The man at the front glanced at Su Jie and Peng Shiwen, whose body already lay on the ground. He pulled out a register, flipped to the page bearing their portraits, and said indifferently, "Su Jie, you brutally murdered a fellow disciple. You know the rules, right?"
"I understand. I'll pay the monthly allowance that belonged to Peng Shiwen on behalf of Master."
Su Jie answered at once. The higher-ups of Ghost Ridge Palace did not care about outer disciples killing one another. In their eyes, such disciples were merely expendable materials. As long as the monthly allowance due to the palace was paid, anything else was negotiable.
That was also why outer disciples rarely killed one another outright. They mainly fought over resources.
Even when they did kill, they would destroy the corpses in some deserted place and leave no trace behind. Otherwise, the monthly allowance would pile up layer by layer. After killing someone, you had to pay his share as well, and the price was simply too high.
"Selling the corpse? A corpse at the third layer of the Spirit Nurturing Realm. I'll offer thirty Blood Marrow Crystals."
Another member of the enforcement team spoke up, asking for Peng Shiwen's corpse.
The corpses of cultivators contained spiritual power, making them extremely precious resources to demonic cultivators.
As for buying and selling the corpses of fellow disciples, demonic cultivators did not consider that a problem at all. They valued only strength, not benevolence, morality, or virtue.
"Selling it. I'll sell it."
Su Jie did not hesitate in the slightest. He had suffered a loss in monthly allowances because of Peng Shiwen, so this was the perfect chance to recoup some of it.
"You're not bad."
The enforcement team member who had spoken smiled, patted Su Jie on the shoulder, handed him thirty Blood Marrow Crystals, then dragged the corpse away without looking back.
Weighing the money pouch containing the Blood Marrow Crystals in his hand, Su Jie was filled with emotion.
When alive, Peng Shiwen had been unable to obtain twenty Blood Marrow Crystals. After death, his corpse had sold for thirty. It was hard to deny that this was a tremendous irony.
Su Jie shook his head, dispelling the faint sorrow in his mind. He turned and went to the stone cave next door—Peng Shiwen's house—with the intention of stripping it bare.
If he did not loot it, someone else would come in and loot it anyway. In that case, he might as well be the one to benefit.
The layout of the room was basically the same. It had only crude furniture and meditation cushions. Perhaps because Peng Shiwen had gambled away his entire fortune last time, Su Jie did not find even half a Blood Marrow Crystal in the room. He did, however, find a pitiful handful of low-grade Gu insects.
"Huh? What's this?"
Suddenly, Su Jie made an unexpected discovery beneath one of the meditation cushions.
It was a thin sheet of gold paper covered in writing.
Gu Master's Secret—Wild Insect Control Technique
When Su Jie saw the name of the scripture on the gold paper, his eyes immediately lit up. It was actually a cultivation technique.
Looking beneath it, he saw a line of tiny characters identifying the author.
'This scripture is for the perusal of inner disciples only.'
Seeing that line, Su Jie was stunned. This was actually a cultivation scripture meant for inner disciples.
There was not much writing in the scripture—just over ten thousand characters at most. After examining it carefully, Su Jie quickly understood what the scripture was about.
Just as its name suggested, it taught people refined techniques for controlling insects. Insect manipulation, releasing Gu, Gu poison, and so on—all of these were things Su Jie had previously overlooked and never mastered.
"Where did Peng Shiwen get such a good thing? Could he have stolen it from some inner disciple?"
Su Jie muttered to himself. Considering Peng Shiwen's miraculous lock-picking skills, it was not impossible.
He stuffed the Wild Insect Control Technique into his robes. Regardless of how Peng Shiwen had obtained it, the treasure now belonged to Su Jie.
He searched through Peng Shiwen's room once more, making sure he had not missed anything before leaving and returning to his own cave. Unable to wait any longer, he sat cross-legged on the meditation cushion and took out the Wild Insect Control Technique, which he had barely had time to warm against his body.
