This time, the eight-hundredfold critical hit brought Qin Dongcheng gains in every regard.
Cultivation, Strange Phenomenon, experience, skills, insights... It was no exaggeration to call it a great harvest.
But if he had been given a choice, Qin Dongcheng would rather have gone without these gains than face such a life-or-death battle.
After all, he could slowly obtain all these gains through the Heaven Rewards Diligence System, spending only a little more time and effort. But he had only one life. Once it was gone, it was gone forever.
Qin Dongcheng wasn't a fool. He knew perfectly well which mattered more.
Early the next morning, Qin Dongcheng handed the Rat Demon's corpse over to the Patrol Team. Only then did they realize that more than one demon had infiltrated Bamboo Forest Valley.
Considering the damage these demons had caused to Bamboo Forest Valley, Qin Dongcheng had effectively eliminated a major threat. As a result, he was rewarded with a full hundred Sect Contribution points.
Added to what he had already accumulated, he now had more than three hundred Sect Contribution points—enough to exchange for the Flesh Refining technique very soon.
As soon as he returned to the Herb Field, Qin Dongcheng told the many herb field laborers what had happened and warned them all to be careful.
After all, no one knew whether there might be a third Rat Demon lurking around after the two they had killed.
They had thought there was only one and had just let their guard down, only to run into a second one right away.
Since there was a second, could there be a third, a fourth... or some other Demons and Ghosts?
Qin Dongcheng's experience had left all the herb field laborers shaken. None of them dared to be careless anymore. At night, they did their best to stay inside their homes and avoided going out.
But Qin Dongcheng still didn't feel safe. How could a flimsy bamboo door possibly keep out demons as powerful as Martial Artists?
If one of them was determined to eat people, a Bamboo House wouldn't stop it. A first-rank demon could exert hundreds of kilograms of force with a casual motion, easily breaking into a Bamboo House.
Otherwise, herb field laborers wouldn't have gone missing one after another. Hiding at home was of limited use, and besides, he couldn't stay cooped up in his Bamboo House all the time and give up cultivating at night.
He had thought the herb field laborers would be safe, but who could have imagined they would find themselves in such a perilous situation in the blink of an eye?
Even though only low-level Demons and Ghosts could infiltrate the area, they still weren't opponents the laborers could handle.
And Qin Dongcheng was the strongest person in the area, with particularly robust Blood Qi. To the keen noses of Demons and Ghosts, he was a feast fit for a king—the first one they would want to go after.
So this place was no longer safe for him.
Should he reveal a little of his strength and take the Official Disciple examination? That would make him eligible to live in Osmanthus Garden, where the Patrol Team kept watch around the clock. This sort of thing simply wouldn't happen there.
Even though his strength had increased several times over, that didn't mean he was without opponents. No matter how much stronger he became, he had only just entered the second realm of martial cultivation.
Qin Dongcheng began to hesitate. If he didn't become an Official Disciple, he would have to keep living in this dangerous Bamboo House.
Becoming an Official Disciple meant completing one mission every month, and sometimes even being assigned compulsory missions, but it would still be much safer overall.
Besides, if he passed the examination as an Alchemy Apprentice, most of the missions he would have to take on would be safe tasks involving alchemy and medicine-making. The compulsory missions were much the same, and didn't seem particularly dangerous.
He had looked into it carefully over the past few days. Almost all the Official Disciples who were Alchemists, Artifact Refiners, Formation Masters, and the like were assigned compulsory missions that had nothing to do with slaying demons.
Completing those missions also earned a handsome amount of Sect Contribution. And since his Alchemy skills now met the requirements, he could easily pass the examination as an Alchemy Apprentice and become an Official Disciple.
As he deliberated, his success rate at refining Detoxification Pills had climbed above thirty percent.
His success rate with all three kinds of low-level pills had exceeded thirty percent, which was more than enough to pass the Official Alchemist examination—let alone an examination for an Alchemy Apprentice.
As an Official Alchemist, if he revealed his status, Qin Dongcheng would rank among the upper-middle tier even among Official Disciples. Even the Inner Sect Disciples would treat him with respect.
His monthly income would also increase dramatically, and the sect would give him more support.
If he improved a little further, then as long as he wasn't too old, becoming an Inner Sect Disciple might not be out of the question.
While Qin Dongcheng was hesitating, in a Bamboo House about half a mile away, Wang Kun was practicing the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist.
With Qin Dongcheng's guidance, he felt that he was gradually beginning to understand the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist. If he kept practicing steadily, it shouldn't be long before he had a chance to reach the Martial Artist level.
So he practiced harder and harder, spending most of his evenings at it. Unfortunately, the Bamboo House was rather cramped. Once the invading Demons and Ghosts in the area had been killed off, it would be better to practice outside.
"Knock, knock, knock..."
Just as he was getting into the rhythm of his practice, he heard a knock at the door. Wang Kun's face changed, and he hurriedly stopped.
Why would someone knock at this hour of the night? Could it be a demon?
Without thinking it through, Wang Kun quickly lit a torch, illuminating the room brightly. Peering through a crack in the bamboo door, he saw a delicate, captivating face outside, its expression shifting between joy and reproach, gazing at him anxiously.
When their eyes met, Wang Kun felt a boom go off inside his head. He no longer knew where he was.
He opened the door just like that and followed the demon outside, with its captivating face and ugly snake body, leaving the area and gradually disappearing into the depths of the bamboo forest.
Wang Kun, who was already halfway to becoming a Martial Artist, was taken away by a demon without a sound. He didn't make the slightest noise.
It wasn't until the next day, when the laborers nearby came looking for him, that they noticed something was wrong. After searching everywhere, they finally confirmed one thing: Wang Kun was missing.
Qin Dongcheng received the news around noon. He knew Wang Kun quite well; he was one of the first herb field laborers to follow him in practicing the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist, and he was about to reach the Martial Artist level.
If nothing unexpected happened, he would have become a Body Phase Realm Martial Artist in about half a year. Yet now he had gone missing without so much as a trace.
Qin Dongcheng knew there had to be other Demons and Ghosts lurking nearby, and they weren't necessarily Rat Demons. After all, it would be difficult for a first-rank Rat Demon to devour Wang Kun without a sound, leaving no signs of a struggle.
Either that demon was astonishingly powerful, or it had some special ability. Either way, it could pose a huge threat to Qin Dongcheng.
So he made up his mind at noon: that afternoon, he would head to Cauldron Hall and take the Official Disciple examination.
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