Annihilation

First, Li Beichen reached into the Black Wolf's skull and pulled out the last Meteorite Iron Small Sword lodged in its brain.

This Black Wolf truly lived up to its name as a Ninth-Grade Exotic Beast.

Its skull was hard as stone.

The Meteorite Iron Small Sword had entered the wolf's brain through its eye socket, but it hadn't pierced through the back of its skull.

Instead, the skull had deflected it, sending it ricocheting around inside several times.

And because its skull was so hard, the Meteorite Iron Small Sword had shredded its brain as it bounced around inside its head.

Li Beichen's first Shuriken strike had been aimed at the neck because he'd worried that the skull would be too hard for the Meteorite Iron Small Sword to land a decisive blow.

If he'd attacked its head directly and the skull had deflected the blade, the hunt wouldn't have gone so smoothly.

His second Shuriken strike had hit the Black Wolf's eye socket squarely not only because his skills were superb, but also because it had built on the first strike.

Li Beichen returned the Meteorite Iron Small Sword to his Sword Pouch and began processing his prey.

He couldn't handle this Black Wolf the way he would an ordinary wild wolf.

Not an ounce of Exotic Beast Meat could go to waste.

But Li Beichen noticed that the Black Wolf's body was covered in a tangle of old and new wounds, some of which had only just healed.

It seemed that after being injured in the Lingnan Mountains, it had fled to Small Gravel Mountain to recover.

Li Beichen took out his dagger, intending to gut the Black Wolf.

He'd keep the entrails.

He would bundle up the rest of the carcass and carry it down the mountain, then process it more carefully.

When Li Beichen cut open the Black Wolf's belly with his dagger,

its colorful innards spilled out.

But faced with such a bloody, stinking sight, Li Beichen felt no discomfort at all.

He'd fled from Bing Province to Jiangnan Circuit, seeing more than enough bleached bones along the way.

He'd even seen people so hungry they dug open graves and ate the rotting corpses inside.

Now that was truly disgusting.

In Li Beichen's eyes, this Black Wolf was a genuine treasure.

Li Beichen began cutting up the Black Wolf's viscera.

The first thing to catch his eye was the wolf's stomach.

The Black Wolf had just eaten most of a Yellow Sheep, and its stomach was swollen.

Li Beichen had originally planned to throw the whole thing away.

But then he suddenly remembered how delicious tripe was in hot pot in his previous life.

With that in mind, Li Beichen decided it was worth the effort to clean it.

He cut open the stomach with his dagger. Without changing expression, he reached inside and scooped out the chewed-up meat.

Suddenly, his hand touched something hard.

He pulled it out and saw a square bone fragment, its surface transformed into something like jade. It was about as big as two palms.

"This thing was so hard the Black Wolf couldn't even chew it, but it swallowed it whole?"

Li Beichen was a little surprised. He wiped the bone fragment with his hand and found that it had a fine texture, with seal-script characters carved into it.

The back was covered with characters too, not just the front.

At the very top of the fragment, larger seal-script characters read:

[White Bone Spirit Refining Observation]

"Spirit Refining?!"

Li Beichen's heart skipped a beat. A certain possibility came to mind, and he could no longer stay calm.

He immediately wiped the entire bone fragment clean and began studying it carefully.

[See a beauty as bare bones, and I shall desire nothing]

[See bare bones as a beauty, and I shall fear nothing]

[Without desire or fear, I shall guard my righteous thoughts]

[Make the body a boat, refine the spirit, and attain the Way...]

"It really is a Spirit Refining martial art!"

The opening passage on the bone fragment was the general outline of a spiritual martial art.

Suppressing his excitement, Li Beichen continued reading.

"Ninth Grade nourishes the spirit, Eighth Rank stabilizes the soul, Seventh Grade leaves the body, Sixth Grade wanders by night, Fifth Grade wanders by day."

But when Li Beichen reached this point, the text came to an abrupt halt.

"This bone fragment is incomplete! It only contains half the art, recording cultivation methods up to Fifth Grade!"

Li Beichen felt a little disappointed, but joy soon took its place.

