Deep in the night, all was still.
Inside the tent, it was pitch black, shutting out the chill outside.
Zhen Jin lay on a pallet woven from dead leaves and hay, a thin quilt draped over him.
Previously, he and Zi Di had braved the wind and dew, but the present conditions were already quite comfortable and warm.
Waves of weakness still lingered within his body.
This was the aftereffect of drinking the potion.
Neither the comfortable sleeping environment nor the fatigue and weakness of his body could make Zhen Jin fall asleep.
The youth's eyes remained wide open, his brows locked in a deep frown as he relived that sense of emptiness from earlier when he drank the potion and immediately vomited up icy blood.
That's right, it felt almost exactly the same! Zhen Jin was already quite certain by this moment.
Back then, when dealing with the Blade Spider, he lacked his only dagger and was unable to cut the spider silk, placing him in extreme peril. Yet at the moment of life and death, his hands had suddenly turned into sharp claws, plunging straight into the spider's body.
Zhen Jin thus launched a desperate counterattack, killing the Blade Spider and averting disaster.
Afterward, his hands returned to normal, and an intense, indescribable sense of emptiness surged from deep within his body.
These two sensations were completely identical.
The principle of the healing potion is to condense all the frost magic within my body into a single mass and vomit it out.
Therefore, this feeling of emptiness should be the sudden, massive consumption of the magic inside me.
Zhen Jin attached great importance to this discovery.
Because this mutated ability contained immense value.
Given his current circumstances, if Zhen Jin could never manage to rouse battle qi, it would be difficult for him to display his true strength.
If he faced a desperate situation again and could once more transform his hands into sharp claws, he undoubtedly would have a powerful trump card.
Afterward, facing this trump card, even a silver-level Blade Spider was killed with a single blow.
Following my current train of thought, did Zi Di's treatment of me back then inadvertently produce a transformation potion?
And did I master the transformation of the monkey-tailed brown bear as a result?
Transformation potions were magical potions crafted by powerful potion masters, capable of even temporarily turning people into giant dragons.
Over the past hundred years, transformation potions had swept through the upper crust of human society.
The pivotal figure was Duchess Amy.
This female duke was not only formidable in personal strength and terrifying in influence, but she was also extremely fond of beauty.
The transformation potions she researched and developed herself numbered in the thousands.
Unlike the approach of earlier potion masters who crafted transformation potions, the vast majority of the potions Duchess Amy manufactured were quite basic.
The medicinal effect was very mild.
After drinking them, people often changed their skin tone or hair color, made the bridge of their nose a bit taller, or their eyes a bit larger, and so on.
Now, within the markets of the Saint Brilliance Empire, Amy Transformation Potion was a household name and a perennial bestseller. This business had also become the largest source of profit for the Amy Territory.
Zhen Jin recalled carefully.
He had charged into death's embrace and killed the monkey-tailed brown bear. Severely wounded and on the verge of death, he had lost consciousness several times, retaining only hazy visions in the gaps between his blackouts.
He still remembered quite clearly one particular scene—Zi Di directly pouring bear blood into his body.
According to Zi Di's later explanation, she had also been flustered at the time and forced to make a risky attempt. Fortunately, her gamble paid off!
The bear blood contained a massive amount of magic, much like the goat meat I ate. This magic lurked within me, and after the transformation, it consumed that portion of magic, causing me to experience an intense sense of emptiness.
Of course, aside from that, there was also another possibility—battle qi.
That situation was rather complicated.
At that life-or-death moment, perhaps my potential was stimulated, and in a split second, relying on instinct, I forced out battle qi.
This island prohibited the wielding of low-tier magical battle qi, but the exact limit of this prohibition had not yet been accurately measured. Perhaps I possessed gold-level cultivation, and at the critical moment, I temporarily broke through the blockade and unleashed gold-level battle qi.
Gold-level battle qi was still not the crucial point.
The crucial point was that at that extremely perilous juncture, my bloodline had even awakened!
