South to La Mountain, nine cycles of Body Casting!

Three hundred li southwest of Qingyang Mountain.

Boom!

Bloodlight flowed over the bronze battle spear in Qingyang Huan's hand, a trace of black amid the bloodlight bursting from its tip. Almost instantly, it plunged into a Golden-Hoofed Horned Elephant.

Pfft!

The bronze spear pierced the horned elephant's back and pinned it to the ground. Blood splashed, and before the elephant could roar, Qingyang Huan swept away all its surging blood Qi. Its nearly three-zhang body cracked apart inch by inch, leaving only a heap of withered bones.

After devouring the horned elephant's blood Qi, Qingyang Huan's blood Qi shook throughout his body, and rumbling came from deep within his flesh.

"Let's go. Looks like we'll have to venture deeper into the Great Wilderness. After more than two thousand years of hunting by our Qingyang Clan, the wilderness around Qingyang has few mighty beasts or mutant beasts left!"

As his words fell, Qingyang Huan shot into the depths of the wild forest. Jin Wei followed close behind without a word!

The two had been away from the tribe for over half a month. They really had had no choice but to leave-his own father had thrown him out!

He had rebuilt his cultivation in the Body Forging Realm again and again, refining it to the limit each time before starting over. This had consumed too many of the tribe's resources and had already seriously affected the other tribespeople's cultivation!

Each round of Body Casting consumed almost ten times the resources another warrior needed. Eight rounds of rebuilding amounted to consuming the resources of nearly a hundred people at once. He was not the only one in the Qingyang Clan; there were other youths as well.

The result of consuming resources like this was that Qingyang Jue, his face dark, had thrown him out to fend for himself!

"We'll keep heading south to La Mountain. The mountains there are high and the forests dense-a paradise for fierce beasts!"

"There are mutant beasts there that you can merge into your Divine Repositories!"

Qingyang Huan spoke as they traveled, while Jin Wei mostly nodded without speaking.

After leaving the tribe, Qingyang Huan also felt his cultivation slowing down. Along the way, he spared no fierce beast he encountered, regardless of its realm, yet the blood Qi still could not satisfy him!

This was his ninth time rebuilding his cultivation. Having gone through nine different Body Casting arts, he had unearthed almost all the subtle recesses within his body.

Though he had always harbored some doubts about why the Stone Spear had so readily given him nine Body Casting arts, he could not bring himself to refuse. Besides, rebuilding his cultivation through the nine arts had truly made him feel powerful!

As early as the eighth time he rebuilt his cultivation to the peak of Body Forging, the beacon smoke of blood Qi behind him had already taken the shape of a flood dragon, and his strength had soared to more than forty-eight thousand jin.

As the strength gained with each improvement grew smaller and smaller, he also understood that less and less untapped potential remained within his body.

As for Jin Wei behind him, during the time Qingyang Huan spent rebuilding his cultivation, he had already opened two Divine Repositories. However, he had yet to find suitable mutant beasts to turn into Repository Sources, so his Divine Repositories remained empty!

After opening a Divine Repository, a warrior could nurture divine weapons within it or refine mighty beasts and Bone Runes into Repository Sources. Upon reaching this realm, Divine Repositories became the true source of a warrior's power.

Unfortunately, the Qingyang Tribe had already scoured the region around Qingyang Mountain clean. Finding a mutant beast could be said to be harder than hard.

Moreover, the blood Qi Qingyang Huan gained from hunting ordinary fierce beasts was already negligible to him. With their strength to rely on, the two now began heading deeper into the Great Wilderness.

La Mountain was an ancient mountain range thousands of li south of the Qingyang Clan. Beyond it lay the Ancient City of La Mountain, the central city of this vast region. The great clans that guarded the lands surrounding La Mountain all acknowledged the Ancient City of La Mountain's supremacy.

La Mountain was immensely majestic and vast. Not to mention the peaks tens of thousands of ren high at its center, even some of the notable mountain ranges within Qingyang territory were its offshoots.

