing against fire, and the more inner vigor the martial artist has, the stronger and more intense this pressure bes.
By the time a martial artist bes a Blood Master, their pressure would have evolved to be a volcano, and standing in front of a Martial Grandmaster that used hot inner vigor would make one feel as if they were inside the sun.
For ordinary people, if a Martial Grandmaster stood before them and didn''t control their pressure, they would die.
While Jilque was still far from having the pressure of a Martial Grandmaster, he was getting close. Still, like most martial artists who practice multiple body cultivation methods, the pressure he exuded was a mixture.
Due to having multiple different types of inner vigor when Yoze broke through to the Blood Master realm for the first time, even the pressure that he released unintentionally was a mixture of all his inner vigors. Only when he mentally decided to activate one of his inner vigors would the pressure he exudes be more pure.
Even now, the pressure he was unleashing was a mixture of his heavy inner vigor from Big Golem and the flexible inner vigor that came from Boneless Man. However, he didn''t have much choice when using the flexible inner vigor since it was still in a state of always being activated.
Yet for Jilque''s pressure to suddenly be so pure could only mean he had chosen not to use his other inner vigors. Something that would mean he couldn''t fully use his insane healing capabilities.
Chapter 388 387: Dual Armor Path
Chapter 388 Chapter 387: Dual Armor Path
With his blood armor on and the intense urge to kill, Jilque didn''t bother to give Yoze a chance to finish his thought before making a move. With his toes slightly curling, Jilque''s body was suddenlyunched forward like a rocket and instantly reached the dangerous duo.
Unable to see either of their faces, Jilque couldn''t see the total shock on their faces, but he could imagine it. While he could not use his other inner vigors to their full capabilities when he activated Death Ice Blood Armor, he didn''t have much choice.
Blood Masters, who used multiple types of body cultivation methods, were left with two choices. The first was that they followed the path that Yoze had taken.
Where they practiced a body cultivation method that allowed the user to naturally practice different types of inner vigors, these types of body cultivation methods typically became host inner vigors that suppressed the other body cultivation methods until submission.
This technique came with its pros and cons. There were a few benefits to this method, with the main benefit being that it allows the user to use multiple types of body cultivation methods at the same time. In the example of Yoze, when he initially had practiced his Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method, he was able to use the heavy inner vigor that came from his Big Golem body cultivation method and the metal inner vigor that came from his Iron Skin body cultivation method at the same time as his armor inner vigor that came from the Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method.
This allowed for his attacks to be incredibly powerful and extremely tough to destroy. Overall, it led to him getting an enormous boost in powerpared to other Blood Masters at his level.
However, this method of choosing a host inner vigor to control the other types of inner vigor has two ws. The first w is one that Yoze had found himself, and that is, for his realm to increase requires his host body cultivation method to first experience a breakthrough.
Even if his other body cultivation methods broke through the next realm, he could not use them to their full capacity until the Blood Weapon Handler body cultivation method did the same. In addition, the more body cultivation methods that the host body cultivation method had to endure, the slower growth it experienced.
For most Blood Masters, this was extremely difficult to ept, especially those talented Blood Masters who practiced more than three body cultivation methods. The amount of pressure that just three body cultivation methods ced on their bodies would result in them no longer having any possibility of ever reaching the Martial Grandmaster realm.
Much less for someone like Yoze, who was practicing more than seven different body cultivation methods. If it wasn''t for the demonic level of talents he had collected over the years, he would not even be able to take a single step forward in his path as a martial artist.
This path was for those who lusted for power and threw away their futures. This was known as the Power Armor path!
The second side effect, or more urately, difficulty, was that this type of body cultivation method is rare. If Yoze hadn''t encountered the Armored Swordsman sect and was able to collect their secret body cultivation method, he would have never been able to choose this path. For other martial artists, they didn''t have the same luck, so they could only be forced to find another path.
Most martial artists knew this path as the Dual Armor path. As the name of this path suggests, martial artists who have chosen this path will simply choose two Blood Master realm body cultivation methods and train in them simultaneously.
But unlike the Power Armor path, where one body cultivation method bes the host of the other, the Dual Armor path doesn''t allow any method to be dominant, resulting in the users developing multiple Blood Armors, each supporting only one type of inner vigor.
While this seems great at first nce, countless martial artists throughout the years have grown to know the disadvantages of the Dual Armor path. The first is that when a Blood Armor is activated, it suppresses the use of the other inner vigors, causing their ability to use their other body cultivation method to fall.
This means that if they wanted to use their other body cultivation methods to their full capabilities, they would have to swap Blood Armors, which was extremely dangerous in battles and resulted in many Blood Masters of the Dual Armor path experiencing early deaths.
Second, unlike the Power Armor path, their Blood Armor isn''t outrageously strong and only boosts their power by the same amount as the Blood Armor of those Blood Masters who only practiced one. So when battling other Blood Masters who didn''t choose to train in multiple body cultivation methods, they would only have a minimal advantage.
