The Beast Head Tattoo's Choice

The private room of Yi Bao Pavilion was elegantly decorated, yet there were no screens bearing wild beast patterns, every detail revealing a difference from the Heart Beast Sect.

After Li Mo sat down, the Shop Assistant brought over a pot of tea.

"Esteemed guest, this is fifteen-year Snow Ruiyang from the Kunlun Mountains, with half a tael of Yellow Grass to warm the spirit, and Blood-eating Worms to help cleanse rotting flesh."

The liquid in the teacup appeared silver-gray, packed with dense, writhing maggots.

"Once the Blood-eating Worms enter the stomach, they will naturally be absorbed by the intestines..."

The corner of Li Mo's mouth twitched. He truly could not accept that tea, which should be light and refreshing, had become such a heavy-flavored thing.

The Shop Assistant asked what items Li Mo intended to pawn, then bowed and left the room.

Li Mo waited inside for a moment, and then a withered, gaunt old man walked in. His skin was covered with hundreds of eyes, from which dark red blood slowly trickled.

The old man was only at Childhood Stage Perfection, but he had already undergone the Coming-of-Age Stage modification of Universal Skill, with over a dozen arms sprouting from his back.

Steam erupted from his pores from time to time due to high temperatures, filling the room with a pungent Sulfurous Corpse Odor.

His body was under such high strain that he had to take Pills to suppress its collapse.

"Jiang Xin'an, Master Craftsman of Yi Bao Pavilion."

A Master Craftsman was a senior artisan specializing in dismantling Bizarre Beast corpses and appraising their value, holding a respectable position in Yi Bao Pavilion.

Li Mo did not introduce himself and directly took out the spine of the Waking Lion Dance.

Jiang Xin'an raised an eyebrow, examining the spine, then looked at Li Mo with an unreadable expression. "The flesh is shaved very clean. Did you handle this Pseudo Bizarre Beast corpse?"

"No."

Li Mo could not admit it.

Jiang Xin'an's gaze lingered on Li Mo's Six Fingers for a few breaths before he asked, "What about the other parts of the Pseudo Bizarre Beast? Take them all out."

Li Mo placed the sorted organs of the Waking Lion Dance on the table, then closed his eyes to rest.

"A pity."

"This Pseudo Bizarre Beast was almost there, but it's still considered top-grade. The downside is that the flesh is no longer fresh, but it can still be used for refining tools."

"Alright, thirty-five Mid-grade Spirit Stones. How about it?"

"Fine."

Li Mo did not haggle. Thirty-five Mid-grade Spirit Stones met his expectations and would be enough to purchase plenty of resources.

"I'll take the Bizarre Beast away. If the cultivator who dissected the corpse is interested in Yi Bao Pavilion, they can come find me in the shop."

After saying this, Jiang Xin'an was about to leave the room when he heard Li Mo say, "Senior Jiang, please take a look at another Bizarre Beast corpse."

"Hm?"

Li Mo handed the old Storage Bag to Jiang Xin'an.

Jiang Xin'an glanced at the neatly sorted bones and organs, his expression shifting from calm to surprise. He could not help but size up Li Mo again.

Unlike Pseudo Bizarre Beasts, Bizarre Beasts possessed an indescribable vitality.

To dismantle a corpse, one had to have an unparalleled understanding of the Bizarre Beast's flesh and blood structure, as well as mastery of Universal Skill. Otherwise, the corpse might be damaged, reducing its value.

Jiang Xin'an could tell that the Bizarre Beast corpse had been incomplete before dissection, but because the handling technique was so skillful, most of its remaining value had been preserved.

"Are you a disciple of Senior Han?"

"I..."

"No wonder."

Before Li Mo could deny it, Jiang Xin'an had already shown an expression of sudden realization.

But in a sense, Li Mo's method of dissecting the Bizarre Beast corpse had indeed been learned by secretly watching Han Cai handle the Elk.

"I'll go appraise the Bizarre Beast's value. You still need to buy some resources, right?"

Seeing Li Mo nod, Jiang Xin'an continued, "Alright, I'll have Yi Bao Pavilion's accountant come over. Wait a moment."

