"Hiss!"
A faint sound rang out, like a sharp blade slicing through leather. The Black Armored Boar's enormous head dropped straight to the ground, and its demonic blood gushed out like a fountain.
That stroke had been as easy as chopping melons and vegetables. The guards stared in utter shock.
Many of them had only recently been recruited from South Ridge City, and this was their first time seeing Zhao Ping'an in action.
The Black Armored Boar, which had seemed like the grim reaper to them, had been cut down right before their eyes. They couldn't help but be shocked.
"You few, clean this up. Take the boar to the kitchen. Go to the accounts office tomorrow, and each of you can collect five taels of silver as a reward. Also, have the steward find someone to repair the fence. Tomorrow..."
"Hmm? There's more?"
Zhao Ping'an, who had been instructing the guards to clean up the corpse, suddenly looked into the distance to his left.
Just then, his keen hearing had once again caught the sound of a fence breaking in the distance, along with a faint roar.
Zhao Ping'an had no time to continue giving instructions. He flashed forward, rushing toward the sound.
Soon, he spotted another adult fourth-grade Demonic Beast. It was a blue-black giant python, ten meters long and half a meter thick. The Beast Compendium called it an Ironhide Mad Python, and it had an extremely violent temperament.
At that moment, it was charging straight up the hillside toward the mountaintop.
"Snake Soup? No, Python Soup?"
Zhao Ping'an's eyes lit up at the sight of the Demonic Beast. A ten-foot-long Qi Great Saber quickly extended from his right hand, and he charged straight at the Ironhide Mad Python.
"Hiss!"
Zhao Ping'an raised his hand and brought the blade down. The python's head instantly separated from its body.
Before Zhao Ping'an could even check the results of his work, he heard the sound of another fence collapsing, followed by the guards' shouts.
"So many Demonic Beasts were drawn here?"
That night, Zhao Ping'an ran across Wu'an Mountain, blade in hand, killing one rarely seen Demonic Beast after another.
These guards could barely handle first- and second-grade Demonic Beasts. Any third-grade Demonic Beast could easily cost them their lives, let alone a fourth-grade one.
Fortunately, there were only a limited number of fourth-grade Demonic Beasts within a hundred li. In the end, just four were drawn here, but a full eighteen third-grade Demonic Beasts arrived, once again inflicting heavy casualties on the recently restored guard force.
As for the first- and second-grade Demonic Beasts, after sensing the presence of so many third- and fourth-grade Demonic Beasts, they all stopped outside Wu'an Mountain and howled, daring not to approach.
As the sun rose, those first- and second-grade Demonic Beasts—perhaps sensing the powerful Demonic Beasts dying one after another on the mountain—quickly burrowed back into the forest and vanished.
It wasn't until noon the next day that the night's casualty report was compiled and delivered to Zhao Ping'an. The greatest loss was the fence built by the Sun Family around Wu'an Mountain: half of it had been destroyed.
Eighteen guards had also died, and nearly all the survivors were injured.
Zhao Ping'an also learned why the Demonic Beasts had suddenly arrived. The steward had discovered the reason by looking through some of the books left behind by the Sun Family and questioning the herb farmers. When Spiritual Medicines first sprouted, they gave off a faint, almost imperceptible scent that attracted powerful Demonic Beasts to protect them from being destroyed too soon. This process lasted about three days.
The Sun Family also had a formula for making Scent Masking Powder. It had been tucked inside the Spiritual Medicine Cultivation Manual Zhao Ping'an had seized from the Sun Family. Unfortunately, he hadn't looked through the manual carefully and had overlooked the recipe.
Soon, a batch of pungent powder was hastily made and scattered around the Ice Fire Snow Lotus, blocking its scent from spreading.
Taking advantage of the extensive damage to the fence, Zhao Ping'an found a large number of workers in South Ridge City and began reinforcing it. He planned to build a stone wall around Wu'an Mountain, two zhang tall and two meters wide.
The work would undoubtedly take time and effort, but Zhao Ping'an didn't care. He had plenty of money, and even more time. Besides, he didn't have to do any of the work himself.
Two days later, a full two hundred strong laborers were brought to Wu'an Mountain, along with all kinds of tools, tents, rice, flour, and vegetables.
As for the stones for the wall, it would still be several days before the first batch was ready.
As for the Demonic Beast meat, Zhao Ping'an kept the third- and fourth-grade portions. The rest went toward improving the meals of the guards, herb farmers, and workers.
Under Second Senior Disciple Brother's supervision, construction of the wall began in full swing. Zhao Ping'an's [Deduction Points] also started rising rapidly as the vast quantity of third- and fourth-grade Demonic Beasts replenished them. His gain went from less than 3% every two days to 3% in a single day. The only drawback was that three to four hundred jin of Demonic Beast meat had to be consumed each day.
Apart from giving a little to Second Senior Disciple Brother, Zhao Ping'an ate most of it himself.
Fortunately, the meat from those twenty-odd Demonic Beasts weighed tens of thousands of jin. Once all of it had been dried, there would be enough to last him several months.
However, as his cultivation improved, the meat's effects would surely grow weaker. He would inevitably have to eat more and more of it each day.
Time flowed like water. Before he knew it, more than ten days had passed.
That night, Zhao Ping'an finally underwent another transformation. Just moments ago, his Primordial Chaos Art had gained the last bit of proficiency it needed and successfully reached the perfection of the ninth layer.
He then looked inward and saw the abundant Qi in his dantian and acupoints rapidly collapsing inward, condensing toward their respective centers.
The process was extremely slow. It wasn't until the sun first rose that all the Qi in Zhao Ping'an's body had been transformed into True Essence.
Then the boundless vital energy of the world poured into his body through all 108 major acupoints. It was converted and refined by the Twelve Regular Meridians before finally flowing into his dantian qi sea, continuously filling it.
As the sun rose fully, Zhao Ping'an slowly opened his eyes. A flash of lightning flickered through them, instantly illuminating the entire bedroom.
Lightning in an empty room—terrifying indeed!
"So this is True Essence? It really does feel completely different."
Feeling the explosive power within his body, Zhao Ping'an spoke to himself, his face full of delight.
The greatest difference between True Essence and Qi was their strength and malleability.
Strength was easy to understand. One was gaseous, while the other was liquid. Anyone with common sense could tell them apart.
Malleability made attacks more stable, allowing True Essence to leave the body and strike without relying on any medium, greatly increasing the attack's range.
Like Zhao Ping'an, who had just broken through: he could now easily send True Essence more than ten zhang away, achieving the greatest offensive effect at the lowest cost.
His [Deduction Points] had now reached 98% again, enough to advance the Primordial Chaos Art into a Profound Grade Art.
Zhao Ping'an didn't hesitate. He immediately tapped the three small characters glowing faintly beside Primordial Chaos Art: [Ready to Deduce!].
[ Ding! Yellow-grade Art Primordial Chaos Art deduction and advancement initiated. Current progress: 0%. Deduction in progress...]
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