Heart Beast Sect? Mere maggots.

The Iron Cauldron Secret Realm was filled with swirling yellow sand, and the corpses of bizarre beasts twitched from time to time, causing gravel to tumble down from the mountain peaks.

Figures of cultivators digging into the rock walls could be seen everywhere.

To find high-quality spiritual materials, one had to venture inside Corpse Mountain, so those at the shallow Childhood Stage remained on the surface.

A gust of foul-smelling wind and sand drifted past.

Li Mo appeared in the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm, his exposed skin wrapped in the Desert Diagram, with cloth strips extending from his shoulders carrying the magic tool, Bird in a Cage.

His image was unconsciously starting to align with the style of the Heart Beast Black Market.

Li Mo surveyed Corpse Mountain. Molten Town Cultivators were mixed in among the rogue cultivators, but all were heads-down collecting spiritual materials without any interaction.

Compared to his last visit to the secret realm, many more mine caves had appeared on the surface of Corpse Mountain.

The depths of the mine caves were where spiritual materials gathered. The surface of Corpse Mountain was relatively safe, but the gains were far too meager.

During his seclusion, Li Mo had been constantly gathering information about the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm.

He had heard many rumors and could glean some truth from them. It seemed the main danger inside the mine caves came from the "Clay Sculptures."

The three warnings summarized by cultivators were the most widely circulated in the black market.

[There are no temples inside the mine caves]

[When you see a Clay Sculpture, do not turn back; keep your eyes on it as you move away]

[Once you find spiritual materials, dig them out as quickly as possible]

Li Mo quietly activated Paint Green Clothes, and the Ghost Tiger immediately detached from his right arm, hiding in the shadows formed by the rock walls.

The Ghost Tiger was on alert, ready to warn him the moment any cultivator approached.

Maintaining the Ghost Tiger consumed Flesh and Blood Spiritual Power, but given Li Mo's current physique, it had no impact on his own state.

The process of completing the Salamander Beast Head naturally went very smoothly.

The essence of the salamander was "life," and the Beast Head Tattoo also revealed a vitality of renewal.

The salamander was entirely a bluish-green color, with pink fleshy horns like coral on its head. Compared to the other Tattooed Beasts, it was truly a cute creature.

Li Mo summoned the salamander, and a tattooed beast the size of a palm appeared in his hand.

The salamander could sense the reality of Corpse Mountain and immediately concluded there was no life, then gently rubbed its fleshy horns against his palm.

It couldn't be relied upon for combat, but once exposed to the outside world, it did wrap Li Mo in a faint aura of life, accelerating his injury recovery while also allowing him to discern where natural life existed.

Li Mo was quite satisfied with the salamander.

The auxiliary positions of Paint Green Clothes were drawn using Beast Blood and required long-term nurturing. The growth potential was what made the Tattooed Beasts special.

Li Mo did his best to simulate the Beast Head Tattoos, transplanting teeth and eyeballs to perfect the tattoos.

As for the Kun Whale, because its original body was enormous, the transplanted eyeballs had to come from a juvenile beast. Fortunately, the Yi Bao Pavilion had stock, so the result went smoothly.

After the simulation of the Beast Head Tattoos, the patterns became lifelike, and the efficiency with which the Tattooed Beasts absorbed external Spiritual Energy increased noticeably.

Li Mo glanced at the Book of Fortune, and an inexplicable unease surged within him.

He became even more convinced that the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm held a way to increase the pages, perhaps right inside Corpse Mountain.

Li Mo headed toward a remote mine cave.

But before he had taken more than a few steps, the tremors of Corpse Mountain suddenly deepened. Large numbers of pustules swelled on its surface, growing visibly larger.

"Pseudo Bizarre Beast!!!"

A cultivator shouted in alarm, quickly swallowing a pill to suppress the Metal Toxin before vanishing from the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm.

Li Mo was also aware that Corpse Mountain could give birth to Pseudo Bizarre Beasts.

Pseudo Bizarre Beasts were also a source of spiritual materials.

However, if one ventured deeper into Corpse Mountain, the Pseudo Bizarre Beasts encountered would grow stronger, and some mine caves even had Childhood Stage bizarre beasts roaming around.

