A Change in Attitude [Please Keep Reading!]

Anxiously waiting.

Wen Jiu's mind raced in every direction.

Would some cultivator kick the door in the very next moment, run him through with a blade, and demand to know where the Soul Devouring Blood Bead had gone? In short, the more thrilled he was to have obtained the Soul Devouring Blood Bead, the more anxious he felt.

Sometimes, having an overly active imagination

was truly a kind of torture.

After a long while,

Wen Jiu finally calmed down.

Once he had settled himself, Wen Jiu immediately opened his personal information panel again.

He stared blankly at his remaining Death Qi and Cultivator's Essence Blood.

Although he didn't know how much Cultivator's Essence Blood the White Zombie had absorbed before reaching its limit,

one thing was certain.

The more than one thousand remaining Cultivator's Essence Blood would definitely be enough to raise Blood Transformation Body to the second stage. After all, Blood Transformation Body only needed 500 experience points to fill up.

Next, Wen Jiu's gaze fell on Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art. He wanted to see whether he, too, had a limit on how much he could absorb.

Add!

Add!

Add!

[Technique: Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art (First Layer 300/1000)]+

[Technique: Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art (First Layer 999/1000)]+

Perhaps it was because of the Corpse Nurturer's passive ability.

Wen Jiu had no daily absorption limit at all.

834 points of Death Qi.

All 834 points went into Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art.

The experience for the first layer of Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art immediately reached its maximum.

The technique panel changed along with it.

[Technique: Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art (Second Layer 4/2000)]+

Something else changed, too.

His dantian.

A great amount of Yin Spirit Qi poured into his dantian, instantly filling the space that had previously been empty. A bone-deep chill followed, yet it brought Wen Jiu a delight and pleasure that welled up from the depths of his heart.

Then, the vast amount of Yin Spirit Qi began to transform soundlessly—the process of turning Yin Spirit Qi into mana.

Once the conversion succeeded, he would have reached Qi Refining Layer One.

A short while later,

all the Yin Spirit Qi had been successfully converted. Everything had fallen into place, and a hundred strands of mana were now stored in his dantian. With the appearance of this mana, Wen Jiu's body and senses began to change as well.

First, his body.

But the changes to it were the smallest.

He felt a little lighter and a little stronger.

His senses changed the most. The feeling of the wind blowing around him, which he had previously been able to perceive only nearby, suddenly began to spread outward.

Within three zhang,

every blade of grass and every tree

seemed to sway right before his eyes, even when he closed them.

At the same time,

Wen Jiu could sense the Spiritual Qi around him more keenly.

Yin Qi.

And other such auras.

"Is this Spiritual Sense?" Wen Jiu immediately thought of the cultivator's Spiritual Sense mentioned in Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art.

The effect and sensation were exactly the same.

At this moment, Wen Jiu was immensely glad that he had carried the Soul Devouring Blood Bead back to the corpse's mouth under cover of night.

If he had left the Soul Devouring Blood Bead inside the White Zombie, even Wang Nian's Spiritual Sense would probably have detected it.

After the relief

came the excitement.

After all, he could finally be considered a true cultivator.

Even if he was following the Unorthodox Path,

who said soybean oil wasn't oil?

But that brought a new problem. It wasn't urgent, nor would it kill him at once, but it was still a problem—he only had the first two layers of Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art. He didn't have the later techniques.

Buy them?

He couldn't afford them.

And they weren't for sale.

Without the third layer of the technique, he couldn't reach Qi Refining Third Layer.

"The only thing I can think of right now is to raise the Black Zombie first and see whether I can kill an enemy with its help, then become an Apprentice Disciple ahead of time." Once he became a disciple, he ought to be able to get the later techniques.

Although he had been a person in his previous life,

he had never even killed a chicken.

But he had a fierce streak that wasn't afraid of killing a person.

He didn't know whether it was because of the memories of his original body.

Early the next morning,

Wen Jiu gathered with the others at the Death Ground.

They stood in groups of three or five, but most had clustered around those three, seemingly taking them as their leaders.

The three of them, in turn, wore arrogant expressions, truly treating all the corpse buriers as their underlings and themselves as the big brothers.

Watching this scene,

Wen Jiu could only shake his head in exasperation.

What a bunch of bored people.

They weren't in the martial world; they were in the cultivation world.

What was the point of this kind of thing?