Once a bloodline awakened, a person's outward appearance would change.
For instance, knights harboring dragon blood would grow dragon scales on the surface of their bodies.
Or, for example, warlocks carrying hydra blood; once their bloodline awakened, human circular pupils would transform into vertical serpent pupils.
Marquis Jin Mangke of the Saint Brilliance Empire was a saint-level powerhouse, very active on the battlefield in recent years and renowned far and wide. Whenever he fought bloody battles, battle qi filled his body, stimulating his bloodline awakening to wrap him in crackling golden lightning while his originally black hair turned entirely gold, expanding and clumping together like engorged muscles.
Instances of bloodline awakening were uncommon, with only a fraction of even powerhouses possessing them.
Because only when the bloodline within the body reached a very high concentration could there be a possibility of such awakening.
If I were of gold-level cultivation, given my current age, I would undoubtedly possess exceptional natural talent. And such talent meant I possessed a fairly concentrated bloodline! It is not strange that bloodline awakening occurred in me.
It's just that the origin of my bloodline should trace back to the gold-bee queen. After bloodline awakening, I should possess the traits of a bee queen; how could it be a pair of sharp claws?
Perhaps there are other bloodlines within my body?
That was also hard to say.
Human nobles often led dissolute private lives, and their bloodlines tended to be mixed. Moreover, some bloodlines would lie dormant for a lifetime unless stimulated.
Under the stimulus of death, I incited gold-level battle qi, and some mysterious bloodline within me awakened, transforming my hands into sharp claws. But why did they happen to be sharp claws just like the monkey-tailed brown bear? Is it truly a coincidence?
Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, Zhen Jin still felt that the first possibility—a transformation potion—was the most likely.
The possibility of the latter bloodline awakening was not nonexistent, but the probability was quite small.
Thus, this brought up an entirely new problem.
Is there still any magic of the monkey-tailed brown bear left within my body?
Is this magic still eroding me?
The consequences of magic erosion were very severe.
Different bloodlines basically could not coexist peacefully.
If a human noble possessed two bloodlines in their body, one was generally higher and the other lower, one strong and the other weak. During the subsequent cultivation process, the superior bloodline would grow increasingly powerful, ultimately driving out the inferior, weak bloodline.
If both bloodlines were superior and neither was willing to give up, things became rather troublesome. One had to cultivate a specific battle qi formula, focusing on the balance between these two bloodlines. Balance could mean one bloodline taking the lead with the other as a supplement, or both bloodlines maintaining equal strength. Once this balance was broken, violent conflicts would erupt between the bloodlines, spelling a grim fate for the transcendent, resulting in injury or death. Bloodline determined aptitude, and aptitude was the key to mastering power henceforth.
Human persistence and madness in the pursuit of bloodlines were eternal.
Nobles would rack their brains to intermarry with powerhouses of superior bloodlines, noble families would ally through marriage, and nobles led decadent private lives—aside from personal lust, it was all to produce family descendants with outstanding aptitudes.
Among all races, humans excelled at reproduction, far outperforming elves and dwarves. Yet among the offspring born to nobles, those with outstanding aptitudes would forever be a small minority.
Moreover, the more powerful an individual's life level, the harder it was to reproduce offspring. The cost of childbearing was also exorbitant.
Aside from reproduction, humans also employed other crooked methods.
For instance, utilizing magic, crafting potions, creating survival environments, trading with demons, and the like to forcibly implant superior bloodlines into their bodies.
Forcibly intermingling superior bloodlines was not impossible; indeed, many methods could succeed temporarily.
Yet the results were often harrowing.
First was human mutation, producing terrifying, creepy aberrations. This deformity manifested not only physically but also mentally. Many instances exhibited symptoms of madness, babbling, chaos, dementia, and so on.
Second, the stability of the original life was thoroughly shattered, lifespan was drastically curtailed, and survival times were short.
Finally was the dissolution of the soul.
Zhen Jin had never heard of anyone using external forces to acquire a bloodline and succeeding completely.
