Experiment

No matter what he planned, the first priority was to keep Tang San from coming into contact with the Immortal Herbs!

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

Heaven-and-earth treasures like Immortal Herbs naturally belonged to the worthy.

Fang Ling had endured hardship, strained his body, gone hungry, and lived in poverty. It was about time his luck turned 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 much easier.

There, too, people killed openly and aboveboard, and there were no restrictions. Any Spirit Master could fight inside.

With money as an incentive, Life and Death Battles would never be in short supply.

But Fang Ling would need to become at least a One-Ring Spirit Master before he could participate.

That put him in an awkward spot.

If he relied on slow cultivation, plus adding a little every year, how long would it take for him to become a One-Ring Spirit Master?

Did he really have to go kill people?

But indiscriminate slaughter was a dead end!

Fang Ling did not need to think twice 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 blood that had already congealed into scabs while also clearing his head.

As he rummaged through the corpse for spoils, Fang Ling thought things over.

"Do I have to kill people, or is the act of killing itself enough?"

"If it works, would killing rats count? What about insects? Spirit Beasts?"

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

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

Having thought of the key point, Fang Ling's lips curled up unconsciously.

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

The smile on his face faded 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 clothes had been torn apart by the stabbing and soaked through with blood, making them impossible to wash clean.

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

He had no idea where the Old Beggar lived, so he could not loot his body!

Fang Ling recognized who the intruder was.

It was the Old Beggar he had greeted during the day, one of the losers who had tried to fight him for territory.

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

He had probably seen the certificate in Fang Ling's hand and feared that Fang Ling would seek revenge after becoming a Spirit Master, which was why he had come.

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

Hehe~ The Old Beggar had guessed right. He really was!

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

Who knew how many lives they had taken? They were ruthless when they acted, so there was no need to pity them.

Every last one of them would be dealt with someday.

Fang Ling was just that vindictive.

Fang Ling knew why the Old Beggar had not entered through the main gate, yet had still managed to avoid so many traps.

The man had fallen for them before!

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

That was why the Old Beggar had been especially careful this time. Rather than taking the seemingly easier route through the broken main gate, he had climbed over the wall.

He had come determined to kill Fang Ling.

Unfortunately, though he was cautious, Fang Ling was even more cautious.

There were traps by the wall too!

They had been placed specifically to deal with people climbing over it.

Beyond that, what the 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 a three-dimensional attack and creating a trap array.

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

Quite a few traps had been used up, but the Old Beggar had not died unfairly.

Finding nothing, Fang Ling suppressed the nausea in his heart and began dismembering the body.

He was still young and frail; he could not drag an intact corpse, nor was it easy to dig such a large pit. So he would bury it piece by piece.

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

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

He worked through the night, finally burying the Old Beggar by dawn the next day.

Fang Ling yawned as drowsiness washed over him.

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

Though he had found no other spoils, the Dagger was truly excellent.

Its streamlined blade and hilt blended together 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 was probably made with hard steel encased in soft steel. Its edge was a hard, silver-white metal that reflected a faint, cold gleam even in the dark, like a streak of icy light cutting through the night sky.

Even when it had struck Fang Ling's scythe, it had not suffered any damage.

No, it was more fortunate that the Scythe Martial Soul had not been damaged.

In any case, this blade was truly extraordinary, making Fang Ling's night of hard work worthwhile.

No matter where the Old Beggar had gotten this Dagger, it belonged to him now.

He slid the blade into an ordinary leather sheath.

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

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

The blood would not wash out, so he might as well use them as kindling.

After spending more time rearranging the traps, setting up new rat traps, and washing the bloodstains from the pile of straw, Fang Ling finally succumbed to his exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep indoors.

When he woke again, it was already afternoon.

The sun was setting in the west.

His stomach growled with hunger, and his belly was empty.

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

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

One had caught nothing, one rat had escaped, and only one rat had been caught.

It was barely clinging to life.

But the faint rise and fall of its chest told Fang Ling that it was still stubbornly alive!

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

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

Bright red blood gushed from the severed neck. Compared to killing a man on a lightless night, it seemed somewhat cruel.

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

It had increased!

It really had increased!

But the amount was pitifully small—only one ten-thousandth.

Killing rats also increased the Progress Bar, proving that any act of killing could earn Points.

And just like soul rings, he needed to kill them personally.

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

But to ensure the rats would not escape, he had made the traps rather powerful. The rats he found each morning were all dead.

Now that he knew he could gain Points through killing, how could he speed up the process?

If he chose to kill rats for Points, he would need to kill ten thousand of them...

That was too stupid.

Not to mention 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 rate of growth, size or the Heaven and Earth Origin Power contained within a body was the key.

He could not kill Soul Masters.

To avoid being wanted and to keep from being reduced to such a slow method as killing rats for Points, he needed to find something large, easy to kill, and capable of being killed repeatedly as a source for increasing his Points.

For example—a slaughterhouse.

Fang Ling's eyes gleamed.

Pigs, cattle, sheep, and the like in a slaughterhouse were all secured in place. Slitting their throats in one stroke was far easier than killing people.

And he might even earn some money on the side, reducing his food expenses.

A slaughterhouse could lack anything but meat. On Douluo Continent, everyone despised offal, and hardly anyone wanted it.

But he did!

It was an excellent source of meat.

As Fang Ling thought this over, he secretly nodded.

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 wanted nothing else. Asking him to provide this future Battle Spirit Master with a way into the slaughterhouse wasn't too much, was it?

Tang San could go blacksmithing after class, so why couldn't he go slaughter pigs?

The more he thought about it, the more excited Fang Ling became. He nearly rushed over to find the man at once.

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

He had no idea where the man lived, so he could only wait until tomorrow.