Heavenly Dragon (1 / 2)

Clear Radiance Mountains—“clear radiance” meant a pure, brilliant glow.

Outsiders who heard the name might imagine the Mountain Range filled with lovely scenery, a place that made visitors linger and forget to leave.

Yet... in truth, the Clear Radiance Mountains were infamous throughout Ningjin Prefecture as a place of deadly menace.

Miasma shrouded the outskirts of the Mountain Range year-round. Ordinary people exposed to it suffered headaches, dizziness, and tightness in the chest in mild cases; in severe cases, they vomited, went into shock, and alternated between chills and fever, dying within days.

Yet martial artists often ventured into this deadly place in groups, for exotic beasts roamed deep within the Mountain Range.

Every part of an exotic beast was a treasure. Its blood could be used in medicine and pill refining, its flesh could strengthen one's qi and blood, and its hide, scales, claws, and fangs could all be fashioned into weapons and armor.

The value of exotic beasts varied, but even the most common was worth enough to cover an ordinary family's expenses for several years.

Precious though they were, exotic beasts were also powerful. Of the martial artists who entered the mountains to hunt, fewer than one in ten caught a beast and returned unscathed—a glimpse of the dangers within.

Yet... men died for wealth as birds died for food. Dangerous as the Clear Radiance Mountains were, people never stopped venturing inside...

The June sun blazed overhead. Dense trees covered the outskirts of the Clear Radiance Mountains, making it difficult for even the fiercest sunlight to penetrate. Here and there, yellow or green mist gathered into clouds before spreading through the woods. This was the miasma that drained the color from countless faces at its very mention.

With a damp cloth covering his face and a ceramic jar hanging from either side of his waist, Zhao Er crouched in a clearing heaped with fallen leaves. With his slightly blackened hands, he carefully brushed aside a layer of leaves.

Only when a ceramic jar pierced with holes appeared beneath the leaves did he stop.

Listening to the rustling inside the jar, Zhao Er could not help lifting the corners of his mouth beneath the damp cloth.

First, he took a ceramic jar of the same size, but with a narrow opening, from his waist.

Then, holding that jar in one hand, he used the other to lift the lid resting upside down over the jar in the ground. As soon as the lid came off, the rustling within grew louder, perhaps because of the light.

A closer look revealed centipedes with red heads, brown armored backs, and dense rows of golden claws along their sides. Terrifying as these centipedes looked, they had an extraordinarily imposing name: Golden-Clawed Heavenly Dragon.

As long as chopsticks and as thick as fingers, the centipedes crowded the bottom of the jar. Perhaps frightened, they kept burrowing downward, their densely packed bodies churning inside the jar in a sight that made one's scalp crawl.

Yet Zhao Er's expression did not change. Wearing no gloves and using neither bamboo strips nor tongs, he reached straight into the jar with his bare hand and picked up a centipede.

This centipede was unusually lively. Once caught, it twisted its body and bit the slightly blackened back of Zhao Er's hand.

Zhao Er seemed not to notice the bite. Not even his fingers twitched as he casually stuffed the centipede into the jar he had prepared.

One, two, three... eight.

Zhao Er's movements were clean and deft, his hands steady. Each time he reached in, he caught a centipede, and soon he had transferred them all into the narrow-mouthed jar.

But when it was all over, pairs of red marks appeared on the already blackened skin of his fingers and the back of his hand. As time passed, the marks grew redder, and the surrounding skin began to swell.

Once he had taken out the last centipede, Zhao Er sealed the jar's mouth with a wooden stopper, then carefully secured the jar at his waist.

After that, he took the small porcelain bottle from the other side of his waist, removed its wooden stopper, and turned its mouth downward, giving it two hard shakes over the ceramic jar buried in the ground.

Plop~~

Zhao Er flung two lumps of sticky red paste, reeking with a sharp, foul stench, which landed squarely inside the ceramic jar.

He replaced the stopper, hung the bottle back at his waist, bent down to put the lid back on the jar in the ground, and covered everything with dead leaves as before.

