Inside the dilapidated Thatched Cottage, Zhang Chen's hands trembled as he repeatedly struck the flint together. At last, a spark rose from the pine kindling. Zhang Chen hurriedly picked up the blood-red scripture and tossed it into the stove to burn. The orange flames within were dyed red by the blood-red pages, crimson as fresh blood and utterly terrifying, brimming with an ominous air. Faint, intermittent cold laughter seemed to drift from the flames.
Only after the pages had burned to ashes did the stove's flames return to orange. Zhang Chen stared uncertainly at the fire, bitterness filling his eyes. With a face as mournful as a funeral, he said, "Good heavens, why did I run into something like this? What a sin!"
He turned to Little Fox, his voice hoarse. "My Little Ancestor, you're going to get me killed. Where did you get this ghostly thing?"
In the neighboring room
Zhang Chen had no idea that next door, the man and fox were both wearing deeply furrowed expressions, their faces twisted into bitter melons. One man and one fox stared wide-eyed at each other, their gazes full of helplessness. Meanwhile, Zhang Chen had only just opened his eyes in the neighboring room. Recalling last night's events, he sat by the bed in thought and murmured, "Strange! Strange! If Fox Spirits exist in this world, then perhaps some other strange things aren't so hard to accept either."
Zhang Chen got dressed inside the room, then shouldered his Luoyang Shovel and prepared to leave.
But the instant he opened the door, his steps halted. Two dazzling clusters of Experience Points lay at the entrance.
Experience Points +150
Experience Points +200
After collecting the Experience Points, Zhang Chen turned his gaze to his Golden Finger Interface:
Name: Zhang Chen Skill 1 (Second Order): Light of the Righteous God (0/5000) Skill 2 (Unranked): Dragon Qi (0/2000)] Points: 2250
"Without doing anything overnight, I somehow got three hundred and fifty Experience Points for free. That's already as much as I'd gain after a full day of hard work in the past." Zhang Chen looked at the Golden Finger Interface, his gaze landing on Dragon Qi, his second skill. In the end, he suppressed the urge to upgrade it. To him, specializing in one divine ability was what mattered most. No matter how many low-level skills he had, they could not compare to a high-level skill's usefulness at a critical moment.
"I'm still short two thousand seven hundred and fifty Experience Points before my Light of the Righteous God can level up. I wonder what kind of unimaginable power a Third Order Light of the Righteous God will possess." Zhang Chen recalled last night. He had not even seen what the strange entity looked like before his Evil-warding Golden Light automatically drove it away. It seemed his Evil-warding Golden Light was ineffective against living people, but it had miraculous effects against these strange entities.
Zhang Chen carried the Luoyang Shovel up the mountain. After checking the traps, he found that they were unexpectedly empty today.
"How strange! Could last night's sandstorm have been too fierce? Or perhaps strange entities had appeared and affected the prey's movements?" A thought flashed through Zhang Chen's mind.
Still, Zhang Chen ate meat every day, so he could endure skipping breakfast. He carried the Luoyang Shovel straight to the cave, but then he suddenly remembered the snakes buried underground. His heart stirred. "I can eat snake meat!"
"But snake meat has too many parasites. Forget it." Thinking of those damned parasites and this world's medical standards, Zhang Chen immediately abandoned the idea.
Zhang Chen crawled into the cave and made his way to the Stone Tablet. Sure enough, another cluster of Experience Points had appeared beneath it.
Experience Points discovered +200
With a thought, Zhang Chen directly collected the Experience Points. Then his Golden Finger Interface refreshed:
Name: Zhang Chen Skill 1 (Second Order): Light of the Righteous God (0/5000) Skill 2 (Unranked): Dragon Qi (0/2000)] Points: 2450
"If this happens a few more times, I'll be able to gain even more Experience Points in less than ten days." Zhang Chen looked at his Experience Points. Now, he only needed to gain another half as much before his skill could level up.
"Something's wrong. The Stone Tablet seems a little off today!" After collecting the Experience Points, Zhang Chen was about to turn and continue excavating the Ancient Tomb when his steps abruptly stopped. He looked at the Stone Tablet and saw that its inscriptions had dimmed somewhat. Specks of blood seeped out from among the carved words, gradually gathering into a drop of blood that fell into the soil and vanished without a trace.
"What's going on?" Looking at the blood seeping from the Stone Tablet, Zhang Chen's scalp prickled, and he sucked in a sharp breath. Horror flashed through his eyes. "The Stone Tablet is bleeding?"
"Could it be that it didn't absorb the blood I smeared on it yesterday?"
Zhang Chen cautiously tore a strip of cloth from his clothes and wiped the bloodstains off the Stone Tablet. Yet less than a quarter of an hour later, countless tiny blood-red droplets, as fine as mist, seeped out from the tablet's inscriptions again.
"This Stone Tablet really is strange. It's like a living thing—it can even bleed." Zhang Chen looked at it, caution appearing in his eyes.
Yet he was not afraid. The Stone Tablet had not harmed him before, so there was no reason for it to harm him now.
"Besides, according to the inscription on the Stone Tablet, wasn't this tablet dug up by the 'Emperor' from the grave of some great enemy? And it was even specifically used as a gravestone for the Emperor's Daughter. No matter how one looked at it, it was no ordinary object. Such abnormalities were only natural." Zhang Chen sifted through the useful information in his mind. Looking at the blood seeping from the gravestone, curiosity appeared in his eyes. "I wonder whether the blood on this gravestone has any use."
Thinking that golden light protected his body, Zhang Chen directly stretched out his hand and tried to touch one patch of blood mist.
Strangely enough, the instant the blood-red mist touched Zhang Chen's skin, it vanished without a trace, as though it had disappeared into thin air.
"How strange?" Zhang Chen withdrew his hand, confusion in his eyes. He did not sense anything amiss, but neither did he seem to gain any benefit.
"I thought blood flowing from something strange would have some mysterious effect. I didn't expect it to be completely useless." Zhang Chen glanced at the blood on the gravestone, immediately losing interest. Then he picked up the Luoyang Shovel and resumed his great undertaking of digging through the Frozen Soil.
Until noon
Zhang Chen crawled out of the cave and went to check the traps again. This time, the harvest was not bad—he had caught two wild ducks.
Zhang Chen returned to the cave and, without another word, killed the ducks. He then poured their blood over the Stone Tablet. Sure enough, once the steaming-hot blood splashed down, it was swiftly absorbed by the Stone Tablet. Even the blood that had continuously been seeping out from it stopped.
"It works!" Seeing that blood no longer seeped from the Stone Tablet, surprise appeared in Zhang Chen's eyes, followed by contemplation. "It feeds on blood. This thing probably isn't anything proper. If this were a novel, it would definitely be some kind of Demonic Beast."
Yet Zhang Chen still chose to perform the Blood Sacrifice. For no other reason than that it gave far too much! Perhaps it might even give him a skill. Whatever its origins, he would naturally serve it well.
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