Yang Ye.
The name of that Immortal Official.
After his older sister left, Wen Jiu quietly committed the name to memory.
Over the next few days, because the Yin Qi in the Death Ground grew heavier and heavier, the middle-aged steward didn't make the many corpse buriers work for too long. Even so, they still worked about six shichen each day.
They went out at sunrise.
They returned at sunset.
Perhaps because his older sister had brought him Inferior Spirit Rice and monster-beast meat, his daily settlements had started giving him a little extra experience. One bowl of Inferior Spirit Rice and one piece of monster-beast meat gave Wen Jiu 0.1 Body Refining experience.
But reaching the Body Refining First Layer required 1,000 experience points.
It was better than nothing.
At least the Spirit Rice and monster-beast meat fully replenished the energy and strength he spent each day.
In the blink of an eye, five days passed.
Today was the day the corpse would turn into a zombie.
As soon as midnight arrived,
the Daily Settlement began.
[Daily Settlement Panel Lv1 (18/100)] [Daily settlement!] [Practiced the Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art for two shichen; panel experience +1, Yin Province Corpse Nurturing Art experience +2] [Buried corpses in the Death Ground for six shichen, constantly absorbing corpse qi and Death Qi; panel experience +1, corpse qi +6, Death Qi +6] [Nurtured a corpse in the Extreme Yin Ground for twelve shichen; Dead Body Mutation experience +12, Corpse Nurturer experience +1] [Consumed one bowl of Inferior Spirit Rice and one piece of unranked monster-beast meat; Body Refining experience +0.1]
Right after,
Wen Jiu immediately opened his personal information panel.
Yesterday, Dead Body Mutation experience had been only eight points short. Today's settlement had granted him twelve points all at once.
The mutation should have succeeded.
Sure enough.
When he checked the Corpse Nurturer panel again, the mutation experience had changed.
[White Zombie—being nurtured (0/200)]
However, the extra four experience points hadn't been added to the total. Wen Jiu had expected as much.
Once a corpse turned into a zombie, it entered a completely different stage. It couldn't grow in a short time simply by absorbing Yin Qi. The Yinzhou Corpse Nurturing Record had mentioned as much.
When a corpse became a zombie—
After it turned into a White Zombie, the next step was to transform it into a Black Zombie. During this process, the Corpse Nurturer had to recite the Corpse Nurturing Incantation for one shichen in the Corpse Nurturing Ground each day at the hour of the Pig, drawing in Earth Fiend Yin Qi to nourish the White Zombie.
This process was called spirit communion.
Earth Fiend Yin Qi nurtured the Corpse Spirit. Once the Corpse Spirit had formed, the Corpse Nurturer could commune with the zombie and control it at will.
But nurturing a Corpse Spirit was only the first step toward becoming a Black Zombie. The corpse itself still had to be nourished.
The Yinzhou Corpse Nurturing Record stated that at least a hundred drops of human blood had to be placed in the White Zombie's Corpse Nurturing Ground every day for it to consume. And the blood couldn't be ordinary human blood; it had to come from someone born in a Yin year, Yin month, Yin day, and Yin hour.
That would create a corpse impervious to blades and spears and immune to spells. As for how long it would take—
There was no telling.
If you found a lot of blood, it would be quick.
If you only had a hundred drops a day, who could say?
"Where am I supposed to find the blood of someone born under the Four Yin? I can't exactly go around killing people, can I?" Wen Jiu sank into thought. He could understand why the Unorthodox Path was so frowned upon. It already needed human blood at the Black Zombie stage. What would it demand later?
Next,
Wen Jiu calculated his own birth date and time.
As it turned out, he himself was born under the Four Yin.
His own blood would work.
But he still had to bury corpses every day and do manual labor. If he gave a hundred drops of blood each day, wouldn't he waste away and die after a while?
"I wonder if a cultivator's blood could take its place." The blood of someone born under the Four Yin was certainly special and important, but a cultivator's blood wasn't bad either. If it could work, he would move the White Zombie back to the Death Ground.
The blood had already seeped through the soil beneath the Death Ground.
The zombie could drink as much as it wanted.
Early the next morning,
his older sister, Wen Ya, brought him a bowl of Spirit Rice and a piece of monster-beast meat as usual.
