A Demonic Pill Must Be Used as Collateral

The drill bit's tip expanded endlessly in the man's pupils. Even darksteel had been pierced through by this milling cutter—let alone his flesh-and-blood body.

Splat!

The milling cutter arrived as promised, shredding his head into a mist of blood. Monkey King's headless corpse crashed to the ground.

The entire process had flowed like drifting clouds and running water. It looked like brute force smashing through obstacles, but in truth it concealed countless techniques. The water bandits present might not have seen through it, but Elder Duan grasped its substance at a glance.

"Dull Blade Technique, Center Drill, Thread Chip Removal, Progressive Feed... using the Stamping Art as a technique for exerting force in combat—Stamping Art, what a marvelous Stamping Art! This old woman truly underestimated you before, and underestimated this Stamping Art as well."

Lu Li's face remained icy, as though what he had just done was not kill a man, but simply control a milling cutter to bore a through-hole into a component.

Seeing their boss killed, the remaining water bandits scattered like monkeys fleeing a tree. Lu Li had intended to pursue them, but the remaining mechanical apes lunged at him, blocking his path.

Lu Li controlled his void astral qi and made short work of the apes, as easily as chopping melons and vegetables.

As he did so, Lu Li's brow gradually furrowed. There was something he could not understand.

"Monkey King is dead. Why can these mechanisms still move?"

"Isn't that obvious? Because every one of these apes has an artifact spirit inside it."

"Mm..."

Lu Li fell into thought. He recalled Monkey King's earlier threat—the man had said he would turn Lu Li into an ape as well. And the primary material for artificial artifact spirits was the soul.

Once Lu Li had destroyed all the artifact spirits, Elder Duan continued:

"With artifact spirits, automaton artifacts are as though they have come alive. If their host gives no orders, they will act on their own. Low-tier artifact spirits simply do not possess much intelligence, that's all. But some high-tier artificial artifact spirits can even cultivate independently.

"We generally call this—artificial artifact spirits and deep inference."

"Artificial artifact spirits and deep inference..."

Lu Li felt that the phrase sounded strangely familiar, as though he had heard it somewhere before, yet he could not place it. Looking around, he was about to clean up the battlefield when he suddenly spotted a mechanical ape cowering behind a huge boulder, trembling all over.

It hugged its knees with both hands, like a child huddled atop a wall, looking rather pitiful.

When it saw Lu Li looking over, the ape's body shuddered in fright. It immediately dropped to its knees with a thud and repeatedly kowtowed.

If these mechanical apes had been fitted with sound-producing mechanisms, it would probably be crying, "Spare me, mighty hero!" right now.

"How strange. This ape actually knows how to beg me for mercy."

"Most low-tier artifact spirits act only on instinct, but there are exceptions. They awaken higher intelligence, such as the one you are looking at now—"

Before she could finish, the mechanical ape suddenly sprang up and pounced at Lu Li with teeth bared and claws outstretched. Compared to its begging appearance from a moment ago, it was like a completely different ape.

With a flick of his finger, Lu Li fired a stream of astral qi that punched through the ape's chest.

"Feigning surrender first, then waiting for a chance to launch a surprise attack. Mm, it really was much smarter than the other apes. Pity it attacked a little too early. If it had waited for me to take a few more steps before striking, it might really have succeeded."

That was Lu Li's analysis. He felt that he was now a glass cannon. The Qi-Combining Cauldron had given him tremendously powerful offensive means, but his own frail body was still right there. When fighting others, he needed to be especially careful; the slightest misstep could doom him beyond redemption.

Lu Li recalled the Azure Underworld Painted Skin Elder Duan had mentioned. It was said to enhance the body's defenses, making it perfectly suited to his circumstances.

Having tasted the benefits of the Qi-Combining Cauldron, Lu Li's view of the word "loan" had changed somewhat. He was no longer as resistant to it as he had been at first.

The rule of loans was that once he repaid the previous loan, he could borrow the next automaton artifact. Once he had refined the Qi-Combining Cauldron, he could consider the Azure Underworld Painted Skin.

However, Lu Li then recalled Elder Duan's description of the item. Once implanted, one would have "skin like congealed cream, a face like richly painted cinnabar." Damn it, wouldn't that make him look like some young maiden?

At the thought, Lu Li felt his skin crawl all over.

Lu Li began clearing the battlefield. He found a cloth bag on Monkey King's body containing thirty spirit stones, along with a paltry bit of silver. For a water bandit who collected protection money, Monkey King was nowhere near as wealthy as Lu Li had imagined.

It made sense. Assembling so many apes, forging and maintaining their mechanical arms, would have cost at least several hundred, perhaps even over a thousand spirit stones.

Though the Mountain Ape Strength Arms and mechanical apes had all been destroyed, Lu Li estimated that even if sold as scrap, they should fetch at least several dozen spirit stones.

Yet Lu Li had an even more serious problem to face: how was he supposed to carry all this away? With his strength, moving even one ape would be a struggle, much less this mess strewn all over the ground.

"Sigh, if only I had one of those bags or rings that can store things."

Lu Li clearly remembered that in the fantasy novels from his previous life, magical treasures like storage rings and storage bags were standard equipment for everyone. This was clearly a cultivation world too, so why had he never seen any?

"You mean storage automaton artifacts? Of course there are such things. Not only can they store objects, they can even store living people—and open up a world of their own. They're called a Lunar Manor. Hehehe, but you need to use your little brother as collateral..."

"Peh, peh, peh! What the hell? What did you just say?"

"Your little brother."

Elder Duan enunciated those two words with perfect clarity. Hearing them, Lu Li immediately felt a chill below his waist. Trading his little brother for storage space was obviously not worth it.

Besides, his little brother was such a manly fellow. Trading it for some Lunar Manor—just hearing the name made it sound so yin. No matter how he thought about it, it was wrong.

"Well? Will you trade?"

"No. Not even if you beat me to death. You really do take anything as collateral."

"The five viscera and six bowels, blood, bones, skin, flesh—there is nothing you have that I will not accept. Well, to tell you the truth, the lowest-grade Lunar Manor is a third-turn automaton artifact, and the term is one year. Even if I loan it to you, you wouldn't be able to refine it anyway."

That was true. Lu Li had not even refined a single first-turn automaton artifact, much less a third-turn one.

His immediate priority was to figure out how to refine the Qi-Combining Cauldron and preserve his own little life.

He put the matter of storage space aside for now and continued clearing the battlefield. He could not carry off the mechanical apes, but he could take the most valuable things inside them—their spirit cores.

Lu Li pried open one mechanical ape's chest cavity and found a dull gray core within. The stamping workshop where he had previously worked mainly produced spirit-core casings, so he could not have been more familiar with the thing.

A line of tiny clerical-script characters had been engraved on the casing—[Water Spirit Core · First Turn, Type One].

Below that line was another, even smaller line—[Manufactured by White Moon Palace Yushui Academy · June, Year Yǐwèi · Wù-137]

"Wait, what kind of spirit core did you say I needed to refine the Qi-Combining Cauldron?"

"That? You need a metal spirit core of First Turn, Type Four or above."