From crouching down and clearing away the leaves to collecting the centipedes, placing the bait, and replacing the leaves, Zhao Er's movements flowed like drifting clouds and running water. The entire process took very little time.

Only after finishing everything did he let out a long breath. He looked around, confirmed there was no danger nearby, then hurried away in a crouch.

There are fewer and fewer centipedes in this trap. Before, there would be twenty on a good day, and more than ten even on a bad one. I'll have to move it somewhere else next time.

Zhao Er moved quickly, but made very little noise.

Only after he had left the area where he had caught the centipedes did words appear before his eyes.

Event complete. Beginning settlement!

Event settlement: hunting, poisoning

Small specialized traps crafted ×3, Golden-Clawed Heavenly Dragons (centipedes) captured ×43

Poisoning: miasma (mildly toxic), Golden-Clawed Heavenly Dragon (moderately toxic)

Experience gained: traps +1, Poison Resistance +1

[Cultivation: not yet initiated]

[Technique: Poison Sand Palm lv.1 (98/100)]

[Skill: traps lv.2 (142+1/500)]

[Poison Resistance (passive): lv.1 (95+1/100)]

[Available skill points: 0]

Not bad. My Poison Resistance went up by one point. The side effects of practicing Poison Sand Palm have weakened a little more.

As the words appeared, Zhao Er stopped and held his slightly blackened hand before his eyes.

Much of the faint blackness beneath his skin had faded, and the red spots that had been swollen and stinging moments earlier had grown paler. Clearly, his poisoning symptoms were easing.

At the same time, a little more knowledge about traps appeared in his mind.

I caught forty-three centipedes today. Once I'm back, I'll remove their venomous fangs and roast them dry, then make a trip to the county town and sell all the dried centipedes I've accumulated lately. That money should be enough to cover the cost of condensing my qi and blood...

As Zhao Er walked, he thought about the day's haul and could not resist lifting the large ceramic jar at his waist, now heavy with its contents, to heft it.

The movement stirred up rustling within the jar. Yet to Zhao Er, that scalp-crawling sound was wonderfully pleasing to the ear.

Zhao Er was not actually from this world. In his previous life, he had been entirely alone. Half a year had passed since he inexplicably transmigrated here, and originally, he had only wanted to use his knowledge, far beyond that of this world, to become a wealthy man.

But once he learned that this was a troubled age where the Martial Path reigned supreme, that modest ambition quietly vanished altogether.

For Zhao Er knew very well that possessing wealth without sufficient strength was like a child carrying gold through a bustling marketplace.

Besides, what man did not admire martial prowess?

Unfortunately, Martial Resources in this world were controlled and monopolized at every level. For commoners at the bottom, cultivating the Martial Path was as difficult as ascending to heaven.

Still, Zhao Er was not entirely without a chance. After half a year of investigation and preparation, he finally decided to make a risky move and take an unorthodox path.

Of course, the special advantage that had awakened upon his transmigration was his greatest source of confidence in doing so.

No direct sunlight reached the woods, but neither did any breeze. After walking for another quarter of an hour or so, Zhao Er was drenched in sweat. Together with the wet black cloth wrapped around his face, it made every breath painfully uncomfortable.

Yet he did not dare relax in the slightest. One hand gripped the ceramic jar tightly, while the other remained beneath the hem of his clothing.

As he hurried along, he also had to watch everything around him carefully. In these dense woods, a venomous snake, a savage beast, or a martial artist—any one of them could cost him his life.

Only when the trees ahead thinned and broad swathes of sunlight spilled down did Zhao Er breathe a little easier.

Upon leaving the dense woods, Zhao Er immediately stood in the sunlight, as though that alone could dispel any miasma clinging to him.

"Great, another safe d—Who's there!!"

Before he could finish, Zhao Er heard what seemed to be movement behind a nearby tree.

There was no time to think. Without even turning his head, Zhao Er whipped out the arm he had kept hidden beneath his clothing, and a cold gleam flashed with it.