Beneath the curtain of night.
On the crude wooden bed in his dwelling, Du En sat cross-legged and meditated, gradually easing the exhaustion from both body and mind.
"My current limit is six times a day. No, five and a half times. But to be safe, it would be best to set it at four times. At that rate, I'll accumulate one point every ten times, which means I'll be able to break through to a new stage after forty-nine days."
As he pondered, Du En gave a thought and summoned the panel.
[Age: 18/91] [Spiritual Root: Low-grade] [Cultivation: Early Qi Refining (14/100)] [Technique: Yellow Earth Technique (Initial Glimpse 0/20)] [Spell: None] [Divine Ability: None] [Hundred Arts: None]
"My cultivation progress has increased directly by two points. That's the obvious short-term impact brought by breaking through in the technique. It's equivalent to saving me eight months..."
"No, that's not right. The efficiency of my cultivation has already increased by roughly ten percent overall, and I'm circulating energy twice as many times each night as before. So it should be less than four months."
Calculating with a touch of obsessive precision, Du En was still quite satisfied with this situation.
Although this cultivation speed was still rather slow, once he raised his proficiency in the technique, it would be like a snowball rolling downhill, growing larger and larger as it went.
The future was promising.
After finishing his calculations, he opened his eyes and took out the unexpected spoils he had obtained during the day.
It was the small pouch he had conveniently washed clean while doing the laundry.
Because its opening had been tied tightly, the paper inside had not gotten wet.
After opening it, he thought for a moment. He did not take out the three fingertip-sized, crystal-clear Low-grade Spirit Stones, but placed the pouch together with the three Low-grade Spirit Stones he had received as wages half a month ago.
Eggs could not be put in the same basket. By the same logic, Spirit Stones could not be kept in the same pouch.
To be honest, if the corpse had not accidentally broken into two pieces this time, with its organs rotting until they had half-liquefied and gushed out in a sloppy mess, these belongings would probably have been buried with it.
"No, that wasteland is quite strange. The outcome might be the same as with those corpses—they could be completely dissolved within a few days, leaving behind only a little Yin Evil Black Soil."
As for the possibility that the corpses he had buried previously might have hidden belongings, he felt neither regret nor pity.
After all, who knew whether those corpses had been good people? If one of them had been carrying poison and lingering trouble, he might well have died while searching and rummaging through corpses.
Still, once his cultivation grew stronger in the future, his body became tougher, and his magic power more abundant, if the target was suitable, he could take the risk and try digging through its stomach and intestines.
As he thought this, Du En had already taken out the sheet of paper and slowly unfolded it.
"This is... the Earth Bullet Technique?"
The palm-sized sheet was densely covered in tiny millet-sized characters. After recognizing and reading them, he found that they were actually an excerpt from a spell.
"It's a little disjointed, and several parts have been deliberately obscured, but overall, it should still be possible to study and practice..."
The brief hundred or so characters carried a faint air of profound meaning hidden in sparse words, making them rather obscure and difficult to understand. There were also a few omissions, which should have been deliberately introduced when it was copied.
However, as long as he worked out the most basic framework, learned it, and managed to cast it, all that remained would be constant practice until everything fell naturally into place.
It was not a major problem.
Du En did not immediately study and ponder it, because his body and mind were still utterly exhausted. He merely committed it firmly to memory, then destroyed it outright.
After tying the pouch shut again, he placed it in another corner of the room.
While hiding the item, he could not help pondering the impact of this unexpected windfall.
The main issue was how to arrange his nighttime cultivation.
Cultivate the technique and practice the spell.
If possible, he would ideally handle both.
"Ensuring four fully focused energy circulations shouldn't be a problem. After all, my limit is five and a half, which means I still have one and a half cycles of capacity that I can use to squeeze in spell practice, as well as recover my magic power afterward."
If he was only recovering magic power, he did not actually need to remain fully focused. He could also do it more slowly, further reducing the burden.
So, it was still not a major problem.
Moreover, once he accumulated his proficiency, although there would be no qualitative change, it would still make this spare capacity grow higher and higher, just as rising water lifts the boat.
The light inside the room began to change quietly before he even realized it.
Dawn was about to break.
Du En stopped thinking about it and returned to bed to catch up on sleep.
That bout of sleep lasted until the sun had fully risen.
Knock, knock!
Someone could not help knocking on the door.
"Boss Du, are you awake?"
Du En had not come out for a long while, so someone had come over to knock. The voice was not loud.
Even before the knocking began, Du En had already opened his eyes upon hearing the approaching footsteps. Now he sat up and shook his head slightly, dispelling the remnants of drowsiness.
"I'm awake."
As he spoke, he rose and opened the door.
Outside, the other five corpse buriers were all waiting for Du En.
They were efficient as well. Without saying anything, they changed into the clothes that still carried a faint odor even after being washed, shouldered their shovels, closed the door, and followed Du En to work.
The morning sunlight in the Southern Border gradually grew scorching.
Still groggy with sleep, the wretched Underlying Layer looked like a procession of walking corpses. Like schools of fish converging, they flowed from their respective dwellings toward the main road, then continued forward, dodging various transport vehicles and dispersing to all directions.
Du En and the others left the main road and entered a small path through the mountains and forest. They began skillfully wrapping thick cloth around their heads and faces, leaving only their brows and eyes exposed.
The stench of corpses had already begun to spread. At this moment, the path was littered with all kinds of fresh corpse filth left behind by the recent transport of bodies.
Some carrion-eating birds and beasts, animals like Strange Owls, were currently feasting merrily.
When faced with the arrival of Du En and the others—these "Living Corpses"—they all bared their teeth and snarled protectively over their food.
If one truly blocked the way, Du En, walking at the very front, would send it flying with a single shovel. Thus, over time, the carrion-eating beasts here had long since learned their lesson and would do their best to stay out of the middle of the path.
Du En naturally did not beat or chase them away without reason either. Everyone maintained a peaceful coexistence, brushing past one another harmoniously.
To Wei Ming, the newcomer, this strange yet harmonious order was a genuine assault on his worldview, and he found it extremely difficult to accept.
Combined with the many shocks he had suffered while working the previous day, the accumulated exhaustion, his inability to ever eat his fill, and the need to spend time and energy cultivating, it left him muddle-headed and absent-minded.
By the time he came back to himself, he discovered that they had already arrived at the work site: the Corpse Burial Wasteland in the mountain forest.
The stench spread everywhere, while corpse after corpse lay arranged fairly neatly on the ground.
"Sixty-eight corpses. Not bad. It's not too many."
Du En swept his gaze over them, then pointed to the northwestern corner of the wasteland. "That's where we'll bury the corpses today. It's a little far away. Hmm, I'll continue pairing up with Wei Ming. The four of you can do as you like."
Before you continue