Watching Du En poke at the corpses up ahead, the other corpse buriers could not help feeling apprehensive.
"Du En, is—is something wrong?"
Ning Caize asked tentatively.
Du En withdrew the shovel he had been poking with and shook his head slightly. "There doesn't seem to be anything unusual. It's just that, judging by their clothes, they look extraordinary, so I wanted to see if I could find anything good."
Hearing the first part, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Hearing the second, they all froze again, dumbfounded.
Their gazes shifted toward the four headless corpses.
Indeed, those green robes were made of satin. Compared with the clothing of ordinary people from the Underlying Layer, they were clearly much more refined.
Hm?
Wait, green robes, fine fabric... Tsk! Could they be hall masters of the Green Robe Gang?!
Good grief!
As expected of you. Faced with these gang bullies dying one after another in such miserable fashion, you were actually still thinking about making a fortune off their corpses!
Although these fellows truly deserved what they got, and there was no need to worry about damaging the corpses, but...
"They've already been searched two or three times. What could possibly be left?"
Ning Caize voiced his pessimistic opinion.
Was that really what he should be saying now?
Wei Ming stared over with wide eyes.
Ning Caize had already begun to relax. No longer hiding behind Du En, he met Wei Ming's gaze and said, "As far as hidden dangers go, there definitely shouldn't be too many. Otherwise, they wouldn't have already been searched by several people."
Only then did Wei Ming understand, though he still felt somewhat worried.
After all, Evil Cultivators might have been responsible. Wouldn't it be better to be more careful?
Just as he thought this, they saw that Du En had already begun searching by hand.
His movements were cautious and careful. Magic power clung to his hands, and he was also wearing thick cloth gloves.
Before long, his hand stopped.
Had something really been overlooked?
In an instant, the others unconsciously held their breath, appearing even more nervous than the person involved.
Du En seemed to be searching by touch, but in reality, relying on his vastly improved cultivation technique, he was attempting to sense things. He discovered an abnormal response around the stomach.
Thus, the others watched as Du En pried open the severed neck and reached his hand down the esophagus.
Mmph...
The sight immediately made them feel somewhat strange.
But only somewhat. Although this would get blood, stomach acid, and perhaps even foul-smelling stomach contents on him, people in their line of work were soaked in the stench of corpses and decay all day long. It was not really a big deal.
At most, the sight of that motion somehow made them feel it in their own bodies. It was much like seeing someone get kicked between the legs and involuntarily feeling a chill in the heart while clamping one's thighs together.
Du En rummaged through the stomach and pulled out a pouch.
It had been hidden quite deeply, in a groove at the junction of the stomach and duodenum. The groove had clearly been forcibly pressed out after birth, with fibrotic tissue clamping it shut.
This was to prevent the stomach from being searched!
Du En casually felt around and indeed discovered traces that it had been searched once before.
"Sure enough, I'm not the only one who knows things can be hidden this way."
As Du En thought this, the others gathered around, looking utterly astonished.
These corpse buriers, whose actual years on the job were still quite short, had truly never imagined that things could be hidden this way.
Perhaps Ning Caize vaguely knew, but he had not dared risk verifying it.
Du En then took advantage of his momentum and searched the other corpses as well.
One of them had already been beaten to the punch, yielding nothing at all.
After first using the corpse's clothes to wipe off the various filth stuck to his hands, Du En examined the spoils from the corpse-searching.
When he opened the pouch contributed by the first corpse, he found a dense pile of Low-grade Spirit Stones. After counting them, there were thirty-eight—not a small number.
There were also several sheets of folded paper, which gave him a strong sense of déjà vu. Du En opened them and discovered that they contained only a low-grade spell, the Earth Armor Technique.
This was not some remarkable coincidence.
In fact, when Du En had chosen his targets the previous night, he had deliberately focused on certain ones.
More specifically, two of the four hall masters also cultivated the Yellow Earth Technique, so they were quite likely to possess things related to the earth element.
His luck was decent, and thus he obtained the Earth Armor Technique.
The reason there were so many sheets of paper was not that this low-grade spell was particularly unusual. Rather, the dead man had recorded his own insights from practicing it while alive.
One could read a hint of smug self-satisfaction and looking down upon all beneath heaven in those notes.
A diary of sorts, filled with disguised self-praise.
What the second corpse contributed was not a pouch, but a slender object that began at the duodenum and was pulled out from there. It was grayish-white, resembling a parasite. It kept coming out and only stopped once it reached the part smeared with feces—nearly ten meters long.
The sight left everyone dumbstruck, and they cried out that their horizons had been broadened.
After identifying it, Du En concluded that it was probably a Spiritual Material. More precisely, it was a soft-metal spiritual ore, a First-tier Mid Grade specimen of considerable value, worth at least fifty Low-grade Spirit Stones.
The appraisal technique that had been stuck for so long was also stirred by this and accumulated another increment.
Finally, there was the fourth corpse. This one had no pouch either. Instead, there was a Spirit Stone lodged in the small intestine, resembling an intestinal obstruction.
A Mid-grade Spirit Stone.
Compared with a Low-grade Spirit Stone, it was several times larger, harder, and more translucent. The spiritual energy contained within seemed to roil like mist, breathtakingly beautiful beneath the sunlight.
As for its value, it could be exchanged for a hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones.
The total harvest consisted of one Mid-grade Spirit Stone, thirty-eight Low-grade Spirit Stones, a First-tier Mid Grade spiritual ore of some sort, and the low-grade spell Earth Armor Technique.
It was quite a decent haul, and it all belonged to Du En.
After all, the others had merely watched. They lacked both the ability and the courage.
Sure enough, seeing that Du En had obtained quite a haul, they began itching to try. They looked over the other corpses and spotted several whose clothes were fairly decent. Yet when they walked up to them, they hesitated and ultimately did not dare reach in and search.
Du En finished putting away his spoils and came over to inspect them briefly. He found nothing valuable in their stomachs.
The situation was obvious. Only old hands who hid things deeply, or corpses with unusual peculiarities, might leave a little soup behind for these corpse buriers at the very bottom of the corpse-work chain, the most miserable of them all.
"Let's get to work. After the shift, if you want to learn the Earth Armor Technique, you can come take a look."
Du En was not stingy about this.
However, the others had limited energy. Ning Caize, the best among them, had only barely broken free of Beginner's Practice after studying the Sand Raising Technique until now, managing to grasp a little of its intricacies.
Even with the Earth Armor Technique additionally containing the dead man's insights, it was clearly more difficult to learn. If they truly wanted to master it, they would probably need quite a bit of time.
Even so, everyone swept away their gloom, loudly praising his might, then worked with all their strength, looking eager to get started.
Du En was somewhat lazy, taking spare moments to ponder the Earth Armor Technique.
With his Yellow Earth Technique having reached the point of mastery, at least when it came to these two earth-element spells, along with the dead man's insights, he soon learned it.
[Earth Armor Technique (Beginner's Practice 0/10)]
"Daytime's spare moments have already been taken up by the other two spells. I'll practice this Earth Armor Technique at night when I have time. After all, unlike the especially powerful Earth Bullet Technique, it can be practiced indoors. Hm, five times a day."
"Mastery reduces it by two, Minor Accomplishment reduces it by one and a half, and proficiency reduces it by one. Breath Concealing Technique isn't of the same element or category, so it probably won't reduce it. In other words, five and a half practice sessions will accumulate one point of proficiency."
Raising the proficiency was still quite simple.
As Du En thought this, he suddenly sensed something faintly and turned his head toward the path.
Someone was approaching!
Please follow for more updates! Please bookmark!
Before you continue