While the Dual Armor path didn''t result in those who followed this path experiencing anyrge boost in power, it did allow those who followed this path to not experience slower growth as each Blood Armor was essentiallypletely separate. This advantage allowed Blood Masters to focus on only training on the body cultivation method that they were most talented andfortable with.
Allowing them to experience quick growth and use their potential to shoot for higher realms. In the case of Jilque, he was only a Peak Blood Master in his Death Ice body cultivation method. In contrast, his two other body cultivation methods remained at the first-rate Blood Master level.
As someone who reached the Peak Blood Master realm, he was able to dominate his opponents and kill many fellow Blood Masters. To have been able to raise all his Blood Master body cultivation methods to such a high level showed Jilque''s talent and why his teacher thought of him as his most talented student.
With such a great future ahead of him, Jilque had no interest in dying in some random town against some random martial artist. Being forced to use his Blood Armor already proved that Yoze was an extreme threat and one that he had to kill and suck his blood until he mummified his corpse.
Chapter 389 388: Diverging Hopes
Chapter 389 Chapter 388: Diverging Hopes
With the extreme cold pressure that was oozed from Jilque, Yoze and Suzanne could feel that their blood was being frozen. The difference in realms was simply too significant, which allowed Jilque topletely suppress them with his blood!
As a second-rate Blood Master, Yoze should have been the one who felt the most pressure, yetpared to the excitement he felt from meeting a good opponent; the pressure wasn''t much. Unfortunately, the same couldn''t be the same for Suzanne as the pressureing towards her was utterly debilitating, causing her control of her blood to drop.
If she had to face Jilque alone, she would have lost in less than a second! Whenpared to a genius Blood Master from a martial arts sect, she couldn''tpete at all!
Whether it was the quality of their blood control, the amount of inner vigor inside their bodies, their number of techniques, or even their Blood Master realm, she lost in all of them! Even the Blood Pill Yoze had given her wasn''t enough to fill this gap between them.
"Sigh, it''s all over. Me and Gn are going to die."
Seeing that she had once again lost to Jilque, Suzanne''s spirit broke, and her desire to continue fighting dropped so low it could reach the floor. If it wasn''t for the fact that Gn was still in her care, she would have blown up her body to not experience the feeling of being sucked dry.
While Suzanne lost her battle spirit, the sound of a loud heartbeat appeared just as Jilque reached them.
Without hesitation, Jilque condensed the blood around his hands into four-foot-long mas and swung them toward Yoze and Suzanne. Yet these simple swings caused the number of machete shes to exponentially increase to five hundred just as they reached them.
With such a monstrous amount of Blood Master level attacks, Yoze''s and Suzanne''s blood armor wouldn''t be capable of enduring and shattering. Exposing their bodies to the ruthless elements and the bloodthirsty Jilque, who nned to turn them into human popsicles.
Such a level of attack far outstripped what Jilque had chosen in their previous battle and stunned both of them. Yet just as the hundreds of machete shes were about to touch their Blood Armor, Yoze made his move.
With devilish flexibility, he threw a heavy punch that quickly zigzagged through the machete shed before mming against Jilque''s chest. Just touching Jilque''s armor caused the Blood Armor Yoze''s first to instantly freeze and prate his flesh to lick his bones.
"Blood Breaker Fist!"
Jilque''s eyes widened under his Blood Armor as he felt a truly enormous forcee through Yoze''s fist. Shattering his Blood Armor and bones while turning his organs into mush.
"Boom!!!"
The sound of his body breaking through the sound barrier crushed his eardrums as he was sent flying out of Jelly Town like a firework. Even the town wall couldn''t slow him down as he was sent flying thousands of feet and destroyed hundreds of trees to stop himself.
"W-what was that!?" Suzanne stuttered with her mouth gaping open. If she wasn''t wearing armor, a fly might have flown inside her mouth without her knowing.
Turning around to the culprit, she saw Yoze calmly crouching in the same position where he had punched Jilque as if he had turned into a statue. The only difference was that the armor he had used to punch Jilque was no longer covered in Blood Armor.
Instead, his entire arm had swelled to more than three times the size, his flesh had turned red, and his flesh was torn, allowing the blood inside his body to drip to the ground. Seeing this, Suzanne''s heart dropped as she rushed to support Yoze, guessing that he had used some forbidden technique for a momentary boost in power.
Yet just as her arms had wrapped around Yoze''s chest and she was mentally ready to lift his heavy body, Yoze''s mind returned to the battlefield, and he stood up like normal. All to the dismay of Suzanne, who found herself being lifted as if she was his handbag.
Finally noticing Suzanne, who was in an awkward position, Yoze lowered his head to look at her and asked with confusion in his voice.
"Are you okay? I didn''t identally injure you when I punched, right?"
Hearing the confusion in Yoze''s voice, Suzanne''s face twitched before turning red from embarrassment under her Blood Armor. With no pride left, she only sighed and carefully let go of Yoze to ensure that Gn, who was tightly holding onto her back and knew nothing about the battle situation, didn''t notice the change in height.
