Experiment

No matter what he planned, the first priority was to keep Tang San away from the Immortal Herbs!

Otherwise, if he destroyed the place with a single Snow Swan Kiss, where else would Fang Ling find somewhere this good to improve himself?

Such Heaven and Earth treasures as Immortal Herbs naturally belonged to the virtuous.

Fang Ling had already exhausted his mind, strained his bones, starved his body, and lived in poverty. It was time for his luck to turn around.

After indulging in his fantasies for a moment, Fang Ling came back to his senses.

A man could not aim too high. He had to look toward the future, but he also had to watch the road beneath his feet.

Compared to Slaughter City, the Great Soul Arena was far easier.

There, too, one could kill openly and aboveboard, with no restrictions. Any Soul Master could fight within it.

With money as bait, Life and Death Battles never lacked participants.

But Fang Ling needed to become at least a One-Ring Spirit Master before he could go.

That was awkward.

If he relied on slow cultivation, plus adding a little each year, how long would it take before he became a One-Ring Spirit Master?

Did he really have to kill people?

But indiscriminate slaughter was a dead end!

Fang Ling did not need to think hard to know that his leveling speed would never be faster than Spirit Hall's speed at catching people.

He washed his face with cold water, cleaning away the dried, clotted blood and sobering himself up at the same time.

As Fang Ling searched the corpse for loot, he thought.

"Do I have to kill people, or does the act of killing itself work?"

"If it works, can I kill rats? What about insects? Soul Beasts?"

"They're all living things. The Stats Panel can't possibly recognize only humans and look down on rats and Soul Beasts, right?"

He would have to catch some rats and try it later.

Having thought of the crucial point, the corners of Fang Ling's lips unconsciously curled upward.

Then his searching hand paused, and he kicked the corpse on the ground.

His smiling expression changed slightly. He spat and cursed, "Damn it, why are you so poor?"

He had used up traps, yet found nothing at all.

The only somewhat valuable clothing had been torn apart and soaked through with blood. It could not be washed clean at all.

Though he had largely guessed that an ambusher would not carry miscellaneous belongings, it still put him in an extremely foul mood.

He did not know where Old Beggar lived, so he could not loot his place!

Fang Ling recognized who the man was.

It was Old Beggar, one of the losers who had tried to fight him for territory after Fang Ling greeted him that afternoon.

Things had been peaceful for half a year, yet Old Beggar had actually dared to come assassinate him in the middle of the night.

He had probably seen the proof in Fang Ling's hand and feared that Fang Ling would seek revenge after becoming a Soul Master, so he had come.

That was purely judging a gentleman by a petty man's standards. Was Fang Ling really that petty?

Heh heh... Old Beggar had guessed right. He really was!

None of those people who had once tried to take his territory were good people.

Who knew how many lives they had on their hands? They were vicious when they struck, so there was no need to pity them.

Every last one of them would be settled with someday.

That was just how Fang Ling was—he never forgave a grudge.

Fang Ling knew why Old Beggar had not entered through the main entrance, and how he had avoided so many traps.

He had fallen for them before!

Last time, he had entered through the main entrance, fallen into a trap, and nearly been beaten to death.

That was why Old Beggar had been especially careful this time. Rather than taking the seemingly easy path through the broken front door, he had climbed over the wall.

He had been determined to kill Fang Ling.

Unfortunately, while he had been careful, Fang Ling had been even more careful.

There were traps by the wall too!

They had been placed specifically to guard against people climbing over it.

Besides that, what Old Beggar likely had not expected was that there were even more traps in the grass than he imagined.

There were traps in the trees as well, forming three-dimensional attacks and a whole trap array.

As long as he carelessly triggered one, the pain would make him lose focus and balance, causing him to trigger several more in succession!

After using up quite a few traps, Old Beggar had not died unjustly.

Having found nothing, Fang Ling suppressed his disgust and began dismembering the body.

He was still young and weak. He could not drag an intact corpse, nor was it easy to dig such a large hole, so he simply buried it piece by piece.

In both his previous life and this one, it was his first time killing a person, but ever since becoming a beggar, he had skinned plenty of rats.

His hands had long been stained with blood, so he could still endure it.

