Ape Corpse

Ye Wen cautiously walked inside and pushed open the door to the first room. It was empty, with nothing left at all! Only then did his taut nerves relax. He let out a long breath.

There was nothing in the second or third room, either. It wasn't until the fourth room that he found a corpse—a mummified corpse still covered in fur.

Ye Wen slowly approached. He was genuinely afraid the corpse would suddenly leap up, but clearly he was worrying too much. A corpse was just a corpse, lying there without moving.

It was a humanoid corpse, unlike the other giant beasts, which were unbelievably huge. This one was only a little bigger than an ordinary adult.

Ye Wen walked over and first looked around the room. He found nothing useful, but then suddenly realized something seemed off!

Why could I push these doors open so easily? Looking at the rooms, one after another, it was obvious they were laid out like prison cells. Could those imprisoned demons and monsters really be so obedient that they stayed in their own rooms?

Or could the doors only be opened from the outside, so that once they were shut, they couldn't be opened from within? Ye Wen didn't try it. If that really was the case, wouldn't he be locking himself inside a cell?

So he carefully checked whether the door might close on its own. To be safe, he found a large rock and used it to prop the door open. Only then did he feel a little more at ease.

Only then did Ye Wen begin examining the corpse closely. After a careful look, he realized it was an ape, somewhat like the one he'd fought before. Ye Wen suddenly grew very excited. Could it have a Devil Core inside, too?

It was dead already, so Ye Wen had nothing to fear. To dispel the eerie atmosphere, he even started talking to himself.

"I'm Ye Wen, a general surgeon. I'm taking out my Surgical Dagger now. I'm about to perform the first autopsy on this ape corpse. The purpose of the autopsy is to check whether this dead ape has grown a large kidney stone. If it has, surgeon Ye Wen would be happy to remove it."

As he spoke, Ye Wen started cutting. The dagger's sharpness had already been proven on the stone wall on the floor above. But this mummified ape was even harder to cut than the stone outside! Ye Wen had to put in tremendous effort before he finally managed to slice open its belly.

He began searching inside the ape's belly, and sure enough, he found a Devil Core about the size of an egg. This discovery thrilled Ye Wen. His guess had turned out to be right.

But when Ye Wen took it out, he saw that this Devil Core was different from the one he'd taken from the giant ape before. This one was fiery red, which meant it was a demonic beast with the Fire Attribute.

Were they different species, or the same species, with their different attributes caused by absorbing different kinds of spiritual energy?

Ye Wen thought about it for a while, then suddenly realized he was being a little silly. Back in school, he'd loved learning and had gotten good grades precisely because he wanted to understand everything clearly.

But I don't need to figure everything out now. What use is there in telling the two apart? Honestly. I need to change this habit and stop wasting energy pondering useless things.

That was the innate ability of a good student: being able to reflect on oneself and identify one's strengths and weaknesses. Correct the weaknesses and keep building on the strengths.

Ye Wen planned to have the Pre-cancerous Cells absorb the energy from the Devil Core. So he left the room and walked out through the entrance to the first floor of the Demon Suppressing Tower. He figured he'd better absorb it here, in case the cell door accidentally shut and trapped him inside. That would be disastrous.

With everything ready, Ye Wen returned to the spot where he'd just slid down and began circulating his cultivation method. The Endless Sacred Dao Scripture truly lived up to its reputation as the highest scripture of the Hongmeng Human Race. Ye Wen's meridians were all sealed, but the method still circulated as usual, not taking Mo Chengkong's Ancient Law Sealing seriously at all.

But this time, Ye Wen hadn't absorbed the energy for long before the Devil Core crumbled into ashes and disappeared.

He felt that he hadn't absorbed much energy—not as much as in the previous attempts. But the energy he had absorbed was very pure. The Pre-cancerous Cells seemed more satisfied with the energy in this Devil Core.

It was like the energy he'd absorbed before was beer, and he'd downed three bottles in one go. This time, though, it was liquor at sixty-two degrees. There were only two ounces, but it provided more for the Pre-cancerous Cells.

So the Pre-cancerous Cells must not have been absorbing pure energy alone. There had to be some kind of substance contained within that energy.

It was like alcohol in different kinds of liquor. They were all different, but what got you drunk was alcohol—that was the principle.

Then what kind of substance within the energy was the Pre-cancerous Cells absorbing? If he could determine what it was, couldn't he just seek out that substance specifically and let the Pre-cancerous Cells absorb it?