"No, I''m fine... Let''s just check whether you managed to kill Jilque." Even though she could not see Yoze''s face, Suzanne could imagine the smile on his face and quickly changed the topic.
Yoze nodded in agreement as he also wanted to be sure that he hadn''t identally killed Jilque with his Blood Breaker Fist. Even though he tried to hold back somewhat, the very idea of the Blood Breaker martial art set was to always use full strength in everything. To use any of the Blood Breaker techniques required him to use all of his strength and potential.
He could only adapt and shift some of the power away from Jilque so that it was urate to the strength that he showed. This was why he was in a dazed state earlier, since he had to deal with the impact of his organs being damaged from shifting the power of his attack.
Even then, after doing all that work, he wasn''t sure if Jilque survived as he could sense that the body cultivation method that allowed him to have insane regeneration capabilities was suppressed, which resulted in him worrying that he had identally killed the one opportunity he had to get a body cultivation method that he could use to train his regeneration abilities.
"I hope that Yoze''s sacrifice and all my hard work could kill that fiend."
"I hope that fellow survived, or all my hardwood would have been for nothing."
This resulted in these two allies having two different thoughts and hopes that contradicted each other. Yet this wasn''t something that either of them cared about as they rushed outside of Jelly Town to check on their enemy.
Chapter 390 389: Sound of Bells
Chapter 390 Chapter 389: Sound of Bells
"Cough,"
After regaining consciousness, Jilque''s painful cough snapped him out of his daze, causing him to look down at his chest.
It was a mess.
He couldn''t distinguish his flesh from his organs as everything had been crushed into a bloody mush. Even his bones were shattered into millions of shards that were mixed in. With the evidence of how close to death he was, Jilque''s mind instantly regained rity as the cold sensation of death overwhelmed his chilling from his inner vigor.
"I need to swap to my Grand Health Blood Armor, or I''m going to die!" Jilque clenched his teeth so hard that they were being ground into dust, but he was grateful for the pain as it kept his mind from being consumed by the darkness of death.
The w of the Dual Armor path was on full disy. For Jilque to use his Grand Healing body cultivation method, he needs to withdraw his Blood Armor and release the Blood Armor tailored for the Grand Healing method.
Only this way his healing ability would reach a level where he could heal his deathly injuries before he sumbed to them. However, that would temporarily result in him losing his fighting capabilities and giving Yoze and... his assistant a golden opportunity.
However, he had no choice but to grit his teeth, do the swap, pray that he could heal himself, and switch back to his Death Ice Armor before they arrived. This usually wouldn''t be a problem as Blood Masters with such a high level of explosive capabilities were rare, and martial arts techniques that matched up to the Blood Breaker Fist were even rarer.
As soon as Jilque decided, he instantlymanded his blood to return and reabsorbed everyst drop in a second. After retrieving his Death Ice Armor, a wave of mind-destroying pain poked at his brain as the extreme cold no longer dulled the pain.
However, he didn''t have to endure such a bone-wrenching pain level for long as his pale skin quickly turned bright pink as droplets of blood dripped from his forehead. In the beginning, only a few droplets of blood flowed down his forehead to his chest before being absorbed by the ground-up flesh like water and a sponge. That quickly changed as the amount of blood droplets exponentially increased until it grew to the point that a bloodstream connected his forehead to his chest was formed.
Stimted by the blood, Jilque''s flesh rapidly healed without leaving a trace of any injuries while containing his crushed organs and bones inside his body for the remaining bloodstream to heal.
He would be fully healed and at his peak in less than ten seconds. Then, he could fight Yoze again and be prepared for surprise attacks. Unfortunately, Jilque''s fantasy about drinking Yoze''s blood from his skull was trampled on when he saw the giant wearing armor made out of blood rushing toward him; his heart sank.
"Just a few more seconds... Just a few seconds, and I would have won." Jilque muttered as he clenched his fist in anger.
"Hahaha, Yoze, you did it! We can kill him!" Suzanne''s eyes shone with intense murderous intent as she wanted nothing more than to kill the man who made her feel helpless so many times.
"Thank god I didn''t hit him too hard." Yoze''s heart nearly tightened when he saw the depth of Jilque''s injuries, but when he noticed the bloodstreaming from the thick red bloodstream healing Jilque''s devastating wounds, he breathed a sigh of relief.
At the same time, his desire for Jilque''s body cultivation methods surged as the injuries that Jilque had suffered would have caused him to be bedridden for weeks, if not months. Yet, this type of wound was trivialpared to the effectiveness of this healing body cultivation method.
If he had this level of healing, he could fight immortals on more even ground and be less afraid of fighting multiple immortals and demons at the same time. In nearly all aspects, hisbat capability would experience arge amount of growth.
"Ding Ding Ding"
Suddenly, just as Yoze and Suzanne were about to reach Jilque, they heard the sound of bells mming into each other. At first, the sound of bells was faint and couldn''t even be heard by ordinary people, but before they knew it, the sound had be so loud that it felt as if it was right next to them.
"No, it is!" Yoze''s pupils shrunk as he realized it wasn''t just a sound.