Bloodlines were so scarce and crucial.
Superior bloodlines brought exceptional aptitudes. Exceptional aptitudes, through the brewing of time, forged formidable strength.
And formidable strength signified tyrannical power.
The reason human nobles were nobles, able to tower above the vast majority of their peers, was precisely because of such a solid foundation.
Bloodline was the cornerstone and pride of a noble's existence!
Zi Di treated me and inadvertently manufactured a transformation potion. This transformation potion could cause my hands to mutate, turning into beastly sharp claws. This means that the bloodline of the monkey-tailed brown bear was forcibly mixed into my body by external forces.
This inferior bloodline will pollute my own noble bloodline.
If this degree of pollution is relatively high, my cultivation aptitude will inevitably decline as a result.
Transformation potions could not be abused.
The consequences of abuse were severe, the price disastrous.
Regardless of whether I am currently at the silver-level or the gold-level, I am still very young, and the road ahead is long. These are merely starting points, by no means the finish line.
If this transformation potion dims my prospects, the gain will not outweigh the loss.
Bronze, black iron, silver, gold.
Above these lay legends and the saint-level.
And above the saint-level lay even greater heights!
Who would not wish to become a legend, a saint-level powerhouse, or even greater?
Zhen Jin was unwilling to see his own growth hindered by the monkey-tailed brown bear's blood, his potential and hope curtailed, and his originally bright future cast into gloom.
The sense of emptiness I experienced was due to the massive consumption of magic within my body. Then has that portion of the monkey-tailed brown bear's magic been completely consumed?
My hands mutated once before; could that consume all the corresponding magic? At present, is there any residue left inside me?
Ever since that time, no matter how I tried, my hands could not change. Does this prove that the related magic within my body has been exhausted?
Counting this time, I drank the potion, and the foreign magic in my body was thus gathered into a mass and vomited out.
The potion Zi Di brewed targeted frost magic; would it also be effective against the monkey-tailed brown bear's magic?
Perhaps I should reveal everything and ask Zi Di to help me design a targeted emetic potion?
Zhen Jin's thoughts were chaotic. After all, he was weak, and before long, he fell into a heavy slumber inside the tent.
Where is this? Am I dreaming?
Not knowing how much time had passed, he found himself arriving at a spacious location.
Before him stood a wooden long table, upon which bows and arrows were placed. A hundred meters away stood three archery targets.
The wooden table was crudely made in a rough style. The archery targets were humanoid figures made of straw, with circular white cloth hanging where their heads should be. Multiple concentric circles were drawn on the cloth, the centermost circle deliberately filled in with red paint.
This was a practice range used for archery.
There were only two people in the shooting range.
One was Zhen Jin, and the other was a middle-aged man with a stiff posture, a pair of thin, slender mustaches, and a trace of aristocratic arrogance perpetually carried on his slightly upturned face.
Zhen Jin recognized this middle-aged man.
He was his father, as well as the current clan leader of the Hundred Needles Family.
Due to his fragmented memories, Zhen Jin lacked emotional attachment to the middle-aged man before him, but the resurfacing memories of the preceding scenes made him aware of the close relationship between the two of them.
Father, I have come in obedience to your summons. Zhen Jin found himself speaking out loud.
The Hundred Needles Clan Leader nodded slightly. You have returned from the imperial capital for a few days now. I have come to test you to see if your training in the capital has grown slack. This time, we shall compare archery. If you can defeat me, I will bestow that swift bee upon you.
Hearing these words, Zhen Jin's eyes instantly lit up.
A swift bee was a flying mount, and although it could only fly about three meters off the ground, it was worth a king's ransom and rarely circulated on the market.
In the empire, nobles who mastered swift bee breeding technology were few and far between. The Hundred Needles Family was precisely one of them.
Yet the next moment, Zhen Jin heard himself speak in a sorrowful, hesitant tone: But Father, your arm...
Zhen Jin immediately understood: this scene should have taken place shortly after the battle between the Hundred Needles Clan Leader and Qing Kui.
