The Broken Stone Spear Was a Treasure!

Across the vast, untamed land lay countless mountains and ravines. Even the blazing sun struggled to penetrate the dense ancient forest, where swirling miasma led people astray and all manner of terrifying roars rose and fell in the gloom.

Deep in the ancient forest, a faint scent of blood lingered. Qingyang Huan pulled his stone spear from a black-scaled python. A bloody light flashed across the spear, draining the flesh and blood left on the python until only dry bones remained.

He quickly left. Barely a few dozen breaths later, a gray wolf with blue fangs crashed through the ancient forest and appeared before the python's remains.

Sensing the savage presence behind him, Qingyang Huan quickened his pace, running several li before stopping.

"Dad was right. A hundred li into the ancient forest is as deep as I can go right now. There are more Body Forging Realm fierce beasts than I can count. If I accidentally run into a variant beast, I'll be in trouble. I just don't know whether the stone spear would still work."

He darted through the ancient forest like an agile mountain ape. This was the Great Wilderness, fraught with danger. One careless moment would leave him without even a corpse.

"You've swallowed so much blood and bone. When will you finally be full? That black python alone could have fed a child in the tribe for a month."

Muttering resentfully, Qingyang Huan strode onward. Taking advantage of the tribe's hunt, he had slipped away from the tribal warriors guarding him and ventured deep into the ancient forest. As for his purpose, what else could it be but this stone spear?

The stone spear was a treasure!

Three years ago, in this same wild ancient forest, a variant beast with the Qiongqi bloodline had chased him for dozens of li, finally cornering him at the foot of a low, ancient mountain.

Just as the Qiongqi beast was about to pounce, a trace of fear had appeared in its eyes. It tucked its tail and fled in a blind panic. At that very instant, he had vaguely glimpsed a purple glow shimmering around him, vanishing in a flash.

Afterward, the entire ancient mountain had been hollowed out, and the Qingyang Clan had felled all the ancient trees nearby. In the end, this stone spear had come into his hands.

The stone spear was extremely crude and only barely resembled a spear. Though it looked like stone, it was as hard as metal, its surface covered in fine cracks as though it might shatter.

Even so, in his hands it could still smash through the scales of Body Casting fierce beasts. That was also why he was convinced the stone spear was unusual.

The Human Race cultivated by drawing on the blood Qi essence of mighty fierce beasts and even other races to nourish themselves. Yet he had never heard of a weapon that absorbed blood and bone. Even after poring over generations of the Qingyang Clan's bone books and bronze slips, he had found no records of one.

This untamed land was boundless, with all manner of powerful creatures roaming unchecked. Some exotic beasts were terrifyingly strong. Even great tribes numbering hundreds of thousands or a million people could be annihilated by such variant beasts in an instant.

Moreover, this land was not inhabited by the Human Race alone. The Human Race was merely one of its great races, not a race at the pinnacle.

Thus, endless legends had accumulated over the long years: mighty fierce beasts with bodies like mountains, other races with blue eyes and protruding fangs, divine weapons that struck across heaven and earth. They ran throughout the ages of the Great Wilderness.

Fortunately, no such powerful variant beasts had appeared where he lived. Within these ten thousand li, the Qingyang Clan was the foremost tribe, sheltering hundreds of tribes and settlements of varying sizes.

And he was the young master of the Qingyang Clan, Qingyang Huan!

"I'll kill a few more fierce beasts, then head back. Otherwise, the clansmen might start searching the forest again." Gripping his stone spear, Qingyang Huan plunged back into the ancient forest.

Although he was the Qingyang Clan's young master, his hands had long since been stained with blood. In the brutal environment of the Great Wilderness, only by commanding strength could one live better.

From birth, he had enjoyed the tribe's finest medicinal treasures and fierce beasts' blood Qi essence to temper and refine his body. Naturally, he had also undergone even more savage training!

For no other reason than that he was the young master of the Qingyang Clan!

To survive on this savage land and maintain stability across ten thousand li, the Qingyang Clan's heirs had to undergo such baptism in blood. Only then could they ensure that the Qingyang Clan continued to thrive in this brutal environment. Countless tribes in the Great Wilderness did the same.

With the tribe's finest resources poured into him, he had entered the first stage of cultivation, body forging and blood refining, at the age of thirteen.

The Body Forging Realm was the first step into cultivation for the myriad living beings of the Great Wilderness. This realm tempered the skin, flesh, blood, bones, and marrow to forge the strongest body. Of course, that was how it worked for the vast majority of martial artists.

