Immortal Spirit Body

The dust settled.

The blood and fire in the cave slowly faded away.

The White Marsh cub bounced over to Chu Liang's side and began circling him again. It looked extremely excited, as if the beating it had just taken had not hurt much at all.

Jiang Xiaobai also drifted down beside Chu Liang and softly asked, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Chu Liang shook his head. "What about you, Senior Sister Jiang?"

"I'm fine too." Jiang Xiaobai's expression remained as placid as ever, utterly unlike someone who had just endured a brush with death.

In truth, Chu Liang now felt that this giant lizard had simply never been capable of killing her.

A demon beast at the peak of the fifth realm sounded like it should have had no trouble killing a fourth-realm cultivator.

But this person was Jiang... ah, Senior Sister Jiang Yue Bai, who preferred not to reveal her name.

In short, she was a figure who could be called the strongest genius of Shushan's generation.

A true heaven-blessed prodigy.

Such prodigies could not be measured by ordinary standards.

Whether it was the many immortal arts and supreme divine abilities she had mastered, or the flying swords and magical artifacts she wielded, all were sharp weapons capable of erasing vast gaps in strength.

During the battle just now, Jiang Xiaobai had already inflicted sufficiently grave wounds on the giant lizard. Given some more time, the wounds left by the Heaven Sword Art would likely have killed it on their own.

As for that last desperate pounce before death, it probably would not have worked either. Jiang Xiaobai had not even used any magical artifacts in their brief battle, yet no one would believe that Shushan's foremost genius disciple lacked one or two treasures for saving her life.

Perhaps she had simply felt that the moment had not yet come, and there had been no need to use them.

After all, not everyone was like Chu Liang, tossing life-saving treasures around as though they cost nothing.

Jiang Xiaobai glanced once more at the giant lizard's corpse, then studied Chu Liang for a moment. Just now, even she had been startled by his sudden attack.

"What magical artifact did you use just now? Its power was considerable, and it was... exceedingly cold and evil," she finally asked.

"I seized it earlier from a soul-capturing envoy of the Nether King Sect: Baleful Intent Yin Thunder," Chu Liang answered honestly.

"I see. I heard that Baleful Intent Yin Thunder is difficult to refine and quite valuable. If you hand it over to the Sword Transmission Hall, you should be able to exchange it for quite a few Sword Coins," Jiang Xiaobai said.

Wasn't that the truth...

Only then did Chu Liang feel a pang of heartache.

When he had asked Empress Feng about it before, she had called the thing a "little trinket" with great disdain, and he had assumed it was probably nothing special.

Now that he thought about it, perhaps his master's "little" was already very "big" to him.

Those three little trinkets had directly blown a peak fifth-realm demon beast to death. Even if it had already been seriously injured, that was still terrifying.

What he did not know was that the giant lizard's physical defense, strength, and speed had been nearly without weakness. Its sole weakness lay precisely in its mind, while Baleful Intent Yin Thunder was strongest in attacks against the spirit. That was the key to killing it in one blow.

Jiang Xiaobai seemed to see his distress and smiled faintly. "Then I'll compensate you with some Sword Coins. You helped me so greatly; I cannot let you suffer such a loss for nothing."

"There's no need." Chu Liang shook his head. "We're fellow disciples of Shushan, so why..."

Jiang Xiaobai seemed to see through his fragile show of strength and said bluntly, "Thanks must still be given."

"Then how about..." Chu Liang suddenly changed tack. "Rather than returning Sword Coins to me, could Senior Sister teach me one or two divine abilities?"

"Hm?" Jiang Xiaobai paused. "You mean Shrinking Earth into an Inch and the Heaven Sword Art? I don't think you need to aim so high just yet..."

The implication was that Chu Liang could not learn them yet...

"No, ordinary ones will do." Chu Liang smiled awkwardly again. "My master... is a body cultivator."

"Peak Master Empress Feng? I admire her bearing as well." Only then did Jiang Xiaobai recall the master of Silver Sword Peak, and a sympathetic smile appeared on her face.

Among the disciples of Shushan's various peaks, perhaps few knew who Chu Liang was, but most knew that Empress Feng had an unlucky disciple.

"Heh heh." Chu Liang answered with a polite, bitter smile.

