Skinning Peak

Jiang Miao produced a paper crane, carrying Fang Huai as it flew toward the Outer Sect Hall.

The paper crane rose a hundred zhang above the ground, moving at great speed. The wind scraped against his skin, stinging slightly. Looking down, the cultivators on the ground had become blurry little dots.

This was the first time he had flown so high off the ground. Fang Huai's stomach churned, and he couldn't help but close his eyes.

"Junior Brother, you're not sulking, are you?"

Seeing Fang Huai close his eyes, Jiang Miao said, "From the moment a human puppet enters the Human Puppet Hall, they are already as good as dead."

Her neck twisted a full hundred and eighty degrees, facing Fang Huai: "I didn't sleep well last night, got a bit of a stiff neck. Junior Brother, help me twist it back."

Fang Huai was startled. He hadn't expected her bones to be so flexible. It seemed the higher one's cultivation, the stranger their body became, and the harder they were to kill by ordinary means.

"Crack—"

Fang Huai used all his strength to twist her head back.

With her neck feeling better, Jiang Miao continued, "The Corpse Sha Sect is constantly at war, making many enemies. The human puppets are mostly captured from the territories of hostile sects.

Leaving the Human Puppet Room is a dead end; staying in the Human Puppet Room is worse than death."

"So," Jiang Miao twisted her neck around again, "do you still blame me, Senior Brother?"

Fang Huai said nothing, simply twisting her neck back again.

"Why did you save me?"

"I told you, the Corpse Sha Sect needs talents like you."

"Then why did you kill those two guard disciples?"

"Them? I killed five hundred human puppets, which costs tens of thousands of contribution points. If I hadn't killed those two guard disciples, would you have paid the contribution points for me?"

"..."

After a few exchanges with Jiang Miao, Fang Huai had a preliminary understanding of her personality. One word to describe it: pathological.

On the surface, she seemed like a pure, sweet, cute, and somewhat talkative young girl, but at her core, she embodied the true style of the demonic sect.

Disdain for life, moody, sickly and manic. For the sake of cultivation advancement, she could do things ordinary people couldn't imagine, and she had absolute loyalty to the Corpse Sha Sect.

Talent Peak was extremely far from the Outer Sect Hall. The paper crane flew for a full half hour before finally arriving near the Outer Sect Hall.

Seeing they had reached their destination, Jiang Miao instructed, "Don't worry. Just say you lost your identity token. They'll help you get a replacement."

"Thank..."

Before Fang Huai could finish, the paper crane dove sharply toward the ground. Just before touching down, it flipped over, throwing him off.

Fang Huai received a blank token and dripped blood onto it. In just an instant, the token was reissued.

Holding the token, his sea of consciousness displayed his information:

[Fang Huai]

[Identity: Servant (Quasi-Outer Sect)]

[Residence: Ding 1-3127 (Pending Change)]

[Contribution Points: 207]

He let out a long breath. At least his contribution points hadn't been cleared. Otherwise, all his efforts in Servant Valley would have been wasted.

Outside the Outer Sect Hall, a long line stretched ahead. At the front of the line were Qi Refining late-stage disciples temporarily pulled from various peaks to handle the spiritual root testing.

The testing disciples had the authority to assign peaks. To prevent cultivation families or new disciples from finding them in advance to pull strings or give gifts, the personnel were not fixed.

Every so often, the sect would randomly draw disciples from various peaks to do this work.

In the line Fang Huai was in, the frontmost person was a Qi Refining seventh-layer cultivator from Spirit Treasure Peak.

He stared at the testing stone for a long time, finally grasping some of the principles.

A cultivator could possess multiple spiritual roots, but the testing stone could only determine which root was strongest and how strong it was.

For example, if the testing stone turned red, that meant a fire spiritual root was dominant; if it turned green, a wood spiritual root was dominant.

As for strength, one just looked at the color. The deeper the color, the stronger the spiritual root, meaning the better the talent.

Most of the people in line were descendants of Corpse Sha Sect disciples or disciples from nearby scattered cultivation families. Someone like Fang Huai, who had risen from servant status, was extremely rare.

So much so that when the testing disciple saw Fang Huai's ragged clothes and malnourished appearance, he was momentarily stunned.