Wen Jiu ate it all, naturally.
After asking about the Immortal Official's name last time, Wen Jiu stopped asking questions. Asking more wouldn't solve anything.
It would only make his older sister feel worse.
After she left, Wen Jiu returned to the Death Ground to bury corpses. But just as he was about to begin, the middle-aged official called a halt to everyone's work. In a rare turn, he introduced himself to them all.
"Name's Wang Nian. You little brats better remember it!"
Wang Nian swept his gaze over them, glaring.
Then he continued, "According to the rules, I'm in charge of not only your corpse burying, but also your cultivation. I should've told you some of this the day you went to the Dharma Transmission Tower, but I was in a bad mood back then."
Wen Jiu was speechless.
The steward really didn't mince words.
What was he going to say next?
With Wen Jiu waiting expectantly, Wang Nian continued, "First, you need to know that your spiritual roots were tested before you came to Corpse Peak. All but three of you have Inferior Spiritual Roots, the lowest grade there is. Bitter cultivation is your only way out."
"Normally, if you stick with your cultivation, it'll take someone with an Inferior Spiritual Root three years to reach Qi Refining Layer One."
"If you keep to that pace, the Yin Qi that keeps growing stronger won't damage your foundation too much."
"But if anyone slacks off and throws off that cultivation pace, don't blame me for killing you early. Anyway, if the Yin Qi damages your foundation, you won't get far or live long."
Every word Wang Nian spoke was heavy, like a warning before a death sentence. But to Wen Jiu, it sounded different.
The man might not be polite.
But every word he said was for their own good.
Looks like he was cold on the outside, warm on the inside too.
"Wait!"
Wen Jiu suddenly realized something.
Most of the corpse buriers had Inferior Spiritual Roots, but three of them didn't?
They wouldn't need three years to reach Qi Refining Layer One like the rest.
Wouldn't those three take all the top spots in next year's rankings?
Something about it sounded fishy.
Exactly three people.
And exactly three places up for grabs a year from now.
"Rigged... damn."
Wen Jiu was speechless.
He quickly looked around. In a corner of the crowd, three people stood together, wearing faint, smug smiles.
One of them had once seen the Yinzhou Corpse Nurturing Record outside the Dharma Transmission Tower and looked at Wen Jiu with contempt.
It seemed
there was a very good chance it was those three!
Wen Jiu couldn't help looking at Wang Nian again. The fierce-looking steward seemed different from usual. "Wang Nian has let everyone know about it, albeit indirectly. Looks like he's really unhappy with them."
Soon,
dusk drew near.
Wang Nian left, and the others gradually went their separate ways.
Wen Jiu made up an excuse, returned to the burial ground, and dug up the White Zombie.
Looking at the male cultivator's corpse again, he saw that not only was it covered in white hair, its eyes were bloodshot too, like drops of blood congealed in its sockets. Its claws were an inch long and sharp as knives. But the two fangs were what frightened Wen Jiu most.
Just like in Uncle Ying's movies, they were ghastly white and bloodcurdlingly ferocious—getting bitten by those things...
"Jump by yourself."
The White Zombie hadn't been given a Corpse Spirit, but it could still understand simple commands.
So it could move around on its own.
A moment later,
the White Zombie hopped into the Death Ground.
Wen Jiu told it to keep watch while he found the spot with the thickest bloody mud and dug a pit.
"Get in."
Once the White Zombie lay in the pit, Wen Jiu immediately covered it with bloody mud. When the hour of the Pig drew near, he made his way back to the burial ground through the night and recited the Corpse Nurturing Incantation for a shichen. If he hadn't had the White Zombie with him, he really wouldn't have dared to come out so late.
Who knew if there were ghosts around?
After reciting the Corpse Nurturing Incantation, Wen Jiu hurried away.
All that remained was to wait for the daily settlement.
If his experience went up,
that would mean a cultivator's blood could take the place of blood from someone born under the Four Yin.
For him, that would be incredible news. After all, the Death Ground had no shortage of cultivator blood.
[Thanks to all the fellow Daoists who've been following along. Thank you so much. I love you all! The daily updates are fixed at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. There are normally two updates. Occasionally, there'll be an extra one.]
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