"Then come here again at noon tomorrow. I'll wait for you here and teach you some divine abilities then," Jiang Xiaobai agreed.

Chu Liang was delighted and nodded. "Thank you, Senior Sister Jiang. It's just that this place..."

He looked at the devastation around them, somewhat astonished.

Could anyone still live here?

"It's fine." Jiang Xiaobai said, "After you leave, do not mention what happened here to anyone else. Can you do that?"

"But shouldn't a demon beast attack within the sect be reported..." Chu Liang was somewhat puzzled.

"I will handle it." Jiang Xiaobai said. "What happened today is rather strange..."

"Hm?" Chu Liang did not understand, but he still nodded.

Seeing his confused expression, Jiang Xiaobai hesitated before saying, "You were caught up in this undeserved disaster with me today, so you ought to know the truth. Since White Marsh is so affectionate toward you, you must be a kind-hearted person. There is no harm in telling you..."

"I was born with a special constitution—the legendary Immortal Spirit Body. Cultivation has always yielded twice the result with half the effort for me, but there is one exception..."

"To demonkind, my bloodline possesses an innate and immense attraction... It seems that if they eat me, their cultivation can soar dramatically."

"Ordinarily, I am careful to keep my distance from the sect's spirit pets and mounts. At all times, I take care to avoid being wounded and bleeding, for fear that the scent of blood will draw demons in."

Hearing this, Chu Liang felt a slight stir in his heart.

A constitution that could attract demonkind...

It sounded a little like Tang Monk's flesh. It truly was dangerous.

But if he had such a constitution himself, he could use it to lure demonkind, kill them, exchange them for rewards through the White Tower, use those rewards to grow stronger, and then lure even stronger demonkind...

A healthy industrial chain would take shape just like that.

While he was lost in thought, Jiang Xiaobai continued, "It's just that... as a woman, there are certain times when bleeding cannot be avoided..."

As she said this, a faint blush crossed her face.

But Chu Liang remained entirely composed, without the slightest awkwardness. In his eyes, this was not something that needed to be avoided.

Living in Shushan while avoiding demonkind truly was no simple matter. The sect kept many spirit pets and mounts, and they could not all be abolished because of one person. Yet if those gentle, tamed demon beasts smelled her blood, they would immediately become violent and frenzied. That made things difficult.

Seeing how calm and unruffled he was, Jiang Xiaobai continued, "Later, I began coming to Treasure Pagoda Peak for a few days every month to hide. Because the sect's divine artifact, the Demon-Suppressing Tower, once stood here, even after five hundred years, demon beasts still dared not set foot here. It is a pure land."

"Together with White Marsh Baby driving away outsiders for me, I have always been able to stay here in peace."

"Until it suddenly brought you back today..."

Chu Liang looked at the White Marsh cub, which kept circling the two of them, and felt that this divine beast did not seem particularly clever. If it did strange things, perhaps that was not so strange after all.

"And this giant lizard's arrival was strange as well. Why did it suddenly appear on Treasure Pagoda Peak, where no demon beast had ever dared tread? And how did it locate this cave so precisely..." Jiang Xiaobai lightly furrowed her brow.

When a beauty frowned, it was like mist veiling a white lake.

Chu Liang understood her meaning at once.

The fact that she possessed the legendary Immortal Spirit Body was supposedly a secret, yet since she could tell Chu Liang so readily, it clearly was not an especially tightly guarded secret.

There should have been no small number of people within Shushan Sect who knew.

For this demon beast to appear so strangely and strike with such precise timing... it was possible that someone in Shushan had manipulated things behind the scenes.

It might even have been someone close to her.

Thinking of it that way, one could not help but feel weighed down inside.

Jiang Xiaobai merely paused for a moment before asking again, "That is all. The reason I asked you not to speak of it yet is because I need to report this matter to my master first, and then we can make long-term plans."

"I understand." Chu Liang nodded.

"Then is there anything else you wish to ask?" Jiang Xiaobai said at last.

"I want to ask..." Chu Liang pondered for a moment, then looked up and asked, "The Seven Star Gazette previously wrote that there was something ambiguous between you and Feng Chaoyang of the Heavenly King Sect. Is that true?"