Blood Pact Formation

Chapter 9: Blood Pact Formation

Raising spirit insects could indeed become a great help, but they were also quite expensive to keep. Without the money, there was no way to raise them. After weighing the pros and cons, Luo Mu decided to hatch these few eggs first. What Luo Mu lacked most right now was strength. Once he had that, would he still have to worry about not getting spirit stones?

With that in mind, Luo Mu followed the instructions in the Insect Control Technique and prepared to use a secret method to hatch the eggs. Hatching spirit insects with this method would link their minds to his, allowing him to control them as easily as his own arms and legs in battle, so they could catch his enemies off guard and deliver a fatal blow.

Moreover, after hatching, the spirit insects would regard the spellcaster as their parent. They would never turn on him; even if he ordered them to die, they would not hesitate.

Once he had decided, Luo Mu did not hesitate. He hurried to a secluded corner of the room, bit his finger, and clumsily began drawing a formation on the floor, following the pattern in the Insect Control Technique.

Luo Mu had never seen this formation, called the "Blood Pact," in any book. Drawing it did not come naturally to him, so he worked slowly to avoid making a mistake.

The formation was small, only about two meters in diameter, and circular. As Luo Mu finished the final stroke, the strange symbols and characters within it suddenly glimmered with a faint crimson light. Luo Mu himself, however, had gone pale, and his body swayed unsteadily.

First, he had drawn a two-meter-wide formation with his own blood, filling it densely with symbols and characters. Every one of them had been drawn with the blood in his body! Then, the instant the formation was complete, the Poison Spirit Power within him surged into it like a tide. That was the main reason his face had turned pale.

It was no big deal if his Poison Spirit Power was drained. It would slowly recover after he meditated, and Luo Mu did not care about that. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the eggs on the table.

There were eight eggs in total. Three were about the size of a thumb, with white shells. The other five were slightly smaller and had mottled yellow-brown shells.

"The spirit herbs in the Storage Bag have completely lost their spiritual energy. That means the bag had been there for a very long time before Father found it. Over all those years, the other eggs must have died one by one, yet these eight still have signs of life. Their life force is weak, but they're clearly extraordinary. Even if they don't have any special abilities, at least they're incredibly resilient." Luo Mu studied the eggs and analyzed them in his mind.

A Storage Bag could not hold living creatures, but eggs and seeds were exceptions; they could be stored inside. Luo Mu did not know why, and it was not something he needed to concern himself with.

The eggs were small, so they looked a little out of place inside the formation, but Luo Mu did not mind. He dripped a drop of blood onto each one, then brought over a screen and carefully hid the entire formation behind it.

"According to the Insect Control Technique, low-grade spirit insects take about ten days to hatch. The higher their grade, the longer they take. There wasn't even a single magic artifact in the Storage Bag, so its owner probably wasn't wealthy. These spirit insects don't look like anything high-grade, either." Luo Mu sighed, feeling like a greedy man trying to swallow an elephant. Then he silently mused to himself.

After finishing all this, Luo Mu returned to bed and collapsed into a deep sleep. He had been mentally and physically exhausted these past few days and had not gotten a moment's proper rest. On top of that, he had just drawn the Blood Pact Formation with his own blood, draining all his Poison Spirit Power. His whole body had gone limp, without a trace of strength. The instant he hit the bed, he fell fast asleep.

Luo Mu slept through the entire day. It was not until late at night that he slowly awoke. After washing up, he felt full of energy, as if he had more than he could use. The body was the capital of revolution; that saying was absolutely true.

Then Luo Mu went to check on the Blood Pact Formation. He knew the eggs would not hatch so quickly, but he could not help taking a look. Somehow, he felt he would only be at ease after seeing them.

The result was just as he had expected. Other than a faint reddish tint, there was no change on the surface of the eight eggs. Though he had known this would happen, Luo Mu still felt a little disappointed.

"Looks like I'm getting ahead of myself." He gave a self-mocking smile, then left and headed for the kitchen.

Qi Refining Stage cultivators could not abstain from food, so they still had to eat when it was time. Luo Mu had not eaten for a day and a night, and his stomach had been growling for ages. No sooner had he woken up than he headed to the kitchen.

It was late at night. The other households in town had long since gone to bed, yet the sound of clattering came from Luo Mu's clinic...

After eating, Luo Mu was wide awake and had no desire to sleep. He was full of energy, so he took the Insect Control Technique out of his Storage Bag and began reading it carefully.

The day before, he had only skimmed it to get the gist. Tonight was when he truly studied it. The book never left Luo Mu's hands all night, and his expression kept changing as he turned page after page.

Cultivators had far better memories than ordinary people. In one night, Luo Mu could not memorize the entire Insect Control Technique word for word, but he remembered most of it. It was not until dawn that he slowly closed the book.

Then he shut his eyes, his expression calm, and began to digest what the book had taught him.

After a long while, Luo Mu opened his eyes. He now had a new understanding of spirit insects.

