"Martial God Art"

"But what good is that?"

"This is a world of immortal cultivation, and you're giving this Great King some dusty, dirt-cheap internal cultivation method?"

Chun Xiaobai curled his lip and prepared to keep looking farther ahead.

But after taking a few steps, he backed up again.

No, I closed my eyes and opened them, and somehow ended up in this mysterious place. I can't just leave empty-handed, can I?

He had no interest in those flashy frauds from the Outer Sect.

But these characters are obviously ancient. I'll memorize them and find someone outside to translate them. What if they really are some blasted peerless immortal cultivation technique?

Even if I can't use it right now, selling it would still bring in a windfall!

Besides, my cultivation burns through so much these days. Money is exactly what I'm short on.

With that thought, Chun Xiaobai turned and walked back.

He stared fixedly at the strange symbols, intending to engrave their shapes and strokes in his mind, one stroke at a time. Once he got out, he would find a brush, ink, paper, and inkstone to transcribe them, then have someone translate them.

Yet the instant he memorized the first of the largest symbols in the top row, his mind suddenly cleared. The symbol he had just memorized actually translated itself in his head.

That symbol meant precisely-"Martial"!

He quickly memorized the second symbol. Likewise, the moment he committed it to memory, he inexplicably understood its translation-"God"!

The third-"Art"!

"Martial God Art?"

"Holy shit! It really is a cultivation technique!"

"I just can't tell whether it's an Immortal Cultivation technique or a method for practicing flashy nonsense."

Still, judging by this mysterious spectacle, he felt that the Martial God Art could not be ordinary.

After all, none of the mysterious symbols he had seen before had ever translated themselves in his head after he memorized them.

He hurried to commit the symbols to memory, one by one.

This place was far too bizarre. Who knew whether it might suddenly kick him out-or lock him in here forever?

Whether it was the former or the latter, he had to hurry.

It took roughly two hours.

Only then did Chun Xiaobai finish memorizing every symbol on the wall and successfully translating them all in his head.

This was indeed a cultivation technique, but it differed from both immortal cultivation techniques and every martial arts method he knew. It seemed to be an entirely new discipline standing apart from both.

For the moment, however, he had no intention of trying to practice it. The atmosphere in this damned place was far too unnerving.

He decided to keep following the wall, find an exit, and get out first.

But the moment he took a step, his head grew heavy again, and an overwhelming weakness swept through his body.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing in the courtyard.

The world spun, and everything before him swam in overlapping images.

"Fuck! How did I end up back here?"

He had barely squeezed out those words when his body went limp. With a thud, he collapsed to the ground, as weak as though he had starved for ten days and nights.

There was no time to think. He felt that if he waited any longer, he would starve to death.

Chun Xiaobai immediately turned his hand over and pulled two bottles of pills from his Storage Bag. Without even checking their names, he poured them into his mouth and forced them down without bothering to chew.

The two bottles of pills restored only the tiniest trace of strength.

Using that last trace of strength, he pulled out several more bottles and gulped down their entire contents. At last, the hunger stopped making him panic, though his vision still darkened.

There was nothing else for it!

He could only take out his last dozen or so pills and swallow them all in one go. Even then, that bone-gnawing hunger was only reduced by half.

"Goddammit! Dragging me into that lousy space actually costs this much?"

He discovered that all the power he had painstakingly gained by absorbing over a thousand spirit stones to reach the first layer of Qi Refining had been drained dry by his visit to that mysterious space.

Fortunately, his constitution had not changed. He only needed to "recharge" to recover.

With a dark expression, Chun Xiaobai stood up, took out his last two hundred spirit stones, and smashed them one by one.

He could no longer spare a thought for kidney stones. He dissolved them into a bucket of water and gulped it down.

He absorbed them using the method he had worked out before.

Only after a warm current flowed through his entire body did his exhaustion wash away, and the strength he had spent finally returned.

"Phew!"

He exhaled a stale breath, plopped down in the courtyard, and looked up at the sky.

Judging by the positions of the stars, he discovered that only two or three minutes had passed from the moment he sat cross-legged until he finished taking the pills.

"That's not right!"

"Didn't this Great King spend nearly two hours in there? It should be dawn by now!"

"Could time flow differently in that space than it does outside?"

He hurriedly felt around his body, but found no jade pendant, bead, or other treasure containing a mysterious space.

Yet what he had just experienced matched the descriptions of spatial treasures he had heard about exactly.

Then something occurred to him, and he removed the Purple-Gold Token the woman in red had given him from his belt.

"Could it be this thing?"

"No, no."

"If this were a spatial treasure, how could that woman have casually given it to this Great King?"

But if it was not, he did not seem to have anything else on him that looked like a treasure.

Sitting in the courtyard, Chun Xiaobai thought back carefully.

He went through every mysterious trinket and treasure-like object he had acquired over his years of raiding homes and robbing travelers, checking them one by one in his mind. None had anything to do with spatial treasures.

"Could it... really be this Purple-Gold Token?"

"Forget it. Who cares whether it is? I'll just treat it as one!"

The Purple-Gold Token happened to have a hole in it, so he found a sturdy cord, threaded it through, and hung it around his neck.

"Now I've got a spatial treasure too!"

By now, he had more or less figured out why he had suddenly been sucked into that mysterious space.

Most likely, he had just reached the first layer of Qi Refining and, unable to keep his hands to himself, activated Rampage mode.

His body's toughness and strength had risen by one level, just barely meeting the minimum requirements for entering that mysterious space. That was why he had been sucked inside.

But with his current strength, he could last less than twenty breaths in there.

And those twenty breaths outside amounted to roughly two hours within.

"So I've got secrets of my own too!"

"No wonder that bitch dumped this Great King here. That woman probably realized I'm a peerless genius with a heaven-defying constitution!"

He was increasingly convinced that the woman in red was plotting something big.

No! No!

I have to increase my strength as quickly as possible!

That woman might be "fattening a pig"!

When the day comes for her to "slaughter the pig," if I'm not strong enough, I'll be completely at her mercy!

At that thought, a powerful sense of impending danger welled up from the depths of his heart.