They Were Hunting Beasts

Li Mo walked into the storeroom.

Thanks to the Spirit Tablet at his waist, no guards stopped him at all.

Although some cultivators scrutinized Li Mo, for some reason they seemed wary of him and instinctively kept far away.

Li Mo looked around the storeroom and found that the windows had all been sealed with wooden boards. Fortunately, candle lamps hung along the walls, driving away most of the darkness.

More than a dozen rows of wooden shelves stood in the storeroom, their goods a dazzling array.

The distinctive smell of mold permeated the air.

Li Mo could see quite a few cultivators moving through the storeroom. Their expressions carried an inexplicable tension, and every so often, they exchanged glances.

Yet this only made Li Mo more certain of his guess.

The storeroom was a great net laid by the Pawnshop. Most cultivators had no idea what ghostly thing they were truly facing.

Li Mo carefully observed the cultivators, noticing more and more details.

Every ten meters or so, there was bound to be a cultivator proficient in Eye Spells.

They usually bore obvious eye-related traits: nothing but the whites of their eyes remained, their eye sockets were sunken and rotten, or their pupils glimmered faintly.

The Eye Spell Cultivators were specifically responsible for keeping watch. Through their regular positioning, they formed a protective ring enclosing the inside and outside of the storeroom.

Their seemingly ordinary movements actually followed a clear pattern, ensuring they never left the other Eye Spell Cultivators' fields of vision.

Within the storeroom's protective ring stood more than a dozen cultivators with strange bodies.

Their bones had all bent grotesquely to varying degrees, as though they had been forcibly snapped, then healed at unnatural angles.

Li Mo was deeply unsettled, and a chill shot straight up his spine to the back of his head.

Most cultivators had no idea what had happened at the Pawnshop. They only knew the storeroom was dangerous, and after exchanging their goods, they hurried away.

The remaining cultivators appeared prepared to stay in the storeroom for a long time, until the great net caught its prey.

Li Mo did not dare think too much. His heart pounded wildly. Were it not for his Leakless Body, his clothes would likely already have been drenched in sweat.

His most pressing task now was to get the Beast Blood as quickly as possible, leave the storeroom before nightfall, and wait quietly for the Pawnshop to deal with the outcome.

Li Mo began browsing the wooden shelves, searching for Beast Blood.

The shelves held a great quantity of antique calligraphy and paintings. The materials they used were all unusual and could react faintly with spiritual power.

From this, it was clear that the antique calligraphy and paintings were all embryos for magical artifacts.

There were raw materials as well. Li Mo even spotted the ink sticks distributed at the Calligraphy and Painting Hall, their labels marked with the words "Yin Ink Stick."

Li Mo's head swelled slightly. When he came into contact with the Spiritual Herbs in the storeroom, the Book of Fortune returned an immense flood of memories, revealing that the Immortal Cultivation World seven thousand years ago had possessed similar Spiritual Herbs.

Yin Ink Sticks were actually formed by pouring ink into a corpse's stomach and allowing it to congeal together with the blood.

Thus, they were an extremely sinister demonic-path Spiritual Herb, used specifically to cultivate Heretical Paths.

Overall, the storeroom's Spiritual Herbs had no dietary restrictions whatsoever, but they were all suited to Childhood Stage cultivators. Higher-quality Spiritual Herbs were nowhere to be seen.

After digesting the memories, Li Mo noticed that a cultivator was secretly watching him.

He could not help turning his head, only to see a Fat Daoist over two meters tall. With every step he took, even the floor tiles seemed to tremble faintly.

Li Mo immediately recognized him. The Fat Daoist was Jin Li, whom he had seen at Miraculous Hands Medical Hall.

Back then, Jin Li had intended to cultivate a spell called the Protective Mystical Method. His back had been cut open, and Han Cai had personally implanted a Qianqiu Seed into him.

In less than a year, the Protective Mystical Method had already begun to take effect.

Jin Li had grown at least forty centimeters taller. Rather than becoming thin, his body was covered in solid muscle, brimming with power.

Li Mo nodded to Jin Li in greeting, then went to the wooden shelves in the northwest corner.