He hurriedly pushed open the door and left.

Not long after, a broad-bodied accountant entered the room.

The accountant was named Wang Sheng. Aside from his abnormally large size, he had no obvious peculiarities, and his face bore an unchanging smile.

"Kakakakakaka..."

Wang Sheng let out a strange laugh, walking sideways toward Li Mo with a sideways gait. His cultivation had already reached the Coming-of-Age Stage.

"Esteemed guest, whatever you want, we have it."

Li Mo felt as if he were facing Shopkeeper Tian, both exuding an inhuman aura.

"Beast Blood."

"Let me see... it should be here..."

Wang Sheng took off his upper garment, revealing a rust-spotted torso.

He fumbled at his right chest, and a metallic grinding sound came from it. Then, his right chest opened like a drawer.

Inside the flesh drawer were rows of miniature bottles and jars.

"The Yi Bao Pavilion has five hundred and thirty-one types of beast blood, with sixteen rare beast categories."

Wang Sheng rattled off the introduction without pause.

Li Mo was slightly disappointed. He had assumed rare beasts referred to ancient demonic beasts, but they turned out to be merely scarce wild beasts.

For instance, the salamander he knew from his past life, the poison frog that could kill at a touch, the winged fish capable of brief flight—all counted as rare beast species.

Li Mo was quite interested in the salamander.

Though the salamander sat at the bottom of the food chain, it possessed a very special regenerative ability, capable of fully restoring even severed limbs.

Unfortunately, the problem was that if he used salamander blood to draw the beast head tattoo, the Bloody material would be impossible to rely on, and the potential was truly limited.

Li Mo glanced at the price and learned that salamander blood cost only two low-grade spirit stones, so he simply bought both bottles in the Yi Bao Pavilion's stock.

He likely wouldn't use salamander blood, after all, blood from the same type of beast was too scarce.

For the third and fourth auxiliary tattoo positions, Li Mo planned to draw beast heads convenient for air travel and water travel, since the tattooed beasts formed from misty spiritual power inherently possessed the ability to shift between reality and illusion.

For water travel beast blood, Li Mo had his eye on the Kun Whale, of which the Yi Bao Pavilion had a considerable stock.

The Kun Whale was indeed rare; according to Wang Sheng, corpses were only occasionally found along the coast, but fortunately, the blood supply was definitely sufficient.

As for air travel beast blood, Li Mo picked out quite a few, planning to consider them further back at the inn.

"Do you have any artifact refining methods here?"

"Let me look..."

Wang Sheng opened a drawer on his right leg and rummaged around, eventually finding a few bone scrolls.

Li Mo pressed them to his forehead to examine them, but unfortunately, the artifact refining methods only had the beginning portions; otherwise, with his eidetic memory, he could have taken them for free.

The Yi Bao Pavilion's artifact refining methods, aside from the basic method that used spiritual power to nourish materials and gestate an artifact embryo, also included some very unconventional techniques.

For example, the Skin Nurturing Artifact Refining Method.

Apply a specific medicinal primer to the skin of a young beast, wait until it is about to die of old age, then peel the skin off. Combined with fire-attributed spiritual power to remove impurities, it could be refined into an artifact embryo.

Or the Sealed Egg Artifact Refining Method.

Soak bird or fowl eggs in a specific medicinal liquid to prevent them from hatching, until the bird or fowl is gradually absorbed by the shell.

The basic artifact refining method determined the type of artifact that could be refined based on the alien spiritual power. Misty spiritual power was mainly aligned with water and earth.

The prices of the artifact refining methods were not cheap, all costing over ten mid-grade spirit stones.

Li Mo hesitated for a moment, then chose the Skin Nurturing Artifact Refining Method and the basic method, and purchased some common spiritual materials, intending to try his hand at refining.

After inquiring, he learned that the Yi Bao Pavilion had no stock of misty spiritual energy.

Li Mo didn't mind much; after all, he had mid-grade spirit stones on hand, and with the spirit gathering array at the inn, his cultivation efficiency would certainly not be slow.