Qin Tiexin thought he heard wrongly.
He turned his head and found Duan Xuan staring at the cow, measuring it from top to bottom, as if assessing which piece of meat was the tenderest on a prey.
"You are already Foundation Establishment." Qin Tiexin said.
Logically speaking, when a monk reaches Foundation Establishment Realm, he no longer needs to eat food. He can maintain daily consumption by absorbing Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi alone. Even if Duan Xuan is also practicing Body Refining, he only needs to take pills. But Qin Tiexin clearly saw the sparkle in the corner of Duan Xuan's mouth and the desire in his eyes.
"Foundation Establishment What's wrong?" Duan Xuan touched his mouth and looked away from the cow, "Body Refining monks consume a lot of money, and Grain Avoidance Pill alone can't last long. During the seven days we were at Devil Domain Forest, we ate Grain Avoidance Pill every time, and our mouths almost turned into birds."
Qin Tiexin thought about it, and it was true. In order not to expose their whereabouts, the two of them did not make a fire. They chewed Grain Avoidance Pill when they were hungry, and drank water when they were thirsty. He practiced "Cauldron Eating Art" on his own, and his need for food was much greater than that of ordinary monks, and he relied on pills for those seven days. Now that Duan Xuan was mentioned, he also screamed in his stomach.
"Besides," Duan Xuan glanced at the cow again and added confidently, "This is Demon Beast of the Foundation Establishment Realm. The flesh and blood essence is more than one level stronger than ordinary spiritual beasts. Don't waste it."
Qin Tiexin said nothing more. In Duan Xuan's shocked eyes, he took out... a big cauldron from the storage ring!
The tripod he bought at the Flowing Cloud Sect before, Lower-Grade Law Artifact, has three legs and two ears, and the body of the tripod is engraved with a simple Spirit Rune for heat preservation and heating. It was originally used to practice Cauldron Eating Art to stew ingredients, but it has been used less recently, mostly for eating dried meat prepared before.
Duan Xuan walked around the cauldron, knocked on the cauldron, and made a deep sound, "Your food is quite complete, it's okay, the stew is delicious, and you can save on roasting it."
Qin Tiexin ignored her teasing. He walked to Demon Beast's body, pulled out his dagger and started to cut. The front legs had the thickest meat and strong tendons. Cutting it with one knife was like cutting into a piece of tough old wood. The blade needed to be counterattacked. Only by repeatedly sawing could the meat be separated from the bones. He removed the entire front leg, chopped the bones and meat into fist-sized pieces, and threw them into the cauldron. The bones hit the bottom of the cauldron, making a dull impact. Blood seeped out along the edges of the meat, and a layer of dark red accumulated at the bottom of the cauldron.
He took out a few more medicinal herbs from the storage ring. They were picked at Devil Domain Forest. The leaves were deep red and thick, with a faint spiritual light glowing at the tips and a faint spicy smell. They were thrown into the cauldron together for seasoning.
Duan Xuan stood nearby and saw him adding medicinal materials to the cauldron, and then saw that he only added water. Finally he couldn't help but ask, "Is this how you stew?"
"What's wrong?"
"What a waste of natural resources." Duan Xuan squatted down and took out things from her storage ring. Clay pots, cloth bags, and small bamboo tubes were all placed on the ground. She unplugged the clay pot, poured out a handful of coarse salt, and poured out a handful of coarse salt. A handful of dark brown powder was kneaded out of a cloth bag and evenly sprinkled into the water. Finally, he took out the dagger from his waist, scraped off a few rhizomes of an unknown plant, and sliced them into the cauldron as thin as cicada wings. The whole set of actions was smooth and smooth, and it was obviously not the first time he had done it.
Qin Tiexin was watching from the side, smelling the smell coming from the ingredients, and raised his eyebrows slightly. "You carry the seasonings with you?"
"No?" Duan Xuan said in a confident tone, "You won't let me have a good meal after the fight? It's a pity that I didn't bring much this time, so I'll just eat it."
