Breath Concealing Technique

"Pant, pant, pant..."

"How dare you, how dare you defy me, the one who was summoned! Truly, truly outrageously bold! Supreme Lord, ah! Great Supreme Lord, give me strength, give me more strength!"

Amid his hurried gasps, Zhang Song forcibly squeezed those chilling, grating sounds from his throat with his ruined vocal cords.

Hearing those muddled, indistinct whispers that only Zhang Song himself could hear, Du En could not help raising an eyebrow slightly.

If one ruled out the possibility that this fellow was a madman, hopelessly sunk in fantasies of his own making, then this so-called Supreme Lord—and that thing called a summons—truly existed.

The people behind the Evil Cultivators?

Du En quickly thought of that group.

Those figures lurking in the shadows had dared to kill and handle corpses so recklessly within the territory of a border city belonging to an immortal sect, yet they had never been completely eradicated. Clearly, they were no ordinary group.

If they had some so-called Supreme Lord hidden behind them, that would be acceptable. It sounded entirely reasonable.

Then, expressionless, Du En threw the iron shovel in his hand like a javelin.

It directly severed Zhang Song's neck, thoroughly killing the fellow who had already burned through the last of his strength.

"You... Ah! No, I..."

Zhang Song still wanted to say something, but his head rolled away, and his life quickly faded.

He was dead.

The others immediately let their guard down completely. One after another, they collapsed limply onto the ground and silently caught their breath.

Du En was in fairly good condition. Since he strongly suspected that this fellow was connected to the Evil Cultivators, he immediately retrieved the iron shovel and began digging a pit nearby, intending to bury him.

Soon, a pit was dug.

Then, using the iron shovel—which was practically half-ruined by now—he pried up the genuinely dead Zhang Song and moved the corpse into the pit.

Along the way, a piece of white cloth lightly drifted down from the blood-smeared corpse.

No, it was a sheet of paper—or perhaps human skin?

Under Du En's intent gaze, that glaringly pale and thin piece of skin-like paper fluttered open at just one corner.

It was covered in tiny, densely packed characters. At first glance, they looked neat and orderly, but after looking at them for too long, they made one dizzy and lightheaded, seeming to ripple with a faint distortion.

Of course, this might have been something only Du En could see. If it had been Wei Ming and the others, most likely it would not have looked this way.

The difference in their cultivation and power was far too great. Yet clearly, even Du En's Yellow Earth Technique, which had reached Minor Accomplishment, could only stir up this much of a disturbance.

Those tiny characters were understood and memorized clearly the instant they entered his eyes.

A spell: Life Concealing Death Mimicking Art.

It was the spell Zhang Song had used to disguise the corpse—the very spell Du En had just found somewhat intriguing and curious.

At this moment, it revealed the tip of its iceberg.

Roughly thirty percent of it!

If you wanted to see all of it, then open it!

As long as you picked up and opened this paper, every spell written on it would become yours!

In the silence, it seemed that someone was whispering these words beside his ear. The greed that consequently sprouted and spread was also fanning the flames, urging Du En to pick it up and open it.

After all, he had already taken plenty of things from corpses before. This would merely be doing it once again—profiting from the dead once more and taking what he deserved!

So...

Expressionless, Du En shoveled it into the pit along with the soil. Then he shoveled over Zhang Song's head, the dirt stained with his blood and other traces, and buried everything together in one pit.

After he tamped it down firmly, there was no movement.

When it came to the strange, this Corpse Burial Wasteland truly lived up to its name.

No one knew how many years ago, or how many sinister and bizarre corpses, had all been buried here. No one had ever heard of them causing any danger. It was only the place itself that inspired extraordinary dread and silence.

"Although only thirty percent of the contents are intact, making it incomplete, with some study and tinkering, producing a beggars-among-beggars version of the ordinary Breath Concealing Technique shouldn't be a problem."

As long as he could piece it together, accumulating proficiency afterward would simply be a matter of letting water flow and a channel form!