As if it had teleported in front of him, Yoze caught a nce at a cluster of blue spiritual energy that was moving toward them at a speed that could only be described as ridiculously fast. It was so fast that his eyes could barely keep track of the cluster of spiritual energy, and that was only because it was heading straight for him.
In less than the time that a person could blink, the cluster of spiritual energy had gotten so close that it was only centimeters away from him. Yet, he couldn''t see what the cluster of spiritual energy came from at all! Taking action immediately, Yoze quickly embraced Suzanne and turned around to use his back as a shield.
The cluster of spiritual energy was so fast that he couldn''t do anything else, including mobilizing his blood to form a better defense. He could only endure the attack and use this opportunity to take further action.
Just as Suzanne suddenly found herself between Yoze''s arms and pressed against his metal-like blood armor, the cluster of spiritual energy mmed into Yoze''s back with an almost irresistible force.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
At the same time, Yoze felt ten more hits with the same overwhelming force, causing his tough blood armor to be heavily dented. Before a final hit from the cluster of spiritual energy sent him, Suzanne and Gn flew as if they weighed nothing.
They easily flew over Jelly Town, causing the remaining few people in the Town to quiver with fear as they all hastily went into their homes and locked their doors. It was already brazen for anyone to attack the Town. It had never happened in Jelly Town''s history, much less the devastating battle between Blood Masters.
If they weren''t careful, they might identally die during the Blood Masters fight, which was not something that anyone wanted to imagine at the moment.
On the other side of Jelly Town, a red meteor crashed into the forest, leaving only a trail of destruction as countless nts were crushed under the immense weight and speed of the red meteor. Aftering to aplete stop, the ''red meteor'' suddenly cracked open, revealing a dazed Suzanne and Gn.
After Suzanne and Gn stepped outside the ''red meteor,'' it copsed and transformed into arge humanoid creature covered head to toe in dark red armor. This was, of course, Yoze, who had just experienced the feeling of being able to fly for the first time.
After shaking his head to organize his thoughts, Yoze shifted his focus to the twodies and asked them if they were alright.
"Other than feeling like my head just got hit with a sledgehammer, I''m doing okay," Suzanne responded as she rubbed her forehead with her fingers to reduce the diforting from her head.
"I-i am doing okay. What happened just now, and where are we?" Gn stuttered as she tried to present a strong image.
Unfortunately, she failed as her deathly pale skin that was drained of blood and the cold sweat dripping down her body showed that she was not doing as fine as she said. Yet that was to be expected as her body was only slightly stronger than an ordinary person''s at this point.
Without the doubleyered protection that came from Yoze''s and Suzanne''s blood armor, she would not have survived the impact of their crash. But at the moment, Yoze and Suzanne didn''t have time or enough energy to question her.
They had another dire matter to attend to, and that was what had just attacked them. From Suzanne''s perspective, after hearing the sound of bells, Yoze suddenly put her in his embrace before eleven powerful attacks sent them flying.
From start to finish, she hadn''t seen even a single piece of their attacker, and the fear in her heart exploded. If it wasn''t for her strong willpower and her knowledge that ghosts didn''t exist, she wouldn''t have been able to stay asposed as she was.
The only one who could know what had happened was Yoze, who had taken it upon himself to endure the powerful attacks that would have killed them easily. After taking a deep breath, Yoze looked at Suzanne''s and Gn''s eyes meaningfully and slowly answered.
"A Martial Grandmaster must have attacked us!"
Chapter 391 390: Dangers Appearance!
Chapter 391 Chapter 390: Dangers Appearance!
Martial Grandmasters are the highest realm of power that is achievable by humans. A height of power that was unachievable by thousands of hopeful martial artists, yet only one will achieve it. Martial Grandmasters were extremely rare at the height of power that mortals could reach. They could be considered to be the trump card byrge organizations.
After being a martial artist for so long and having seen numerous immortals and demons, Yoze had only ever seen one Martial Grandmaster. Yet, today, he finally found another Martial Grandmaster who was once again his enemy.
"Am I a ma for attracting powerful enemies?" Yoze muttered, yet his allies, who were in shock, didn''t notice.
"Are you certain? If we are facing a Martial Grandmaster, then it truly is over. We should just grab Evi and Mr. Light and leave."
"Hopefully, this Martial Grandmaster is in a good move and lets us go." Suzanne hastily asked as she grabbed hold of Yoze''s arm so tightly her knuckles turned white.
"I''m certain it is." Yoze nodes with certainty.
Suzanne''s heart dropped deep into the abyss as the faint hope that appeared in her heart went out. Just as she was about to speak, she heard Yoze continue.
"It''s either that or we are fighting a demon or, maybe, even an immortal. That would be much more exciting, but none of you will probably survive with an intact body." Yoze''s hand reached up to stroke his chin but stopped halfway when he remembered he was still in his blood armor.
"Why do I feel you would have preferred to fight a demon or immortal?" Suzanne''s eye twitched when she heard the slight excitement in Yoze''s tone.