Clans and ancient clans with true inheritances drew on the essence and blood Qi of variant beasts in this realm, using them as potent medicine for their martial artists and combining them with unique inherited cultivation methods to refine the entire body.

Some could even awaken the power within a variant beast's blood and bone essence, extracting bone runes to manifest all manner of wondrous forms.

Within his own body was a Qiongqi bone rune. It had come from the Qiongqi descendant that had hunted him three years ago. His dad had arrived and dealt with it, and he had absorbed the blood and bones of the entire Qiongqi, producing a bone rune imprinted within his body. Once he stirred his blood Qi, he could activate it.

For ordinary small tribes and even village settlements, entering the Body Casting Realm by twenty was already an immense blessing. The blood Qi essence of variant fierce beasts was an extravagant dream. Yet for him, this was merely a starting point.

Of course, that starting point was relative. Across the entire Ancient Land of La Mountain, or even the vast Great Wilderness, the cultivation starting points of the favored children of great tribes with ancient inheritances were still heights he could only gaze up at.

Screech!

As Qingyang Huan traveled through the ancient forest, a shadow in the air set its sights on him without warning.

"A Scale-Horned Eagle!"

The single-horned black eagle was covered in black scales, with a faint sheen flickering over its armor.

Seeing that flickering sheen, Qingyang Huan showed a trace of surprise. Ordinary Scale-Horned Eagles had no such phenomenon. This one had clearly awakened a sliver of bloodline power and could just barely count as a variant beast. Perhaps he could even extract a bone rune from it.

In the Great Wilderness, the descendants of certain variant beasts were terrifying precisely because they were born with bone runes that accorded with the Dao of heaven and earth, granting them incomparably fearsome strength. That was why they possessed the immense power to destroy ancient cities.

Boom!

At that moment, blood Qi surged from Qingyang Huan's body. Light flared in his palm, tracing an ancient rune. As the radiance flickered, it looked as though a fierce beast was about to spring out of his palm.

In that instant, his blood Qi swelled dramatically.

Blood Qi coursed through the stone spear as he thrust it at the descending eagle talons. With a thunderous crash, the Scale-Horned Eagle was knocked flying, whipping up a skyful of branches and splinters. He, too, was driven back several zhang and slammed into an ancient tree.

Yet Qingyang Huan charged out again without the slightest delay, wielding the stone spear like a staff and smashing it down.

Thud, thud, thud!

Under the blow, the stone spear shattered the iron-black scales. Blood splashed across his beast-hide robe, and the Scale-Horned Eagle's head was smashed completely to bloody pulp.

Buzz!

Sure enough, bloody light blazed from the stone spear again as it began sucking blood.

"Don't absorb it! This beast has already awakened a sliver of its bloodline. I might be able to extract a bone rune!"

Qingyang Huan quickly reacted and tried to pull out the stone spear. Yet it seemed nailed in place. No matter how he tugged, he could not pull it free.

"Stop right now!"

But in the time it took him to cry out, the entire Scale-Horned Eagle had become nothing more than a heap of skin and bones.

A drop of blood Qi essence threaded with a few strands of blue clung to the stone spear.

Suddenly, pale blue light blazed, and a fist-sized blue bird appeared. Wreathed in blue light, it was lifelike. Savage, baleful air surged from it, actually whipping up a hurricane within a small area that roared without cease.

"It really did awaken its bloodline. Good stuff." Qingyang Huan was instantly delighted, but his smile froze as the blood Qi essence seeped straight into the stone spear through its cracks.

"If Dad finds out I fed blood Qi essence to a rock like you, he'll smash you to pieces and dig the blood Qi back out!"

Qingyang Huan immediately clenched the stone spear and spoke in great agitation.

"You bandit! This was a variant beast good enough to extract a bone rune from! If I took it back to the tribe, it could let one of the tribe's children develop a bone rune!"

In the end, Qingyang Huan calmed down. What was done was done. He had already decided to let this matter rot in his heart. If the tribe found out he had fed blood Qi essence from which a bone rune could be extracted to a stone, never mind the waste-he would certainly become the butt of the tribesmen's jokes.

Buzz!

Just then, a searing heat flared in his palm. The stone spear knocked his hand aside and swung down at him.

Bam!

Caught unprepared, Qingyang was knocked into the ancient tree behind him.

"I absorbed that blood Qi through my own ability! What right do you have to call it stealing?"

The stone spear floated in the air, faint purple qi flickering within its fine cracks like illusory little purple dragons coursing through them.