The Wild Insect Control Technique was extremely simple and easy to understand. Its focus was on fine control of Gu insects, and even with Su Jie's level of talent, practicing it was effortless.
An hour later, having gained some insight, Su Jie caught a dragonfly, squeezed out a drop of blood, mixed it with his spiritual power, and infused it into the dragonfly's body.
In an instant, the dragonfly, which had been struggling restlessly, quieted down. Its tiny eyes stared blankly at Su Jie.
"Heart and blood connected, perception breaks the path!"
With a low shout, Su Jie recited the incantation. His entire field of vision shifted. He saw the ceiling, the walls, and almost the whole stone cave.
Su Jie's vision had merged with the dragonfly's. Everything the dragonfly saw was transmitted to Su Jie in real time.
The dragonfly's eyes possessed a special compound structure, allowing it to see objects across nearly a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Its field of vision was astonishingly broad.
Combined with the dragonfly's small size, which made it difficult to detect, as well as its high-speed flight and ability to hover, it was an extremely useful reconnaissance insect.
Buzz, buzz!
At Su Jie's command, the dragonfly swiftly took flight, darting around the room. It accurately recognized every instruction Su Jie gave it.
In the past, Su Jie had found it extremely difficult to control an ordinary insect with precision. Insects had brains with such low capacity that they could not recognize many of his commands, much less share their vision with him.
Now that he had the secret art of insect control, he could manipulate ordinary insects whenever and wherever he wished. Combined with shared vision, this represented a qualitative leap in his reconnaissance abilities.
"Not bad, not bad. With a reconnaissance insect from now on, I'll have a tremendous scouting advantage. Crossing back and forth with the Ancient Mirror will also be much safer."
Su Jie nodded in satisfaction. Crossing between the two worlds with the Ancient Mirror was his greatest secret, so he could never be too careful.
Su Jie then turned his head and summoned the Thousand-Hand Centipede. He placed his right hand on its head armor and poured most of his spiritual power into it.
Hiss, hiss!
The next moment, the Thousand-Hand Centipede reared upright. Its speed and strength soared as it transformed into a black gale and pounced out, biting a basin-sized hole into the stone cave wall.
The pale human hands beneath its abdomen stretched abruptly, like boneless snakes. Half the stone cave filled with afterimages of human hands, terrifying beyond measure.
This was the Gu-releasing secret art within the insect-control technique. Peng Shiwen had used the same move to strengthen the Golden Toad before.
This technique could borrow the host's spiritual power to the greatest extent, activating the Gu insect's battle instincts and making it even more ferocious and powerful. Afterward, the Gu insect would be weakened for several days. It was the ultimate choice when one had to fight for one's life.
"No wonder inner disciples are so powerful. It turns out they start out so far ahead of us."
Su Jie sighed inwardly. Fortunately, he possessed the low-grade First Refinement Thousand-Hand Centipede and could cross between the two worlds, using the resources of Blue Star to catch up.
Take today's battle, for example. Without the Ancient Mirror's ability to cross between the two worlds, he would still be a weak cultivator at the second layer of the Spirit Nurturing Realm. He would have had no means of fighting Peng Shiwen at all, and the one who died today would have been Su Jie.
"I still have to rely on you!"
Su Jie stroked the Ancient Mirror, then thought of the matter Old Daoist Qiu had mentioned today.
Peng Shiwen was nothing compared to the Strange Ghosts. They were the truly terrifying ones. An ordinary outer disciple facing one alone would only end up being brutally slaughtered.
"In ten days, I'll still have to patrol the mountains and fight the Strange Ghosts. The storm is coming! I must increase my strength as quickly as possible and obtain more resources from Blue Star to speed up my cultivation."
After letting out a long breath, Su Jie looked at the axe resting in the corner. It seemed he would have to work as a lumberjack for a while longer.
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