"Because I would! Each demon and immortal has a body full of treasure!" Yoze thought to himself but was quite silent since he didn''t think Suzanne and Gn would appreciate his true feelings.
As Gn watched Suzanne freaking out at the mention of a Martial Grandmaster, she felt the terror in her heart explode. Even though she was only an ordinary person, she knew how powerful Martial Grandmasters were and even knew a few due to their fame.
But it was only when she felt the utter terroring from within Suzanne''s soul that she realized that the people she already thought were powerful beyondprehension were nothing in front of Martial Grandmaster. Yet, judging from how calm Yoze appeared and strangely even a bit excited, she didn''t know whether to feel afraid or follow Yoze''s lead and stay calm.
"Anyways, trying to run away from a Martial Grandmaster is useless. Especially a Martial Grandmaster who might specialize in speed." Yoze said after waiting some time for Suzanne to calm down.
He ced his big hand on her shoulder and could sense her rapidly beating heart, which showed signs of irregr movement.
"Your heart is still damaged from your earlier attempt to blow yourself up, and while the effects of the blood pill I gave you can stillst for 40 minutes, if you continue fighting, you might drop dead," Yoze said after examining Suzanne''s heart.
"..." Suzanne remained silent as she knew what Yoze said was true.
The damage she had caused to her heart from her haste injection and removal of all her blood resulted in her heart suffering from numerous tears. If not for her powerful physique, she would have died already. Even then, if she continued to perform such heart-intensive activities for 20 more minutes, her heart might copse, resulting in her death.
Due to the hope that she could kill Jilque with the help of Yoze, she decided to ignore her situation and continue fighting with everything she had. Yet that hope that kept up her fighting spirit vanished when she had to face a Martial Grandmaster, an opponent that no amount of Blood Masters could hope to beat.
"Take Gn with you to Town and find Mr. Light and Evi. Take them to another town while I deal with the Martial Grandmaster." Yoze continued in a serious tone.
"You can''t be serious. Yoze, you just said that we are fighting against a Martial Grandmaster whom we have no hope of winning against, so why would you choose suicide."
"As the person who has saved my life and has the most potential I have ever seen, you must live. After a decade or two, you will be a Martial Grandmaster and be able to fulfill my dream in my stead." Suzanne deeply frowned when she heard Yoze wanted to stay behind.
She grabbed onto Yoze''s armor with all her strength, causing it to make creaking sounds as if it was truly made out of metal. Making it clear that she wasn''t going to just abandon Yoze and allow him to kill himself just for her to survive.
Just as Yoze was about to exin to Suzanne that he wouldn''t die and instead viewed this new Martial Grandmaster as an even better training dummy for his martial arts skill, he heard the sound of bells. This time, they were apanied by a sense of death, causing both his original heart and blood heart to tighten.
Gritting his teeth again, Yoze pulled both Suzanne and Gn into her embrace, and being more prepared for it, he managed to pour in all his inner vigor into his blood armor to increase his defenses in time.
Just as the sound of bells reached them and got so loud that they could turn people deaf, Yoze saw the rapidly approaching cluster of blue spiritual energy. Yet before he could track it, it split into three simr-sized clusters with a burst of speed.
All three clusters of blue spiritual energy disappeared as the feeling of danger in Yoze''s heart exploded. More than twenty nearly irresistible attacks hit Yoze from all angles, causing even his strengthened blood armor to dent with each attack.
What caused Yoze''s pupils to shrink was that he smelt a thick sense of oil as he felt spiritual energy invading his body.
Without a second to think further, the sound of all the attacks finally caught up to them and helped strengthen the attacker''s final hit, sending him flying at more than 300 miles per hour.
Chapter 392 391: Sending The First Message!
Chapter 392 Chapter 391: Sending The First Message!
As Yoze crashed through hundreds of trees after being sent flying, he focused on the spiritual energy that invaded his body. Thick snake-like blue spiritual energy entered his body as it chaotically tore the inside of his body to shreds. If it was left alone, just this one strand of spiritual energy would have turned his insides into a slushie.
Luckily, he had his spiritual demons to defend him as they immediately took action when they sensed an invader. The Leopard demon, The Headed Fox demon, and the Serpentunched the first round of attackers by ambushing the snake-like spiritual energy.
After feeding from the spiral energy from the 200-year-old Slug demon, they had grown muchrgerpared to before. Their intelligence seemed to have increased with their growth as the light in their eyes grew brighter.
The mindless spiritual energy was quickly caught and torn to shreds by the sharp teeth of the Three-Headed Fox demon and Leopard demon before the Slug demon could take action. With disappointment in its eyes, it devours the shred of blue spiritual energy that remains.
After taking care of the immediate threat, Yoze''s face turned stern as he reflected on what he had just experienced. It wasn''t difficult for him to guess that the cluster of blue spiritual energy wasn''ting from a Martial Grandmaster like he initially had thought.
"It should be impossible for another human to control their spiritual energy. Also, that scent of oil smelled. So far, only the Endless Forest Soul anomaly''s victims have had this scent."
