The villagers around him, Shi Shoushan included, all felt their mouths twitch violently.
That was a Sacrificial Spirit!
A Primordial Remnant that had lived for who knew how many years!
And according to you, it was only fit for dog food?
"Ahem!" Shi Yunfeng struck the ground heavily with his cane, breaking the bizarre atmosphere. "Since this was bestowed by the Willow Deity, it is a heaven-sent opportunity. Skinny Monkey, do not be disrespectful."
"Exactly!" Shi Linhu came over with the still-dripping wolf hind leg on his shoulder, his face flushed with greedy excitement.
"Skinny Monkey, hurry up and get the pot going! This thing is a powerful tonic. We can't let the Willow Deity's kindness go to waste!"
Shi Hou looked with disgust at the enormous wolf carcass, which had begun to give off a foul, bloody stench.
He wasn't being precious.
Old Vulture's meat really was no good.
Its blood qi was impure, laden with sinister, poisonous rune energy, and tainted with the rotten odor of years spent burrowing through graves.
Putting this in his pot would be an outright insult to his cooking.
"Grandpa Chief, Uncle Hu, it's not that I don't want to stew it."
Shi Hou pinched his nose, looking troubled.
"The quality of this ingredient... it really doesn't meet the standards. If I force it into the pot, I'm afraid it'll explode."
"Quit your nonsense!"
Shi Linhu tossed the wolf leg straight down beside Shi Hou's feet, sending dust flying.
"The Willow Deity killed it. How could it possibly be poisonous? Get moving. Everyone's waiting for the feast!"
Looking at the villagers' expectant eyes, Shi Hou knew there was no getting out of cooking this feast today.
"All right."
Shi Hou sighed as though he had made some tremendous sacrifice.
"But let's be clear: if the stew goes wrong, don't blame me. And the first bowl has to go to Big Yellow."
Nobody paid any attention to his final insistence.
Every gaze fixed on the enormous black pot he unstrapped from his back.
Thud!
The black pot hit the ground, making the earth shudder.
Shi Hou took a deep breath and pressed his hand against the cold side of the pot.
The icy mechanical voice sounded in his mind right on cue.
[Ingredient detected: first-tier Sacrificial Spirit (near death · runes disintegrating · heavily contaminated).] [Warning: this ingredient contains large amounts of impure energy and resentment. Cooking difficulty is extremely high.] [Activating "Purification Cooking" mode requires blood qi value: 100,000.]
One hundred thousand?!
The corner of Shi Hou's eye twitched violently.
He only had a little over two hundred and fifty thousand blood qi in total. Would this one pot send him straight back to square one?
The system hadn't demanded this much even to stew a dying Suanni!
"What's wrong?"
Seeing him stand motionless for so long, Shi Hao tugged at his trouser leg.
"...Nothing."
Shi Hou gritted his teeth, his heart bleeding. "It's just that this firewood is a little expensive."
Damn it, this is a losing deal!
"Confirm!"
[Blood qi value -100,000.] [Current remaining blood qi value: 150,500.] [Current piece: "Symphony No. 5," difficulty: five stars. BPM: 170.] [Cooking today: 1/1]
Boom!
The rune flame beneath the pot was no longer its former scarlet. Instead, an eerie blue flame rose, radiating an imposing aura that could purify everything.
"Da-da-da-dum-!"
That majestic, urgent melody instantly exploded inside Shi Hou's head.
His expression changed at once.
With a beckoning motion of his right hand, the Stone Knife flew into his grasp as a streak of light.
"Ha!"
He let out a fierce shout.
Shi Hou moved.
Circling the enormous wolf carcass, he launched into a wild war dance!
Every swing of the Stone Knife in his hand landed precisely on the impassioned beat.
The blade slashed through the air, releasing one gray blade of qi after another.
Those blades of qi sank into the wolf carcass with a sizzling sound. Wisps of black vapor visible to the naked eye were forcibly driven from its flesh, then instantly burned into nothingness by the blue flame beneath the pot.
To the villagers, Shi Hou looked like an ancient shaman wielding a divine weapon to drive out evil spirits, every movement brimming with power and sanctity.
"He's... purifying the Sacrificial Spirit's resentment!"