Spirit insects were eggs laid by ranked insect-type monsters. After cultivators hatched them by various methods and made them their pets, they could be called spirit insects.

The same principle applied to spirit beasts and monsters. Spirit insects had the same grades as monsters: levels one through nine, with level one the lowest and level nine the most powerful.

The eight eggs Luo Mu was hatching had not yet hatched, so he did not know what level their spirit insects would be. According to the Insect Control Technique, the higher the grade of a spirit insect, the more resilient it was. However, there were exceptions: some spirit insects had low grades but still possessed astonishing vitality.

Luo Mu did not know whether the eight eggs he was hatching belonged to the former or the latter. He would only find out once they hatched.

For now, Luo Mu's top priority was to improve his strength as quickly as possible. Only by growing stronger could he gather wealth more easily, then buy all kinds of poisonous herbs for his cultivation.

Luo Mu planned to use the more than two hundred spirit stones he had found in the Storage Bag to visit a big city and buy some poisonous herbs. They were not many spirit stones, but they should be enough to buy a fair number of low-grade, level-one poisonous herbs.

Within the same grade, spirit herbs cost twice as much as poisonous herbs. Cultivators needed spirit herbs far more than poisonous herbs, which was the main reason poisonous herbs were cheaper.

Besides, finding a spirit herb in the wilderness might be difficult, but finding a poisonous herb was much easier. Now that ordinary poisons could no longer help Luo Mu's cultivation advance, he decided to go out that day.

First, he would see if he could find any ranked poisonous herbs along the way. Second, he would go to Jinxiu City and buy some poisonous herbs. Whether to refine them into poison pills or consume them directly was still unclear to Luo Mu; he would decide when the time came.

Luo Mu did not know how much a poison pill recipe cost or whether he could afford one, so he did not give it much thought.

As for why he was going to Jinxiu City, it was because the city was closest to Dragon Gate Town, and Luo Mu already knew the way there.

After tidying up a little, Luo Mu packed plenty of provisions, closed the clinic's front door, and hung up a sign saying it was temporarily closed. Then he left without a sound.

No one in town noticed Luo Mu's departure. It was only later that the clinic's front door remained shut for a long time...

Luo Mu had packed plenty of provisions for this long journey. He had made trips like this before. Whenever Father Luo went to the city to buy spirit herbs for him, he always went to Jinxiu City. Luo Mu had gone along several times and knew the route well.

But this time, Luo Mu did not plan to take the old route. Instead, he would stick to the mountain paths, where few people traveled.

That was because anyone hoping to find spirit herbs or poisonous herbs had to venture deep into the mountains. Monsters lived in those remote forests, but for the sake of his cultivation, Luo Mu had no choice but to grit his teeth and go. Those two hundred or so Low-grade Spirit Stones would not last if he spent them freely. If he truly wanted to improve his strength, he would have to rely on himself.

Luo Mu also wanted to see how his Poison Spirit Power compared with the spirit power of ordinary cultivators, and which was stronger. Finding a few low-grade monsters to test himself against and improve his combat ability was certainly a good idea.

Only those tempered in blood could become true powerhouses!

Besides, every part of a monster was valuable. If Luo Mu managed to kill one or two along the way, this trip would have been worthwhile. He might even earn some extra spirit stones.

By then, Luo Mu had been away from Dragon Gate Town for a day. He was deep in a great mountain, several mountains away from the town.

The people of Dragon Gate Town usually hunted in the woods near the town, along the edges of the mountains. They did not venture deeper because monsters lived there, and the residents would not dare go in.

For years, as long as the residents did not go too deep into the mountains, monsters rarely killed anyone. The mountains around every town were cleared out by Wanfa Sect disciples. Powerful monsters were all exterminated, and those left behind were low-grade, level-one monsters that would not attack humans without provocation.

Of course, if their interests clashed, these low-grade monsters might still hurt people, just as one had done to Father Luo.

That was why the townspeople avoided going too deep into the mountains. They might provoke these low-grade monsters by mistake and lose their lives for nothing.

But Luo Mu was not avoiding the low-grade monsters. Instead, he was darting around the mountains in search of spirit herbs.

Sure enough, after only a day away from town, Luo Mu had found one low-grade, level-one spirit herb, three low-grade, level-one poisonous herbs, and one mid-grade, level-one poisonous herb. He was overjoyed.

In the past, he had not dared venture this far into the mountains to search for herbs. But now things were different. With Poison Spirit Power in his body, Luo Mu had charged straight into the depths of the mountains. He truly was skilled enough to be bold!

Along the way, Luo Mu had also tested the power of his Poison Spirit Power. The results had astonished him. Ordinary beasts died horribly, bleeding from all seven orifices the instant his Poison Spirit Power came near them.

This made Luo Mu both happy and worried. He was happy that the Poison Spirit Power in his body was so potent; it would surely give him a great advantage in battle. But he worried that one day he might poison himself to death by playing with poison.

That worry lasted only an instant. Before Luo Mu had time to think it through, the sight before him left him stunned.