"Did it sense that I had captured its aura and wanted to regain what it had lost?" Yoze frowned as he felt that his analysis was off.
As his body was flying uncontrobly, he controlled the spiritual energy prison he had created some time ago to store the green aura and bring it in front of him. Looking at its current state, he noticed that even after a few weeks of being left without a host, it didn''t show any signs of deterioration, unlike what should have happened to regr spiritual energy.
"If the Endless Forest Soul''s goal is to regain its aura, why didn''t it take back the moment it caught me off guard? Or even the second time when its power sharply increased. These were perfect times when I had underestimated the enemy and were the perfect time to take the aura back."
"It doesn''t care about getting its aura back. No, maybe its current host doesn''t care for it." As soon as Yoze''s mind thought about the crazy pursuit to enter a body, something clicked.
Immediately, Yoze took action and transformed his legs intorge blood spikes and stabbed them dozens of feet underground to slow down. After creating half a mile-long ravines, Yoze was able to slow him down enough to easilye to aplete stop.
After finding that they hade to aplete stop, Suzanne and Gn, who were tightly holding onto his wide chest, looked deathly pale. Once Suzanne caught her breath and stopped herself from vomiting, she turned her focus to Gn, who was doing awful.
"Yoze, can you put us in your blood armor?" Suzanne asked as she gritted her teeth.
"Put you in my blood armor? How would I do that?"
Hearing Suzanne mention the option to ce herself and Gn in his blood armor, Yoze found her idea was great. Not only was putting the two of them into his blood armor allowing him to not worry about their safety, but it would also allow him to go all out.
In the face of this unknown enemy that has control of spiritual energy and uses it as an offensive means, having the two of them sitting outside would only be asking for the enemy to target their spiritual energy.
The effectiveness of this method could be seen when Suzanne ced Gn into her blood armor, which allowed her to fight with her full strength without the worry that Gn would get hurt or targeted.
"The principle is quite simr to the concept of creating your blood armor normally. You can either absorb your blood back into your body fully before releasing it and controlling it so that it also surrounds us."
"Or if your blood control is good enough, you can directly manipte your blood armor to absorb it. Since this is your first time, I rmend doing the first option since it will take less t-." Suzanne exined carefully, but before she could finish her sentence, she felt Yoze''s blood armor shifting around her.
In a few seconds, his metal-like blood armor became a liquid that seemed filled with life as it surrounded her and Gn''s bodies. After entering Yoze''s blood armor, her eyes quickly adjusted to the red light, and feeling howfortable and safe she felt, Suzanne sighed.
"So this is what it''s like to be absorbed into a Blood Master''s blood armor. It isn''t too bad," Suzanne said with a weary smile as if all the pride in her body vanished like smoke.
"Suzanne, can I grant you ess to see the outside world without creating an opening inside my blood armor?"
Suzanne''s eyes snapped wide open as she suddenly heard Yoze''s deep voice as if he was talking right into her ears. With her eyebrows tightly furrowed, she lifted her head to see Yoze looking at her with a smile before his voice yed again.
"Yes, I am using a special technique to talk to you secretly. I hope to use this while I''m fighting so we canmunicate. "
"Also, since you haven''t learned this yet, you cannotmunicate back the same way. Just...tell me what you want to say by using your fingers to write it on my body or my blood." Yoze''s spiritual speech rang in Suzanne''s ears with a cheerful tone, making her speechless.
Suzanne shook her head to clear her thoughts and turned to attention tomunicate with Yoze, only to notice that the upper portion of Yoze''s suit had been torn to shreds. Since he was fighting against a powerful enemy, Yoze didn''t bother about his decency and allowed his body to grow to its natural size.
[Big Golem (Level 7: 22%)]
While he hadn''t been focusing on training his Big Golem body cultivation method and had been trying to bring his other body cultivation methods to the same level so that his Iron Giant Martial Formation would reach a higher level, he still made sure to do some training so that he didn''t start losing his beautiful muscles.
As a result, his body had grown by a centimeter or twopared to before, which he suppressed to prevent himself from not having any clothes to wear. Unfortunately, that resulted in the situation where when he fought, his elegant suit immediately died.
In any case, when he was fighting, he would be covered in his blood armor, acting as his clothes until after the battle. Who would have guessed that two people would enter his blood armor at this time?
"..."
Speechless about the man who had the gall to call himself a schr, Suzanne didn''t dare turn her focus to Yoze''s lower body and could only hope his pants could endure. After shaking her head again to remove her distracting thoughts, Suzanne wrote her response on the inner walls of Yoze''s blood armor.
Got it. You can make your blood armor semi-transparent by making the blood walls where my eyes are thin. This should let me see the outside enough to send you information.
-Suzanne
Chapter 393 392: Martial Grandmaster Battle Begins!
Chapter 393 392: Martial Grandmaster Battle Begins!
Suzanne''s words instantly made their way up to Yoze''s eyes as he followed her instructions. Since Suzanne and Gn are still in the positions that they were previously in, it wasn''t difficult for him to guess where Suzanne''s eyes were and thinned the spot.