Ordinary martial artists rarely even got to see martial arts that cultivated true qi.

Most people had never even heard of Spirit Refining martial arts.

If he hadn't had a master from a great sect, Meng Juxiang, Li Beichen would have thought that practicing martial arts meant nothing more than tempering the body.

Even half of the White Bone Spirit Refining Observation was an enormous opportunity for him.

Li Beichen read through it once, but his brow furrowed.

Before disaster struck Bing Province, his family had been fairly well-off. Li Beichen had spent a few years at a private school and could read and write.

But this White Bone Spirit Refining Observation was beyond him.

Much of it was obscure, full of allusions and quotations from classical texts.

Even after reading it several times, he understood only a little and couldn't grasp its true meaning.

More importantly, the panel didn't offer any prompts.

Staring at the bone fragment, Li Beichen murmured to himself,

"If I want to master this White Bone Spirit Refining Observation, I'll have to learn more about literature first."

He carefully put the fragment away, keeping it close to his body.

Even if he lost all the Ninth-Grade Black Wolf meat, he couldn't afford to lose this fragment.

Still, Li Beichen wasn't worried about the fragment being damaged.

He'd just examined it carefully and discovered that it was made from extraordinary material.

By the look of it, it was probably the bone of some high-grade creature.

Ordinary bones would never have survived the corrosive juices in the Black Wolf's stomach.

Li Beichen couldn't think of anything else it could be, unless it came from a high-grade creature at Sixth Grade Bone Refining or above.

He guessed that the Black Wolf had realized it was something extraordinary and tried to swallow it to absorb its essence.

But unable to chew through it, it had gulped it down whole.

And Li Beichen's guess wasn't far off. The Black Wolf had stolen one of the belongings of an unknown Third-Grade martial artist who had died in the Lingnan Mountains some time ago.

The Black Wolf had fled to Small Gravel Mountain to recover from its wounds while trying to digest the high-grade bone. In the end, it had led to Li Beichen's good fortune.

Once everything was packed up, Li Beichen carried the two-meter-long Black Wolf over his shoulder and held its pelt in one hand.

The Black Wolf must have weighed over two hundred pounds with its hide and bones.

Even at a meat yield of just forty percent, it would have provided several dozen pounds of pure meat.

Yet Li Beichen carried it over his shoulder without slowing his stride.

He soon made it down the mountain.

After a moment's thought, he headed straight back to Clear Creek Village.

It was noon, and the farmers were returning from the fields to eat.

They immediately saw Li Beichen coming with a bundle of wolf pelts in one hand and the carcass of a gigantic wolf over his shoulder.

Zhao Si was among them.

"M-Mr. Li, did you kill the entire pack on Small Gravel Mountain?"

"Yes, Uncle Zhao. I've wiped out the wolf pack on the mountain."

Li Beichen pointed to the Black Wolf over his shoulder.

"That includes the Black Wolf you saw."

Zhao Si was stunned. He knew martial artists were strong, but he still couldn't imagine how Li Beichen had slaughtered dozens of wolves all by himself.

When the village head of Clear Creek Village heard the news, he hurried over.

"Beichen... I'm grateful to you for ridding Clear Creek Village of this great danger!"

Clearly, the old man had recognized the threat posed by the rapidly growing wolf pack on Small Gravel Mountain.

He'd been deeply worried, but he hadn't had the money to hire martial artists to go into the mountains and wipe them out.

He'd never imagined that Li Beichen would hear Zhao Si mention the matter just once at Wang Er's son's full-month celebration, then head into the mountains on his own and eliminate the threat to Clear Creek Village.

Overwhelmed with gratitude, the village head began weeping. He immediately dropped to his knees, about to kowtow to Li Beichen.

"Please, don't!"

Li Beichen set down the wolf pelts and hurried to help the village head back up.

"Village head, I came back to tell everyone that the danger in the mountains is gone. You can go up there again now."

"Also, I only took the pelts from those wild wolves. Their carcasses are still in a narrow ravine deep in the mountains."

"It's still early today. You can send some villagers into the mountains to carry the carcasses back."

"That way, you'll have a little more meat to eat."