A Few Poor Kids

Luo Mu waved his sleeve, and thirteen Plum Blossom Snakes and five White Jade Ants turned into streaks of rosy light and returned to the Spirit Beast Bag. The three Octagonal Spikes on his body did the opposite. Not only did they fail to return to the Spirit Beast Bag, they instead wriggled toward the woman's corpse.

This was the very corpse the White Jade Ants had just refused to eat.

In a matter of moments, the Octagonal Spikes reached the woman's body. Luo Mu could feel their excitement. To his utter disbelief, the Octagonal Spikes, which he had always thought ate only plants, bared their sharp fangs and tore into the corpse.

After the time it took to eat a meal, the woman's corpse had changed. She had died from severe poison, and her whole body had been a ghastly green. Now the ghastly green had disappeared, and her body had returned to its normal appearance.

The three Octagonal Spikes had actually sucked every last trace of poison from her body in a short time, then devoured it as a meal.

The sight left Luo Mu both shocked and delighted!

Then Luo Mu gave the three Octagonal Spikes an order. They wriggled toward another corpse. Though they moved by crawling like caterpillars, they were surprisingly fast. In mere moments, the three little fellows had reached another body.

Just as before, the Octagonal Spikes absorbed every last trace of poison contained in the corpse.

After that, Luo Mu watched with his own eyes as the Octagonal Spikes devoured all the deadly poison in every corpse before them. On closer inspection, he suddenly realized that the poison within the three little fellows had grown considerably stronger. The results were far better than those of a top-grade, first-rank poisonous herb!

Watching the Octagonal Spikes crawling across his palm and sensing their excitement, Luo Mu smiled. A bold idea had taken shape in his mind!

He raised his other hand, bit into his index finger, and let a drop of blood trickle down onto the palm where the three Octagonal Spikes were.

The moment the blood fell, the three Octagonal Spikes went wild, scrambling to devour it. Luo Mu felt an excitement from them unlike anything he had ever sensed before!

There was no surprise on Luo Mu's face. It seemed everything had gone exactly as he expected.

In the blink of an eye, the three Octagonal Spikes had lapped up every drop of blood. Still unsatisfied, they bounced about on Luo Mu's palm, conveying their excitement to him.

After watching it all, Luo Mu smiled faintly, then carefully examined the Octagonal Spikes to see how they had reacted to consuming his blood.

A short while later, Luo Mu had thoroughly inspected all three. Their appearance had not changed in the slightest; they looked just as they always had. But the poison inside them had increased substantially in a short time!

Before feeding them his blood, Luo Mu had already checked the poison within the three Octagonal Spikes. Now, after they had consumed his blood, the difference was plain to see.

"Looks like I'll be saving quite a few poisonous herbs from now on! It'll add up to a sizable amount day after day." Luo Mu put away the three Octagonal Spikes, a broad smile on his face.

At the same time, Luo Mu flung open his right hand. A flash of pale green spirit power passed across his five fingers, and five little flames appeared. He flicked his hand lightly, sending the flames toward the corpses...

After disposing of the corpses, Luo Mu carefully checked and confirmed that he had left no traces behind. Then he headed for the cave where he lived.

Along the way, Luo Mu kept thinking about the three Octagonal Spikes.

At first, the White Jade Ants had refused to eat the woman's corpse because it contained Luo Mu's Poison Spirit Power. The Insect Control Technique only said that White Jade Ants ate anything, but it never mentioned whether they would eat poisonous food. Luo Mu had only discovered this today.

It seemed the contents of the Insect Control Technique could not be trusted completely; they could only be used as a reference. As the saying went, seeing was believing, hearing was deceiving. The same went for what was written in books.

The White Jade Ants would not eat poisonous food, so of course they had left the corpses alone. But the Octagonal Spikes were different. They shared many traits with Luo Mu: the more poisonous something was, the more they loved to eat it, and the greater the benefit to them.

What annoyed Luo Mu was that the Insect Control Technique had also failed to mention that the Octagonal Spikes were demonic insects that ate both meat and plants. He had always fed them poisonous herbs, never once letting them devour poisonous meat.

Only today had Luo Mu discovered that these seemingly ordinary caterpillars had fangs just like carnivorous demonic beasts! They were no vegetarians!

Moreover, Luo Mu had discovered that his Poison Spirit Power benefited the Octagonal Spikes, and far more than ordinary poisonous herbs did. His blood, in particular, was a great tonic for them!

Luo Mu was overjoyed. Being miserly, he had always thought the Octagonal Spikes were competing with him for food. They had yet to surprise him, either. Aside from their ability to seek out poisonous herbs on their own, Luo Mu could not see what use they had.