Qin Tiexin didn't ask any more. He actually thought Duan Xuan this point was quite real - many female cultivators only took pills and drank spiritual springs for the so-called purification of the precepts, for fear that the impurities in the food would affect their foundation. But cultivating Since refining "Cauldron Eating Art", he knows that the essence contained in Demon Beast's flesh and blood is itself a refining resource for Body Refining monks. If the method is used correctly, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
He closed the lid of the tripod, placed his palm against the Spirit Rune on the side of the tripod, and channeled his spiritual energy. The Spirit Rune at the bottom of the tripod gradually lit up, emitting a low hum. The light spread along the lines to the entire tripod, and began to slowly heat up. The water in the tripod was quiet for a long time, and then a string of fine bubbles began to appear from the bottom. The bubbles became more and more dense, and white gas began to emerge from the gaps on the edge of the tripod lid.
Duan Xuan had already sat back against the wall, with a piece of cloth on her knees, wiping the remaining blood on the dagger. Her eyes drifted to the cauldron from time to time, and her hand wiping the sword became more and more perfunctory. When the lid of the cauldron was trembling slightly from the steam, she simply put the sword back into its sheath and took two steps towards the cauldron.
Qin Tiexin Lift the lid of the tripod.
A stream of hot white steam surged out from the mouth of the tripod, carrying a strong aroma of meat and spirit medicine's unique spicy aroma, instantly filling the entire stone palace. The aroma was so overbearing that it completely overwhelmed it. After passing the original smell of blood and mold in the stone palace, the mellowness of the beef, the spiciness of the medicinal materials, and the fat aroma from the bones were mixed together, mixed with the slightly sweet burnt aroma released by the heated spiritual herbs, and came up layer by layer.
Duan Xuan stood by the cauldron, without saying a word, just staring at the pieces of meat tumbling in the cauldron. The beef shank had changed color in the boiling water, from dark red to light brown, with a fine layer of fat floating on the surface. Milky white marrow fluid seeped out from the fracture of the bone and mixed in the soup, making the soup thicker and thicker.
Seeing that it was almost done, Qin Tiexin retracted the palm that input the spiritual power, and relied on the Spirit Rune on the tripod to keep it warm.
Duan Xuan bent down and fished out a piece of leg bone from the tripod. He held both ends of the bone with both hands and brought it directly to his mouth without fear of burning it. When he took a bite, the meat fell off the bone in one piece. It was a bit hot but for Body Refining monks are not worried at all, and their chewing speed has not slowed down at all. The meat is firm and chewy, with rich gravy in every bite, mixed with the salty aroma of coarse salt and the mild spiciness of medicinal herbs. After swallowing, a warm essence spreads in the abdomen.
Qin Tiexin was not polite either. He picked up a large piece of boned leg meat and took a bite. The meat was cooked just right, the outer fascia had been cooked through, and the meat inside was still firm. He ate more than Duan Xuan Quickly, he finished one piece in a few mouthfuls, and then reached out to fish out another piece from the cauldron. The bone marrow was the most fragrant - he used a dagger to crack open one end of the bone, brought it to his mouth and sucked it out. The greasy marrow liquid mixed with the soup rolled down his throat, and the heat spread down his esophagus to his limbs.
When he ate the third piece, he said to Duan Xuan, "Try to use your spiritual power to wrap the essence in your belly, press the Du channel to send it up, and the Ren channel to go down, and let it circulate."
Duan Xuan was chewing on a piece of bone stick. She was stunned for a moment when she heard this, and then she realized - this was Qin Tiexin telling her how to absorb essence. She followed the instructions, and after a while, a stream of warm air rose from her abdomen, along the The meridians spread to the limbs, and the warmth diluted the fatigue of the whole day. She put down her bones, looked down at her arms, and touched her lower abdomen, as if feeling the movement of the essence. "This method is good," she said, "It can at least increase the absorption efficiency by 10%."
"The more you eat, the more obvious the effect will be." Qin Tiexin had already chewed the bones in his hands clean.
The two of them sat beside the cauldron, eating one piece after another. The hot air gushed out from the mouth of the cauldron, making their faces turn red. Although Duan Xuan's eating appearance was more gentle than Qin Tiexin's, the speed was not slow at all. After a while, a small pile of bones was piled up in front of them.
When she ate the eighth piece, her speed slowed down significantly. The warmth in her belly had turned into a scalding fire, and heat was emanating from the pores all over her body. The flesh and blood essence contained in the food far exceeded her refining speed. Eating more would only accumulate into a burden and affect the operation of Qi and Blood around her body. She put down the bones and rubbed her fingers, "Are you not full yet?"
