Slaying Crabs

Jing Qian had only just embarked on the path of cultivation, so he had no particular attachment to the memories he had gotten for free.

From those memories, he had come to understand just how much of a pitfall the four major professions—Inscription Carving, Dietary Supplement Pill Refining, Weapon Forging, and Weaving Clothes and Painting Skin—were.

Not to mention ordinary Rogue Cultivators—even descendants of Destiny Stoves or disciples of the great islands, despite having talent, wealth, opportunities, and time in abundance, might not receive the returns they deserved after investing in these four professions.

Therefore, in the cultivation world of Hunzhou, these professions, whose costs and rewards were so severely out of proportion, were also known as the Four Great Heavenly Pit Professions.

To avoid those pits, cultivators often changed their approach, attempting to move upstream along the industrial chain, abandoning the extremely high-threshold field of high-end manufacturing and focusing instead on developing and utilizing raw materials.

Jing Qian roamed through this professional knowledge, transforming it into cultivation resources.

After digesting the memories, he once again exited the Destiny Stele Space and returned to reality.

Having gone through a crucial replenishment of vitality, his condition had greatly improved, completely sweeping away his previous dispirited state!

He rose to his feet on the raft and looked around. All he saw was a vast ocean, surging magnificently beneath a sky and sea of the same color.

He drew in a deep breath, feeling the faint coolness brought by the sea breeze brushing his face, yet his heart was blazing hot.

Having lived another life, he had been bombarded by one life-and-death crisis after another, leaving him barely any time to think.

Only now did he finally have the leisure to consider his future.

In the long run, pursuing cultivation would unquestionably be his unshakable, unalterable ultimate goal.

It was certainly an incomparably arduous road, but he was filled with anticipation and passion for it.

However, that long-term goal was still somewhat distant for Jing Qian at present.

His body was frail, his cultivation weak, and he was stranded in this vast, utterly deserted ocean.

Had this been his previous life, he would certainly have been dead already.

Therefore, escaping the ocean as quickly as possible, returning to land, and finding a favorable environment where he could grow in peace was undoubtedly the most urgent short-term problem to solve!

Jing Qian stamped his foot on the raft. The fish-powered engine formed from five hundred large fish had already vanished completely in the tsunami.

He needed a new source of power!

And possessing the Destiny Pattern of Sewing Souls and Weaving Spirits also gave him the ability to ensnare large fish.

He raised a finger and pointed. A pure-white thread sprang out nimbly, plunged into the seawater, and rapidly extended toward the ocean floor.

The thread's nature was peculiar, and it transmitted his divine sense with extremely high efficiency. Wherever the thread pointed, it was as if he were there in person, sensing everything with exceptional clarity.

Using a single thread as his anchor to swim through the ocean depths was a marvelous experience in itself!

Unlike Azure Pearl, Jing Qian had room to choose only one fish. He had to pick an especially powerful large fish!

With his right hand, he lightly twirled the thread, turning and wandering as he selected, compared, and scrutinized one after another.

It was rather like a young man who had suddenly become rich, meticulously comparing specifications and reviews on a forum while carefully choosing a new car.

Too thin was out. Too ugly was out. Too flat was out as well.

Jing Qian was determined to choose a well-proportioned, powerfully built fish to pull his boat.

Under the blazing sun, a child patiently fished, waiting only for something to bite!

At the same time, he continued savoring and analyzing his memories, managing both tasks without delay.

Just as he was gradually becoming immersed, a black shadow flashed through the depths of the sea, skimming across the area sensed by Jing Qian's divine consciousness!

He suddenly snapped awake and was just preparing to investigate further when the raft beneath his feet was abruptly sent flying by an immense force.

Jing Qian, seated securely on the raft, looked like a little squirrel as he was flung into the sky with a whoosh.

Once he was in the air and struggled to regain his balance, he looked down—and fury shot straight up!

"My boat!"

A gigantic crab pincer opened above the water and snapped the raft he relied on for survival cleanly in two!

The crab pincer was more than ten meters wide, brilliantly colored and extraordinarily magnificent.

When it cut through the coconut-wood raft, it was like snapping a crisp, sweet stalk of sugarcane. The two halves of the pincer touched, and the raft broke.

This raft had accompanied Jing Qian across a thousand li, carried him safely through several life-and-death calamities, and even emerged unscathed from a tsunami. At last, its life had come to an end.

Out on this boundless sea, Jing Qian had lost even a place to stand, and his survival situation became increasingly difficult.

His opponent had dared to attack his raft. That was no different from severing Jing Qian's lifeline and forging a mortal grudge!

How could he possibly let it off easily?

Jing Qian fell from the sky, but just before he hit the surface, he leaped into the void and vanished from reality.

Counting his experience in the Destiny Stele Space, this was the third time he had used the Sumeru Destiny Pattern to escape into the void.

Each entry and exit made him increasingly familiar with that strange dimensional space.

In his vision, this dimension seemed like a fourth dimension existing independently of reality, governed by entirely different rules.

Jing Qian moved through the dimension. Endless darkness and mottled reflections of reality interwove around him, like a secret realm drifting beyond time and space.