He found Beast Blood in the corner. He had thought that, due to the Pawnshop's fear of wild beasts, anything related to beasts would be strictly forbidden.

The Beast Blood was stored in porcelain bottles. One bottle should have been enough for Li Mo to paint twice.

Unfortunately, although the porcelain bottles had undergone simple refinement, they could not compare to Glass Jars, leaving the Beast Blood noticeably less than fresh.

Fortunately, according to the description of Paint Green Clothes, the quality requirements for Beast Blood were not high.

Li Mo picked up a porcelain bottle and found a sheet of paper affixed to it, describing the Beast Blood's origin.

The Beast Blood was almost entirely from livestock such as cattle and sheep, mixed with some wild beast blood. There was no Mountain Lord blood among it, only black bear, leopard, fox, and the like.

Li Mo swept his gaze over the Beast Blood before finally settling on the Fox Blood.

Paint Green Clothes could create seven tattoos in total. Two were used to house beast tattoos, while the remaining tattoos were not something a Childhood Stage cultivator could touch upon.

Seeing that there was no Mountain Lord blood, Li Mo did not feel disappointed.

On one hand, Steward Hu's concerns remained. On the other, when he had painted the Hundred Beasts Painting, he had discovered that copying the Mountain Lord and the Fox was the easiest to get started with. Both possessed a spiritual bearing within the painting.

Li Mo picked up the Fox Blood and went to the counter by the storeroom entrance.

Behind the counter sat an old woman who looked more than a hundred years old. Her eyes were cloudy, and the hands gripping her cane had exposed stark white bones.

Li Mo quickly recognized the old woman as Steward Sun from the Porcelain Hall. Perhaps because the situation was dangerous, she had specifically come to oversee the storeroom.

She mumbled indistinctly, "See no evil, hear no evil..."

"Excuse me, how is the Fox Blood priced?"

"One Low-grade Spirit Stone."

Li Mo raised his eyebrows. Ordinary Beast Blood really did require Spirit Stones to exchange for it.

Old Madam Sun muttered, "Only three or four drops are needed to shape a statue. The Beast Blood all comes from Xinji Ridge, two hundred li away. It isn't cheap."

Li Mo took out two Cracked Spirit Stones and placed them before Old Madam Sun.

"What do you think...?"

Old Madam Sun groped for the Cracked Spirit Stones and picked them up. Helplessly, she said, "They are Spirit Stones, but their quality does not even qualify as Low-grade Spirit Stones."

"Fine. Two Cracked Spirit Stones can barely count as one Low-grade Spirit Stone. Go on, go on."

"Thank you, Granny. May I ask whether something has happened at the Pawnshop recently?"

Old Madam Sun put away the Spirit Stones, opened her cloudy eyes, and stared at Li Mo. Then she said, "Sigh. What do you know?"

"I don't know anything."

"Don't worry. If you don't know, you'll be fine. Don't leave the Pawnshop either. There is nowhere safe in Smelting Town. Just hide away."

Old Madam Sun closed her eyes and promptly fell into a deep sleep.

Li Mo hesitated for several breaths. Why was the Pawnshop deliberately sealing off the news? And how had those injured people with twisted bones appeared?

He walked out of the storeroom and narrowed his eyes at the sun.

On his way back to the inner side rooms, Li Mo discovered that the cultivators had all tacitly chosen to head toward buildings closer to the storeroom.

At the sight, he halted.

The storeroom was indeed a trap meant to lure prey, leaving it fraught with danger, but it also gathered a large number of cultivators.

If trouble arose, staying nearby would indeed make it easy to advance or retreat.

Li Mo turned around and headed for the Calligraphy and Painting Hall. Even on foot, it was only five minutes away.

The Calligraphy and Painting Hall was empty, though many apprentices occupied the side rooms. They had likely been warned in advance and huddled inside, not daring to move.

Li Mo returned to the familiar room, where the furnishings remained unchanged.

An intense itch gradually spread throughout his body, indicating that the second layer of Human Skin was about to finish growing. At the same time, his old skin had become tougher as well.