He then worked through the entire night, finally burying Old Beggar in the ground at dawn.

Fang Ling yawned as sleepiness washed over him.

After working all night, he had finally covered up the matter.

Although he had not found any other loot, the Dagger was truly excellent.

Its streamlined blade and handle merged perfectly, while the blade itself had been forged from the finest steel.

After countless rounds of hammering and polishing, its surface displayed a deep blue-gray sheen.

It had likely been made with soft steel wrapped around hard steel. The edge was a hard, silvery-white metal that reflected a faint cold glint even in the darkness, like a frigid streak slicing through the night sky.

Even when it clashed with Fang Ling's sickle, neither had suffered much damage.

No, it would be more accurate to say that it was fortunate the Scythe Martial Soul had not been damaged.

In any case, this blade was truly extraordinary. Fang Ling's hard work throughout the night had not been in vain.

No matter where Old Beggar had gotten this Dagger, it belonged to Fang Ling now.

He slid the blade into an ordinary leather sheath.

Fighting off his drowsiness, Fang Ling took off his clothes.

There was blood on his face, so naturally his clothes had not escaped it either.

The blood could not be washed out, so he would use them as kindling.

After spending more time resetting the traps, setting new rat traps, and cleaning the bloodstains from the pile of grass, Fang Ling finally could no longer resist his sleepiness and fell into a deep sleep indoors.

When he woke again, it was already afternoon.

The sun was sinking in the west.

His stomach growled, and his belly was empty.

After simply cooking some meat for a meal, he went to inspect the rat traps again.

He adjusted the strength of the old traps and set up three new ones. Of all the traps, three had been triggered.

One had caught nothing, one had let its prey escape, and only one rat had taken the bait.

It was barely alive.

But the faint rise and fall of its chest told Fang Ling that the rat was still stubbornly clinging to life!

Afraid that it would die too quickly, he immediately summoned his Martial Soul.

A sharp sickle flashed, and the rat was instantly beheaded.

Fresh blood poured from the severed neck. Compared to killing a person on a lightless night, it seemed somewhat cruel.

But Fang Ling had no time to care about that. His mind was locked tightly onto the gray, illusory Progress Bar in his vision.

It had grown!

It had really grown!

However, the increase was pitifully small—only one ten-thousandth.

Killing a rat had also added to the Progress Bar, proving that any act of killing could earn points.

And just like Soul Rings, he needed to kill with his own hands.

After all, he had caught no fewer than a hundred rats for food over the past year.

But to make sure the rats could not escape, he had set the traps with considerable force. Every rat he found in the morning had already been dead.

Now that he knew he could gain points through killing, how could he speed up the Progress Bar?

If he chose to gain points by killing rats, he would need to kill ten thousand of them...

That was too stupid.

Setting aside whether Notting City even had that many rats, how long would it take to catch ten thousand of them?

Judging from the Progress Bar's growth, body size or the Heaven and Earth Origin Power contained within the body was the key.

He could not kill Soul Masters.

To avoid being wanted and to avoid falling into the slow grind of killing rats for points, he needed to find something large, easy to kill, and capable of being killed repeatedly as a source of points.

For example—the Slaughterhouse.

Fang Ling's eyes lit up.

At a Slaughterhouse, pigs, cattle, sheep, and the like were all restrained. One slash across the throat would be far easier than killing a person.

He might even earn some money along the way and reduce his food expenses.

A Slaughterhouse might lack anything, but it could never lack meat. On Douluo Continent, everyone despised offal, and few people wanted it.

But Fang Ling did!

It was an excellent source of meat.

As Fang Ling thought that through, he nodded to himself.

To get into the Slaughterhouse, he happened to know someone who might be able to help—

The fat owner of that butcher shop.

Fang Ling did not want anything else. Asking him to provide this future Battle Spirit Master with a way into the Slaughterhouse was not too much, was it?

Tang San could go blacksmithing after class, so why could Fang Ling not go kill pigs?

The more he thought about it, the more excited Fang Ling became. He wished he could immediately run over and find the man.

Unfortunately, it was already late, and the butcher shop had long since closed.

He did not know where the man lived, so he could only go tomorrow.