So, trying to tempt him with a spell was truly far too laughable!

The others had begun recovering as well. When Du En turned around, they all cried out in admiration.

"The boss is truly mighty and domineering!"

"Badass, Chief! You even killed a Mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator!"

"Exactly! I, Old Ning—cough, cough... This counts as something I've lived long enough to see. If word got out, it would absolutely make those ungrateful bastards' eyes pop out of their heads!"

"..."

Listening to them, Du En only replied, "Without your cover and harassment, who knows what the outcome would have been?"

"Modest! The boss is a modest man. I understand, I understand!"

"What do you call this? The bearing of a true expert!"

"Cough, cough, Du En, at a time like this, there's no need for you to be modest. Your first time striking at the Mid-stage, killing an enemy above your level—that's worth bragging about anywhere!"

"..."

Seeing this, Du En did not waste any more words on the topic. He merely said, "You sound full of energy. In that case, you can wrap up the remaining work. I'll rest for a while."

That was perfectly normal. After his bitter battle with Zhang Song, he truly needed a rest.

The others had no doubts whatsoever. They had participated just now as well. Although they had pushed all the credit onto Du En verbally, they were actually extremely excited, and immediately began climbing to their feet while discussing the battle.

"Eating more and practicing more—that's the boss's secret to success!"

"Learn, learn! We must learn and follow the chief's example!"

"You lot, every last one of you, are too restless! Cough, cough... Save some strength. After we finish work, we have to catch a big owl. I've had another new idea."

"..."

Listening as they grew more and more spirited, clearly not needing him to worry about them at all, Du En directly found a reasonably clean spot and sat cross-legged, devoting himself entirely to his own business.

Studying the Breath Concealing Technique.

Unexpectedly, it was not too difficult.

He extracted the portions related to concealing one's breath from the thirty percent of the Life Concealing Death Mimicking Art, then removed what he could not fully comprehend and what might contain problems. In the end, only half of one percent remained.

Then he combined and pieced it together with the inherent characteristics of the Yellow Earth Technique.

This low-grade earth-element cultivation method had nothing flashy about it. It possessed only the most basic traits of earth: silently bearing all things and slowly accumulating.

In other words, it was inherently a "silent art."

Du En had already reached the Minor Accomplishment stage, so combining them now naturally seemed simple.

Thus, by the time the others had buried the remaining corpses, he had also mastered a new spell.

[Breath Concealing Technique (Beginner's Practice 0/10)]

Compared with the complete Life Concealing Death Mimicking Art, this was naturally a beggars-among-beggars-among-beggars version. However, it had no hidden dangers, was simple to practice, consumed almost no magical power, and was more like installing a plug-in onto his cultivation method.

Like the Sand Raising Technique, he could practice it whenever he found a spare moment and accumulate proficiency.

However, this meant that practicing the Sand Raising Technique would be affected somewhat.

His time and energy were being squeezed.

As Du En pondered these things, he was no longer in a state of practice. He then discovered that this spell had a lingering period—in other words, a duration for its effects.

By observing it, he judged the specific circumstances.

The effect would grow weaker and weaker. It could maintain a relatively effective state for roughly the time it took an incense stick to burn, but after half an hour, it would completely fail.

"There's no need to force it to last all day for now. I'll match its number of uses with the Sand Raising Technique and keep each at ten times a day..."

Du En finalized his allocation plan.

At this time, Wei Ming and the others had already approached. They had not noticed at all that Du En had been studying and casting a spell.

"Boss, the work's done."

Wei Ming appeared especially eager to please.

The work was finished, so naturally the next step was catching the big owls.

Because of today's unexpected incident, they were even more fervent about Du En's secret of eating more and practicing more.

Their hope of turning their fortunes around lay in this!

"Mm, let's go."

Du En nodded, gathered up his tools, and led everyone after the Strange Owls as they flew toward their lair.