Even though this would decrease the defensive capabilities of this spot of blood armor, he was confident that he would be able to defend it in case of emergencies. Plus, he would always send Suzanne a message and tell her to use her blood to add additional protection.
In any case, Yoze wanted to use Suzanne as an extra pair of eyes for him to prevent him from being ambushed again...or at least look out for some oddities.
Noticing how fast Yoze took in her message and immediately took action, Suzanne''s shock at Yoze deepened as the control of his blood was quite high. It was much better than hers and had reached the level on par with a Peak Blood Master.
If it was any other first-rate Blood Master who saw the level of control Yoze had with his blood and saw that it was superior to their own, as a second-rate Blood Master, they would have had their pride devastated. Luckily, her pride was long since destroyed, so seeing Yoze''s crazy level of control didn''t make her feel much shame; instead, she wanted to test out the limits of this strange way ofmunication.
Yoze, how fast can I send messages? Can I send them to Gn? Also, can you teach me that strange technique of yours tomunicate with others without moving your mouth?
-Suzanne
"First of all, the moment you begin writing, I can sense it, so once you decide to finish writing, I will read it. Second, you can send it to Gn, but she is right next to you?"
"Thirdly, I can''t teach you this technique unless you decide to be my student and join my sect. Since you are a Blood Master, I am willing to give you the special privilege of bing a teacher of the School of Eternal Knowledge as well." Yoze exined through spiritual speech, but he couldn''t help but have a bugging feeling that he had just introduced someone to the wonders of texting.
As for Suzanne always marking her name at the end of her message, he chalked it up to her habit of writing letters. Since he didn''t n on making people his blood armor a regr event, he didn''t bother to exin to her that leaving her name wasn''t necessary.
Teacher of your sect, I don''t know... I''ll consider it once we survive this.
-Suzanne
Reading Suzanne''s message, Yoze agreed with her caution. Since they were in the middle of a fight, he should focus on taking down his opponent and finding out their motive. When fighting someone faster than him to the point that he couldn''t react, he could only rely on Mindless Legs to act on his instincts and his iron body to defend.
But first, he needed to find a way to either slow down his enemy or find a way to increase his reaction speed. Luckily, he had a few techniques to help him in this situation. Taking control of his breathing, Yoze quickly entered the most optimal for his Quick Mind Slow World technique, causing the world around him to slow down.
In addition, he activated the full power of his Blood Mindless Legs, causing his leg muscles to swell as his mind became trapped in his brain, allowing him to use all his energy to speed up his information processing speed.
With the two techniquesbined, Yoze''s world slowed down by more than 50 percent, which allowed him to see who or what was attacking him. Just as Yoze took these measures, the sounds of chaotic bells reappeared, sending a cold chill through Suzanne''s spine.
In the blink of an eye, the distant bells quickly closed the distance, bing as loud as drums. The mere sound of the bells caused slight ripples to appear on Yoze''s blood armor.
"He''s here."
With his increased perception of the world, Yoze could finally see who his opponent was. The first thing he noticed was that his opponent was a human and, more importantly, a Martial Grandmaster.
He was a skinny old man who appeared to nearly be a corpse. His body barely had any muscles, his skin was covered in wrinkles, and his hair had long lost all its pigments and became just a boring gray color.
Ties to the ends of his long gray hairs were copper bells, making it clear where the sound bell sounds were produced. And even though he was advanced in age, his eyes were full of life as their blood-red color seemed like a blood ocean.
Around his neck was the dried-up corpse of what appeared to be a snake with hollow eyes, which paired well with his blood-colored robe, which was covered in ck strips, giving him a demonic ir.
As the old man ran at him, Yoze frowned as even with the world around him slowed down by more than 50 percent, the old man was still traveling at a monstrous speed. Making it difficult to track him. This was especially so when hisrge robe wildly floated in the air to conceal the old man''s body and hide his attacks.
Now that he could keep track of the Martial Grandmaster, Yoze was not nning to allow himself to remain in the same helpless situation. With his Blood Mindless Legs working at full capacity by the time the Martial Grandmaster came within two feet of him, which in reality was almost instantaneous, it took action.
Bending his knees slightly, Yoze''s body jumped backward, widening the gap between the two of them, hoping to maintain this safe distance.
The old man''s gray eyebrows furrowed, seeing that Yoze had reacted to his approach, but from his calm facial expression, he didn''t seem too surprised. Of course, with the wrinkles on his face, it was difficult to make out any expression.
All the old man did was lift his arm and widen his hand into a gripping motion before clenching his fist and pulling. That very instance, Yoze felt the air around him solidify as an intense suction pulled him toward the old man.
Even though he managed to resist the suction and continued to try and increase the safe distance between them, the momentary slowdown shortened the distance. Even with the full power of Blood Mindless Legs, the space between them could no longer increase and even was threatened to shrink as the old man lifted his arm.
Chapter 394 393: To Use Spiritual Energy Or Not?
Chapter 394 393: To Use Spiritual Energy Or Not?