If the Octagonal Spikes had not been the first demonic insects Luo Mu raised since entering the cultivation world, he might really have abandoned the three little fellows to avoid wasting his poisonous herbs. Fortunately, over the past year, the Octagonal Spikes had always foraged on their own. Except for the occasional unsuccessful trip that left Luo Mu needing to feed them, they took care of their own meals, saving him a great deal of poisonous herbs.

Even so, Luo Mu had still felt resentful, as if he were the one getting the raw end of the deal.

Now things were different. After today's discovery, Luo Mu had a plan. From now on, he would feed the Octagonal Spikes his Poison Spirit Power and blood. That would not only raise their strength quickly, but also save him some poisonous herbs.

Blood could be replenished, and depleted Poison Spirit Power would recover on its own. Neither would affect him much—in fact, the impact would be negligible. Luo Mu did the math and decided it was a very worthwhile trade.

Turning the idea over in his mind, Luo Mu found it more and more workable. Before he knew it, he had returned to the cave with a smile on his face.

Once back in the cave, the smile vanished from Luo Mu's face, and he returned to his usual calm. He sat cross-legged and entered a state of cultivation. In the earlier battle, he had used the Phantom Movement Technique repeatedly, consuming a great deal of Poison Spirit Power and injuring his body as well. As soon as he returned to the Stone Chamber, he began to regulate his breathing without even looking at the Storage Bags he had obtained.

After half a day, Luo Mu slowly opened his eyes. A sharp glint flashed in them. He exhaled a breath of stale air, and color had returned to his cheeks. It seemed he had nearly recovered.

"Such a miraculous movement technique, yet I can't use it freely because my body isn't strong enough. It's really frustrating." Luo Mu sighed and muttered with a helpless expression.

At the same time, he suddenly felt the urge to cultivate both a body-refining technique and a primary cultivation technique.

In the cultivation world, magical artifacts were the main means low-level cultivators used to defend themselves and attack their enemies. They were easy to use and had countless applications, making them popular with low-level cultivators.

Cultivation techniques were no less useful than magical artifacts—in fact, they could be even more important! A good technique could provide astonishing offensive or defensive power, and its strength also determined a cultivator's future prospects in the cultivation world. The more powerful and profound the technique, the farther it could take its cultivator along the path of cultivation.

Moreover, cultivation techniques played a decisive role in helping cultivators break through bottlenecks. Simply put, a technique allowed a cultivator to make the most of the spirit power in their dantian. Without one, a cultivator was no different from Luo Mu now: even with spirit power in his dantian, he had no idea how to unleash it against an enemy.

Aside from the most basic method of channeling spirit power into a magical artifact, Luo Mu truly had no idea how to use the Poison Spirit Power in his dantian.

Just thinking about cultivation techniques made Luo Mu's blood surge. But aside from the Phantom Movement Technique, he knew no other techniques. The Insect Control Technique described secret methods for controlling insects, techniques for raising them, and various kinds of demonic insects. It was incredibly precious, but it could not be considered a cultivation technique—at most, it was a valuable secret art of the cultivation world.

If he found a cultivation technique suited to him, it would surely multiply his combat strength and give him a great advantage in battle!

"Ah!" Luo Mu shook his head and sighed. It was still too soon to think about cultivation techniques, and he felt a little disappointed.

Luo Mu was a mere Rogue Cultivator. He had only three ways to obtain a cultivation technique. The first was to join a cultivation Household or sect. If he made contributions, he could certainly obtain a decent technique.

The second possibility was to buy a cultivation technique with spirit stones. But who would sell a good technique? Even if someone did, the price would be astronomical, far beyond what someone as broke as Luo Mu could afford. The cheap techniques for sale were mostly basic Five Elements techniques, which were of little use.

The third possibility was to obtain a cultivation technique by chance. But the kind of luck that made a pie fall from the sky was rare. Even when cultivators did stumble upon one, it was because they were blessed with great fortune and had a sudden stroke of luck.

In Luo Mu's eyes, the third possibility was unreliable, while he lacked the money for the second. The only workable method, and the one that suited his current situation, was the first.

"Join a sect..." Luo Mu muttered, furrowing his brows as he wondered what to do. At the same time, he reached into his robe with his right hand.

Luo Mu took the Storage Bags belonging to the Jinxiu Academy students from his robe one by one. He probed them with his divine sense and began inspecting the spoils from this haul of dead men.

There had been many of them this time, but the gains were not particularly satisfying. Perhaps because they were all students, and their families were not very well off, the contents of their Storage Bags left Luo Mu greatly disappointed.