Zhen Jin possessed related memories; he knew that his father, the Hundred Needles Clan Leader, possessed formidable strength, but in the dispute with Qing Kui, due to carelessness, he had instead had one of his arms severed.
Indeed, with only a single arm remaining now, how could the Hundred Needles Clan Leader hold a bow and shoot an arrow?
The Hundred Needles Clan Leader, however, was completely unconcerned. It is no matter, you shoot first.
Zhen Jin picked up the longbow, skillfully nocked an arrow, and with a swish, struck the head of the target.
Perhaps the Zhen Jin of back then was in low spirits, so he failed to hit the bullseye.
Zhen Jin placed the longbow back on the long table.
It was the Hundred Needles Clan Leader's turn.
The Hundred Needles Clan Leader smiled faintly. He reached out to unbutton his collar, revealing a hidden pocket on the inside of his garment.
There were meticulous stitches on the hidden pocket, holding ten long needles arranged in a dense row.
These needles were of uniform length, each about the size of an adult's index finger. They seemed to be of crystal texture, yet exuded a faint, cloudy white hue, not entirely transparent.
Watch closely, my son. The Hundred Needles Clan Leader pinched out one of the white crystal long needles with his index and middle fingers.
The next instant, gold-level battle qi was roused by him and channeled into the white crystal long needle.
In a split second, the white crystal long needle flashed with a dazzling golden radiance.
Facing the target, the Hundred Needles Clan Leader lightly flicked his finger.
Shoom!
A sharp, piercing shriek that tore through the air suddenly rang in Zhen Jin's ears.
At the same time, he saw the golden long needle streak across midair, leaving behind a brilliant trail of light.
The beam of light extended in a straight line and struck the target dead center, followed by a thunderous blast that completely shattered the entire archery target into dust!
This is?! Zhen Jin parted his lips slightly, his face filled with shock.
The Hundred Needles Clan Leader smiled and explained: Battle skills come in a wide variety, and a portion of their secrets cannot be easily shown to others; the world calls them secret skills. What you are seeing right now is the secret skill passed down through generations in our Hundred Needles Family—Sharp Needle Rumble. Do you wish to learn it?
I do! I ask Father to impart it to me. Zhen Jin cried out, his spirits visibly invigorated, sweeping away his previous dejection and gloom.
The Hundred Needles Clan Leader immediately imparted the technique and handed a white crystal long needle to Zhen Jin.
Seizing this opportunity, Zhen Jin observed it closely, thinking involuntarily: This white crystal flying needle is extraordinary; it is at least gold-level equipment!
Afterward, Zhen Jin found that he tried many times, yet none succeeded.
You have grasped the essentials, and there were no errors in the execution process. It is not strange that you did not succeed. The middle-aged noble enlightened him, The reason for your failure lies in your meager battle qi reserves. Executing the secret skill Sharp Needle Rumble consumes a vast amount of battle qi. Even with gold-level cultivation, one can only continuously unleash ten needles at most.
Judging by your current total amount of battle qi, if you channeled all of it, you should barely be able to release a single needle, the Hundred Needles Clan Leader then estimated.
Zhen Jin smiled bitterly: Father, in that case, if I use this secret skill, wouldn't it be a bit dangerous?
Only by exhausting all his battle qi could he barely manage to fire a single needle.
If, when facing an enemy, this needle failed to hit the target, Zhen Jin's subsequent situation would become extremely difficult due to the lack of battle qi support.
The smile on the Hundred Needles Clan Leader's face gradually faded, and his expression turned solemn.
Gazing at Zhen Jin, he said with profound meaning: My son, reality is always cruel. Whether in combat or other matters, you will always find yourself immersed in risk.
Oftentimes, you will find that firing a single needle with all your might is precisely the wisest choice.
To temporarily consume all the battle qi within your body and experience this empty, painful sensation is very difficult. Yet sometimes, we must do just this.
Do not fear risk, nor fear sacrifice!
Before you continue