When Qingyang Huan spoke of going to La Mountain, he meant only its outskirts. Mighty beasts lurked in the true depths of La Mountain, where even his father dared not venture.

Two months later, at the foot of Great Locust Mountain, an offshoot of La Mountain.

This was a dilapidated settlement. Its collapsed stone houses and walls exuded desolation; clearly, it had been abandoned long ago. Qingyang Huan and Jin Wei entered the ruins. They had already seen more than one such ruin along the way.

Such scenes were commonplace in the Great Wilderness. Every day, tribes were destroyed, while new settlements gathered vitality and built places to survive.

The white bones scattered beneath the rubble revealed the cruelty of the Great Wilderness. After racing through thousands of li of wild country over two months, the two were steeped in a thick scent of blood. Only near La Mountain did the true bloody hunting grounds begin. Though Divine Treasure Realm fierce beasts were not numerous, their figures were sure to lurk within every hundred li.

The reason they had taken two months was that Qingyang Huan had been absorbing blood Qi, hunting all along the way. Now he had returned to the peak of Body Forging once more. Behind him, the beacon smoke of blood Qi took the shape of a flood dragon. His blood Qi surged, and a swing of his huge fist carried a full forty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine jin of strength!

Yet no matter how much blood Qi he absorbed, he could not cross that final jin to reach fifty thousand, as though an invisible barrier stood in his way!

Blood radiance surged like a tide within his body, and his blood was as thick as mercury. Nine rounds of rebuilding through Body Casting had made his blood Qi unimaginably robust!

Every inch of his flesh contained surging blood Qi. He was like the cub of a mighty beast, radiating a ferocity that seeped into the marrow.

"I hear large numbers of fierce ape beasts live on Great Locust Mountain. Let's see if we can find a mutant fierce ape to fill your Divine Repository. We might even catch other mutant beasts to help me break into the Divine Treasure Realm!"

They cautiously entered the ruined settlement and found a hiding place. The sun was already sinking behind the western mountains. This was nothing like the area around Qingyang Mountain; the two moved with extreme care.

Great Locust Mountain covered several hundred li. At that moment, in another direction on the mountain, five wild-looking burly men swept through the mountain forest.

"We'll make camp here and enter Great Locust Mountain tomorrow. That beast can't get far. A living treasure with a lightning Bone Rune-if we can catch it and offer it to the lords in the Ancient Land of La Mountain, perhaps we brothers won't have to keep wandering the wilderness, licking blood from our blades every day!"

The man in the lead carried a blood-colored saber on his back. The arms exposed outside his beast-hide robe were covered in twisted, hideous scars. His words convinced the warriors behind him, and they all dismounted and began preparing camp.

Beneath the night sky, the men sat around a campfire. Golden beast meat roasted on a rack, drops of fat falling and making the flames crackle.

One man reached out a large hand and tore off a beast's leg. Ignoring the sizzling grease on it, he tore into it in great mouthfuls. Before long, he had swallowed the whole leg.

"Boss Shan, can that beast really get us a place to settle down?"

One man spoke, a glimmer of hope in his eyes, though weariness filled their depths even more.

"We brothers have roamed the Great Wilderness. When haven't we been dancing on the tips of blades? We've killed fierce beasts and other races, but we can't keep living like duckweed forever, without roots or stems."

The burly leader tore off a beast's leg and gulped it down, then continued, "A beast with a lightning Bone Rune is enough for us to ask the lords in the Ancient City of La Mountain for a place of refuge."

"We fight and kill in the wilderness, but isn't all we seek a place to settle down and build our lives, where our bloodlines and descendants can continue, and someone will offer sacrifices to us year after year after we die, so we won't become lonely souls and wandering ghosts?"

At that moment, beneath the firelight, the ruthlessness of men who roamed the Great Wilderness faded from the five men's eyes, replaced by a glimmer of hope.

P.S. One chapter for now. The second chapter will be posted before noon!