Li Mo stopped in his tracks, watching the pustules swell to about two meters in size.

When fine cracks spread across them, a strange-looking Pseudo Bizarre Beast crawled out from inside, its mouth letting out cries similar to an infant's.

The Pseudo Bizarre Beast was actually humanoid, with abnormally long limbs and a torso resembling a normal human, giving off an unsettling sense of disharmony.

Li Mo frowned slightly.

Bizarre beasts were formed when cultivators suffered an outbreak of Death Sickness. What realm had Corpse Mountain been in life, to transform into such a massive giant bizarre beast?

Establishment Stage?

As Li Mo pondered, the Pseudo Bizarre Beast broke free from the pustule's restraints, tore the umbilical cord from its abdomen, and charged toward the cultivators who had yet to leave.

The cultivators present all intended to hunt the Pseudo Bizarre Beast, but to prevent others from ambushing them, they chose to group in twos and threes.

They looked at Li Mo and quickly recognized him from the cloth strips covering his body as the infamous Golden Sand Daoist.

But in just one exchange.

The Pseudo Bizarre Beast's figure vanished without a trace, and Li Mo also disappeared, leaving only a foul, stinking odor in the air.

The cultivators couldn't help but shiver.

They suddenly realized how Yin Xue of the Viper Society had his neck bitten off.

Li Mo had little interest in killing for treasure. The Ghost Tiger dragged the Pseudo Bizarre Beast's corpse as they slipped into the abandoned mine cave together.

The mine cave's rock wall was made of flesh and blood, but it had already dried and blackened, its hardness comparable to stone, constantly seeping dark red blood.

He skillfully dissected the corpse and found that the Pseudo Bizarre Beast's Five Viscera were no different from an ordinary human's, deepening the doubt in his heart.

Even the crystallized organs looked more and more similar to the Corpse Spirit Root.

Li Mo packed the useful spirit materials into his Storage Bag. After the Desert Diagram absorbed all the filth from his body, he prepared to head deeper into the mine cave.

But the moment his palm touched the rock wall, his expression turned to shock.

The Book of Fortune flipped to a blank page on its own, and the blank page revealed the phantom of a malformed organ, though the organ appeared extremely incomplete.

Li Mo's pupils contracted.

His Magic Finger turned into a sharp blade as he forcefully cut into the rock wall, then meticulously observed the texture of the flesh at the break.

Li Mo noticed that the flesh's grain was unnatural, as if pieced together after the fact, and not a single drop of Bizarre Beast Blood flowed out.

"How does it feel..."

He dug for a while with his Magic Finger, and the organ on the blank page grew clearer. With just a thought, he could imprint it on the spot.

After busying himself for nearly half an hour.

Li Mo dug out a metal-material heart from the rock wall. It seemed to be related to congenital heart disease, with some parts abnormally enlarged.

Thump, thump, thump...

The heart was connected to the Corpse Mountain by blood vessels, beating in response to the tremors of the earth.

After Li Mo tore out the heart's blood vessels, the organ's metallization worsened, and before long, it formed a low-quality spirit material.

He walked along the mine cave for a while. When he finally groped his way to another rock wall, the Book of Fortune once again sensed the organ.

"This Bizarre Beast's body is filled with countless organs, and the spirit materials come from them."

Bizarre Beasts were, in plain terms, transformed from cultivators with the Death Sickness. Li Mo had seen the scene of dissecting an Elk Bizarre Beast, and its organs were no different from an ordinary person's.

The formation of the Corpse Mountain might be related to the Ziqi Sect.

Li Mo slowly walked to the mine cave entrance, watching the many cultivators digging for spirit materials.

Because the distance was too great, he felt the cultivators among the mountains were like maggots writhing on a corpse, diligently breaking down rotting flesh.

Li Mo had a bold thought.

The Iron Cauldron Secret Realm might simply be a place the Ziqi Sect used to pile up corpses.

They let the Heart Beast Sect handle the relatively useless "rotten flesh," and when it was about done, they would reclaim the key resource spirit materials.

The two weren't necessarily in a master-servant relationship. Why would an immortal pay attention to maggots?