"Is that Martial Grandmaster Whele?" Recognizing the strange old man, Suzanne felt a chill crawl through his spine before her whole body turned cold.
She couldn''t believe their luck and felt God must have wanted her to die today. For one of the Martial Grandmasters from the Blood Sect toe to Jelly Town was insane.
Especially when this Martial Grandmaster was known as the Noisy Reaper of Death. The man who loved to ughter ordinary people for fun hadmitted so many crimes and horrific acts that even other members of the Blood Sect were weary of this menace.
"Do you recognize him?" Sensing the tiny uncontroble trembles from Suzanne''s body, Yoze quickly sent her spiritual speech message.
Recognize him? Of course, I recognize him! This is Martial Grandmaster known as Whele Sunazan from the Blood Sect! He has a record of killing more than six thousand people in his lifetime, which is probably a drastic underestimate.
-Suzanne
Oh, we are going to die! We are going to be part of thatrge number very soon!
-Suzanne
Even though Suzanne was only writing messages, Yoze could sense the deep fear in her heart. The Blood Sect wasn''t known as one of the sects no one wanted to mess with. Each of their members was worse than thest and paired with theck of care for human lives, they were a tumor in society.
However, even though Yoze knew that Suzanne was terrified, he needed her to continue to provide him with more information on what this Martial Grandmaster Whele could do.
If he kept on being caught off guard, there would eventuallye a time when his defenses would fail, and their ending would not be good. So he could only urge Suzanne to continue spilling out information while he stopped Martial Grandmaster Whele from capturing them.
Yoze''s eyes narrowed as his Mindless Legs swiftly kicked at the old man''s chest. A heavy whoosh should follow his swollen leg as the intense weight and flexibility remained, making his leg act like a whip.
His chest would cave in if such an attack hit the old man, even as a Martial Grandmaster. Yet even given the danger, the old man only threw the attack a casual nce before slightly changing the angle of his arm to intercept it.
"As expected of a Martial Grandmaster, his experience in martial arts techniques is much higher than mine."
Seeing the casual change in the old man''s attack, Yoze''s pupils shrunk as he could tell he had fallen into a trap. If his Blood Mindless Legs continued to try and use this kick to increase the distance between them, the only thing that would happen is his leg would be grabbed and used as leverage tounch a flurry of attacks.
Luckily, his Blood Mindless Legs sensed the danger and stopped its attack halfway and instead used its powerful leg muscles to stomp the ground. The stomp was so forceful that the ground cracked underneath it, and the forceunched him tens of feet into the air.
Just as his body flew ten feet into the air, Martial Grandmaster Whele''s hand clenched as the air where Yoze previously stood hardened, showing that he had managed to escape. Yet Yoze wasn''t relieved at all as Suzanne sent him another message.
Martial Grandmaster Whele is known for his cunningness to lure enemies intoplex traps that don''t alert their sharpened instincts. Whenever someone thinks they have escaped, he crushes their hopes using his absurd body cultivation method called Ancient Wind.
-Suzanne
Even though this body cultivation method''s main effect is to make its users faster, once at the Martial Grandmaster stage, he can control the wind in a range of more than half a mile! Return to the ground as soon as possible, as being in the air is simply suicide!
-Suzanne
Just as Suzanne''s message reached Yoze, he noticed a thin smirk on Martial Grandmaster Whele''s face as he pinched his fingers together while pointing them at him. Almost instantly, Yoze felt the air around him be thicker by more than ten times!
Not only was his ascent into the air cut short, but even his descent toward the ground slowed down due to the increased air drag. Meaning that for the next few seconds, he had to endure a barrage of attacks from a Martial Grandmaster.
As an experienced martial artist, Martial Grandmaster Whele wouldn''t let this opportunity he had created go to waste, so he instantly took action. With a light jump, his old body sliced through the air like butter and easily reached Yoze without any trouble.
Blood Mindless Legs tried to repeat the strategy of using an attack to get a safer position, but Martial Grandmaster Whele''s careful traps forcefully shut it down. Helpless to do anything that wouldn''t increase the danger it ced Yoze in, Blood Mindless Legs simply scrunched up Yoze''s body to form a strengthened defense.
"Should I use my spiritual energy?" Yoze thought to himself as he contemted whether he should use his superior quantity of spiritual energy to easily devour Martial Grandmaster Whele''s spiritual energy.
"No, using my spiritual energy to quickly end the fight is unrealistic. Since Martial Grandmaster Whele couldunch spiritual energy attacks, he must have a method to protect his own spiritual energy."
"This method might not even be inferior to what immortals and witches are capable of, so it''s better to wait until there is a better opportunity. Who knows, I might be able to see his technique and get a chance to improve my control of spiritual energy." Yoze''s mind races at unbelievable speeds as he quickly processes the information from the environment.
With what he had seen so far, he raised Martial Grandmaster Whele''s threat level to the same level as a demon. Possibly being higher than the Slug Demon''s threat level, as he had no idea how much control this old man had over his spiritual energy and whether it had the potential to suppress his own spiritual energy demons.
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