He could move freely through this unknown dimensional space, possessing the traversing instinct of a void creature.

In an extremely short time, he crossed several dozen meters and appeared where his enemy was.

Separated from real space by a membrane of light, Jing Qian clearly observed the enemy's appearance.

A gigantic crab nearly thirty meters long rose from the seabed to the surface, brandishing its two pincers and completely tearing apart the coconut-wood raft.

Afterward, it picked up several pieces from the shattered coconut wood, tossed them into its mouth, and swallowed them after chewing noisily.

The giant crab had a thick, robust body covered in vivid colors. Its two raised eyes rolled left and right, extraordinarily lively.

Through the dimensional barrier, Jing Qian clearly saw the glimmering white light on the crab's body. It was a ninth-grade White Fang-tier demon-ghost bearing a Destiny Pattern.

But Jing Qian felt no fear whatsoever!

His body moved, and he slipped around the crab's pincers. Beneath its massive belly as it sank into the water, he leaped out of the void and appeared behind the crab.

Back in the day, I could eat three and a half jin of steamed crabs a day. I could dismantle crabs bare-handed without even using crab scissors. How could I be afraid of a clumsy demon like you?

The Iron Skewer in his hand shot out at tremendous speed, carrying the inertia and kinetic force of crossing space. It parted the seawater and stabbed toward the spot he had carefully chosen.

This was where the crab's carapace connected with its abdominal shell, and also Jing Qian's favorite place to start when peeling crabs.

It was an extremely narrow blind spot in nature, one the crab's enemies could never attack.

White Fang Destiny Essence filled the Iron Skewer. It glimmered with a dim, chilling light as it pierced through every obstruction of seawater and reached straight for the giant crab's vital point.

The more-than-one-meter-long Iron Skewer followed the gap in the shell and plunged straight inside, vanishing completely to the hilt.

The crab reacted at once. Its lively eyes suddenly contracted, and with a howl, its legs sprang violently upward, churning up towering waves beneath it.

But the despicable enemy had already slipped back into the dimensional space the instant he succeeded, vanishing without a trace.

Back in the dimensional space, Jing Qian held the bloodied Iron Skewer and continued observing the giant crab through the crystalline World Membrane.

Strike once, hit the mark, and retreat immediately—that was Jing Qian's established battle strategy, and its effectiveness was outstanding.

The crab's response, however, made Jing Qian let out a cold laugh.

The suddenly wounded crab mistakenly thought its enemy was underwater. It turned its entire body around, raised its rear high above the surface, and pointed it toward the sky.

Its upper body plunged beneath the seabed as it brandished its pincers, waving them wildly while trying to find the enemy who had ambushed it.

Poor crab. It had misjudged the enemy's position and had no idea what fate awaited it.

Naturally, Jing Qian would not be polite. His enemy had delivered its weakness right before his face, so he seized the Iron Skewer and slipped out again.

Without the obstruction of seawater, his thrust was even simpler and sharper!

This time, he not only stabbed the Iron Skewer into the giant crab's body but also gripped the handle and twisted it viciously to his heart's content before retreating again.

The giant crab's rear was attacked repeatedly, yet it could not even see the enemy's shadow. The entire crab was in a terrible state!

It swiftly sank to the seabed and landed on a reef. It pulled both pincers behind its back and pressed them firmly against its rear, shielding the wound without daring to move them for even a moment.

In truth, Jing Qian's two attacks had indeed wounded the giant crab, but they were not enough to inflict life-threatening damage.

However, to this demon-ghost crab, which possessed the White Fang tier and a Destiny Pattern, Jing Qian's two ambushes were not merely physical pain. They were also a tremendous insult to its dignity and intelligence.

It had never encountered such an elusive enemy. The sensation of being toyed with by an invisible hand left its heart filled with fear and rage.

We had to try to understand it!

After all, to give an inappropriate example, even a Super Saiyan would inevitably grow fearful and lose control after having his chrysanthemum blasted twice in succession!

The giant crab roared continuously on the seabed, venting its terror.

Meanwhile, Jing Qian, inside the dimensional space, had also fallen into a stalemate.

At this point, the flaws in his tactical system had been exposed in full!

Although he wielded the sharp Iron Skewer and could travel through the dimensional space, relying solely on physical strength gave him far too little destructive power. He simply could not deliver a decisive blow.

Even though he had previously stabbed Snow Woman with a single strike and slain a Dragon Elephant across a realm—

that victory had depended entirely on Azure Pearl exhausting all its strength to break through the enemy's Dharma Form protection, creating an opening for him.

Otherwise, with Snow Woman's Dharma Form covering her body, the battered Iron Skewer in Jing Qian's hand would not even have been able to break through her defenses!

At present, although he had wounded the giant crab twice in succession, its vigorous vitality was enough to digest those injuries without endangering its life.

Jing Qian, on the other hand, had expended a considerable amount of Destiny Essence and Magic Power during those two journeys through the void.

The Destiny Essence accumulated within his body had already been consumed by more than half!

If he could not find a way to win soon, the entire battle could reverse at any moment!