Qin Tiexin didn't answer, and took out a big piece from the cauldron and continued to chew on it. After eating all the meat in the cauldron, he got up and walked to Demon Beast's body, and took off one of his hind legs. Remove the bones, cut into pieces, and put them back into the cauldron. Duan Xuan leaned against the wall and watched him without blinking as he added meat, water, and medicine into the cauldron. The cauldron was so full that the lid of the cauldron could hardly be closed.
After eating again, he took off the whole cow head. The cow head was too big to fit in the cauldron, so he split the cow head in half with Edgeless, and stewed half of it at a time. The skin and meat of the cow head shrank after being boiled, revealing the rough skull underneath, and the soup had a rich and thick gelatinous smell.
Qin Tiexin eats one piece after another. His stomach is like a bottomless pit. When the pieces of meat go in, they are wrapped, refined, and absorbed by the cauldron food machine in the body, and are transformed into the purest Qi and Blood and integrated into the limbs and bones.
Duan Xuan watched from the side as he ate more than half of the third cauldron of meat, and finally couldn't help but ask, "Can you absorb it if you eat like this?"
Qin Tiexin nodded.
"I will form a team with you and hunt Foundation Establishment Realm Demon Beast from now on. I can only get a fraction of yours." She shook her head, with a hint of admiration in her tone, "Thankfully you hunted the prey yourself, otherwise no sect could afford to support you."
Qin Tiexin didn't answer, and continued to eat for half an hour. After emptying out all the meat, bones, marrow, and soup in the cauldron, he put down the bones in his hands and let out a long breath. It had been a long time since he had eaten such delicious and energetic flesh and blood.
His stomach was no longer as hot as when he first started eating, but a deeper warmth, like a ball of Flame slowly burning in the deepest abdominal cavity of his body. He turned the Cauldron Eating Art up, and the warmth was guided and integrated into the muscles and bones as the Qi and Blood circulated.
The refining of Cauldron Eating Formula was nearly an hour slower than usual. The flesh and blood essence of this Demon Beast was too strong. Coupled with the large amount of pills swallowed on its body, its flesh and blood already contained extremely rich medicinal essence. The two phases were superimposed, making refining much more laborious than the ordinary Foundation Establishment Demon Beast.
Half an hour later, he stood up and moved his arms. The joints on his shoulders and back made a series of fine crisp sounds.
He lifted Edgeless with one hand and weighed it in the air. It still weighed the same, but the grip on his wrist had more room than before. According to preliminary estimates, the maximum strength of one hand was close to 18,000 kilograms.
Duan Xuan also stood up. Her slightly bulging belly had become flat. She moved her waist and said, "Work when you're full."
It took the two of them half an hour to dismember Demon Beast's body. Duan Xuan's Swordsmanship was fast and was responsible for removing the bones and separating the flesh; Qin Tiexin was strong and used Edgeless was responsible for prying open the hard bone joints. The injured right leg was left aside alone. The meat was black and hard. Duan Xuan bent down and picked it up, looked at it, and threw it away in disgust. The two of them kept the remaining meat.
"The horns are yours, and the skull spiritual material is also yours." Duan Xuan clapped his hands, "I'll keep the cowhide, and go back to the blacksmith to make some inner armor."
Qin Tiexin put the two thick horns into Storage Bag, squatted down, and used a dagger to peel off a palm-sized piece of the cow's head Spirit Bone. The bone was dark gray with a very light natural texture on the surface. It was Foundation Establishment Realm The best part of Demon Beast - Spirit Bone, has the talent Spirit Rune.
After Qin Tiexin put away the horns, Duan Xuan also peeled off the entire cowhide and rolled it, folded it tightly and stuffed it into the side bag of Storage Bag. He patted the surface of the bag and touched the thick rolled leather inside. He pressed his hands on the surface of the bag again and again, then turned to look at the horns on the ground. "I originally went to the secret realm to practice hard, but now it seems like I am on vacation."
"You deserve it." Qin Tiexin glanced at her, "Don't think so much."
After the distribution was completed, the two agreed on the rotation order. Duan Xuan would watch the first half of the night, and Qin Tiexin would watch the second half of the night. Duan Xuan sat leaning against the stone wall at the door, with the long whip at his hand and the short sword stuck on the ground on his right, with the hilt next to the last section of his fingers.
Qin Tiexin sat cross-legged on the other side, with his back against the stone pillar, Edgeless placed on his knees, closed his eyes and adjusted his breath.
There was no talking all night, except for the intermittent roaring and fighting sounds of Demon Beast coming from the distance.