Shi Yunfeng trembled so violently that he could barely hold his cane.
"Using his own body as the cauldron and a war dance as the fire... this is the legendary Witch God Sacrificial Dance!"
Shi Hou couldn't hear him at all.
Right now, he only wanted to curse.
Every slash felt like he was carving flesh from his own body.
The tempo was so fast it nearly killed him. He felt as though his arms were about to throw off sparks from all the swinging.
At last, the piece ended.
The final note fell.
Shi Hou dropped to one knee, the Stone Knife planted in the earth before him, and gasped for breath. His sweat soaked a patch of ground.
As for the wolf carcass...
All the black vapor had been dispelled, and the foul, rotten stench had vanished too, leaving only the pure scent of flesh and blood.
Shi Hou tossed the purified wolf carcass into the pot.
Boom!
The blue flames instantly engulfed the entire enormous pot.
There was no fragrance.
Not even a wisp of steam.
Everyone stared fixedly at the black pot burning in the blue flames, not daring to breathe too loudly.
An hour later.
The flames dispersed.
"Food... food's ready," Shi Hou called weakly.
The lid came off.
An indescribable column of vital essence shot into the sky like a beacon of smoke.
There was no soup in the pot.
Only a... fist-sized, pitch-black... meatball, its surface covered in naturally formed blood-red runes?
An entire Sacrificial Spirit had been condensed into this little thing?
Everyone stared, dumbfounded.
Only Shi Hao's eyes shone with startling brightness. He could sense that the little meatball contained power even fiercer and purer than that Suanni's.
Without a second thought, he reached out his little hand to grab it.
"Little One!" Shi Shoushan cried in alarm.
Shi Hao had already stuffed the scalding meatball into his mouth and swallowed it whole.
The next second.
Shi Hao's body jolted violently. Ancient, mysterious black symbols flashed across his skin before all withdrawing into his body.
His aura climbed higher and higher!
[Ding! Diner "Shi Hao" has finished eating.] [Assessment: transcendent-grade divine food (Sacrificial Spirit Dao Fruit).] [Host gains blood qi value: +400,000!]
A warm current more tremendous than any before it burst forth with a thunderous rush.
Shi Hou's vision went black, and he nearly fainted from sheer bliss.
[Blood qi value: 550,500]
His body swelled as though it were a balloon being inflated. His dark skin grew even darker, and a faint, mysterious metallic sheen began to surface.
Yet the transformation wasn't over.
Inside the Stone Pot, where the "meatball" Shi Hao had swallowed had been, there was now an entire pot of... ink-black broth.
Countless tiny points of blood-red light drifted up and down in the broth, like a pot full of stars.
"This... what is this?" Shi Yunfeng's voice trembled as he looked at the broth.
A man who had been stuck in the middle stage of the blood moving realm for years ladled out a bowl as if possessed and downed it in one gulp.
He had only just set the bowl down.
His entire body froze on the spot, his eyes wide and round, utterly motionless.
"Dazhuang's dad!"
Just as everyone cried out in alarm.
A faint glow of bone text suddenly lit up across the man's body. He abruptly sat down cross-legged, entering a state of enlightenment right then and there!
"This is... Dao resonance! There are fragments of the Sacrificial Spirit's runes in the broth!" Shi Yunfeng exclaimed involuntarily.
Whoosh!
The whole village went wild!
Everyone rushed forward, took a bowl each, then sat down to meditate wherever they stood after drinking!
In an instant, all of Stone Village sank into an eerie silence. Only glimmers of bone text, varying in brightness, lit up one after another throughout the crowd.
Watching this miraculous scene of collective enlightenment, Shi Hou went completely numb.
He lowered his head and examined his hands.
Apart from skin that kept getting darker, there wasn't a damn rune on them.
Just then, a jade-green branch of the Willow Deity, who had remained silent all this while, swayed gently and floated before Shi Hou.
A gentle thought carrying a trace of surprise sounded directly in his mind.
"Your path is different from theirs."
"You need not comprehend the runes of heaven and earth. Your body... seems to be 'drawing' runes on its own."
Shi Hou froze, then lowered his head to look at his arm.
"Drawing runes on its own? Willow Deity, what does that mean?"
Before you continue