"Is there any peak you want to go to?"

Meng Yi had also fought his way from among thousands of servants into the outer sect. He understood the difficulty of that path and felt a pang of sympathy.

Fang Huai bowed. "This disciple does not know where he is suited. I leave it entirely to Senior Brother's arrangement."

Meng Yi nodded slightly. "Grip the testing stone."

Seeing the testing stone show no reaction at all, Fang Huai's heart sank to the bottom.

He had suspected before why he had no sense of qi. Now, thinking about it, it was probably because he had no spiritual root.

"You've probably guessed it by now."

Meng Yi waved his hand, and a soundproof barrier enveloped the two of them. "You have no spirit root, so you can't resonate with the world's spiritual energy. But don't lose heart—breaking through to Qi Refining Layer 1 without a spirit root means you carry fortune with you. Just cultivate diligently, pile up heavenly treasures and earthly gems, and once you reach Qi Refining Layer 4, you'll naturally form a post-heaven spirit root to aid your cultivation."

"A post-heaven spirit root?" Fang Huai's eyes lit up.

"Spirit roots aren't something you can only be born with!" Meng Yi explained. One of the key reasons the Corpse Sha Sect, despite being a demon sect, could attract so many scattered cultivator families to its domain was that cultivating the Hundred Sha Technique allowed one to form a post-heaven spirit root. By practicing the Hundred Sha Technique with Sha Qi as a supplement, over time, when a cultivator reached Qi Refining Layer 4, they would mutate and gain a post-heaven Sha Spirit Root. From then on, even those without a spirit root could autonomously absorb the world's spiritual energy. "Go to Skinning Peak. There, as long as you work hard, you'll reap rewards. If your talent falls short, use contribution points to exchange for spirit herbs and spirit pills to stack up."

"..."

The soundproof barrier was removed. Fang Huai bowed respectfully to Meng Yi, then turned and walked toward the disciple guiding newcomers to Skinning Peak.

For other disciples without a spirit root, breaking through to mid-stage Qi Refining was extremely difficult, but for Fang Huai, it was only a matter of time.

Meng Yi sighed. He, too, had no spirit root.

He still remembered the wild joy of breaking through to Qi Refining Layer 1 after stumbling upon a spirit herb in Miasma Valley, and the confusion and helplessness when he first entered the outer sect, the excitement of learning this method after much inquiry. Over the years, he had toiled for contribution points, contending with heaven, with earth, and with fellow disciples, finally breaking through to mid-stage Qi Refining and forming his Sha Spirit Root. He had thought himself a child of destiny.

But the Sha Spirit Root was, after all, a post-heaven spirit root—low in quality. Though there were ways to improve it, doing so was nearly impossible. No matter how much he schemed or how astonishing his fortune, he still stalled at Qi Refining Layer 7. His ambition had long been ground down, but Fang Huai's appearance made him see his former self.

"You're luckier than I was. No one guided me, but at least you've taken the first step right."

The senior disciple guiding newcomers at Skinning Peak was named Guo Chunxiao, a cultivator at Qi Refining Layer 5. Looking at the motley crew before him, he let out a deep sigh.

At Skinning Peak, as long as one worked diligently, earning contribution points was simple. But compared to other peaks, Skinning Peak had very few Sha techniques passed down; its function was closer to logistics. The Corpse Sha Sect had a rule: disciples were not allowed to privately learn Sha techniques from other peaks, and they could not switch peaks before reaching Foundation Establishment. So, disciples with good talent or strong backgrounds would bribe the stewards to get assigned to peaks with better inheritances. Those with poor talent and no future were all dumped onto Skinning Peak.

What left him speechless was that among these new disciples, there was actually one without a spirit root.

Could someone like that even cultivate immortality?

"Fellow junior brothers, let's go."

Though he looked down on these people, he still kept a smile on his face. Who knew—if one of them achieved something in cultivation later, they might remember the kindness of their guiding senior brother.

Guo Chunxiao slapped his storage pouch, and a massive beast hide appeared before him. Though it had no flesh, bones, or sinew left, its residual might lingered, and the Sha Qi it emitted startled everyone into stumbling backward.