Wouldn't they be better off spending their time studying cultivation methods?

Before long,

Wang Nian arrived.

With the Yin Qi so thin, Wang Nian didn't even look around. He simply roared, "Get to work, hurry up!"

At his words,

the corpse buriers hurried into action.

But when Wang Nian's gaze fell on Wen Jiu, who was about to leave, his eyes widened. He stared at Wen Jiu in disbelief.

"Wen, you!"

Wen Jiu stopped in his tracks.

Wang Nian hurriedly called, "Come here, come here..."

Wen Jiu didn't understand, but still walked over. Wang Nian led him away from the Death Ground and toward a place where no one else was around.

"Wen, have you reached Qi Refining Layer One?" Although his Spiritual Sense had confirmed it seven or eight times, Wang Nian still couldn't help asking.

Wen Jiu understood.

He was glad once again that he had made the right decision the previous night.

Wang Nian could sense his cultivation at a glance. The Soul Devouring Blood Bead would have been even easier to detect.

"I was lucky," Wen Jiu replied.

Wang Nian beamed. "Humble, are you? Reaching Qi Refining Layer One in a month—if that was luck, then what would you call my taking two years?"

Wen Jiu quickly tried to explain. "Senior, I'm cultivating the Unorthodox Path, so naturally I progress a little faster."

"Still, not this fast."

Wang Nian marveled again.

Then he searched his memories for the fastest cultivator he knew to have reached Qi Refining Layer One.

Ten years ago,

the personal disciple of a Corpse Peak elder,

with a high-grade Wood Spiritual Root,

had reached Qi Refining Layer One in two months!

That was still a month slower than Wen Jiu.

Wen Jiu fell silent. He knew there was no use trying to explain. He could only wonder to himself whether he had been too conspicuous this time. But before he could reach an answer, Wang Nian invited him, "Wen, from now on, when we're in private, stop calling me Senior. I'm more than ten years older than you. Just call me Brother Wang when it's only us."

"Hm?"

Wen Jiu was genuinely surprised by this sudden change in attitude.

But he quickly understood part of the reason.

It had to be because of how fast he had cultivated.

He could only smile wryly to himself.

So this was how realistic people were.

Three hours later,

Wen Jiu began searching for Yin Souls with the White Zombie.

With his Spiritual Sense bolstering him, every flutter of wind and grass within three zhang was clear to him, making him much more efficient at searching for Yin Souls with the White Zombie. Before long, Wen Jiu's Spiritual Sense caught a trace of a Yin Soul's aura.

It was the first time Wen Jiu had truly and unmistakably sensed a Yin Soul's aura. It was cold, with a touch of resentment; the resentment held a faint trace of Death Qi, and the Death Qi contained some negative emotions.

"There!"

Wen Jiu immediately pointed it out to the White Zombie.

The Yin Soul was in a small hole beneath a mound of earth up ahead.

The White Zombie let out a hoarse cry and darted over. The newly formed Yin Soul, frail in the daytime, became food in the White Zombie's belly in the blink of an eye.

Once it had swallowed the Yin Soul,

the White Zombie's aura rose a little more.

Wen Jiu watched with particular delight. He even felt the joy and accomplishment of seeing his "child" grow stronger bit by bit.

"Raising a corpse really does start to feel like raising a pet..." Wen Jiu smiled and continued on, searching for Yin Souls.

Unfortunately,

he didn't find any more newly formed Yin Souls.

With dusk approaching, Wen Jiu withdrew from the Death Ground.

Wang Nian saw that Wen Jiu's face was smeared with dirt and immediately tossed him a handkerchief.

"How did it go?"

Wen Jiu answered honestly. After catching the handkerchief, he wiped his face as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "Senior, I got one."

Since it was a transaction,

Wen Jiu couldn't keep saying he hadn't found anything.

Hearing this, Wang Nian nodded in satisfaction.

When the time came and the corpse buriers had nearly finished their work, Wang Nian left first.

Wen Jiu was about to leave, too.

But to his surprise, the three men blocked his way.

It was the infamous trio!

[The second update today might be a little late.

It definitely won't be out by eight.

Sorry.

Thank you, fellow Daoists, for reading!

I'm getting a recommendation tonight!

I beg you, fellow Daoists, please support me with monthly votes, recommendation votes, and continued reading!

I'm deeply grateful!]